In Supernatural’s season finale on May 17, Michael(Christian Keyes) and Lucifer (Mark Pellegrino) escaped to the real world and wreaked havoc.
This episode began with Sam (Jared Padalecki) catching everyone up on 2018.
“The ice caps are melting, a movie where a girl goes all the way with a fish wins Best Picture, and that damn fool idjit from The Apprentice is president,” Bobby (Jim Beaver) summarized. “You call where we come from Apocalypse World?”
Mary (Samantha Smith) and Bobby took a walk and found Maggie, a member from the apocalypse world, dead. Jack (Alexander Calvert) was devastated about Maggie’s death because he promised to protect her. Confused on who the killer was, Jack took a walk, but Lucifer found him (he’s back from the apocalypse world) and suggested that he and Jack leave Earth and explore the cosmos. Jack was interested, but only if Lucifer brought Maggie back. Dean (Jensen Ackles), Sam and Cas (Misha Collins) tried to locate Jack. Sam sat down with Maggie and asked her if she remembered anything about her death. She remembered red eyes. Well, there’s a hint.
Suddenly, the bunker door rattled. Michael floated down and grabbed Dean by the throat. Sam prayed to Jack and Jack quickly zapped himself to the bunker and threw Michael off Dean. Jack then turned his anger solely on Michael, making his eyes bleed. Michael managed to stammer out, “We had a deal,” to Lucifer. Dean put the two and two together and explained that Lucifer and Michael’s deal was simple: Lucifer got Jack and Michael got Earth, which is why Lucifer wanted to leave with Jack.
Jack, furious and disowning his father, called Lucifer a monster, which reminded the audience who Lucifer is: the devil. In the end, Lucifer is the prince of darkness. Lucifer stole Jack’s grace with the help of the archangel blade. Sam tried to help Jack but in a burst of light all three of them disappeared. Dean and Cas were left with a crushed Michael and no idea on how to stop Lucifer and save Sam.
Flashback to season 5 when Uriel made it abundantly clear that Dean was Michael’s sword and perfect vessel as Sam was Lucifer’s perfect vessel. Dean knew this and made a one-time deal to save Sam: Dean is the engine and Michael is the driver.
Meanwhile, Lucifer’s idea of fun involved a knife between Jack and Sam where if one wasn’t dead, Lucifer would kill them both. Sam gave Jack the knife and told him to kill Sam, but Jack turned the knife on himself. Before Jack could do much damage, Michael appeared in Dean’s vessel, more powerful than ever and ready to fight.
Lucifer and Michael wasted no time fighting to the death. Sam tossed Dean the blade and in defiance, Dean stabbed Lucifer, killing him.
With no time to celebrate, Dean bent over in pain and angrily shouted, “We had a deal!” meaning Michael had double-crossed Dean and refused to leave, assuming Dean’s body.
Season 13 ends with Michael in Dean’s body walking around in a suit, newsboy cap and blue eyes.
The episode was a cliffhanger, following the series’ pattern of ending a season in the middle of the conflict. This isn’t unusual. Michael occupying Dean’s body brings more developed plotlines, which isn’t easy for 14 seasons. Also, this gives Jensen Ackles an opportunity to play a character other than Dean. Jared Padalecki has gotten to play Lucifer and Gadreel and Misha Collins has gotten to play Jimmy Novak, Lucifer, himself, and a cosmic entity.
Lucifer’s death was sudden and large. Throughout the season, Mark Pellegrino portrayed Lucifer as a misunderstood character. With his witty one-liners and eat-crap attitude, Lucifer became the one that got away — the one God disappointed, which contradicts all major religious views of him. When Lucifer ferociously screamed at Jack, the audience was reminded what Lucifer had done in past years and how many lies he had told. Sam ultimately killed Lucifer, which reminded the audience what Lucifer had done to Sam’s subconscious over the seasons — Sam suffered a mental break because Lucifer would not let him sleep for days on end.
The beginning scenes of the episode showed Dean was considering retirement soon providing the world was safe and whole. “Can you imagine? You, me, Cas. Toes in the sand, couple of those little umbrella drinks, matching Hawaiian shirts, obviously,” Dean dreams. The audience sympathizes with Dean because just shortly after, Sam is captured, and Dean is forced to let Michael enter, something he’s been resisting since Season 5. It’s frustrating the boys can’t have a somewhat happy and light ending for more that 2 minutes because of the family business.
Overall, the episode was good—stressful and sad but good. The outro for the season at the beginning of the episode was a compact and fresh reminder about what Sam and Dean faced: shape-shifting demons, portals to apocalyptic worlds and a cartoon; they’ve come a long way. The audio cues were timely and clever and the sweet sound of Kansas’ “Carry On My Wayward Son” wrapped the season up with a bow more or less.
After the ending scene, the audience can relate with Dean’s threat to Michael, “as Shakespeare once said, ‘eat me, dick bag.’”
