Yeah yeah, the Supernatural season finale was months ago. Shut up. I didn't bother saying anything about it then because it passed and I kind of went, "...so that just happened." But I just re-watched my season 1-4 DVDs (crap summer TV means DVD re-watch time!) and realized just how bad that season finale really was in comparison. Spoilers ahead...
Let's review:
Season 1 finale: Dean and Sam, finally reunited with their (terrible excuse for a) father, fight Azazel and flee, only to have the Impala wrecked by a collision with a demon-possessed truck driver. The last shot is the three of them bloodied and the poor Metallicar beaten to bits. Fadeout.
Season 2 finale: Dean sells his soul to the Crossroads Demon to save Sam from being murdered by one of Azazel's other kids (a plotline that makes a lot less sense now that Dean and Sam were "chosen" to be the vessels from the beginning of time, but whatever, it was good). The Devil's Gate opens, they defeat Azazel with the Colt, and drive off into the foggy night half triumphant and half defeated.
Season 3 finale: Dean goes to Hell. Awesome Ruby vacates for creepy Lillith, who sets a Hellhound on Dean, who then gets eaten by an invisible dog in one of the grossest sequences I've ever seen on TV. Sam sobs like a girl and we pan into Dean's pretty green eye to see him screaming in Hell. Fadeout.
Season 4 finale: OMG LUCIFER. Crappy, weirdly cuddly Ruby has actually been working for Lillith all along (a plot point the actress didn't effectively sell – I'm sure Genevieve Cortese is very nice and all, but she didn't make a great Ruby and she made me really miss Katie Cassidy's acid sarcasm) and Sam is conned into raising Lucifer after trying to choke Dean to death and after Dean talks an angel into defying orders.
Which brings us to season 5.
I think part of the problem with season 5 is that the show got renewed for season 6. The creator said he always had 5 seasons' worth of story, and I have a feeling that the show was supposed to end with Dean and Sam dying together to save the world somehow. (I pictured God intervening and telling them that the Apocalypse could only be stopped if the vessels died or something.) The season got off to a really strong start with episodes like "Good God, Y'all" (Lost's Man in Black as War!) and "The End" (two Deans for the price of one, Samifer, and rage zombies!). And then they got renewed and things sort of started going downhill.
We introduced things like the Antichrist and the Four Horsemen, only to make them one-shot characters with no long-term bearing on the story (except for the Horsemen's rings, and... what?). An Apocalypse with no Antichrist? Really? Then we forgot all about season 4, which centered around Dean being the one and only person who could stop the Apocalypse. Instead, Dean literally sat and did nothing (except get beat up) while Sam and a character we met once did all the work. ...what? What happened to the Righteous Man who started it is the only one who can finish it? I guess you could argue that he "finished" it by making the sacrifice of his brother, but... that doesn't really work for me. And don't even get me started on the awful mess that was the Whore of Babylon episode, or the crap single episode dealing with every other religion in the world where Ganesh was a big black guy and Odin had two eyes and Baldur was British. (Seriously, what?!)
We were also asked to believe that Sam – a character who last season couldn't even control his own darker impulses and almost killed his own brother so he could keep screwing a demon, drinking her blood, and using his Hell-sent superpowers – was some kind of concrete-willed saint capable of being possessed by Lucifer and overtaking him. Sorry. Don't buy it. Sam has always been portrayed as a guy fighting his instincts and only winning 50% of the time. He has something dark inside him – originally through no fault of his own – that loosens his grip on self-control. Even this season, the guy couldn't resist Famine making him get back on the sauce. So he can't beat a Horseman in a battle of wills but he can beat Lucifer? Don't think so.
Now I have a theory on Dean that makes some of it make sense. Dean has never been possessed, and we've now seen three characters (John, Bobby, Sam) able to fight their own possession when they were about to kill Dean. What that tells me is that God really is protecting Dean. He really is (as Television Without Pity calls him) the Stumpy Little Bow-Legged Lamb of God. The possessed find the will to fight their possessors – to save Dean. No demon has ever possessed Dean, because he is Michael's and Michael's alone (if he so chooses, which he won't because Dean is if anything ultimately human). So I guess you could argue that really God defeated Lucifer by giving Sam the strength to fight him or because Dean has a special God shield or something. But the show has never come out and said that, so I don't think it counts. It's just my theory.
I just felt like the finale this year had no impact. Two characters were killed off only to be brought back within minutes. Sam went to Hell only to be brought back (well, maybe it's not really Sam but who knows) at the end of the episode. A tacked-on brother we didn't care about died. Again. So... what really happened? In what way did the story move forward?
I guess Dean learned that (as Castiel said) he prefers freedom to peace. And oh, we found a whole new level of broken for Dean, which is always interesting since every time I think he's already scraping up from under Rock Bottom they go "BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!" And yeah, maybe Sam is really still Lucifer or something. (If he's not, and we spend all of season 6 listening to Sam whine about Hell and everyone feeling sorry for him, I will be pissed, since everyone crapped all over Dean for complaining about Hell and honestly why does this show hate Dean so much anyway.)
But yeah. It just kind of... happened. The Apocalypse never really felt like an Apocalypse. I know they have a low budget and all, but they picked up threads (like the Antichrist and Raphael) that they never bothered to revisit that would have brought some continuity to the whole thing. But I guess it was more important to remind us three times an episode how Dean and Sam are just like Michael and Lucifer. Do you get it?! They have daddy issues and they fight and stuff! I liked the parallel but they just hammered at it too much.
The season did have its high points. I loved the beginning, and "Changing Channels" was gold. But it all just sort of came unraveled as it went along and I wound up disappointed. I didn't buy the ending at all and it didn't feel like it had the same "OMG!" that every other season finale had. I'm hoping they pick it up in season 6 and make it work again. I'll watch anyway because bad Dean Winchester is still better than a lot of other things. (That is, when I can since they moved Supernatural to Friday nights next season because apparently they want it to die a slow, horrible death instead of just canceling it after season 5.)
I mean... any show that can give me Dean rolling into the "final battle" between Michael and Lucifer blasting Def Leppard can't be all bad. Though I think they missed an opportunity there by not using "Armageddon It."
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