BabySpinach

Both Michael and Dean toss their opponents with literally the exact same move. It was distinctive enough to catch my attention on the first watch-through. Maybe the fight choreographer was just recycling. Still cool, though.

But in First Born he struggled and got hit multiple times. The overall fight was a lot scrappier and more tense. Here, Dean was almost toying with the demons, easily flinging them around (he literally used one of Michael's moves from 14.10) like it was a choreographed dance that only he knew the steps to. And Dean was somehow equal to a demon in strength, and didn't get hit once. I loved it, but I still think it's worth mentioning, just for comparison's sake if nothing else.

Dean's fight scene was a lovely, unexpected nugget of quality in what has undeniably become Nougatnatural. But his effortless take-down of multiple demons, with even greater ease than he handled them in 9.11, was directly intercut with Sam getting his melon caved in by regular human Nick and hiding from him in the car like a scared child. That was just so bizarre; it felt like a deliberate statement on Sam's incompetence. If I were a Sam fan, I'd be fucking livid. And as awesome as it was, it was a little weird that Dean was equally matched, strength-wise, against a demon. He had almost no problem holding the blade away from his chest, even with his opponent doing his utmost to push it in. Probably LOL!Canon rather than a plot point, but at least his utter composure and competence looked cool. I'll take what scraps I can get. The scene between Nick and Dean was almost interesting. Finally, someone brought up the fact that Dean was possessed by an archangel, and even implied that the experience might have permanently changed him. So much juicy potential teased there; too bad the writers give zero fucks about Michael!Dean. Insert obligatory "fuck Nougat Sue" here.

I think I've figured out the broad strokes of what's been wrong with the depiction of the leads: Dean's Show has been let down by his Tell, and Sam's Tell has been let down by his Show. Sam: - 14.01 is called Chief, universally deferred to without explanation, yet makes terrible judgement call to bring Jack and Maggie along that is never acknowledged as such - 14.05 praised by Mary, apologized to by Bobby, given credit by Dean for Maggie's rescue, doesn't do anything during the episode to earn any of this - 14.12 says shit like "We're the guys who save the world," but it's supposed to be taken as genuinely inspiring and badass - 14.17 gets beaten up and nearly killed by fucking NICK, of all people, apparently showing him to be incompetent (which I'm sure is not the intention) - his many gift-wrapped Dean kills, scenes, and storylines that are invariably lamer copies of the original - his plethora of head wounds and knock-outs that seriously undermine his supposed status as a fearsome hunter Dean: - 14.03 isn't particularly unhinged or unstable, but Jody and Sam are suddenly pearl-clutching over him; Kaia outright calls him a weak bully and her words are allowed to stand - 14.04 the fact that he saved the world by killing Lucifer is not mentioned; instead, it's only Sam and Jack that he saved - 14.05 objectively performs better on the hunt than Sam does, but never gets verbal acknowledgement for it and gives Sam credit instead; his long past as a natural leader isn't brought up at all - 14.08 stated to be "guilty" over how he initially treated Jack, but this is not shown in their interactions - 14.10 one of the few instances of characters actually verbalizing a positive and specific thing about Dean (woo...) - 14.12 doesn't do anything wrong and is the most level-headed out of everyone, but Sam and Cas frame him as recklessly suicidal and no one contradicts them (it's left open to interpretation, at least?) - 14.15 his archangel trauma/guilt is completely forgotten about in favor of Sam angst, and Jensen isn't playing outside of the script this time - 14.17 Mary still hasn't said a single nice thing about Dean, all while she's showered Sam with specific and unconditional praise Casual viewers tend to take the Tell at face value and run with it, while Show provides a stronger basis of argument for more hardcore fans. But both the brothers have been regressed to their broader stereotypes and lost a lot of nuance. Both of their storylines for this season (Leader Sam and Michael!Dean) were axed in 14.14 and have apparently amounted to absolutely nothing. I'm a Dean fan, so I'm naturally going to focus on Dean's mistreatment, but there's plenty for both Sam fans and Dean fans to be mad about. It's just that the reasons are kind of inverse to each other. What a shitty way to treat the two original lead characters. And Cas is basically a non-entity at this point. The most significant thing he's done all season is fling himself upon the sacrificial altar of St. Nougat the Irresistible, the most important and perfect little marshmallow in the entire universe. I feel no small amount of schadenfreude at the thought of Dabb trying so hard to push Nougatnatural only to have the original leads he so gleefully neglected end up pulling the plug. Suck it.

Gotta say, I didn't realize how much I was enjoying the relative lack of Dean hate (on other platforms, not here) until it came roaring back with a vengeance. It's as predictable as clockwork now; any time Dean expresses anger or anything other than unconditional coddling love, he's the worst person to ever exist and needs to grovel and beg for forgiveness or be made to feel really guilty about having un-pretty feelings. And, of course, we'll get long, extended shots of the "victim's" sad woobie face to hammer in what a dick Dean is. FUCK. YOU. BERENS. I'm kind of relieved that we'll only have to put up with this bullshit for another season.

I mean, the man apparently has PERFECT FUCKING EAR CANALS. How does that happen?! Proof of intelligent design, right there...

For anyone who'd still fancy one, I wrote a short Michael!Dean fic a little while ago. It's my first work of fanfiction, though it's not my first work of writing. I've always thought that the concept of True Vessels and bloodlines was one of the most original and compelling aspects of the show's mythology, and Michael!Dean helped to reignite my interest in it. I wrote this piece back when I was more hopeful about the trajectory of the story. Oh, to be young and foolish in the Good Ol' Days of three weeks ago! https://archiveofourown.org/works/17812913

I'm still in mild disbelief that the show is actually ending. I've grown accustomed to anticipating a new season/episode for six years now. I'd just graduated high school when I first got into the show, and it'll be three years after my college graduation when it finally ends for good! I'll never find a character like Dean Winchester again. That, I am absolutely certain of. The best I can hope for is that Jensen gets his inhumanly beautiful face into future projects that truly appreciate and capitalize on his considerable talents. Hopefully, Marvel's ears have pricked up at the announcement. A high-profile show on a streaming network like Netflix would be great, too.

I haven't seen either this episode or the new one because I want Jack to die in a fire right now, but I just want to mention that Dabb's idea of "powerful" is incredibly shallow. Interestingly enough, it's exactly what Sam thought power was in season 4: pure, raw strength without thought of wisdom, judgement, or restraint. Jack is not the most powerful being in the universe. The fact that he could get outwitted by a potato immediately disqualifies him from that status. He's so far done pretty much nothing to influence the larger world in a tangible way; he's only thrown raw strength at any problem that happened to be in front of him and created temporary solutions at best. He has no core motivation, no bigger guiding principle that would drive him to make strategic and effective use of his abilities. Dean has done far more for the SPNVerse with far less ("just" his will, his morality, his compassion, his irreverence), and often with permanent results that didn't come with an equally terrible price. He's never recklessly waved around what powers he's gained over the years like an idiot toddler enamored with shiny things, and has always respected them as the burdens of responsibility they actually are. Similarly, he regards the reminders of his cosmic importance with weight and resignation rather than naive self-satisfaction. Now Dean, I would absolutely buy and respect as the most powerful being in the universe. As for Jack, his resulting soullessness might prove a bigger problem than Michael even would have. That would actually align with the show's old pattern of showing that reckless strength without wisdom never turns out well, despite the short-term victories it may grant. This is one of the few routes that would actually make narrative sense: Jack turns bad and forces Dean to do something that ends up with the latter in the box, housing the archangel power that is now too dangerous for Jack to have access to. As a bonus, Jack then withers away like the empty husk he's always been.

After pondering some more (yes, I do get a bit obsessive when I don't know WTF is happening), I've realized that the only way Dean and Michael could possibly be out of the mytharc is if Billie popped back in and unequivocally took back everything she said in 14.10. Her words weren't ambiguous or open to interpretation: Dean's only two possible deaths both had to do with Michael. Shoving a Michael-infected Jack into the Malak box, for instance, can't possibly be the true solution. If it was, then at least one other death book for Dean would exist. But it was made explicitly clear that there were only two final fates for him: either Dean died while being used by Michael to end the world, or Dean died at the bottom of the ocean while housing Michael. I just don't see Billie coming back only a few episodes later to announce that Dean's death books have somehow changed again, despite no further disruptions to the multiverse. And if throwing away Michael!Dean in the 14th episode had been the plan all along, there would have been no reason to establish this entire plot point in the first place. This can't be the writers hastily writing themselves out of a corner if they went out of their way to create that corner. And if they really needed to introduce the Malak box for whatever reason, they could have easily done so without also setting up a giant dangling question mark. So until Dean's only two fates are explained/LOL!Canoned away, he will still be directly involved in the season's conclusion. Maybe Jack goes bad, Dean breaks our Michael out of the Cage to deal with him, then manages to get into the Malak box afterwards and that's the cliffhanger going into season 15. At this point, I have no idea.

That's certainly what it looks like right now. But the first half of this season did just fine with sprinkling in a few hints that Michael was up to some shit and then following through on it. Hell, Billie's return in 14.10 was telegraphed back in 13.19, so these writers clearly have an ability to carry plot threads along multiple episodes (and seasons). Dean's death books are a much bigger deal than any of that was, and I just don't see how 14.10 and its followups can possibly coexist in the same narrative/thematic continuity as 14.14. This isn't like Samelia, a soapy subplot that had nothing to do with the mytharc and at least got a conclusive ending. There was no giant, honking Chekhov's gun like Dean's changed fates (which affects the entire SPN multiverse!) that was never fired. I just can't accept that Dean's part in Michael's story is definitively over, at least not yet. So I'll just huddle in my corner muttering theories to myself until the other shoe drops (or, more likely, doesn't). Lol.

What would be really ballsy is if everything that happened after Dean got knocked out was just a simulation created by Michael. And instead of killing the other members of TFW out in the real world, because that may still alert Dean, Michael puts them all under the same whammy as well. This would just be a whole new strategy to keep Dean compliant: don't mess with his memories and thoughts, but seamlessly place him into a fake reality that's indistinguishable from the real one. Cook up some half-plausible scenario of Michael's death and voila, Dean is at ease, thinking that his enemy is gone for good, and he can just go on with business as usual in Dreamland. Multiple episodes of Dreamland later, with occasional hints of something being off, TFW wakes up to a world that's already burning, and the rest of the season deals with that. Man oh man, I wish....

So it turns out that it wasn't Jack's woobie illness that was the time-wasting filler; the time-wasting filler was Michael!Dean! Jack needed to get sick and die so that he could get access to soul magic and then kill Michael. If the mytharc shifts to be about his descent into darkness, then this season really will be Jack's story. I can then safely quit, because even though I promised that I would stick by Supernatural till the end, I made no such promise for Nougatnatural. And though the rest of the reason may indeed shake out like this, I'm still just really confused. If Jack was supposed to kill Michael, why did the writers put in that whole thing about all of Dean's fates changing? If they needed the Malak box to be created (to shove Jack inside?), there are endless ways they could have done that without bringing Billie and her death books into it. Why spend two episodes angsting over Dean's potential fate at the bottom of the ocean? Why write Michael threatening to liquefy Dean's consciousness? Why have Dean lock Michael in his head in the first place? And Michael had waited months to repossess him, but then just left because being locked up in a mental pantry was too traumatic to make it worth staying with his True Vessel? As it currently stands, the story's focus has been completely cut off at the knees. But Dean's death books are my main sticking point. I had the same feeling when I was trying to puzzle out how Kaia's spear could have possibly kicked Michael out of Dean, because the logistics just didn't add up. And this season's midseason finale and return episodes, both of which prominently featured Michael, should be much more important to the mytharc than the 14th. A recurring villain has also NEVER been killed off this early in the season, not Abaddon, not Eve, not even fucking ASMODEUS. This all just feels wrong, and not only in the typical-shitty-writer way we get all the time. I'm fully prepared to be completely off the mark. But if I'm not theorizing, then I'm taking this episode at face value, and that would make my head explode. Hey, here's an off-the-wall spec! What if the Michael in Billie's books is actually ours, the one in the Cage? Maybe Jack's actions indirectly lead to that outcome. That twist would at least be better than not addressing this plot thread at all.

So Michael's threat that he would leave Dean a vegetable amounted to nothing, too. And to add insult to injury, Michael possessed fucking ROWENA and apparently rejected his True Vessel. We feared this when 14.09 was about to air, but I suppose this forum just thought a little farther ahead. HOW IS IT that Yockey wrote both Nihilism and Ouroborus?! He directly contradicted his own character and plot points multiple times.

A fellow writer, awesome! It means a lot that you take away something useful from my ramblings on this sometimes amazing, often infuriating show! I definitely get all mama bear over Dean when he's mistreated, but I do try to approach it from an analytical angle if I can, via the constant discrepancies between Show and Tell, for instance. But I also just really love Dean, and that is what tends to drive my reasoning rather than the other way around.

I mean, this IS a discussion forum. I'm glad that you have a more positive and laid back attitude to the show, but that's your prerogative. As for me, I criticize the storytelling because that's my personal angle of engagement with this show and I genuinely enjoy doing it, even when I'm being negative. This show has actually taught me a lot about effective narratives and character writing through both its successes and its failures. And the rules of storytelling are a little more universal than subjective opinions/preferences on individual characters. If this episode is truly the end of Michael's story, it will be an objectively bad one.

The problem with just looking at it as a good thing that Michael is now dead and Jack isn't sick anymore is that these aren't real people. I care way more about a compelling and well-told story than the characters' personal well-being. Yeah, it's nice and all that our protagonists are in a better place now, but the tradeoff is complete garbage storytelling. Michael's setup and cool motivation will have served absolutely nothing. Dean's True Vessel storyline won't get any kind of thematically satisfying resolution or outcome. That is, of course, if Michael actually is dead, which I still have an inkling of a doubt about. How this season ends will entirely dictate my overall feelings toward it. But regardless, fuck Jack. Seriously, fuck that kid. He's a complete black hole of creativity and pulls in everyone around him to his rock-bottom level of suckage.

If Michael is truly dead, then this will have been a complete thematic and narrative failure on every level. The critical 14.10 will be rendered completely moot, the angsting over the coffin totally pointless. Not to mention how ridiculous it would be if Dean's death books don't get followed up on at all. I can't wrap my head around Yockey totally nullifying his own setup like this, so I'll hold out a bit of hope that there's something bigger going on. That hope is not going to stop me from going into hibernation mode until then, though. I may actively loathe Jack now. Getting back his god power was exactly the wrong direction to take his character. He was learning his own value as a human and gaining some much-needed wisdom, and all of that progress has now been rendered pointless as well. And I couldn't be paid to care about his potentially going dark/losing his soul. Just shove him in the box and get it over with. Seriously, fuck this insufferable Sue. If Michael really is dead, then some 2-year bland woobie has just stolen one of the leads' longest running and most important stories. Yockey, do we need to perform an exorcism on the demon that seems to have possessed your typing fingers? ETA: And another thing! Dean holding Michael in his head served NO PURPOSE. Nothing was moved forward, nothing was accomplished, nothing was learned. Holy shitballs, this is BAAADDDD.

WHAT. THE. FUCK. Who plotted this, a drunken chimpanzee? The Big Bad is dead already? What about Billie's books? Literally the same writer for this and 14.10, WTFFFFF.... What was the point of all the angst about Dean going in the coffin if Nougat Sue was going to steal the story right out from under him? Wow, I knew they'd likely fuck up this perfect setup, but I didn't think they'd do it THIS badly...

These reactions from the parade made me laugh. I'm always a sucker for Jensen getting well-deserved appreciation from both fans and newbies alike. No one can resist the power of the Ackles!

Jensen is like the perfect dress-up doll: he looks good in anything. Considering all the costumes Dean has gotten put in over the years (military, cowboy, medieval, 1940s), the show knows it too! And this color combo is really classy, better than the firetruck reds or pure whites I've seen from previous kings.

I disagree completely. Dean (and his dream) made it explicitly clear in this episode that he was terrified and really didn't want to go through with it, but was willing to do it anyway for the sake of the world. Seems like a pretty uncharitable interpretation of his character to imply that he's just using the box plan as an excuse to off himself. Dean wasn't navel-gazing, he was doing the exact opposite. Every time either Sam or Cas tried to guilt trip him or invalidate him or call him suicidal, he stood his ground and explained his very simple logic in small words (though it never did seem to penetrate their thick skulls). Not once did he devolve into self-pity or angst, but he did stick to his guns, which appears to have come across as navel-gazing? It's like he just can't win. Even when he's willing to submit himself to an eternity with a furious archangel so that the multiverse doesn't come crumbling down, he still deserves to be smacked for daring to hurt Cas and Sam's feelings by leaving them. Poor, dumb Dean. It's not like the universe is at stake or anything! It's totally worth risking it all just to adhere to their usual modus operandi of flipping the bird at fate for the sake of... what? Consistency? Ego? Self-satisfaction? Sam and Dean's decision to fight fate in season 5 made sense because the "fated" outcome was the worst possible one (or second worst), so they could really only go up from there. This season 14 decision to fight fate is less honorable because they already have a zero-collateral solution right in front of them, and Sam and Cas are hell-bent against this objectively solid option because they don't want to lose one particular man and are willing to possibly damn everyone else as a result. I really don't mind that they're postponing a while to look for other options, but Dean was NOT in the wrong here for going ahead with the plan and (initially) standing his ground against Sam and Cas.

This is why I'll never be able to muster up much sympathy for John. Whatever he went through, Dean also went through, and as a vulnerable, impressionable child rather than a mature adult. Dean's self worth has always been tied directly to his usefulness to others. As recently as 13.05, Dean thought that he might as well die since he was apparently holding Sam back and incapable of saving anyone anymore. John instilling this mindset in him was unacceptable. Either he was too ignorant to notice what he was doing to his son or he thought it was justified. Neither option makes him look like anything approaching a decent father, even considering the circumstances they were in. There were also the unnecessarily petty moments, even in season 1. Browbeating Dean over the car after having an argument with Sam springs to mind. It revealed so much about Dean's thankless role as both the perpetual mediator and the emotional punching bag whenever Sam and John pissed each other off. Dean never stood up for himself and always just took it. Going by John's surprise when he finally dug in his heels a bit in 1.21, it must have been one of the first times that had ever happened. John didn't deserve a loyal, compassionate, forgiving son like Dean. The whole emphasis on saving innocent people and sparing them the Winchester family fate was all him. Revenge was John's singular motivation for hunting, with little indication otherwise.

I agree. The only way that Nihilism could have been more Dean-centric and Dean-positive is if he casually beat Michael one-handed while downing the house special with the other, Cas and Sam gaping uselessly by the wayside. I was fine with it being a team effort, and it certainly doesn't diminish the fact that it was Dean's idea and his mind, alone, holding back the most powerful archangel in creation, without even the assistance of demon blood or Death-reinforced walls. I think if Dean were being unequivocally framed as just recklessly suicidal, he would have been made to apologize in 14.12. But the fact that he didn't, and got to strongly defend his position, and was also allowed to extract a promise from Sam and Cas that they would follow the original plan if there was no other option, all helped to keep the interpretation a lot more open. It's perfectly possible that Dean WAS intended to come across as self-destructive, but there's also plenty of textual evidence against that. Certain acting choices undercut it further. This just doesn't feel as cut-and-dry as it easily could have been. Whatever Michael's up to, it sounds like he's tinkering around in Dean's mind, perhaps subtly altering it in some way. I'm cautiously intrigued by what that could be. Or maybe he's found a way to rally his monsters while still trapped in that storage locker. But it's definitely a mighty shame that Steve Yockey is being wasted on a Jack ep in 14.14 and on damage-control for Dabb's assistant in 14.15.

I'm not implying anything. The photo is just very pleasant to the point of idealization. It could belong on an advertisement, basically. ETA: I'm going to edit the post. I'm not particularly happy with that propaganda description, either.