Supernatural: Brother's Keeper (10x23)

I'm really disappointed, actually. That wan't very good at all. That was just... ugh. I have a lot of complaints. But let's start first with the plot. God, I'm so annoyed. Grr.

Dean is working a case with Rudy, another hunter, but then Dean tells Rudy to get lost and that he'll handle it himself. Rudy calls Sam and tells him where Dean is, since he can tell something is terribly wrong with him. Dean finds a vampire's nest, and allows Rudy to get stabbed and killed before he take out the vampires, killing them ruthlessly. He goes back to his hotel room and has a meltdown, destroying the whole room. Then, he leaves a note that says "she's all yours" with the keys to the impala for Sam to find, and he takes off.

Sam leaves Cas with Rowena, telling him to please find a way to enact the spell that will remove the Mark of Cain. He tracks Dean to the hotel room, finds the destruction and the note, and then... he gets a call from Dean. Dean has summoned Death, and Death has offered to remove him from Earth to protect everybody from the Mark of Cain. He can't kill Dean, and he can't take the Mark off of Dean unless Dean passes it to somebody else. Since Dean is unwilling to do that, he'll have to continue, immortal, with the Mark for the rest of eternity. Turns out, if the Mark is not tethered to a person, it releases something called the Darkness, which existed before the world was created. God created a Mark to tether the Darkness, and he gave it to Lucifer. Lucifer then gave it to Cain, who gave it to Dean. Dean calls Sam and tells him where he is. It's time to say goodbye.

When Sam arrives, Dean tells him the plan about being sent to another world. He also tells Sam that the only way to protect the world from the Darkness if if he, Sam, dies. Death explains that Sam will never give up on trying to save Dean, which makes him a liability. Sam tries to convince Dean that what he's saying makes no sense - they aren't evil, and they don't need to die to save the world. Sam punches Dean in frustration, and Dean fights back, beating Sam severely. Sam finally tells him to stop, and he says that he understands that Dean needs to be somewhere where he won't hurt anybody ever again. Sam gives Dean permission to kill him. He shows Dean pictures of them as children with their mother, as a way of reminding him what it was to love and be loved. He hopes Dean can find a way back to himself eventually. Death gives Dean his scythe, but just as Dean is about to kill Sam, he turns around and impales Death instead. Death crumbles.

Meanwhile, Rowena reveals that the spell to remove the Mark needs three ingredients: the forbidden fruit, the golden calf, and something that the spell-caster, Rowena, loves. Cas goes to Crowley for help. Crowley is able to track down all three ingredients - the third one is a boy named Oscar who Rowena had loved like a son once, 300 years ago. Rowena granted him immortality when she said goodbye to him and his family after they helped her. Crowley delivers the ingredients, and Rowena is forced to kill Oscar to complete the spell. She's willing to do it, though, because her freedom means more to her than anything. The spell complete, Rowena seems to get more powerful than ever. She frees herself of her shackles and runs off, but not before bewitching Cas to go crazy and kill Crowley. We're left with a cliffhanger, unsure if Cas really kills Crowley or not.

Sam and Dean are astonished when the Mark suddenly leaves Dean's arm. Rowena's spell has worked! The Darkness, as a consequence, is released from the Mark. As black smoke begins to cover the earth, Sam and Dean are swallowed up by it.

Okay. Where do I even start with this? I feel like this whole season has been building up certain key themes and parallels, and then in the finale it was like all of that was dropped. I feel like the penultimate episode of the season was so promising in all of the things it was setting up, and then it just failed to deliver!

For example, last week we saw Crowley's evil glowing red eyes, and he was talking about how he'd been reminded of who he really was. Then, in this episode, he immediately agreed to help Sam, Cas, and Dean, and didn't seem the least bit threatening. What a letdown!

Then there's Cain's ominous prediction that Dean will end up killing Sam. Dean was panicked at the very thought, but then in this finale, he just shrugged and said okay when Death told him to kill Sam? It drives me nuts that he was so calm about this. I could totally see Dean killing or nearly killing Sam because he's been driven to such anger because of the Mark. But for him to make a rational decision that killing Sam is the right choice? BS! Dean would never!

Sam's motivations didn't make any sense either. He punches Dean, then gets beat up, and then suddenly does a complete 180 and decides that Dean should be removed for everybody's safety, and that he should totally die to make that happen. Why? What changed his mind? And why does Sam, specifically, need to die? Because he'd never give up on Dean? That's such crap! Cas would never give up either, and he's the one who's actually immortal and has powers. Was Death really so worried that Sam would never give up that he felt the need for him to die to get him out of the way? That's basically implying that Death thinks Sam Winchester can outsmart him. What a load of crap.

Also, things in this episode just came out of nowhere. This Oscar character? Okay... think about the number of different ways this whole spell could have gone down. What if Rowena genuinely didn't love anybody or anything, so somebody else had to cast the spell? Crowley could do it, killing Rowena. Or maybe Sam could realize that the only way to free Dean from the Mark and let him go on to Heaven would be to kill him, using him in the spell as the person he loved, and thus freeing him from his burden. I can think of so many scenarios that would have been more interesting than the one we got.

Also, the back story about the Mark, and the entire concept of "The Darkness" was just out of the blue. They've had plenty of opportunities to suggest these ideas to us in the past. We've seen Cain plenty of times. He could have mentioned that God gave the Mark to Lucifer, and that Lucifer then passed it to him. We could have been hinting at this greater evil for a while now. We could have learned forever ago that the only way for Dean to get rid of the Mark would be if he gave it to somebody else, and since Dean would never do that, he's doomed. We could have built up to this idea that the consequences of releasing the Mark would be cataclysmic. Instead, it just got dropped on us during a big pile of sloppy exposition.

Speaking of exposition - we got Death back, and instead of being his normally impressive and interesting self, he was just a mouthpiece for a bunch of background about the Darkness. And then he let himself be killed. That's just so unbelievably stupid that I'm choosing to believe it's not true, and Death just crumbled into ash out of a profound disgust for the Winchesters' codependent BS. Even if he never comes back, I'm just refusing to admit that Dean killed Death. Nu uh. Too stupid.

Then there's the continuous use of words like "slut" and "whore" at the beginning of the episode. I thought maybe it was playing out in some way with the "Whore of Babylon" narrative, but it didn't really go anywhere, and it just made Dean come across as a total misogynist with no real payoff. I didn't understand these moments. They put a bad taste in my mouth, and I think we could have done without them.

Ultimately, the thing that annoys me the most, though, is the way the whole "Dean has to kill Sam" business came about. I think most people were expecting something along those lines, especially given the biblical reference in the title, and the dozens of examples all season that have been building up to this epic sacrifice situation where Dean would kill Sam. And then this is what we got. It's just... such a letdown. Think of all the ways they could have done this that would have felt much more appropriate in the narrative and would have packed a bigger punch, to boot. They could have had Dean kill Sam in a frenzy, and then Death could have brought him back. Or if we could have seen Dean react to the news that he had to kill Sam, and struggle with it, that might have helped. Or we could have made it more explicit that killing Sam was the only way - maybe Death could tell Dean that he wouldn't help him unless the Mark fulfilled its purpose. Just as Cain killed Abel, Dean must kill Sam. Anything other than the weak-sauce explanation they gave us.

But I have to give props to Jensen and Jared, of course. Their acting was phenomenal. I think, with small adjustments in the direction and in the script, that scene where Dean gears himself up to kill Sam could have been one of the all-time best moments in all of Supernatural. There's a hint of that perfection in here - there's this idea that Sam and Dean both truly believe that Dean killing Sam is the right move. It's what's going to save the world. It makes the fact that Dean can't go through with it all the more poignant. He truly believes that killing Sam is the right move, but he can't. Because it's Sam. And you can see all of that in their eyes - Sam looks so lost, and sad, but resigned, and Dean just looks dead inside, like his entire world is crumbling. And it is. Losing Sam is the end of the world to Dean. It's a testament to Jensen and Jared that I still felt that come through, even though the explanation for the moment was so messy and strange.

The buildup to this finale had a lot of people (including Jared himself) comparing it to Season Five's excellent finale "Swan Song." This episode was not nearly as good as that one, but I understand where the comparison is coming from. Sam showed pictures to Dean, and it broke through everything else going on in Dean's mind and got him to see sense. This is meant to parallel Sam overpowering Lucifer in "Swan Song," because of the memories triggered by the impala. It wasn't nearly as impacting, but it did work okay. And there was Dean's note, handing Baby over to Sam... that was actually one of the more poignant moments in the whole episode.

Then there's Rowena. The Oscar thing was stupid, but despite that, Rowena became even more bad ass and intimidating and awesome in this episode. These were the best Rowena scenes yet. She is really emerging as a formidable enemy for next season, unlike Crowley, who continues to disappoint. And let's be real - there's no way Crowley is dead. Or if he is, no way he stays that way. You don't kill off Crowley the King of Hell off screen. You just don't.

Cas didn't have a lot to do here, but I did absolutely love his exchange with Crowley. Crowley didn't come across as much of a threat, but it was still funny when he demanded that Cas call him "King." And Cas' determination to save Dean is super adorable, even though the two of them didn't so much as share the screen in this episode.

Honestly, the best thing I can say for this finale is that they've opened up a lot of really cool possibilities for next season. I'm hoping against hope that they don't pull the plug on this "Darkness" thing and try to scale it back. I want to open up on Season Eleven in full-on post-apocalyptic nightmare land. I want the whole world to be destroyed by this thing. That could offer some really exciting potential!

I wish I could have liked this finale. I was so excited for it, and I feel like so many things about it had great potential. But for whatever reason, they just couldn't stick the landing. After Charlie's totally unnecessary and blatantly offensive death, and then this rather disappointing finale, my spirits are kind of low. Of course, I'll still be tuning in next season for sure. See you in the fall!

5/10