Supernatural (Warning: Spoilers)

Here we are, prediction time. The very last episode ever, and frankly...I got nothin'. The show essentially wrapped last week. What else can they do?

Possibilities: A Lord of the Rings type ending, showing life after the war against Evil. Personally, I found that ending boring, in the book and in the movie version. They could make the rounds of their "family," so we can see our faves one last time (I'm assuming Jack brought back Bobby, Charlie and company along with the rest of humanity). And then what? Chuck's storyline kept the boys together; without God pulling the strings, will they just drift apart?

Or: time jumps. We see how their lives end up. Kids? No kids? Sam running a school for gifted youngsters? (Y'know, if they gave Dean claws...) Be ironic if Dean's kid wants to go to college and Sam's kid becomes a mechanic--or does both and becomes an engineer. Especially if she's a girl.

I do not want to see an ending where one of the brothers dies, or in the last five minutes the camera cuts to Eric Kripke waking up in bed and going, "Jesus, what a dream! But hey, wouldn't that make a great TV show?" While outside the window we see Chuck laughing. That would be too cheesy even for the CW.

I would like to see the surprise return of Cas, if only for a minute or two. Better still, if they talked Mark Sheppard into coming back as Crowley for one last scene-stealing hurrah. That would take the sting out of losing Cas for a lot of people.

Or maybe you guys were right all along, and Sam's been in the cage hallucinating since the end of Season 5, and this is the episode where they bust him out. Then we get everybody back and they can start fresh when they reboot. Show of hands?

That's the best I can do. Anyone else? Anyone? Buehler?

Looks like we're in agreement on just about everything.

That first hour was basically a retrospective, Entertainment Tonight kind of thing where Kripke, Singer, Dabb and most of the cast talked about the show past and present, their roles, their feelings, etc. It's probably up on YouTube by now. Mark Sheppard was on it, to my surprise, and civil in his comments. They must have paid him a bundle, lol. The highlight of the hour was Jared remarking on how Sheppard "talks... with such... long... pauses," and Jensen going, "I want to see a scene between him and Shatner." Now I do too. Somebody cast those two together, quick! Between Alex Trebek's passing and Michael J. Fox's worsening health, we're losing all our talented Canadians.

The show itself...eh. Could've been better. We got the LOTR ending after all. Sauron was vanquished, Aragorn is the new King, Frodo (and Gandalf, the crusty old bearded wizard) sailed into the West, and Sam returned to the Shire, married and started a family. And, from start to finish, the episode, like the series, remained a sausage fest. They didn't even show Sam's wife. Was it Eileen? A resurrected Jess? Somebody else? We'll never know.

The lack of guest stars and familiar faces could have been due to Covid and quarantining. It might have been different had they been able to film without a pandemic going on. Or maybe they blew the budget luring Mark Sheppard back for the retrospective. (See above.) Again, we may never know.

Fanfics "fixing" the ending have already begun to appear.

While watching that final hunt, my first thought was, "After fifteen years in the business, you'd think they'd know better than to attack a vampire nest at night." After fifteen years of watching this show, you'd think I'd stop hoping and accept the fact the writers aren't going to use any common sense. I wish they'd done your Chuck scene for the closer. That's how you end a series.

Okay, that was fun. Now, what else is on?

MANY SPOILERS AHEAD




Yeah, I wasn't disappointed, because I didn't expect anything spectacular. It wasn't bad. It was . . . meh. I was a little miffed that on Tuesday (or whatever) the boys defeat God, and on Wednesday Dean is killed hunting a rando vampire. I was amazed at the lengthy speech Dean was able to give while impaled, but you know, tears, I guess.

If I were writing the same scenario, I would have shown some time passing between their defeat of Chuck and Dean's Final Hunt. Show them taking down a ghost or two, a werewolf, a few other vampires, whatever. Show them getting back to "the family business" for a while. Then, during one of their routine hunts, Dean is killed. I would have made the death quicker, without the long speech. Cut to Dean in heaven. It's quiet, peaceful, clearly the Pacific Northwest. Bobby is there. The Impala is there. Bobby smiles, says, "Hey, Dean." Cut to them sitting with a beer, saying next to nothing but looking peaceful. Then Dean says, "Gotta go, Bobby," and he drives off. Then we skip the stuff with Sam and his family (and, yes, wtf was up with showing his wife as nothing more than a silhouette?). We don't need it. We just skip to Dean stopping on the bridge, getting out, and then realizing that Sam is there. They hug. Dean says, "How've you been?" Sam says, "Good. It was a good life." Or something like that. They sit on Baby, looking happy. FIN.

That would be a lot shorter but a lot more effective, I think. This could have acted as the end to the episode where they defeat Chuck rather than its own episode.

If I had to choose some other scenario, I LOVE the idea of Chuck appearing at the end, still writing. It was all a game and he's still there. I would be fine with that, because I didn't like all the Chuck stuff in this season at all, and that would kind of complicate it.

My head-cannon is still that season 5 was the end of the show and the rest is non-cannon. I'm not sad about the long ride, but it is a little sad to see it come to an end (even though it was past time).

I will say, there was a moment at the end where I'm pretty sure the hug between Jared and Jensen was 100% genuine. I could almost see the moment when they weren't in character anymore. Or I'm fooling myself, lol.

It worked for me. Five, six, eight years ago they probably still could have gotten away with a more tragic ending but considering all they've been through after 15 seasons it would have been a bummer for them to go out any way but peacefully. I actually liked that they gave the show its own closing episode, rather than trying to wrap the season and the show at the same time, since the last few seasons have been so uninspiring. It was nice to have something that was just the basics. Dean gets his way, going out in a fight. Sam gets his apple pie life, which he always wanted and furthermore is what Dean wanted for Sam. Dean only needed to take a long drive for them to be reunited.

I would have thought someone (Cas? John? Jack, even?) would come and "get" Sam at the end of his life but that would have negated the meet-at-the-bridge moment, so it's fine.

It worked for me. Generally, given the last 15 seasons, it felt like a good ending, with Dean going out during a hunt and Sam carrying on, and the execution was fine. Honestly, with so much material behind them, I think they could have gone a number of different ways. The way they went was, to me, a good decision. I might have chosen different and executed it differently, but I do think it was a solid if not spectacular ending.

Many kudos to all involved for making this show happen successfully for so long.