After fifteen years on the air, Supernatural aired its final episode on November 17, 2020. It’s been a long ride with the Winchester boys, and audiences have experienced the ups and downs, the deaths of beloved characters, including the brothers Sam and Dean themselves, and a few lousy episodes (even lousy entire seasons themselves). But fans have stuck with the show to get to this moment and see the ending Sam and Dean earned for themselves.
And I have some thoughts.
It should go without saying that this post is filled with SPOILERS so if you have yet to watch the series finale, you may want to leave and come back after you’re caught up.
So, we’re good to go now? Cool.
As a quick refresher, in the penultimate episode, Sam, Dean, Michael, and Jack confront Chuck on the shore of a picturesque lake, supposedly to cast a spell that would kill Chuck. They cast the spell and Chuck arrives, where we learn that Michael tipped him off to the Winchesters’ plan. Chuck destroys Michael and begins to beat on Sam and Dean for a good few minutes.
When Jack gets back into the fight, Chuck is unable to smite him. It turns out, Jack has been siphoning Chuck’s powers and, in one last hurrah, drains Chuck of the remainder, rendering him powerless. Instead of killing Chuck, Sam and Dean leave him alive, to grow old, get sick, and die, like a human. Sam, Dean, and Jack go back to the nearest city where Jack brings all the humans back to Earth. Then Jack walks off, leaving Sam and Dean. At that point, the audience is treated to a montage of the series scored to Jackson Brown’s “Running on Empty.” As far as season finales go, it’s pretty clear cut and unambiguous.
Except this isn’t the series finale. There’s still one episode left.
After the events with Chuck and Jack, the brothers find themselves waking up in the bunker to regular, everyday tasks: making their beds, cooking breakfast, brushing their teeth. Sam searches for a case and finds nothing. But Dean says he has something. Turns out, that thing is a pie festival. (As an aside, I loved this swerve because it shows Dean’s human side and plays on his love for pie, which kind of makes him and me kindred spirits.)
But it turns out there is something wicked happening. A family is killed, and two boys kidnapped by intruders in skull masks. Sam and Dean arrive to investigate to discover that it was perpetrated by a nest of vampires. The boys hunt down the vamps and kill them, but Dean is injured in the process. He suffers a slow and agonizing death where he tells Sam how proud of him he is, how he’d always looked up to him for his courage, and asks Sam to give him permission to go. It truly is a heart-wrenching scene, especially after fifteen years of watching these boys suffer, die, and get resurrected. This time is different; this time it’s final.
Dean dies and ascends to heaven where he is greeted by Bobby. Sam goes on to live his life; he quits hunting, gets married, has a son, and dies of old age in his bed at home. Afterward, he is reunited with Dean in heaven. Roll credits.
From what I hear, the reaction to the finale is positive. Though it’s heartbreaking, people like the idea that Dean died the hunter’s death he always knew he would, while Sam was able to live his life away from monsters and demons, just like he wanted. And I get that; the ending fit the characters. But is that really how Dean should have gone out?
Sure, Dean grew up a hunter and accepted that this life would lead to his end, but that was before he discovered that everything he faced in his life was orchestrated by Chuck (14.20, “Moriah”). Discovering that all of the events he’s gone through, all of the loss he’s suffered was just to entertain Chuck truly angers Dean. His outlook changed at that point. He had one singular goal; to stop Chuck, and that’s what they did.
So why wouldn’t Dean’s outlook carry over after they stopped Chuck? Why wouldn’t he just want to live a normal life after that? He could have, for sure. The puppet was finally free of his strings, so why not take advantage of that?
We also have to consider that Dean was dragged into a life of hunting by his father, John. Dean grew up in it, was trained by John to be one of the best. He never really had a choice in the matter. And with his final breath, he tells Sam that he looked up to his younger brother’s strength to stand up to their father and blaze his own trail.
Dean was finally free of the two controlling beings in his life: John and Chuck. But he still met his end in a hunter’s death. That just seems…unfair to me.
Would Dean have been able to give up the hunter’s life and stop helping people? It’s happened before after Sam and Lucifer are trapped in the Cage at the end of Season 5, where Dean finds his way back to Lisa and her son Ben (5.22, “Swan Song”). By the start of Season 6, Dean has been living with Lisa and Ben for a year. He’d given up hunting, started working in construction, and even drove a pickup truck instead of the Impala (6.01, “Exile on Main St.”). It wasn’t until Sam returned did Dean feel the need to get back into the hunting business. Of course, splitting his time between hunting and Lisa destroys Dean’s relationship (6.06, “You Can’t Handle the Truth”). But from this, we at least see that, separate from his family, Dean is able to live a normal life. Hell, even their visit to the pie festival and his adoption of Miracle the dog shows that Dean wants to enjoy “normal” things.
Dean’s happy ending also relied on a Deus ex Machina. Literally. Throughout the series, it’s understood that heaven is more conceptual than real. When people die and go to heaven, they relive the happiest memories they’ve experienced throughout their lives. We, as the audience, have seen this many times. So, when Dean dies and he sees Bobby, he asks, “What memory is this?” Bobby explains that it’s no memory. That Jack, as the head of creation, made changes to heaven, allowing people to experience the afterlife as free-spirited as they’d like.
This one change, that occurred offscreen between the last episode and this episode, is the only reason Dean’s ending is happy. Otherwise, he’d just be reliving the few happy moments he got through his life over and over and over again. There would be no thoughtful drive in Baby through the deserted countryside. No tearful reunion with Sam at the end. This one little change that counteracts the audience’s knowledge of the show is what made the difference, and, to me, it felt like a cop-out.
As I stated earlier, the series finale was well received, and that’s great. The writers were able to tap into what the fans want and give it to them. After all, Supernatural only really survived as long as it did because of its vehement fanbase. So, if I’m in the minority of those who thought the episode was less-than-gracious to Dean, then that’s fine. This one episode isn’t going to change my outlook on the season as a whole. But I am grateful that the writers ended the penultimate episode the way they did; that way, I can ignore this epilogue to the series and have the montage as my own, personal series finale.
