Oh anons flooding my inbox to tell me that I’m a conspiracy theorist for thinking there’s more to this finale than meets the eye and/or that it’s totally the writers’ fault, you have no idea how much I do not care! I’m tagging anything related as “finale theories” and you should feel free to blacklist it using whatever method you so choose. I’m staying away, until the dust settles, from drawing any conclusions about what exactly happened to the script (either to make it what it was pre-covid or post-covid) or what cut scenes might have contained, or who was at fault for how it all turned out.
To the anons who think I’m reading too much into Jensen and Misha’s relative “silence” on the finale, I have some comments. With Misha it’s harder to tell, but I am completely convinced that Jensen is deliberately not engaging with finale-related content because he’s so alienated, angry, and disappointed. I think Misha is finding ways to talk about it that he thinks will support the fandom, rather than the network, and frankly he is far more used to having to deal with the feeling of being screwed by the network but still loving the fans. But Jensen really trusted them and they did him really dirty.
Leaving aside the fact that neither Jensen nor Misha was in the CW “thank you” video--which is LOUD AF of them--let’s look at the social media angle. We already know that Jensen wasn’t happy with the finale as it was written (which likely included Dean dying and, yes, that was probably his biggest beef, but I’ll bet he had some words about Misha’s character too) and talked to several people about it. He was then told to accept it and make his peace and he did that and did the best he could. Now, since November 5th we’ve heard very little from him and definitely not in the ways you would expect to hear from the star of a long-running show like SPN.
He’s been much more forthcoming about how proud he was of the scene he shot with Misha in “Despair.” Jensen and Misha both posted about 15x18 and Jensen happily talked about it on a livestream. It meant so much to him personally (as the last scene they’d film together, or as a momentous moment in the show, or as something else) that he had someone film it on his phone just for him and admitted breaking character. They talked it through beforehand a lot. They talked about it after a lot and texted each other fan reaction videos. They were glad to be able to do something that meant so much to us and that brought the story to this point.
Over on Twitter, Misha seems pretty much his same self, using the proper hashtag (which in the old days of Twitter he used to mock Jensen for not knowing how to do) and RTing nostalgic comments from Kripke, Jim Michaels, etc. His personal tweets just tagged Jensen and Jared. The set pics he shared were from 15x18. Jensen just gave Entertainment Weekly a RT for the finale. He’s pretty much full-time on Instagram, but that’s still pretty little engagement. He liked two tweets, both on 11/5 when 15x18 was airing, by Misha and Bobo Berens, but zero tweets related to the finale. (Jared tweeted during the finale a few times and then sent some comfort to the fans. FWIW he also didn’t RT or tag any network folks. I think he’s probably less happy than he seems, but he’s a company boy doing a new show with them so his hands are tied.)
Over on Instagram, on the day of the finale Misha was busy. He posted a pic of Maise “Spon on-set props assistant” in a trench coat robe. Jensen liked that. He also posted a video recapping and asking people to tune into the finale. Jensen did not like that. THEN he posted a pic of him and Jensen filming 15x18. Jensen liked that. Pic of Misha and the kids about to watch SPN? Jensen likes it. Pic of Misha crying during the finale and saying how much he’s going to miss Sam and Dean that actually tags Jensen? Jensen does not like it. The gist? Jensen “likes” all Misha’s posts from that day except the two related to the content of the finale (rather than watching it with West and Maison...and besides, soft boy Jensen isn’t going to not like a pic of West and Maison!).
And here’s Jensen’s account. On November 3rd, Jensen posts to thank TV Guide. On the 19th he posts to thank Entertainment Weekly. On the day of the finale, he posts a pic of Dean’s boots and a video of him getting dressed as Dean “for the last time - for now.” (I think that was a clumsy attempt not to spoil anything but I will also hold onto the idea that maybe he will do his own version of a sequel. The day after the finale he posts a slightly salty photo of the piece of rebar (aka “the rusty nail”) that killed Dean captioned “Excuse me....uh, ‘set dec’!!! Can we get this removed please?!?!” and uses the hashtag “spnfamilyforever.” That’s the hashtag for us--for the fans--rather than anything official. Those posts were both for us too, showing him loving Dean and loving being Dean and being just as pissed as us about his death. (For the record, Jared posted a pic of him watching the finale, also hashtagging the spnfamily, and Jensen liked it.)
All the people that he’s not thanking reads very loudly. Contrast to all the thanks he (and everyone else) were throwing like roses at the 300th episode party. Jensen is a generous guy. He’s professional, everyone likes him, and he likes to credit everyone for their accomplishments. For him to be this silent and not write a single caption thanking ANYONE aside from TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly (who he needs to keep on his good side for his own production company)? IS SO OUT OF CHARACTER!!! Every con, every interview, he talks about how they couldn’t do what they do without the help of all these other people along the way. To not have it in him to thank those people? He must be hurting so incredibly badly.
He cares about us so he’ll do what he can for the SPN family. But it won’t surprise me if the clusterfuck of an ending alienated him so much that we don’t get things we might otherwise (more panels, for example, or cons) because he is just done working with the people who hurt him. I’m glad he was smiling in that most recent livestream because he sure doesn’t seem happy right now.