You’re No Angel: The Downfall of Heaven

I’m getting a headache. I don’t believe any of the show’s metaphysics make any sense any more. Because of that, I think this will be my last meta piece attempting to address the show’s cosmology.

Uncivil War

Following their eviction from Heaven, we saw angels pursuing one of four courses in season nine: keeping their heads down quietly inside their new vessels and just enjoying a human life, like Abner; chasing whatever they perceived as their new mission, like the Rit Zien angel Ephraim in “Heaven Can’t Wait;” simply trying to figure out what they should do until some sign pointed out the way, like Gadreel, Hael and Hannah; or joining up with either Bartholomew or Malachi and warring with the other side while those two would-be leaders fought over who should challenge Metatron, somehow restore the angels to Heaven, and become the new king.

I’ll admit, I couldn’t figure out why any angels would have followed either faction head. Malachi was an insane thug with no viable plan to unseat Metatron, and Bartholomew was a jumped-up functionary with illusions of grandeur who was so insecure he couldn’t tolerate the existence of anyone who wouldn’t follow him. Then again, I can’t imagine why anyone would want to elect bombastic Donald Trump or toxic Ted Cruz to the U.S. presidency, either; I’m clearly not in touch with any minion-follower personality type. Metatron emerging as a master manipulator winning naïve angels to his side by deliberately setting up Castiel as a cats-paw he could then discredit was the politically cynical move of the decade, and said more about how people (and those all-too-human angels) set themselves up to be wooed and duped by politicians than anything else.

I was much more interested in the angels who chose different routes. I particularly loved Hannah’s progression from frightened refugee to Castiel-follower to angel confused by human urges to disillusioned, obedient servant (although I really had problems with her being dense enough to believe obviously fake Metatron, but I digress …) to Heaven’s rational new order-keeper, who chose to release her human vessel Caroline to live her proper life while Hannah returned to a purely angelic existence. She occupied other human vessels only at need, and she only ever needed to speak and act through them just so we – the human TV audience – could perceive her. I’ll confess I hated her execution in “Form And Void.” I couldn’t help but think she was wasted, in more ways than one, just for the convenience of the writers setting up another situation for the Winchesters.

I could have loved Gadreel (and I really do appreciate Tahmoh Penikett’s work!), but for one thing: from my perspective, season nine used Sam almost exclusively as a narrative tool to tell Gadreel’s story of redemption, with no real care for Sam’s own self. I do think Gadreel’s initial impulse in responding to Dean’s prayer was an attempt to redeem himself by doing something selfless and worthwhile, and I believe that was also his intent in proposing to possess Sam; to heal Sam while also rebuilding himself. He realized from his first encounter in the hospital garage that no one who hadn’t already known him in Heaven would recognize him, no matter the vessel he wore, but he chose to use another dead angel’s name to avoid any taint of his personal guilt tainting his efforts. All of that was understandable.

But from there on, especially once Gadreel, in his stupid ignorance, began doing Metatron’s bidding in his desperate bid to reclaim his honor, I could only resent him and the way he was being used to contaminate Sam, all without Sam’s knowledge or consent, especially through murdering Abner and particularly Kevin with Sam’s hands. And when he became a suicide bomber to break Metatron’s Heaven, I abhorred the message he conveyed – that suicide was a viable tool to make a statement and empower resistance to power. That was an encouragement no suicidal person ever needed to receive from a character’s perceived “heroic” sacrifice. I loathed it.

I also abhorred everything the show did to recast Reapers – once brilliantly unique beings with their own established lore – as angels, especially creating “rogue Reapers” in “Taxi Driver” negating everything that happened in season six, and prompting Reaper Tessa’s suicide-by-Dean in “Stairway To Heaven.” I’m sorry, but no: I can’t go there. At all. Apologies to new Reaper Billie (beautifully portrayed by Lisa Berry) and to Tessa, but Reapers simply aren’t angels – not according to all the show’s pre-Carver lore. I flatly refuse to buy the Carver’s rewrite on this topic. I’ve written about this before and I simply won’t again. With respect to this subject, I’m done.

And I can’t say without expletives how much I disliked the very idea of individual angels and demons – both possessing innocent, absolutely ignorant humans – hanging out and commiserating together in a bar in “The Bad Seed.” I remember how thoroughly terrified of angels Ruby was way back in “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Dean Winchester,” and the absolute disdain angels had for all demons as abominations (hello, perversions of dead human souls depraved by Lucifer’s and other demons’ machinations) throughout season four and beyond. Where on earth – or in whatever bad imagination – could someone come up with ANY demons and angels sharing a common interest in how bad things have become for all of them? To me, that scene was indicative of the contempt excessive familiarity has bred for both angels and demons – and treating them as the humans they always appear to be means the show has lost all sensitivity for the humans they’re actually possessing.

Conclusion

After all this, I must confess: I’m tired of endless politics. I’m tired of depressingly venal, human angels. I’m tired of repetitive demons and mundane depictions of Hell. And I’ll admit, as I’ve said before, I have no tolerance at all for the show’s current obsession with all-powerful witches. Hell: God’s become nothing more than the first witch, creating spells and embodying them in his various “Word of God” tablets and the Mark of Cain. I frankly don’t care any more about the relationships among God, the Darkness Amara, angels, demons, Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell, because they’ve warped so often that none of them make any sense to me. I care only about the Winchester brothers and the folk – both human and otherwise – they’re still trying to protect.

I still love Sam and Dean. They are why I continue to tune in. But the show’s cosmology or purported underlying logic? Sorry. I have to turn off my analytical brain these days to watch episodes with any enjoyment at all for things beyond lovely performances, cinematography, set design, and overall production quality.

That makes me sad.

I’ll still watch and appreciate the pretty. I’ll just try not to think too much. And I won’t write any more about angels.