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Supernatural: Moriah

"Writers lie."

Holy wow. Pun intended.

Did they just make God the ultimate final season bad guy? Did they really? How meta is that?

Before I get into the heavy stuff, let's start with the funny. That explosion of harmful truth at the facial recognition company was classic comic Supernatural from beginning to end – from the stolen yogurt to the stapler queen to the President's deal with Crowley. After all of the recent grimdark, I most certainly did not expect such hilarity to ensue. "I'm Dean Winchester and I'm looking for the Devil's son. This badge is fake." Liar Liar on steroids.

And I totally did not expect Chuck to show up, even after the set-up of Castiel's prayer not that long ago. At first I thought this was a good thing, of course, because Chuck showing up is usually a good thing. Not this time.

Yes, we've been told over and over that Chuck is all about the storytelling. He's the one that writes paperback books in his underwear. It's funny (interesting, not funny ha-ha) how Dean, Sam and Castiel had pretty much had it with Chuck, all at the same time. Note their exasperated expressions as Chuck did everything he could to sell his new magical plot twist gun that could kill anything but would also kill the one who pulled the trigger. Everyone remember the Colt?

But what gave me chills was when they were all in the cemetery ("Swan Song," anyone?), Dean was standing over a kneeling Jack with that gun in his hand, and Chuck had this absorbed little grin on his face. As I said in the opener, holy wow. The Winchesters aren't real people to Chuck, after all. They're just characters in his favorite show. We sort of knew that, without really considering the implications. Archangel Michael told us that Chuck tosses worlds away like failed versions of a book, and he wasn't lying. How about that.

God is their showrunner. He has literally been playing with Dean and Sam their entire lives. They're chess pieces to him, and nothing more. Chuck actually offered to bring back Mary if Dean killed Jack, like, sacrifice your knight and pawn, I'll give you back your queen. When Dean refused to kill Jack, and Sam (understandably) lost his temper and shot Chuck with the magic gun, that was it. His squirrels were fighting back. How dare they.

Story's over. Welcome to the End. That final scene as the darkness fell, the monsters rose from hell and the dead from their graves was set to the song, "God Was Never on Your Side." I thought this conflict over Jack would blast Dean and Castiel apart, with Sam in the middle, but instead, this episode ended with the three of them back to back to back, ready to fight off the dead together. So at least there's that.



With the last season approaching, I've been thinking lately that the perfect end for the series would be for Dean and Sam to knock on Mary's white door and join their parents in their special heaven (there'll be peace when you are done). But is Heaven even a thing any more? Will it still exist when the series ends?

If this world of Supernatural isn't what we've been led to believe, what about the Empty? That last shot of Jack was with Billie and the Black Cloud of Lucifer (was that Lucifer?) who made the creepiest smiley face at Jack. Does Billie have the answer to all of this? We've been told that Death can reap God. Can she?

Bits:

— Title musings and various names: "Moriah" is the place where Abraham was supposed to sacrifice Isaac, like Dean was supposed to sacrifice Jack. That cemetery looked a lot like the apocalyptic season five finale. Chuck wanted to name the gun Hammurabi, or The Equalizer. And Amara is in Reno playing Keno.

— Mirror Universe, the name of the facial recognition software company, was just about perfect: a reminder of all of Chuck's discarded universes, as well as all of the alternate universe characters we've been meeting these days.

— Note that Jack was never a threat to Chuck. Jack also didn't kill his grandmother.

— Castiel was thinking that Lucifer's cage might contain Jack. That's actually a pretty good solution.

— Yet another mention of souls. Why is Chuck powerless to change or restore them? Must be important.

— Poor Celine Dion. She's the punchline of a joke, much like Barry Manilow.

— I loved how Chuck critiqued season seven with the Leviathans and season twelve with the British Men of Letters.

— "God Was Never on Your Side" is by Motorhead. Last week, Dean, Sam and Castiel were agents Kilmister, Clarke and Taylor.

— The reference to Crowley and the universe of squirrels reminded me of Moose and Squirrel. Is Crowley in the Empty, too?

— Rob Benedict's credit was at the end. Gold acting stars for Mr. Benedict, by the way. Or possibly "God acting stars." Playing God isn't exactly easy, especially when he's become such a complicated character.

Quotes, the Mostly Chuck edition:

Dean: "Nerds."
Sam: "Takes one to know one."
Dean: "What?"
Sam: "You. Come on, man. You're always calling me a geek, but you know every word to every Led Zeppelin song backwards and forwards, you can discuss in detail every major rock drummer between '67 and '84 and… you watch Jeopardy every night."
Dean: "Yeah, okay. But I'm nothing like this gaggle of Zuckerbergs."

Dean: "I'm Dean Winchester and I'm looking for the Devil's son. This badge is fake."
That made me laugh like a loon.

Female newscaster: "In what was supposed to be a speech on farming subsidies, the president instead spent more than two hours disclosing his entire tax history, his deep ties to Russia and North Korea, and the, quote, demon deal he made with someone called Crowley. Back to you, Chet. Chet?"
Male newscaster: (looks directly at her) "I love you. I have always loved you."

Dean: "When people can't lie, the internet gets real quiet."

Chuck: "I'm a writer. Lying's kind of what we do."



Dean: (to Chuck) "Where the hell have you been?"
Dean may be the only person I can think of who can look God in the eye and say something like that.

Chuck: "So! How's things? Okay, look, I get it. I'm the deus from the machina, and you have questions."

Sam: "Where have you been?"
Chuck: "It's hard to explain. Everywhere and nowhere. Edge of the universe and beyond. And I saw Springsteen on Broadway. Man's a genius."

Newcaster: "… and it's been confirmed: the Queen of England is, in fact, a lizard."
What episode is that from? I can't remember!

Chuck: "Look, the point is, the kid did all that with two words. What's next? He sneezes, and whoops, there goes India?"

Chuck: "Ugh. Billie. I liked the old Death better. He was all about fried pickles and tickle porn. This new Death, she's always sticking her scythe where it doesn't belong."
Echoing the fans again.

Sam: "So how many are there? How many other worlds or universes or realities, or whatever?"
Chuck: "I don't know. Kinda lost count. Most of them are boring, one's in reverse, in one there's no yellow, one of them's just all squirrels."
I'm thinking a world without shrimp.

Sam: "Do you watch us? When you're not here, are you watching us?"
Chuck: "Yeah. (Sam gasps) I mean, you're my favorite show."

I could write a few more pages about this episode, but I think I'm done for now. And I am totally impressed. Four out of four squirrels, and what did you guys think?

Billie
---
Billie Doux has been reviewing Supernatural for so long that Dean and Sam Winchester feel like old friends. Courageous, adventurous, gorgeous old friends.

14 comments:

  1. Holy hell.

    I'll say it again. Holy HELL.

    I had no clue they were leading up to this, but looking back on the season as a whole, there were so many little clues, and we never put any of them together. That's some good writing right there.
    And, of course, what better final season for Sam and Dean, who've fought for free will for fourteen years now, to end up fighting God for everything he's forced them to do. And what better ending for a show as meta as Supernatural, and one that's taken on such a life of its own, than to have the characters metaphorically take on the showrunners themselves.
    And that ending music was second only to "Carry on Wayward Son" in terms of just how perfect it was.

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  2. so i predict (if these is right id flip out)

    next season is going to have ALOT OF CALL BACKS to the series and were going to see some dead faces return

    i bet billie is going to make a deal with the empty (that was not lucifer lol that smile ran chills down my spine) to raze an army of whatever there cause lets be honest if everyone's dead then shes out of a job

    season 15 is going to get insane AND I CANT WAIT

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  3. Yes, I so agree. It is absolutely incredible that a show with fourteen seasons can build on its own mythology like this and stay consistent. So impressed. And I think you're right -- season 15 will be insane.

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  4. I think "the Queen of England is a lizard" was a reference to the conspiracy nuts who believe the Queen (and pretty much every powerful person) is a "reptilian ET" in disguise.

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  5. Alrighty, everyone, research time! (Chuck bless the SuperWiki.) (Actually, don't, because I don't want someone like Chuck coming anywhere near it now.)
    So it looks like ""the Queen of England is a lizard" was a reference to the conspiracy nuts who believe the Queen (and pretty much every powerful person) is a "reptilian ET" in disguise." (TheShadowKnows)
    That reference comes form a conversation in 12.15 Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell, where Castiel is talking to conspiracy nut Herb about footage of Dagon (remember her?) that he'd found. Herb believes that Dagon and also the Queen of England are reptilians.
    There you go!

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  6. Dragonfire, thanks. I *knew* I'd heard it in a Supernatural episode but I couldn't remember which one.

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  7. I have to admit, I was getting a little worried about how this season was going - where it was going - and what the setup would be for next season. No longer. WOW. JUST. WOW. Like the rest of you said, I can't wait. (well, I can, cuz I don't really want it to end...but you know...)
    Sooze

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  8. I'm thinking a world without shrimp.

    And I was thinking of the world of nothing but shrimp. I'll bet Chuck tired of that one quickly. :-)

    This was a wonderful episode, just the perfect mixture of meta and tragedy. The office scenes were hilarious: I wouldn't have caught it without the closed captioning, but one woman was gathering up all of the staplers while saying, repeatedly, "I am the stapler queen!"

    I'm so curious to see what this new world turns out to be. Did Chuck basically undo all order in the universe so every soul could be come a ghoul, and every body a corpse? Will the boys have to do battle with things they've already battled, like the Woman in White?

    Billie, thank you for lightly pushing me to pick up SPN again. I've really enjoyed this season.

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  9. You're welcome, Josie, and I'm so glad you liked it, too. I'm really curious about how it will all play out in season fifteen. It feels like they really thought about how to end the series. I hope.

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  10. Is anyone out there bothered by the sudden turn of God from being a good guy to being a jerk? I mean, sure, plot-wise the writers certainly seemed to have chosen the biggest baddest out there for the final climactic showdown, but... um... I mean, if the Winchester family was orchestrated by Heaven to spend their lives fighting for the side of good, (which seems to be defined as the support of creation as opposed to destruction) and He who is the creator of all (that we comprehend) suddenly (and petulantly) flips sides to destruction because the outcome wasn't what He had already ordained purely for His own entertainment, what was the whole point? I'm bothered by this and can't decide if it's good writing, or if it's a cop-out to address the need to provide the biggest challenge for the guys to face off with for the end of the series. They are really going to have to pull a rabbit out of the hat to make this about-face worthy of fifteen years of viewing.

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  11. The only bit that Confused me was god behind everything that happened in all 14 seasons including lucifers ressarection etc or just the events season 6 onward

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  12. Parts of this were hilarious: "I am Dean Winchester, and this FBI badge is fake."

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  13. I think this is like the third time the boys have forgotten Donatello can find Jack.

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  14. This is an intense episode and I am glad that meta show has God as Chuck the selfish bastard. ( To separate the real God from this fake crap version) because when I initially found out that Chuck was the big bad, it bothered me due to the Real God would not be what a petty, my toys going home Chuck turned out to be entity. Yes, I know it's a TV show but some people don't get it or else it is considered sacrilegious.
    I felt for Dean and Jack when Jack offered up his life in penance... Glad Dean could not go through with it. The song was excellent in the end and I'm glad that Cass/ Sam both stood up for Jack.

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