S14.E14: Ouroboros

[S Cook Productions]

1 hour ago, Advance35 said:

It was the smaller parts that made the whole worthwhile for me.

Jack's "What's A.V. Club?"

Cas explains.

Dean points at Cas. "He's A.V. Club." lol.

Also, I don't think we've ever heard Castiel talk about the mortality. of the Winchesters.  We know at times, he admires mortals but the nuance of his outlook, in terms of the future and his long spanning existence, a large part, that will be without Dean and Sam.  It was surprisingly poignant and strangely inspiring.

I don't think I've ever seen Sam have chemistry with ANY of his love interest, it's so typical, he would have AWESOME chemistry with Rowena.  Them pretending to be a married couple, fretting over the dog, Rowena picking at Sam about how Jack was saved.   They make it into the hall of fame of Supernatural dynamics for me.  Right up there with Dean/Castiel, Dean/Crowley, Crowley/Castiel.

Rowena's confidence that Michael couldn't kill her because fate has decreed it will be Sam.  Then saying "It makes dinner parties a little awkward but...." lol.

The Ghoul was absolutely chilling.  I thought what he was cooking in the beginning looked really good, until the camera pulled back.  Him slapping Castiel twice made me lol, though it shouldn't have.

Michael was a little anti-climatic but what are you going to do.

I don't always get to watch live but this was an enjoyable episode for me.

Also, the show is still trending World Wide an hour later.  Say what you will about the writing, this show's characters are iconic.

It sooooo fascinated me to see all the varied viewpoints here. I love it! I love that we all saw the same show and yet completely saw different things. That’s the great part of an active and invested fandom, and forums like this. 🙂

I thought of this while watching it tonight, and knew there would be those who hated it and those who loved it. 

Out of all the comments I’ve seen, my opinion aligns most with this one from Advance35. Pretty much agree with everything here. 🙂

Av club was great (I was in AV club, big surprise lol). Cas’ speech about human mortality was great, and I also liked Jack’s speech. Don’t mind that the AU hunters are pretty much all gone now and that Jack has his grace back. Rowena was awesome. The villain was suitably gross and creepy. Although, I’m surprised that he couldn’t see Angels yet his paralyzing potion worked on Cas no problem. In fact, it seemed to work even better on Cas than it did on humans- unless Cas was just so surprised that he literally slapped him. Lol. 

[Cambion]

6 minutes ago, BabySpinach said:

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'll 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 was truly the end of Michael's story, it will be an objectively bad one.  

I appreciate the clarification of your of criticizing the story.  I enjoy your posts, since, as a writer I learn from your analyses.  I guess I misunderstood your not real people comment and over the years I've seen people really grind themselves down over what happens to their fav characters and as a protector type personality... ah well.  

❤️

[ZennyKenny]

13 minutes ago, Pondlass1 said:

I think the big bad is supposed to be Jack?  I don’t  know if the actor is up to it.

I'm wondering the same thing. It would be interesting to see Michael's grace infect him and turn him evil. For me it's more like "I don't know if the writers are up to it".

[Bergamot]

30 minutes ago, rue721 said:

And it was a sweet sentiment to say that the Winchesters (and Cas) are his family, but I thought it was an awkward thing to say "I'm a Winchester." It felt too corporate somehow? Like they're a sports team or something. *shrug*

That was just an awkward and unconvincing attempt by the show to distract the audience from the fact that the Winchesters actually had nothing to do with the victory over Michael. Unlike the other times when the Winchesters defeated some ultimate supernatural evil, this time they contributed nothing, they sacrificed nothing, they did nothing but lay on the floor and be irrelevant.

[Myrelle]

1 minute ago, ZennyKenny said:

I'm wondering the same thing. It would be interesting to see Michael's grace infect him and turn him evil. For me it's more like "I don't know if the writers are up to it".

I don't think either one of them are up to it, but if Dean got to kill him(for good), it would make me happy; but I'm pretty sure that won't happen either.

Dean is going to strictly be the wind beneath someone's wings at the end of this season. 

That's the only thing I'd bet on for the character, at this point.

[rue721]

We'll probably see a few more villains before the end of the season, and one of them will probably create a cliffhanger for the summer hiatus, but I think that Michael's going to be the closest thing to a Big Bad that this season's got. This was already episode 14 out of 20.

Maybe this season is Supernatural's very long-winded retelling of Samuel Beckett's masterpiece, Waiting for Godot.

In which case, Sam and Dean are Estragon and Vladimir, and Cas and Jack are Pozzo and Lucky. Billie is the messenger boy from Godot. And Nick is playing out a similar story himself, but it's even more of a farce of a farce since he's doing it all alone and as tragically as possible.

And Rowena is somehow the Greek Chorus. Yes, I know there isn't one in Waiting for Godot, but bear with me.

Oh and I guess Godot is the big bad. Or maybe Chuck, who knows.

Edited March 8, 2019 by rue721

[Myrelle]

6 minutes ago, Bergamot said:

That was just an awkward and unconvincing attempt by the show to distract the audience from the fact that the Winchesters actually had nothing to do with the victory over Michael. Unlike the other times when the Winchesters defeated some ultimate supernatural evil, this time they contributed nothing, they sacrificed nothing, they did nothing but lay on the floor and be irrelevant.

It was so lame, IMO.

His acting(and Ruth's too) was simply atrocious in those last scenes, IMO.

[BabySpinach]

21 minutes ago, Cambion said:

I appreciate the clarification of your of criticizing the story.  I enjoy your posts, since, as a writer I learn from your analyses.  I guess I misunderstood your not real people comment and over the years I've seen people really grind themselves down over what happens to their fav characters and as a protector type personality... ah well.  

❤️

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.

Edited March 8, 2019 by BabySpinach

[ZennyKenny]

9 minutes ago, Myrelle said:

It was so lame, IMO.

His acting(and Ruth's too) was simply atrocious in those last scenes, IMO.

I hate to admit it, but you're totally right about Ruth. I was kinda cringing to myself and thinking "wow that is SO NOT Michael.

[ILoveReading]

I'm glad Dean got to give Sam and Cas an "I told you so." 

They deserved it.

Edited March 8, 2019 by ILoveReading

[gonzosgirrl]

49 minutes ago, Cambion said:

So, while these writers may not work like that, I wanted to illustrate that there is a real relationship between the show and the fans. 

Unfortunately, it's with a select group of fans, whose wants and wishes for the show pretty much diametrically oppose mine.

[gonzosgirrl]

6 minutes ago, ILoveReading said:

I'm glad Dean got to give Sam and Cas an "I told you so." 

They deserved it.

And they will never speak of it again, unless it's for one of them to gloat how it's a good thing Dean didn't jump in the box, since all it took was a pissed off nougat baby to fix things up.

I, too, think Jackifer will be the big bad/cliffhanger. I'll give even money that he gets to take a resurrected Lucifer out, and Sam is in imminent peril when the credits roll on 14x23. Dean angstily yelling Sammeh!!! is odds-on. 

[Cambion]

11 minutes ago, BabySpinach said:

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.

Yes, I dabble from time to time.  Haven't been published in years because I'm just too laid back about a great many things.  *snort*

I really identify with Dean.  I find his reactions to a lot of things to be the same as my own, and it's honestly the first time I've seen a character so beautifully, wonderfully, and humanly flawed.  (My writerly thing is characterizations and relationships.) Most of the characters on this show are very well drawn, and I get annoyed or impatient or perplexed by them simply because they remind me of real people I know.  Which, as awful as it sounds, is a good thing.  And remembering that they are not real actual living people makes it easier to forgive them their foibles in ways that I have never forgiven my family and friends for some of the same things.  

And I do find it endearing how many people here are willing to duke it out (even if it's only on a message board) in defense of fictional people.  I love how this fandom connects.  Not only with the stories and characters, but with each other.  I wish I had run into it sooner since  I enjoy it so much and am getting so much out of it.  Not just fandom enjoyment, but in terms of IRL emotional support, as well.

Anyway, cheers y'all, I gotta get some shut eye and it takes me hours of winding down to get there so I need to shut things down and make my safe space.

❤️

14 minutes ago, ILoveReading said:

I'm glad Dean got to give Sam and Cas an "I told you so." 

They deserved it.

A billion times THIS!!!!!  I've been dying to see that and I'm going to make a clip and watch it over and over just for the feels!

[BabySpinach]

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. 

[ILoveReading]

5 minutes ago, gonzosgirrl said:

And they will never speak of it again, unless it's for one of them to gloat how it's a good thing Dean didn't jump in the box, since all it took was a pissed off nougat baby to fix things up.

I, too, think Jackifer will be the big bad/cliffhanger. I'll give even money that he gets to take a resurrected Lucifer out, and Sam is in imminent peril when the credits roll on 14x23. Dean angstily yelling Sammeh!!! is odds-on. 

I'm sure Dean will retract it but I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.  I expect he'll thank Jack for saving him next week.

I personally hope neither brother is in peril at the end of this season.  I'm so O'Ded on sick suffering Sam I no longer care, and if its Dean it will be dropped by the end of the first episode.  Dabb isnt' capable of actually telling a story.    That much is obvious.  (My opinion, of course. )

[ster1]

10 minutes ago, gonzosgirrl said:

I, too, think Jackifer will be the big bad/cliffhanger. I'll give even money that he gets to take a resurrected Lucifer out, and Sam is in imminent peril when the credits roll on 14x23. Dean angstily yelling Sammeh!!! is odds-on. 

2

Sounds about right (except Cas will also be lying unconscious on the floor)

[gonzosgirrl]

3 minutes ago, ster1 said:

Sounds about right (except Cas will also be lying unconscious on the floor)

Right, I forgot about Cas, lol.

The only thing I can be thankful for is they didn't have Nougat Sue kill Michael while he was still in Dean's body. I fear what I would have done to my television if I'd had to watch him do that to Jensen. 

[ILoveReading]

Another thing that didn't make sense was Michael getting out while Dean was unconscious.  We saw Dean snoring away without a care in the world in Damaged Good.

[ster1]

1 minute ago, ILoveReading said:

Another thing that didn't make sense was Michael getting out while Dean was unconscious.  We saw Dean snoring away without a care in the world in Damaged Good.

The show's always had a problem with keeping canon consistent but it seems to have gotten especially bad this season. Now the writers can't keep things straight even between their own scripts, much less from 1 or 2 episodes ago.

[DeeDee79]

1 hour ago, Cambion said:

I very much enjoy a lot of the fanfiction that corrects the mistakes we see on screen, tell the stories in ways that are closer to what I and others would like to see.  That's satisfying, even more so because it is juxtaposed against something that didn't work well for me.  

With all do respect I would find it more satisfying as a long-term fan to see Dean's arc played out on the show in a way that's fitting to the character. Fanfic is fun and entertaining but the writers/showrunners shouldn't screw with the characters so much that we seek another medium to see their storylines meet a dignified end.

[DeeDee79]

58 minutes ago, rue721 said:

We'll probably see a few more villains before the end of the season, and one of them will probably create a cliffhanger for the summer hiatus,

If they haven't forgotten about the storyline I'd bet money on the new conflict being Castiel's deal with the Empty Keeper. Which wouldn't be too bad; Cas needs a storyline.

Edited March 8, 2019 by DeeDee79

[DeeDee79]

1 hour ago, ILoveReading said:

Kudos to Mr. Ackles for once again not only spinning straw into gold, but also making the straw.

Awesome observation!

[7kstar]

1 hour ago, DeeDee79 said:

Just another fake out. Just like Eve when Cas turned out to be the big bad in season 6 and Abaddon when Metatron turned out to be the big bad in season 9. This season's big bad will more than likely be Lucifer who will reemerge before the end of the season. 

Although I did enjoy part of it, my reaction was, yep another fake out.  So it was true that Michael wasn't the Big Bad.  Jensen didn't need any direction for how to play Michael, as it wasn't going to be that long of story-arch, so they were sure he could do it without any direction. 

Maybe on rewatch, I'll feel differently, but for now it at least ends the bad acting of poor Jack dying by coughing up blood.

Shame Michael really doesn't amount to anything.  At one point I thought maybe they were doing Dean stuck in his mind and unable to get out...but for now the resolution wasn't that difficult.  If you just watch the parts you like, it isn't all bad.  And par for the course.

[Lemuria]

 I’m not going to go to deeply into this episode because everybody here would have to get a rabies shot if I expressed my true feelings about this piece of dreck. And a lot of my issues have been well articulated by other posters.  Just a few things:

I truly don’t understand anybody jumping up and cheering Jack’s “I am a Winchester!”  Based on not only this episode but also the entire season, the  winchesters – – and even the more expansive TFW – – are unimportant nobodies. They did not accomplish anything of note so far this season. You could have removed them entirely and very little in the season would have changed. For me, that’s a failure. I’m not interested in the story of the Little Profiterol That Could  

I was seriously ticked that we’re told that Dean doesn’t understand the word “liturgical” or keeps citing a bad movie as a source of info on gorgons (as well as at Sam’s condescending looks).

Plus, I seriously doubt that they will actually have Jack going full-on Datkside. I doubt he’ll get any further than a Charming Shade of Beige. 

(I suspect that Yockey wasn’t really the driving and that the ep was mostly the product of the latest attempt for the show runners to make writers out of their assistants. Though I will insist from now to the end of the Long Night that the “I told you so” was Yockey’s.)

I did like that bit. Dean remained firm in his intentions even when he yielded to the desperation of Sam and Cas (I loved  that Dean is really NOT the dependent one) and here he was furious that they’d wailed and rent their clothes until he agreed to wait, and he’d been right. 

I also have to admit that I cheered the long-overdue demise of the increasingly useless AU hunters. Does that make me a bad person?  

And can someone explain why the gorgon singled out Dean and seemed to know him?

Edited March 8, 2019 by Lemuria

[gonzosgirrl]

I wonder if they will ever tire of making Dean be too dumb to understand a word like liturgical.  Or be a hunter who only knows Mythology from an old sci-fi movie. 

I would love somebody to try justifying this for me. Especially in an episode where they go out of there way to give us brainy Sam. And then have Dean twice say how Sam (and Rowena) were going to figure things out. 

ETA, ha! @Lemuria and I were mind melding! 

Edited March 8, 2019 by gonzosgirrl

[gonzosgirrl]

5 minutes ago, Lemuria said:

can someone explain why the gorgon singled Dean out

This I think we're supposed to assume he recognized Michael - I guess the monster community talks? 

Edited March 8, 2019 by gonzosgirrl

[catrox14]

Well, that was a disaster of epic proportions.  What a disappointment. And no, I didn't have misaligned expectations.  I expected Michael to leave but not be killed off, nor Dean to have no involvement in his death AT FUCKING ALL.  Screw you, Dabb/Singer. 

They literally had Jensen play Michael!Dean handing over his storyline to another character before killing him?? What the fucking fuck?  I don't believe Yockey wrote anything other than the snake guy and Dean freaking out after he realized Michael was gone.  I am, however, grateful that Dean got to tell off Sam and Cas for not listening to him about going into the box.

What a pathetic end to Michael, who was IMO a great villain.

I will say that Cas conversation with Jack about the Winchesters dying seems like foreshadowing the end of the series. 

UO ahead, Jack,  you are not a Winchester.  I reject that entire premise.  I have since he was born. He is Lucifer's child and to imply that he is both Lucifer's child and a Winchester is an insult to the Winchesters IMO.   YMMV.

I normally really enjoy Ruthie's acting but I didn't think she was Michael at all. She didn't pull that off very well. 

What a terrible episode. 

Edited March 8, 2019 by catrox14

[catrox14]

3 hours ago, Cambion said:

Mike is just a one-note character, so not much to be going on with there.

When Michael's motivations in 14.10 were revealed and how his anger was entirely about Chuck abandoning him when he didn't like how his stories or characters were turning, that was IMO, exciting and interesting.  They gave him a sound reason for wanting to destroy the universes....to find Chuck.  Yes it was a redux of Amara's to a degree, and it still worked.

And for me, Jensen gave Michael those layers that showed his contempt, hurt and anger with Chuck and that was where I was hopeful it would go.  And, absurdly, they seem to have thrown it all for Jack.  Unless of course it was always about Jack this season, which seems to be the case.  

[catrox14]

3 hours ago, Pondlass1 said:

I think the big bad is supposed to be Jack?  I don’t  know if the actor is up to it.

I think Alex can pull it off, based on his work on Arrow playing a villainous character. 

[juppschmitz]

4 hours ago, SueB said:

I LOVE the dynamic of Rowena and the Boys.  I’m rewatching again right away —- just delightful.  

Quick thoughts: I don’t buy that Jack is all good and Michael is dead.  Could be wrong but it feels like a trick.  

More after rewatch.  

Samwena FTW!!!

Spoiler

Well, there is the Jack-in-the-Box episode coming up...

[juppschmitz]

4 hours ago, Cambion said:

Mike is just a one-note character, so not much to be going on with there.

Well, if that's true, maybe he shouldn't have been the Big Bad of the season in the first place.

Whichever way you turn it, the whole story/season sucks.

[Aeryn13]

Jack is an extremely one-note character - all nougat all the time - and now they made him back into an OP deus ex machina device. Boring to the extreme.

[BabySpinach]

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.

[AwesomO4000]

2 hours ago, Lemuria said:

 I was seriously ticked that we’re told that Dean doesn’t understand the word “liturgical” or keeps citing a bad movie as a source of info on gorgons (as well as at Sam’s condescending looks).

2 hours ago, gonzosgirrl said:

I wonder if they will ever tire of making Dean be too dumb to understand a word like liturgical.  Or be a hunter who only knows Mythology from an old sci-fi movie.

Okay, I'm just going to admit it. I didn't know what the word "liturgical" meant. And I have a Masters Degree. Maybe it's because I'm not religious... or my brain ain't what it used to be, but whatever... I'm okay with the fact that I don't always know what some words mean. There are a lot of them, and some of them I have little use for anyway. (even if you wouldn't be able to tell that from my posts - heh). There's always a dictionary if I need it... or in this case Castiel who is more entertaining.

In my opinion, what Dean should have said was "why didn't you just say that? Speak English." and given Cas a "you're being an AV nerd" face ...if we're going to stay with the already present joke theme. No one has to know all the words... just own it Dean, and tell Castiel to speak English. That's amusing on multiple levels. (In my opinion anyway. ; ) I imagine Castiel getting flustered and saying, sort of confused "but I was ::pause:: speaking English."

And if the writers remembered their show history better, they would have remembered that Dean's movie knowledge has been helpful in the past... and past show canon has mentioned movies as often being fairly accurate concerning lore. However "Clash of the Titans" (either version) would seem to be of questionable taste, in my opinion, though weirdly I would've more pegged that as a Sam-type movie than a Dean one... especially the version with the weird-ass gold owl-thing. It seems more Harry Potter than slasher / horror film. *shrug*

[juppschmitz]

3 hours ago, DeeDee79 said:

Cas needs a storyline

I disagree. I think the Winchesters (well, Dean) need a storyline. If Cas can't interact with this storyline meaningfully, he needs to go.

(Possibly unpopular opinion.)

[Female83]

Now that AU!Micharl is dead I'm guessing either Jack, The Empty, or Lucifer will be the new big bad. 

[S Cook Productions]

4 hours ago, DeeDee79 said:

If they haven't forgotten about the storyline I'd bet money on the new conflict being Castiel's deal with the Empty Keeper. Which wouldn't be too bad; Cas needs a storyline.

Didn’t Dabb say that this won’t be addressed this season? I thought I read that somewhere. He said it won’t be addressed this season but that the bros will find about the deal. 🤷🏼‍♀️

[mertensia]

I enjoyed this. 

I have zero problems with Jack calling himself a Winchester.  They think of him as one, so he is one. 

I keep wondering, though, if that grace wasn't a subterfuge of Michael's, though, and he slipped back into Dean or something while pretending to be absorbed by Jack. 

[Katy M]

28 minutes ago, mertensia said:

I keep wondering, though, if that grace wasn't a subterfuge of Michael's, though, and he slipped back into Dean or something while pretending to be absorbed by Jack. 

I think if he were back in Dean, Dean would know it.  But, I also, am not sure he's completely gone.  Jack may not have as much control over him as he thinks.

[ahrtee]

I took a while to digest this ep because I couldn't figure out what to say, and I woke up at 4 am having a discussion with myself about the problems here. (sigh).

What I finally decided is that the heart has gone out of the show.  The main characters are reduced to bit players (even when they're on screen and supposedly in charge), and the side characters--most of whom are either badly written, badly played or just plain boring--are now front and center, and unable to sustain interest.  All the pimping and pushing of all the new Cousin Olivers at the expense of the "heroes".  

So we look at bits and pieces--a scene, a line, sometimes just a look--to give us something to like, and lose the whole.  No cohesion, no real storylines except for Nickifer and Jack.  And I just don't care about them.  At all. 

My favorite reviewer (who, sadly, gave up about season 8-9) used to say she would watch with a notebook to record her reactions, which she called her "squee pad."  Sometimes she'd fill an entire notebook with squees for one episode.  For the last few years, I'd be hard pressed to come up with more than a few squees for the whole season--and again, mostly for scenes, not stories, much less whole episodes.  

I'm not even outraged any more at truncated storylines or bait-and-switch, because that's what we've all come to expect, and, judging by the comments in the spoiler threads, many of us seem to keep watching hoping to be proven wrong, not in anticipation of something good or enjoyable.  And that's not good story telling.

So in this episode, I focused on the good:  that the other characters acknowledged that Dean was strong enough to hold off Michael battering at his walls for weeks.  That he got to say "I told you so" to the others.  

I was mildly interested (not outraged) at the way they ended the Michael storyline.  It could have been much, much worse.  

And I spent more time focusing on the illogical bits and pieces--why did Michael, possessing Rowena, keep her Scottish accent?  Why did the vet not only not have any other patients but apparently no other staff, so she acted as receptionist, tech and vet (and left an unrestrained animal all alone in an examination room)?  Why did Rowena, the self-proclaimed most powerful witch in the world need a human-created antivenin (which, BTW, has to be specific to the venom in order to work) in order to create her own?  This is the person who created a counterspell to the Werther Box and innumerable "come back to life" spells for various beings.  Why did Sam automatically say "he" when talking about Gorgons (before we met him) when all lore has them as female?  And after all the fuss to find him, all it took was decapitation to kill him?  (And did it have to be a silver machete?)  And why did nobody call Cas on the hypocrisy of the "all humans die" speech when he's been one of the loudest voices in trying to keep the Winchesters alive at all costs?  Especially right after his anger at Dean for his very real reasons for locking himself in the box.  

So that's my takeaway from this whole season:  not enough squee.  Too much focus on characters I don't give a crap about, and not enough on the ones I do.  And nothing much to look forward to except more of the same.  

[Bergamot]

11 minutes ago, Katy M said:

I think if he were back in Dean, Dean would know it.  But, I also, am not sure he's completely gone.

The main reason I am sure he is completely gone is the way Jack grandly announced, "You are NEVER going to hurt ANYONE again!" Now, in the original version of the show, to say something like that would be asking for it. Like Dean telling Sam that nothing bad was going to happen to him, and the complicated, tragic, heartbreaking way this turned out to be wrong. But in this simplified, cartoonish Dabb version of the show, there is no way that Jack's hero moment will be tarnished by having Michael actually come back now and hurt someone. It's not Dabb's style, unfortunately.

[PAForrest]

5 hours ago, catrox14 said:

I will say that Cas conversation with Jack about the Winchesters dying seems like foreshadowing the end of the series.

Can they die now, please, like yesterday? I mean, for good and for the last time? There certainly doesn't seem to be a need for them anymore. Seriously, if Nougat Sue is now a veritable god, the ultimate Deus ex Machina, and can take care of everything on his own, what is the point of the Winchesters? And I ask that not just of this season, of which there has literally been no point, but of going forward from here on out. We know Dean has been rendered useless as tits on a bull, but so are Sam and Cas really, especially now that Nougat Sue can do it all. So, again I ask, What. Is. The. Point?

You know, I don't watch live - there are simply other better things to watch live, and I'm so glad of that decision, especially last night when I saw the response on twitter (forewarned is better armed with this show) and got a DM from someone who usually tries to find some good in every episode, especially with regard to Dean, telling me not to bother and that I'd be livid if I did.  Yes, it sounds like a shitshow, that Yockey was off his meds when he decided to go full on Princess NougatSueNatural, which is clearly the show Dabb has been angling for all season long since he hates the mothership and hates even more that his horrible attempts at spinoffs keep failing miserably, as they should. So he's decided since he can't get a real job on his own, he's just going to turn this show into Winchesters Who? and push Nougat Sue as the only character who matters. 

It really does feel like the end of the series where the Winchesters are concerned - I mean the original Winchesters, not the fake nougat ones who just stole the name.

Edited March 8, 2019 by PAForrest

[ukgirl71]

Haven't seen a jot of the episode, but based on what y'all are saying, must remember to get on twitter and mercilessly troll Dabb's assistant when I get home (and off work's computer) tonight!

[DeeDee79]

4 hours ago, juppschmitz said:

I disagree. I think the Winchesters (well, Dean) need a storyline. If Cas can't interact with this storyline meaningfully, he needs to go.

(Possibly unpopular opinion.)

I didn’t say that the Winchester’s didn’t need a story line. My full statement was speculating that Cas may be the focus of the rest of the season since they hadn’t resolved his deal with the Empty Keeper. IMO he needs more to do than they’ve given him for the past few seasons. I hardly think that saying he needs a storyline means that the brothers don’t. 🤨

[DeeDee79]

3 hours ago, S Cook Productions said:

Didn’t Dabb say that this won’t be addressed this season? I thought I read that somewhere. He said it won’t be addressed this season but that the bros will find about the deal. 🤷🏼‍♀️

I have no idea. I tend to avoid reading Dabb’s statements because they more than often enrage me.

[Mulva]

The more I think about this episode, the more I like it.   Sure, they could have gone the cliched route with Dean imitating Sam's heroic self-sacrifice of Swan Song.  But having Michael cast Dean off like an old coat, then, in his moment of triumph, getting whacked by a punk kid was brilliantly subversive.

[Aeryn13]

This episode is basically catnip for "Dean is a worthless tool so haha". 

I would hope Jack starts acting like a complete asshole now so the shine comes off his nougat baby self. But unlikely. He is going to my ff list like Nickifer now. 

That bit with the vet was so random. Why was that needed? It seemed solely as a "haha, funny crackship" moment. And Rowena, Billie`s books are crap so you are probably gonna be killed by some random mofo. 

[ILoveReading]

1 minute ago, Aeryn13 said:

This episode is basically catnip for "Dean is a worthless tool so haha". 

I would hope Jack starts acting like a complete asshole now so the shine comes off his nougat baby self. But unlikely. He is going to my ff list like Nickifer now. 

That bit with the vet was so random. Why was that needed? It seemed solely as a "haha, funny crackship" moment. And Rowena, Billie`s books are crap so you are probably gonna be killed by some random mofo. 

Responding in Bitch/Jerk

Edited March 8, 2019 by ILoveReading

[Bobcatkitten]

I'm pretty torn on this one. I enjoyed that there was a case that they were all working together. And an interesting though gross monster - lore, whatnot. The fact that it was 4 on 1 and the guy was still winning was ridiculous. And Jack was the hero while the Winchesters ended up on the floor - again. 

I was cool with Michael getting out of Dean while he was unconscious. It made it so it wasn't that Dean couldn't hack it - just circumstances. And his anger over it was well done. 

I really enjoyed Rowena playing Michael, though I didn't really understand her reasoning for saying yes. He would kill the boys? We know what his promises mean so I just didn't buy that she would say yes. But they were cool scenes. I liked seeing Rowena evil again. 

But - and it's a big one - I don't get the ending with Jack. Where did all this power come from suddenly? I got a little whiplash that he could suddenly take out an archangel. 

And the big issue obviously is that IF that is the end of the Michael storyline it really was anticlimactic and weird since there are multiple episodes left. If we are just moving on to Lucifer/Nick I'm going to be super disappointed. 

I think thee best scene of the season was Dean with Billie and her handing him the book and telling him all his deaths were rewritten. It was well acted and left us all completely breathless. And this made that amazingness all moot. 

Oh yeah, and props for killing the other hunters. 

[Katy M]

11 minutes ago, Bobcatkitten said:

I think thee best scene of the season was Dean with Billie and her handing him the book and telling him all his deaths were rewritten. It was well acted and left us all completely breathless. And this made that amazingness all moot. 

Which is why I'm not convinced he's dead.  Billie said that Michael would escape his mind and use him as a vessel to burn down the world. She didn't say that the two acts had to happen simultaneously.  I guess I've just always been willing to let things play out until the end before assuming.  Or, maybe the book just said that Michael had to go in the box and they'll stuff Jack in there?