The Supernatural Finale Red Herring Theory
Or reasons why it was the AU guys we saw in the finale, not our Sam and Dean.
1. It makes me feel better.
2. I can just see them doing this for the Ackles reboot because it’s an easy way to reopen everything.
Having felt better joking about this with @margarittet all morning I wanted to share it 😊
We see Sam and Dean walk away from Jack at the end of 19. From here is the split.
Our Sam and Dean walk away from Jack... and head back to the bunker. En route Sam calls Eileen. She is alive! Duh, they all are, Jack brought them back. They liaise about where she is and Sam takes her car back to her, because he has her car and they are in love. A happy reunion and much motel shagging ensues, Dean jokingly put 3 packets of condoms in Sam’s bag before he went but they came in very handy, so Sam ain’t complaining.
Meanwhile Dean mopes and drives around, he’s happy for Sam but he’s devastated for himself. He calls Charlie to check she’s ok and yes her girlfriend poofed back and they flew to Vegas and got hitched within the day. “Gotta grab those opportunities for happiness Dean, I wasn’t letting her go again”. He can’t help but be jealous. He longs for Castiel. He might be happy for Sam and Charlie, but he can’t forget about Cas. He just can’t.
So of course as a recall to earlier canon, Jack feels his longing and resurrects Castiel for Dean as he did only a few years ago. But this time it’s more obviously because he romantically loves him back.
So while driving Baby aimlessly and thinking about Cas just a few days after the end of the world, Cas reappears on the side of the road, just as he did after purgatory. Dean, now he knows how Cas feels, wastes no time and they have a grand romantic reunion right there on the side of the road, then a less grand and more frantic reunion in the car, and when they’re arrested for indecent exposure, because Dean only now realises Cas chose to come back human (because of course Jack asked him what he wanted) and they can’t get poofed away, they have an awkward call with Sam posturing as an FBI agent to have them let go. Sam, of course, never wants to think about this ever again, while Eileen thinks it’s hilarious and brings it up mercilessly whenever she can. Sam and Cas have a wonderful brotherly reunion back at the bunker, then they all discuss how they want to retire now things are in the best position they can leave them in and they deserve it.
They pack up their personal things, call around various friends and family to let them know they’re retiring, but always at the end of the phone, and then they call their AU counterparts to let them know they can either stand down or take up the mantle. They decide on the latter as they are just ridiculously bored, and stupid, so they leave the bunker to them. There’s a lovely metaphorical scene where they hand the keys over at the bunker door.
We follow AU Sam and Dean as they attempt their first cases as hunters pretending to be this world’s Sam and Dean so they can retire unlooked for and in peace. It’s kinda sweet, but they’re just a bit crap at it.
They continue to be charicatures of themselves. A fun indication that this is AU Sam and Dean is how their personal habits are flipped with Dean the messy one and Sam the tidy one. They make cheesy jokes and have a stupid faceplant pie scene. AU Dean is a dog lover. It’s all cheesy, because they’re the AU bros. They’re morons.
They remember a bit about what their counterparts told them about saving the world, they vaguely know of Castiel, who they ran into briefly years ago. When Sam brings up his sacrifice as told by the others, Dean thinks huh that’s a shame he’s dead he was kinda hot, but oh well he’d want us to keep living so meh, he continues to eat pie.
This is the only explanation, given our Dean has frequently lost the plot and even killed himself when Cas is dead. This guy doesn’t even know who he is. Ok then. Pie.
And well, unfortunately they’re just not that good at hunting and AU Dean gets rebared.
Tough gig. Didn’t last long fellas.
Dean’s kinda confused when he gets to heaven to find this guy Bobby but it’s ok his parents are round the corner and he likes them :)
Meanwhile AU Sam never even met Eileen so he just marries blurry wife #1 and carries on. He has photos of his mom and dad in his house because he had a pretty good relationship with his dad actually, in the AU, so that all makes sense too.
In the end, it’s sad but these guys are just charicatures of our Sam and Dean, we saw them attempt hunting and fail miserably at the easiest hurdle, they have no memory of the people they loved deeply just a day before, and, basically, they’re just not very good at anything and they don’t act like our Sam and Dean, like at all, throughout the whole episode.
And that’s why it makes more sense that it’s these idjits, not our world’s Sam and Dean who we watched be massacred in the finale.
