'Supernatural' Season Finale | 'All Along the Watchtower' S12E23
MAJOR SPOILER ALERT!
The 'Supernatural' Season 12 finale, ‘All Along the Watchtower’, finally brings the major story arc for this season to a head: it’s time for Kelly (Courtney Ford) and Lucifer’s (Mark Pellegrino) nephilim baby Jack to make an appearance.
Poor Kelly is suffering, as she knows she won’t survive the birth of her son, so she paints the walls in the house they are staying in, and makes videos for Jack to watch. Castiel (Misha Collins) and Kelly shared a few hilarious parenting moments, as they buy a truck full of nappies and try to assemble a flat-pack cot. Cas has even taken a doula class online to try to prepare for the delivery, bless him.
Strange things are happening before the baby appears, though. A strange, golden apparition has appeared near the house, and when Cas touches it, he finds himself in another world and under attack by a demon. As it turns out, in this world, Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) were never born, and this world was never saved by them.
Now we come to another wordless, off-screen death of a major recurring character, this time Rowena (Ruth Connell, not appearing on screen). The boys and Mary (Samantha Smith) are planning in the bunker, and try to call her to help get rid of Lucifer again, and instead, they get Lucifer on the phone. Rowena has died at Lucifer’s hand before, but this time she didn’t even get the courtesy of an on-screen death.
After that, Crowley (Mark Sheppard) appears at the bunker and seems unimpressed by the news of Rowena’s death. He reveals that he’s sick of ruling hell, and would rather bring Lucifer down with the Winchesters. He’s had a rocky relationship with them over the years, and while he seems to have genuinely wanted to work with the brothers, most of the time they haven’t trusted him, and rejected his help and/or friendship. He died a hero, though, and who knows, we may see him again.
As Kelly’s time draws nearer, the Winchesters work out the location of power surges and show up at the lakeside house. When they discover the portal between worlds, they meet up with the alternative version of an old friend (let’s not spoil that one), and come up with a half-baked plan, with the help of Crowley. When Lucifer shows, after a brief Mexican standoff out the front of the house with Team Free Will, they lure him through the portal.
Sadly, angel-killing bullets don’t work on archangels (“Say hello to my little friend”), but Crowley still tries to seal the rift, locking Lucifer in the alternate world. He sacrifices his own life to complete the spell, but the rip doesn’t close fast enough. Castiel charges through, trying to stab Lucifer with his angel blade, even though he should know that normal angel blades don’t work on archangels.
Sam drags an injured Dean back through the portal, and they have a moment of relief when Cas appears again, followed shortly after by an angel blade through his back and out his chest. He falls, but as Lucifer is about to deal with Sam and Dean, Mary pops up and beats Lucifer back with the Enochian brass knuckles we’ve been seeing through the season. Just as he’s about to disappear through the weakened portal, he grabs Mary, dragging her through with him. The portal closes, sealing Lucifer and Mary on the wrong side.
While Dean falls to his knees beside Cas’ body, complete with burnt wing imprints (and the fans scream in anguish), Sam runs upstairs to find that Kelly has died giving birth. But there’s no baby. Instead, there’s a creepy adult-sized naked man in the nursery, with glowing golden eyes.
Though Season 12 had many plots, the last two episodes managed to bring all of them together in a satisfying way. We saw Mary’s return, with Amara indicating that she would give Dean what he needed - which turned out to be an opportunity to get to know and work through his issues with his mother.
The British Men of Letters allowed Sam to break away from his dependency on Dean’s approval, and to take the lead himself.
Castiel became part of the Winchester family, or more than he was before, only to continue to make the same mistakes and leave them to do the “right thing” on his own. His story is still developing, even though he just, apparently, died. Once again, the season has finished on a desperate and terrifying cliff-hanger, which was expected.
Despite the 'Supernatural' writers’ disdain for the finality of death in almost every previous season (for the leads, at least), each of the deaths in this episode were emotionally powerful scenes, especially with the visual of Cas’ wings burnt into the ground. There were just too many in one episode, and the result was a lack of any time to mourn these major characters.
The good news is that Misha Collins tweeted that Castiel has a future, and various cast members mentioned his return during panels at the recent Jus in Bello convention in Italy. So Castiel will be back, although in what capacity is unclear.
Are we looking at a Castiel from an alternative reality? Someone who doesn’t know our boys at all? The worry for the hiatus period has now shifted from “Will Cas be back?” to “Will our Cas be back?”
It’ll be a long wait to find out.
'Supernatural' will return in October 2017.
