your mini-metas are reminding me.... didn't the conversation between becky & chuck earlier this season basically predict this episode? "villains are boring, nobody mentions cas, etc."?
They have planted things all season long, laying out these themes. Others have articulated this better than I have, but along with the deep dive character arcs, character driven stuff, S15 has been a meta-textual commentary on SPN itself.
While the ep didn’t follow Chuck’s bleak ending, Becky’s criticisms are still ringing in our head.
Things that didn’t seem to fit, such as:
Sam was ready to collapse over losing Eileen last week’s ep after she got snapped, and didn’t just so he could keep one foot in front of the other. Does it fit that he would just shrug and go “here’s to all we’ve lost” -- he doesn’t even try to contact her after everyone is unsnapped.
Dean was on the floor sobbing over Cas last week. They showed a few signs of his grief this week. He is still wearing the hand-print stained jacket. Dean drinks so much he passes out on the library floor. He yells at Chuck “you’re gonna bring him back.” That’s authentic, but the ep didn’t dig too deep into it, and then by the end, clinking beer bottles with Sam, here’s to all we’ve lost, it’s just us now omg yay drive off in the Impala.
Castiel carved on the bunker table just underscores how off this is, because the actions of the ending are undermining that gesture.
It doesn’t fit, because it’s not supposed to.
The montage was just not where it’s at. Cute. Be great to open a CE convention with.
SPN has always been about family and this ep was brilliantly showing how empty it is throwing Sam and Dean artificially back to their early mode of just 2 bros in a car, that isn’t who they are now, it doesn’t fit the mood or tone of the entire season to date.
This episode behaved like a series finale. The villain is defeated. Here’s a montage to all the SPN characters. But it wasn’t the series finale. That’s next week. And now every radar I have for this show is beeping full tilt.
Real season finale next week.