Supernatural Theories 101: What’s in the box?!
[Editor’s Note: The explanations about season 11 and the comments and spoilers about season 12 that came out of Supernatural’s San Diego Comic-Con panels and press room interviews left us with a lot to think about! To pass the hiatus until we all learn what season 12 has in store for us, LK came up with a creative way to speculate about the future of our show! See what you think of her ideas!]
Dean: What was in the box?
*Silence*
Dean: Brad Pitt, Se7en, no?— 3.01 The Magnificent Seven
When season 11 ended, I had a lot of theories going through my mind. I wrote a few fan fictions, which I hadn’t done in a long while. That got my creative juices going. In the season finale we got Mary back and Sam was shot (we don’t know how badly yet). Also, through the years Jensen and Jared have changed their views how Supernatural should end. It has turned away from the bloodied, deadly end to something happier.
Jared: “Part of me, loving Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, always thought it’d be great to see the boys against insurmountable odds and to freeze-frame on them and just hear stuff in the background. You don’t know if they die, you don’t know if they live, but you know that they’re going to go out in a blaze of glory.”
Jared: “And then I went back and watched a few of the episodes, I watched through “Swan Song” and the scene of the boys laying on the hood of the Impala. I think that’d be a nice way to go out if we had to — watching the end of the world. Or looking up at us from the trunk and throwing the weapons in and saying we’ve got work to do. All of those kind of leave room for opinion and room for interpretation. I don’t think we should see the boys die or live, we should wonder.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05eDUdV1avA
torcon 2013: Jensen’s dream about the end of the show
Jensen: “It was this long, long stretched highway with nothing but fields and Dean gets out of the Impala and hands the keys over to a stranger. And the guy hands him keys and we don’t know what, the guy gets in the Impala and takes off and then the camera kind of turns around to reveal Dean’s got a motorcycle. And then he gets on and its super sad ‘cause I don’t have my brother what I need a passenger for? So he gets on the single seat of the motorcycle and drives off down the highway.
Jensen: “I always thought Dean would make the ultimate sacrifice for his brother. I guess if I had to choose something, that’s probably what I would choose.”
Jensen: “You can’t end the TV show with the worst thing happening. As we’ve evolved, I think that there’s different roads that the show could certainly go down that would be interesting. I think we’ve taken some really good turns.”
Family, The Empty and the Series Finale
This got me thinking. It would be good to have a more personal story for the Winchesters, a more earthly one, forgetting the all-over-the-place, big-bad story lines. Amara said to Dean that she gave him what Dean wanted the most. Upon re-watch, this wish is much clearer when you have seen 2.20 “What Is and What Should Never Be”. In it, the Djinn created a dream world where Dean got everything he ever wanted. That was more than once mentioned in the dialogue.
Mary: It’s everything you want. We’re a family again. Let’s go home.
Sam: Yeah… I thought it was supposed to, to be this perfect fantasy.
Dean: It wasn’t. It was just a wish. I wished for Mom to live. That Mom never died, we never went hunting and you and me just never uh… you know.
Now that Mary has been resurrected, it raises a lot of existing questions in my mind. Are they heading to a happy ending? Mary was brought back so maybe the end game for the series is also to bring John Winchester back, to get him back from where ever he is? That would be Mary’s journey and the boys would, from time to time, help her with it. That also brings us to the question of where have Mary and John been all this time after they died? In this season, we got to know about a mystical and terrifying place called the Void/Empty. John was in Hell but he crawled up and then vanished. Mary’s ghost disappeared when hers and the evil ghost’s energy nullified one another. Ash told us they weren’t in Heaven, so where were they?
There was a page in the discussion board where we talked about it and what kind of place it is. In my scenario, both men end up there. This is how I think it would be. In an artistic way, I think it would be totally black and white, almost like painted. Sometimes it would show grayish and lighter colors as flickers. Sam and Dean would only hear their own voices as echos. Otherwise, it is a place without sound. Their voices also would twist like it was in Twin Peaks in the Neverwhere, bend and stretched even metallic and robotic. The Empty would be presented as an abandoned city in ruins. They can see creatures floating and even the other like trough a mirror but they would be invisible to them. Creepy loneliness would need to be felt from the place. Also, nothing moves in the background. No animals nor wind, etc. Clouds would not move but they would be frozen and it would be forever night. Also sometimes the land would just vanish and the character would be surrounded only by pitch black. And their yells would stop on their lips.
Could it be that the angels or something else tossed them both in the Empty? They can’t be in Purgatory because only monsters go there when they die. We also have not been told where the “angry” ghosts and angels go when they pass away. Angels were not meant to die because they are God’s soldiers so maybe those beings that have nowhere to go end up in the Empty when they die. This is where Billie also can be of value. All these thoughts I imagined: that the family would be together in the series’ finale. Mary and John would start to solve their issues that they had and they would leave the hunting life or continue to hunt together. Sam and Dean on the other hand would continue their life on the road knowing their parents will be there alive and safe.
Mary and John stood on the doorway while their boys walked towards Baby. Dean walked to the driver’s side and opened the door leaning to it. Sam stopped in the middle and turned around to see his parents again. He never grew tired of that sight.
John: Is this really what you want to do?
Mary: You could hang up your weapons…
Dean: Hunting is my life. I still have work to do. You know I am old enough, birds flying from the coup and all that jazz.
Sam: -We- have work to do Dean.
Sam cut in and tossed the keys to his brother, who caught them. Dean smiled.
Dean: You sure Sam? You could finally return to study law.
Sam: I’m sure. Who else would be there to save your ass all the time?
Dean: Ha, ha… But thanks… I mean it.
Sam: No chick flick moments!
Both boys grinned and waved to their parents as they sat in the Impala. Dean put a cassette in the player and “Carry On Wayward Son” started to play on the speakers. Sam and Dean glanced down to the player and then Dean turned the wheel and they head out like they would many times after that. “Fade to black”
I had that kind of scene in my mind from all the ideas that the Empty and Mary’s return gave me. There are also the unanswered questions still for us.
Men/Women of Letters and Castiel
The second great source of story material is the Men/Women of Letters. For a long time, I have thought MOL and the bunker itself to be great material for many stories.
Toni: We’ve been watching you, Sam. What you’ve done, the damage you’ve caused –archangels, Leviathans, the Darkness, and now, well — the old man have decided enough’s enough.
When “The Old Man” was mentioned, I got really curious about it. It felt like it will be a great reveal next season. Is it the new enemy? Or is the revelation character/actor related. I think Sam and Dean will fight with MOL for a common big bad and teach them the error of their ways. As far as the MOL being the bad guys… Well, I am not into that option. I had a discussion about this and Disgruntled Viewer wrote this idea well (so I hope she/he won’t mind if I quote it for this):
I also think that the information on Milady’s board was wrong because the MoL only think they know everything. I think at first MoL were not interested in Winchesters and got interested only at some point when they were seriously involved in the things on the global scale. At some point they attracted the attention of British MoL and they started to gather information about them. And where logically to start? Naturally from official records. Milady had Winchester’s pictures from the police shots when they were arrested in “The Usual Suspects”, there were pictures of Dean from “Nightshifter”, and also a picture of Levi!Sam and Levi!Dean when they were robbing that place. I think MoL seriously think that Winchesters really robbed banks and killed hostages and commited all those crimes they were suspected by the police and the FBI.
As for incorrect information about Sam and the maiden surname of Mary. I think, it’s logical and I think it was made up by John. If to get into his shoes and think what he was thinking: It’s possible that what happened in Sam’s nursery had something to do with Sam or Mary – “How to protect my children, if it’s the case? – Fake the information about Mary and fake the information about Sam – in such a case everybody who will be looking for Mary’s children won’t find them, or if anybody will be looking for a child who was born on the 2 of May won’t find Sam, especially if I and my children won’t be at the same place for a long time and we will be moving a lot. Crappy childhood for my kids, but at least they will be alive”. So John faked Sam’s birth certificate and some other papers concerning Sam and Mary and these documents were later retrieved by British MoL.
But I don’t have any logical explanation why Castiel name was wrong. (Castiel, literally meaning “My cover is God” or “Shield of God” in Theophory in the Bible. Castiel is considered another name for the angel Cassiel. Cassiel meaning “Speed of God” is the Latin name of an archangel in post-biblical Judeo-Christian religion, particularly that of the Kabbalah. Unlike many other angels, Cassiel is known for simply watching the events of the cosmos unfold with little interference. He is the angel of solitude and tears, and is said to preside over the deaths of kings. He is often included in lists as being one of the Seven Archangels and often associated with the Seventh Heaven.)
But I don’t believe that tech crew made a mistake in the name of the regular character of the show, it’s not some half-forgotten fact from what happened in the show five or ten years ago. So I think that all incorrect information on Milady’s board had a deliberate character.
Now moving on to our feathered friend, Castiel. For season 12, Jared has hoped that they would dwell more on Sam’s and Castiel’s friendship. Cas has also gotten his mojo back hopefully and he and Crowley might go after body-hopping Lucifer together. This can also lead to many possibilities. One thought is that Lucifer got some of the angels on his side when he visited Heaven so he has help in getting the Nick vessel back. So Cas and Crowley need to fight and win over those angels to get to Lucifer with the Winchesters.
Lucifer being out might lead also to Michael being freed, who might actually be worse than Lucifer with his mad wrath. Maybe he would pile the last of the Grigori angels as his warriors (Including a personality and not cannon fodder). That would be awesome. Cas could also have some feathery help. Not angels 1, 2, 3 etc., but – with the help of God – Gabriel, Balthazar and Gadreel. Also, Adam could be mentioned. Either he is dead and his soul is in Hell; or they are able to get him out and he leaves with a back bag following down the road; or he will stay with Mary and John. What can I say… I want a happy ending even for a half Winchester.
Monster of the Week Episodes and Mix
Markham: The box is to be interred and guarded where it stands, in perpetuity. Bury it.
It would be great to also have an episode where they would find a hidden pool room in the bunker. I already played with the idea in a short fan fiction. Among the rooms there could be an old gymnastic room where they sometimes exercise and could talk at the same time. Jared’s teasing image didn’t help at all to get this image out of my head. You know those broments. The room has not been shown but Dean was exercising somewhere in one of the episodes. This was also talked about in the comments and a boxing ring was also mentioned. MOL Cold Cases can be also a vast story archive like “Werther Box” was.
Also. as Alice mentioned, “We have no new knowledge about the myth arc, let’s go hunting” trope is boring. Get the boys moving. Let the MOTW cases also be inventive. Sam goes jogging and finds a case too close to home!; Or they go to visit their dads locker and find out it has been visited/burned/a case from there!; Or TFW are all turned to mirrors of themselves for a day (yes, they would be the bad guys)!; Human!Impala episode! I mean, it would be definitely awesome and would work if an actress like Lisa Berry (Billie the Reaper) would play Baby. I would not mind either if TFW and Crowley would end up in Purgatory for a few episodes together.
After this all comes the nitpicking. Just random fast ideas that I have. First, getting the boys out of their comfort zones and old habits, e.g. Sam with a ponytail, boys with a beard. They really don’t NEED to look the same all the time. Sometimes this has gotten really ridiculous. Second, I would welcome back in any way possible, Bobby, Benny, Jody, Donna etc. Bobby probably will come back like he has every season. Three, maybe Campbells can make a return as hunter allies, and I mean in a way that they don’t get killed.
That’s about it. I hope you liked my ramblings and I would like to hear yours.
Dean: Oh, uh… you know the drill, right? Don’t touch anything in those boxes. In fact, don’t even go near the safe. Once we get it all boxed up, we’ll get a U-Haul and get everything out of here.
Where does your imagination take you? What ideas did you like on my list? What’s in your box?
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