Bergamot

Generally I don't care for the kind of story where you go back and see what was really happening all along, instead of what appeared to be happening. Especially in a case like this, where seeing what really happened gives us no insights or revelations about the two main characters themselves. It's like the writers were saying, "It was really interesting to watch the good guys figure out Jack was a "power vacuum" and that MIchael still wanted his father's approval, and how they felt about these things. It was fascinating to watch them come up with a plan to fool Chuck and accept the risks and work to carry it out, and see their interactions. But we're not going to show you any of these things, so you'll just have to take our word for it!"

This is the best summation I've seen of the episode. The stakes could not possibly been higher: going up against God to save the entire world. But in the end there was nothing here that made me feel anything. (With the possible exception of Miracle the dog -- I really liked his scenes!) The Winchesters were always about making desperate, reckless impossible choices, and risking everything, and sacrificing more than they could possibly bear, and still finding a way to hope. This time their big contribution was, I don't know, being a good example to Jack so that he could save the world? It was like the very definition of being anticlimactic. Good question! No Chuck or Amara, or any need to worry about what their plans are. No Michael or Lucifer, or apparently any problems with angels or demons in general. No Billie with a grudge against them. Unless Dabb wants to unwind some of this next week, the Winchesters really don't have much to do. I guess they probably will go on some small-time monster hunt and end up getting killed. Which, okay, I guess there could be worse ways for their story to end. But I have no confidence left that the show will do them justice.

Hmm. Something that Sam did on the bridge in the Pilot. Stomps on Dean's foot. Tells Dean he smells like a toilet. (I love the two of them in the Pilot! 😊 ) Well, maybe it is something Sam does in the Pilot, but not on the bridge. I wish we had more clues about the last two episodes to consider.

I would bet on it being episode 19 for one reason -- that is the episode written by Buckner and Ross-Leming, right? And I think it was clear that the only reason we had that whole stupid storyline with Nick surviving the death of Lucifer and hanging around in the most tiresome way possible for all of Season 14, was because Miss Eugenie has this enormous crush on Mark P. I can see her saying, "Oh, we must bring back Mark one more time, he is just so wonderful!!!" even though it seems obvious to me that Lucifer's story should have ended many seasons ago, and that the last thing the show needs is to bring him back AGAIN.

I have a vague memory that there was a spoiler which had Lucifer returning in this episode? Or did that turn out to be incorrect?

Ha, likewise, FlickChick! GMTA!

My first reaction to seeing this episode was a sigh of relief. I disliked the last episode so much, and I was dreading this one. Not that it turned out to be awesome or anything, but it could have been a lot worse. One thing that I liked about this episode was the way Dean's apology to Sam was handled. It wasn't dragged out, there were no histrionics. Sam didn't get all huffy and self-righteous; he simply responded by saying "You've snapped me out of worse", and that was that. Compare it to Sam's reaction to learning that Dean knew that Billie's plan would kill Jack, with his bizarrely over-the-top "How dare you!" reaction. Unlike that, this was believable and made sense for the characters. I also liked the little scene where Sam tells Jack that he needs him to drive, in order to distract him and give him something to do. It was a nice thing for Sam to do. To my surprise, I found myself liking Sam here more than I have in a long time. The writers don't seem to get it -- it is the scenes like the one with Dean's apology and the one with Jack in the car that help make a character. Not ones like the scene with AU Bobby where he is like, "Sam, you're the BIG MAN here -- we'll all do whatever you say without question!" That kind of stuff doesn't make me admire a character; it just makes me roll my eyes. I liked how pro-active Dean was here -- attacking Billie to get Jack away from her, then taking the fight straight to her by charging into her library with her blade. We saw before that how Dean believed things were pretty hopeless, but that didn't mean he was going to give up fighting for "his people". And I LOVED Billie's description of Dean, and how pissed-off she sounded: "Death-defying. Rule-breaking. You are human disorder incarnate." Yes, indeed, that's my boy! As for the big scene with Dean and Castiel, I have mixed feelings. I mean, sure, I love hearing nice things said about Dean, and everything Castiel said was absolutely true. Dean is not just a destructive, angry "blunt instrument"; he is selfless and caring and acts out of love, and we have seen how he has changed others for the better just by being who he is. On the other hand, Castiel's speech just seemed so heavy-handed, so on the nose. It would have been much more effective if his words had been more understated, implying things, making references that a fan of the show would understand, rather than spelling them out so explicitly. LIke, all Castiel had to say is "You are not just a blunt instrument" and we would know what he meant -- he didn't have to spell it all out exactly what Dean thinks of himself. Honestly, it sounded very much like something produced by an inexperienced fanfiction writer. (And somehow, I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that Berens did write fanfiction!) But the more serious problem I had with Castiel's big speech is what others have referred to, which is the fact that this seemed to come out of nowhere. So Castiel's "deepest truth" is that he loves Dean more than anyone and thinks he is wonderful? Show me one thing that he has said or done in the last few seasons that demonstrates this. It's like Castiel just suddenly remembered, "Oh, that's right -- I love Dean!"

I didn't miss what Sam said, but I am not sure what it is supposed to mean. Does he mean that he will die because he is one of those who died but didn't stay dead? Okay, but that of course would apply equally to Dean and not just to Sam (unless the show is going to somehow pretend to forget all the hundreds of times Dean died. But hey, par for the course.) So was Sam just trying to make Dean feel guilty about him dying again, in order to make him go along with him? But like I said, I don't know what the point was there. I also noticed that Sam said something about how EVERYONE they saved would die. Except how would that apply to all the many people (most of them, actually) that he and Dean saved BEFORE they died? The Empty said Billie would return people to their graves, which is not the same thing. Unless Billie is going to make sure that everyone who was ever in any danger at all of dying, for any reason whatsoever, will have to die? Isn't that like, every human being? Either the Empty said something we didn't hear, or Sam is making a lot of unwarranted assumptions. Overall most of Sam's objections to Billie made no sense to me. (Of course I do understand why he wouldn't want to lose Eileen.) I mean, the show built it into this huge moment, with all these *deep emotions* and Sam crying and Dean in tears and "Would you trade me?!" and "My entire life, you've protected me!" -- basically trying to push all the BM buttons -- and I was just thinking, "What are you talking about?" But then, in a lot of different ways, the whole thing didn't work for me, and I disliked the episode too much to spend any more time trying to make sense of it.

These are exactly the arguments that Dean -- the real Dean -- would have made. But because this was Chuck's poorly written version of Dean, all he was allowed to say is that he wanted off the hamster wheel. (Because Dean, of course, has ALWAYS put what is best for himself first, am I right? Sure he has.) When I heard what Billie had planned, I was on Team Billie too. Think of the untold human suffering that we have witnessed being caused by both angels and demons being on Earth, fighting and scheming and destroying how many human lives. Think of how much damage we have seen being caused by the dead not staying dead. And who knows what could end up happening if the Empty stays awake? But Sam, without giving it a second's thought, immediately goes straight to "We can't allow this to happen!" No, sir, not even if Chuck is about to obliterate the entire world. So you go right ahead, Sam, and make those instantaneous snap decisions that will affect the lives of billions of human souls who have no say in the matter. Don't consider what the consequences might be, because you possess that shiny, pure "moral compass" and of course will be written to have been right in the end. On a side note, I think the main reason I knew that this was Chuck's badly written version of Dean and not the real one, is that he pulled a gun on Sam to try to get past him. Seriously? Give me a break, Chuck! We all know that the actual Dean is not so wimpy and ineffectual as to need to wave a gun around, in order to get by someone lacking supernatural powers who is standing in the way of him doing what he thinks he must do. Dean would have gone straight through him and left him tossed aside on the floor, with bloodied nose and various bruises, because Sam might have been able to slow him down but would not have been able to stop him.

This would actually be a better story than what they probably have planned. Amara is a more interesting and original character than Chuck is. After this last episode, I wouldn't mind seeing her be the one to take out Chuck.

Actually I hope you are right that Berens will be focused on the other characters. I would much prefer that he ignore Dean entirely. But as you say, I'm sure he will have Dean wibbling and blubbering and apologizing for not appreciating the awesomeness of Castiel.

Aeryn, you got it all exactly right. 😞 And next week we get Berens -- I can just imagine what he will come up with. Jensen waited too long to pull the plug on this thing.

Actually, that reminds me of that little part in one of the previews, where Chuck is saying something like, "I control all of time and space. And they think they can kill ME?" I can't remember if it looked like he was in the bunker when he said that, but I wondered when I heard it who exactly Chuck was talking to right then. Billie? Himself? Now that you suggest it, it might be part of a confrontation between him and Amara.

If Dean is going to end up with the real-life version of Rocky's Bar when everything is over, I would like to see him with someone like Pamela. Someone who can assist him if he has to kill some vampires that come in to the bar, and then is there to wipe the blood off his face afterwards. Someone who can give him friendship and warmth and companionship, someone he can have a drink with and laugh with and talk about his life with. I have nothing against Eileen, but Dean's relationship with the Pamela we saw for a few brief moments in Nihilism, who only existed inside Dean's head, came to life and felt to me like something more real than what we have seen in all the scenes with Sam and Eileen. The latter relationship feels artificial to me, and sometimes awkward and unconvincing, like that scene where the two of them are cooking bacon and eggs for breakfast after supposedly spending all night drinking margaritas together. I know that the Pamela in Rocky's Bar said that Dean was not interested in her, that he just liked to flirt. But I have no doubt at all, if he were interested, that she would be there for it! Unfortunately, I don't think Dean will get the chance to have something like this in the end, because I don't believe he will get the peace that he deserves. Which is really tragic.

Yeah, you have a point there. Anyway, in that promo, Sam first says "My entire life, you've kept me safe"; then he says "It's you and me -- our last chance, our one shot." Now, they make it sound like it's part of the same conversation, and Sam's voice sounds the same, but of course maybe it's not. No way to know yet. In the "Au Revoir" promo by Shaving People, Punting Things, there is a brief glimpse about half-way through which looks to me like Dean and Sam saying good-bye to each other. They are both very emotional, Dean reaches out to clasp the back of Sam's neck and smiles a little, and they kind of nod at each other. To me it does not look like Dean sending Sam off to sacrifice himself; it looks to me like they think it is the end for both of them and this is their final farewell. Of course, who knows what the context of this is; we don't even know when it takes place. Yes, I'm pretty sure that in the next episode, while Dean and Jack on their road trip, that Dean decides to forgive Jack. Dabb did say something about Dean coming to understand where Jack is coming from. So if Jack decides he still wants to sacrifice himself to try to save the world, it will be his choice, and not because he feels he needs to do it for Dean. So that will be the end of that kerfuffle. And at least from the little bits we have seen in the promos, as Aeryn points out, it doesn't look like the main characters continue being at odds with each other. Which does make the whole thing seem kind of pointless. I guess it was just another setup to put Jack's character at the center of everything and emphasize his importance.

My guess was similar -- that it's the scene where Sam lays down in a row the gun, the knife, and the book about colleges and then stares at them. Not exactly subtle, was it? And no, it did not bring tears to my eyes. And actually my heart was completely unhurt. And sorry, I thought the actor playing young Sam was kind of a dud. He was pretty much expressionless throughout the whole thing. The actor playing the other little brother did a better job emoting. The actor playing young Dean was okay -- not great, but not too bad. My favorite young Deans are Ridge Canipe (Something Wicked and A Very Supernatural Christmas) and Dylan Everett (Bad Boys and About A Boy). This one was competent, but he didn't make me "see" young Dean the way Dylan Everettt did. Dylan might not have looked the way I thought young Dean should look, but he embodied him as a character and brought him to life nonetheless. Andrew Dabb said something in regard to this episode about how supposedly the flashbacks in this one "informed the journey Sam and Dean have taken" (really?) and showed how they ended up where they are, but that didn't work for me either. And I think the problem was not in the acting, but in the writing. For example, at the end, when young Dean says to young Sam that they made a great team, it was just words, because nothing in the episode conveyed that to me. Dean and Sam, because of their difficult childhoods and weird lives, always had a complicated and more intense bond than most siblings (see the other flashback episodes mentioned above). But I didn't get any sense of that in this episode. Dean mentioning what a great team they made is a callback to the very first episode, when Dean says that to Sam after returning him to Stanford. But that is the problem with this writer. None of the moments between the brothers, like the discussions of going to college and being normal, have any real depth to them. They are just attempts to borrow emotional resonance by trading on the fact that we have seen scenes about this before in better-written episodes. There is never anything fresh added; to me it all feels like a rip-off of other writers. Or, as has already been mentioned, like bad fanfiction.

Okay, so the writer was on Twitter before, going on about how one of the scenes that she wrote made her cry -- she even put a line in the script about it, saying "I just hurt my own heart". 🙄 Any guesses as to which scene it was?

I agree! Really disappointing. I don't know why I expected anything better, though, considering the writers who are left.

That's a good description! It really is sad to see the show ending on such a mediocre level. Oh, just wait! I'm sure next week we will have Castiel join him in castigating Dean. They will take turns. Personally I think that pissy, self-righteous Castiel is the thing I'm the most sick of. This whole storyline seems awfully repetitive to me. Last season it was Chuck who was demanding that Jack be sacrificed, or he would end everything. And of course Dean refused to kill Jack for Chuck, because he is Dean. Now it is Billie demanding that Jack be sacrificed in order to save the world. Every season must center on Jack, because he is the most valuable being in the universe, and every story must be about the threat of losing our precious baby. This is not what I wanted to be watching for the last few episodes of the show.

Oh, don't worry, I'm sure that Dean will end up LEARNING HIS LESSON and have to APOLOGIZE for being WRONG. That's all the character is allowed to do lately. What an ugly hateful thing to do to the character, to treat him like this after 15 years. I wish with all my heart that they had just left Dean out of the story instead. Seriously!

Sorry! It was "O Brother Where Art Thou?"

To put the "His universe. His rules" quote in context, it was part of a conversation where they are actually talking about religion and the way Chuck has set himself up to be worshiped in this world, and how some people find comfort in following his rules. Amara is incredulous about this. (Remember Amara talking to the priest about God? "Wait. So only dead people get to see him? And this makes sense, to billions of you?") The whole thing makes Amara furious because she considers it to be "propaganda" against herself. And she has her own idea of what the "perfect creation" would be like. Anyway, with the world about to end due to Amara's rage against Chuck, Dean's approach was never to insist that Amara must behave herself because Chuck was in charge, end of discussion -- as if that would ever work. What finally got through to her of course was to ask her "What do you want?" -- to make her realize what she really wanted at that point was to reunite with her brother. I like the conversations between Dean and Amara, even when the words they say don't always make sense. Whenever they are together, it is like they are in a dream, or like they are the only two people in the universe. There is an air of intense intimacy when they talk, and this feeling that somehow there is another conversation going on underneath those words that only they can hear. There is a unique bond between them -- not a romantic one, although it might look that way superficially. I think it is interesting to watch. I think if Amara had readily agreed to help them imprison her brother, that would have become the plan. It would give them a better chance of saving everyone than they have with their current plan. But Amara feels that what Dean is asking is something that she can't give, although at the end she does say that she will think about it. If not, I wonder if Dean actually could hurt Amara -- he's never been able to before. In any case, in that conversation I felt just a tiny spark of interest for once in this season. One thing that has been missing for me with Billie's plan for Jack is the importance of the Winchesters in the scheme of things -- supposedly their role is to be "messengers", not principal actors, and the things they have been doing could be done by any character in the story. But Dean talking to Amara the way he does -- that is something that Jack can't do. It is literally something no one else in the universe could do. And that's the kind of show I'm here for. We'll see if it is anything more than a temporary glitch.

Yes, that's what fantasy does, it changes the fundamental properties of the universe, so that things like magic and supernatural powers are possible. So, for example, you can do unscientific things like cut someone's throat and collect the blood in a bowl to use it as a "telephone" to talk to your diabolical Father in Hell. And as I said, there's nothing wrong with that so long as the story is internally consistent and follows its own rules. I have no problem with Castiel being able to touch someone's forehead and make them instantly fall asleep; the problem is that sometimes he can do it and then other times, without any explanation or reason, he can't. That's just bad writing. But if you require that a story be based strictly on real science, that's cool. To each his own. I think that would be science fiction rather than fantasy, and I love science fiction too!

To tell the truth, I have many problems with the show, but a lack of scientific accuracy is way down on the list of things I am going to worry about. I want the writing to be internally plausible and consistent with itself, but as long as it has that internal logic I could care less whether it has a basis in true science. It's a fantasy. Yes, speaking of a lack of consistency... Remember the episode "Peace of Mind", just last season? There was actually a scene where Castiel was struggling and punching and rolling around on the ground trying to subdue a mere human. So, yeah, whatever, writers.

Yes, this is true. Their original information was that if Chuck went, Amara had to go as well, to keep everything in balance. Nothing about matter and anti-matter resulting in the end of the universe. So I don't really get this "OMG they are trusting what cosmic entities tell them, how incredibly stupid they are!!!!!" complaint. Sure, the writers could change things now to say that destroying both Chuck and Amara would instead destroy the universe. But I don't see why the Winchesters should be castigated as idiots just because they are going with their previous understanding of the way it worked. Whatever they want to try might not work, but they will figure it out. Unless the show actually does end with the destruction of the universe.