Initial reaction 15.20: Carry On

[caranfindel]

Before we get started, friends, I want to tell you two things.

1. When I got home late from work Thursday, The Husband and I had this conversation:

You look beat. Going to bed early tonight?

Do you have any idea what tonight is?

...

Oh, God. Do you have alcohol?

Yes I do. 2. When I got in the car Friday morning, Pandora immediately started

Comments

[zara_zee]

{Sidebar: Where is Sam's wife in all of this? Divorced? Already dead? She doesn't seem to be in the family pictures, so I'm going with divorced. Discuss.}

I would like to conclude that her entire lack of importance in Sam's life is because they divorced early on and he kept their kid. But. I looked closely and Sam is still wearing his wedding ring on his deathbed. Would you keep wearing that if you'd divorced? I don't think so. I also saw some people suggesting that he was a solo Dad, raising a kid that he'd adopted (maybe from a hunt?) and that the woman was a nanny of some sort...which would work for me, but...wedding ring?

Anniespinkhouse's drabble works for me, though. Thanks for the link fanspired.

Thank you for the review. I watched last night my time and have been periodically tearing up ever since. 😥

[caranfindel]

Yeah, that wedding ring conflicts with a lot of great theories.

[kribban]

I liked the finale. It's definitive and all the characters got peace. The crew waving at the end and Bob Singer yelling cut was the perfect fan service for me. This is probably the only show where the fans know the behind the camera staff. It was incredibly sweet.

[kribban]

One last poll for the road?

To anyone who is annoyed Dean died from an accident: it was pointed out by another fan that they no longer have plot armor since Chuck isn't writing their story. So Sam and Dean are just normal people. In the real world, people die from accidents and other mundane things. So I liked that he died that way.

I also like how the episode showed the heroism of carrying on. I've never suffered an unexpected loss, but I know two people who lost their children in accidents and it takes a great strength to continue living your life and do good and be happy.

Some fans have complained that the episode glorifies death, but I disagree. Sam does not at any point consider suicide, and Dean even says "Always Keep Fighting".

Final bit of thought: there's no revival, sequel, or re-boot. The show definitively ends, and that's exactly how it should be. I feel content that they wrote it that way.

[caranfindel]

I know some people are complaining that Dean died because of "a nail," and damn, that wasn't a nail. That was a big ass SPIKE. And I don't see it glorifying death at all. Living, like you said, was the heroic thing. But I have to accept that some fans of this show have a COMPLETELY different mindset from me.

[casey679]

I loved all of this. The last stages of the hero's journey are being the master of two worlds and living free, and as a hunter with a family, I feel like Sam got both, while Dean - who has been more and more depressed, worn down and exhausted season-by-season, got peace and retirement. I wish there had been more folks that he missed to greet him in Heaven (Charlie, for example, since he took her death so hard, or Benny since hopefully new god Jack will fix the way Purgatory works, too). We were speculating in one server that the kid was the result of a one-night stand by Sam (or Dean) and the mom showed up and dumped the kid off with him, and that was the nanny or equivalent, since she's in no other pictures anywhere else. I liked that Sam could represent the end of the unhealthy Winchester death cycle, grieving but not letting it cripple him or keep him from living, and that whether his son is a hunter or not, it's a healthy relationship full of love, and he was there for his son the whole time. And I was okay with the cover of Carry

[caranfindel]

I was SO sure they'd fuck it up. Maybe having low expectations was a good thing. And I love the idea of the woman being a nanny, but Sam was wearing a wedding ring. Though I suppose it didn't *have* to be a wedding ring...

[mangacat201]

Post all the fucking spoilers you want in the comments
THIS... this made me laugh when I've been crying for pretty much three hours (well, I would have been if my dear friend hadn't distracted me off the legde long enough so I could go out and buy groceries without scaring the locals, so I don't starve next week) and that was exactly what I needed.

I noticed that the carry on montage was missing right at the start, so I knew we were going to have to face the waterworks, but I WAS NOT READY. I thought your exact same thoughts from all the fanservice points (holy canoli shirtless Sam - and can I say how much I appreciate that they didn't litter this last episode with call-back cameos but with call-back shots and props and stuff? It's like the production crew got to say farewell to their favourite things, same as us) to the fact that I was wondering why they weren't just riddling those vamps with Dead Man's Blood bullets and then thought... Ohhhhhh(I do have some ideas why no guns, but I'm not going to flesh them out cause it is what

[caranfindel]

I do wonder how different it would have been without Covid, if we would have had a parade of time-wasting guest stars. In the special before the episode, someone (Singer?) mentioned closure for all of those other characters, like Garth, and I was like, really? WHO. THE. FUCK. CARES. So maybe we do have Covid to thank for the brother-centric end. Silver lining, I guess.

Love the idea of MoL little Dean, carrying on the family legacy.

[mangacat201]

Hmmmm.... I don't know, I mean, I felt like they were doing that all through this last season, with so many guest stars (even little known ones like Dr. Sexy and Teenage-girl victim turned serial killer and so many more - the cast credits for season 15 are so interesting because there's so many one episode guest stars with literally years between their episodes popping up), so I don't know how that would have worked differently for a season ending montage - though yeah, maybe Dean would have met more folks in heaven. But I'm kinda glad we got the driving shots instead. Such joy.

I mean... if they were REALLY intelligent, they'd send lil'Dean off with all the grown-up wayward daugthers as badass aunts where he's the coordinating whiz-kid genius in his tech cave, sending all those accomplished monster annihilating female hunters out on their missions, but oh... who would watch THAT kinda show?