I can’t believe it’s here! The season four finale. I’m holding back on any over-anticipation, keeping an open mind for Kripke’s vision as a producer, writer, and this time, director. I get the honor of seeing it first, being in the Eastern time zone.
So, once you see it, let loose. What do you think? Coherent thoughts not required.
“Are You There God, It’s Me, Dean Winchester†–Robin’s Rambles by Robin Vogel A hunter named Olivia lies sleeping on her sofa. Her TV, tuned to the Three Stooges, goes haywire, and she quickly realizes she has a ghost problem via her EMF meter and her own frosty breath. Despite quickly laying down a salt line,…
The Road So Far, Season Four, Whew, we made it, the end of the Road So Far Series – for those of you who hung on this far, this means we’re mere days from the beginning of Season 5. Hooray! When I started this I had no idea what I was getting into, my original plan…
Season Four Highlights/Lowlights and other stuff: Just ‘cause I felt like dabbling in the fun of this, I present you a quick, random, somewhat thought out at other times purely emotional response to season four. In no way is this completely encompassing of the entire season (I think that’s three words to say…
Recapping this one has been near impossible. This has an extra special attention to detail, since so much unfolded, so get settled in and enjoy! Also, tons of screencaps in this one, since Jared, Jensen and even Misha gave us so much. Share on FacebookTweetFollow usSave
Happy 2013 Hellatus, everyone! Here is a little (and long overdue!) filler fluff piece to pass the time. Now, of all the hits and misses lists I’ve put together, season four proved the most challenging. One of the strongest seasons to date, it had a slew of hits for me to narrow down and very,…
Family Remains: Jeremy Carver, you remain one of my favorite writers for this series, even Family Remains cannot change that. Still, I have to wonder, what? There’s much to love here, it had been eight weeks and finally a new episode. The Impala was shown in many scenes, the opening, several times in the middle, it got…
coherent??? I’ve got only 2 hours and 57 minutes…that’s 10,620 seconds…and counting down, until the season finale…yikes!!!
I am looking forward to seeing Kripke’s vision as writer and director, especially as I recall his comments on ‘angsting’ over the script for What is and What Should Never Be and how he wanted that to be a ‘director proof’ script since it was his debut.
I’m stoked and as usual…fully expect there to be tears, knots in my stomach as I look into the future of 17+ weeks w/o anything new….DAMN YOU KR…still warming up!
I loved it.
First, Carry on my Wayward Son…thank you Mr. Kripke…I felt better about it all the way.
Second, Bobby was awesome (and sooooooooo not dead!) Hah, the angels ‘just’ (JUST?) stole Dean. Once again Bobby comes through with an awesome bit of advice…don’t be your father…good advice Dean.
Third, Zach, Zach, Zach…how cool was that that the color washed out of the fantasy world when Zach revealed his part in the plan…fabulous.
Fourth, Dean apologized and fabulously too!!!!! (The one pang I had, the gut wrench, was when Sam heard the altered message….that killed me…but the ending so made up for it.
Fifth, Ruby’s dead! Ruby’s Dead! RUBY’s dead! RUBY’s DEAD!!!!!! FANTASTIC!!!!!!
Sixth, Chuck’s hand on Cas’ shoulder and then the look…bwah!!!!!
Seventh, Lilith is dead? (Really? I thought Edlund said she was around next season….maybe???? Don’t care though…waaaaaayyyyy tooooo coooool!!!!
Eighth, Sam is soooo still in there and so very much aware. Thank you, Eric, for bringing Sam back to life.
Ninth, Sam to Dean: “I’m sorry!” and then they mutually grabbed each other as Lucifer is rising (or starting to or whatever) …..
I have to say, I LOVE YOU ERIC KRIPKE!!!! This was awesome and just knowing that both brothers are so very much aware of what they’ve done to themselves, each other and well, all the rest of humanity, there is so much that’s gonna be good next year.
Only down side…my DVR is quirky (and only about a year and a half old) and at the commercial break 30 minutes in, it stopped recording saying the disc was copyright protected…as I frantically loaded disc after disc – all brand new, never been used – they came up copyright protected…finally I got one to work but I wasn’t able to record Dean getting in Cas’ face…not even sure I got Cas getting Dean out of there…must go check!!!!
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful episode…so, was Ruby Ruby or Meg? COuld be Meg??? Paralells to Shadow when she talked about family, loyalty and all that. Either way…She’s DEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And Sam held her while Dean killed her!!!!! That was awesome, the brothers are back.
Phew.
First, while I gather my thoughts, let me name the misc. things I enjoyed:
– The prophet Chuck! And he’s ordering ladies because he knows the world is going out. I enjoyed Chuck and I sincerely hope to see him again. I particularly liked when he tried to express camaraderie to Cas and the action was totally wasted on the angel.
-When Cas revealed that Lilith was the final seal, I actually squealed and yelled “I knew it!!†at the television.
-“The Suite Life of Zach and Casâ€- that was hysterical!
-“You didn’t need the feather, it was inside you Dumbo.†For some reason, I liked this line and it’s delivery.
The Big Stuff:
-The opening of this episode was well played. I loved being revisited by Azazel. I thought it wasn’t a bad job at capturing the casual, witty but pure evilness that we’ve seen from this character time and again. I always thought that Azazel and Lilith had alternate agenda’s {See: Demon!Casey}, but I guess not.
-The voicemail: I knew that that was the “nudge†that Zachariah was referring too. Why else would they have allowed him to make that phone call when he was “out of his coverage” later? And then, Ruby-(bitch) smiling because she knew that as he was listening, it was the last push to get him to fulfill the plan. Well guess what? – Ding-dong the bitch is dead! All of us who suspected she was evil – vindication at last! I have to say, I feel like Ruby did love Sam, in her own twisted way, because of the way she was fawning over him after he broke the seal. She really thought they could be together or have some perversion of a relationship now. I thought GC played the reveal/confirmation of Ruby’s true intentions fantastically. I really loved that scene: “I was the best!†Well played Ruby, well played.
-Ruby’s death was exactly as it should be – not drawn out, just the two boys working together to end her. Pitch perfect.
-Zachariah was a great character. His manipulation through out has left us wondering – good, bad? I am happy to FINALLY understand the Heaven agenda as it relates to the Hell agenda. Oh, they want the seals broken. THEN they’ll stop Lucifer and all will be ice cream and kittens. Sound logic there. It does explain the nagging question – if they knew Dean was the first seal, why not fish him out of Hell the second he went instead of doodling around for 4 months. The continuity has once again amazed me. Kripke is such a genius!
-Cas – oh, how I’ve missed you! Way to break free of those chains. Dean’s speech was great. He didn’t extol the virtues of humans, he was honest and forthright, and that is what convinced Cas. I think Cas looks to Dean for his humanity-barometer and so Dean was able to break through whatever brainwashing he was subject to Upstairs. I felt the outburst where Cas revealed how he felt Dean’s pain and that in paradise Dean wouldn’t have to suffer, was very telling. Cas does care about Dean – he just doesn’t know what to do with this crazy thing called emotion.
-Our boys. I liked the symmetry of them both staring off into the distance, obviously still reeling from their encounter with one another in the last episode. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, Bobby was wrong about chasing after Sam. The reason I say this is because you can’t help someone who isn’t willing to receive help. We saw that (finally) Sam paused to consider things that Dean had said and take a look at what he was doing – he slowly realized (although again, not until really, really too late) that he wasn’t doing the right thing. I thought the reunion was great. No words spoken as they both kill Ruby. Dean’s response to her “I don’t care” was excellent – she needed to die and he’s been itching to that since day one. The look on Sam’s face when he apologized just about broke my heart. I think they probably would have hugged, had it not been for the small, but pressing issue of the prince of darkness rising from the bowels of Hell. They were holding each other in a very brothers-in-arms way though, so I can live with that for now. Glad our boys weren’t two different units for very long. I was worried all season that we’d be weeks and weeks of feuding brothers. Very satisfied that this wasn’t the case. Sam and Dean always find their way back to one another.
I wrote most of these notes on the commercial breaks but this was my actual reaction following the end credits: WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!! NO!!! How can we be left with just that? Oh. My. GOD! 😮 😮
There aren’t words to describe the incredibleness of this episode. I am shocked, in awe, dumbfounded! We’re expected to last until September? That was epic. No doubt, a truly fantastic finale if ever there was. This season has been one twist after another and what a perfect way to top off the incredible run that was season four.
Can’t wait for the reviews, Alice and Elle2!
Wow, I ended up watching the DVR 45 minutes late because of my family.
Wow! Castiel went rogue! Dean and Sam were together in the end! Dean finally killed the bitch.
Oh, and I forgot. DAMN YOU KRIPKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, BTW, I forgot to add, Bobby is NOT dead. Yay!!! Jim Beaver in season five.
I’m glad someone else made the Ruby – Meg connection. My wife thinks I’m crazy, but I just posted the same thing on Supernatural.tv.
Hi, Patrick,
I cannot claim to be original on the Ruby/Meg thingy…it’s been out on the fandom as speculation for quite some time now…I’m not even sure that that’s what it is but still, the whole I’m awesome! Nobody was loyal, nobody knew…oh, yeah that was so Meglike from Shadow and if she really was Azazel’s daughter (which I have no issue with as that’s canon from Devil’s Trap…then it makes sense…so that brings us back to Azazel and Meg from S1…so, very cool.
Me think S5 is gonna be an awful lot like S1 with the back to basics on the mythology…Sam is ‘the special one’ well, why? Good question and it ain’t fully answered yet, and Dean is the one to ‘stop it’ well, obviously he still has plenty of work, but then so does Sam and since they’ve been ‘separated’ at least emotionally this season quite a lot, they have a lot of healing and rediscovering, just like S1…so, is it September yet????
Carry on my wayward son…there WILL be peace when you are done! and this time (unlike last season’s cliffhanger) I didn’t cry no more!
Oh man, and here I thought I was a genius. =P
I can’t say I spend much time out here with the “slash” fans, but after that episode and the idea of four months in demon detox, I thought I’d see what the web has to offer.
I’d never been to this site before, good stuff!
Oh!
Ok, I have my closure and the big fight Humanity vs Heaven+Hell!
YESSSS!!! PERFECT!
AND I have Ruby’s motivations – funny thing, Lilith’s and Azazel’s plans were the same after all AND Ruby was following them both, but I don’t mind. Much. Her delusional babbling in the end of her life was great. I REALLY liked her there.
AND I have my brotherly reunion. With some tears. Too bad the episode stopped before /comfort part, but I understand it – there’s only 40 minutes to tell the story, after all. (Sam never knew Dean apologized, Sam screwed up EVERYTHING, OH, SAM IS SO SCREWED and still there was the brotherly reunion, THANK YOU SO MUCH!)
AND, OMG, so many bonus points to give!
* for killing off Lilith!
* brother-touching in the end!
* Oh, Castiel, you gave us beautiful self-sacrifice! Castiel keeps ALL THE HOSTS OF HEAVEN busy by himself!
* AND NOT JUST THAT THEY MENTION AZAZEL, HE WAS IN THERE! I SAW HIM! I HEARD HIM! (Well – the actor was not so brilliant as yellow-eyed-grandfather was in “In the Beginnig” or as the Usual Host of YED was, but he was ok. I don’t mind. AND Lucifer talking, using dead nun’s mouth was lovely, just lovely!)
* Chuck! And maybe he even stays alive! Chuck is lovely and awesome and I want to be his call-girl!
AND I give away some extra bonus points for
* Sam turning into full-metal-demon-with-black-eyes
* almost all the dialog in the Art-Museum of Heaven
* Lucifer rising (I have to admit I already like Lucifer. He was so cool, talking to Azazel as dead nun, and then this white light in the end, SO WHITE, BECAUSE HE WAS AN ANGEL, after all! and I tend to love all the bad guys always /because they get beaten all the time/)
What I did not like (because all this worked very well as closing episode of the season, but sadly I have major problem with the main story now):
So, you are saying that now Sam has on his head not only the deaths of his mother, his beloved woman, his father, his brother, his borther’s 40 years in hell, but also BRINGING THE APOCALYPSE? and HE IS IN FACT THE BLACK-EYED MONSTER now too?
Well, this time my “thank you” is ironical, because all the season 4 I was thinking how it is irrational that Dean is still so very functional under all his angst and pain (and pain and pain and pain, !!!40!!! years! I haven’t even _lived_ that long and he is still pretty normal after all this???).
It seems like season 5 there will be no brother who’s reactions would seem logical and human-like to me – unless there will be about 12 episodes of crying men banging their heads against the wall and shaking badly, and then maybe 6-8 where they will very carefully learn how to come back in to the normal world.
Also – well, it does not look like Sam should dare make ANY decision of his own soon. Not even “What should I wear today?” or ” Where shall I eat my breakfirst?”
Because he would probably bring some doom down then too.
And
Dean must help him up again, and really, I don’t like it. Because I love Dean’s devotion but I don’t love Sam so badly needing it when he is 26 years old grown-up man. It is very depressing to see him in child’s position AGAIN. In the position of stupid, rebellious child who does not understand that his parents (or big brother) knows best.
Yeah, I understand that actually there was only one choice he made by himself in season 4 (“I’m not doing it anymore, not because of you or angels or…” well, can’t recall everything, but in the end he said “This is my choice” and it was). But… still.
When he took back this choice, he was trying to help Dean, and why is it so that Sam can NEVER help Dean with anything important, it always ends with the disaster, but Dean can always help Sam? What is Show telling us with this, uh? If you are the younger one, you will always be the screw-up?
But I still have good feeling about this episode and about next season too, and I believe Kripke and the Supernatural-team actually can see my problem with Sam, and they work on it and give me some solution.
have a great summer, everybody!
AAAAARGH!!!
😀 😀 😀 😀 😀
Bobby Lives! Chuck lives! ( probably … ) Ruby dies! Yippee!
Cas comes through for humanity … it’s official! Joy unconfined!
The guys are friends again … Brilliant …
Lucifer’s out, Whoops.
This was so full of great bits that I don’t know where to start so I’m just going to run round in happy little circles for a while until my brain starts working again … 😀
PS. Wayward Son! 😀
WOW!!!!! LOVED the show!!!! I am SOOOOOOOO glad the boys are back together. Just couldn’t have survived the summer with them at odds. 🙂 BROTHERS ROCK!!!
So what is the moral here….that everyone wants to do what is right, but just doesn’t know what it is? or that you are the sum of your experiences?
So glad Ruby finally got hers! Never liked her at all! I don’t know how others think of Zacharia, but I think the boys should get him next. Yes, he maybe still doing heavens work, but he is just to manipulative for me. If he wanted to do good why not be honest about it?
Way to go Bobby! His wake up speech was just what Dean needed! As sorry as I feel for Sam, I think he needs a stiff talking to as well. I can still see Dean’s face when Sam said he was sorry. Dean looked so angry to me, but he didn’t explode at his brother. Even though Sam had plenty of hints that what he was doing was wrong, Dean was also partially to blame for Sam’s fall. But as the basis of the story goes, family values and ties are the strongest no matter what the family business.
Loved the scene of Castiel and Chuck facing the archangel together. I hope Chuck makes more appearences in the last season. Question, what was the angel there? Castiel isn’t a demon and certainly no threat to Chuck? Is the archangel a ‘bad’ angel? Any what happened to Anna? Hummmmmm……..
As for Sam…if his powers were not do to the demon blood, then he still has them! So COOL! I’m sure his guilt at what he has done is motivation enough for him to stop using them, but with Lucifer popping up in front of them, and going after Dean, which he will because Dean is supposed to kill Lucifer, will Sam’s powers reach the peak of strength? In the very last scene Dean wanted to leave, but Sam pulled him to stay. Is Sam going to try to correct his mistake? They can’t kill Lucifer, but maybe put him back in his cage.
So many ways the story can go and so hard to wait for September!
Again all I can say is WOW!!!!!!!!
Hi, Vana Naine, *Code name WOMAN*
I’m planning an article on Sam for our summer ‘hellatus’ as BuddyTV terms it, and I hope to address my thoughts on Sam which are reflected in your immediate thoughts on what happened in this episode at elast as pertains to Sam and blame.
I for one don’t think Sam is “responsible” for mom’s death, Jessica’s death, Dean’s death and torture, dad’s death and the apocalypse and all that…for one thing, Mary made the deal first which gave Azazel access to Sam’s nursery and thus the dripping of the blood, so Sam does not share any blame in that. John made the deal to save Dean’s life (and Sam was right not to kill John when Azazel possessed him) so Sam has no blame in that. Further, Dean made the deal on his own to bring a very dead Sam back to life…thus Sam has no blame there.
Now, Jessica, yes, Sam dreamt about her dying and did nothing…fact is he had no idea what his dreams meant and as we saw with Ava in Hunted, if Azazel wanted Sam back in the game and Jessica gone…he’d have done it anyway with or without Sam leaving with Dean. Despite Sam being one of the ‘special children’ he was only that ’cause of Mary’s deal…still no blame on Sam there.
Now, as for the whole demon blood sucking thingy and the opening of the final seal….well, I leave all that for my article that is upcoming. I have lots of them planned and after I get my episode review done, I’ll do an introductory article for the summer and give previews of some of my ideas…hopefully it will help all our summer pass more quickly (Did i really say that????)
So much love for this finale….so very much!
Elle2
I’ll be looking for your articles this summer. May I say, I do agree with all of your above quotes regarding Sam’s ‘blame’ in all this, but he is not blameless. He had a choice to make and, granted he had a LOT of pushing to follow the wrong one, but he still made the final choice. Revenge is NOT an emotion you want to posess you.
I don’t see how he will deal with the screams of that woman in the trunk. Now that he knows how he was tricked.
So many other thoughts about the finale….so many….
elle2, I agree with you pretty much about everything but I seriously doubt if Sam does.
I also think that one should not be held responsible for his acts after 30 years (or even after 30 hours) of torture, but it seems like Dean does not agree with me.
Okay, so not to jump the gun and be looking toward season 5, episode one, but won’t Lucifer need a host/meatsuit/vessel to prowl this apocalyptic world? I’m just wondering why Sam decides to stay and watch Lucifer rise instead of following his brother’s lead of starting to (excuse the phrase) run like Hell.
I was so glad that Bobby didn’t die in this season and that we got ‘our’ Cas back. But, I’m wondering if the whole last stand against the archangel and all of Heaven was exactly that for Cas: A last stand. I’m really hoping he’ll be back in Season 5. And Chuck, too (loved the attempt at camaraderie with the Angel!)
There was a list on here of things that we wanted to see happen in the finale, what about a list of things we want to see in season 5? (Which is also possibly the last season of the show since Kripke says he’s only planned the story that far.)
I, for one, would love to have some more Trickster in the boy’s lives. In my book, he is definitely a character they can bring back anytime. Huh… random thought… would the Trickster be on par with Angels/Demons powerwise? Which side would he be on in an apocalyptic world? Sorry… just musing.
Too right, Marleen, Zachariah is the slimey, two-faced, lying weasel to end all slimey, two-faced, lying weasels and only looks like he’s fighting the good fight when it suits him so let’s hope he gets the chop at some point … but not too soon as I’m enjoying his full-on hatefulness!
ha! I just discovered that I can give away one bonus point more!
Lilith also sacrificed herself knowingly! Demons are true believers!
Elle2 – I completely agree with your assessment of this episode. Our reactions seem to be very similar! i am looking forward to your review and your articles which will help carry us through the summer “Hellatus” (I love that).
Mae,
Misha Collins has been signed as a regular for season 5 (if my information is correct) so you can count on seeing him again! 😉
To continue Mae’s looking forward to season 5, yes, I think Lucifer will need a host….and he has two of them on the floor of the convent. Lilith would be my guess as she did sacrifice herself. Can I cheat, and ask if anyone knows if the actress who played Lilith is back next season?
As for why Sam wanted to stay….I think he is just plain mad! He has a lot of anger anyway, with good reason, and now that he can’t channel it into revenge on Lilth, he will direct it toward Lucifer. At least Dean is with him now.
Due to other plans, I didn’t get to watch the show until tonight and man it was hard to wait, but I lived! GRIN.
So, WOW, that means that TPTB in Heaven already KNEW what Azazel’s plan was? Was Zach already onside way back then???
OK, so I was wrong about Ruby being Lillith, however, the truth means that I might actually be right when I speculated that the hex bags Ruby gave the boys to “hide” them from Lillith probably didn’t do anything. And, it certainly explained why she had the Superbowl Jetpack and the magic knife. BUT, the whole Ruby/Meg theory looks much more plausible with what we’ve just learned.
The knife still makes me wonder – as a demon killing ginsu, it seems much more like a heavenly created weapon – so could this be an item that further show’s Heaven’s involvement in this whole “Free Lucifer” plan??
The timing of Dean’s transport to the Heavenly Waiting Room makes me thing that the angels were listening in…I think Dean was just about ready to go after Sam when he was transported.
And I agree with everyone else – I don’t like subservient Cas – I’m happy the Cas we know and love is back.
I’m not surprised Dean turned down Ginger and Marianne – he never could be “bought”. And Cas arriving just before he ate that burger, saved Dean from giving in.
Yes, Dean called Sam to say he’s sorry but if you listen really hard….the message recording cuts out just as he says it. So I think that even if Sam had heard the original message – that part would have been missing or truncated.
GAH! So much to process.