Brenda,

Seriously.

So I have been thinking about the Supernatural finale and I am dissatisfied. I really liked the moments with Sam & Dean quite a lot, but from a plotting perspective, I am not overall thrilled. I'm not thrilled with the season's pacing and specifically the pacing of the recent 2-3 episodes.

Someone, argue with me against this.

What was wrong with the pacing? I feel this was one of the strongest finales since 5--it's got some stiff competition, but I'd place it in my top 5 if not 3. The unremitting emotional stakes and how sincerely invested everyone was in everything they did--they managed to sustain that very well.

Crowley was better than I've seen Sheppard do in forever, Amanda Tapping was also very convincing. Castiel was kind of the weakest link, but I barely mean that. Just him, at the end, after all of his lines were done, that was also really well done. But he didn't get as rich an emotional dump as everyone else.

As far as plotting goes, what bothers you?

I think I would have preferred more plot preparation for the finale in previous episodes. It felt like this should have been a two-part finale. I wanted to see Metatron fight the angels. I saw his power grab coming, but I would have liked to see what changed his mind from staying out of the fray in the bookstore to wanting universal domination.

I think I would have preferred this finale to provide a few more clues as to what Metatron was after leading into next season. Now, I'm like: well, WTF now?

I'm not totally sure about the status of the demons if none of them came to Crowley's rescue.

Yes, I liked Crowley. I thought he was written a bit too sympathetically though, but the acting was great.

I didn't interpet him as wanting universal domination. It was a simple gesture of tit for tat, was what I thought--he held everyone ultimately complicit in denying him heaven, so now he wants to throw them all out. The reveal worked for me at the right speed, since I thought he was shady last week. Cas is cut off from any information--he knows what Naomi told him, and she tortured him, and this cuddly guy in a cardigan who calls himself a mere pencil pusher seems to have good motives.

Mm, right.

Metatron doesn't even have to be in season 9 for me. He's kicked everyone out of his playhouse--I imagine he'll be running up and down the halls screaming. When he's bored *and there are millions of stories new to him) maybe he'll come back.

Or he could be embarking on the domination of which you speak, but if they go there, they will need to talk me into it. He's a sneaky creepy guy, and I see him being a problem, but not a big bad (inasmuch as that even applies to SPN finales). I don't feel there's anything else I need to know about Metatron--he fled the archangels' influence and hid on earth (clearly unchallenging) and likes stories enough to make people immortal for giving them to him. Oh, and he holds a grudge.

As for the demons--he threw out a half-assed yell for help. If the strongest demon in existence is the one who acts on it, I don't know if anyone else even heard. Normally these blood calls have more blood, a bowl, and a conversation. He was a drowning man yelling for help, and someone who was probably looking for him anyway (and was effective holding a microphone) is who shows up.

She may have beaten them all into submission in the time he was corralled. They may all be on her side now. Or dead, or just following the last orders he gave them--steer clear of Winchesters. Any one of those explanations work for me, which means it will turn out to be something else.

GAH! The fucking doctor in IMTOD describes Dean as having survived. Sam is alive at the end of the S2 finale.

THEY SURVIVED MOST OF THE FINALES. Your semantic dance ignores a lot of things, most notably: words mean stuff.

I have better things to do on my day off than this...

I feel battered.

Battered is right. I feel battered, but stoked. This was a deeply satisfying finale. Far better than last year's.

The demons not coming to Crowley's rescue didn't strike me as particularly off. They're demons, and it makes sense that there is no loyalty or devotion or feeling of any kind for Crowley. Plus some may have ignored his 911 simply because, hey, a potential opening on the throne!

Loved your recap, ita ! Very well done!

Season 3 is the only finale with an actual brotherly death, isn't it? 1 didn't quite get that far and 5 technically skipped the death part and went directly to Hell.

OK, I know that the character of the boys is what the writers say it is, and I don't get to decide. But they still have not sold me on this Sam. My head canon is that the Sam who chose to be locked up alive with Lucifer in the worst part of hell would not give up closing the gates of hell to stay alive. He'd be glad that his older brother loved him, but that would be another reason to do what it took to ban demons from earth forever. I just can't see Sam NOT seeing this as worth dying for, and I can't see him letting Dean talk him out of it.

Also, I can't see him saying (major paraphrase) "it is OK me to die cause you don't respect me anyway" as his dying speech to Dean. It would be more along the line of "dying sucks, but it is worth it to beat the demons once and for all". Which would not leave the opening for Dean to talk him out of dying on the basis that he loves Sam more than anything. Again, I don't get to decide canon. But this latest canon is NOT consistent with past seasons Sam IMO. If Sam had died then next season would have been Dean coping with the fallen angels while working to rescue Sam from heaven. Which might be possible, given that M is the only angel left in heaven. Plus, there are a bunch of fallen angels around to serve as information sources about weaknesses and back doors.

Season 3 is the only finale with an actual brotherly death, isn't it?

This is my point! Even if you think Dean died to go to Purgatory and Sam died going into the Cage (I rather strongly do not), that's not even half the episodes.

Apparently Dean being in critical condition/coma means he was a) brain dead and b) didn't survive the finale. Neither medicine nor English works that way. Apparently Sam being killed the week before means he didn't survive the finale to season 2. Again, NOT HOW WORDS WORK.

I doubt there's another show where the deaths of the lead are stacked so heavily into the middle of the season, but come on! The drove off together at the end of S2, were transported together at the end of season 4, and were standing in the same room with Castiel and Bobby at the end of season 6. "I didn't much like season 6" is also not much of an excuse for such a hyperbolic inaccuracy.

Someone else said it was the first finale where "no one" died.

Well, except for the dead person, right? Naomi kinda poignantly bit it.

WHERE WERE YOU???

I swear, I don't remember LJ rewarding this kind of totally missing the point, but it was a less impulsive medium, plus one in which you come across fewer original posters you wouldn't choose to read anyway.

They are words. With definitions. Just because Humpty Dumpty knew how to be master doesn't mean you're doing anyone or anything any favours by redefining as you go.

Sam's putative exit speech was off in that I think emotion, not sense, would prompt him to call Cas a replacement for him. But feeling he failed Dean? Given how much of the front end of the season I spent telling myself the same thing, makes sense. Given how much of a shit Dean was to him before he went in to confess? Made sense. Given he is talking about having felt impure and unworthy (I think it's interesting how his insecurity is different from Dean's, which is pretty much a vacuum of self esteem, and not the same in tenor) since he wa a toddler? That all burst out right now.

If he felt no guilt about not hunting for Dean or hunting for anyone, if he felt no rancour for the Benny thing, if he wasn't so clearly addled by the cumulative trials, if he hadn't talked about the end (as opposed to The End, which should be in the back half of next season) so portentously, if he hadn't been the guy who gave the "I am the least of all of" speech in season five, if we had any reason to think that he's been disabused of that horrible voicemail at the end of season six....

There's just so much there on top of wanting to close the gates.

But since they were closing the gates with false assumptions, I think balking at the last minute makes sense over and above don't leave me which was pretty much all Dean was saying. Also, if Dean is left alone and can't hunt any more, is that a net win for the fight against evil? I think it's hard to say, and if we're mad at Dean for being that selfish (::coughCharlieJanecough::) then you'll need to point out to me where in his arc he stopped being that guy. Was it before or after he killed his grandfather and second-closest friend to save Sam's life?