I think this should be my last blog on the subject. I’m starting to feel calm again, regaining my composure after an emotional week following the series finale. Finding some consolation.
I have been reflecting, reading comments on fan sites, following the controversy about censorship and silencing. I’m not going to ascribe ill motives to the CW network, or argue that the principle stars of Supernatural: Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins are being manipulated and gagged with NDAs, and so forth. I’m sure Jared, Jensen and Misha are having conflicted and mixed emotions about the finale of the show. The show was a big part of their lives for a long time, and many of the fans are not happy with how the show ended.
We will see over time how things work out, and if there were any ill intent or manipulations, those will eventually come to light. The stars will eventually speak to the fans on social media and at conventions and share their feelings.
For me, I’m trying to wrap my mind around what happened with Supernatural’s finale and get a sense of closure, so I can happily go back to being a Destiel shipper without any angry feeling toward the show and those who made it. And maybe look forward to a reboot or reunion where that awful ending can be revisited.
As you know from my previous post, I wanted Dean to Live and Love Castiel, but that’s not the ending we got. So I have been thinking, why did we get the ending we got? What were the consequences of ending that way?
Then it occurred to me. We got the ending to a show we were no longer watching. We got the ending to the show about two brothers, with an obsessive co-dependent relationship that hunted and killed monster like their Dad raised them too. The one with the weird angsty, vaguely incestuous, macho brothers in flannel, where women were sex objects to Dean and Sam’s girlfriends kept getting killed. The show about addiction to demon blood and brothers sacrificing for the other, before family become more than just blood. Before the actors who played the brothers, grew up to become men, husbands and fathers. That show ended seasons ago, but the writers and produces decided to give us an ending to that old show. An ending many people no longer wanted.
A lot happened in those 15 years. Sam and Dean Winchester suffered and grew up, they became adults; the brothers developed families and took on responsibilities. They fought for the world and saved it. They earned a happy ending, but the show was unwilling to give it to them. Instead it threw the brothers back in time to their prolonged adolescences, as Daddy’s warriors with a creepy incest vibe. In going back to the old show, Castiel and the others were no longer relevant, and were erased.
When the writers decided to do an ending to the old show, that had consequences for the final episodes of what Supernatural had become. Negative ones. The final episodes had to move to eliminate all the major players that the show had developed over recent years, and then ignore them in the finale, so the finale could just focus on Sam and Dean. Consequently, the show had to erase all the minority, gay and disabled characters to make way for an ending that was no longer warranted. This had the unfortunate effect of silencing the representation of the minority characters that the show had worked hard to develop, and that people are now so upset about as a side-effect.
The series finale (15×20) largely acts as if episodes 15×17-19 never happened. Sam and Dean were now free to forge their own lives now. They had defeated Chuck. Then in 15×20, the writers threw Sam and Dean back to where they were before, back to the origins of the show. Dean dies the death he was destined to die, and his free will is negated. He never got the life he earned. The series finale ended the old show, not the current one: the current one, where Dean finally finds his love and his family, and is loved back in return. I’m upset that the love Dean finally found with Cas never gets to be reciprocated and experienced. Castiel just gets erased (into the Empty), and Dean’s bi-sexuality is as well, in service of an ending that was no longer valid to what the show had become.
And the show did go a long way (not just queer baiting) to establish that there was a genuine relationship between Dean and Castiel. In season 15 alone, the break up in episode 15×3 and Dean’s prayer to Castiel in purgatory in episode 15×9 essentially establishes them as a couple. We never got to see how that relationship developed, because it was preempted to setup a finale to a show that no longer existed anymore.
I wonder what ending we would have gotten if the writers had decided to end the show where it stood at the conclusion of 15×19? Other than a few passing references to Cas rebuilding heaven, the ending we got is not really connected to season 15 at all, (and the recent seasons that lead to it). Imagining an ending to the show as it currently stood will have to be left up to the fans, their fanfiction and the fan community that grew around the show.
I still wish the ending was better. I still wonder if there was a lot of editing of scenes to make Dean appear less bi-sexual.
They gave us the ending to season one, as if the show had not been renewed. We tuned in to see the ending of Supernaural as it stood after 15 years of renewals.
I wanted Destiel to finally become canon after seasons of hinting about it. I wanted Destiel to be celebrated in the final season. Instead we get …
Dare I say it? The series finale finally affirms that Dean’s true love the whole time was really Sam, and we got the “incest ending.” Incest has to be punished with a spike to the back.
I feel like I want to know what Jared, Jensen and Misha think about Destiel being canonical (or not), since they played those roles for so many years. I want to know if they are happy with the legacy they are leaving for the fans (or if they wanted something different that was beyond their control). If they think that Destiel should be considered canon (despite what the writers wrote or the produces approved). If so, than we can consider Destiel canonical too. Do they give their permission for us to let Dean and Cas (and Sam too) love each other, and imagine them as Jared, Jensen and Misha embodied them and gave them life through their performances. What I’m waiting on now is for Jensen to come out and say that Destiel is canon. If both Misha and Jensen approve and acknowledge Destiel than that is really all we need.
[ADDENDUM: A brief outline for season 16.]
So, I have been thinking, we need a season 16 of Supernatural. The story is not finished yet. This will be a short season, just a few episodes, if the cast and crew decide to come back and revisit the Winchester Brothers. The series finale (15×20) is a provisional ending. It is subject to change according to Sam and Dean’s free will.
The series finale turns out to be a premonition of Dean’s death sent to him by Amara in his sleep. He wake up and she is sitting on the side of his bed and says: “Hello Dean, what were you dreaming about?” He has dreamed of his future, and Sam and Dean now have the free will to change it since Chuck is not writing their story anymore.
Dean tells Sam about his premonition with the understanding that changing his ending could also change Sam ending. He might loose his future wife and son. The season then follows Sam and Dean deciding whether or not to change Dean’s ending now that they can write their own story. Will Sam possibly give up his future family and son to keep his brother alive? Will Dean allow Sam to alter Dean’s death?
In the mean time, the brothers work with Jack and Amara to rescue Castiel from the empty. Dean has to finally face his feelings for Cas, and Dean and Castiel are finally reunited. Too much has happened over the last several seasons to not let them have a happy ending together. Dean does love Cas in his own way.
Sam and Dean decide to retire from hunting, and turn the bunker over to a new generation of hunters. Since many monsters derive from corrupted humans, such as werewolves and vampires, there will always be more monsters and demons to hunt.
We also find out what Amara thinks about what Sam and Dean did to her brother Chuck, taking away his powers. She might not be happy, so that could be a complication.
At the end, settling one of their Dad’s unfinished cases, Sam and Dean find their way back to the barn. Dean recognizes it from his dream and prepares to die. Instead Sam destroys the “hook” with a sledge hammer thus changing his and Dean’s story. With his death adverted, Dean can finally confesses that he didn’t want to die, and he really does love Castiel and wants to be with him. Now we can finally have a happy ending for the brothers.
Sam marries Eileen, and the show ends with all four of them on the beach. Sam and Eileen lie on the beach side by side, and she has a great big pregnant belly. Next to them lay Dean and Castiel. Cas is in his trench coat as usual, (and indulge the Destiel shipper in me) and Dean lays in the sunshine with a big pregnant belly of his own. He is having Castiel’s baby, because this is Supernatural, and that can happen. Dean has always been the nurturing one (even if he won’t admit it), and needs a baby of his own to raise. Both Sam and Dean finally get the families they longed for so much.
Damn it, now just do it, and give them the happy endings they deserve.
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c. e. hammock 