Spoiler warnings below for all seasons of Supernatural
With its contentious final episode “Carry On”, Supernatural wrapped up 15 years of hunting monsters and bid farewell to the Winchester brothers. The landing was rocky, partially because the COVID-19 pandemic threw a spanner in the works during production earlier this year, leading to some minor rewrites that left out a number of significant characters in the last few episodes. But with the resources that showrunners Andrew Dabb and Robert Singer had to work with, Supernatural found an emotional conclusion for the fraternal relationship right at the show’s centre.
A lot has changed since the show’s inception in 2005. Beginning as a monster-of-the-week fantasy horror show heavily inspired by Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 1 saw hot-headed older brother Dean recruit his calmer, more academic young brother Sam to search for their recently disappeared father. John Winchester, played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan, is a hunter, and it is looking like Dean will follow in his footsteps while Sam is hoping to establish a more stable life. The show’s universe quickly grew to cosmic proportions when demons, angels, and archangels were introduced. Season 4 saw the addition of Castiel to the main cast, an angel ally who sought to help the Winchesters prevent the Apocalypse.
Supernatural reached its peak in season 5, which saw archangels Michael and Lucifer fight it out in the absence of their father, God, who had mysteriously been missing for thousands of years. Their story mirrored the Winchesters’ own relationship, reflecting all their own insecurities about being their father’s favourite versus the one who struck out on his own. It was a thrilling character study using very loose interpretations of the Bible to explore brotherhood through the ages.
Everything was wrapped up so neatly that when Supernatural was renewed for a sixth season, everyone was a little bit surprised. In the subsequent years Supernatural never quite reached the same level of quality again, but it continued to develop in new, unexpected ways. The showrunners always seemed to believe that its fanbase were men much like the Winchesters, but in the 2010’s the social media platform Tumblr revealed it to consist largely of young, progressive women, the sort of demographic that the show would sometimes mock with its own regressive form of politics.
Eventually the writers learned better, and started to incorporate parts of the fandom into their show. Season 6’s “The French Mistake” saw Sam and Dean end up in our universe where they were actors in the television show Supernatural, and the 200th episode “Fan Fiction” had them investigating a local high school that was staging a musical adaptation of their adventures. The show’s relationship with its female and queer characters never fully improved, but in its final seasons there was a solid effort to bring in a more diverse range of characters. It even attempted to launch a spin-off show titled Wayward Sisters, intended to revolve around the women in the Winchesters’ life with their own sets of skills and powers to hunt down monsters. But sadly it wasn’t picked up by any networks, and any hopes for its success fizzled out.
The seasonal story arcs themselves varied in quality. The release of the Darkness at the end of season 10 was a breath of fresh air back into the series, once again raising the stakes and allowing for more parallel arcs between cosmic beings and the Winchester brothers. The addition of Jack, the son of Lucifer, in season 13 also brought a new dynamic to the cast, seeing Sam, Dean, and Castiel take on parental roles. But for every exciting Darkness-centric season we would get a duller one, such as the arc revolving around the British Men of Letters who never ended up being terribly interesting or memorable. The post-season 5 road was rocky, and as the final season rolled around it was unclear how well the show was going to stick its landing.
At first, it looked dour. The first episode of season 15 saw the writers back down on the ridiculously high stakes it had set up in the season 14 cliffhanger, which made it seem as if God had revived every monster the Winchesters had ever destroyed. As it turns out, it was only a few ghosts from a small town that had come back, none of which were particularly intimidating. But still, God had promised to bring the brothers’ story to a climactic finale, following which he would destroy all of his creation. The stakes were high, and all the showrunners would need to do is pull off their biggest climax yet.
The moment that solidified their success was God’s erasure of every living being except for Sam, Dean, Jack, and also as it turns out, the archangel Michael. A last minute cameo from Mark Pellegrino as a very briefly revived Lucifer gave the episode some added fan service, but it was the final coup d’etat on God that ultimately felt so satisfying. Having Jack suck his power from him, effectively rendering him mortal, gave Sam and Dean the free will they had desired for so long, and ensured that the universe would now be in the hands of a truly benevolent being.
What rocked social media even more than this though was Castiel’s confession of love for Dean, which brought the 2010-era Tumblr fans back out of the woodwork. Destiel, the name given to the pairing of Dean and Castiel whose relationship was often interpreted as being rife with homo-erotic undertones, became canon. But any hopes that it might stick around was destroyed mere seconds later when Castiel sacrificed himself, once again giving rise to complaints about the show’s treatment of its queer characters.
While the season 15 arc had reached its conclusion in “Inherit the Earth”, the real final episode “Carry On” was a bookend to the 15 year arc of the Winchester brothers’ relationship, the heart of the show. Enjoying lives no longer governed by a megalomaniacal God, the two continued killing monsters until one hunt went wrong and saw Dean end up on the wrong side of a long, rusty nail. Realising it’s the end, he had time to say a tearful goodbye to Sam before passing on. Any complaints about this being an anticlimactic ending for such a larger-than-life character miss the point. Dean’s life was only epic because God made it so, so once he started living an ordinary existence it would make sense for him to die like an ordinary hunter – on his own terms, not on God’s. It was the death Dean had always expected, and perhaps even wanted. Likewise, Sam always wanted a normal life with a family of his own, something he never would have gotten if God had his way. With Dean’s demise, Sam pursues that life he never thought he would be able to have, eventually dying as an old man.
If it weren’t for complications brought about by the pandemic, Supernatural may have been able to bring back some of its key characters as a final farewell. It was disappointing to not see Eileen appear one last time, especially as the show spent so much time exploring her potential relationship with Sam throughout the season, but it was even more unfortunate that we wouldn’t be seeing Castiel return to settle his relationship with Dean. There is mention that he is safe in heaven, along with John and Mary Winchester, and we do get a Bobby Singer cameo which is worth something. But to canonise a major Supernatural theory and then leave it completely unaddressed in the series finale feels much more anti-climactic than Dean’s death.
The unofficial Supernatural theme song “Carry On My Wayward Son” traditionally heralded each season finale since the beginning, but here it is left right to the end so that it underscores the moment that finally gives its lyrics meaning. Sam and Dean’s reunion in heaven, finally finding peace after lives of fighting evil, closes out a series that has meant a lot of things to so many people. It was one of the first television shows to develop a vocal internet fanbase, and to evolve alongside the geek culture it inspired. Its quality was never consistently good, and its worst episodes ranged from corny to downright regressive, but it was a significant part of television for well over a decade. I don’t believe it will be forgotten very easily.
