Uhhhhhhhhh okay. I remember last season's finale was a big ol' anticlimax, although it did set up some potentially interesting ideas. This season finale was... is... I mean... not an anticlimax, let's just say that. Yikes. I'm going to review both episodes in this same post, but I'm going to break it up into sections.
Who We Are
Cons:
I know I complained about this in last week's review, but it bears repeating: Sam and Dean being trapped in the bunker really doesn't make sense. We didn't get any explanation here as to why Ketch thought that was a good idea. Like. What. Of course they got out. They just blew up a small part of the bunker, and they were free and clear. Oy. This felt like a bit of a wasted opportunity, also, in the sense that it took all of ten minutes for Sam, Dean, and Toni to escape from their near-death. There could have been more material with this, if they were going to go this route.
Toni agrees to help Dean try and un-brainwash Mary, but only with the promise from Dean that he'll let her get a head start so she can try and escape. Cool. Unfortunately, while Mary and Dean are both unconscious and hanging out in Mary's brain somehow, Ketch shows up and kills Toni. We don't actually get to see it happen, we just see Dean waking up and he notices Toni lying there with her throat slit. All of the baggage that they built up with Ketch and Toni... leads to nothing. I feel like this should have been a bigger moment somehow.
Pros:
For practically every season of this show up until now, I feel like the brothers have had to take turns being the myth-arc lead. Being the one who has to do the awesome thing to save the world at the end. The last two seasons have been Dean, Seasons Five and Eight were obviously Sam... you get what I mean. This year, Sam and Dean both had different quests, and they both pulled out major victories, sharing in the glory of winning the day. It was so refreshing to have Sam lead a battle, while Dean tapped in to his emotions to free his mother. Neither task felt more important than the other, and both were done with great pacing and care.
The opening scene where Sam, Dean, and Toni work to break out of the bunker was pretty cool. The way that this premise came about was obviously stupid, but whatever. I like how Sam had a solution that involved magic, and then when that didn't work, Dean came up with using sledgehammers, and then when that didn't work... the grenade launcher. The fact that they've been planting that all season is just so hilarious to me. Chekhov's grenade launcher. I love that Dean got a chance to finally do what he's been wanting to do since he laid eyes on that thing. So great. We also got a lovely little brother moment, where they despair at their lives ending in such a way. They always thought they'd go out in a blaze of glory. Dean laments the fact that recently, he thought they had it all. Cas, Mom, each other... and now it's all gone. This was a good way to establish their despair, so that the victories they achieved later in the episode had greater weight.
Once they escape from the bunker, they get a call from Jody. Their mother showed up to kill her. Luckily, Jody, with an assist from Alex, managed to subdue her and tie her up. God, I love Jody. I didn't think they'd be stupid enough to kill her, but after what went down last week with Eileen, I figured anything was possible. It was so great to see Jody and Alex, and we even got a mention of Donna (although, hey, where the heck was Claire during all of this?). The famous "kick it in the ass" line is said by Alex to Jody, as she wishes her adoptive mother well on her quest. Even better, Jody's presence in the episode is more than just a cameo. Here, we get to the part where Sam and Dean each have their own tasks to complete.
Sam rallies a group of hunters to take down the British Men of Letters, giving a rousing speech about how the American hunters are in the right. They know to follow their guts, and that hunting is more than just killing. This is a great moment of leadership for Sam. He falters a bit at the beginning, but then gives a speech worthy of Buffy Summers. I love all the callbacks here. We see earlier Dean on the phone with Garth, we get Walt and Roy showing up to help in the assault... apparently there are no hard feelings for the whole murder thing.
Sam and Dean have another emotional moment, when Dean says that due to his leg injury from the grenade launcher, he's not going to go with Sam and the others to take out the British. He'll stay behind and try to save Mary. The brothers share a hug, with Dean telling Sam to come back, and Sam promising that he will. They exchange a Winchester I love you: "Bitch." "Jerk." I love this moment because it encompasses so many things about their relationship. Dean knows Sam can handle this on his own, and so he takes a step back. He trusts Sam to do it right, and that's something Dean has had a really hard time with over the years. There's also the fact that this whole British Men of Letters plot started with Sam getting shot and tortured by them. It's very satisfying to me that in the end, Sam gets to be the one to lead the strike on their headquarters.
And it's a pretty bad-ass take-down, I gotta say. Some of the hunters do indeed fall on the assault, but the remaining ones manage to breach all the way through to Madame Hess, who tries to stop Sam from killing her by saying that he'll need the British Men of Letters to help take down Lucifer. Sam is shocked to hear that Lucifer has escaped, and that Crowley is apparently dead, but after only a moment's hesitation, he declines the offer to keep working for these lunatics. Hess reaches for her gun, but before she can do anything, Jody shoots Hess in the head, dropping her instantly. So. Cool. I'm glad Jody got to take the shot, since it shows just what an awesome hunter she truly is.
Meanwhile, Dean gets Toni's help hooking himself up to Mary's brain to try and break through her conditioning. The way they do this is just brilliant. Dean shows up in his childhood home. He sees baby Sammy, he sees himself as a toddler. And he sees Mary taking care of them. Dean talks to her, but she doesn't react. Dean eventually discovers that Mary is choosing not to acknowledge him or respond to him, so he forces her to acknowledge him by giving her this amazing speech. He tells her: "I hate you." He blames the entire messy life he and Sam have lived on the fact that Mary made that deal with Azazel all those years ago. He had to be a father and a mother to Sam in order to keep his little brother safe, and that wasn't fair. Eventually, however, he says that while he hates her... he also loves her. He can't help it. And he forgives her, because he's made deals to save the people he loves. He knows what that's like. He begs her to see him, to turn around and really look at him. They can start over. They can move past this and be a family again. Mary does seem to acknowledge Dean. They are then both pulled out of their connection by Ketch's arrival, and just as Ketch is about to kill Dean, Mary shoots and kills Ketch instead. Yes!
What's so brilliant about Dean's speech is that it's the buildup of his emotions during this whole season, and yet I don't think any of us really understood how he was feeling until this moment. His whole life, he felt abandoned by Mary. And knowing that she had been responsible in some way for her own death made it that much harder. And then Mary has miraculously returned, and what's the first thing she does? She leaves them again. This speech was also amazing because it mirrors what Mary must be feeling about herself. This is why she stayed away. She wanted to help, but she didn't want to be around Sam and Dean. She was just so ashamed of what she had done to them. Jensen Ackles knocked it out of the park in these scenes. Great acting. Great emotion. A+ resolution to the Mary Winchester story-arc of the season.
And things get even more lovely from there. Sam shows up as Dean and Mary are talking about moving forward as a family. Mary is worried that Sam won't be able to forgive her, but Sam quickly assuages that fear and pulls her into a hug. Dean, relieved and proud that Sam is back, goes in for a hug as well, and the three of them stand there in the bunker in a group hug. My heart exploded.
Ultimately, the first half of this finale was a better episode than the second. It may have been less of a finale, in that it didn't end on a giant cliffhanger, but it was good because it gave agency to Sam and Dean in a way that they've been missing for most of the season. They worked together, they worked separately, they both succeeded in their missions and came together at the end victorious. It was exactly what we needed to see before jumping in to a second hour, where things were ripped from their grasp quite firmly once again.
All Along the Watchtower
Cons:
I'll start with the smaller complaints before getting to the biggie. Another off-screen death of a recurring female character. Rowena is apparently no more, and judging by the charred remains, I'd say this one's going to stick. I feel like killing Rowena was pretty unnecessary, but more than that, it sucks that we don't even get to see her put up a fight first. Just like Ketch and Toni had all of this relationship drama that we didn't get to see play out, here we have Lucifer and Rowena, another fraught sort of partnership, and we don't get to see that resolve. Feels like a wasted opportunity.
I kept waiting to understand Crowley's motivation for keeping Lucifer out of the cage, and I feel like we never really got it. Sure, Crowley talked about how Lucifer humiliated him or whatever, and there was a nice moment where we learn that Crowley hates his job, as if we didn't already know that... but at the end of the day, Crowley came across as a total dumb-ass for not being able to handle the Lucifer situation.
Kelly never really solidified for me as a character. She spends the episode lamenting the fact that she'll die never getting to be a proper mother for her child, who she has named Jack. She paints his room, builds him a crib, makes him a video where she tells him she loves him... I get the sense that I'm supposed to be moved by all of this. Cas and Kelly have this relationship where it seems like Cas is really coming to care for this woman who is inevitably going to die. All of it feels lacking, somehow. I can't make myself care about Kelly, and I can't make myself care about Cas caring about her.
The episode ends with Sam running in to the room to see that Kelly is dead, sort of as an afterthought. He then follows some weird burning footprints up to the baby's room, where he sees a fully grown man with strange glowing eyes sitting in the corner. I'm not sure if I'm all that thrilled with another baby-turned-insta-adult. Didn't we just do that with Amara? Sigh. I'm trying to reserve judgment until I see what they do with this guy next year, but... c'mon, guys.
Supernatural is a show with many weaknesses, and one of those weaknesses is how it treats death. Let's just... talk about that for a second, here. I think for the most part, the characters who died in this episode are going to stay dead. Kelly is out. Rowena, probably out. Even Crowley... I think that actually may have been the end for him, and it was a good one. But Cas? I don't know if he's dead-dead, or just dead-for-now. And that's a problem. Am I supposed to be shocked and crushed that Cas has been killed? He's died several times on this show already, and he's always popped back up when the story wanted him there again. So there's a paradox, right? Because if I'm not supposed to believe that he's really gone, and he is really gone, then that death moment wasn't big enough to be a sendoff. And if he's not really gone, then I won't be surprised, and the effect of the moment itself doesn't work. I want Cas to be alive. Very badly. And if they do kill his character off permanently, I'm going to want something a lot better than what we got here.
Because, yeah, this is another thing - Why did Cas even bother going in to the alternate universe in the first place? Sam, Dean, and Crowley had this plan to seal Lucifer away in an alternate plane, and it looks like it would have worked. But at the last second, Cas comes storming in to pointlessly stab Lucifer. He comes back into our world through the rift, everybody smiles for half a second, and then Lucifer shows up again through the rift and stabs Cas, killing him. What was Cas doing? Why on earth would he have thought that a puny little angel blade was going to do anything against Lucifer? His motivations were totally unclear and completely stupid. I hate the idea of Cas dying because he made another bad decision. That seems to be the pattern. Cas does something dumb, it goes poorly, and everybody pays a price for it. If this show kills off Castiel, then it has got to be a lot more meaningful and epic than what I just witnessed.
Pros:
In the first half of the finale, Sam and Dean were able to take real initiative and be agents in the story for the first time in a while. In the second half, they were back to reacting to everything. Oddly, it worked perfectly. After an hour of triumphs, of defeating a season-long foe and getting the family back together, Sam and Dean watched as everything crumbled around them. They had a plan. They nearly executed the plan. And then they lost Crowley, a long-time ally, Cas, their dearest friend, and Mary, their only recently restored mother, all in the span of minutes. Frankly, it was chilling how much they went through in such a short amount of time. Having them be so helpless in all of this was a great way to set things up for next season. To have peace and victory so very close, and then have it all ripped away... ouch, ouch, ouch.
As I said, Kelly never did much for me as a character. However, I did like the moment when Mary and Kelly are sitting together while Kelly is in labor. It gives us a chance to see the bond of motherhood. Kelly is scared, but at peace with her death, as she is willing to die for her son. Mary knows what that feels like.
So, the real wrench in the proceedings comes into play as we introduce an alternate realty. Somehow, the unborn nephilim creates a portal that Cas goes through into an alternate post-apocalyptic wasteland. Cas later brings Sam and Dean in, and they meet an alternate version of Bobby, one who doesn't recognize them. Turns out, this is a world where Sam and Dean were never born, and they therefore didn't save the world. Sam, Dean, and Crowley quite cleverly perceive that this would be a way to trap Lucifer away from their world, as what Lucifer is after has already happened on this alternate plane. What I love about this is the possibilities it brings for the future. If Jack the nephilim has the power to open a portal to another dimension, could he do it again? Are there infinite dimensions? Could this be a way of bringing back virtually every character that has ever died on this show? If so, yes please. I remember when we were first introduced to the Darkness. I was hoping that we'd end up in a post-apocalyptic world for the next season, and really force things to the next level. That didn't happen. But maybe this time it will. Maybe this time we'll actually spend some significant time interacting with realms different from the original one. That could be really fascinating.
Also, Bobby. Just... Bobby. I'm so glad he showed up. He was as ornery and delightful as always, and his gun was named Rufus. Please let him reappear next season. Please.
Before we get to the serious stuff, a brief break to talk about my favorite comedic moments of the episode. We get a mention of "The French Mistake," the crazy world where Sam and Dean were actors, and as Dean remembers and says to Sam "you were Polish." Their line delivery was just great. Also, lots of funny moments with Crowley. When he first shows up, Dean just immediately punches him and is about to kill him, when Sam stops Dean, a bit half-heartedly. Dean and Mary both say "seriously?" Later, as Dean is despairing in the craziness of their situation, he says: "I don't even know where to start," and then suddenly Crowley just appears out of nowhere, and Dean says "Oh, come on!" Another great line read from Jensen. Humor is always very important to lighten the mood when it comes to such serious episodes.
Before all this shit goes down, Dean has a line where he says: "I have faith in us. You, me, mom, Cas, and... Crowley. Sometimes." This line is all the more depressing when you realize that Sam and Dean are about to lose all three of the other people that Dean just listed.
Cas. God, Cas. I wasn't thrilled with all the stuff with him and Kelly in this one, but I still really do love him. I love the fact that Cas and Dean basically act like lovers in the middle of a fight who are both trying to stow their crap to get on with more important things. Cas heals Dean's leg sort of off-hand, and Dean says that they'll work out their problems, just like they always do. It's lines like these that make Cas' death all the more difficult to bear. Setting aside my own hangups about this death, I did really appreciate Dean's reaction to it. Just... dead inside. Just... drops to his knees and doesn't even know how to keep going on. Again, we contrast Sam and Dean in their behavior with Cas. When Cas rushes through the portal to attack Lucifer, Dean is the one who shouts Cas' name and tries to run forward, while Sam pulls his brother back to the portal and to safety. After Cas dies, we have Sam, who looks terribly sad but then rushes off to figure out what happened inside the house with Kelly, and then we have Dean, who doesn't even make a move to follow Sam inside. He just stares at Cas and drops to his knees. This just breaks my heart.
Mary gets to punch Lucifer in the face with brass knuckles, and it's super awesome. She also gets trapped in an apocalyptic wasteland, which is less awesome. But does this mean we get to see Mary and Bobby team up in an alternate reality next season? That would just be everything I never knew I needed. Honestly. I don't have much to say about Mary in this second episode. She's amazing, and I hope that now that all her insecurities are behind her, she can come out the other side of this whole apocalypse thing a stronger person than ever.
Crowley. I love Crowley so much, but I really do hope that this is the end for his character. Because if so? Amazing. So amazing. To start off with, he goes to the Winchesters for help in defeating Lucifer, because he knows that he can count on them above all others. And then he ends this episode by killing himself to protect the world from Lucifer. Or, probably more accurately, to screw Lucifer over in his own personal vendetta. But do you know what? It's still a noble sacrifice! Earlier in the episode, he promised Sam and Dean a reward if they helped him stop Lucifer: he'd close the gates of Hell, meaning none of them would ever have to deal with another demon again, other than Crowley himself. He has realized that he hates his job. He's spent so long fighting to keep power that he forgot to notice how much he actually hated having it. I couldn't imagine a better resolution to this character we've known for so long. I've been saying for seasons and seasons now that Crowley should either become the final big bad, or die heroically in the quest to stop the final big bad, throwing in a last-minute redemption as he exits. And that's what this was. His final words are to say goodbye to Sam and Dean, which just... rip my heart out, why don't you? I know I'm supposed to be more emotionally connected to Cas' death, but it was Crowley's that tugged at my heartstrings. This truly feels like a fitting end to his character.
So... uh... yeah. Let's do a little death tally on these two episodes, shall we? How about just named recurring characters?
Toni
Ketch
Hess
Rowena
Kelly
Crowley
Castiel
Yikes? Especially yikes to Crowley and Cas, obviously. I've complained above about the impermanence of death in Supernatural. But even keeping that in mind, killing off two main characters in a single episode is very ballsy, especially with a show like this one, where the cast is so very teeny tiny to begin with. It's a risk that I really appreciated, and as I discussed above, I actually do hope that this is the end for Crowley. It would be such a fitting way for him to go. For Cas, I'm less convinced. I don't like the idea of him dying because he made yet another ill-advised move. It happened too quickly, and I think we all deserve a lot more out of the departure of this show's main non-Winchester character. Obviously, Sam and Dean will do what they can do to get Mary back. But what about Cas? I'm trying not to freak out, since I have to assume they can bring him back... Gosh, I don't know. I guess I'll leave it at that.
I'm glad we're getting a Season Thirteen. I'm not sure that Supernatural has actually been a good show in a very long time, but it's a show I take great comfort in. I still feel really connected to the characters and what happens to them. I'll be with this show til the bitter end, whenever that may be.
9/10
No comments:
Post a Comment
I'd really appreciate hearing what you think!