S06.E17: My Heart Will Go On

[Guest]

After Balthazar changes history and keeps the Titanic from sinking, Fate intervenes and begins killing those that would have died on the ship. Castiel tells Sam and Dean that Fate is very upset with the two of them and the only way they can stay alive is to kill her.

 

 

[DittyDotDot]

I rather adore this episode but, that may be the bias talking since I'm an unabashed lover of pretty much anything alternative universey.

 

I love the beginning of the episode, how they don't overplay their hand and give the gag away too early. Bobby researching and drinking while Sam and Dean are mouthing to each other and the rock/paper/scissors moment is just pure gold. That's the moment I knew it had to be an alternative universe. The car change up; the elaborate, gruesome deaths; Dean's "lighter" attitude; B & E Salvage; lots and lots of little details that make this episode really work for me.

 

Ellen is just such a delight for me to see--that alone makes this episode worthwhile, IMO--and it makes perfect sense to me having her and Bobby together even though I'd never considered it previously to seeing this episode. I even enjoy Balthazar in this episode. For the most part, I've been less than interested in Balthazar, but here his entire attitude seems to work perfectly for me and makes him seem somewhat interesting to me. Plus, it ties the episode into the main arc of the season fairly well.

 

My only nit pick is Fate, somehow she just doesn't quite do it for me. And Cass wanting Sam and Dean to remember seemed sort of forced to me. Otherwise, this is a fairly solid episode and one of the few bright lights of the second half of S6, IMO.

 

Random aside: I do wonder how terrible it would've been for them to have stayed with this timeline? I mean, yeah people were dying, but people are always dying and they weren't even supposed to be there in the first place. Cass could've gotten the soul power he needed to win his war with Raphael; Ellen and Jo would still be alive; and Sam and Dean seem to be happier in this version...seems kinda upside to me. Oh, wait, no Baby...never mind, the show's just not right without her. ;)

[Hanahope]

Yup, Supernatural characters never really "die", there's always a way to bring them back.  It was nice seeing Bobby and Ellen together.  /sigh

On 12/6/2014 at 9:40 PM, DittyDotDot said:

Random aside: I do wonder how terrible it would've been for them to have stayed with this timeline? I mean, yeah people were dying, but people are always dying and they weren't even supposed to be there in the first place. Cass could've gotten the soul power he needed to win his war with Raphael; Ellen and Jo would still be alive; and Sam and Dean seem to be happier in this version...seems kinda upside to me. Oh, wait, no Baby...never mind, the show's just not right without her. ;)

I kindof agree.  Yeah, the deaths were weired and forced, but I don't think it would have been all that bad to keep things the way they were (and I don't even know the full story of Cass' war or "baby"?).  But, would Fate have left SAm and Dean alone.  That seems to be the tipping point for Cass.  True, Fate might not have been on their tail but for the decision to try and kill Fate, but it sounded like she was upset at Cass anyway, so she still might have gone after them.  

I lol'd at their walking in the middle of the two guys juggling fire axes/hatchets.  And the guy with the big dogs who had to go down the same set of stairs as the boys, rather than the set of stairs right next to them.

Did Celine Dion have some other hit singles before Titanic?  I know that was her biggest one, but she was a name before then.

The other point with changing history and suddenly having a whole bunch of people alive that should have been dead, is that it really affects posterity.  Now you have people who instead of marrying A, then met and married B instead and had completely different children, who now meet different people to marry and have kids, and so on, and now some other kids never get born and they never beget their children, and who knows what everyone doens that affects other parts of history.  It can be a real mess.

[RulerofallIsurvey]

39 minutes ago, Hanahope said:

or "baby"?

Baby is Dean's name for the impala.  :)

[DittyDotDot]

1 hour ago, Hanahope said:

(and I don't even know the full story of Cass' war or "baby"?).

Baby is what Dean--and the fans--call the Impala. ;)

1 hour ago, Hanahope said:

But, would Fate have left SAm and Dean alone.

No, she wouldn't. And, you are correct, it would be a huge mess. I was just being silly in setting up the joke about Baby. ;)

[Hanahope]

Ah ok.  I did lol at the Mustang instead of the Impalla.  Ah, the details.

[DittyDotDot]

17 minutes ago, Hanahope said:

Ah ok.  I did lol at the Mustang instead of the Impalla.  Ah, the details.

FYI, this was also a meta joke. Back when Kripke was writing the script for the show, he knew he wanted an iconic car--Kripke was really in love with some shows he grew up with were the "heroes" drove around an iconic car. Anyway, Kripke had a neighbor who was a car guy and told him he was writing this pilot and he wanted them to drive a kick-ass car...maybe a Mustang or something. Apparently his neighbor told him that would be a great car if the characters were "pussies," but he should consider a '67 Impala. Something about being able to put a body in the trunk. ;)

Anyway, since this episode is pretty much "what could've been" the Mustang was another silly nod to that. Same with Dean winning Rock-Paper-Scissors for the first time in the show's history. 

Edited May 26, 2017 by DittyDotDot

[RulerofallIsurvey]

1 hour ago, DittyDotDot said:

Something about being able to put a body in the trunk. ;)

A Very Important feature of any car!  I've never owned one I couldn't.  ;)

[DittyDotDot]

5 minutes ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

A Very Important feature of any car!  I've never owned one I couldn't.  ;)

Hmmm? Puts a twist on those road trips you like to take. ;)

[RulerofallIsurvey]

1 minute ago, DittyDotDot said:

Hmmm? Puts a twist on those road trips you like to take. ;)

LOL!  It's all about the trunk space, baby.  As my friends used to say: Friends help you move.  Good friends help you move bodies.  :D

True story: I remember shopping for my first brand new car (as my first had been a hand-me-down) and I was looking at smaller, more fuel efficient cars.  Problem was: there wasn't much trunk space in most of them and I used to like to go to the beach with my friends and had to pack a bunch of stuff in addition to suitcase: cooler, beach umbrella, chairs, etc.  And you need space for everyone's 'stuff'.  I finally looked at one (a Chevy, no less!) and I said: "Oh yeah.  You can fit a body in there."  The salesman gave me such a weird look!  

[Katy M]

1 hour ago, RulerofallIsurvey said:

I finally looked at one (a Chevy, no less!) and I said: "Oh yeah.  You can fit a body in there."  The salesman gave me such a weird look!  

The last car I bought, the salesman pointed out I could put a body in there.  I think I said, "good to know but I probably wont'."  Don't need suspsicious people remembering me to the cops after all.

 

6 hours ago, Hanahope said:

Did Celine Dion have some other hit singles before Titanic?  I know that was her biggest one, but she was a name before then.

I think that was just another timeline change that didn't specifically have to do with the movie.  Because, yes, you're right, she had hits before then.

 

6 hours ago, Hanahope said:

The other point with changing history and suddenly having a whole bunch of people alive that should have been dead, is that it really affects posterity.  Now you have people who instead of marrying A, then met and married B instead and had completely different children, who now meet different people to marry and have kids, and so on, and now some other kids never get born and they never beget their children, and who knows what everyone doens that affects other parts of history.  It can be a real mess.

That's why I hate all things time travel, and I'm really not crazy about this epi.  At all.

[Hanahope]

5 minutes ago, Katy M said:

That's why I hate all things time trave

This was one of my biggests gripes with the show Timeless.  The very first episode has the Hindenberg not blowing up, which meant a lot of people lived.  And yet the show had only one repurcussion of that event, the female lead's sister didn't get born (because that father - different from the lead's - married a descendant of a Hindenburg survivor instead of the lead's mother).  But that was the only effect the show ever had of all the little time line changes the team did.  really annoying.

[bettername2come]

The opening scene is like a Final Destination movie. Actually, a lot of the episode is like Final Destination. Dean won Rock, Paper, Scissors! The original license plate! Bobby and Ellen are an amazing couple. Why can't we have nice things? I love Dean's line of questioning. Jo has a crew! Ellen takes cares if everybody. I stand by my opinion that all Balthazar's tricks would be better played by Gabriel. Did Balthazar obliterate the entire Impala line? That's just wrong! Aw, the salvage yard got renamed B & E. That's cute. "Yeah, Dean, I'm pretty sure six seconds is too soon." "You need new friends, Cas." "I'm trying to save the ones I have, Dean." Nice moment. Whose idea was it to have those extreme closeups on Bobby and Ellen when he tells her? It's just weird. "One Way or Another" is just beautiful. We could use more chick rock on this show. I like the twist that Castiel was behind it all. "Why are you having my dreams, dude?" Interesting how many characters repeat the "not being born isn't the same as dying" line, especially since Sam and Dean said it first way back in season 5. Who keeps a framed picture of himself by himself next to his couch?

[AwesomO4000]

On 7/21/2017 at 0:06 AM, bettername2come said:

Who keeps a framed picture of himself by himself next to his couch?

I fanwank that Sam or Dean took it of him and gave it to him as a present... and that it was as much or more about the salvage yard sign as it was about Bobby (especially since Bobby was now a bit off to the side and the sign was prominently in the middle if I remember correctly.)

[bettername2come]

14 hours ago, AwesomO4000 said:

I fanwank that Sam or Dean took it of him and gave it to him as a present... and that it was as much or more about the salvage yard sign as it was about Bobby (especially since Bobby was now a bit off to the side and the sign was prominently in the middle if I remember correctly.)

All right, kid!Dean took the picture to commemorate opening the salvage yard and Bobby kept it because it Dean took it. I can believe that. 

[RulerofallIsurvey]

Oh, that opening has my teeth on edge the entire time.  

Sam and Dean are adorable standing there not-whispering to each other: "say something" "you" "no, you".  Such brothers.  Sam has a loud whisper.  Bet he was never good at those games where you have to whisper in the next person's ear.  

Bobby and Ellen are a cute couple.  Dean with the Russo guy was a little like SoullessSam with the FairyLady.  "If you don't watch your back, you're gonna die."  Don't sugarcoat it there, Dean.  Is is a blood sugar problem?  ;)  Who leans over a short-circuiting piece of electrical equipment to unplug it?  

I miss when angels had wings and could teleport - and be summoned.  Do Fate and Death work together?  Seems to me like the lesson Death was trying to teach Dean about how the guys coming back to life messed with 'the natural order of things' and he made some comment about having to clean up the mess.  Now Bobby's saying that Fate's trying to clean up the mess of the Titanic not sinking.  Or is it more like Death is Fate's boss?  Or maybe they're just friends and Death was sympathizing with Fate's plight of having to constantly clean up after the Winchesters.

The bus taking out Russo still makes me jump.  Sam's face when it happens - that grimace - is cute.  How on earth would Sam know at one glance - across a street and through a dirty window no less - that was Fate?  Does time stop for everyone while Fate does her dirty work or just for the people she's trying to off?  Nice save there, Cas.  

I don't understand why the Titanic not sinking would save Ellen and Jo in the first place.  The Apocalypse still happened - so they still should have been dead, I think.  

[Iju]

THEY. ACTUALLY. SHOWED. THE. BEHEADING!!! i couldn't BELIEVE it. me and my sister jumped and stared in half shock, half betrayal. here we were believing the show would censor as usual.

the ep did a good job confusing df out of me with the "wait till she gets home" and wondering what the titantic was. ellen. my beautiful wonderful ellen.  i don't care she's there for 15mins, i latched onto every second.

okay, is that whole scene when dean and sam try to walk normally through the potential dangers a classic SPN scene? because their reactions were too hilarious.

[The Companion]

Ellen! I am still mad that she and Jo were written off. And poor Bobby. First his wife comes back and turns out to be a zombie. Then the nice single woman next door baked him a cobbler only to swipe left because of one little wood chipper incident. Now he loses a happy, stable relationship and he doesn't even know it.

I am such a clumsy person, that I am fairly sure I will die like one of these people. I liked this one a lot, particularly with the final destination style sequences.

[Katy M]

9 hours ago, The Companion said:

Ellen! I am still mad that she and Jo were written off. And poor Bobby. First his wife comes back and turns out to be a zombie. Then the nice single woman next door baked him a cobbler only to swipe left because of one little wood chipper incident. Now he loses a happy, stable relationship and he doesn't even know it.

I would say since he doesn't know it, it doesn't count.  And if he were married to Ellen in the new timeline, then at the very least the Marcy thing probably never happened there.  Don't know about his first wife.

Yeah.  One little wood chipper incident.  Geesh.  Some people are so squeamish.

[MagnusHex]

It's been a while since I've really, and I mean really, enjoyed an episode on this show, and this is easily one of my favorites, even more than The French Mistake (the other episode this season I greatly enjoyed). The Final Destination references were fun and it's about damn time they pulled a Rube Goldberg machine death. The bigger appeal is the existence of Fate. It's an ingenious MotW to bring to a TV budget show like Supernatural because the Fates from the Greek myths are literally humanoids, not some cool monster that would be hard to pull off with cheap makeup effects.

And even though it's kinda questionable why Death and the Fates exist in the same universe, I don't really care about that nitpick. It's a freaking sister of the Fates. That's a big deal. She was in Disney's Hercules! 😂 That's like if you got Zeus or Thor on the show. Almost.

The fate of Ellen and Jo aside - the only competent female characters around before - I feel like the angels and even God could have handled the fate of the Titanic a lot better. That wasn't some natural disaster decided by God - it was a man-made mistake. I just feel like not saving 50,000 souls by stopping a preventable mistake was kinda frustrating. Even though I'm not old enough to have lived through that time, I've always felt frustrated by how the real Titanic went down, how a few checks and caution could have saved so many lives. Ah well.

4/5