It wasn’t the ending that was planned, but I truly believe it was the ending that was meant to be.
It was heartbreaking, and poignant, and beautiful.
Jared and Jensen have said that they like to think there were five years between the time they killed Chuck and the pie festival. I like to think that too. Sam and Dean, living the life they had always secretly wished for but never dared believed they would have. Years spent in the bunker, taking the occasional hunt, enjoying life with all her ups and downs and peaceful in-betweens.
The very best part of our show is found in the love Sam and Dean have for each other. It’s so rare to find a show that doesn’t insist that romantic love is the only important way you can love—that it should be everyone’s end all and be all. But Supernatural showed us something different. That a love can be intense, profound, life-affirming, beautiful and not be romantic. In those five years, Sam and Dean enveloped each other in that love and they both thrived.
It was bound to end bloody. We were promised that from the beginning. And I’m glad Dean had those five years first. I’m glad he died as he lived—-fiercely, heroically, full-throttle. He died a hero, doing what he loved, his brother by his side.
The barn scene was perfect in the most heartbreaking of ways. Dean’s entire speech, broken and brave, was poignantly devastating. I will never be able to hear the words “I love you so much, my baby brother,” without tearing up. I still live in that barn, with the two of them, watching as Sam’s world crumbles into dust, watching Dean face what’s coming with quiet dignity.
Sam lived. And in doing so, he raised a son He gave Dean Jr the kind of life that Dean had always wished for Sam—a life cocooned in love, a life where the monsters were known but were kept away, a life where Dean Jr could blossom and grow and know beyond anything that his father loved him.
Being that he was named after who Sam believed to be the greatest man that ever lived, I like to think he grew up to do great things as well. But this is not his story.
And then the show ended on the bridge. The soft way Dean smiled as soon as he sensed his presence. The other half of his soul had been returned to him.
They live there now, together, forever. There’s an endless road and they will travel it together, side by side. Two bodies, one soul, an eternity.
Thank you Supernatural for giving us this ending. Supernatural ended as it began with Sam and Dean. I miss them. I always will.