The Official Supernatural: “Jack in the Box” (14.19) Live Recap Thread


We need your help!

Contribute monthly via Patreon (which includes perks), make a one-time donation through Paypal, or buy us a coffee. You can still find my reviews here of North Carolina ghost story books, and notes about my folklore research on Patreon.

My collected recaps and reviews of season one, which first appeared on Innsmouth Free Press, are now up (with a few extras) on Kindle. The Kindle version is available through Amazon. The print version is also up. If you buy the print version, you get a Kindle copy thrown in for free. I also get paid if you get it on Kindle Unlimited (for free), read the Kindle version, or lend it to a friend via the Kindle Owners Lending Library. Reviews also help with sales. Just FYI.

A friend and fellow saltgunner, Mandi Gordon, is still trying to do a GoFundMe to get out of a tough situation following her grandmother’s death. Even if you can’t contribute, please consider sharing the link where appropriate. Thanks.

Scroll down to find links to all of my recaps and reviews of all seasons up to this point.

Quick recap of what a raging dumpster fire of a storyline this whole Jack thing has been of late.

FYI, my part of the state is under a major tornado watch and we’ve had warnings for hours. So, if my power goes out, it goes out. Sorry.

Anyhoo, cut to Now and … hey, remember how there was a whole storyline involving the Hunters Sam organized and trained from the alt-SPNverse who got killed by Michael and then Jack killed him?

Yeah, well, the Bunker is now filled with beer-swilling Hunters whom we haven’t seen for weeks because reasons. Some of them are even survivors from the alt-SPNverse (though no alt-Charlie, because I guess she didn’t care about Mary). Who got massacred besides Maggie a few weeks ago? Who knows? Buck-Leming sure don’t remember.

Yep. It’s a Nepotism Duo episode. I’d better go get some booze.

It’s a Hunter’s wake for Mary. Remember that female Hunter from back when Jack was so sick, who I was hoping would survive? She’s there. Let’s hope these two louses don’t redshirt her.

Dean, Sam and Castiel come in, and Dean gives a speech thanking everyone for coming. As Sam broods beside him and Castiel looks mighty uncomfortable, Dean acknowledges that Mary knew and touched a lot more people than her immediate family, people who might want a space to grieve for her. He praises her Hunting skills while getting some chuckles for talking about her stubbornness and her inability to cook. He just about makes it through the speech without breaking down. Then he and Sam and everyone but Castiel toast her.

Jack, of course, is conspicuously absent. And unmentioned.

The gathering is abruptly and bloodily broken up when a hatchet sails through the air and lands in the head of one of the Hunters. The wielder turns out to be alt-Bobby, fashionably late, and the victim a Wraith-in-disguise with whom Bobby and Mary had tangled during their last Hunt. The body is unceremoniously dragged off while Bobby explains that the Wraith probably stopped by to gloat (and also to search for victims, I’ll bet. This could have been a good MOTW, but ah, well).

Castiel notes that Mary would have appreciated a monster showing up at her wake to get ganked. When Sam comes in, Bobby asks how he is. Sam says not so good. When Bobby asks how Dean is (as Dean comes in to pack up Mary’s photos and such from the wake), Sam says he’s not sure. Bobby says that maybe Dean is like him and doesn’t like to cry in public.

Sam asks Dean if they shouldn’t open a bottle of whiskey and “talk about Mom.” Dean just looks at him as if he’s got five heads and says, isn’t that what they’ve been doing? It’s always struck me how Sam is a bit cold and doesn’t deal with people well emotionally when they’re right in front him. He did a similar thing with John – basically fighting with him when John was alive and then getting all maudlin about him once he was gone. He was similarly arm’s-length with Mary. Even when they were hanging out, there was a part of Sam that seemed detached.

So, not a huge surprise that he’s now getting maudlin over her photos with Bobby, while Dean is nowhere to be seen.

Just as Bobby is starting to ask what Jack did, Dean walks in. Sam and Bobby invite Dean to have a drink when he says he needs one, but he says he needs to go do some stuff alone. Sam says they need to talk about Jack. Dean says they will – later. He leaves.

Bobby gets back on-topic. He says that he liked Jack and even fought with him, but if Jack has truly lost his soul, then he’s basically “Lucifer” now and there’s only one thing to do. “An unstoppable monster who don’t know right from wrong gets put down – or the closest we can get to it. And anybody who don’t know that needs to go back to school.”

Castiel objects, saying that Jack didn’t know any better, or intend to kill Mary, while Sam looks pensive, but Bobby’s not impressed. Neither am I, to be honest. Bobby’s right. Bobby leaves to go gather the mob with pitchforks. We may or may not see him again this week.

Cut to a random warehouse, where Jack is remembering his last conversation with Mary and how it turned out. Jack moans for her to come back, saying that he needs her there to tell him “what to do.”

Fauxifer shows up (because I’m sure we were all just gagging to see this character again). He starts nagging Jack that the Winchesters never loved him, but he is part of Jack’s “DNA” and in that sense, he’s “real” (I’m still suspicious that this is the real Lucifer, or maybe Michael, who is slowly taking Jack over from the inside). Anyhoo, despite his rather weak protests, Jack gives far too much credence to Fauxifer’s claims that his bio daddy loved him. Last time Jack talked to his bio daddy, Lucifer stole his grace and was standing by, smiling, while Jack was stabbing himself to death.

Then again, this entire “soulless” storyline where Jack doesn’t feel any emotions makes no damned sense when Jack obviously does feel emotions and lots of them. In fact, his anger and guilt are precisely what are making him so dangerously unstable at this point. Well, that, and his pride and arrogance.

Jack thinks he can go back to Sam and Dean, and explain to them that Mary’s murder was “an accident.” Fauxifer tells him that they “hate” him (which is about the only thing I agree with Fauxifer on, since Dean certainly does) and that “they don’t even want you as their pet, anymore.” Then he disappears.

Cut to a no-dialogue dramatic shot in the woods at night, of Dean sitting on a stump, sobbing uncontrollably. It’s great acting, but it only lasts 33 seconds, which ain’t long enough by any stretch to save this episode.

Also, I can’t help feeling a bit salty about the story Jensen Ackles told that he had to sit in the woods, freezing, for take after take, because the shot was “cinematic.” Everyone else get to film indoors, but not him. Gee, I wonder why he wants to quit, seeing as how the show has been pulling this crap on him from the beginning.

Anyhoo, this is a pretty important scene, however short. Fauxifer makes it sound as though the Winchesters are petty and sick of Jack, that they tossed him away like a broken toy as soon as he made an honest mistake.

But this scene shows the devastation Jack actually caused. That he took a mother away from her sons (after they’d lost her at a young age and gotten her back after many years). And now one of those sons is sitting on a stump in the middle of the friggin’ woods, crying inconsolably, wounded beyond measure by Jack’s actions.

Jack has wings. He could find Dean, talk to him alone, if he really wanted to make amends, but he’s not there. He was conspicuously absent at Mary’s wake and he’s conspicuously absent here.

Now we go up to Heaven, where Castiel is bugging Duma about where Naomi is. Um … last week, Castiel had to beg just to speak to Duma at the gate of Heaven. Now he can just walk in? These writers, I swear. Get yer canon straight, Nep Duo.

When pressed, Duma claims that Naomi screwed up by “allowing” the Empty Entity into Heaven, so the angels (well, Duma) locked her away. Now Duma is running Heaven because apparently, these same writers have forgotten that Duma got possessed by the Empty Entity during its time in Heaven. Also, the fact that Heaven can’t afford to lose any more angels because there are hardly any left is not mentioned. In fact, Heaven doesn’t see to be suffering any more power outages at all.

Oh, and according to Duma, there are no more archangels because apparently Buck-Leming even forgot about “our” Michael in the Cage.

These two writers give me such a headache.

Castiel beats around the bush a bit and then admits he’s trying to find Jack and that Jack has burned away all of his soul (remember when Jack’s soul and grace needed to exist in balance or he’d die?Yeah … the writers don’t).

Duma thinks this is ironic. Castiel keeps blabbing, admitting that Jack has fled the Winchesters, who are very, very angry with him (Duma notes that this is indeed something to fear), and that he’s become very powerful since killing alt-Michael, but that he needs “guidance.” Duma just walks away, saying “See what I can do.”

Castiel finally gets a look of dawning comprehension that maybe trusting Duma, of all people, with such information wasn’t the smartest choice he ever made.

In the Bunker, Sam is working on his computer when Dean comes in. Dean deflects any question about how he’s feeling. Sam mentions that “Bobby and his crew” are looking for Jack. He and Dean need to find Jack before –

“He kills them all?” Dean asks. Sam looks uncomfortable and says he doesn’t know.

Sam then says he’s been thinking about Mary (see? Arm’s length). He says that most people don’t know how the SPNverse works, that they have to operate on faith. He and Dean know how things really work, that God and angels are real, and so is Heaven.

Dean: God writes paperback books in his underwear, okay? And angels are dicks.

Sam persists, saying that at least he and Dean know Mary is “in a better place” with John.

Dean: Hmm. You know what else? There wasn’t even enough left of her to even try to bring her back.

Yeah, Dean’s not putting up with Sam’s “Try to Look on the Bright Side of Life” approach this week. Did the Nep Duo even notice this episode would be coming out on Maundy Thursday?

Still hanging out in the warehouse, Jack gets a visit from Duma (who somehow found him and was able to get there really quickly without wings. I’ll bet the Nep Duo just plain forgot). Duma is oily as salad dressing. Cleverly leaving out the fact that she refused to let Castiel bring Mary back to earth, she claims that Mary’s death wasn’t his fault. Her mask starts to slip when she goes off on a little rant about how everything was fine until God left and then it all fell apart. But Jack has a “glorious destiny” getting Heaven back on track. Sure. As a battery, maybe.

Jack, being Jack, is dumb enough to believe her.

The first visit on Duma’s intended itinerary is to visit a skeptic who writes atheistic tracts. Duma calls this heresy. Jack’s (truthful) claims that Heaven exists and Jack’s grandfather is God makes the guy laugh. Duma says he can save himself by writing a recantation of his works. The guy, of course, refuses and goes to call security.

At that point, Jack TKs the guy’s phone off the desk. Then he turns the guy into a pillar of salt. While smiling pleasantly. Duma, out of focus behind him, looks a bit uncomfortable, but no omelets without broken eggs, I guess.

Incidentally, for those of you still arguing whether Jack committed murder when he killed Mary, what he does to this guy is murder. And it’s his second. He tortured Nick to death, remember? And he enjoys it.

Castiel goes back to the Bunker and tells the Brothers about what Duma told him, how Heaven is going to help find Jack. Written like a complete moron, Castiel insists to the skeptical Brothers that Heaven is as worried about Jack as he is, but gets worried when Sam pulls up a news story about Doomed Previous Scene Skeptic. Castiel then hands off the Idiot Ball to Dean so that he can infodump for the audience about Lot’s wife being turned into a pillar of salt. Other fans have already pointed out, repeatedly, that Dean mentions that story when first meeting God. So, yeah. Idiot Ball.

Castiel then claims that “no ordinary angel” could turn a human into a table condiment. Hmm, really? ‘Cause I seem to recall Balthazar using a proto-Hand of God to do just that to Raphael’s vessel in season six. But silly me – whyever would these two writers, who are being paid thousands and thousands of dollars to write this script and oversee the Writers Room, actually bother to watch their own show?

Sam moves on to another victim, this time a woman (a fake faith healer) who fell into a crack in the earth and was killed. If anyone’s keeping count, that’s now four murders on Jack’s roster and I’ll bet he enjoyed that one, too. Castiel identifies this one from the Book of Numbers.

Dean says, well, either Chuck’s back (which he doesn’t see happening) or it’s Jack.

Cut to Heaven, where Duma is dodging around Jack’s questions about how impressed and happy the Brothers will be (I just want to note that so far, Jack doesn’t seem to have mentioned Castiel even once – just Sam and Dean). Anyhoo, Duma has more ambitious plans. She wants Jack to make angels. She admits that Jack is not as powerful as God, in that he can’t just “make them out of thin air,” but he can “forge” them out of the souls of “predisposed” people. I’m guessing she means humans who were bred to be vessels. Damn, I miss Dean’s Michael storyline.

Jack thinks this is fine, still smiling. Duma takes him to God’s throne room, saying that his “grandfather” (Chuck) used to sit there and listen to people’s prayers. The Nep Duo apparently forgot that any angel can hear human prayers, from anywhere. Seems Jack can’t hear them unless he sits on Chuck’s throne and “concentrates.”

As he listens, he hears a prayer group full of potential victims – sorry, Christians – praying in thanksgiving to God. They all look perky and dumb. Because these writers despise Christians just as much as they do atheists. They’re equal opportunity in their smug contempt.

As they’re wrapping up, and the woman leading the group says that the Pastor is coming by, Jack flies in. Jack looks more and more insufferable. He starts in on a spiel about whether they were sincere in wanting to go to Heaven and become angels. The latter is actually heretical and the Nepotism Duo would have known that if they’d watched the priest’s speech to his dead colleague in “Houses of the Holy.” Oh, but I forgot – these two can’t be arsed to watch their own show, let alone pay any attention to other writers’ canon.

Anyhoo, the group all agree they’d love to see that, like a bunch of bobbleheads. Jack’s eyes then glow and thunder rumbles outside. Everybody looks confused more than scared and they gasp in awe when Jack shows his wings. When he tells them to “come with me to Heaven,” they’re all for it. Because they’re Plot Stupid.

The Pastor makes the mistake of walking in at that point and getting into an argument with Jack. Jack makes worms eat him from the inside, then takes the group to Heaven.

Oh, but I forgot – Jack’s just a poor, misunderstood woobie. [all the eyerolls]

The Pastor fortunately survives, but he’s in the hospital when the Brothers show up in their FBI suits. They get the whole story from him. He also says that Jack said “he was carrying out Heaven’s orders and that I wasn’t a believer.”

Castiel looks upset and when they come back out of the room, he quotes from the Bible about worms. Oh, and the Pastor didn’t survive, after all. After they leave, he gets eaten up by more worms.

Back at the Bunker, Dean says they only have one option. He shows Sam the Ma’lak Box. Dean says that Jack has to go in of his own free will, but they have to trick him. Sam has issues with “lying” to Jack, because I guess he’s okay with letting Jack fly around, murdering innocent people on Heaven’s orders. Oh, Sam, you never change.

Well, Dean’s not interested in listening to Sam’s nonsense this week. He tells Sam that he has to be the Judas Goat because he’s always stood up for Jack, but Sam has to be willing to do it. Dean’s not going to force him. After some intestinal discomfort, Sam agrees.

At the Heaven’s Gate playground, Castiel approaches an angel wearing a homeless black guy at night in the rain (sure are a lot more angels left than there used to be). Calling him Aramiel, Castiel says he needs to get into Heaven. Aramiel (shocker) tells him he’s banned again, then pulls out an angel blade.

Well, up in Heaven, Jack is turning humans into “angels” without a single issue about the fact that he’s basically doing the same thing to them that happened to him. Is what this is like how Lily Sunder used her soul? That’s not gonna work out too well and these people won’t last long. But then, who even knows if these writers remember all that complex stuff that was only a few episodes ago.

Aramiel shows up in the middle of the process, to the annoyance of Duma. She fakes enthusiasm when Aramiel is tossed aside and it turns out Castiel frog-marched him into Heaven. Jack is all smiley to see him after pretending he didn’t exist for most of the episode.

Castiel asks to see Duma outside. Like a moron, she goes. I’m sure this will end well. Out in the hallway (I really preferred the more naturalistic imagery of season five’s “Dark Side of the Moon”), Castiel admits that he forced Aramiel to tell him about Duma’s big plan to “solidify” her control over Heaven by using Jack. Castiel keeps going on about how Jack is just a child who needs guidance (I am so sick of this line and it makes Castiel look really stupid).

Duma goes off on her own megalomaniac rant about how she’s making Heaven great again. Then she makes a huge mistake – she threatens to end the heaven of Mary and John. When she asks what Castiel is going to do about it, he just stabs her.

Not that I’m going to miss Duma or anything (she was pretty bland), but isn’t Heaven already about to collapse onto earth with billions of souls due to a lack of angels? And if humans having their souls ignited into grace can become angels, why not use the billions of souls already in Heaven instead of looking on earth? God, this is all so very, very dumb.

Back at the Bunker, Sam is having doubts that “it” won’t work. “It” turns out to be praying to Jack. He prays some nonsense about how “bad things happen,” but the Brothers are willing to let bygones be bygones and please come back home.

Castiel is upset when Jack disappears from Heaven. Jack appears in the Bunker. Jack goes off on a fatuous speech about how he’s “helping Heaven purify the world.” About how he’s making new angels. He’s smugly proud of himself, but then declares that he missed Sam and Dean.

Dean is smiling, but it has an edge, while Sam warily paces behind him. Only Jack would be dumb enough not to notice that Dean wants to rip him to shreds (Castiel’s written like a complete moron this week, but even he would notice).

It’s all Dean can do not to rip Jack apart when Jack refers to Mary’s death as an “accident” and actually starts to veer into blaming her for her own murder. When they call him on it, he admits that no, it was him, but still tends to swerve into Blaming the Victim.
Jack is really hateable in this episode, looking smug and proud of himself, while claiming to feel regret for Mary’s death.

The Brothers spring their plan on him to go into the Ma’lak Box until they can fix his soul and dial down his powers. So he can’t hurt anyone (again, they don’t say, but it’s there). Dean lies to his face and so does Sam, about how the box is a temporary solution and they’ve got a more permanent one they can use why he goes into the box. When he asks how long it will be, Sam says, “Not too long.” The smile Dean gives Jack is just like Michael’s.

Well, Jack is dumb, so he gets in the box and lets them close the door. Dean does that and locks the locks. Remember that Dean made the box, so he’s the expert on it. Sam looks conflicted because yeah, Sam doesn’t really care that Jack’s a murderer of innocents.

As soon as he gets in, Jack has second thoughts and calls out to them outside the box because … well, it’s dumb. Afterward, they have that drink Sam talked about at the beginning of the episode and Sam feels bad. Dean tells him that they always knew “it was a long-shot with him.”

Inside the box, Jack starts to get upset, especially when Fauxifer appears to him and mocks him for being so dumb. It’s hard to tell through the colossally incompetent writing (Jack, for example, supposedly having no emotions while clearly operating on them), but it seems that if Jack’s subconscious were that smart, he’d never have been so dumb throughout this episode in the first place. So, I’m still leaning toward Fauxifer being real.

Castiel comes back, declaring that Jack is not really bad because Duma was manipulating him (conveniently leaving out the part where he killed her), and they have to find him. The Brothers tell him Jack is in the Ma’lak Box and they’re leaving him there.

Castiel gets mad because hey, only he gets to keep secrets and betray family (like Duma), amirite? While they bicker, Fauxifer gets Jack to bust his way out of the Ma’lak Box (because let’s just blow the shit out of even more canon). Jack blows up half the Bunker and as TFW rushes to the Dungeon, they find Jack, with glowing eyes, coming out of the smoke. Or maybe it’s Jack. Who even knows at this point?

Credits

Just FYI, since the Brothers are still here next week, you can expect this cliffhanger to get resolved as limply as the one where Jack “killed” Michael and re-upped his powers.

Ratings this week were down again (apparently, the general audience isn’t particularly wild about this storyline) to 0.3/2 and 1.28 million.

The promo, synopsis, photos and such are here.

Review

While watching “Jack in the Box,” I couldn’t help thinking that Padalecki, Ackles and Collins must have gotten this script not long before they called it quits – and wondering if this was the final straw for them. The writing’s that bad. If they looked at it and believed it wasn’t going to get any better (because they’d be stuck with these two incompetents for executive producers, not that Dabb’s much better), then that could have been it for them. If so, I’m sorry, but they may have a point because this episode was boring and incoherent in equal measure.

I really don’t want to watch this show if Jack is in it this year. I was already disenchanted with him weeks ago, but this was the final nail in the … uh … Ma’lak Box, as it were. Jack’s characterization was all over the place (ranging from devastated to smug), the Brothers were barely in the episode (especially egregious, since it should have been All About their grief, not woobying their mother’s murderer), and everyone got a turn at the Idiot Ball – except that Castiel got an extra few turns. At this point, I think Jack needs to fuck off back to the Land of Terrible Writing – sorry, the Empty – and never return.

I mean, it’s only one more season, so I can slog through it, but I’d really rather not do it that way. I’d like a good final season. I don’t see that happening as long as we’ve got Cousin Oliver/Scrappy-Doo around.

I’m reminded of a line from the movie Bull Durham, from a character who just came out of pitching a disaster of a baseball game: “It was like pouring gasoline on a fire!” That was this episode in a nutshell. I can’t even with Castiel, who was written like a complete moron and utter hypocrite. Not only does he slaughter yet another angel sibling (while babbling about the importance of family for how many episodes now?), but he lies about it to the Brothers and keeps insisting that they give Jack more and more rope. Boy, everybody forgot all about Jack wanting to kill Dean while Dean was possessed by Michael awful quick.

The writers have Sam, Dean and Castiel bicker over what is a really a pretty clear (though bleak) choice for no other reason than fake drama. What’s especially disturbing is how dismissive Sam and Castiel are of the murders Jack commits in this episode of innocent human beings. What happened to “saving people,” guys?

Castiel wants to believe that Jack would never have committed them if Duma hadn’t been manipulating him. But no one (as far as we know) was manipulating Jack when he murdered Nick and Mary, and the moment when he actually started to blame Mary for her own death, in front of her sons, was so very punchable. If Dean still had the Mark, Jack would have been nothing but a wet spot of blood on the floor after that, Nephilim powers or no.

Duma and her death represent two very unpleasant patterns in this storyline. First, there is the way Jack is treated and fawned over like spoiled royalty. Jack constantly puffing up over being Chuck’s “grandson” is especially ludicrous, considering Chuck made it clear in season 11 that he considers all of his creations his children – and that he prefers humans over angels. If anything, Jack is an extra step away from God, not toward. The funny thing is that this episode actually showed emphatically (again) that Jack is not God because he cannot create – he can only distort and destroy.

The overall effect makes me want someone to come in and knock him back down a peg, and I’d really prefer it be Dean. Too bad it didn’t take the first time, when Lucifer stole his powers. It’s infuriating to see almost everyone in-story blame Dean for not being “tolerant” when Jack is running around loose, murdering people and enjoying it. One of those victims was Dean’s mother. He has every right to be devastated, angry and vengeful. Just what show do these writers think they’re writing or some fans think they’re watching?

That’s a really frustrating part of this storyline. Jack supposedly was learning all these things about morality over the past two seasons and as soon as he “lost” his soul, he promptly forgot them all. His learning curve was completely erased. If Jack really can’t learn enough about being good to be able to navigate at least some way without a soul after two years, then he’s not really redeemable. And if he’s not redeemable, then Bobby and Dean are right – he’s gotta go.

The other pattern is disturbing in light of the justifications some fans want to give for Jack (vociferously, even). Jack is a cute little white boy who hurts people when he gets angry and then expects to be forgiven when he feels “sorry,” afterward. Sure, that’s not an abusive pattern, or anything.

His entire storyline has been propped up by discarded female characters. When they’re not being fridged to forward his storyline (like Kelly, Dagon, Maggie, Mary and Duma), they’re being threatened and diminished (like Kaia, Stacy and Rowena), or they’re being his mindless cheerleaders (like Duma and Mia Vallens). Dean gets blamed a lot for what happens to these characters, but it’s Jack who actually damages and discards them when he’s done with them. Some of these characters are Women of Color, too. Or LGBT.

I’m really tired of storylines where women only exist to prop up some boy.

And yet, there are fans who will excoriate the show (i.e., Dean) for being sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, even racist, while praising and defending Jack to the skies. I talked last week about the misogyny aimed at Mary as a character, how some fans (even female fans) were happy to blame her death on herself. This is a clear and unfortunate case of how invisible internalized misogyny can be, even among people who believe they are “woke.”

I sure hope the season finale (next week) doesn’t suck, but that hope may be forlorn. It’s not looking good. I’m almost glad the show was only 20 episodes this season.


The Kripke Years

Season 1

Season 2

Season 3

Season 4

Season 5

The Gamble Years

Season 6 (with Kripke)

Season 7

The Carver Years

Season 8

Season 9

Season 10

Season 11

The Dabb Years

Season 12

Season 13

Season 14


Like this column? You can help keep it going by contributing monthly via Patreon (which includes perks), making a one-time donation through Paypal, or buying us a coffee.


31 thoughts on “The Official Supernatural: “Jack in the Box” (14.19) Live Recap Thread”

  1. Very curious to hear what you thought about the finale. Personally I hated it. I think Dabb finally managed to total the Lamborghini. Why they thought this was a good direction to take things is beyond me. I have heard that the new Avengers flick is really bad. I think Supernatural may just give them a run for their money for that category this week. This was just painful to watch. And not in a good way.

  2. Talking about the NepDuo, during the Amara showdown with Lucifer she called Lucifer God’s FIRST BORN SON and he was NOT the show and the BIBLE and I bet even the KORAN say Michael was the first Archangel. I don’t know why NOBODY said, Can’t she just say Lucifer was always God’ FAVORITE SON because dammit that’s what it says in the damn book? Just a change of ONE f-ing word. But nobody gave a shit to say, hey, Michael was first, THEN Lucifer (don’t know who next, Raphael or Gabriel?) and correct it? Did Singer (I know Phil Sgriccia directed Hell’s Angel but I never heard anything about him) order that not ONE WORD of his wife’s deathless prose be changed or something?

    Still pisses me off a LOT because it’s one of those things that is JUST REALLY WRONG.

    Oh well, and I really LIKED Season 11 a LOT.

    1. I hated that, too, and the worst part is that they kept doing it and no one on the show ever bothered to correct them. *Everything* else on the show clearly indicates that Michael is the eldest and most powerful, but those two boneheads just kept right on malapropping.

  3. I thought of something else that could ‘tie in’ with Michael being the Big Bad: Michael seemed hateful in the AU!Earth but NOT insane. It was when he possessed Dean that he ‘saw’ his dad (and that was how he figured out that ALL the earths other than ours were just ‘drafts’ that OUR earth was the one in which the Apocalypse was stopped.

    But he would also know (from Dean’s mind) that Chuck ‘was’ involved with Dean, that in OUR universe Dean was his ‘favorite son’ and doing ‘all’ the stuff he did was to cause Chuck to come to Dean (I gather he sees Castiel first but I believe he MUST go to stop Dean from killing Jack as in Mt. Moriah and Abraham/Isaac) so Michael has ‘arranged’ all of this (long plan guy) to get Chuck there to kill him.

    I would LOVE if Michael comes out while Dean and Chuck are talking and puts a whammy on GOD. I want to hear that evil Michael chuckle again. Jesus H CHRIST Jensen is wonderful as Michael. Just the little things like posture and hand movements, I ‘see’ that character.

    When did they film THIS episode, when did J2M announce The End, and when was Moriah filmed? I know there are ways to find it out on line, does anybody know if Moriah was filmed AFTER the ‘announcement’ because I ‘gather’ J2 demanded ‘input’ into the finale but I don’t know when they actually pulled the plug.

    BTW it would be ‘hilarious’ if all the angels Jack tried to ‘create’ turned into zombies and Paula was right: Jack cannot ‘create’ he can just destroy. Deep thought there, Paula.

    1. Someone said on Twitter that they read a post-season 11 interview where the writers said they wanted to kill off God, but the network wouldn’t let them. So, if they wouldn’t let Chuck’s sister kill him off, don’t expect Jack or Michael to do it, either.

      Michael does appear to have gone insane after he possessed Dean and saw the whole end of season 11 from Dean’s perspective (pretty sure I talked about this in a review, probably for “Nihilism”). Dean, of course, is in deep, deep, deep denial about how important he is to Chuck and to the story. Michael would have a clearer perspective in that respect and it would make him bitter. Imagine being passed over, first, in favor of your spoiled younger brother and then in favor of the human you chose to possess. That’s gotta burn.

  4. Do you think we’ll get a clean finale? By that I mean a decisive end to Jack-Lucifer-Nick storyline.

    I’ll flip if they get carried over into the final season.

    1. I hate to make predictions. The writing decisions this season have just been so incompetent that they could go in some really stupid directions.

      The show does usually end on a cliffhanger, though it’s not always related to the season’s plot. Let’s just say that I’m really hoping they will wrap up this terrible Jack storyline. It’s probably too much to ask that they never bring Lucifer back again, either.

      1. Maybe you’re right. Lucifer has been a part of this show for a long time, so the showrunners may figure he should be part of the final season. But Jack is a relatively recent character. They’ve already flipped him around in multiple ways. Hopefully they’ll decide to get rid of him somehow.

        What do you think of having him make some grand heroic gesture that saves the world but destroys him in the process?

  5. Hey, since I brought it up, what are the episodes which you would have to be NAILED TO A CHAIR to watch again?

    I remember Bloodlines, Season 7 Time for a Wedding — last visit for Becky, Remember the Titans, Man’s Best Friends w/Benefits, and I don’t feel like going thru the 300+ episodes to find which ones I hate. This episode made me feel ugly inside. I don’t get why Castiel killed Duma for instance. He should’ve tried to find Naomi (like who made Duma boss of them all? she did not appear to be a particularly powerful angel).

    Anyway, I don’t hate-watch the episodes I hate, I don’t watch them at all.

    1. There are some I’d have to do a lot of pausing or FFing to get through. “Unforgiven,” “Bitten,” “Bloodlines,” “Man’s Best Friend with Benefits,” “Swan Song,” and “I Know What You Did Last Summer” spring to mind.

  6. When Dean was crying in the woods it was so heart-rending. Just awful watching ‘that’ kind of grief on display.

    I asked my husband I wonder how many takes before it’s enough takes to get the ‘right shot’ (I heard Jensen mentioned a little grimly that he was out in the cold Canadian morning doing crying his eyes out; I am surprised he did not get SICK; I felt he was crying himself into vomiting.) Would anybody ‘know’ how long it takes to get the ‘shot’ in ‘this’ particular case? The scene was even more intense than Dean telling what happened in hell (Heaven and Hell, Season 4) in my opinion. In that one, he got to ‘use his words’ but in this one it was just sitting there ugly crying.

    Anyway, my husband said “I” wonder how long it took him to calm down. Was he done for the day? Did they do this and then let him rest because when “I” cry I get a terrific headache and I wonder how ‘he’ felt. There is acting (and I remember watching an episode which had Charlie crying about her Mama (Pac-Man Fever Season 8) and it was an acting technique not real tears (I am not dumping on Felicia Day, I am just giving Jensen ‘props).

    Does anybody know A) how long it ‘takes’ for somebody to work into that scene and B) how long it ‘takes’ for somebody to decompress after that type of scene?

    I just don’t think Jensen would’ve been able to do anything else for the day.

    BTW Jared (I gather) has said at a convention that all of a sudden they have cut down on his time working with Jensen and HE DOES NOT LIKE IT.

    Usually there are about a third of the episodes in any season that are stellar (like Baby or Scoobynatural or Nihilism) and the rest are just mostly ok. I remember season 8 when we had Man’s Best Friend and Remember the Titans BOTH of which are episodes that I never watch when they show up on TNT again. Everybody else has mentioned episodes they think are AWFUL.

    Anyway the point is that MOST of the every season is better-than-ok with a few GREAT episodes and at least ONE episode I never want to see again. This season has really on the whole (except for ONE stellar episode — Nihilism) been so substandard I just can’t stand it. Now it’s still better than MOST of the shit on TV even substandard because the actors are SO GOOD in their parts but LORD this season has sucked. Now I really ‘want’ to see what Jared and Jensen are going to do with the finale (which had ‘their’ input) this week. But they are actors not writers or ‘script doctors’ so they may NOT save the last season of ‘their’ show and that scares me.

    Just a long vent; I did keep the cuss words down.

    Good morning to all!

    1. Aw, hon, I used “fuck” in the review, so you’re good.

      I’m not sure how long it took to film the scene, but it sounds as though most of it was set-up for that swooping shot from the Impala, not the closeup. Could have been an hour or more.

      He and Padalecki have both talked about how they need time-outs after a scene like that. And there’s a famous bts show from “No Rest for the Wicked” of him kneeling down, eyes closed, with his head against the wall, preparing for the final scene in Hell. They’ve often commented that those scenes are no fun because you have to “feel” all the emotions to make it work.

      1. I have seen that particular photo: there are crew all around him moving cable and there he is ON HIS KNEES leaning against (probably) a fake wall.

        When he said it was ‘damn’ cold that morning in the woods, well it brought me back to how physically demanding this show has been on him and Jared. I see All Hell Breaks Lose 2 and I remember that he ‘really’ injured his should when “Azazel” threw him against the tombstone. I wonder if the actor just goes on and finishes the scene (I don’t know how these are filmed) or if he just screams out YIKES the wire guys threw me into the tombstone and I think I dislocated my shoulder or something like that?

        1. If someone were seriously injured, they would have to stop. But if they stop due to an injury with one of the leads, it brings production to a grinding halt and Ackles has long talked about how he hates to do that. He slammed his elbow into a tombstone and he’s said that it went numb, but he couldn’t do anything (because the camera was on his face) or it would ruin the shot. Years later, he said the injury still bothered him, sometimes.

  7. Oh Jesus, are people blaming DEAN for all this online. I did not even want to argue. THE GUY KILLED HIS MOTHER AND NOW pretends it was an accident. You are so right. On the one hand, I do not give a diarrhea SHIT if he killed Nick. It was a wonderment and a JOY. AND ‘then’ they had him show up again. I sure HOPE whoever is hanging out in Jack’s noggin is Michael because I NEVER EVER ‘ever’ EVER want to see Lucifer again.

    Shall I type out ‘more’ EVERS to express myself?

    I noted that when the AU!Hunters (still alive) were meeting for Mary’s wake, it was NON-CHIEF DEAN who spoke to them as the leader. Sam abdicated. Just stood there like a lump. And it was so ‘them’ because Dean sucked it up until he could get himself away and cry. And Sam ‘always’ withdraws when they lose somebody. Like when Bobby died (they both just sat there for a week and then Sam tried to decide if they should call Bobby’s friends and I said, WHAT? If ‘you’ thought it up, CALL THEM, SAM. And Dean went off to begin his plan to kill Dick Roman.

    As to next week’s episode, I think Chuck will show up to stop Dean from killing Jack like God showed up to stop Abraham from sacrificing Isaac. And I think ‘that’ is related to Dean’s being the ‘firewall’ between Good and Evil and by being WILLING to kill Jack (to save the world even if it’s mixed in with revenge for Mary) will mean that Dean is now ‘worthy.’

    I just hope Chuck does not stick DEAN in Heaven. Or try to.

    BUT reading everybody else, I would ‘love’ it if Jack did NOT kill Mary (it was Michael doing one of his long cons) and when Chuck shows up Michael comes out and says Hello Daddy. (Only Michael is in Dean visage not Dean body so we get to see Jensen play him again, because AC is a good actor but he’s not Michael!Dean level of actor.)

    Cue the end of the season.

    Well, that’s MY idea.

    Again, I really dislike how the show runners are presenting Dean as a horrible person.

    Sam is just in Lalaland, cannot deal, so no ‘blame’ accumulates to HIM; Castiel is pro-Jack to the point of idiocy (HELLO, DEAD BODIES ALL OVER FOR JUST EXERCISING FREE WILL) and you are the only person I have seen mentioning HOW MANY people Jack killed. But it’s poor Jack being manipulated.

    And now it looks like the angels Jack ‘made’ in the episode are going to come back as f-ing ZOMBIES.

    Oh GOD, I cannot drink because I am on a LOT of meds but I might just eat a whole bar of choco-pot each episode next season.

    1. Hee, you might have missed a “very” in there.

      Yep, Dean took charge and made the hard decision. Again.

      I’m not going to miss Nick any more than I’m going to miss Duma. But it wasn’t something for Jack to be proud of, either. And the way he did it was creepy.

      People do tend to forget that Moriah is about testing Abraham’s faith, don’t they? And Dean is in the position of Abraham, not Jack. Jack is Isaac and Isaac is a cypher.

      Hope you feel better soon.

      1. I just remembered that this site is the only site that went into how many people NICK killed after Lucifer was dislodged. Nick ‘liked’ killing people. He left his beloved wife (the person he was supposedly avenging since Season 5) stuck in The Veil for eternity because he would NOT GIVE UP seeking Lucifer and his power! I felt badly for the poor cop who ‘had’ been possessed and murdered Nick’s family. And the way Nick murdered the neighbor and the cop (he beat them into what “I” call blood butter) was MORE horrible than what Jack did to Nick (IMO). Oh yeah and the cop he killed at the hospital; the cop was not nice but maybe HE was pissed Nick killed the previously-possessed cop (cop brotherhood and all).

        Just badly done top to bottom. Nick was a murderer who ‘chose’ to murder; Jack was a murderer who as it appears does not ‘care’ that he murders. What is the real difference?

        1. I don’t think the cop at the hospital died. At any rate, he was still alive when Nick left the room.

          I was so, so disappointed in how they botched the Nick storyline and I was actually one of the few fans who wanted to see it.

      2. Dean as Abraham at Moriah is interesting, but Isaac really had not done anything to deserve death. He was an innocent sacrifice. Jack, on the other hand, may be naive, but he’s certainly no longer innocent.

        I think they’re gearing up to have Dean keep the promise he made to Jack when he was first introduced – that Dean would be the one to kill him. But if he forces Jack into the box, where does that leave Dean and Michael. Have the possible ends changed?

        BTW , I always wondered how Isaac as a character would have felt about that scene at Moriah. I always thought that was why he seemed more ambivalent about God than the other patriarchs.

        1. I was doing a Bible study group thing last year centered on a book called “Abraham: A Journey of Three Faiths”: https://www.amazon.com/Abraham-Journey-Heart-Three-Faiths-ebook/dp/B000FC10J8/

          One thing the author goes into some detail about is how and why Isaac is such a cipher. In fact, he’s such a cipher that in Islamic stories, he’s easily replaced by his older half-brother, Ishmael, who has somewhat more of a personality, though not much. Ishmael/Isaac is important almost exclusively for his connection to his father, Abraham, and as the human embodiment of God’s promise to Abraham: His blessing of giving Abraham innumerable descendants.

          I think we should exercise caution about taking these episode titles too literally. Not only is Jack not really an innocent anymore (even in the original definition of ignorant and not-knowing), but Dean is not his physical father and Jack does not represent the embodiment of a blessing of fertility or inheritance from God for Dean. He is Lucifer’s heir, not Dean’s, which changes their relationship considerably from that between Abraham and his sons.

          That said, it seems obvious that Dean represents Abraham, Jack Isaac/Ishmael, and that the title refers to Dean “sacrificing” Jack (or trying to) to save the world. Whether the show keeps the original idea that the main relationship is between Abraham and God (i.e., Dean and Chuck) and not between Isaac/Ishmael and God (Jack and Chuck), or whether it mangles the whole myth to a ridiculous extent, remains to be seen.

          1. I’d honestly forgotten that Moriah was the mountain that Isaac’s near sacrifice took place, so the Dean Abraham connection hadn’t even occurred to me, til Eva, then you mentioned it.

            In some ways that storyline would actually have worked better with season two Sam, when John told Dean to kill Sam if he couldn’t save him. It wouldn’t be sacrificing him to God, but to John’s cause. But Dean chose not to do that. In fact, Dean is not obedient to Chuck or to John, and doesn’t need anyone to provide a hypothetical ram to save the day.

            The book sounds interesting. I’ll take a look.

            1. It’s a pretty decent one. One of those travelogue/memoir kinds of books.

              Well, as I said, there are several ways in which the analogy isn’t exact. Though Dean did obey John (until the day he didn’t) and argued with Chuck the way Abraham did with God. After this season, and considering the flat-footed way Dabb has written previous season finales, I don’t expect much from this one. But, as always, I hope to be pleasantly surprised.

              1. Did you ever read Bart Ehrmann’s (?) work on early Christian writings? Yikes, that guys KNOWS a lot of stuff and his conclusions seem pretty solid. (ie. he does not seem to have a theological axe to grind, but that is really just MY opinion.)

                Today I read an article (was it on the daily beast? can’t remember) in which a fellow was positing about St Paul and saying whatever else was going on HE was the one who made Christianity into the religion it became (neither here nor there) but the gist was that St Paul was ‘gay’ (that was his ‘impediment’) and I never heard THAT one before.

                Anyway, I am always reading about ‘early’ Christianity because for me HOW it evolved is just the most fascinating story. (Like about 20% of the Roman Empire was Jewish by the reign of Hadrian because Jews ‘were’ open to Gentile conversion!! Surprised me. I thought Christianity spread because Jews did NOT ‘intermix’ with Gentiles. Anyway, that surprised me. ) PS I like to be surprised!

                1. I’ve been working my way through his “When Jesus Became God” for a while. I’ll probably need to start over, though, because it’s been some time since I stopped (about 120 pages in). Too much required reading of other books. I’m almost through a 500-page book on geography for a class now.

                  The best way to describe Paul’s contribution is that he’s the one mainly responsible for the the way the Early Church was organized and what we took from that. He also has a lot to do with our modern theology (though personally, I think that the final arbiter on that should be Jesus and not Paul, especially when they don’t appear to agree). There is a theory that Paul may have been gay, but of course, we can’t tell for sure.

                  The idea that 20% of the population was Jewish seems high, especially following the fall of the Temple in Jerusalem. Do you mean that 20% of the Empire’s population was Christian?

                  1. I went to look for it again and I can’t find it online. Sorry. I ‘do’ remember the article was about Hadrian kicked the Jews out of Palestine after the Bar Kochva Revolt and how this affected the growth of Judaism. I just love writings about those early days of religious ferment.

                2. Which Ehrman book? We have “Misquoting Jesus” floating around the house somewhere, but I’ve never read it. Maybe I should take a look.

                  I’ve been reading a compendium of Jewish mythology lately, ancient, medieval and more modern. The man who compiled them gives quite a bit of additional information, on events, culture, other mesopotamian gods, etc., as they relate to the myths. Its given a lot of interesting context to the Bible.

                  Incidentally, the existence of a whole rich Judeochristian mythology beyond the Bible was a fact I somehow missed. It SPN that made me realize it. Well that, and another book I read around the time I first watched season 1. Both mentioned Azazel, but in very different contexts. I’d never heard the name before, got curious and went looking.

                  1. “How Jesus Became Christ.” It’s about the evolution of Early Christianity and the idea that Jesus was the Son of God.

                    Jewish wisdom canon (let alone folklore) is really fascinating, far above just The Book of Enoch. All the stuff surrounding possession by demons, for example, is quite creepy.

    2. Ooh wouldn’t that be interesting that all this was Michaels manipulations to get Daddy out in the open. But it’s Dabb so…

      What a mess. The NepDuo strike again.

      NepDuo: “Oh Andrew baby darling! What is all this cannon people keep going on about? Isn’t that just a big piece of military armament? Honestly. You would think it was over something important. Cannon, indeed.”

      Not only is Michael still in the cage but technically Lucifer is still kicking and trying to escape. So that’s one definite Archangel overlooked with a possible second. Idiots. It’s not like all of this happened 42 episodes ago.

      The wake for Mary was unnecessary other than showing Dean and Sams headspace, Sick Of AUBobby and the AUs in general. The bit of Dean breaking down and weeping openly in the woods was so good but too short but God forbid that we might actually have something like this rarely seen for more moments of Nick/Lucifer in Jacks head. For THIS we gave up Michael/Dean? This? I could care less about Jack going dark. Nick releasing Lucifer. Angel/Heaven anything. Cas doing another stupid thing. Cas being taken back to the Empty – cause you know that will be one of the storylines eating up precious time next season. AUHunters up to and including AUBobby, Charlie et al. Jody and her brood. Have I left anything out?

      Sadly I’m not feeling terribly positive about the finale or next year. Based on everything I’m seeing lately, I totally understand Jensen and Jared’s decision.

      1. I liked the wake. I thought it could have been longer and involved our getting to know some of those people. Instead, it was a throwaway scene in a generally crappy episode.

Leave a Reply to Eva Veverka Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *