S15.E20: Carry On (Series Finale)

[Myrelle]

1 minute ago, Binns said:

With the tear? It kills me every time. 

Yes.

It's so incredibly beautiful, but so incredibly sad, at the same time. 

[gonzosgirrl]

9 minutes ago, Myrelle said:

So I just saw a pic of Dean's Last Breath and now I can't unsee it and I realized that this is how I'm going to remember the finale of this show. 😪

I thought about Thanksgiving this morning, and that if the SPN universe was in real time, Sam Winchester is alive in the world somewhere,  and Dean is not. That's just not fucking fair. 

[PAForrest]

8 hours ago, gonzosgirrl said:

I thought about Thanksgiving this morning, and that if the SPN universe was in real time, Sam Winchester is alive in the world somewhere,  and Dean is not. That's just not fucking fair. 

😭 I know, it's stupid, but I feel the same way. I hate hate HATE how petty Dabb and Singer have ruined the entire series for me - 15 years of a series and fannish life down the toilet because I can't bear to watch a single old episode anymore knowing it's all for nothing for the series most iconic character. Sucky unfair ending. I can imagine how Jensen felt, because we know how he felt. He told us.

[Castiels Cat]

14 minutes ago, PAForrest said:

😭 I know, it's stupid, but I feel the same way. I hate hate HATE how petty Dabb and Singer have ruined the entire series for me - 15 years of a series and fannish life down the toilet because I can't bear to watch a single old episode anymore knowing it's all for nothing for the series most iconic character. Sucky unfair ending. I can imagine how Jensen felt, because we know how he felt. He told us.

I feel the same way. 

8 hours ago, Myrelle said:

Yes.

It's so incredibly beautiful, but so incredibly sad, at the same time. 

His OPT.

Well I watched the Boys. It's  a good show. Tight writing. I can tell you he won't be a weak character already from what I have seen and read. He has better things.

And maybe Marvel is waiting too.

[Castiels Cat]

8 hours ago, Binns said:

With the tear? It kills me every time. 

His performance saved that shute episode like it saved so many mediocre episodes.

[Airmid]

On 11/23/2020 at 12:41 PM, tessathereaper said:

I still cannot accept that whole "they were only great hunters because...Chuck".  That needs to be retconned as much as Dean's death.

Do you know what makes this even worse? That Garth is somehow better than Sam and Dean as a hunter. Garth didn't have Chuck writing for him, was left more or less to his own devices as much as anyone outside of the main 'storyline' could have been. And while Dean gets taken out right after earning his freedom, Garth got to ditz his way through hunting, survived being bitten and got adopted into a werewolf family complete with kids of his own, got to chastise the brothers on their charmed life, especially Dean [I don't outright hate the character but I doubt he could have survived even half the things Dean ever went through] and then got to be the super werewolf/hunter that took out a building full of monsters.

I am so glad that I haven't been nearly as invested in SPN for the past few years like I was back on day one. I fully expected Dabb to do a scorched earth policy to prevent any future stories and wasn't disappointed. I really dislike watching the end of the series wondering what the point of the whole thing was. Or worse, wondering if everything would have been better without the main protagonists ever existing. Sure, Sam and Dean saved people, but multiple universes were wiped out full of life [and who knows where they went, did they cease completely or are those souls in the empty?], there's still bad things running around on earth, a lot of the destruction that was wreaked was unfortunately just because Sam and Dean existed. In exchange for the massive loss of life just on earth prime, we get a slightly better heaven. I'm not sure about hell - does it exist? 

So, in the end, from a show that was suppose to be about family, we get a finale that rips the main family apart while a creature that isn't even three years old is ruling over everything even if he is given to fits of rage, is naïve, and falls for the simplest cons while showing poor judgement over and over again. I really, really dislike what happened to Chuck's character [not even touching on Amara here], but I'm not sure what exactly was gained for the rest of creation or why Chuck decided after billions of years that the ending he was trying to force was the one he wanted. It all felt like some illusion -  a hand wave that all this really is better without providing any reasoning for that outside of a heaven upgrade.

[gonzosgirrl]

@Airmid I'm of the opinion that "Chuck's" writing can't be limited to just Sam and Dean. IMO Garth was part of their story, so his life was written just as much as the Winchester's was, or Bobby's,  or Ellen's,  or Claire's and on and on. I dont see hiw we can pick and choose, and that's where the writing fails for me. I guess the worse thing Chuck did was kill Mary Winchester. Twice.  

[Airmid]

Taking my response to the All Episodes thread

[Castiels Cat]

2 hours ago, Airmid said:

Do you know what makes this even worse? That Garth is somehow better than Sam and Dean as a hunter. Garth didn't have Chuck writing for him, was left more or less to his own devices as much as anyone outside of the main 'storyline' could have been. And while Dean gets taken out right after earning his freedom, Garth got to ditz his way through hunting, survived being bitten and got adopted into a werewolf family complete with kids of his own, got to chastise the brothers on their charmed life, especially Dean [I don't outright hate the character but I doubt he could have survived even half the things Dean ever went through] and then got to be the super werewolf/hunter that took out a building full of monsters.

I am so glad that I haven't been nearly as invested in SPN for the past few years like I was back on day one. I fully expected Dabb to do a scorched earth policy to prevent any future stories and wasn't disappointed. I really dislike watching the end of the series wondering what the point of the whole thing was. Or worse, wondering if everything would have been better without the main protagonists ever existing. Sure, Sam and Dean saved people, but multiple universes were wiped out full of life [and who knows where they went, did they cease completely or are those souls in the empty?], there's still bad things running around on earth, a lot of the destruction that was wreaked was unfortunately just because Sam and Dean existed. In exchange for the massive loss of life just on earth prime, we get a slightly better heaven. I'm not sure about hell - does it exist? 

So, in the end, from a show that was suppose to be about family, we get a finale that rips the main family apart while a creature that isn't even three years old is ruling over everything even if he is given to fits of rage, is naïve, and falls for the simplest cons while showing poor judgement over and over again. I really, really dislike what happened to Chuck's character [not even touching on Amara here], but I'm not sure what exactly was gained for the rest of creation or why Chuck decided after billions of years that the ending he was trying to force was the one he wanted. It all felt like some illusion -  a hand wave that all this really is better without providing any reasoning for that outside of a heaven upgrade.

Chuck specifically told Amara that is not how his writing works. It's  more about set-up and nudges. Moving pieces around. Putting rebar in a barn...

The episode in which they were normal is the anomaly.  One presumes he found someone to curse them which is why the goddess of luck fixed everything.

But Dabb and his Hacks just never gave anything too much thought. They are thoughtless hacks who do not think.

 

[PAForrest]

14 hours ago, Airmid said:

Do you know what makes this even worse? That Garth is somehow better than Sam and Dean as a hunter. Garth didn't have Chuck writing for him, was left more or less to his own devices as much as anyone outside of the main 'storyline' could have been. And while Dean gets taken out right after earning his freedom, Garth got to ditz his way through hunting, survived being bitten and got adopted into a werewolf family complete with kids of his own, got to chastise the brothers on their charmed life, especially Dean ...

I am so glad that I haven't been nearly as invested in SPN for the past few years like I was back on day one. I fully expected Dabb to do a scorched earth policy to prevent any future stories and wasn't disappointed. I really dislike watching the end of the series wondering what the point of the whole thing was...

So, in the end, from a show that was suppose to be about family, we get a finale that rips the main family apart ...

Garth was Dabb's creation, he was another of his personal Mary Sues, and the clear intention was to show he was naturally better than the two creations that weren't Dabb's, and that he didn't care about.

But yeah, the whole Chuck thing is problematic AF because it really does appear like the showrunner just decided to go from week to week picking and choosing what was Chuck and what was not. And sorry, with a plot like that, lame as it was, it shouldn't work that way, and it doesn't. It's either all or nothing, you can't just use it against the characters you don't like. And that was the problem - well, one of many problems.

There was no point at the end, and that's what makes the finale feel like it doesn't fit at all - like it's from another series that someone tried to Frankenstein onto another show. Because look at that episode - did literally anything that happened in the last 15 years need to happen to get to that sad bleak ending? Aside from the brothers hooking up together to go hunting again in the Pilot, and the introduction of Bobby at the end of season one, nothing else needed to have happened to them. Even Gack didn't need to happen - he was especially unnecessary since he never removes monsters from the world.

Dean could have been killed on that milk run that Jensen doesn't think he'd be killed on (because vamps, Dean had those covered!), had a pathetic funeral that no one attends, and then gone to heaven. Didn't need any explanation as to what heaven was or wasn't. Just boom, dead, show up, The End.

And since Sam didn't do anything with his hunting life after Dean died - again, boom, Dean dead, Sam moves, hooks up with broodmare, has a kid, looks sad the whole time, dies, goes to heaven. The End.

What did we need to know from the last 15 years, or even the last season, going into this episode? Nothing really.

Yeah, it's old school - like it's the series finale after the first two or three years if the show had been cancelled that far back.

Edited November 28, 2020 by PAForrest

[gonzosgirrl]

Maybe the vamps put the pointy rebar hooks up  for a reason: to hang up their meat. It wasn't just a barn, it was their lair. Maybe the vamp knew it was there when he ran Dean back into it.

 

 

[gonzosgirrl]

1 minute ago, PinkChicken said:

(in case i'm misreading tone) I can't not laugh react because i'm just so over how many things about this episode have to be answered by a "maybe what if this unconfirmed fan theory that is still entirely possible just unconfirmed"
and they specifically said in interviews we would be left with no doubts

I wasn't kidding,  but it is so true that they left so much 'gray' in the ending.

 

[Myrelle]

9 minutes ago, gonzosgirrl said:

I wasn't kidding,  but it is so true that they left so much 'gray' in the ending.

 

They left mud, is what they left.

Unless you ignore the Dabb years.

 

Edited November 28, 2020 by Myrelle

[Myrelle]

12 hours ago, PAForrest said:

Yeah, it's old school - like it's the series finale after the first two or three years if the show had been cancelled that far back.

I could not agree more.

[gonzosgirrl]

My Dean-girl heart aside, all of my problems with the ending come down to lack of logic and poor characterization. If you take the outline: Dean dies on a vampire hunt, Sam lives out a seemingly normal life, Jack has fixed Heaven and Castiel is saved from the Empty, it works, on paper. But the details. Oh, the devil is in the details.

- vampires are supernaturally strong and they were outnumbered. so one of them getting the jump on Dean isn't horrible or OOC, but...

- they had vampire disabling bullets one scene before, why on earth didn't they use them immediately in the barn?

- Jack is omniscient now and even had the power to fix Heaven, and they specifically said he was going to be hands-off, so he couldn't save Dean, but...

- he saved Castiel. We're supposed to believe that he saw Cas, Dean and Sam as his family, his fathers, and he saved Castiel from a fate Cas agreed to, but he can't let Dean recover from a stab in the back a couple weeks into their new lives?

- even Sam, they spent so much time building this relationship with Eileen over the season. Cue the flash forward, to Sam with a young son and omg, yes! Saileen live on! but...

- there is no indication who the mother of his kid is, all the photos around him are old ones, or with the kid. In fact, it seems that Sam dies old and with only his son left to care.

ETA:

- Dean dies and goes to Heaven, looking just like he did when he died, and meets Bobby, who looks just like he did when he died, and tells Dean that Heaven is fixed, no more Memorex, etc. But...

- Sam dies and goes to Heaven, (which we aren't supposed to believe is Dean's Heaven, but a communal place) and he looks just like he did... when Dean died.

Devil in the details, indeed.

 

Edited November 28, 2020 by gonzosgirrl

[The Companion]

17 hours ago, Airmid said:

Do you know what makes this even worse? That Garth is somehow better than Sam and Dean as a hunter. Garth didn't have Chuck writing for him, was left more or less to his own devices as much as anyone outside of the main 'storyline' could have been. And while Dean gets taken out right after earning his freedom, Garth got to ditz his way through hunting, survived being bitten and got adopted into a werewolf family complete with kids of his own, got to chastise the brothers on their charmed life, especially Dean [I don't outright hate the character but I doubt he could have survived even half the things Dean ever went through] and then got to be the super werewolf/hunter that took out a building full of monsters.

I am so glad that I haven't been nearly as invested in SPN for the past few years like I was back on day one. I fully expected Dabb to do a scorched earth policy to prevent any future stories and wasn't disappointed. I really dislike watching the end of the series wondering what the point of the whole thing was. Or worse, wondering if everything would have been better without the main protagonists ever existing. Sure, Sam and Dean saved people, but multiple universes were wiped out full of life [and who knows where they went, did they cease completely or are those souls in the empty?], there's still bad things running around on earth, a lot of the destruction that was wreaked was unfortunately just because Sam and Dean existed. In exchange for the massive loss of life just on earth prime, we get a slightly better heaven. I'm not sure about hell - does it exist? 

So, in the end, from a show that was suppose to be about family, we get a finale that rips the main family apart while a creature that isn't even three years old is ruling over everything even if he is given to fits of rage, is naïve, and falls for the simplest cons while showing poor judgement over and over again. I really, really dislike what happened to Chuck's character [not even touching on Amara here], but I'm not sure what exactly was gained for the rest of creation or why Chuck decided after billions of years that the ending he was trying to force was the one he wanted. It all felt like some illusion -  a hand wave that all this really is better without providing any reasoning for that outside of a heaven upgrade.

That does make it worse. Thanks. 😭😆

13 hours ago, PAForrest said:

Garth was Dabb's creation, he was another of his personal Mary Sues, and the clear intention was to show he was naturally better than the two creations that weren't Dabb's, and that he didn't care about.

But yeah, the whole Chuck thing is problematic AF because it really does appear like the showrunner just decided to go from week to week picking and choosing what was Chuck and what was not. And sorry, with a plot like that, lame as it was, it shouldn't work that way, and it doesn't. It's either all or nothing, you can't just use it against the characters you don't like. And that was the problem - well, one of many problems.

There was no point at the end, and that's what makes the finale feel like it doesn't fit at all - like it's from another series that someone tried to Frankenstein onto another show. Because look at that episode - did literally anything that happened in the last 15 years need to happen to get to that sad bleak ending? Aside from the brothers hooking up together to go hunting again in the Pilot, and the introduction of Bobby at the end of season one, nothing else needed to have happened to them. Even Gack didn't need to happen - he was especially unnecessary since he never removes monsters from the world.

Dean could have been killed on that milk run that Jensen doesn't think he'd be killed on (because vamps, Dean had those covered!), had a pathetic funeral that no one attends, and then gone to heaven. Didn't need any explanation as to what heaven was or wasn't. Just boom, dead, show up, The End.

And since Sam didn't do anything with his hunting life after Dean died - again, boom, Dean dead, Sam moves, hooks up with broodmare, has a kid, looks sad the whole time, dies, goes to heaven. The End.

What did we need to know from the last 15 years, or even the last season, going into this episode? Nothing really.

Yeah, it's old school - like it's the series finale after the first two or three years if the show had been cancelled that far back.

If I didn't have to watch the intervening seasons to understand the finale, you have done something wrong. You have failed to move the story forward or you have gone backwards 

45 minutes ago, gonzosgirrl said:

My Dean-girl heart aside, all of my problems with the ending come down to lack of logic and poor characterization. If you take the outline: Dean dies on a vampire hunt, Sam lives out a seemingly normal life, Jack has fixed Heaven and Castiel is saved from the Empty, it works, on paper. But the details. Oh, the devil is in the details.

- vampires are supernaturally strong and they were outnumbered. so one of them getting the jump on Dean isn't horrible or OOC, but...

- they had vampire disabling bullets one scene before, why on earth didn't they use them immediately in the barn?

- Jack is omniscient now and even had the power to fix Heaven, and they specifically said he was going to be hands-off, so he couldn't save Dean, but...

- he saved Castiel. We're supposed to believe that he saw Cas, Dean and Sam as his family, his fathers, and he saved Castiel from a fate Cas agreed to, but he can't let Dean recover from a stab in the back a couple weeks into their new lives?

- even Sam, they spent so much time building this relationship with Eileen over the season. Cue the flash forward, to Sam with a young son and omg, yes! Saileen live on! but...

- there is no indication who the mother of his kid is, all the photos around him are old ones, or with the kid. In fact, it seems that Sam dies old and with only his son left to care.

Devil in the details, indeed.

 

All if this 

[nara]

On 11/20/2020 at 2:41 AM, kickingnames said:

I read this entire thread as well as some other sites before I actually got to watch Dean’s death scene — and I was still a teary mess. I could pretty much watch the beginning, the death scene, and Sam joining Dean at the end, and be okay. Everything else seemed pointless and tacked on (which is weird since we know it wasn’t shouldn’t have felt that way). I can imagine that seeing everybody back together in heaven would have softened the blow of killing Dean before the midway point of the finale — but I’m not gonna blame the pandemic for Dabb’s inability to adjust his own writing to a compelling alternative.

[Insert caustic remarks about a series’ worth of writing that fully expected the actor’s skill to gloss over all the failures of the script — and generally got away with exactly that — here.]

I do wish they had not used that other version of “Carry On My Wayward Son” over Sam’s death. It was incredibly distracting. The version from “Fan Fiction” would have been much more tolerable there.

I kind of hate that “Swan Song” is still a viable “series ender” — it made me so mad at the time, but unfortunately nothing’s really exceeded it as an alternative natural ending point. (Maybe season 11? I need to rewatch it.) 

I think it’s interesting that in Swan Song, Dean is the brother that got the happy, normal life and in this one, it’s Sam. Do we know if the aired version of Swan Song was how it was originally planned? Or was Dean originally going to be the one who died then too—until it was decided to extend the series?

[Aeryn13]

17 minutes ago, nara said:

I think it’s interesting that in Swan Song, Dean is the brother that got the happy, normal life and in this one, it’s Sam. Do we know if the aired version of Swan Song was how it was originally planned? Or was Dean originally going to be the one who died then too—until it was decided to extend the series?

Conflicting stories about that though I do believe, especially considering the dialogue between Lucy and Michael mirrored some earlier brother arguments between Dean and Sam, they would have both been vesseled up and ended up in the cage together. Heroes and together but in eternal torment. This would be the kind of dark Kripke would have done IMO.

Would I have liked it ten million times better than the Series Finale? Of course. Them in hell, at least you can easily fix with imagination. This episode, there is really no fixing. Dean especially. So what if he/they end up in "heaven"? That alone doesn't make me feel good about the story. 

It's supposed to be the sweet part in the bittersweet equation but I consider the episode just bitter. Heaven is just an empty cap-off. Legacy and meaning, character development would have been much more important to me than being shelved in meh heaven after regressing back to the Pilot. 

If characters can be summed by the Pilot of a show, there is really no need to watch their adventures. Watch the Pilot and the Series Finale and just ignore everything else. SPN might be the show where that actually works. Not a good thing.

 

[Binns]

2 hours ago, nara said:

I think it’s interesting that in Swan Song, Dean is the brother that got the happy, normal life and in this one, it’s Sam. Do we know if the aired version of Swan Song was how it was originally planned? Or was Dean originally going to be the one who died then too—until it was decided to extend the series?

For what it’s worth, I think Dean was only somewhat happy in the life with Lisa and Ben. I got the sense that he was having to try hard to make it work. 

[nara]

19 minutes ago, Binns said:

For what it’s worth, I think Dean was only somewhat happy in the life with Lisa and Ben. I got the sense that he was having to try hard to make it work. 

I thought he was still in mourning...but such a big lifestyle change would take some adjustment

[Castiels Cat]

7 hours ago, The Companion said:

That does make it worse. Thanks. 😭😆

If I didn't have to watch the intervening seasons to understand the finale, you have done something wrong. You have failed to move the story forward or you have gone backwards 

All if this 

You can't make me believe Dean's hunting prowess was Chuck. Chuck just told Amara that he does not control everything and it's been established that Dean goes off script... for instance Dean and Amara were off script. Chuck arranges things so probabilities happen and he would make sure that they got mega cursed in hunters'journey requiring the goddess of luck to reverse it. 

Dean could take those vampires in his sleep. Unfortunately Dabb is worse writer and a bigger big bad than Chuck. He doesn't care that Dean is the best hunter. Probably doesn't even remember that Dean has taken bigger nests on his own with just a machete, has forgotten about Purgatory and forgot about the special bullets in the previous scene. He is that bad.

Dean's death monologue made me cringe through my tears; those tears belonged to Jenson.

Look. Dean can die. It was done badly. It was a disservice to fans and the character.

The episode just was poor. It's no legacy. I really hope Jensen fixes it and reboots as if it never happened.

And the more I think about the waste of this season with the meaningless stunt casting and fan pandering... 

Does anyone have a clue what the 3rd spin-off was... Jack and the town folk?  Jack the Great?Jack goes a wandering...

 

[Castiels Cat]

9 hours ago, gonzosgirrl said:

Maybe the vamps put the pointy rebar hooks up  for a reason: to hang up their meat. It wasn't just a barn, it was their lair. Maybe the vamp knew it was there when he ran Dean back into it.

 

 

Rebar is specifically made as reinforcement for concrete. I suppose they could have found some abandoned concrete and gotten a sledge hammer and pulverized the concrete to free the rebar. Then they could saw off usable pieces and bend it into hooks... 

Or they could buy iron meat hooks of the tupe used in abatoirs and also barns where animals are slaughtered.

To me it's just more dumbo Dabbisms.

[gonzosgirrl]

52 minutes ago, Castiels Cat said:

Rebar is specifically made as reinforcement for concrete. I suppose they could have found some abandoned concrete and gotten a sledge hammer and pulverized the concrete to free the rebar. Then they could saw off usable pieces and bend it into hooks... 

Or they could buy iron meat hooks of the tupe used in abatoirs and also barns where animals are slaughtered.

To me it's just more dumbo Dabbisms.

Rebar is for reinforcing (the re part) concrete, but that is not its only use. I'm not sure why people are fixated on this, but making a super strong hook out of rebar is not an anomaly. Regardless, there's a photo of the 'prop' in a bag and it's referred to as a hook. Would a smooth metal hook have made it any different? Or a wooden peg? It was a means for him to die accidentally, that's all. It's a barn, he could've fallen on a pitchfork. I'm actually kind of surprised they resisted that. Stabbed in the back was a much more literal representation, I guess.

 

Edited November 29, 2020 by gonzosgirrl

[Castiels Cat]

10 minutes ago, gonzosgirrl said:

Rebar is for reinforcing (the re part) concrete, but that is not its only use. I'm not sure why people are fixated on this, but making a super strong hook out of rebar is not an anomaly. Regardless, there's a photo of the 'prop' in a bag and it's referred to as a hook. Would a smooth metal hook have made it any different? Or a wooden peg? It was a means for him to die accidentally, that's all. It's a barn, he could've fallen on a pitchfork. I'm actually kind of surprised they resisted that. Stabbed in the back was a much more literal representation, I guess.

Yes. He was stabbed in the back... just like Jensen. This is so true.

It was designed to make people angry. It's  a FU move.

Well he is getting called out on IMBD. All of the newest reviews are 1^. I just got tired of trying to find one that wasn't 1*. It's still relatively high in ratings now however I think people that had strong negative reactions took days to process and are just now doing things like making accounts to post a rating.

[ahrtee]

51 minutes ago, gonzosgirrl said:

Rebar is for reinforcing (the re part) concrete, but that is not its only use. I'm not sure why people are fixated on this, but making a super strong hook out of rebar is not an anomaly. Regardless, there's a photo of the 'prop' in a bag and it's referred to as a hook. Would a smooth metal hook have made it any different? Or a wooden peg? It was a means for him to die accidentally, that's all. It's a barn, he could've fallen on a pitchfork. I'm actually kind of surprised they resisted that. Stabbed in the back was a much more literal representation, I guess.

I'm just surprised no one (considering what the fandom is like) has commented on the phallic look of the "hook" (especially the angle it was at).  Ignoring all other possible interpretations, it could be seen as an actual FU rather than just a stab in the back.

[ahrtee]

4 minutes ago, PinkChicken said:

hahaha you follow nice people. I have seen plenty of "he died getting nailed" jokes, and even "ribbed for pleasure" comments

Then I guess I have to compliment the politeness (and discretion) of this forum for not quoting any of the more gross comments.  (I'm not on any SM partly for that reason!)

Thank you, Primetimer people!

[Castiels Cat]

11 hours ago, ahrtee said:

I'm just surprised no one (considering what the fandom is like) has commented on the phallic look of the "hook" (especially the angle it was at).  Ignoring all other possible interpretations, it could be seen as an actual FU rather than just a stab in the back.

Literal Backstabbing and then you die is the original F.U.

 

[Castiels Cat]

12 hours ago, gonzosgirrl said:

Rebar is for reinforcing (the re part) concrete, but that is not its only use. I'm not sure why people are fixated on this, but making a super strong hook out of rebar is not an anomaly. Regardless, there's a photo of the 'prop' in a bag and it's referred to as a hook. Would a smooth metal hook have made it any different? Or a wooden peg? It was a means for him to die accidentally, that's all. It's a barn, he could've fallen on a pitchfork. I'm actually kind of surprised they resisted that. Stabbed in the back was a much more literal representation, I guess.

 

Someone took rebar and made hooks. There's a whole decorative style based on this type of thing  now I really hate Fixer Upper.

[Whodunnit]

On 11/26/2020 at 7:46 AM, ahrtee said:

I've figured out a way to blame everything...on Jack.

Castiel: Jack, when Dean said he wanted to be 'nailed' in a barn, this wasn't what he meant.

Edit: Okay, I know the comment wasn't classy but can't you just picture Cas with his monotone voice and his finger quotes and his grumpy expression saying that?

Edited December 1, 2020 by Whodunnit

[PAForrest]

On 11/28/2020 at 10:39 AM, gonzosgirrl said:

Oh, the devil is in the details.

- vampires are supernaturally strong and they were outnumbered. so one of them getting the jump on Dean isn't horrible or OOC, but...

- they had vampire disabling bullets one scene before, why on earth didn't they use them immediately in the barn?

- Jack is omniscient now and even had the power to fix Heaven, and they specifically said he was going to be hands-off, so he couldn't save Dean, but...

- he saved Castiel. We're supposed to believe that he saw Cas, Dean and Sam as his family, his fathers, and he saved Castiel from a fate Cas agreed to, but he can't let Dean recover from a stab in the back a couple weeks into their new lives?

- even Sam, they spent so much time building this relationship with Eileen over the season. Cue the flash forward, to Sam with a young son and omg, yes! Saileen live on! but...

- there is no indication who the mother of his kid is, all the photos around him are old ones, or with the kid. In fact, it seems that Sam dies old and with only his son left to care.

ETA:

- Dean dies and goes to Heaven, looking just like he did when he died, and meets Bobby, who looks just like he did when he died, and tells Dean that Heaven is fixed, no more Memorex, etc. But...

- Sam dies and goes to Heaven, (which we aren't supposed to believe is Dean's Heaven, but a communal place) and he looks just like he did... when Dean died.

Devil in the details, indeed.

Thinking more about your details, and you're right, among the many problems with this finale, it was flat as a pancake. There were no details, there was no dimension at all.

As for Gack, while I'm glad he got off his stolen powers millennial ass to help Cas - from, as you said, a fate he agreed to - his not helping Dean, especially after supposedly granting him the freedom he never got to actually experience, proves Dean's feelings about him were spot on. Jack/Gack was never his family. And the CW CGI'ing Gack's name on the desk means less than nothing. It lacked dimension. It was flat.

I know there are a couple people on this board who were mad about what Dean said, were hoping Dean would take back his words at the end. But I'm glad he didn't, because Gack not saving Dean when he saved Cas proved that Dean was right all along. Jack/Gack was not his family - Jack/Gack couldn't care less if Dean lived or died. He never cared about Dean. Dean showed him more kindness and attention than the kid ever deserved seeing as he received nothing back from him except a murdered mother.

It annoyed the shit out of me too that the CW and Dabb et. al. were more worried that Jared look pretty at the end than having him show up in heaven looking like the old man he was when he died, as he should have. In fact, it frankly would have been more poignant if Dean recognized him purely for his soul and not the way he looked at the end of his life. Just another bit of proof that all the CW wanted was a flat pretty picture in the last shot, especially since they were only using this finale as a Walker promo. I'm seeing more fans on SM starting to post about that, starting to realize we didn't even get a Supernatural finale - we were screwed because of Walker.

Then again, that should make it easier to revisit it in the future since the show never got a proper finale.

On 11/28/2020 at 2:46 PM, Aeryn13 said:

If characters can be summed by the Pilot of a show, there is really no need to watch their adventures. Watch the Pilot and the Series Finale and just ignore everything else. SPN might be the show where that actually works. Not a good thing.

I still can't get over this part of it - that a new viewer could literally watch only two episodes of this show, pilot and finale, and miss absolutely nothing. Everything in between was rendered meaningless - 15 years of a waste of time. Hell, you didn't even have to know who Bobby was. You could just assume he was some heavenly Walmart greeter, especially since there was oddly no affection between him and Dean. Not a hug - and both had quarantined, so that's not an excuse - and no real familiarity. Bobby was just some dude sitting there waiting to greet new shoppers to the store. He literally could have looked like anyone.

[Casseiopeia]

1 hour ago, PAForrest said:

especially since there was oddly no affection between him and Dean. Not a hug - and both had quarantined, so that's not an excuse - and no real familiarity. Bobby was just some dude sitting there waiting to greet new shoppers to the store. He literally could have looked like anyone.

That's funny because I thought the reunion of Sam and Dean was flat as well.  Heaven kind of looks like the Stepford version that Dean was fighting so hard to prevent in S4.

[Myrelle]

7 minutes ago, Casseiopeia said:

That's funny because I thought the reunion of Sam and Dean was flat as well.  Heaven kind of looks like the Stepford version that Dean was fighting so hard to prevent in S4.

This.

So much. For me too. 😶

 

[Terese]

On 11/26/2020 at 6:46 AM, ahrtee said:

I've figured out a way to blame everything...on Jack.

Once he got Cas out of the Empty, and they were working on resetting heaven, he saw how unhappy Cas was and how much he missed Dean (and vice-versa).  Knowing that if both Sam and Dean were together, Cas would still be the third wheel, Jack decided to bring Dean to heaven first, and give them a few decades together alone.  So, like the snake from Orobouros, Jack killed Dean thinking it would make both Cas and Dean happy to have time together.  He didn't want Cas to know that he'd interfered, so he simply moved the rebar two inches over to the proper place and angle.  

But then Cas, learning that he was the cause of Dean's death (and of leaving Sam behind) and unable to do any more resurrections, felt so guilty that he couldn't face him in heaven.  

So...it wasn't fate, or bad luck, or clumsiness that killed Dean so stupidly.  It was Jack.

New head canon! ☺️

 

 

And I thought I couldn't dislike Jack even more than I already do.

[PAForrest]

3 hours ago, Casseiopeia said:

That's funny because I thought the reunion of Sam and Dean was flat as well.  Heaven kind of looks like the Stepford version that Dean was fighting so hard to prevent in S4.

I don't disagree at all, especially from Sam's side. At least we get a little smile from Dean and we are aware that he knows Sam has arrived without even turning around.

I know Jared says he thought it turned out great that they just say each other's names at the end, but I wish he put as much energy into his delivery of Dean's name as he did in choosing the wardrobe. Again the word flat comes to mind - there was no emotion there.

Heaven was a huge disappointment. Very Stepford indeed.

[Aeryn13]

51 minutes ago, PAForrest said:

I don't disagree at all, especially from Sam's side. At least we get a little smile from Dean and we are aware that he knows Sam has arrived without even turning around.

I know Jared says he thought it turned out great that they just say each other's names at the end, but I wish he put as much energy into his delivery of Dean's name as he did in choosing the wardrobe. Again the word flat comes to mind - there was no emotion there.

Heaven was a huge disappointment. Very Stepford indeed.

Since the Finale concept was a pretty much a 1:1 copy of Vampire Diaries, they also re-used the first words between the brothers in their first onscreen scene in their afterlife reunion. The reason that worked is because their first scene they were flat-out enemies so the line delivery was menacing. In the final scene the line delivery is happy and brotherly. Which signifies character development and that the show had a purpose in that regard.

While maybe the first meeting in SPN between the brothers in the Pilot wasn`t too fluffy, it certainly wasn`t as bitter enemies. And by basically saying in the Finale "sure, if the show had ended after the Pilot, we could have the exact same thing now", the flat line delivery just adds to the empty, meaningless story. So they stand next to each other on an empty bridge in some sort of still Stepford-looking heaven - because they didn`t bother fleshing it out in any way - where one guy whose life apparently meant not much meets another guy who lived a life but arrives looking just as young and as if he didn`t just come off another 30-40 years of a different life. Then they say "hi" to each other and we get a gimmick of a final scene. 

What was the point of the show Supernatural? What was the point of any of the stories they told? What was the point of the Winchesters? What was the point of Dean especially? Which legacy did they/he leave? Arguably Sam leaves a blurry wife and a son.

[gonzosgirrl]

And weren't those kids now orphans?

[ahrtee]

2 minutes ago, gonzosgirrl said:

And weren't those kids now orphans?

No, mom was still alive, just tongue-less.  Which makes no sense whatsoever in any lore ever mentioned.  Ever.  

[gonzosgirrl]

39 minutes ago, PinkChicken said:

Sam does say "one of the bodies" plural, but yeah she would have to be alive to draw something, so

I really did miss this. It makes no sense that vampires would leave perfectly good food behind alive and just take the kids. One more thing for the wtf list I guess.

[ahrtee]

So....out of a combination of being truly pissed off at the flatness of the ep, and waaaay too much time on my hands, I actually *counted* the number of words written in this episode.  It came out to approximately 1770.  That's *words,* folks, not sentences or lines, and includes all the little ones like "a", "the", "and", "but" and "no" (though I did skip some of the repeated words Dean said in his death speech, with the idea that that was an acting choice when he was struggling to get the words out, rather than written.)  Dean's death scene, btw, was a little over 500 words.  But the count also includes all the random people introducing themselves, as well as doomed parents telling their kids to go to bed.  Even if we count stage directions, it wouldn't add much to the number (I'm pretty sure it would be something like "Big fight with vamps in barn.  Sam kills a few, Dean gets pushed onto spike,") because most of the visual/action would be done by directing, editing, stunts and actors rather than scripted.   So the whole script as written (without all the spacing) would be about 3-5 pages long.

So what does this actually mean to me?  Two things (neither unexpected, but still really, *really* annoying):

1.  Dabb had no interest in writing anything emotional, thought-provoking, or even vaguely interesting, just standard paint-by-numbers, with the briefest possible scenes to get to his conclusion, and

2.  I have no idea how much he's paid per episode, but, just on a per-word basis, he's being paid *waaaaaay* too much.

[Casseiopeia]

1 hour ago, ahrtee said:

1.  Dabb had no interest in writing anything emotional, thought-provoking, or even vaguely interesting, just standard paint-by-numbers, with the briefest possible scenes to get to his conclusion, and

2.  I have no idea how much he's paid per episode, but, just on a per-word basis, he's being paid *waaaaaay* too much.

I used to think that he couldn't have spent more than 30 min. on his script but now I think it took him months to come up with anything at all he could write for the 2 stars of "his" show (that he pretty much ignored for 4 seasons) and this was all he could think of.

I'm guessing that Dabb was the most overpaid show runner in television.

[Castiels Cat]

On 12/2/2020 at 9:39 AM, ahrtee said:

No, mom was still alive, just tongue-less.  Which makes no sense whatsoever in any lore ever mentioned.  Ever.  

They left tongueless adults. It was mentioned in John's journal. It was their m.o.

Weird ass vamp mime cult.

Edited December 7, 2020 by Castiels Cat

[Castiels Cat]

On 12/2/2020 at 7:36 AM, PinkChicken said:

We keep talking about the point and their legacy, and the people saved, and the good done...

We didn't even get to see Sam driving those kids home. In the immediate context of that episode THEY are the whole point. They are Deans one last victory, and even 2 insignificant unnamed children would 100% be worth it to Dean. 

Where was the tiniest amount of time spent on what is effectively Deans dying wish. One, since you're about to be completely lost & destroyed you need to take that one next step, and that one next step is those kids there -they're what's important. Two, then promise me you'll be okay. 
Why didn't we get a short clip of them getting out of the car, and the bigger one leading the smaller one forwards back to their life while Sam watches them with some kind of heartbreaking expression on his face? Even on this smaller scale the entire point of Deans death was just glossed over in favour of Sam pain and the montages of nothingness.
And we hardly even noticed, since it has been so long since we had a victim of the week who was an actual fleshed out person, or even half of a metaphor or projection for the story. They're all just plot-chow and everything is meaningless.

Sam could have remembered them as kids... or other people that they... DEAN had saved because of the family business.

Yes... it could have been done so much better and I think DeaN should have died fighting trying to save Sam's life. He should have died making the kill to save his brother.

Dabb deserves eternal shame for this script 

Edited December 7, 2020 by Castiels Cat

[gonzosgirrl]

16 minutes ago, Castiels Cat said:

Yes... it could have been done so much better and I think DeN should have died fighting trying to save Sam's life. He should have died making the kill to save his brother.

I think this is the one (and only) thing Badd got right. If Dean had died saving Sam, it would just be one more way to make it all about Sam and Sam's survivor's guilt. It is right that Dean die saving innocents - Badd just did an incredibly, well, bad job of writing it, both in execution and follow through.

[Katy M]

12 minutes ago, gonzosgirrl said:

I think this is the one (and only) thing Badd got right. If Dean had died saving Sam, it would just be one more way to make it all about Sam and Sam's survivor's guilt.

I agree.  Obviously it would have been in-character for him to die saving Sam if he had to.  But, I think would have been a bad way to go for quite a few reasons.

[Aeryn13]

44 minutes ago, gonzosgirrl said:

I think this is the one (and only) thing Badd got right. If Dean had died saving Sam, it would just be one more way to make it all about Sam and Sam's survivor's guilt. It is right that Dean die saving innocents - Badd just did an incredibly, well, bad job of writing it, both in execution and follow through.

Dean was the cliche of the fridged girlfriend in the episode anyway. Died a quick pointless death that was all about the male chracter's manpain and then got shelved as some "prize" for that character with no wants, ideas or mind of their own because it's not important.

The Pilot had Jessica, the Finale had Dean. 

[PAForrest]

4 hours ago, ahrtee said:

So....out of a combination of being truly pissed off at the flatness of the ep, and waaaay too much time on my hands, I actually *counted* the number of words written in this episode.  It came out to approximately 1770.  That's *words,* folks, not sentences or lines...

So what does this actually mean to me?  Two things (neither unexpected, but still really, *really* annoying):

1.  Dabb had no interest in writing anything emotional, thought-provoking, or even vaguely interesting, just standard paint-by-numbers, with the briefest possible scenes to get to his conclusion, and

2.  I have no idea how much he's paid per episode, but, just on a per-word basis, he's being paid *waaaaaay* too much.

That is interesting. And yes, when I think back on it, there are few scenes with lines in them. The whole thing is padded with at least, what, three long-ass musical montages? And that's just what I can remember. I mean, come on, if you were in college and taking a screenwriting class, and turned in a project like this, I think you'd be lucky to get a C-, at best. If you have to pad your script that much, you're not doing it right.

I still have to wonder how much of this is Dabb, though, and how much is CW interference? We know of at least one scene that was cut - Alex said he shot a scene, and it wasn't used. Chances are high that Misha filmed a scene too - possibly with Jack, possibly not. Or worst case scenario, he quarantined for two weeks, and at the end of it Singer and Dabb said, 'thanks, we'll pay you, but we're not using you.'

I mean, if the script really didn't change that much - except for seeing all the cameos in heaven - then yeah, it's hard to imagine Dabb put more than 30 minutes of effort into it. The script is thin.

OTOH, if he had a script that wasn't padded with one musical montage after another, and the CW came in and said, 'cut this and this and this and this', then that actually would explain all the montage padding. Wouldn't make it better, but it would explain such a paper thin script.

I'm feeling there is blame on both sides for this flat one-dimensional finale - or possibly multiple sides if Singer and Dabb disagreed on points too.

Whatever the explanation is, it will remain a sad one-dimensional end to a 15 year journey.

[gonzosgirrl]

I just can't see it being network interference. The only thing they would possibly kibosh is Destiel, and if Badd wrote a script heavy enough on that that excluding those scenes would leave him with nothing but montages, then that is STILL on him. He's (presumably) not an idiot at least as far as knowing what he could get away with, and also presumably, a network that intent on censorship would have at least looked in on the filming before the 11th hour. I just don't buy it. It's far more plausible to me that Badd is just that shitty a storyteller.

[ahrtee]

35 minutes ago, gonzosgirrl said:

I just can't see it being network interference. The only thing they would possibly kibosh is Destiel, and if Badd wrote a script heavy enough on that that excluding those scenes would leave him with nothing but montages, then that is STILL on him. He's (presumably) not an idiot at least as far as knowing what he could get away with, and also presumably, a network that intent on censorship would have at least looked in on the filming before the 11th hour. I just don't buy it. It's far more plausible to me that Badd is just that shitty a storyteller.

Yup.

ETA:  They had the script in the works for well over a year.  They had it finalized and ready to shoot up until the shutdown in February/March.  They had six months to rewrite during the shutdown.  If the network had had any objections, they could have stopped things at any point along the way.  And aside from (I assume) occasionally asking some of the writers to tone down some of the subtext to avoid the kind of backlash they're going through now, AFAIK the network never really censored or cut anything (considering there were any number of things that should have been cut for bad taste and bad writing, if nothing else).

I think Dabb's original story was exactly the same as this, except with a large assortment of cameos and guest shots from everyone they've ever talked to over the last 15 years, in the hopes that fans would be so thrilled/nostalgic that they'd overlook the fact that there was actually no story.  And that's what Covid took away--the ability to distract the viewers with guest stars and overwhelming nostalgic bullshit.  

Edited December 2, 2020 by ahrtee

[ILoveReading]

Dabb would have actually wrote less than 1700 words.  Because Jared and Jensen have both said they pretty much improvised the dialogue in the barn so Dabb doesn't even get credit for that.

[Castiels Cat]

I cannot believe how many people are just fine with Chuck being the reason the Winchesters were heroes... ergo this is why Dean dies on the hunt. 

They claim Dean never wanted anything but to die hunting and for Sam to have a life so he got what he wanted. And Sam gets a life... yeah!!!!

I relish saying that Sam stops hunting and stops the family business and the only difference from s 8 is that he doesn't have to hit a dog because he took Dean's. And he did it pre-season one too without the dog because he was at college. Sam only plays the hero of Dean is there. DEAN IS THE FAMILT BUSINESS.

Chuck did not write them. He wrote about them and he moved pieces around trying to influence things at certain points. They do not change because Chuck no longer writes. The only difference is he no longer has any influence.