gonzosgirrl

So Jensen *is* there. I'm a little scared, since Clarissa (theTVAddict) said she was not at all surprised J2 weren't there as she didn't expect them again unless/until there was a big announcement, or the series end. *hold me* ETA: Jared too

From the CW Upfronts Not a single mention of Supernatural by Pedowitz. In a Twitter convo, Clarissa (writer of the article) insists we shouldn't read anything into it because the upfronts are ostensibly about new shows, but still... Has that ever happened before? At the least, it's not exactly a ringing endorsement, IMO of course. ETA: in that convo Clarissa also said she didn't think J2 would be there, and didn't expect to see them at an upfront again unless/until there was a big announcement to be made, or the series end. Ten minutes later, both Js showed up. *hold me*

Naw, for me he's just damned. *g* I'll be more than happy to come back and eat my words dependent on this finale and where it goes in the first S13 eps. But this season, he - and as showrunner it's his feet I hold to the fire - has done the Winchesters and canon no favours. My opinion, of course.

I believe that is exactly what we're supposed to see the Empty as: Purgatory for humans, but maybe it's for angels as well and without their grace, they are powerless.

Or maybe The Empty is where angels go when they die. On that basis it could be Uriel, Zachariah, Balthazaar - any one of which would have a bone to pick with dear Castiel.

Chad was at VegasCon and is still slim. He also has almost zero knowledge of the show beyond his own episodes, lol. It was kind of amusing to watch him try and answer the many show-specific questions. Chuck was among my first thoughts, but then why would he need a weapon? The same reasoning rules out any of the angels like Gabriel or Michael for me. Every time Dabb opens his mouth he convinces me more that he doesn't give a single fuck about the Winchesters or the show's canon - he wants a spin off or a reboot in which the boys are grandfathered into irrelevance.

Duly noted. :)

Sorry, that was the conversation I was following - I incorrectly assumed you were as well. No reason that couldn't happen with a different scenario.

Do you know what the last firm date we saw on the show was? (ie, a calendar or newspaper with a date, or mentioned in dialogue) ETA: Sam mentioned May 18th as Sproutifer's due date, but no mention of a year.

In Clueless's scenario, the time jump wouldn't be revealed until they make it back to our world, so would TVLine include that in their May Sweeps list? I wonder how they could even make The Empty interesting. Billie implied it was just that - empty, a void. Presumably, monsters go to Purgatory, humans go to the void, so what would be the danger there? Do they go insane? I'm not sure how they could make just finding a way out compelling enough for multiple episodes if there is no danger in being there. ETA: Unless they are separated and one is trying to rescue the other.

Maybe they're going uber-meta and the Mystery Man is... Negan. I'll show myself out...

I don't think he'd outright say he wasn't in this season if he was. I thought the 'early next season' was a plea so that he would still be credited in 2017, thus 'no year break on IMDb'. I guess it could still be "Bobby" if we never see the person unmasked, and Cas' 'You?!' is the final shot of the finale. ETA: I'm going on record saying, I don't think it's Bobby.

It would be a good twist if it's Crowley, but these writers have been so paint-by-numbers this season, my expectations are nil.

My very first thought when Cas had the vision was that it was Lucifer's doing, much the same as Sam's burning bush. He is the ultimate manipulator (ridiculous Crowley/Luci scripting aside). I will not be surprised at all if he was the puppet master over Kelly & Cas.

Heh, I've been saying Dean was adopted all season. He sure didn't get his commitment to family (blood & otherwise) from John or Mary.

FWIW Serge Ladoucer co-signed Jim Michaels' assertion that we are going to love the finale. https://twitter.com/SergeLadouceur/status/864603563321950209 I don't put much stock in anything Michaels has to say, but I haven't seen Serge tweet like this before (and I do respect him).

Personally, I would've loved to see some kind of on screen acknowledgement that Dean didn't, you know, explode at the end of 11x23. This is the sum total of what we got: CASTIEL: Dean! DEAN: Hey. Okay. All right. CASTIEL: Dean. You're alive? DEAN: Yeah. CASTIEL: What about the bomb and the Darkness? What happened? DEAN: I'll tell you everything. Twenty one words, and two of them were Dean's name. And then from Sam: SAM: Dean. DEAN: Hey. SAM:I thought you were dead. DEAN: I'm not sure I'm not. SAM: So? DEAN: I'll tell you. I'll tell you everything, okay? Another twenty one words (one of which was his name again - good thing, however would we know???). So he'll 'tell them later' - and okay, we know what happened, we don't need to see him telling them, but damnit, Dean (by which I mean, I) deserved some kind emotional response/acknowledgement to his being alive and having talked Amara off the ledge.

Unless, The Empty really is a thing and one or both of them get sent there. Billie implied - or maybe outright said it, I can't quite recall - that all the Reapers were pissed with the Winchesters. It's been speculated that it's Dean we see, injured and limping into the bunker in the video. They've recycled more than one story, so if The Empty is to S12 what Purgatory was to S7... maybe it's Dean who's left standing after Sam gets killed/sent there. Could explain Jared's 'surprise' that they went there, and given it's not a natural thing, he probably wouldn't be so averse to Dean trying to retrieve him this time.

Bingo. The only possible explanation is that any human being targeted by a Hellhound can hear its bark in their 'soul' as opposed to their ears. But there is no precedent for this and without any kind of exposition, there's no reason for us to assume this. IMO the only point of using a Hellhound was to support this newly revealed connection between Crowley and the BDoL. (British Douchebags of Letters)

My only nitpick was that they cut back and forth between Dean/Sam and "Heaven" too much. The super-choppy editing detracted from impact of the scene. Yes please.

I saw this comment in the Mystery Spot thread yesterday (about Dean's 'death' by vehicular manslaughter) .... And I had to go and re-watch DYBIM just because. Jensen's ability to 'die' has never been so on-point as it was in this episode. Nearly three years later, all I have to do is imagine that little grunt/gasp sound he makes when Metatron stabs him and I get goosebumps. That, the look in his eyes when he turns his head and sees Sam, and clogged-throat voice when he tells Sam to get out before Metatron comes back and that it's for the best. Well, shit - here comes the tears again. His actual moment of death, that half shocked/half wondrous look before he falls forward onto Sam. Oh my Chuck. Hold me. Whatever you think of story line, Jensen was outstanding in this episode.

I've been wishing praying joking about S12 being Dean's fever dream for a while now, but this morning it occurred to me - maybe it's Sam's dream. Maybe Lady Twat's bullet did more damage than we know, or her mind-rape/torture session has been ongoing since 12x01. So many things would be more plausible - the overall characterization of Dean, Sam getting all the big-bad kills (except for Hitler, which was turned into a running joke), Mary being nothing like Dean's memory of her, which is the only 'Mary' Sam ever knew. Hmmmm.

There are plenty of stories yet to be told with the brothers. For me, Supernatural = Dean & Sam Winchester's journey and I'm not interested in watching a show in which they are not the central characters. I have felt from the first couple episodes this season that a spin off, or at least a Winchester-lite Supernatural is Dabb's dream, and the show has suffered for it. Maybe it's TPTB's wish as well - hedging their bets for the day that J2 decide they are done. I can say with certainty though, that they'll have one less viewer in me.

I keep reading about the need for all the secondary characters and storylines to give the Js more time off, but honestly, did they even get much time? Given how well their comings and goings are publicized by stalkerazzi and fans, it doesn't seem like they were off-set all that often. A lot of Jensen's 'babies' time was over the Christmas break, and Jared's just before the end of filming. Jensen was obviously written out of some acts with little-to-no explanation (looking at you, Perez) but neither of them really seemed to have benefited from time off - not enough to justify, for me, the lack of good Winchester Brothers, and most especially Dean, action. YMMV.

Isn't it interesting that Brian & Justin had this kind of intimate encounter *seventeen years ago* on Queer As Folk? A show ahead of its time in so many ways.