Hurt, No Comfort: The End of Supernatural

--This post originally appeared on my Tumblr. I am mostly posting it here so I can find it easily, since  no matter how carefully I tag things over there, they tend to disappear into the ether. But feel free to engage with it if you'd like. Heads up that the tone of this post is quite different from my usual here, and there is cursing. A lot of cursing.-- 

(Spoilers ahead for Supernatural, especially the series finale. NSFW for language. The only link, despite what the surrounding text may lead you to believe, *is* SFW.)

So last night my brain said, “You know what would be fun? Instead of sleeping and resetting and starting to heal from the deep hurt that was 15x20? Planning, in excruciating detail, an essay about *why* it hurt so fucking much.” So that’s what I did all night. And I guess now I’m gonna write it down.

First, because I will never not be a Hufflepuff (oh, hi, other property that has been hurtful, how are *you* this morning?) and I will never be able to just piss all over something without feeling guilty as sin for, like, maybe hurting someone else, I have to acknowledge how much Supernatural has meant to me and how deeply grateful I am to everyone involved in making the show for *making* the show FOR FIFTEEN YEARS. Good lordt. Bless. And I recognize that endings are hard (truly) and that ending this show, which ran for 327 episodes and reinvented itself wholly at least twice and has at least two separate kinds of fans who expected and wanted different things from it, was always going to be hard. I recognize the hard work of the actors and sincerely thank them for putting their hearts and souls into this show and especially for leaving their families during a pandemic, quarantining, and making those last two episodes after such an incredibly long hiatus. I recognize all the hard work of the crew and all the people who made the show happen week after week after week and also went back to work under conditions that were probably not great.

Okay? Love.

Now. Hurt.

 

Seriously, Where Is Cas?

Misha Collins was on SPN for longer (by far) than anyone else except Jensen and Jared. Even Bobby, who is such a beloved and quintessential part of the show, was in fewer than half as many episodes as Cas. From the moment he first appeared until the end of the run, Cas was in more than half of the total episodes made (148, by the way, or the equivalent of more than every episode of a typical six-season run for an American show on a broadcast network). For him to be so utterly absent from the last two episodes not only felt wrong but like an erasure of all that he meant to the show and to so many of the fans. Even if there was no way to bring him back from the dead after 15x18, the almost complete ignoring of his character felt like a slap in the face. Add to that the way that he died? “I’m queer, I love you, poof”? Just. OUCH, guys. And not in a sad but entertaining or somehow cathartic way. Just full on fucking ow. That *hurt*. I LOVED Cas’s speech. His affirmation of his own truth? His recognition that his happiness was in his own self-actualization and that the reactions of others cannot touch that? Fucking beautiful. But then he died. And he didn’t come back, like he has so many times before, so many times when he *hadn’t* just come out as queer. No resurrection. No resolution. Not even a fucking recognition of the heart of that scene from any other character in a further 82 minutes of television. That was harmful. I lived in hope for two weeks that they were going to save this beautiful moment from being an epic shift from queerbaiting into bury your guys, and well. “Hope is the thing with feathers,” y’all.

 

Good God, Guys, Resolve This Chord, Wouldja?

 I just… don’t understand how they could do the end of 15x18 and then not go anywhere further with it? That scene begs, *begs* for narrative resolution. Cas drops three, count ’em, three bombs on Dean—Bang! You, of all the humans, are the most loving and the most deserving of being saved. Bang! Anything I have ever loved, any capacity for love I have, I have because of *you*, and I *love* you. Bang! Telling you this means I’m going die. Right now.—and Dean does not get to respond. He wants to, but he’s interrupted by Cas shoving him out of the way of the Empty coming to take him. And the scene ends with Dean sobbing on the floor, ignoring a phone call from his brother in the middle of an almost-certainly world-ending catastrophe. And then we get nothing more. Dean never tells anyone what Cas said. He never gets to see Cas again. He never prays to Cas as some kind of last-ditch effort to speak his truth back, whatever that may be. We’re just left with what amounts to one half of a scene and a narrative wound and an open character arc that never sees any resolution. I wanted reciprocation. I was prepared not to get it. (I’ve seen this show before.) I was not prepared for them to just drop the biggest unresolved emotional question of the season show. May whoever was ultimately responsible for this never hear a chord progression resolve for the rest of their days.

 

They Done Dean Dirty

We all do this with narratives we love, right? Latch on to one of the characters more than others? Because we see something of ourselves in them? Because we go, “Hey, babe, I see you struggling with that shit. Me, too, love, me, too.” I love Lizzie, but I relate to Darcy. Don’t come for him, I will cut you. Harry is cool and all and Ron is fun, but Hermione is mine. When she’s confronted with her worst fear—failure—I’m there with her. I love Sam and, god, I love Cas, and Charlie and Jody will always be in my heart, but Dean. Dean is me, man. His struggle to see the good in himself, not just the bad? His work to bring forward the parts of himself that matter to him, not just those he’s been told are what make him up? His nurturing nature and his unhealthy tendency to put everyone else before himself? His dumb, chaotic, allusion-laced sense of humor? His propensity to just keep going, bottling up the big feelings until they burst out of him in a way he can’t really control and that gets him into trouble with the people he loves? His sexuality—definitely one thing and maybe, probably, something else too? All of that. That’s me. 

And Dean is dead. Hey, cool, he’s human. Humans die. I don’t actually mind that Dean is dead. The *way* that he died? And when? It’s sitting in my stomach like a hunk of lead.

All Dean ever wanted was to be free. Free of destiny, free of Chuck, free to be who he wanted to be. And he got it. For a hot second. I guess.

Here’s what happened to Dean in 15x20:

He got hit in the face with a pie and stabbed in the back.

Or, alternatively:

He was silenced from speaking his truth in 15x18 and that silence was continually perpetuated on him by first, a problem deemed more important than his emotional well-being (Chuck) and second, some random life-draining (vampiric) monsters who silence people (by cutting out their tongues). Then he died after being penetrated by a phallus.

Or, alternatively:

After championing free will for twelve years, defying angels, God, and destiny, his story ended in exactly the way he feared would always be his destiny: in a violent, early death.

Good job trying to better yourself, Dean! Well done with all that character growth! You’ve finally done it! Your reward? Death. A largely pointless, ignoble death. And what will your last words be? Will they be about the truth you’ve worked so hard to get to? Heck, no. Regress back to your twenties. Think only about others. Your whole life was just the setup for someone else. And you know what? While you’re at it? Definitely don’t give yourself permission to find peace. Wait till someone else tells you they’ll be okay if you go. Oh! And also? Don’t forget that your death is coming right on the heels of the first time anyone has ever told you that they love you, like from their soul to yours, love. you. And that person sacrificed themselves for you. For nothing. Cause you’re dying a few weeks later anyway.

Remember how I said Dean was me? How all his struggles and his character growth meant so much to me? I’m feeling *super* good about myself right now, guys. SUPER good.

 

How Did You Miss the Last Fourteen Years of Your Own Show?

SPN started out being about family. And it never stopped. But the thing is, they immediately started complicating what family is and what it means. In episode one, it was two brothers. Then it was two brothers and their dad. Then two brothers and their other dad. Two brothers, their other dad, a scrappy little sister, and surrogate mom. Two brothers, their other dad, a scrappy little sister, a surrogate mom, and their weird angel friend. Two brothers, their weird angel friend and their other surrogate mom. Two brothers, their weird angel friend, their other surrogate mom and her good friend. Two brothers, their best angel friend, their other surrogate mom, her good friend, and the brothers’ little sister they never wanted. Do I have to keep going right up to two brothers, their best angel friend who is in love with one of them, and his son? This show stopped defining family as “two brothers” eight thousand iterations ago. Family don’t end with blood. Someone said that once. On the show. So why the fuck would anyone think a good end to the show was an end that reverted back to “two brothers”? It hasn’t been that since season one.

For the finale to be about nobody but Sam and Dean and to practically belligerently insist that no one else ever mattered to them was not only weird, but it felt like a giant fuck you to anyone who’s been watching this show since… ever? Sam gives Dean a hunter’s funeral alone? (Insert my obligatory nod to the difficulties with this scene due to the pandemic here, but.) No Jody? No Donna? No Claire? No Garth? None of the other hunters to whom Dean is famous? NO EILEEN? Dean gets to Heaven, and Bobby (okay, I love that Bobby was there, but Bobby has been dead for eight years. For him to be the only other long-time character from the show to be in this episode was strange.) namedrops Jack and motherloving Cas? I’m to understand that Jack resurrected Cas from the Empty *off-screen* and Cas neither saved Dean from the fucking nail in the goddamn barn wall (since when is Cas hands off? Especially with Dean?) and COULD NOT BE ARSED TO MEET DEAN IN HEAVEN? What the actual hell is happening here?

And Bobby tells Dean he can do whatever he wants (in a moment, by the way, that strongly suggests Bobby, at least, knows what’s up with Cas—I was *sure*, for a glimmering couple of seconds, that we were going to get a brief reunion with Cas after that moment, but alas. Ear wax.), and he goes for a drive? In his car. The car he’s had for fifteen+ years? That he’s been able to drive around, nay that he has done virtually nothing but drive around, for that same period of time? He is finally free of everything, he’s finally at peace, he’s in Heaven with all the people he’s ever loved who have died (which is a long list: John, Mary, Ellen, Jo, Kevin, Charlie), and his best friend the angel, who *just* told him he loves him, is kicking around somewhere, and he decides to GO FOR A DRIVE. Until Sam dies decades later. That’s it. That’s all we see him do. All of Heaven before him, a chance to do what he wants, to make his own decisions, to have a (n after) life, and he cares about nothing but his little brother and his car. “i’M tWEnTy-sIx, SaM.” Jeebus.

 

This Story Didn’t Need to Be Told

Not only did this episode not deliver on the promises of the season (Cas and Dean’s relationship, however you read it, was all over this season, and we got no resolution; the whole season seemed to promise an end “outside” of the writer (Chuck), and we for sure did not get that), it also told us virtually nothing new. We learned that Jack “fixed” Heaven and (apparently) that Cas is no longer in the Empty. We got that in one line of dialogue in the last few minutes of the episode. Everything else was old news. 15x19 (and honestly the whole season) raised the question of what Sam and Dean would do if they were free of the machinations of a capricious God/writer. Did we get an answer to that?

Only if the answer is “exactly what they would do if they weren’t free.” Sam goes jogging. We’ve seen that before. Dean cooks. We’ve seen that before. Dean likes pie. We’ve seen that before. They go on a hunt. We’ve seen that before. Dean goes for a drive and listens to classic rock. We’ve seen that before. Dean dies. We’ve seen that before. Dean is proud of Sam. WE’VE SEEN THAT BEFORE.

We have seen all of this before. We did not learn anything about the boys we didn’t already know. We didn’t see them make any choices. We didn’t see them experience any things, people, or feelings differently than we’ve seen them experience them before. Did Sam go find Eileen, the one woman who has really seemed to make him happy since Jess? Nope. Did Dean do anything at all with his feelings about Cas, the feelings he was sobbing into his hands over? Nope. Did they quit hunting? Nope. Did they go sit on the beach and drink beers? Nope. Did they get jobs? Go back to school? Join the FBI for real? Nope nope nope. Did they go out together in a blaze of glory, somehow for once dying at the same time? Nope. Did Dean say anything surprising to Sam while he was dying? Nope.

I don’t know what the point of it was. First episode: here’s two brothers with an extraordinary bond who do dangerous, heroic shit and are likely to die doing it. Last episode: here’s two brothers with an extraordinary bond who do dangerous, heroic shit and are likely to die doing it. And guess what! One of them did! For no reason! And after gay love was declared to him! And before we could resolve his character arc despite knowing for a year that we had to wrap up! And just in time to confirm (not that anything had ever thrown this in doubt) that the brothers would be together when they both got to Heaven! Oh, and hey, when they get there, they aren’t going to care about *anyone* else, not their friends, not their parents, not their significant others. Because we’re erasing the last fourteen years of our own hard-won character growth. FIGJAM.

 

And Parts of It Were Just Cruel

Some pieces of those last two episodes were just cruel. Bullet points, because I’m tired of this shit and I think I’ve finally written myself to some catharsis about this cluster.

*Lucifer calls Dean and pretends to be Cas. This is the last time we hear Cas’s voice on the show. Insult to injury: Dean runs to the door to let in “Cas” like we have never seen him run before, like he’s desperate to see his friend. Who is dead. Because he loves Dean. Runs like he needs to tell him something. Which he never does. Salt in the wound: Lucifer has a long history on the show of pretending to be men’s dead lovers so that they will “let him in.” Cool, guys. It’s fine.

*Miracle. They found a dog that Dean called a miracle. And it was the only glimmer of hope in an empty, hopeless world. And Chuck poofed it away. Then the dog was back in the finale. It was clearly Dean’s dog. Dean doesn’t like dogs. Because he was dragged to Hell by Hell hounds. But now he’s found one he loves and snuggles with in bed and buries his nose in its fur. He went and found the dog, but not Cas. Not Cas, who pulled *him* out of Hell, just like we thought (because the parallelism omg) Dean was gonna pull Cas out of the Empty. But no. Dog. And then Dean died. So. Sad dog. No, guys, really, it’s cool. Juuuust fine.

*Pie. It’s been a long-running bit that Dean often doesn’t get to eat his pie, especially if Sam is involved. Because Dean associates pie with love and home and not having to be the adult and not always being in danger. And we can’t have that. But anyway, they go to a pie fest, an actual honest to god pie. fest. and Dean gets like a half dozen slices of pie, and Sam smacks him in the face with one of them. And that’s the last pie Dean ever sees before he dies. Haaahahaha*sobs*. Totally fine.

*Dean handwaves Cas’s death. Sam brings him up because he misses him. Dean says that they have to live and honor his sacrifice. Okaaay? Except we’ve seen Cas die a lot before and it has *always* turned Dean into a barely functional, alcoholic wreck. But this time: pie. Oh. Also? Good luck living to honor Cas’s sacrifice, Dean. You’re gonna die. Cool, cooool.

*Barn. Dean dies in a barn. Dean first met Cas in a barn. Look, there’s gonna be parallelism! It’s gonna be okay… oh. Right. This is fine.

*Jenny. Oh, heeeey, this whole episode has forgotten that Sam and Dean ever knew *anyone* except Bobby, but look, a random human-turned-vampire from that one episode in season one! Yay?

*Cas is alive (apparently) but we don’t see him. Or even hear him. Not even a tiny “Hello, Dean” off-screen while Dean is in Heaven. Nada. Zilch. No, I’m good, I love unresolved arcs. Makes me all nice and twitchy.

*Sam’s montage. Sam gets to “live his life,” but he is never happy. He looks miserable the whole time. And we have no idea what he does. Or who he married. Or why his kid has an anti-possession tattoo. Family business? Just for funsies? A safety precaution only? The world may never know.

 

It Could Have Been Salvaged… Easily

This was never going to be the episode I wanted, and that’s okay (ish). People have different visions for things. If this was the episode we were going to get, it was always going to disappoint me, but it didn’t have to hurt. Fix this very episode by:

*Removing the admittedly fun but not super interesting opening montage and replacing it with some real indication of what *choices* the boys have made about their lives. Make it clear that they got to live their lives for some amount of time so that when Dean dies later it doesn’t feel like Cas’s sacrifice is meaningless now.

*Letting Dean tell Sam what Cas said to him and showing that Dean took it all to heart and was shook by the moment. (Alternatively, if you want to keep that moment between Dean and Cas, which would be a nice touch, let Dean talk to Cas in his absence. Like a prayer, as we’ve seen him do countless times before.) Show him grieving (this can be healthier grieving than he’d done in the past—that would be great! But show it.)

*Giving Dean’s death a little more weight in the moment. It doesn’t have to be something super grand, but just. Not this shitty falling against rebar in the wall like he’s some no-name extra in a cold open.

*Making it clear that Sam married Eileen in his montage. He could communicate through sign language with his son, maybe, since they would almost certainly teach any of their kids ASL whether they were Deaf or HOH or not. Remove that glaring, awful “Dean” from the kid’s overalls, jeez. There’s dialogue in Sam’s last moments. He can call his son “Dean.” We’ll get it, promise. It’s not like naming your kid after relatives you admired is a super uncommon thing or something. Let Sam be happy in that montage at some point, Christ. (ESPECIALLY since we. have. seen. this. before. We have seen a montage of Dean after Sam died (6x1). That was arguably a way worse situation (Dean thought Sam was locked in Hell with Lucifer; Sam has no reason in 15x20 not to think Dean went to Heaven), Dean only had a year to deal, and while he was not *good*, he never looked as despondent as Sam did throughout a montage that covered decades.)

*Intersperse Sam’s montage with Dean in Heaven reuniting with Cas. Ideally this would cut into a small moment with some dialogue, but some unambiguous physical affection would have worked too. A reunion hug like we’ve seen before. Dean pulls back and looks into Cas’s eyes. Then he buries his head in Cas’s neck for a second like he did to the GD dog. Then Dean starts back toward Baby, reaching his hand out for Cas to take. They walk toward the car holding hands.

These changes would take up virtually no extra time, would require only one more cast member (Misha), and while they would have still not made a lot of us happy, Christ on a flatbread, would it have been better.

 

Right, That’s Lunch

Okay, that’s me, kidlets.

If you were happy with the episode, yay! Seriously, I would not wish what I am feeling on anyone.

If it disappointed you, boo. AO3 is thattaway.

If it *hurt*, I am so, so sorry. I am there with you. You are not alone.

Remember:

I see what you see.

Your kink is not my kink, and that’s okay.

Don’t tag creatives in your crit of their work.

Don’t put no beans up your nose.

We’ve been through much together.

Carry on.