>>>>>Official Episode Discussion/Comments Thread<<<<<

[Volvagia_slayer]

I was also surprised by the twist. I really liked Harper, but a bit less so now that I know she's an evil necromancer, lol. I don't know the actress, but apparently her name is Maddie Phillips. It looks like she was in the first episode of Legion and a random episode of iZombie, so I guess I've seen her before, but I didn't recognize her at all.

Oh crap. Do you remember the episode of Supernatural where the ghost was using the Internet to get around and kill people? The same actress played the main girl from that episode, but she had much darker hair. I barely recognize her. (She was definitely playing a different character though unless she changed her name from "Janet" to "Harper".)

Yeah, I actually quite enjoyed this one. It was definitely the funniest episode of the season so far, IMO. Sam playing with the fidget spinner felt a little out of character to me, but it still got a big laugh from me. And I like how subdued alt-Charlie is. By that I mean original Charlie was so much of a caricature... She was abrasive but brilliant to the point of disbelief, and yet everyone loved her. Alt-Charlie is so much more nuanced than that. She feels like a real character.

And then we had some other great call backs with Jack using "Christo" to check if Harper was possessed (which we haven't heard about since Season 1) and zombies needing to be staked to their graves to be killed. (Past seasons had forgotten about that and let headshots successfully kill zombies, so it was nice to hear Dean say that wouldn't work.) However, silver burning a zombie was brand new lore, so it felt really off to me. Granted, I don't think there's anything that says it couldn't be true, but you'd just think the brothers would have used silver before if they knew it had an affect on zombies. So two steps forward and a half step back in the lore department.

I wonder if the tribe of Musca are going to come back at some point. I don't think they were included at the end of the episode as a hint that they would return; I think they were just included to underline the theme of like-minded people sticking together, but with the Supernatural writers you never know.

I feel like Jack has to fulfill that prophecy he gave to Cas back in Season 12 where he brings peace to the world, so I don't see Jack dying before that prophecy is fulfilled. So I'm not too worried about him coughing up blood, but it is weird that this is the plotline the writers decided to give Jack. Cas losing his grace didn't make him spit up blood, so why is it happening to Jack? And where was Castiel this episode anyway?

 

[w1seguy20]

Ha! They don't expect people like you to remember the same actress being used to play a different character. Changing her hair was a way to make it harder to recognize, but thats funny. I did not remember her from that internet episode and that's not why I said she looked familiar, but wow.
I thought I remember Cas being written off as working with another case off screen this episode, but I'm probably wrong.
Also thought the cuffs were laced with holy water and thats why it burned, not the silver, but again, maybe wrong again.

At any rate, I look forward to seeing Vegas next episode lol, and if so, I wish I knew when they had filmed it

 

[w1seguy20]

Not sure where this episode was going lol. Felt weird that there were no hunts going on this episode. Although I do like the parallel storyline with Nick. See, I told ya they would revisit him at some point, even though you were upset that they didn't do it right away, in an episode where they addressed so many other things.

Speaking of, I missed a bit of dialogue during that visit with the retired cop, mostly the demon name drop, but looks like the mystery was solved, a cop was possessed by the demon who killed Nick's family. Its very apparent, yet strange and yet unexplained as to how badly scarred Nick was from being possessed so long by Lucifer that he has sunk to such levels of slaughter. And that confession/prayer at the end... chills! Just yearning for him seems to have revived Lucifer from the Empty, kinda like how Cas was revived in a similar way from Jack, no? Yet Jack had nephilim powers when he revived Cas, and Nick is just human... or is he? Seems like the long shared body with Lucifer has bonded them in a way that surpasses death. Lots of questions with just that minor storyline.

As for Jack... that whole part of the plot seemed like a waste of time, especially considering where he ended up after that failed experiment. Idk how they are planning to survive this if he is to deliver on his dream of bringing peace, lol, but that remains to be seen? Oh and looks like we are being foreshadowed more and more that something is up with Dean and perhaps Michael IS in there somewhere. After all, we have yet to see Michael's "new" vessel. How else would you explain his periodic distorted vision and hearing? HMM.

Point is, I was much more intrigued by the "minor" plot-line around Nick this episode then I was Jack's.

 

[Volvagia_slayer]

I actually read some people's thoughts on the episode before I watched the episode and saw people talking about "Abraxas" out of context, so I looked him up to see what the importance of the name was. It's a name that is sometimes used for a minor supernatural creature (possibly a demon), but its more popular use is as the name of a primordial deity who existed in some mythologies before God and the devil. In other words, it could be the name of the Entity from the Empty.

However, if Lucifer knew this Abraxas, and the cop was possessed to kill Nick's family, Supernatural is probably just using the name as a demon name, even though Abraxas would be a great and totally appropriate name for the Entity. It'll be interesting seeing how (if) they justify Abraxas doing something kind of major in the show's lore and then staying out of the limelight for 9 whole years. Granted, they did pull a similar stunt when they revealed that some random demon possessing Sam's friend Brady was really responsible for killing Jessica (on Azazel's orders rather than Azazel killing her in person), but that was only a 4 year gap).

That said, having Nick's family killed on Lucifer's orders by a random demon hurts Lucifer's Season 5 arc for me a little bit. He told Nick that he would never lie to him, and that promise means a lot more if Lucifer found a broken man who was able to be pushed to evil because of his circumstances rather than being manipulated into evil by the person who lied to your face when he said he'd never lie to you or anyone else.

So I wasn't particularly enthralled by Nick's storyline. Though that scene of Lucifer(?) awakening in the Empty was pretty cool. That said, it doesn't make a lot of sense that Nick's prayer would wake up Lucifer without a lot of explaining away. I mean, we could point to Crowley recreating Nick's body with the same God-level magic that's in the Cage, but we've been told that God has no power in the Empty, so this shouldn't affect Lucifer. There's Jack's nephilim grace in the deceased Lucifer, but it appeared to be inactive, so how could Nick's prayer reach it in order to wake Lucifer up? Regardless, I like that skeleton form that they chose to give Lucifer instead of just having him appear as Nick.

I actually loved the Jack stuff. Actually, let me clarify. The hospital stuff at the beginning of the episode: well shot and well-written but just incredibly stupid. It didn't feel like Supernatural, and it made no sense why the brothers would take Jack to a hospital if Cas couldn't do anything for him. Calling Rowena was a good move though, and it answered the lingering question of whether or not she still had the Book of the Damned! Then everything with Dean and Jack bonding and Jack pondering his mortality was lovely. I had a huge smile for all of those scenes. They were my favorite parts of this entire season so far.

I'm on the fence about the shaman storyline though. On the one hand, I liked that the brothers were able to get some more use out of Ketch and the British Men of Letters knowledge. And I liked that we got additional information for how Gabriel was hiding himself so well that even God thought he was dead, but I didn't like how 1) this means this random shaman somehow knew a cloaking spell that was strong enough to hide someone from God, and 2) this shaman whose job it is to "know the unknowable" and sounded like he had a 100% success rate didn't know how to cure Jack even though he had archangel grace which should have helped more than it did. The archangel grace causing Jack to get worse makes no sense to me given what we've seen of Castiel and Lucifer using other angels' grace to heal themselves. Granted, Jack is a nephilim and therefore may be affected by grace differently than an angel or an archangel, but it just seems so arbitrary at this point.

Bottom line, it looks like we were in opposite boats this week. I loved (most of) the Jack plotline but wasn't super intrigued by the Nick plotline (though I did enjoy this week's Nick plotline more than the earlier episode this season that had a Nick plotline).

 

[w1seguy20]

[URL='https://www.ign.com/boards/members/volvagia_slayer.59/']@Volvagia_slayer[/URL]

He told Nick that he would never lie to him

Dude, he's Lucifer! Nothing he says should be taken at face value. Did you really expect that the devil himself would not lie? Anything to get a vessel to say yes, right?

That said, it doesn't make a lot of sense that Nick's prayer would wake up Lucifer without a lot of explaining away.

We don't disagree on everything about this episode

Then everything with Dean and Jack bonding and Jack pondering his mortality was lovely. I had a huge smile for all of those scenes. They were my favorite parts of this entire season so far.

Alright, I did enjoy the bonding as well, and to clarify, that is not why I was "meh" on his plot. I just felt like they spent half an episode trying to heal him but then it doesn't work. So it was kinda pointless and realistically speaking, if that half of the episode minus the bonding didn't exist, it would not have added anything important and we would not have lost anything from it not being there. (edit: ok the tidbit about how Gabriel stayed hidden is nice, but not a glaring question that needed to be answered) Literally could have gone from the end of the previous episode (before thanksgiving) where he's coughing, to next week's episode, but add in a bit about calling Rowena and her examination of him. And just like you said, the whole hospital bit was unnecessary and more wasted screen time IMO.

The archangel grace causing Jack to get worse makes no sense to me given what we've seen of Castiel and Lucifer using other angels' grace to heal themselves.

Agreed. Really seems like they are stretching this Jack sickness thing out longer than they need to. Either he'll end up fine (which again strengthen's my point about how half of this episode was not really necessary, minus bonding) or he dies, his prophecy is wrong and they could have just killed him off an episode earlier.

---

Know what else I really liked about the Nick plot? How he appears to struggle and be conflicted with his feelings, almost like there is still a conscience inside him that is at odds with whatever is driving him to kill, whether it is remnants of Lucifer or not. We only saw it briefly when he was out in the alley with the dancer, but it still seems like there is an internal conflict, which intrigues me.

No comment on Dean's distorted vision or hearing? Gotta be Michael related, no? What else could it be?

 

[Volvagia_slayer]

Did you really expect that the devil himself would not lie?

Yeah, because that makes the character way more interesting. EVERY version of the devil lies in other stories. Having a devil who never lies but just tells you his distorted perception of the truth makes for a way more interesting portrayal of the devil, IMO.

Totally fair that you didn't enjoy the fact that Jack's plotline seemingly didn't move forward at all. When you put it that way, I agree with it being a disappointment. I got enough character moments out of it that I enjoyed it, but it is true that unless the archangel grace has some sort of delayed effect that we'll see in the next episode or so, this episode could pretty much be skipped except for the Nick plot.

That said, the alt-Michael plotline has completely bored me so far this season (excluding the djinn episode), so putting emphasis on Jack's storyline in order to not waste more time on the Michael plotline is enough of a positive for me to still not be too disappointed. (Then again, they really need to give us something substantial on the Michael plotline... There's not enough episodes left to keep giving us paltry information on the guy before moving on to the next episode.)

I forgot to mention Dean's distorted vision/hearing. I think you're entirely correct that it has to be Michael related. My initial thought was that Michael had hidden himself inside Dean and Dean heard a trigger word or something that would start to reactivate him and let Michael take over Dean again, but something that the showrunner said in an interview makes this seem unlikely (I won't say what he said in case you'd consider it spoilers). My second thought was that if Michael isn't in Dean, maybe it's like a homing signal, with Dean's body sending out a message to Michael, either relaying the information about Jack or signaling to Michael that now's the time to return and take Dean's body back. (I assume Michael did something that will allow him to take over Dean any time he wants without Dean needing to say yes again.)

Yeah, I also like that Nick is fighting Lucifer's influence (even if only just barely). I definitely don't want Nick to just be a mortal Lucifer.

 

[w1seguy20]

Alright, this whole episode really exemplifies why this series is considered a "drama" in the category dept. Esp the first 10 minutes. lol.

I liked it though. As expected, they found a way to fix Jack. Thought it was funny how you mentioned the possible name for the Empty entity last week, and it turns out they just used "the Shadow" as his name. I wonder how it got into Heaven though. Not a question about Heaven's defenses or anything which we know are weak given the number of angels left in this universe, but rather how the Shadow can cross between realms so easily. I didn't think it could leave the Empty at all. Which begs the question, can it go into Hell or Earth just as easily? Seems like it will at some point if Castiel's deal ever goes through, since it appears the Shadow will go to Earth to take Castiel when he is at the peak of "happy".

I don't fully agree with one act of helping the brothers tipping the scales into the lady's favor, lol, but whatever works right? Its like they had to wrap up her plot by saying she lived happily ever after in paradise.
Also, guess we can rule out that Michael is in Dean still based on the preview for next week. But its not ruled out that Dean's distorted hearing/vision from last week could still be Michael related.
I have to wonder though if the angels in heaven can track Micheal, why couldn't they continue to help them should Micheal escape again.

 

[Volvagia_slayer]

I really liked this episode. We got to see Lily Sunder again, Naomi, Kelly, the Empty entity (I'll take "the Shadow" as his name; it's not as fancy as "Abraxas", but I'll take it), and all sorts of other callbacks to previous seasons like Kevin's Angel Tablet translations, Donatello, Duma, Metatron closing heaven's door (really glad that's finally been addressed - I assume since the Shadow is purportedly more powerful than God/the angels, he was able to force all of the doors to heaven open despite Metatron's spell in order to get in and attack them).

It was weird seeing the bunker so empty (are we really supposed to believe that everyone was out on a mission for those two days?), but overall I really enjoyed this one.

Agreed that it's weird that we would see the Shadow outside of the Empty without much comment. From the context of the episode, I'm guessing that the Shadow hasn't been able to get back to sleep ever since Castiel woke up (and therefore woke it up), and so it's been keeping an eye on Jack and Castiel ever since. We know it's able to transport things between the Empty and Earth, so I suppose if it has just failed to get back to sleep for the past year, it would be willing to leave the Empty to figure out what it can do to return to sleep. So, yeah, I don't see it having any problems traveling to Earth.

Also agreed on Lily's action tipping the scale seeming implausible. I was really glad that we got to finally learn what decides who goes to heaven and who goes to hell, but Lily's action didn't seem like it would be enough to tip the scales to that effect. Granted, by the context of what Anubis said, she did willingly and knowingly give her life for Jack, so that made the act much better in the eyes of Anubis than it otherwise would have been, but I would have expected Lily's pre-ritual score to be much closer to the line than it appeared if this was going to be enough to push her over it.

Also, once the Shadow comes to claim Castiel, that's it for him, right? Presumably only the Shadow can let people out of the Empty (unless Jack's grace is enough to let people out of the Empty as well if it's used properly), so once the Shadow comes to take him, he's going to be stuck in the Empty forever, right? Unless they copy his consciousness and throw it in a new body right before the Shadow grabs him, which would kind of allow them to keep a graceless Cas? Though that seems like a long shot.

Yeah, this seems to confirm that Michael truly is outside of Dean, but I do still agree with you on Dean's weird sight and hearing most likely being Michael related.

I'm getting really scared for heaven. We're down to a maximum of 9 angels left to power all of heaven (not counting Castiel or Michael) with the most recent one's death. Unless someone makes some more angels ASAP, those souls are about to start falling...

Speaking of which, this episode said there are over 46 billion souls in heaven. I thought this was a really interesting figure because it's estimated that 100 billion humans have died. But those estimates are based on an Earth where humans came to prominence in 50,000 BC. Supernatural seems to work from a history where humans came to prominence in roughly 4,000 BC. So in Supernatural's universe, it's very unlikely that 100 billion humans have died. The number is probably lower than that since there's 46,000 years in which there were no humans that the 100 billion estimate doesn't account for. That said, the study I'm looking at estimates that if there were only 2 humans in 50,000 BC then there would have been 5,000,000 humans by the time of 8,000 BC. So we may only have to drop that 100 billion estimate by 1 billion at the most.

If that's the case, that would still give us 99 billion humans who have ever died, and 46 billion who made it to heaven, which would mean roughly 46% of humans make it to heaven in the Supernatural universe. Considering the people we've seen in heaven though (which includes hunters who have killed humans), I would have expected that percentage to be much higher. It seems that a lot of people get into heaven in the Supernatural universe that perhaps wouldn't be as likely to get in in universes with stricter rules about afterlife admission. But that 46% entry doesn't seem to reflect that notion as much as I would have expected.

 

[w1seguy20]

Speaking of which, this episode said there are over 46 billion souls in heaven. I thought ...

I love how you go into this much detail and actually studied this. Where did you get that Supernatural's universe starts in 4000 BC? Was it mentioned in an episode a long time ago?

Also, once the Shadow comes to claim Castiel, that's it for him, right?

Unless it doesn't actually happen during the length of the show. To me it sounds like the show would end before Castiel meets the criteria of being truly happy, or whatever. Because in order for that to happen the world would likely have to be rid of monsters, perhaps due to Jack fulfilling his prophecy, or some other way. And of course no monsters no show.

 

[Volvagia_slayer]

Where did you get that Supernatural's universe starts in 4000 BC? Was it mentioned in an episode a long time ago?

Not their universe, but that seems to be when the first sapient humans were born. I got this from the fact that Supernatural treats the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden as something completely true. Well, if you follow the genealogies in the Bible, you can roughly calculate the year that Adam was "born". Basically, the Bible mentions a historical event that we absolutely know the date of (back about 2000 BC), and then it tells you about a certain person who was alive at that time, tells you how old he was when he died, then tells you how old his father was when he was born, then how old his grandfather was when his father was born, etc., etc. all the way back to Adam. This puts the Garden of Eden story happening around 4112 BC.

Now it is definitely possible that Adam, Eve, and the Garden of Eden are 100% true in Supernatural while the genealogies are wrong, but since the genealogies are more specific than anything in the Garden of Eden story, that seems less likely to me. It'd be weird for thousands or millions of years of generations to just be inexplicably forgotten about in the Supernatural universe.

Unless it doesn't actually happen during the length of the show. To me it sounds like the show would end before Castiel meets the criteria of being truly happy, or whatever.

You have a great point. Logically, I think you're absolutely right. Narratively though, I think the writers would disagree with you since they seem to want to be able to use the Shadow in the show, so I think it's very unlikely that the writers will have the patience to bench the Shadow for the rest of the series. Granted, Lucifer stirring in the Empty will presumably allow them to use the Shadow a little bit more this season, but I would be very surprised if we never see the Shadow act on his promise within the length of the show just because it's not like these writers to set something up like that and then not follow through even when it would make more logical sense for the event to not be followed through with.

 

[Volvagia_slayer]

Pretty solid episode overall, I thought. It was good to see Garth and Ketch again (though I hate that Garth might have to be killed since he was forced to drink Michael's grace; hopefully there's some sort of cure for him).

Michael's plan for leaving Dean and sparing Sam, Jack, and Castiel sort of makes sense, though I'm not sure it was really executed as described... Cas just said this episode that Dean seemed happy, so why did Michael think Dean was beaten down? One might argue that killing off Sam, Cas, and Jack would be a better way to beat Dean down, but I could buy the argument that this would just make Dean angrier, more vengeful, and therefore even more difficult to control.

I don't like the idea of angels being able to "leave the door open" when they leave their vessel's body, and there's certainly nothing that really seems like it fits that in the show's lore, but I figured that was going to be the case. Dean's weird vision and hearing being a side effect of Michael spying on the group through Dean makes some sense. It was a bummer to see both the exorcism egg and the spear destroyed though.

We got another reference to our Michael, which was nice, and we got more of the Dark Kaia plot, which I liked. On the one hand, the Kaia plot did a lot right. It gave the writers a way to conclude her story in a way that made sense, it sort of explained how she came to the main universe in the first place... but then it shot itself in the foot by saying that Kaia wants to return to the Bad Place because she has people back there that she cares about and feels the need to protect. She JUST finished saying that the reason she came to the main universe was to get away from the Bad Place. So unless she was scouting out the main universe to see if it was safe to bring her loved ones to it as well, what she's saying isn't adding up. Plus Michael was seemingly only ever after her because of her spear. Without it, she shouldn't be much of a threat to Michael and therefore she should now be in less danger than she was in the Bad Place.

Also, the fake teeth this season have been atrocious. I don't know what happened to the dental budget this season... Maybe they decided to save some money by using plastic fangs instead of CG fangs, but it has looked really bad since episode 2 of the season and continues to do so.

But overall I thought there was more to like about this episode than dislike. I kind of wish Michael's attack had been on Chicago though instead of Kansas City because then he would have had a whole city of monsters already at his disposal and we could tie up that whole failed spinoff plot line from Season 9. It'll be interesting seeing how the writers are going to get the brothers out of this one...

 

[w1seguy20]

Bummer for the egg and spear too IMO. It does leave us with a bad taste as to how they are gonna get out of this one. I also don't like angels being able to leave the door open either, and I can't recall anyone else ever doing so.
Speaking of wrapping up the Kaia plot, is it really though? Her spear was destroyed so didn't she say if it wasn't returned to her, she would kill Dean? Lol I expect to definitely see her again before the end of the season. Who knows, they'll probably find a way to repair it or something.

Typical Drew noticing something as pedantic as fang quality.

 

[Volvagia_slayer]

Lol, sure, sure.

As for Kaia, I just mean the fact that they were clearly setting her up to be an ongoing plotline for the Wayward Sisters spinoff, but since that was canceled, they've come up with a fairly natural way to get rid of that plot line without it feeling like the writers are just dropping or unceremoniously writing it off. There's still more to come for her plotline, but it now has a much shorter lifespan and an intended end goal than it did before this episode.

 

[Volvagia_slayer]

New episode was pretty good. Really enjoyed seeing Pamela again even though I couldn't place why she looked so familiar until after they said her name. Presumably Garth is no longer mind controlled by Michael while Michael is locked away, but I wish they had confirmed that.

It'd also be nice to know how much of Jack's soul is being burnt up. How much did that spell cost him? How much is staying alive costing him? Does he have enough soul to last him until his grace returns strong enough to take over in place of the spell to keep him alive? I'd also like to know if it's possible to restore a soul or what the significance of a diminished soul is when put up against an untainted soul.

It was really nice to finally get an explanation for the alternate universes and Michael's goals/motivations. But I'm not sure I buy the alternate universes explanation. So Michael is saying that God created one universe, didn't like how it turned out, and then left it to create a new universe, and this cycle repeated until he got to the main universe. At which point it's unclear if God left the main universe to continue making new universes or if he just took a break before eventually returning to the main universe around the time of the apocalypse.

If Michael's explanation is correct, why would God have returned to the main universe around the time of the apocalypse when he could have just created a new universe that didn't have the same problems as the main universe? And what about Amara? She might have destroyed some of God's earliest universes, but she obviously didn't destroy the Bad Place universe or the Apocalypse World universe, which means she must have been locked away by that point. So did all Lucifers across the multiverses get a Mark of Cain to keep Amara imprisoned (and the main universe's Lucifer/Cain/Dean had the last existing Mark or the only Mark to ever be broken), or was it just the Lucifer from the main universe that got the Mark?

Presumably God didn't have the archangels from every universe fight Amara all at the same time, so that means he only used the archangels from the main universe to fight her and seal her away, which is why the Mark of Cain only exists in the main universe (ignoring the fact that the Mark of Cain helped lead to Lucifer's rebellion and the reason Michael and Lucifer have to fight one another, which is an event that already happened in the Apocalypse World universe)...

Anyway, Alt!Michael's explanation makes it sound like the main universe is the youngest universe, having the fewest flaws and therefore being the most recent universe God left to improve upon. But the presence of the Mark of Cain being found in the main universe marks the main universe as the OLDEST universe, which would mean God created a purposely worse universe when he created the Apocalypse World and Bad Place world. So I don't think Alt!Michael knows what he's talking about.

The book at the end of the episode was also interesting. Dean now knows exactly how he's going to die, and he has to either figure out a way to meet that death or try to come up with a third option that causes the books to change again, giving him a brand new death. (That's not beyond the realm of possibility now that Billie has revealed that the books can change.) We'll see how that goes...

 

[w1seguy20]

I am not following how the Mark of Cain makes our universe the oldest universe. Also would every Michael have the same desire to wipe out their respective universes and find God to take his revenge? Why is this one the only one where he succeeds in crossing over to a 2nd? Its a nice try at explaining where God is and whether he would return, but I don't get why destroying a universe has to happen for Micheal to catch up to God, why not just find him wherever he is?
And darn, I thought for a second before the soul explanation that Jack spontaneously got his powers back at that moment. lol

The rewriting death books thing was very interesting and leads me to believe they can be rewritten again, so this coffin thing they got going on doesn't seem like it will last very long, I mean can you imagine ending this season with Dean being dropped into the ocean? Highly doubtful, and from the preview, looks like its already going to be done or close to done next episode. Guess we'll see.
Final note is I'm surprised they let Nick go to Donn and the normal police. Yes he's a normal guy and all but I thought they would bring him back to the bunker, question him, maybe try to get him to change his ways, etc, which Sam was spouting off in the car when they were getting there about saving people who seem like they are past the point of return, but I guess not?

 

[Volvagia_slayer]

I am not following how the Mark of Cain makes our universe the oldest universe.

Because we know Apocalypse World Lucifer didn't have the Mark of Cain because he was able to die. If he didn't have the Mark of Cain, then he didn't participate in the battle to seal away the Darkness.

Amara's and God's quotes about the beginning of the universe during Season 11 tells us that there was only one universe in existence when God finally sealed the Darkness away. And since the main universe's Lucifer is the one who fought against the Darkness at that time, the main universe has to be the universe that was in existence at the time of the sealing. (The only way around this would be if God somehow managed to create all of the other universes in secret, so the Darkness only ever found out about the main universe, and therefore God only used the main universe's archangels to fight her. ...And God would have also had to believe that the existence of the other universes was information that he couldn't tell anyone about when Amara was threatening to destroy everything.)

Also would every Michael have the same desire to wipe out their respective universes and find God to take his revenge? Why is this one the only one where he succeeds in crossing over to a 2nd? Its a nice try at explaining where God is and whether he would return, but I don't get why destroying a universe has to happen for Micheal to catch up to God, why not just find him wherever he is?

I'm with you. It doesn't seem very well thought out. I'm glad the writers gave us an answer to the universes and Michael's motivations, but they were very weak answers.

I don't think every Michael would have the same desire. The main Michael, for example, was just about obeying God and what he thought he was supposed to do (except for the whole bit about doing his apocalypse duties before he was supposed to do them). I suspect the main Michael would have gone on some sort of quest for atonement had he killed Lucifer and God didn't return and paradise didn't come to Earth.

Do we even know how alt-Michael found out that alternate universes existed? Was it Jack's appearance in his world that revealed it to him, or had he already realized it and was trying to find archangel grace in order to travel between the universes?

And since the Bad Place universe shows us that you don't necessarily need archangel grace to travel to other universes as long as you have a particular set of magic in your universe, I could certainly see a possibility where there's a universe with a Michael in it that doesn't require archangel grace to open up a portal to another universe.

Yeah, I doubt the coffin thing will happen too. You know, since Nick revealed that one archangel stabbing another with an archangel blade won't necessarily kill the host but will kill the archangel, I'm very surprised that none of the books include any possibility where they pull main Michael from the Cage and have him stab Dean to try to kill alt-Michael and spare Dean.

For Nick, I think Sam has officially given up on him. He wanted to keep giving him a chance, but once he tried to kill Mary and the brothers, all of his chances were used up. And since right now he's killed a bunch of regular people (only some of whom were possessed) and he himself isn't superpowered in any way, there's really no reason to keep him from just being sent to jail (unless Lucifer should ever come back to life, but the brothers have no reason to believe that that's a possibility right now).

 

[w1seguy20]

Do we even know how alt-Michael found out that alternate universes existed? Was it Jack's appearance in his world that revealed it to him, or had he already realized it and was trying to find archangel grace in order to travel between the universes?
Has to be the former. That or seeing Mary, because alt Mary probably died long ago so alt-Michael would know something is up when seeing a younger version of her in his universe.

And since the Bad Place universe shows us that you don't necessarily need archangel grace to travel to other universes as long as you have a particular set of magic in your universe, I could certainly see a possibility where there's a universe with a Michael in it that doesn't require archangel grace to open up a portal to another universe.

Fair enough

Yeah, I doubt the coffin thing will happen too. You know, since Nick revealed that one archangel stabbing another with an archangel blade won't necessarily kill the host but will kill the archangel, I'm very surprised that none of the books include any possibility where they pull main Michael from the Cage and have him stab Dean to try to kill alt-Michael and spare Dean.

I really don't think they will want to have 2 Michael's to deal with, one is bad enough and with Dean having trusted alt- Micheal once only to get betrayed after he killed Lucifer, they won't make the same mistake again, even if their Micheal is supposed to be... better?

For Nick, I think Sam has officially given up on him. He wanted to keep giving him a chance, but once he tried to kill Mary and the brothers, all of his chances were used up. And since right now he's killed a bunch of regular people (only some of whom were possessed) and he himself isn't superpowered in any way, there's really no reason to keep him from just being sent to jail (unless Lucifer should ever come back to life, but the brothers have no reason to believe that that's a possibility right now).

I hear ya on all that, my only reason for pointing it out was that Sam has literally just talked about not giving up on people in the car prior so it seems directly contradictory. But hey, I guess you can change your mind if someone attacks you or your mom eh? It becomes personal at that point vs just a bunch of random people.

 

[w1seguy20]

I'm a little annoyed at myself for not realizing that the brief scene we saw in last week's preview was a dream. lol.

But beyond that I found the revival of Donatello tying in with the current plot of where they were traveling to (the ocean to drop Dean off, obviously) to be well done and the multiple double meanings with the lines being spoken were kinda cool.
Also liked but despised Nick shrugging off his ghost wife like that and confirming to us viewers that he wants Lucifer back so badly he would trap his wife on earth. And how did I know regular prison wasn't gonna hold him? Shoulda locked his ass up in the bunker lol.

 

[Volvagia_slayer]

Lol, yeah, it makes so much sense now that that was a dream, but I didn't guess it either.

I have mixed feelings about this episode. I also liked how the revival of Donatello thematically tied into Dean's dilemma, and I liked how the characters were written this episode. But I could never fully buy into their anguish because there are options that are available to them that they aren't discussing. For example, dropping Dean in the ocean is totally unnecessary while Sam and Castiel are alive. He could seal himself within the box to use it as a simple stasis pod, remaining trapped inside until Sam and Cas find a way to save Dean. And the dream implied that dropping the box in the ocean might damage the box (since water was able to drip through), so if that part of the dream was accurate, dropping it in the ocean would be a bad idea. And then there's still the real-Michael killing alt-Michael option, which I know is extremely unlikely for the brothers to try, but I'd like them to at least voice the option and dismiss it so we know that they've thought of all their options.

The Nick stuff was pretty good too. But it left me with two big questions:

1) Could Nick's wife have killed Nick to be set free? If the only reason she's still trapped is because she's upset with Nick for accepting Lucifer, and all she needs is for Nick to reject Lucifer to be free, wouldn't killing him and therefore forcing Nick to be unable to accept Lucifer ever again be effectively the same as him rejecting Lucifer? Or at least wouldn't that make sense for a ghost who's had 9+ years to go crazy? Bobby started losing his sanity after being a ghost for less than 1 year, so should we really expect Nick's wife to remain that sane?

2) How much of Nick's desire to be reunited with Lucifer is Nick's fault? Is this something that Nick 100% wants of his own volition, or does he want Lucifer because Lucifer did something to Nick while he was inside him? Or is this something that Crowley is responsible for since he rebuilt Nick's body molecule by molecule? Could it be that since this version of Nick was built specifically to be Lucifer's mobile cage that he was built with the desire to always house Lucifer and that if Nick had just been regularly resurrected instead of rebuilt he wouldn't have these feelings?

 

[w1seguy20]

Yeah I didn't post about it but I honestly also thought Sara was gonna go rage mode on Nick for not listening to her. Not because I thought the same way you did, but still very much thinking "this has got to be her breaking point where she turns crazy from being a ghost, right?" To she her just let him walk off, I was surprised.

Also for Nick, I had forgotten his body was not his original but rather a reconstruction. So in that case I totally agree and think it is more likely Crowley's doing when he rebuilt him, and perhaps less of what Lucifer himself did when he was in him.
I also wonder if we get to see Nick finally die in the show, and turn into one heck of a demon, should he continue his murderous rampage. Maybe even the new King of hell powerful? Perhaps a stretch, and he would probably in theory need to be killing many many more people for many years to qualify, but who knows.

 

[Volvagia_slayer]

I also wonder if we get to see Nick finally die in the show, and turn into one heck of a demon, should he continue his murderous rampage. Maybe even the new King of hell powerful? Perhaps a stretch, and he would probably in theory need to be killing many many more people for many years to qualify, but who knows.

That's a really cool thought. But unless they come up with a way to accelerate the demon transformation process, Supernatural would have to last for MANY more seasons before it'd make sense for him to return as a demon since we know that being tortured for over a year in hell isn't enough to transform your soul into a demon, and Crowley, the youngest known demon we've met, died 400 years before the show started.

 

[w1seguy20]

Wasn't Dean a demon briefly after dying simply because of the Mark of Cain? Surely they could come up with some half-hearted explanation that you won't be happy with. lol!

 

[Volvagia_slayer]

Lol, I'm sure they could manage something like that.

But, yes, you are correct. However it was specifically the Mark of Cain that allowed Dean to transform into a demon instantly. So there would have to be some explanation like that present for me to be able to begrudgingly swallow it.

Speaking of which (and I'll spoiler mark this just in case you haven't seen the most recent episode):

Spoiler

I begrudgingly accepted this episode's time travel premise. It sucks that the show has done time travel in 9 different episodes before this, and in 7 of those 9 episodes the show is all about how time travel can't change time. One of those remaining two episodes is just a fluke since time travel goes back to time-travel-can't-change-time in the very next episode, and the other one is eventually roped into the time-travel-can't-change-time rule by a subsequent episode. We even saw Crowley's son being pulled from the past with no changes to the timeline happening, which directly contradicts what we see in this episode with John being pulled from the past causing all sorts of changes to start happening... So I wasn't the biggest fan of the time travel in this episode.

But everything else was fantastic. All of the John stuff was great. All of the character moments were great. And even the treasure trove of new occult objects at the beginning of the episode was a lot of fun.

But despite that the episode still pretty much did nothing to move the story or characters forward. Unless those occult items come back into play later on, you could skip this episode and miss nothing except a little bit of emotional closure for Mary and the brothers.

The writers had said that this episode was entitled "Lebanon" because it was about the people in the town noticing Sam and Dean riding through on their way to and from the bunker and how different rumors and urban legends were cropping up about the brothers because of their mysterious goings-on, but that was such a small part of the episode it could have easily been removed and almost nothing would have been lost.

This episode had great emotional moments, but for the 300th episode of the show, it was a little lackluster, IMO. But I'll never complain about getting John back for an episode. That was still worth it. (And I also surprisingly really enjoyed seeing Zachariah again.)

 

[w1seguy20]

Yeah I agree with you on the 300th episode being forgettable, but touching. I leave it to you to determine what episodes violated whatever time travel rules there were, lol. not gonna wrap my head around that.

As far as tonights though, I was annoyed first and foremost that they chose to take a break this early in the season. I understand for spring break time, but in February? And return today? Seems early and it interrupted my supernatural flow.

That being said, the episode itself really only had important things occur in the last 10 minutes or so. But it left me with questions. Why did Michael fight so hard to get out, only to actually leave Dean rather than just taking over his body again? The Rowena choice was strange but it did reveal a bit about her character, which I liked. However I had a feeling it was not gonna last before Jack "killed" him, they can't have a fairly major character tied up that long, so the sudden forced exit wasn't as much of a surprise as I thought.
Now with THAT, where the hell did Jack suddenly get so strong just from burning his soul? It was just being used to barely keep him alive at one point, and now it had him going toe to toe with Michael just by burning through it? And wow, even if I expected Rowena-Michael to not last long, I certainly didn't think they would kill him off at this point in the season. Who is going to surface now as a primary antagonist the rest of the season? How did swallowing Michael's grace suddenly make Jack all fine and dandy when we have seen in the past that other angels' grace doesn't work well when used by someone else. Unless it is different for archangel grace, and if they explained that, I forgot. Still seems so hasty of them to off their big bad this early, and as glad as I am to see Jack back to his normal self, I have to wonder if that will last.

Sidenote, we will probably never see any "extras" in the bunker again nor have to question where they are, because I bet the writers will use that massacre to explain that everyone from apocalypse universe was killed tonight. Conveniently enough of course, Mary and Bobby were not there and rather, "on their way back" at the time. lol.

 

[Volvagia_slayer]

I've been having weird headaches lately, so my doctor just put me on some medicine that makes me drowsy. I nearly fell asleep at the end of the episode... Michael escaped Dean's head, and the next thing I knew Jack was saying Michael was dead. I had to rewind it to see what I'd missed, lol.

Yeah, it's definitely weird that Michael left Dean's body. Maybe he didn't want to waste any of his power healing Dean/waking him up? And he knew he could return to Dean's body at a later point if he wanted to, but Dean currently knows how to lock him back up in his head, so he wanted to avoid that possibility? Just spit-balling.

So the magic that Jack is using allows him to return to full power, i.e., stronger than full-powered Lucifer. But using that power causes his soul to burn away. Alt-Michael is weaker from being in a foreign universe, weaker from not being in his true vessel, and potentially weaker from expending energy to try to break out of Dean's head, so a more-powerful-than-full-powered-Lucifer Jack probably makes sense being more powerful than a 2-3 times depowered Michael.

I guess the primary antagonist now is going to be Jack. Either he's burned out so much of his soul that he's going to lose his humanity and goodness, or Michael's consciousness may still be alive inside of him. I do wonder if Jack has any of his soul left after that.

Good question about how Michael's grace healed Jack. That really shouldn't work based on the rules we've been given up to this point in the show. But maybe the writers are going to hand-wave away the negative reaction to Gabriel's grace based on the idea that it was just a tiny piece of a weaker archangel, so his body consumed it too quickly, which led to him being worse off, but a huge quantity of the strongest archangel was enough to set Jack's body back to the way it was supposed to be. (Though I don't think Jack ever had angel wings before this, and by the old grace rules of the show, Jack should only be fine until he has burned through all of Michael's grace unless Michael's grace has somehow allowed him to supercharge his own grace-renewal process.)

Yep, seems they killed off everyone except for Mary, Bobby, and maybe Charlie. What a way to go out... never even got to return to their original universe before being killed off by the thing they were escaping from.

I don't really get a lot of the Gorgon stuff. Why can a Gorgon see the future? That's never been a part of their myths. Why can't a Gorgon see angels and nephilim? Aren't they still tied to Fate just like humans are? Why would a Gorgon's poison affect an angel who can heal anything??? I like the idea of including Gorgons in the show, but I wasn't a fan of this interpretation.

 

[Volvagia_slayer]

Newest episode was pretty good. I really liked the way Castiel was used and written. He was characterized extremely well. His knowledge of Scanners 1, 2, and 3 points to a really deep cut in the show's continuity when Metatron downloaded every single story into Castiel's head. (At least I assume that's where he would have that knowledge from; I don't see Castiel going out of his way to watch those sequels.) We got to see some of his powers including his ability to hold his own against three humans and read someone else's mind.

But on the other hand, the whole Donatello plot didn't really make sense because Castiel should be able to reach into Jack and touch his soul to investigate it for himself. We've seen him do that with Sam and Bobby before. He didn't need to talk to Donatello to figure that out. But it was nice for the show to give us a deeper look into how it defines the soul.

I wish they had given us a more definitive answer as to what the man and his daughter were other than just psychics, especially since the man apparently didn't have his powers from birth; he got them after hearing some random voices that are never mentioned again... So this could be an interesting way for the show to explain where psychics who don't get their powers from demon blood come from.

And I thought it was weird that Jack's solution for the snake was to kill it to reunite it with its master "in heaven" since 1) we don't know that dead animals go to heaven, and 2) we do know that monsters go to purgatory, so the snake's master isn't in heaven. Just a weird choice there all around.

 

[Volvagia_slayer]

It finally happened. Supernatural announced an end date. Season 15, with 20 episodes, will be the final season. There are only 24 more episodes of Supernatural ever. End of an era...

Without dwelling too much on that right now, I thought the most recent episode was pretty decent. I wasn't terribly enamored by the monster case, and I wondered why a cannibal cursed by Native Americans would turn into a kohonta when we've seen wendigos in this show, and they're basically cannibals that are transformed into monsters, but maybe the guy would have turned into a wendigo if the Native Americans hadn't caught the guy and specifically transformed him into a kohonta? I guess I would rather have one of those running around the woods than a wendigo.

The Jack story was kind of fun though. I liked the idea of Jack trying to make friends, and I liked the Ghostfacers nod. I was confused by Jack's insistence that zombies weren't real since we've seen a lot of them (and none of the brainwashed Haitian variety that Jack was reading about), and I'm not a big fan of those three kids from Lebanon, but they're okay.

Just not much to say about this episode overall.

 

[w1seguy20]

My guess with Jack's killing of the snake, despite how little it made sense, was probably the show's way of foreshadowing to the viewers that "oh no, maybe Jack's soul IS completely gone!" and nothing more. Or it could have been the other way around too I suppose. Jack felt pity for the snake so he thought he would make him happier by killing it. I could potentially see that Jack doesn't know that monsters go to purgatory or that animals don't go to heaven, so perhaps it was just an issue of naivety.

I am interested in what lasting effects the most recent episode will have on Jack long term. He was just being friendly, yet his error nearly cost a life, much like what happened a long time ago with him accidentally killing the security guard. Will Jack be afraid to use his powers again, or will he gain a new resolve and train harder to control it? Seems like an interesting subplot.
But you're right, the main focus/monster of the episode was meh in comparison.

And yes I also saw an article about the ending. Ah well. all good things must come to an end, so...

 

[w1seguy20]

My confusion regarding this latest episode is simple: why did they suddenly decide that Jack's soul is gone, when evidence was pointing to the contrary, namely when Dean took him to Donatello? Did it burn off by itself, or was the truth hidden from us viewers the whole time just like Cas appeared to be doing to the brothers?

I get that there was evidence in favor and against whether Jack had one or not, and perhaps this was simply good cliffhanger material. It just seems it could have gone either way and they just decided one direction out of the blue.
That being said, this was certainly an interesting episode. Idk why they keep leaving Nick alive though. I kinda agree with Jack lol, shoulda just burned him alive tbh. Which, judging by the quick scene from the preview, Nick is just fine all of a sudden and talking to Jack. lol wtf.

Having read somewhere that Jack is the natural remaining "big bad" left in the story, I guess it makes sense for him to start turning against them now, even if it was just a simple "You shouldn't have done that" from Mary that sets him off. Definitely interested in how that unfolds.
Also gotta love the amount of things they come up with about how to bring something back. Of course there is a way to revive Lucifer lol

 

[Volvagia_slayer]

You've opened with a great question. I think the writers want us to believe that Jack's soul was gone the whole time, and Cas and Donatello were misleading the audience (though I don't really get why Jack's lack of soul doesn't feel like Donatello's lack of soul; sure, we've been shown that people without souls behave differently - some just don't care (Donatello) while others get super violent (Sam), but I would have thought the feeling of missing a soul would still be pretty similar for everyone).

I have to imagine that the Nick in the preview is a hallucination like when Sam was hallucinating him. Maybe we could say that he survived the burning or that the demons resurrect Nick again, but healing him instantly of those burns? That seems like a stretch to me. (Granted, they did heal Abaddon of her burns instantly, so there's precedent for it...) Come to think of it, if Nick and the demons all want Lucifer brought back to life, why wouldn't the demons resurrect Nick every time he dies to make sure Lucifer has a vessel to come back to? So maybe that is what happens, even though that kind of planning on the part of the demons would surprise me.

I liked the idea of Lucifer having a plan to resurrect himself even in the event of his death (even though I still don't buy Nick waking Lucifer up). That feels very Season 4/5 Lucifer to me, which is my favorite portrayal of the character. I like that we finally got an answer as to what is up with the demons. I liked Cas's attempt to find a way to communicate with God and the throwbacks to Joshua and the amulet. I liked that the show actually took a head injury seriously for once. But the Jack reveal didn't feel right to me. And even though I liked Cas's plot line, it all seemed pretty useless unless Methusaleh, that amulet, or Cas's prayer to God comes back around before the end of the show, and I could easily see the writers not paying off any of those in the same way that their search for God in Season 5 was never paid off.

 

[w1seguy20]

Well, that was... quite the sudden and unexpected exit for Mary, wasn't it? Maybe someone like you who occasionally reads spoiler sites might have seen this coming, but I didn't think Jack killed her when he told her to leave him alone, damn.

I'm soo glad Jack's attempt at the spell didn't bring back a zombie version of Mary or whatever, ala Pet Semetary. Ugh, I would have hated to see her like that before the brothers inevitably shot her in the face or whatever. Maybe it is a good thing she went out this way. Plus we know she's happy at least...
And of course you were right Nick is dead, but the actor gets to keep acting thru Jack's conscience lol.
Rest of the episode didn't have much to note, they spent half the episode chasing him around which is impossible to do with wings, so whatever. Jack's descent will be interesting to see and how the brothers will deal with it. Oh boy.

 

[Volvagia_slayer]

I honestly didn't see this coming at all. This felt so out of left field to me and kind of cheapens Mary's resurrection to me. What was the point of bringing her back? What did she do for the story that couldn't have been done without her?

I think the brothers teaming up with the British Men of Letters still could have happened without Mary once they got to know Davies and the nicer, more efficient side of the organization. She really didn't do anything in Season 14 that couldn't have been done with other characters (as far as the main plotline goes). The only thing she really did was give Jack and the brothers a reason to look into the alternate universes which allowed alt-Michael, alt-Bobby, and alt-Charlie to come over to the main universe. So really if this is the end of Mary's story, her resurrection just caused problems rather than solving them. It left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, and that's as someone who generally likes Mary.

Agreed on the zombie thing. It's better this way. And agreed that the majority of the episode didn't really give us much of note to discuss. We learned that John really is in heaven (which is something that was brought into question in Season 5 and never revisited), and that's about it. Hopefully the next episode will be a bit meatier.

 

[w1seguy20]

Wow, next week is the season finale already? They reduced the number of episodes this season huh? And I think I saw the last season will have only 20 episodes too. 21 more episodes of Supernatural

At any rate, I am surprised Sam and Dean got Jack in the box <-- no fast food pun intended!) at all,
but I'm not shocked he broke out. What I am wondering though is how. I know he is supposedly stronger than an archangel but I thought that box was supposed to contain them. Unless he managed to physically burn/melt the sigils off? Not sure if it was well explained, but perhaps it will be in the finale at some point.
Part of me kinda liked Jack making new angels for Heaven, tbh. I know the brothers would not have agreed with killing people they thought were unfaithful or whatever, but the idea of having more angels around will at least keep the souls in Heaven from falling I guess. Keep Heaven powered up.
Also a bit sad to see the brothers resort to lying to get Jack. Had it not been for the fact that he is likely the only major bad guy left in the series (so I know it has to be this way) I almost wished Sam and Dean had meant it went they prayed to him and got him back within speaking distance, and just forgiven him. I mean, yeah he killed Mary but I don't think it was on purpose or of malicious intent. It could have easily been repaired (their relationship that is)

Us seeing Jack with the red eyes in the smoke after he broke out... wow that has to signify the true start of his evil side. It will be interesting what they come up with to deal with him next season.

 

[Volvagia_slayer]

Since the Ma'lak Box is supposed to be able to contain any archangel, and Jack is supposed to be at least more powerful than the second strongest archangel, there was always a chance that the box simply wouldn't be strong enough to hold him.

I'm on the fence about the new angels. I'm glad that more are being made so we can put the souls-in-heaven-falling-to-Earth plot thread to bed, but transforming humans into angels feels weird to me. Do these new angels have souls and grace? Did Jack destroy their souls and transform that energy into grace? Or will these human/angel creations fail and fall apart? Why did he transform living humans into angels instead of dead ones that don't have their whole lives left before them?

Agreed. I think they could have forgiven Jack and moved on or just actually done research to figure out a way to restore Jack's soul. Jack never has to know that Sam and Dean lied to him. Despite destroying the box, Sam and Dean could still play totally innocent and ask why he destroyed the box because they're still searching for a way to fix him. But the writers definitely wouldn't think to do that.

 

[w1seguy20]

Wow. Holy shit...

That was my reaction to the episode overall and also seeing Chuck out of nowhere. Whoa. Even crazier is the production of the weapon so fast and God just fixing things with the snap of his fingers. I don't know what was more shocking, the fact that Jack can simply speak and it have a global effect, or God turning the whole world upside down at the end and raising all the undead, plus monsters from the looks of it. This looks to be the biggest apocalypse they will face ever, and it could be a very real possibility that our universe ends up looking like the other apocalypse world where alt-Michael came from.

It was just so much to wrap my head around. Did you get the feeling from the brief scene with Jack in the Empty with Billy and the Entity that they will have something to do with helping "save" the world next season? I got the feeling that perhaps they could bring Jack back somehow because of how much chaos was just thrown in. After all Billy and the Entity can both feasibly have reasons for wanting the dead to stay dead so I can see the motivation. If so, what we thought about Jack being the bad guy could actually be the the other way around, and maybe GOD is the bad guy (wow it feels weird just typing that). But if He lied about not being able to just kill Jack with the snap of his fingers, I bet he could have restored his soul too. It kinda pains me to see them put God in such a bad, nonchalant way in this series, but oh well...

There is no way I can see them ever killing God of course, and I wouldn't be surprised if we never see Him again, tbh. But I am definitely looking forward to how they will get out of this mess. Oh and the not-so-subtle poke at Mr. Tupee-FakeNews in the episode was so awesome.

 

[Volvagia_slayer]

I was really disappointed by this episode. Or at least the back half. The first half was fine but nothing to write home about. We've already seen a monster that forces everyone to tell the truth, but seeing it happen on a global scale with the seemingly tiny amount of effort Jack put in was interesting.

But I was really disappointed with the writers on this one. Alt-Michael's explanation for the alternate universes made no sense and contradicts a ton of canon, so the fact that they got God to address it meant they could have fixed everything and said that alt-Michael was mistaken. They basically said that God made the universes for his own amusement rather than that he made them as failed drafts in his attempt at a perfect work, but that still doesn't address any of the mythological problems that the alternate universes pose.

Then they completely rewrote God's character, ignoring and outright contradicting the explanations that Seasons 5 and 11 already gave for God's absence. And now that they've made God a villain, they pretty much have to kill him (how could they imprison him?), but doing that will end the universe, so they've really just written themselves into a corner unless they retcon something or ignore their lore again. Everything with God in this episode was just really lazy writing. (Speaking of which, the Trump reference was another spot of laziness since they just established back in Season 12 that a guy named Jefferson Rooney is the current president in the Supernatural universe. And since he was still the president when Crowley died, it can't be Trump that Crowley helped into the white house unless that's like the last thing he did on Earth before he died.)

Nothing about this episode made any sense to me except for Dean's desire to kill Jack, Castiel's desire to keep him alive, God showing up because of Castiel's prayer a few episodes back, Jack making everyone tell the truth, and God putting things back to normal.

The Billie/Shadow scene in the Empty was another thing that has me really confused. Why did the Shadow seem like a good guy now? Why isn't it obsessed with going back to sleep anymore? Is Billie somehow working with it? (It looked like she was the one in charge in that meeting with Jack even though the Shadow should be way more powerful and therefore should have its goals ahead of Billie's.) How is Billie in the Empty since we know that things that go in can't come out (unless the Shadow throws them out)? I guess Billie's part in this episode makes sense but only if she has somehow convinced the Shadow to work with her for some purpose. Even then, we have to wonder how much Billie can actually see the future since she got everything with the Ma'lak Box wrong.

Season 11 hurt my head trying to figure out how to make sense of things. Then Season 13 made it worse. Now Season 14 is the worst it's ever been. And to top it off, there's still 39+ unanswered questions and lingering plotlines that I really want the show to address before it's over! So my expectations for Season 15 are much lower than I thought they'd be before I watched this episode... But with the brothers getting mobbed like they were there at the end, it at least guarantees that the premiere will be epic (unless we get a time jump).

 

[w1seguy20]

Its too bad you didn't find it entertaining. Yes I agree there were a lot of questions unanswered and God was definitely very out of character, but at the very least we can't say we saw this ending coming. I was not aware of or had forgotten there was a monster that could make people tell the truth, but as Chuck pointed out, Jack could potentially do a lot more just by his voice and it was on a global scale, so I can why He needed to step in.

Nothing about this episode made any sense to me except for Dean's desire to kill Jack, Castiel's desire to keep him alive, God showing up because of Castiel's prayer a few episodes back, Jack making everyone tell the truth, and God putting things back to normal.

Not to be nitpicky but that isn't exactly "nothing makes sense"

How is Billie in the Empty since we know that things that go in can't come out (unless the Shadow throws them out)?

Well from the bits of scenes we saw near the end, it looked like monsters were also brought back in some form, if not all monsters, so even though that contradicts what I think was said before that even God has no power in the Empty, I can at least see why Shadow would be upset at losing a bunch, if not all of his monsters that were there with him?
And of course Death would have a problem with all the dead living again as that throws off her Reaper numbers, but hey, I took that scene to signify that perhaps both Billy and Shadow need Jack's help to set everything right again, maybe?

Now Season 14 is the worst it's ever been.

Whoa buddy, surely season 14 couldn't have been as bad as season 9 eh?

I expect them to close and wrap up many storylines before the show is over. Don't worry.

 

[Volvagia_slayer]

The only monsters we saw come back from the dead were deceased spirits. We saw three ghosts from past episodes (the Woman in White from 1x01, the Bloody Mary spirit from 1x05, and the John Wayne Gacey spirit from 14x13), a bunch of random ghosts, and a bunch of zombies rising from their graves. So it doesn't look like anything came out of purgatory (monsters) or the Empty (angels and demons). The only things that came out were spirits from hell.

It would make a lot of sense if Billie came in and saved the brothers in the premiere though. You make a good point there.

Don't worry, I'm not saying that Season 14 is the worst season of the show. I'm just saying that it makes the least amount of sense from a story/lore perspective. But it still had enough good bits throughout it for me to rank it above Season 9.

 

[SCOTTY6192003]

 

[w1seguy20]

I came here to post about October 10th, lol.
Last season, *sigh* but here's to a great farewell!

Sadly said bye to another cool show, Big Bang theory, earlier this year and here we go again.
I may never watch TV after this. lol

 

[w1seguy20]

Besides the fact that I have no idea where their savior from hell came from all of a sudden or why he knows all these convenient spells to help them out like a ___ ex machina, I thought this set up the premise for the season quite well. We have one last hill for the brothers to climb, and there may be certain consequences that come from that unhealable wound on Sam's shoulder.

Despite what was said about Chuck not coming back, I find it hard to believe they won't have him on for at least an episode or two.
I just hope they aren't spending too much screentime for the last 19 episodes rehashing the old monsters they killed. While a nice nod to some of the classic oldies like bloody mary, woman in white, etc, I would want them to focus on whatever new threats come about, and perhaps it can be a small dialogue every now and then about how they rekilled a monster. If you get my drift.

 

[w1seguy20]

It will be interesting to see how they deal with the constant ghosts pouring out of hell. Although that raises the question as to why spirits are still pouring out in the first place. I would have thought they all already came back just in different locations. Why only one town at a time, except for plot convienience? Seems perhaps it would be too overwhelming to have ghosts all the world causing havoc and they can only write it so that it focuses on one town? Still weird.

Nice to see Kevin again, hopefully he will be back to maybe help again before the show's end. I assume they won't make him go crazy on camera though.
As for Chuck, now we know he is still stuck on earth because of Sam's shot. This is big because we know that there will be a confrontation later as Chuck didn't just leave the universe. Look forward to Sam vs Chuck down the line lol. I have no idea why Amara chose to chill in Reno this whole time though. I also woulda thought she left the universe after her big season.
[URL='https://www.ign.com/boards/members/volvagia_slayer.59/']@Volvagia_slayer[/URL] you still alive here?

 

[Volvagia_slayer]

I'm here, Wise! My life has been hectic since the premiere, but I'm back to a normal schedule. Excited to get back to discussing this with you (though I hope you can forgive me/deal with me when I'm complaining ).

So let me get my complaints out of the way up front.

I still feel like the writers haven't earned God's heel turn. And they haven't given us any reason to believe or understand Dean's belief that God has been pulling the strings all along. We have no reason to believe that God was controlling Amara's actions or Azazel's actions or Lilith or Lucifer or Raphael or Crowley or Eve or the leviathans or Naomi or Metatron or Rowena or the Stynes or the British Men of Letters or Jack or literally any of the antagonists the brothers have faced throughout the show, much less the brothers themselves.

They've also handled information exchange really poorly in these two episodes with characters suddenly knowing things that they haven't yet learned without any time for them to learn the information off-screen and not questioning certain things that they do know.

Then there are a number of weird decisions that don't make in-universe sense for one reason or another. For example, Kevin being sent to hell, the woman in white thinking that Dean was the one who "took her home" when it was Sam who did that, Jack the Ripper being able to immediately reform after being shot by iron, Ketch knowing how to speed up the concoction of a spell but apparently without knowing the spell itself, Ketch being interested in Rowena when back in Season 12 he wanted anything that wasn't 100% human dead... The writing choices have just been really weird.

All that said, I do really like Belphagor right now (though it bugs me that they're not spelling his name Belphegor since that's how you spell the actual demon from mythology's name ) even though his magical knowledge makes no sense. He must be immensely powerful to pull off all of these crazy spells with just two ingredients. I also think I like what they're setting up with Sam's gunshot wound, but that could go sideways. I like that they remembered the soul bomb to use that as a potential aid to their problem. And it was nice to see Kevin again even if I didn't like the circumstances.

I do wish the writers were making some effort to deal with the unresolved plotlines though. We're two episodes in and none of them have been touched yet while 7 new plotlines/questions have been raised. I suspect those 7 will be answered, but my hope for the other ~70 or so is falling fast.

I just hope they aren't spending too much screentime for the last 19 episodes rehashing the old monsters they killed. While a nice nod to some of the classic oldies like bloody mary, woman in white, etc, I would want them to focus on whatever new threats come about, and perhaps it can be a small dialogue every now and then about how they rekilled a monster. If you get my drift.

Completely agreed, and I think that would be a great idea to throw in some nostalgia without eating up valuable episode time.

It will be interesting to see how they deal with the constant ghosts pouring out of hell. Although that raises the question as to why spirits are still pouring out in the first place. I would have thought they all already came back just in different locations. Why only one town at a time, except for plot convienience? Seems perhaps it would be too overwhelming to have ghosts all the world causing havoc and they can only write it so that it focuses on one town? Still weird.

Yeah, the season premiere made it sound like all of the Gates of Hell all around the world were opened up. We were told, after all, that all of hell's doors had been opened. But this episode makes it seem like only one portal between Earth and hell was opened up: the one in that graveyard just outside of town. Maybe God opened up all of the doors inside hell but only opened up the one door between hell and Earth. That wouldn't really make logical sense, but it would explain why the planet isn't experiencing a ghostpocalypse all over.

I wonder what this means for the shedim. They were supposedly locked in hell's darkest dungeons, so they should theoretically be free now. I'd like it if Belphagor ended up being a shedim since that would explain why he's so magically powerful, give us more info on the shedim, etc., but I don't see that being likely.

I have no idea why Amara chose to chill in Reno this whole time though. I also woulda thought she left the universe after her big season.

Yeah, it's weird. Back in the Season 14 finale, God said that she was hanging out in Las Vegas, so I'm not sure why she relocated to Reno, but even her being in Las Vegas was a weird reveal. I guess she's learning to enjoy pleasure now, but if she really wants to get away from God, there's no reason for her to stay in the main universe now that she knows he's trapped there.

 

[Volvagia_slayer]

On the one hand, I think that was the best episode of the season so far. We finally started getting loose ends tied up, we learned more about Belphegor, we got more lore connected to the early days of the show, and we got a really nice farewell for Rowena. But man was it a bloodbath killing off Ketch, Belphegor, and Ardat in the same episode, not to mention the fact that Kevin was probably hoovered up along with the rest of the ghosts and taken back to hell. I wonder if Rowena's spell was specific enough to just absorb the ghosts who escaped hell or if she absorbed other ghosts hanging out around Earth since the way she explained her spell made it sound like it was just going to suck up all the dead.

But the biggest missteps of the episode were 1) Castiel destroying the Crook when he killed Belphegor. That made no sense to me. And 2) Dean blaming Cas yet again for something that wasn't really Cas's fault. Yes, he accidentally destroyed the Crook which caused Rowena to have to sacrifice herself, but we knew that Sam was going to kill Rowena at some point before his death, so the fact that the death was by Rowena's choice and resulted in a good outcome was the best way they could possibly hope to fulfill that prophecy. Plus Rowena will wake up in hell with a bunch of ghosts inside her, possibly letting her become the next Queen of Hell which would probably be the ideal person to have on the throne of hell at this point.

 

[w1seguy20]

Oh man what an emotional roller coaster of an episode! I was not expecting to lose so many people in this one. Ketch being first really surprised me, Belphegor, not as much, though I did think it was odd he didn't put up much of a fight. Figured with the amount of ghosts he absorbed to the point where Cas tackled, him, he might have fought back a little besides pretending to be Jack. Rowena... I was numb at that point lol. But I knew it was going to happen when it was brought up. We've seen Sam and Dean do ANYTHING to save each other in the past, so that was an amazing argument on Rowena's end that convinced Sam.
However, I GUESS we kinda got an answer as to why the ghosts only came out of one town? Sure it sounded like all the gates were open but only in that one town was there that huge "tear" where the ghosts came pouring out of, because of Chuck.

But the biggest missteps of the episode were 1) Castiel destroying the Crook when he killed Belphegor. That made no sense to me.

It was out of it's container, and maybe it was best he destroyed it so no other demon could pick it up and use it instead, especially after finding out it was a siphon. Keeping in mind Cas was down there and had no idea Rowena had a backup plan, I think it made perfect sense so not as to open the door for a secondary "big bad?" to emerge?

2) Dean blaming Cas yet again for something that wasn't really Cas's fault.

And on my above note, yes it was wrong of Dean to get upset. He is still mad about Mary, sure, but I think most viewers would agree Cas did the right thing; they just couldn't see that after losing Mary, Rowena, and now Ketch. But as I stated, Cas did the right thing given what he knew at the time

Plus Rowena will wake up in hell with a bunch of ghosts inside her, possibly letting her become the next Queen of Hell which would probably be the ideal person to have on the throne of hell at this point.

That is quite the interesting point I had not considered! Although idk if witches can be demons too though...

Also wanted to add that the ending of this episode could have easily been the series finale as well. It also feels weird they will return to hunting regular things next week based on the preview

 

[Volvagia_slayer]

Figured with the amount of ghosts he absorbed to the point where Cas tackled, him, he might have fought back a little besides pretending to be Jack. ... It was out of it's container, and maybe it was best he destroyed it so no other demon could pick it up and use it instead, especially after finding out it was a siphon.

I'm seeing a lot of people interpret "siphon" as "pulled power from the ghosts", but my interpretation of the scene was that it was a "siphon" in that it pulled ghosts from wherever they were to you. After all, we were told that Lilith created the Crook to control demons that got out of line and decided to go rogue. She didn't create it to absorb those demons, just to move them to where she wanted them and control their actions.

So with that in mind, I thought that Belphegor hadn't actually absorbed any of the ghosts yet. It seemed to me that they were all still contained in the Crook, and Bel still had to transfer them from where they were trapped in the Crook into himself to make himself more powerful. Since he didn't have time to do that, Cas was able to kill him despite being weakened.

And that's why Cas should have taken care to not destroy the Crook. It was still doing its job of housing the ghosts, and more still needed to be pulled into hell through it. Cas could have still destroyed it afterwards once it had finished doing its job of getting all the souls into hell.

However, I GUESS we kinda got an answer as to why the ghosts only came out of one town? Sure it sounded like all the gates were open but only in that one town was there that huge "tear" where the ghosts came pouring out of, because of Chuck.

That's a great point. I had kind of written off that question as a plot convenience so that the writers didn't have to focus on other Devil's Gates around the world, but this explanation makes sense (especially if the Devil's Gates weren't among the doors that were unlocked).

Although idk if witches can be demons too though...

Maybe it would be better if she wasn't a demon. We know that angels can absorb souls and ghosts can absorb souls, but I don't think that's something we've seen demons do. It stands to reason that they could since Crowley was purportedly more powerful as the King of Hell, and demons are just warped souls, but I feel like she'd be better able to control the souls inside of her with magic rather than by being a demon.

That said, if her body explodes from the impact of landing in hell, that would probably allow all of the souls to escape from inside of her before she can tap into their energy.

Also wanted to add that the ending of this episode could have easily been the series finale as well.

Very true. One last apocalypse averted, lots of character deaths, Cas moving on... It had all the makings of a season finale. Man if only these first three episodes had been episodes 21, 22, and 23 of Season 14 instead of 14 being a shortened season.

 

[Volvagia_slayer]

I've never really been a fan of the directing in the episodes directed by Jensen, but it was really well done in this past episode, I thought. It hearkened back to the old episodes in a lot of great ways with lots of random, uncomfortable imagery and flashes like something out of a horror movie. I was really pleased with it.

And it was pretty cool getting a "monster of the week" case with some really interesting philosophical/ethical elements. What would a parent do for their child if they found out he'd turned into a monster? What would the child do if he was a good kid who just had nowhere else to turn? It's such a shame that the brothers got to him when they did since they know a cure for vampirism as long as the vampire hasn't fed yet. (I wonder if the cure might work if the vampire has only fed on animal blood... Is it all blood or just human blood that makes the cure ineffective?)

And I also liked how the episode seemed to toy a little bit with the idea of revealing monsters to the general public. The episode never went deep enough with that idea (in fact I may be reading it into the episode rather than it being intentionally there), but if everyone in the world knew about vampires and the vampirism cure then that boy would have never accidentally killed his girlfriend or had to be put in a position where he has to decide whether or not a stranger kills him.

We also seemed to get pretty definitive proof that the vision Sam got from his wound was of an alternate universe where Sam gave into the demon blood and turned evil, leading a swarm of demons to take over the world. It's interesting that Benny would have been a human in this universe and that Dean still would have found the Men of Letters bunker without Sam. Also how were they killing demons with guns? It didn't look like Dean was using the Colt... Did they learn how to make more Colts, or did they just have enough angel blades/demon killing knives that they were able to melt them down into bullets like Crowley did in the main universe? All that aside, I wonder if this means one of the Sams will eventually cross over into the other's universe. I saw some speculation on another forum that these alternate universe visions might allow the writers to show us a bunch of different potential endings for the show before finally giving us the "real" ending in the main universe, and I kind of like that idea.

I also quite like what they did with Becky this episode. Though at first I was really surprised to learn she had a husband and two kids, but it has been 8 years since we last saw her... Her kids would have to be younger than I think they looked (unless she adopted), but still...

But Chuck was easily the weakest part of the episode for me. I just can't get over how boring and backwards his portrayal is this season. The start of the episode was really promising. A writer complaining about their life and having to come to terms with working through their problems to get back to their life's work was kind of nice. But then that turned into God being the bad guy because this season needs a bad guy. The Chuck of Seasons 4, 5, 10, and 11 would have never plotted to ruin the lives of the Winchesters and then killing them off. The writers threw away an interesting character in order to fulfill their Big Bad quota for the season, and I couldn't be more disappointed. I guess it's nice that he just disappeared Becky and her family instead of killing them (that's an improvement over smiting Amara's masseuse for no reason), but it's still just really stupid...

 

[w1seguy20]

I had to watch the Raiders-Chargers game on Thursday which bled into the airtime for this show... so I just decided to watch it online. Just saw it now.

This episode was directed by Jensen eh? Hadn't noticed any major differences but I do remember the title of this episode being teased in an article I ran into in my google feed and the readers were encouraged to speculate what the "atomic monsters" title meant for the episode. I wrote that they may have introduced monsters at the atomic, or microscopic level. Another comment I read mentioned it might have something to do with Amara. Boy was I way off

I knew from the getgo that the intro was a dream; what really gave it away was not seeing Benny or evil Sam, but the weird Resident evil-esque style clothes Dean was wearing. He'd never wear that in the main universe lol. I'll fore-go diving into the speculation on what it meant but I do like the idea of possibly seeing more like it as just that, a teaser for how different the show could have gone.

As for the episode itself, yes it was gut wrenching to see what kind of position a parent was put in and how the kid decided to turn himself in and just be killed. Almost sad in a way. They have let monsters live in the past for various reasons if they thought they could be controlled or control their own urges, so I was a little surprised they just off'd this kid with little hesistation.

And I also liked how the episode seemed to toy a little bit with the idea of revealing monsters to the general public. The episode never went deep enough with that idea (in fact I may be reading it into the episode rather than it being intentionally there), but if everyone in the world knew about vampires and the vampirism cure then that boy would have never accidentally killed his girlfriend or had to be put in a position where he has to decide whether or not a stranger kills him.

Uh, where they heck did you get that notion? I can't recall any point where Sam and Dean were considering letting the school or the town know there was a vampire on the loose. Or even mention a cure.

Oooh, but if that Chuck sequence was not the show's not-so-subtle way of foreshadowing the ending of the show, idk what is. I do agree with you that his heel turn felt a bit forced at the end but I wonder what disappearing people does, or where it takes them.

---

sidenote, I just discovered I could watch the first season of the anime version of the show on the CW. Have you checked it out? The titles of the episodes after a brief glance seemed like they used old titles from the live action ones, so dik if they just did the exact same episode but in cartoon form or if it is different altogether. What do you think, is it worth a watch?

 

[Volvagia_slayer]

Uh, where they heck did you get that notion? I can't recall any point where Sam and Dean were considering letting the school or the town know there was a vampire on the loose. Or even mention a cure.

It was subtle. They kept complaining about how hard it was to shoulder the secrets of vampires, monsters, and things that go bump in the night to themselves and how they do it so that non-hunters can live easier lives, so because of how that was brought up, it felt to me that there was an implicit questioning of the validity of that statement. Is it really in the best interests of non-hunters for them to not know what's out there, or would their lives be improved if they did tell everyone what was out there by allowing people the ability to fight against it and take precautions?

For example, if we thought spiders or snakes were a myth, lots of people would lead happier lives. But the fact that we know how to handle a spider or snake that runs across our path or happens to bite us probably saves more lives in the long run.

---

I think I've watched 3-6 episodes of the anime. I know I watched the first three episodes, and then I think I watched either the finale or the first half of the finale and maybe one other random episode.

A bunch of the episodes are remakes of episodes from Seasons 1 and 2, hence the similar episode titles. These episodes aren't entirely scene-by-scene remakes, but they take the same story from the live action episode and then spin it out from there. But there are a number of original episodes in there as well.

Jared Padalecki does the voice for Sam in all or almost all of the episodes, but Jensen only does Dean's voice in the two part finale. So it's a little weird to hear Sam's voice coming out of Sam and then to hear a fairly not-Dean voice coming out of Dean for most of the episodes.

The episodes are also much gorier and more violent than the live action episodes, which I'm not a huge fan of, but on the bright side the anime isn't afraid to let its monsters actually be monsters instead of being a monster in a human form, which is something I liked.

Overall I just wasn't much of a fan of the episodes I watched. They changed up a lot of great things from the live episodes without any reason, and it just wasn't as good or as well done in the anime. It's not terrible, but it just wasn't what I was hoping it would be.

 

[Volvagia_slayer]

Not sure how I feel about this episode. There was some good stuff in here, but also a lot of questionable stuff for me.

The two new potential endings were fun (though I wish we had gotten a little more Colt lore when Sam was shot like clarification on whether the five things that the Colt can't kill are individuals or species, and/or whether Lucifer survived because of his power level, his importance to the destiny of the universe, or his possession of the Mark of Cain). The werewolf brothers as a parallel to the Winchesters was pretty well done up until the reveal. The actress playing Lilith was pretty good/felt similar enough to how Lilith was originally portrayed for me to be okay with it.

But Chuck orchestrating the situation and Ashley being possessed when we saw the girls being attacked just felt cheap to me. I guess I just expected more from Chuck's plan than embarrassing Dean by tricking him into sleeping with a demon-possessed 22 year old and then destroying the Equalizer. (I laughed at Lilith's refusal to call the gun that though.)

I'm also a little disappointed that they retconned the show yet again by saying that God pulled Lilith from the Empty. Back in Season 13 the Shadow told us that God has no power in the Empty, but apparently that was a lie or just wishful thinking. I also think it's weird that God would be too weak to travel between universes, but he's strong enough to do something that it was believed he wasn't able to do at full power.

I thought it was interesting that Sam was able to be blasted by Lilith's magic. That means that Sam truly doesn't have any demon blood in him anymore since his demon blood gave him immunity to Lilith's magic in Seasons 3 and 4. But part of me wonders if the writers intended for that to be a confirmation that he doesn't have demon blood anymore. Season 12 told us that Sam believed he didn't have those powers anymore, but it was never confirmed for us. So I like having that confirmation, but I wonder if the writers intended for that scene to be confirmation...

Side-note: I have a new head canon. Because I can't get over how off God's character feels this season (and in the Season 14 finale), and Amara's attitude towards him this season felt so weird after their reconciliation in Season 11, I'm choosing to believe that he really was the prophet Chuck in Season 4 and most of Season 5. God started using him as a vessel in the Season 5 finale and continued using him as a vessel in Seasons 10 and 11.

Then when God and Amara got together and left in the Season 11 finale, they began working through their issues, and eventually God left Chuck's body. But Chuck found that even without God possessing him, he still had access to God's power. In his need for attention and praise, he began pretending that he was God and the ultimate writer. So when he reappeared in Season 14, it was just Chuck there, not God. And that's who we've been seeing all throughout Season 15: just a powered-up Chuck desperate to write the best story ever.