Supernatural: We Happy Few (11x22)

I liked this episode, but I feel like maybe I should have liked it more. It was missing a few key elements that might have ramped it up to even greater heights. Still, I'm looking forward to the finale, and I think we'll probably get something more solid than we got last year.

Cons:

The plot this week was basically just getting all of our various players into place to face off against Amara, weakening her so God to take the final blow. The ramp-up to this final showdown could have offered a bit more of a nuanced understanding of how the relationships between these characters should work. For example, we didn't have any acknowledgement from Sam about Lucifer torturing him for an untold number of years in the Cage. Sam didn't seem even slightly skittish around the devil he was so afraid of earlier in the season. We got mentions of Cas, but none of our good guys checked in with him to make sure that this was what he really wanted. The relationship between Crowley and Rowena was left untouched. Dean's creepy special bond with Amara was referenced, but nobody dove in to the greater details about why this bond exists in the first place. You'd think, with God sitting right there, more questions could have been asked.

There were certain other bits of the story that seemed to get cut off at the pass with a bit too much casualness. Primarily, Donatello, our brand new prophet from last week, is already dead. Amara did him in. That was a pretty hardcore waste of a character introduction. Although maybe we'll get another prophet, and this time we can get somebody other than another white guy?

Amara is definitely the most powerful bad guy we've ever seen on this show, in terms of her overall physical strength and ability to beat everybody else. That's fine, and I actually felt the weight and threat of her presence for the first time in this episode. But if she's really all that powerful, isn't it sort of annoying that she doesn't do away with her enemies? I can understand that she keeps Dean alive because of this weird creepy connection or whatever. But she tosses Rowena aside and then forgets to kill her, seems to leave Crowley and the other demons untouched, doesn't bother to even threaten Sam, and then in the end, when she appears to have killed God, the show pulls the punch. Instead, God is "dying," so that he can stay alive and watch his precious creations die around him. How many times has that worked out for a villain? I'm going to keep you alive so that you can watch my evil plan unfold! And then I'll kill you! It just felt sloppy to have Amara keep all of her enemies alive when we've seen quite clearly that killing them wouldn't be a problem for her.

Pros:

While a lot of the subtler nuance of these relationships was foregone in this penultimate episode, I still did like the simplicity of the plot, and how we got all of our various factions in on the final fight. Lucifer, with an assist from poor beaten-down Cas, convinces the angels to get on board. Crowley wrangles the demons. Rowena gets some witch frenemies to lend an assist. God shows up to put his seal of approval on the plan, while Sam agrees to take on the Mark of Cain in order to trap Amara once more. The actual showdown is pretty cool. Witches go first, angels take a shot from Heaven, demons swoop in and cause havoc, then Lucifer steps in and delivers a mighty blow. Amara seems to be at the very end of her tether. She even seems to consent to God killing her. And then... she sees that God is trying to trap her again. She declares that she'd rather die, rather kill her brother a million times, than ever be trapped again. And... she powers up. She defeats God.

There was a lot of really intense stuff going on here, and even as I lament some of the things that we didn't see, I'm really happy about what we did get to see. The final conversation between Amara and God is really intense. I think Amara is most compelling as a villain when we see her motivations as being similar to those Lucifer once had. She's basically just trying to get God's attention. She says that in the beginning, she and God were equals. They were not mighty and all-powerful, because they stood only in relation to each other. When God created the Archangels, and created all other life, he was doing it to make himself mighty. God says that Amara is partially right, but that there's more to it than that - the world is a beautiful creation, and Amara wouldn't have allowed it to exist. This is a really compelling dynamic, far more so than the weird Dean/Amara stuff. I like the way we're getting at God's flaws. Yes, he was doing what was best for his creations over all, but he's not digging in to the personal hurt he caused Amara.

Or Lucifer, for that matter. The top half of the episode, before getting to the showdown with Amara, focused on Lucifer and God making amends. God admits that he gave Lucifer the Mark because he thought that Lucifer, his favorite son, would be strong enough to handle it. When he saw that he was wrong, he was devastated to see his favorite child change under the weight of so much Darkness. I complained earlier that it would have been nice to see Sam show some fear or anger towards Lucifer, but instead they did something else with that relationship. It was so subtle that I could almost believe they didn't intend it, but the Lucifer and Sam parallels have been a part of this show from the very beginning of the devil's role on the show. Lucifer isn't asking God to explain himself. He probably knows that God was right in locking him away for the sake of humanity. What Lucifer is looking for is an acknowledgement that God understands the pain he caused to his son. He just wants an apology. When Sam says that Lucifer is right, he's not saying that God was wrong to lock Lucifer away. He's saying that God is wrong to ignore the pain he's caused. Sam has never really been a big-picture guy, if you think about it. He knows that saying sorry isn't about being right. It's just about being sorry.

This episode also had a lot of great laughs and fun dialogue. It would be impossible to catch them all, but here are some of the ones I loved. Crowley basically takes on a Donald Trump-ish stance as he tells his fellow demons that he has a plan to "make Hell great again." Ha! Later, when Dean shows up to talk to Crowley about the plan to fight Amara, Crowley at first dismisses Dean's offer of an alliance, saying that he appreciates Dean's attempt at "bromantic rekindling," but that it's too little, too late. When Sam goes to talk to Rowena about joining in, she threatens him: "I'll turn you into a moose. An actual moose." That made me chuckle. Most of my favorite moments of comedy come right at the beginning of the episode when Lucifer and God are trying to work things out. Lucifer at one point actually goes and locks himself in Sam's room (another point of connection between them) and blares rock music, refusing to come out and talk to his dad. When Lucifer and Chuck finally do sit down, Sam cautions Chuck to sound a little less condescending and "lordly" in his position. Chuck looks flummoxed: "But... I am... the Lord." Rob Benedict's delivery here was absolutely hilarious. Dean is trying to push through the awkwardness of the situation. He encourages God to just apologize to Lucifer and get it over with. It's not like he has to mean the apology: "I lie and tell Sam I'm sorry all the time." Sam then glares at Dean, to which Dean responds, reflexively, "Sorry." A pause, and then Dean grins, having just proved his point. "See?" That's the type of dialogue that would fall flat in the hands of an actor less skilled than Jensen Ackles.

Speaking of Ackles' performance, I really admired his work in this one. The Amara/Dean connection is - to nobody's surprise - not exactly my favorite element of the show right now, but Jensen does an amazing job of telling me everything I need to know about how he's feeling with just a few quick changes in expression. When he sees Amara in pain, he's hurting too. The best moment is when Amara enters to face off with God after having been weakened by witches, angels, and demons. Dean moves towards her, as if to offer her aid, and Sam just puts an arm out, holding him back. Dean stops moving, as if only just then realizing that he'd started to move towards her.

I'm really glad that we're not going down the road of giving Sam the Mark of Cain, because I've had just about enough of that story line, but I did like the moment when Dean finds out that Sam volunteered for the task. It means a lot to Sam that God would trust him to take on the burden, I think, but Dean only hears that Sam wants to give himself over to a thing that will ultimately destroy him. However, it looks like the Winchesters really have changed, or at least they're trying to - Dean only protests for a couple of minutes before bowing to God's plan. He'll let Sam take the Mark. When God starts to trap Amara, and the Mark begins to appear on Sam's arm, Dean braces a hand against his brother's shoulder, supporting him in his sacrificial decision. Amara fights back before the Mark can fully brand itself on Sam's arm, thus sparing him from a fate that Dean knows all too well.

The Destiel material was not substantial here, but I got enough of Cas to keep me happy. I've actually been giving it a lot of thought, and the way I see it, there are a couple of different possibilities for what they're doing with Cas' character. The worst case scenario is that they have no plans to rectify the way Cas has been sidelined since being possessed by Lucifer. We get no real resolution, and Cas either dies (unlikely) or comes back with no real comment on his experience or change in his relationships to the Winchesters. The second option is that in the finale we'll get a Capital-M-Moment where Dean will tell Cas that he's important in his own right, and Cas will help defeat Amara. Or, finally, the option I'm hoping for is that when the creators realized that they were getting renewed for a Season Twelve, they decided to push the resolution of Cas' character arc off, so that maybe next season we'll finally get Cas in the story the way we've always wanted him - a real partner to the Winchesters. I did appreciate the moment when Amara cast Lucifer out of Cas' vessel, and Dean yells out "Cas!" It's only then that he rushes forward towards Amara to try and stop her. This seems to be yet another small example of Dean's relationship with Cas overriding his connection with Amara. It keeps happening. I really hope I'm not reading too much in to that...

So. Going in to the finale we've got a severely weakened group of unlikely allies up against a newly desperate Amara. She may have been knocked down a few pegs by witches, demons, angels, Lucifer, and God himself, but she is not going to go easily. The very idea of imprisonment seems to have rejuvenated her and made her all the more dangerous. When we check in next week, what are we going to get? Is Lucifer gone for good? Is Cas joining the Take-Out-Amara task force? Will Crowley and Rowena come back for another pass? Is God going to be okay?! This episode might have needed a bit more to create nuance and interest in different characters and relationships, but it did successfully accomplish what a penultimate episode is supposed to do: it made me excited for the finale!

7.5/10