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There was an awful lot of talking and very little action in this, the fifth season's finale, so I've got a feeling this recaplet's going to be especially brief.
The hour opens shortly after last week's installment ended, with Dashing El Deano trotting over to the Impala at Bobby's Emporium to offer Darling Sammy both a beer and his assurances that, no matter how abysmally stupid Sam's plan to end The Apocalypse might be, Dean's going to back Sam up one hundred percent. So, they drain a couple of demonically enhanced extras, stick the blood in a bunch of gallon jugs, and drive off to Detroit with Bobby and Castiel, because Lucifer's decided to make the various prophecies and promises come true by taking up residence somewhere near the Renaissance Center. And after The Ginormotron guzzles down his weight in demonically enhanced blood, Our Intrepid Heroes confront Satan, and Sam's abysmally stupid plan to end The Apocalypse fails when Lucifer smashes Sam's soul or consciousness or essence or whatever into a tiny corner of Sam's body, and takes off for Stull Cemetery in Lawrence, Kansas, for the final battle with Michael -- who, as you'll recall, is currently occupying their adorable bastard of a half-brother, Adam Milligan.
Because they are idiots, Dean, Bobby and Castiel chase off after him. Lucifer immediately blows up Castiel and snaps Bobby's neck before clobbering the pretty right off Dean's face, and Dean would have ended up dead as well, I'm sure, were it not for a magical flashback montage that somehow allows Sam to regain control of his body, open Lucifer's cage with The Horsemen's rings, and leap into oblivion with Michael-In-Adam, thereby bringing five year's worth of plot points and mythology to a close in the most anti-climactic manner imaginable.
And when the screaming is done, God or whoever restores Castiel, who in turn restores Bobby and Dean, and even though he really just wants to die, Dean heads off to pursue a normal life with Bendy Lisa and their bastard son because he promised Sam he would. Until Sam's mutant zombie corpse rises from Hell to eat their brains at the very end of the episode, that is. DUN!
In other news, the Impala gets a heroic backstory of its very own, and Chuck Shurley is probably God. Yes, that God. No, I don't know where that bit of idiocy came from, either, so leave me the hell alone.
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Rattle, Rattle THE ROAD SO FAR! and if it's the season finale, then we're listening to "Carry On Wayward Son" as clips from the past year's greatest hits fly by on the screen. This particular montage starts with Our Intrepid Heroes gaping in horror as Lucifer's horrible white light erupts from Lilith's blood sigil on the floor of St. Mary's Convent in Ilchester, Maryland, and continues through the violent decapitations of several zombies, the violent dismemberment of several spectral children, and that violently futile attempt to escape several snarling Hellhounds before zipping through various shots of the moon's dark side, the unquiet spirit of a Massachusetts witch, the remote deaths of a couple of guardian angels, and a scene set in the distant past until we land on Gabriel rather forcefully ordering Sam and Dean to play the roles Capital-D Destiny has assigned to them. And then? The season's overarching plot distilled to a series of soundbites, reminding us that Our Intrepid Heroes are The Vessels for Michael and Lucifer, that Our Intrepid Heroes can lock Lucifer back in his divinely wrought cage using the rings they hacked off The Four Horsemen's hands, that Our Intrepid Heroes have an adorable bastard of a half-brother named Adam Milligan who has likely become Michael's angel condom in Dean's stead, that Darling Sammy has an abysmally stupid plan to end The Apocalypse, that Dashing El Deano must let his brother jump into the fiery pit or face the wrath of Death, and that Dean can't decide if he's more scared of losing, or of losing his brother. Oh, and there's this chick named Bendy Lisa with whom Dean had a one-night stand about a zillion years ago. Got all that? Good, 'cause it's time for the...
...Nonexistent NOW! Yep, the NOW! once again got the season finale off because they've chosen instead to open the episode proper with some mid-century documentary footage of an auto assembly line set to the tune of a mournful-sounding oboe. And as we watch a pair of no doubt long-dead machinists wrestle an engine block into its frame, The Prophet Chuck narrates, "On April 21st, 1967, the hundred-millionth GM vehicle rolled off the line at the plant in Janesville -- a blue, two-door Caprice." "There was a big ceremony," Chuck's voiceover continues as we get shots of the celebration. "Speeches -- the lieutenant governor even showed up." Jack Olson climbs behind the Caprice's wheel and drives it out of the plant right before the shot cuts over to an interior of The Prophet's ramshackle hovel, where we find Chuck seated in his tatty striped bathrobe at the kitchen table, tapping away on his keyboard with a hefty glass of whiskey off to one side. "Three days later," Chuck types, "another car rolled off that same line. No one gave two craps about her..." And here he pauses for a moment before continuing aloud, "...but they should have." "Because this 1967 Chevrolet Impala would turn out to be the most important car -- no, the most important object in pretty much the whole universe." There's a glamour shot of Metallicar's grille at this point, and I...I think I have something in my eye. Mainly because the Impala's the only character on this godforsaken show to have maintained its integrity over the last five seasons. "[Sob!]" wails Raoul The Big Gay Supernatural Dragon. "It's true!" There, there, my scaly friend -- have a Kleenex. "Thanks! [HONK!]"
Now, where were we? Oh, yes: We get another glamour shot of the beloved Impala, this one a slow pan up past the headlights over the hood until we can see it's actually in a dealer's showroom with "$3999.00" soaped across its windshield. Which, you know, is about a thousand bucks above the factory price 44 years ago for a four-door hardtop with a V-8 engine, but I think we can all agree that Metallicar was worth the extra money. "Indeed!" "She was first owned by Sal Moriarity," Chuck tells us as the visual shifts to a home movie of some bullet-headed company man with horn-rimmed glasses and a skinny tie giving us the OK sign as he takes the Impala's keys from the plaid-jacketed dealer. Sal Moriarity was "an alcoholic with two ex-wives and three blocked arteries," and "on weekends, he'd drive around giving Bibles to the poor," "getting folks right for Judgment Day," as Sal himself liked to say. We see Sal with a pile of Gideons to him on the Impala's front seat, driving through the dark with an angel hanging from the rear-view mirror, and in a sign of just how much this sequence has managed to mess with my head, I'm finding these little details wistful and charming, rather than anvilicious and contrived. "[Sniffle!] Me, too! [HONK!]" In any event, Chuck takes care to note, "Sam and Dean don't know any of this, but if they did, I bet they'd smile." I bet they'd do anything but, but who the hell am I to dispute The Prophet, right?
And, Chuck tells us, after Sal Moriarity dropped dead in a bar from a massive coronary the Impala ended up at "Rainbow Motors," a used car lot in Lawrence, Kansas, where an ex-Marine "bought her on impulse" "after a little advice from a friend." Here we're treated to a few silent moments of Pre-Sucky John and Time-Traveling El Deano interacting with each other years and years ago before we head back to the present, where Chuck's finishing the prologue to the Supernatural book series' "Swan Song" like so: "I guess that's where this story begins. And here's where it ends." I think a tiny little chill ran up and down my spine at that. You know, in the good way. Too bad the episode itself didn't live up to the promise of this opening sequence. "Demian!" Ooops! Spoiler!
And after that elegiac introduction to this evening's festivities, the shot cross-fades to Bobby's Emporium deep within the lush coastal rainforests of southeastern South Dakota, where we find Darling Sammy chilling out on the Impala's hood with a beer. Eventually, Dashing El Deano ambles on over from his episode-ending chat with the gentleman of the Emporium and, after snagging a brewski for himself from the cooler at Metallicar's side, Dean agrees to Sam's abysmally stupid plan for ending The Apocalypse. "You're gonna let me say yes?" Sam eyebrows, shocked. "No," Dean replies, explaining, "That's the thing -- it's not on me to let you do anything. You're a grown -- an over-grown -- man, and if this is what you want, I'll back your play." And now Dean's just as stupid as everybody else on this hateful show. !
SPLAT! Well, that was awkwardly timed, wasn't it? Also: Raoul? "...!" What, are we pouting? "...!" Oh, knock it off with the silent treatment, friend of friends. What gives? "Well, I am sorry I'm sure!" Raoul shrieks, even though I've a feeling he's not terribly sorry in the least. "But how can I get excited about this season's endlessly compelling blood-burst of a title card when I know it's the last time I'll be seeing it?! [Wail!] Oh, woe! WOE!" You poor thing. "[Sniffle!]" Are you sure you can't find it in you to writhe about with delight just one last time, anyway? "I...! I...! [Sob!]" Please? "Well! If you insist!" Oh, I do. "Eeeeeeeeeeeee!" Well, that wasn't quite up to your usual standards of frenzied glee, but don't you feel even the tiniest bit better? "I do, actually!" Then, how about you really throw yourself into it this time? "Okay! EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" And once again, all is well with the world. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Excellent.
Somewhere abandoned and industrial, Sam wipes a bit of grue from The Knife That Can Kill Anything Except When It Usually Can't as two upside-down demonically enhanced extras leak what's left of their blood into a couple of catch buckets on the floor. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" Take it where you can get it, hon. "Thanks! I will! EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" The extras have been suspended by their heels from meat hooks embedded in the ceiling, and Sam's used The Knife to slash open their throats, apparently, so Castiel and Dean can collect Sam's necessary CRACK! in a series of plastic gallon containers, which the three then load into the Impala's bottomless trunk outside. Dean appears to be sporting a bruise on his cheek, so I'm guessing some genius decided we needed to miss a terribly exciting fight sequence in favor of subjecting us all to the incessant yammering that makes up most of the remainder of the episode. "Hmph!" I feel your pain, Raoul. I feel your pain. In any event, Dean strolls on over to Bobby to confirm that, yes, two demonically enhanced supernumeraries were indeed waiting for them inside and that, yes, they managed to acquire "all the Go Juice Sammy can drink." They confab about the various omens that have been popping up around the country, including cyclones in Tampa and wildfires in Los Angeles, before deciding that a mysterious 20-degree temperature drop confined to a five-square-block area in downtown Detroit is likely the omen they're actually looking for, especially given the fact that Lucifer promised Sam their final showdown would occur in that particular city. The boys exchange A Look Fraught With Significance out there in the abandoned and industrial parking lot, and then we head off...
...to the open road, where we find Dean piloting the Impala through the rain-streaked darkness with Bobby tagging along behind in his van. The camera ducks inside Metallicar to find Castiel snoozing away like an infant in the back seat, which of course tugs at Dean's heartstrings. "Ain't he a little angel?" Our Smitten Hero swoons, gazing at his celestial boyfriend's slumbering reflection in the rear-view mirror. Sam swivels around to gawp for a moment, then settles back down in the passenger seat to gloom, "Angels don't sleep." Dean silently grasps the implications inherent in The Ginormomope's cheerless observation, and once again voices his misgivings regarding Sam's abysmally stupid plan to end The Apocalypse, especially now that yet another piece of the prophesy is coming true. "He always said he'd jump your bones in Detroit," Dean complains, referring of course to Lucifer, "and here we are!" "Maybe he knows something we don't," Dean cautions. "I'm sure he knows a buttload we don't," Sam sighs before adding, "We just gotta hope he doesn't know about the rings," and Darling Sammy? Honeybunch? Sweetheart? Gigantic Walking Hair-Don't? Yeah, over here: Even if Satan doesn't know that The Horsemen's rings can lock him back in his divinely wrought cage for all eternity -- and that's one hell of a mighty big "if," I must note -- he sure as hell will find out about them the instant he's assumed control of your brain, you fucking moron! GOD! Of all the ignorant, brickheaded, harebrained, witless, asinine, illogical plans, I...I can't...it's too...I HATE... "Demian!" WHAT? "That vein in your forehead is throbbing again!" CRAP! Oh, I can't take this anymore. "Shall I fetch you a cocktail!?" Sigh. Not just yet, my faithful recapping companion. "Are you sure?!" Yeah -- for now, I'm just going to have to soldier through all of the abject stupidity on display in this wretched excuse for a season finale on my own. "And how, pray tell, do you intend to do that while abstaining from several delightful and refreshing beverages!? Hmmmm?!" By ignoring it all, of course. ! "Hee!"
Oh, fine -- there's more to Our Intrepid Heroes' late-night confessional in the Impala, but I'll try to keep it brief. Basically, Sam understands that if their ignorant, brickheaded, harebrained, witless, asinine and illogical plan succeeds, he'll be stuck in Satan's divinely wrought cage for all eternity. Because of this, he exacts the following promise from his brother: Dean is never to attempt to free Sam from that cage, nor is Dean to continue hunting once their current adventure is over. For lack of other, better options, Dean is instead to flee into Bendy Lisa's loving embrace to "live some normal, apple-pie life." Will Dean promise Sam that? Dean remains silent.
Detroit. Bobby peers through his binoculars at the third-story window of an apartment house apparently dead in the center of that mysterious 20-degree temperature drop, then heads back into the alley to report to the others that there are at least two dozen demonically enhanced extras guarding the building. Dean mutters something dark and threatening and bow-leggedly clompy-stomps back to the Impala's trunk to fetch Sam's CRACK!, thereby conveniently leaving Sam alone with Bobby and Castiel so The Ginormomope might offer his tender farewells to the others, and I'm certain what follows would constitute A Series Of Very Touching Moments Indeed were it not for the fact that we've been aware of this show's sixth-season renewal for the last three months, so we know this idiot is going to be seeing these morons again in the very near future, and I therefore do not give a crap, and I was told there would be no chick-flick moments, and WHATEVER, and first up is Bobby, who offers Sam a gruff, "See ya around, kid!" before pulling Sam into a hug. Yawn. up is My Sweet Baboo, who at least has the good grace to make his goodbye entertaining. "Take care of these guys, okay?" Sam instructs, offering Castiel his hand to shake. My Despairing Baboo creases his brow and sighs with great compassion, "That's not possible." Sam lightly rolls his eyes at that and asks, "Humor me?" "Oh, I'm supposed to lie!" Castiel realizes. "Sure! They'll be fine!" Hee. And with all that taken care of, Sam heads back to the Impala's trunk to guzzle down three times his body weight in CRACK!
Several hours later, Cracky The Crackheaded Crack-Crack slams Metallicar's trunk all, "Let's CRACK!" so he and Dean crack crack crack the cracky-crack. "CRACK!" Cracky The Crackheaded Crack-Crack cracks once he and Dean have reached the apartment building. Instantly, two of Lucifer's henchdemons appear at the door to escort Our Intrepid Hero and his fifteen-foot-tall crackhead of a crack upstairs, where they find Satan himself calmly waiting for them in the parlor of the top-floor apartment. "Hey, guys!" Lucifer languidly offers by way of hello once Cracky and Dean have been hauled across the room's threshold. "So nice of you to drop in!" Everyone involved then proceeds to gape and mouth-breathe at each other for approximately three and a half hours until the METAL TEETH CHOMP! finally rises from below to yank these knuckledraggers into this evening's first commercial break.
Ode On A Janesville Impala, Part The Second: One of this show's traditional ridiculously scenic Metallicar-In-Nature still lifes appears as The Prophet Chuck picks up his "Swan Song" Prologue narration with, "The Impala, of course, has all the things other cars have, and a few things they don't." By this point, one of Our Intrepid Heroes has raised the false floor in Metallicar's bottomless trunk so we might all admire the impressive weapons cache (complete with dreamcatcher!) once more before Chuck insists, "But none of that stuff's important -- this is the stuff that's important." A jittery, hand-held home movie of Wee Sam appears as Chuck specifies, "The army man that Sam crammed in the ashtray." The shot shifts to a jittery, hand-held home movie of Wee Dean as Chuck continues, "The Legos that Dean shoved into the vents? To this day, heat comes on, they can hear them rattle." "These are the things that make the car theirs," Chuck tells us as we watch the Wee Winchesters carve their initials onto one of the Impala's interior surfaces, right before the flashback leaps forward to the awesome t-boning from the first season's finale. God, that ending kicked ass. "Even when Dean rebuilt her from the ground up," Chuck claims, "he made sure all these little things stayed, 'cause it's the blemishes that make her beautiful." Even more beautiful? Dashing El Deano working on the Impala at the beginning of "Everybody Hates Stupid Children," a snippet of which appears on the screen before cutting back to the present, where Lucifer's fogging up one of the apartment's windows with his breath. "The Devil doesn't know or care what kind of car the boys drive," Chuck finishes for now, the implication of course being that this foolish and thoughtless oversight on Lucifer's part will ultimately result in his spectacular and spectacularly violent downfall, likely beneath the Impala's almighty wheels. Pity, then, that what actually happens to him is so boring. "Demian! Spoilers!" Oh, hush up, you, and have another gulp from your flagon already. "Okay! [Slurp!]"
In any event, and as I noted earlier, Lucifer's fogging up one of the apartment's windows with his breath, and because The Foul Fiend tends towards the infernally frigid, the condensation immediately freezes over. And as he idly traces a pitchfork into the frost, Satan babbles on and on about...something I totally don't care about, because the only reason we're here is so Cracky The Crackheaded Crack-Crack can kick-start his awful, evil, abominably stupid plan to end The Apocalypse, so let's skip the terminally dull speechifying that follows to get to the goddamned point already, shall we? "Yes, let's! [Slurp!]" Excellent, my scaly friend. Lucifer of course already knows about Cracky's awful, evil, abominably stupid plan to end The Apocalypse, and taunts at Our Intrepid Dimwits' fatally fatuous strategery for a bit until Cracky finally shouts, "CRACK!" Which, you know, roughly translates as, "We have no other choice, Dean! I'm saying yes to Satan now!" Immediately, Lucifer's horrible white light floods the room, searing the boys' images from the screen while Bobby and Castiel, vaguely horrified, stare up at the fantastic light show from the street below. Dean shields his eyes from the glare until, at long last, it fades, and the moment he's regained his sight, he darts his frantic, panicked eyes about the room to find Sam unconscious on the floor amid the remains of what once had been Lucifer and his henchdemons.
Wasting no time, Dean pulls the linked Horsemen's rings from his jacket pocket and flings the magically magnetized mess against one of the walls, where the contraption sticks as if glued to the plaster. Latination ensues, and the rings rip back through the wall to trigger a massive, sucking whirlwind just as Sam manages to rouse himself from his Lucifer-induced swoon. "Ah! Gah! I can feel him!" Afflicted Sammy cries, rising unsteadily to his feet. Dean leaps to his brother's aid, all the while calling out something like, "Go! Go now! NOW!" Afflicted Sammy steps towards the massive, sucking whirlwind in the wall and...turns around to admit he's actually Lucifer, and he's just been screwing with Dean's head. D'OH! "That certainly was predictable!" You are not incorrect, Raoul. "I seldom am! [Slurp!]" Truer words, friend of friends. Truer words. Anyway, Lucifer-In-Sam unleashes a little Latination of his own, and the massive, sucking whirlwind shuts itself off, in the process closing the hole it had ripped in the apartment's wall. Lucifer-In-Sam retrieves The Horseman's rings and examines them for a very long moment before refocusing his attention back on Dean, whom he gently reminds, "I told you this would always happen in Detroit." And with that, Lucifer-In-Sam flutters away off camera, leaving Dean alone to beat his fists against his forehead all, "STUPID! I AM SO STUPID!" No argument from me there, sweetpea. "Nor I, I must say! [Slurp!] When did these charming little gentlemen become such blockheads?!" I think it was around the time the show got renewed for a sixth season. "Really!?" Okay, fine: The pilot. Are you happy? "[Titter!] Absolutely! [Slurp!]"
Oh, God. I forgot about this sequence almost as soon as it ended last Thursday evening. Partly because it consists of little more than another goddamned round of seemingly endless blithering, but mainly because that goddamned round of seemingly endless blithering is, in this instance, taking place between Jared Padalecki and himself, and I'm sorry, but no. He's awfully easy on the eyes and everything, even taking into account that asstastic coif he's been sporting for the last few episodes, but seriously: No. So, long story short, Lucifer-In-Sam's whisked himself off to the cracked and decaying remains of one of Detroit's, uh, finer Victorian-era robber-baron mansions, I guess, and he plants himself in front of a mirror so he can chat with Actual Sam, who appears during all of this as Lucifer-In-Sam's reflection in the glass. And it's even stupider than it sounds, especially when Lucifer -- and ancient and enormously powerful entity who's older than the goddamned planet -- starts using Internet pre-teen LOL-speak like "MFEO" to describe their relationship, and I'll just be fast-forwarding past all of that crap to get to the point where Lucifer introduces us to the apparent waxworks who have been lurking in the background this entire time. It's a group of six or seven men and women of various ages and in a variety of costumes, all of whom stand with their arms limply at their sides and their blank, staring faces drooping slightly forward. Lucifer tells Sam to look closely at each of those faces, and Sam eventually recognizes them as people from his past, including a trusted grade-school teacher, a friend from "East Lansing," and the girl he took to prom way back in the day. Turns out they were all Azazel's plants -- much like Biff or Brophy or whatsisfratass from a couple of episodes ago -- and that the demonically enhanced have actually been observing and manipulating Sam since he was an infant. Which, quite seriously, is a really neat idea that loses a considerable amount of its impact given the wretched context in which it's been presented to us. Did I mention I hate this scene yet? "I believe you did!" Good, 'cause, you know. I really hate this scene. Anyway, Satan suggests Sam exact a little heavily bloody vengeance for Azazel's minions jerking him around his entire life, and Sam looks like he's down with that particularly gruesome idea. "Hooray!" Though, you know, it's all gonna happen off screen. "Rats!"
Meanwhile, Castiel, Dean, and Bobby stand outside an electronics store, watching a bit of breaking news courtesy of KPIT Detroit, and the general economic situation in southeastern Michigan must be even more depressing than any of us had previously imagined, because KPIT apparently can't even afford to maintain a satellite link to its network, which is why they're recycling disaster footage from some shitty Pierce Brosnan movie to illustrate the destruction caused by several large-magnitude earthquakes that hit Portland, Boston, Hong Kong, Berlin, and Iran within the last fifteen minutes. "So, what do we do now?" Dean demands. Find a better TV station? Just a suggestion. Though I do like Castiel's alternative more: "I suggest we imbibe copious quantities of alcohol and just wait for the inevitable blast wave." Atta girl. "Indeed! [Slurp!]" Dean, however, fails to appreciate My Sweet Baboo's sage and nuanced advice, and in fact goes so far as to call him a "junkless sissy" during a mini-tirade in which Deluded El Deano insists they can still put a stop to the horror unfolding around them. Bobby's certainly no help, as he's got hot girly tears standing in his eyes at the moment, so Dean turns back to Castiel, who calmly insists, "Lucifer will meet Michael on the chosen field, then The Battle Of Armageddon begins." And where, precisely, would this "chosen field" be located? "I don't know." D'OH!
Ornately Decrepit Victorian Interior Of My Despair, which might actually be an abandoned theater, but who cares at this point? "I certainly don't! [Slurp!]" The massacre is over, and Lucifer-In-Sam sits upon a dais above the scattered corpses, ruminating, until he turns to address his reflection like so: "Are we having fun yet?" Hopelessly Ensnared Sammy And His Miserable Hair shudder with self-loathing and revulsion until they get gobbled up by the METAL TEETH CHOMP!
Ode On A Melancholy Metallicar, Part The Third, and this is just gross. Chuck would have us believe that Our Intrepid Heroes, during their rare moments of downtime, would park the Impala out in the middle of nowhere, "sit on the hood, and watch the stars for hours without saying a word." I feel vile just typing that out. Shut up, Chuck. Fortunately, the phone rings. Unfortunately, Chuck answers expecting a certain "Mistress Magda" to be on the other end, so it's even grosser than that crap about Sam and Dean staring at the stars. In any event, Chuck's caller is, of course, Dean, looking to see if Chuck knows where this whole Armageddon thing's supposed to be going down. Luckily for Dean, even though the angels have been attempting to mask the battle's location, Chuck's already had an appropriate vision and so knows that the chosen field is actually the infamous Stull Cemetery just outside Lawrence, Kansas. "Why Lawrence?" Dean squints. "It all has to end where it started," Chuck guesses, for as we all know, The Prophet's always been a big fan of "literary symmetry." And that, unfortunately, is the extent of Chuck's foreknowledge on the subject (or is it?), so Dean hangs up after thanking the drunken scuzzball for his help.
Moments later, Dean's prepping the Impala for his 800-mile suicide cruise to Kansas when Bobby and Castiel wander on over, presumably from the bar in which they've been imbibing copious amounts of alcohol whilst waiting for the inevitable blast wave to arrive. "Hooray! [Slurp!]" "You going someplace?" Bobby calls out. "You're gonna do something stupid," he realizes as he and Castiel move closer to Dean. "You got that look." Heh. Dean remains tight-lipped about his foolish intentions for a moment before finally admitting he wants to talk to Sam, and Bobby and Castiel's derision is as immediate and heartless as the audience's. Dean tells them they can rot in Hell for all he cares, and Metallicar grumbles off into the night. Well, you know. More or less.
Stull Cemetery, late the morning, and oh, my holy Christ, this scene's even worse than the one with the mirror. Jared Padalecki as Lucifer-In-Sam meets up with Jake Abel as Michael-In-Adam and these two characters -- neither of whom has ever been the primary focus of this show, and one of whom is portrayed by an actor no one in the audience feels particularly attached to -- proceed to bitch at each other about their goddamned Daddy Issues. FOR THREE AND A HALF MINUTES. So, Armageddon is actually these two idiots talking each other to death? Thrilling! "I have had it!" shrieks Raoul, utterly appalled. "Wake me up when someone dies! ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!" And now we've lost Raoul? During a goddamned season finale? This show sucks.
And I'll not be transcribing the tedious argument that follows, thank you very much. Suffice it to say that Lucifer blames God for all of his problems but Michael begs to differ, so the two overgrown celestial infants must therefore throw down. You know, as soon as they're done bitching at each other about their goddamned Daddy Issues FOR THREE AND A HALF MINUTES. "ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!" Shut up, Raoul. Finally -- FINALLY -- Dean tools up through the cemetery gates in the Impala with Def Leppard's "Rock Of Ages" blasting from Metallicar's tape deck and, having thus captured the boring angels' attention with so foolishly flashy an entrance, Our Intrepid Hero disembarks from the car to smart-ass, "Am I interrupting something?" Actually, Dean, you are: The METAL TEETH CHOMP!
Cemetery. Immediate Aftermath. Dean ambles over from the car with a far too casual, "Hey! We need to talk." Michael-In-Adam shoots Lucifer-In-Sam a look that basically says, "You want I should fry this mouthy motherfucker already, or do you think you can handle his snotty little bow-legged ass on your own?" Meanwhile, Dean addresses a few remarks to the apparently dormant Ginormotron that so anger Michael-In-Adam that the latter advances upon Our Intrepid Hero with a seething, "You little maggot! You are no longer a part of this story!" Just then, My Suddenly Appearing Baboo calls out from the sidelines, "Hey, ass-butt!" With that instantly immortal taunt, Castiel hurls a Holy Molotov Cocktail into Michael-In-Adam's chest, and the archangel incarnate erupts into a fireball that destroys his physical form. For the moment, at any rate. "Did you just Molotov my brother with holy fire?" Lucifer-In-Sam quietly rages. Castiel immediately and amusingly backtracks, all, "Um. No?" and you'll have to excuse me for a moment while I poke Raoul with a stick. "Hey! What on earEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Yeah, I figured you'd want to be awake for this. Claiming that "no one dicks with Michael but me," Lucifer-In-Sam snaps his fingers, and My Busted Baboo explodes, head first, into a chunky spray of blood and body parts that paints the camera lens red. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" By the way, Bobby'd been standing right to Castiel, so he ends up with stringy bits of angel guts dripping from his beard. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" And then? Lucifer-In-Sam telekinetically snaps Bobby's neck. "VIOLENCE! WANTON ACTS OF UNREPENTANT HAIRBALL-SLAUGHTERING VIOLENCE AND GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE! EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" It's all so delightfully inappropriate and gruesome that I'm not even wondering how those two dithering dimwits managed to find out where Lucifer and Michael would be. "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!" I'm thinking Raoul doesn't give a rat's ass about that particular plot hole, either. "EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" And to top it all off, Lucifer-In-Sam proceeds to beat The Pretty clear off Dashing El Deano's face! "VIOLENCE! VIOLENCE! VIOLENCE! GLALALALALALAALALLALALALLLAALALALAH!"
And then Sam rediscovers The Power Of Love thanks to a Flashback Ex Machina triggered by that stupid little ashtray army man we've neither seen nor heard about before tonight, and he overpowers Lucifer to hurl himself into The Pit, taking Michael-In-Adam with him. The end!
No, seriously. No, SERIOUSLY: All of that actually happens. The Chick Flick Moment To End All Chick Flick Moments saves the goddamned world.
I should have stopped watching this crap at the end of Season Four. "You and me both! [Slurp!]"
ANY-way, The Montage O' Love only lasts about thirty seconds, but they managed to cram in so many clips from the last five years that any attempt to hyperlink back to all of them as recapped would likely drive me insane. Fortunately, the lovely and talented empanimations has given us all this set of screencaps, so you can scroll through them one-by-one if you wish to see how many Magical Metallicar Moments you recognize. My favorites include "Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole" from the pilot, the spoon prank from "Hell House," the despairing yet awesome "Renegade" ending to "Nightshifter," Dean The Internet Innocent looking especially pretty in his suit from "Crossroad Blues," and the two dorks dressed up as security system repairmen in "Shadow." God, you remember when they used to rely on ridiculous costumes to gain access to crime scenes? Good times. Also: Funny how many of these Magical Metallicar Moments come from the first two seasons. Raoul, needless to say, has no favorite Magical Metallicar Moments, because none of the ones on offer include glorified extras getting their heads ripped off by super-sized chainsaws or finding their bloat run through industrial fans or eating each other to death or having their damn fool Canadian selves chopped in half by rogue elevators. "Oh, that last was delightful, wasn't it?! I think it was my favorite of the entire series!" I've always said you were a bloodthirsty dragon of exquisitely sophisticated taste, Raoul. "Oh, I'm blushing!"
So, that's that, and with that, Darling Sammy regains control of his body long enough to slide the interlocking Horsemen's rings from his jeans pocket, toss them onto the grass, and commence with the portal-opening Latination, all while a thoroughly battered and broken El Deano watches from a barely conscious daze in the dirt at Metallicar's side. Soon enough, the rings rip downwards through the ground, opening a hole that swallows several of the surrounding graves while triggering a massive, sucking whirlwind that burrows itself deep into the earth. At the last instant, though, Michael-In-Adam reappears to scream something unimportant and dull about Destiny, and the two tangle at the edge of the pit for a moment before Sam drags the aggravating archangel straight down into the crappiest CGI effect I've ever seen in my life, and I watched all eight seasons of Charmed, for Christ's sake. Once they're gone, the hole seals itself back up, leaving The Horsemen's rings shimmering in the grass. And then Frankendean -- seriously, that's how mangled his face it, post-beatdown -- wallows in his solitary pain and misery for a moment before vanishing into this season's last METAL TEETH CHOMP!
Cemetery. Aftermath. Frankendean mourns the loss of his killer good looks for a very long period of time, but then My Thoroughly Restored Baboo pops up from out of nowhere to heal The Pretty with a mere touch of his fingertips. "Are you God?" Dean honestly wonders once the healing is done, and while many thousands on the Interwebs would happily accept Misha Collins as their personal Lord and Savior, Castiel's forced to reply with the truth: "That's a nice compliment, but no." "Although I do believe He brought me back," Castiel admits. "New and improved," he adds, almost as an afterthought as he strides across the lawn to resurrect Bobby.
And once Bobby's choked and sputtered and hacked himself back to life, Chuck starts in with this evening's closing narration, sounding quite frankly far more like a whiny television writer than A Prophet Of The Lord. "Endings are hard," he insists. "Any chapped-ass monkey with a keyboard can poop out a beginning, but endings are impossible." We've cut over to the interior of Chuck's ramshackle hovel by this point, and The Prophet has suspiciously changed from his expected tatty striped robe into a crisp, clean white button-down shirt. This should suck. "You try to tie up every loose end," he continues, "but you never can -- the fans are always gonna bitch, there's always gonna be holes, and since it's the ending, it's all supposed to add up to something. I'm telling you, they're a raging pain in the ass." You wanna know what's even more of a raging pain in the ass, Chuck? Sitting through shitty endings like this one.
Don't look at me like that. He totally set himself up for that one.
Meanwhile, Metallicar tears through the night. "What are you gonna do now?" Dean asks of Castiel, who's riding shotgun in Sam's presumedly permanent absence. "Return to Heaven, I suppose," Castiel replies, looking thoughtful. You see, with Michael consigned to The Pit with Lucifer, it's sure to be chaos Up There, and Castiel figures he could do worse than to lay down the law for his snot-nosed and eternally feuding brethren. Dean's unimpressed -- go figure -- and makes some empty threats against God's life, or some such nonsense, so My Wise Baboo's forced to remind the ranty little bow-legged midget that he actually got what he asked for in the first place: "No Paradise, no Hell, just more of the same." This shuts Dean up -- as well it should -- and Castiel closes their conversation with a question. "What would you rather have?" he asks. "Peace? Or freedom?" Dean either hasn't an answer to that at all or hasn't an answer he's willing to admit to, and by the time he's concocted some witty retort, Castiel's fluttered away. "You really suck at goodbyes," he mutters to himself, and I'll do him a favor and leave that one alone.
Chuck's narration kicks back in as the scene abruptly cuts over to Bobby's Emporium, where we watch as Dean and Bobby take their leave of each other. "This is the last Dean and Bobby will see of each other for a very long time," The Prophet tells us, "and for the record, at this point week, Bobby will be hunting a rougarou outside of Dayton, but not Dean." You see, "every part of [Dean] -- every fiber he's got -- wants to die, or find a way to bring Sam back." Chuck assures us, however, that Dean will do neither "because he made a promise." Dean had been driving alone through the night during all that, and he now knocks on Bendy Lisa's door down in Cicero, Indiana. She answers, they chat, and he invites himself inside for that beer she initially offered to him about a month ago. Bendy Lisa happily agrees to his request because, well, just look at him, for Christ's sake, but also because the script says she must. And as they settle themselves into some bizarre approximation of domestic bliss, Chuck concludes his narration like so: "So, what's it all add up to? It's hard to say, but me? I'd say this was a test -- for Sam and Dean. And I think they did all right." Yet another montage kicks in, and you are seriously whacked out on Lohan-grade methamphetamines if you think I'm going to lead you through it frame by frame at this late point in the evening, but it does include a shot from the end of the pilot where Sam rages while Jessica burns, and there's a shot from the second-season finale of The Ceiling Demon menacing Damaged El Deano with The Fucking Colt That Can Kill Anything Except When It Usually Can't, and there's Famous Original Meg, and Zachariah, and a shot from the episode in which we first met Poor Dead Gay Stoner Andy, and that's all you're going to get from me tonight. And while all of that and more scrolls by, The Prophet never misses a beat with "Up against Good, Evil, Angels, Devils, Destiny, and God Himself, they made their own choice, and they chose Family. And, well, isn't that kind of the whole point?" Chuck types "THE END" into his computer, drains the last of his rotgut whiskey, and finishes, "No doubt endings are hard, but then again, nothing ever really ends, does it?" Not when you've been renewed for a sixth season that no one actually needed, I suppose. And with that, Chuck smiles to himself and...gets assumed body and soul into heavenly glory? What the hell? When did Chuck turn into the goddamned Virgin Mary? "It does seem just a tad sacrilegious, if you ask me!" No fucking shit, Raoul. "Demian! Language!" Oh, fuck it. "[Titter!]" Hey, how about slinging me a frosty flagon while I take care of the final scene? "It would be both a privilege and an honor!" Don't lie to me, you dizzy lizard. "Hee!"
So, now that The Virgin Chuck's disappeared and everyone's assumed he went to Heaven, we head back to Bendy Lisa's for a quiet little coda involving scotch and mashed potatoes. Mmmm. Scotch and mashed potatoes. Meanwhile, out by the sidewalk, a streetlamp buzzes and blinks and flickers on and off until it finally zots out. DUN! As thunder rumbles overhead, the camera pans down to take in a fifteen-foot-tall portent of doom now lurking in the shadows, staring at the cozy little scene of supposed domesticity unfolding behind Bendy Lisa's picture window, and at the last instant, the angle reverses to push us all into Darling Sammy's face. Or is it? Dun-dun-DUN!
Holy crap, am I glad that's over with. "Flagon?!" But of course, friend of friends, and have you anything to add at this juncture? "I do not! Do you!?" Well, I must admit this episode made me feel the teensiest bit nostalgic for the long-ago days when this show was shiny and new, and it was all about pretty boys with guns shooting monsters in the face with rock salt. "And?!" Well, you know: And chick-flick moments were verboten, and you could take your touchy-feely self-help yoga crap and cram it up your stupid ass. Bitch. "And now!?" God, why are you asking me so many questions? I just want to have a cocktail! "Answer, please!" And now I just want to end this recap and enjoy my booze -- happy summer hiatus, everyone! "Kisses! Delirious summer hiatus kisses to all of my pretties!"
Demian still thinks you should get out more. Raoul still agrees. "It's summer, my lovelies! Revel! Revel in the sunshine!" You may reach the former at demian_twop@yahoo.com. The latter is an imaginary gay dragon no longer under house arrest on the Internet. "I'll see you at the beach! Whee!"
See what made the cut in this list of TV's 50 most shocking moments ever.
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