Thoughts on Supernatural 12.19: “The Future”

Whoa! That was quite the unexpected episode in some of the best ways. The Future was all about addressing the present, answering some of the dangling question marks, the curious plot threads and the teaser pieces that have been dragging on for several weeks with no satisfaction, in some cases way, way too long. In particular, this was about finally answering one question in particular: where the Hell did Castiel disappear to? Despite a somewhat lackluster response to the latter, the rest was handled with renewed energy, introduced freshness to a stale notion and took things in a brand new direction: finally!

Whoa, Baby

Finally, something involving Kelly that has substance and a moving story. You know, other than the Lucifer’s Baby storyline that they’ve been Dead-Horsing for months now. To start with, this depression was strong – it has been for months – and Dagon has let go any semblance of “nurture” she once presented. Now Kelly is suffering, in a way nobody should during the final term of their pregnancy, and we can feel the misery. There is something especially potent about the bathtub/suicide scene: the visceral colours, the bare, dingy environment. Everything communicates the abandon, lonely, miserly existence that Kelly has been experiencing and how she finally came to snap in these moments after Dagon’s nasty speech and hand delivered vitamins.

Until this point, Kelly has been a “there” character. Deep emotions haven’t been strongly conveyed, or sold, if you like, very well. Overall the Kelly storyline was rather one-note and bland. Until now. Here we have a Kelly who, after trying to kill herself, is saved by the child and as a result achieves a deeper connection and realizes the truly special baby she is carrying – and exactly what that might mean for the world.

Good Evil Lucifer Baby

This twist was both a surprise and a welcome twist to the long, drawn out pregnancy plot that we’ve been hashing out over the back half of this season. The magical baby prophesized to bring about the end of mankind is nothing new in reality; it’s been done before in a variety of ways on many shows before this one. So watching this Rosemary’s Baby storyline – and not the best of them – over recent months hasn’t offered the best of the best that Supernatural has to offer. Then, suddenly, surprise! He’s a messiah!

Truth be told, it isn’t that shocking when the facts are analyzed in and of themselves: Lucifer is an angel, after all. He is a soul-having creature created in the image of God, or so the story goes. Not inherently evil; just chose to be that way because of jealousy, desire and personal amusement. So is it really so unexpected that his offspring couldn’t be good, from the start – without his influence of course – maybe not. This plot finally affords both Kelly and Castiel a purpose and direction and Castiel’s powers have been restored – at least they appear to have been restored, or seriously dialed up.

Okay, so what really worked, when we get to the nit and grit? As is no secret, the story of Kelly and her pregnancy hasn’t been terribly fascinating, but it has been terribly drawn out. This is TV, folks, there was no need for us to endure an actual pregnancy term if it wasn’t going to be something worthwhile. Castiel’s time in heaven proved to be nearly useless, save for getting key players to certain points on the map at certain times – something we know that Supernatural is exceptional at doing.

Angel Absence

Weeks and weeks of no phone calls, no messages – just hearing that now ridiculous message: “Make your voice a mail.” This happened because Castiel went up to Heaven, you’ll recall, where rumour had it Joshua (you remember him – The Gardener) had reordered Heaven. A new regime that would afford Castiel his place once again. Weeks of Sam and Dean wondering where their BFF had disappeared too – and though we the audience were privy to that particular detail, we still wondered at the intricacies of what was happening, what it meant in the long run, how it would play out – would we ever get an update on this Heaven situation!? Yes, it was a real bit of chaos in the form of miscommunication – a theme we will circle back to later on.

When Castiel finally returns, all that time away, the damage done by his missing time and by his physical absence (because they could have used him) is apparently made meaningless inside of forty minutes. Joshua is dead, we know nothing about Heaven and as far as I could tell – Joshua didn’t reaffirm Castiel’s place during that limited time he was allowed back upstairs either. What a waste.

This was a badly executed (no pun intended) piece of the puzzle, perhaps thought up afterwards as a bridge component in order to bring certain players and certain elements together at a key point. Either way, it was wildly lackluster after all the huff and puff around Heaven in recent weeks – and the effects of missing Castiel. Or at least that was my initial reaction. On second consideration, I looked at the way all these game pieces were brought together and I have to consider that maybe there was a deliberate nature to each and every move that can’t be written off so easily. After all – Castiel was following Joshua’s Heavenly plan when he took the Colt and went for Kelly. This put him in a position to touch her stomach and receive the vision, left behind an angel who confessed to Dagon the location of the playground which renders Joshua, Dagon and ultimately the Colt dead and finally leaves Castiel as the defender of the Nephilim, who grants Castiel a power upgrade.

So, maybe it wasn’t all such a wasted effort. Thoughts?

Suicide Saviour

One of the worst characters this season has been Kelly. She has been dull, pathetic and consistently weak with nothing redeeming or particularly likeable about her personality (if you can identify a personality trait outside of “pregnant”) from the start. Tonight, that finally, remarkably, evolved. For the first time since her introduction, we saw several shades of emotion from Kelly: desperation and desolation all the way to joy and devotion.

Visually, the bathtub suicide attempt was stunning. The contrast of the red against the dirty, dark room and dim lights was a powerful graphic and one of the best depictions in the episode.

Ultimately, Castiel and Kelly’s connection through the Nephilim was both ethereal and eerie. In particular the eyes – yellow of course, which is an interesting full circle effect, especially if they are now symbolic of good where they have been the mark of evil to this point. It’s hard to know with any certainty: is the baby empowering Castiel or controlling him? Is it controlling Kelly or does she still have Free Will? Theoretically, we’re being presented with a good baby – not a satanic one – who will do great things for the world. But then again….we don’t know what Castiel saw, it was something powerful though.

Angel Mission

Castiel returns from Heaven and through manipulation of Dean, manages to get his hands on the Colt. His time doing this affords Sam enough room to put a tracking app on Castiel’s cell phone. Later, all of these things are significant when Castiel kidnaps Kelly from Dagon but is unable to execute her, bringing together the brothers, the colt, the reborn Kelly and an angel searching for a purpose for his directionless existence.

Castiel is always looking for his purpose, he has been since he left Heaven the first time and he may have finally found what he needed. Unquestionably, Castiel is meant to be a fighter, alongside the “good fight” and as Dean said, they are at their best when they are together. Team Free Will should come together in the end – when the baby is born, so they can all experience it if it is truly a force of Good.

Surprises

Who was surprised by Dagon’s death? I can’t say for sure if I was or not – I knew she wouldn’t survive the season, without a doubt. Having said that, part of me expected she would be a bigger problem just a little bit longer. So, RIP Dagon. Or not. Dagon started with potential, but her chic factor decreased more and more as she appeared on screen and it was certainly the right moment to kill her.

Speaking of right moments, let’s chat about the colt. This was another one that wasn’t too shocking in the grand scheme. It was good to have the Winchesters be the last ones with weapon and I can’t honestly believe we’ll never see this gun again, given the history and significance it’s played through time (seriously, a finale cameo, right?) but it was too much of an all-purpose killer to stick around much more.

Final Thoughts

I don’t have a lot of comments on this episode as a whole – because there wasn’t a lot of in depth content overall. It was an episode that caught me off guard in some great ways: the baby is good. I like this idea so much better than an evil baby does. I also like the possibility of being able to turn the baby human if it is/had been “evil” by removing the grace as opposed to killing it. Outside of this plot development, not much happened: the Joshua/Heaven story died as quick as it came – quite literally – and so did both the Colt and Dagon.

Dean will be pissed when he and Sam wake up and realize what Cas has done, no question. He doesn’t take betrayal well and that’s what this was. The episode was all about bad communication on every level. This family has been struggling for the latter half of the season with communication and it’s costing them on several levels. Sometime soon, they will have no choice but to come together and figure out the details. With luck, it won’t be after something bad happens – then again, when are the Winchesters lucky?

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