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. @andrewdabb I know you probably won& #39;t read this and maybe you don& #39;t even care, but I really need to get this off my chest for the sake of my own mental health, so here it goes. I& #39;ll make a thread.
I was never really active in the fandom or vocal about anything, and screaming at writers on twitter was never my thing. I don& #39;t think I ever @& #39;d anyone for other reason than to praise them, even after something comically bad happened (like the wire fight in s13 finale)
I started to watch Supernatural in 2016 and absolutely loved what the show had become at that point. Season 12 and 13 were my favourite, and I got so emotionally engaged it was surprising even to me. I never really cared about TV shows before.
I stayed up until 3am to watch new episodes nearly every week (I live in Poland), followed meta writers on tumblr and spent hours reading their analysis. I majored in literature, so the meta layers of the show were what stood out to me the most.
It was brilliant writing, more often than not. I loved your showrunning, I loved the entire writer& #39;s room (except for a certain duo, maybe). I think I knew where the show was going and I trusted you would deliver. I never had a doubt the ending would be satisfying.
I didn& #39;t know when the show would end, but I knew it was in good hands and I was ready to wait. I enjoyed the ride. When the s15 was announced as the last, I was so excited to see how it would all come to fruition. The ending must have been years in the making, after all.
And up until 15x18, I was thrilled with it. Season 15 became my instant favourite and I cherished every episode. Then came 15x18 and I literally cried with happiness. I stayed up all night and then all the next day because I was too excited to sleep.
This year was so rough on me, on all of us, but this episode made me forget all of that for a moment. The pandemic, the civil unrest in my country, the government that dehumanises me every chance it gets and tries to take away my rights
I could forget all that for an entire week because of what your TV show did. It was beautiful and meaningful, it gave me hope. It was sad, too, but I thought "still 2 episodes left, it& #39;ll be resolved". Who would kill the third most important character 2 eps before the finale?
I spent a week defending the show when people screamed about Burying Your Gays, and I was so angry that they laughed, that they couldn& #39;t see this beautiful love story for what it was. But I thought "just let them wait".
Because what was 2 weeks compared with 12 years? I was drunk on all that vindication and I had faith it would all work out in the end. The story was so beautifully crafted up until that point, so why wouldn& #39;t it?
Some people tried to warn me, but I ignored them, I was too confident. I know how good stories work - I studied literature for 5 years, I work in book publishing, I read and edit stories for a living - and I thought Supernatural was a good one.
I won& #39;t talk about 15x19 because I treated it as necessary evil. I was a bit thrown off by it, but my main takeaway was "now the plot is out of the way, time for the character arcs to be finally resolved". What else was left, after all?
I worried about covid filming, but you told us it didn& #39;t affect the story, so I thought "we won& #39;t get the many planned cameos, but it& #39;s fine, we can deal with that if the rest is good". And I expected nothing else from you.
I& #39;m sure we both know now that I was wrong. I don& #39;t know what changed, I don& #39;t know when, but the finale we got was the most heartbreaking hour (or well, more like 36 minutes) of television I have ever experienced.
And I sat through the entire Game of Thrones, so this is really telling something. Game of Thrones, the show that did so many things just for shock value, never left me as devastated as that one finale did.
15x18 told us "we see you, you& #39;re valid and was right to read the show the way you did". You gave us 2 weeks of hope and then came back just to add "but it doesn& #39;t mean we can& #39;t still kick you in the face and call it great TV".
You catered to the crowd who sided with the literal villain of your final season. The ending was perfect for BrotherFucker69 and maybe some random Joe from Alabama who turned up every week out of old habit alone.
The people who will think fondly of this finale are people who spent years mocking and bullying other fans, and who criticised everything you did on your run as a showrunner that wasn& #39;t just about the brothers.
Maybe you didn& #39;t intend his. I would love to believe that you didn& #39;t, actually. But you should know how it was received. This may sound brutal, but filming it wasn& #39;t even worth the covid risk. We could have pretended the show ended in March and we& #39;d be better off.
It was like 300+ episodes of the show never happened. Like the entire 15 years of character development went into the trash and we got violently thrown back into season 1. Found family? Gone. Toxic codependency? At its finest.
And I could understand if we were told that Misha couldn& #39;t be there for the finale, I would. But the fact that Cas& #39; confession was never acknowledged, not even by Dean, is shattering. It& #39;s unforgivable.
You can& #39;t blame this on covid. This felt deliberate and malicious. If this is how you always intended it, you should have spared us years of suffering and ended the series long ago so we would have all moved on by now.
You buried your gay not even by killing him, but by removing him from the narrative completely, like you had to punish him for what he said. And then you never let Dean speak about anything other than his love for Sam. You know, that one thing that was ALWAYS a given.
And the fact that the last time we heard Cas& #39; voice was in a prank call from Lucifer? That you decided it was okay to give us and Dean those 5 seconds of wild hope? I couldn& #39;t think of a more cruel joke and a worse slap to the face even if I tried.
And then there& #39;s Dean. His best friend of 12 years - if we still want to be calling him just that - was revealed to be in the same heaven in a throwaway line (because it& #39;s all we got when in came to Cas in this episode, two throwaway lines) and what was his reaction?
He barely acknowledges it and then gets excited seeing a car. A CAR. Like he didn& #39;t drive it in what was probably half an hour ago for him, between the ride to the barn, his death and his arrival in heaven.
But even if he didn& #39;t... He was made to look like he cared more about a car than his best friend, or any other friends and family he was suddenly able to see again, for that matter.
It didn& #39;t as much undo his character development as it completely butchered any characterisation he ever had, except maybe for some surface level bullshit everyone with a functioning brain could see through right away.
And it& #39;s not even touching the fact he died - a slow and painful death for the sake of a tearjerking monologue no-one needed to hear - just the way he always thought he would, on a job, like he was expendable. As if he didn& #39;t spend 15 years learning that he wasn& #39;t.
Not only did you kill him before he experienced any happiness on earth, before he enjoyed the freedom he fought FOR 15 YEARS to have and that Cas gave his life for him to have, you reduced him to a parody of himself.
His only traits in the end being "loves his brother, his car and pie". Metaphorically, you cut his tongue out. This is abhorrent. This is even worse than what you did to Castiel and I didn& #39;t even know it was possible.
All of this is so deeply unsettling and problematic, we don& #39;t even have time to unpack all of that. But it will be talked about for years, of that I& #39;m sure. Just not in the way anybody would want.
So I suppose that was the thing you all called "bold", "groundbreaking" and "monumental". The complete undoing of your emotional lead and butchering the themes and message of the show in 36 minutes.
And no, the episode didn& #39;t make me cry. I went from shock, through disbelief to anger, and that was all the emotion your ending got out of me. I think I had more fun trying not to throw up all the alcohol I consumed in the meantime than I did watching it all unfold.
Dear Lord. We shouldn& #39;t have to be so upset about a TV show, not in this godforsaken timeline and not after all the blows this year delivered. And yet here we are.
It was a trainwreck. And it hurts me so much seeing all the fans I followed to experience this final ride with just... grieving. We& #39;re not sad it& #39;s over, we& #39;re sad it lasted so long and took so much out of us just to screw us in the end.
Two weeks ago I was ready to rewatch the show from the beginning and bask in its glory, today I can& #39;t even look and GIFs. I don& #39;t think I& #39;ll ever be able to watch a single episode of this again, my enjoyment killed in the most brutal way imaginable.
