Supernatural: Destiny's Child
March 23, 2020 6:30 PM - Season 15, Episode 13 - Subscribe

A search for the one thing that may give the Winchesters and edge against God leads Sam and Dean to Jo's door and to a secret that may have died with Ruby. Meanwhile, Castiel asks Jack to do the unthinkable to help the brothers in their new quest.
posted by oh yeah! (13 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I thought this was the season finale - how many episodes are actually left, just the next one?

Jack's three dads taking turns to parent him just cracks me up. Plus the man-bun.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 4:53 AM on March 24, 2020


Per the tvline link, they shut down production 2 episodes short of completing the series, and shut down postproduction on the completed episodes 14-18.
posted by oh yeah! at 5:32 AM on March 24, 2020


Am I crazy in that I thought shows all filmed the whole seasons over the summer and just had them all ready to go for the first episode release

This might be a “fake meat in the deli” moment , where as an elementary school kid my older sister vehemently believed the meat in the deli display cases were fake because otherwise they would rot and be diseased from being open all the time and had a meltdown when she realized she was wrong. And the phrase has become shorthand in my family for someone being 100% positive about something and turning out to be 100% wrong.

Also - I love that Gen and Daneel got to do scenes together and I never get sick of Jensen and Daneel acting together. Just lots of fun.

Alternate universe Dean and Sam did not seem too broken up about their world ceasing to exist..which struck me as odd. Loved manbun Sam though.
posted by Suffocating Kitty at 9:07 PM on March 24, 2020


Yeah, you've been under a misapprehension. In the traditional US Network model of 22 or more episodes a season, shows would start writing in the summer, but then the whole rest of the year is a race against time to get the rest of the scripts written and episodes completed before they're due. (Which is why so many one-hour dramas start out strong and flounder at the end, when everyone is exhausted/stressed/burned out from the workload.) Whereas in the BBC model, when a series gets commissioned they write all the scripts first, and then none of them get aired until all are finished filming. Though some shows with a shorter episode run were able to complete them all, the timing of the shutdown means that a lot of shows are going to have seasons are going to end without a finale. TV Line has a list of affected & unaffected shows

Shows that were already renewed or slated for renewal should be able to roll with this and pick up filming the missing episodes in the next season or incorporate the missing episodes' plot elements in the next season. And as long as the Supernatural cast stays healthy through this pandemic, I'm sure they'll find a way/time to film, but it may be more delayed than other shows since they can't roll it into the next season, and Jared will have scheduling conflicts when his stupid 'Walker Texas Ranger' reboot is supposed to start, as will a lot of the crew if they have commitments to new shows. They could end up doing it as a 2-hour tv-movie special late in the year after 'Walker' production shuts down.

Though, it's hard to say what the next new Fall tv season will look like, since I think the shutdown halted pilot season too -- normally the networks get hundreds of pitches in the fall, then commission a bunch of scripts in January, then pick 20 or so of those scripts to have pilots produced in the spring (now?), then decide which of those pilots get a season order to begin filming over the summer. Probably a lot of shows that would otherwise have been canceled are going to get another season just because there's nothing to replace it with.
posted by oh yeah! at 5:31 AM on March 25, 2020


As a longtime Supernatural fan the show going on indefinite hiatus just as they were midway through their final season is a real pain in the ass. (Thanks again, Coronavirus! You suck in so, so many ways.) Fingers crossed they can finish filming the remaining episodes and we're not just stuck with some TV movie that Padelicki manages to film around his Walker breaks. Ugh.

Now, on to the episode itself... This show has sure been making some puzzling choices. Like, Jack getting his soul back should feel like a bigger deal, but it doesn't because his behavior has been so benevolent and Jack-like. Recently he was so dedicated to doing the right thing by Kaia that he put everything else in danger. He clearly had pretty strong feelings about that, and in almost every way he seemed very much like the Jack we knew. I'd even wondered if his soul was naturally re-growing, or if maybe it was there but he was repressing it because he couldn't cope with killing Mary. So, now his soul is back and... I guess he can feel guilty. Maybe he'll be more ambivalent about killing Chuck. I dunno what else it's supposed to change. But they really needed to make him seem different without a soul, and since he mostly seemed like the same sweet dopey kid it didn't really seem to matter much if he has a soul or not.

The Sam and Dean clones seemed kind of like rich douches but they didn't seem like truly bad people, and I was a little surprised Sam and Dean just kicked them out of the bunker to go fend for themselves. Just, even thinking selfishly, couldn't they find some use for copies of themselves, copies who are apparently also hunters? And couldn't it cause them all sorts of grief to have another Sam and Dean out there, looking like them and going by their names but doing things they'd never do? Those guys presumably have no connections in this world and there's probably a lot of basic stuff they don't know, so they could get in trouble in a hurry. Like, it was all played as a tossed-off joke, but if you think about it for five seconds it creates all sorts of problems.

Ruby was another character I only vaguely remembered. I Googled her and she's the demon who was feeding Sam her blood way back when. I remembered all that stuff then, but this show's been on so long that some of these plots go back to W's first term. Ruby's played by Padalecki's wife and the sassy angel lady is played by Ackles' wife, so it's arguably a bit nepotistic to have them on the show together! It was a real stretch to bring back the Meg actress too ("I thought I'd stick with the whole demon theme") but she's always fun.

They've mentioned Sergei a bunch lately, making me think they have bigger plans for him. (Or had. God, who knows if this show will even come back? Ugh!)
posted by Ursula Hitler at 4:53 PM on March 25, 2020


I concur with Ursula Hitler on a lot of points, like kicking the alt-boys out and the handling of Jack.

I have to say, this show still keeps amusing me with the alt-rich-boy Winchesters getting all excited about porn and drinking beer. And the tiny man-bun. Adored that whole thing very much.

I am sad that this might be the end of Supernatural... if things are as bad as some predictions I've read, we may not have a fall 2020 or spring 2021 season, dammit. So close and yet so far.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:07 PM on March 25, 2020


At first we were delighted with alt Sam and Dean, but yeah, after about five minutes all the various complications settled in. An interesting notion that should have been explored deeper and far more fully; a wasted opportunity for a few man-bun jokes.

Good to see Jack get his soul back but again, it should have gone deeper. I hope that this hiatus gives them time to think more about the remaining episodes and get them written right. C'mon, Grimm nailed their finale so there's no reason why Supernatural can't do the same. Also, bring back the Trickster one more time.
posted by Ber at 12:03 PM on March 26, 2020


If I'm understanding this right, the show has completed filming all the way through the series finale but they can't work on the special effects, etc., until the lockdown is over.

Some of us had floated the idea that maybe Jack would be the new God, but the show dismissed that with a gag the other night. And they're talking about killing Amara too, so presumably she won't be in charge either. Whatever they're planning, I'm guessing it won't be anything we expected.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 7:37 PM on March 26, 2020


That article says the season is 18 episodes, but my understanding is that it was supposed to be 20 episodes and they still have to film the last 2.

I still think Jack could be the new God. Maybe they dismissed it as something that would never work so we'll be more surprised when everyone realizes that Jack really can pull it off. But they never end up doing what I expect, so it's also entirely possible they'll do something different.
posted by Redstart at 8:21 PM on March 26, 2020


You guys! Supernatural is getting an extra season, kind of!
posted by Ursula Hitler at 8:50 PM on March 29, 2020 [1 favorite]


Quotes

Sam: [trying to explain about his and Dean's sighting of Alt-Sam and Alt-Dean] So, this rift is open in the middle of the armory, and the — and these two guys climb out of a car, and they look just like us...
Dean: Except not, and don't even get me started about the car.
Castiel: Okay, I am not understanding.

Castiel: The Occultum is divine in its origin. It was housed for hundreds of years in an ancient temple before it was –
Dean: Plundered by pirates.
Castiel: No.
Dean: It was dug up by tomb raiders.
Castiel: No.
Dean: It was seized by the King of the Dead and his warlords. Am I close?
Castiel: Looted by invading Mongol hordes for trade on the –
Dean: Black market. Yeah, that's what – I was gonna say that next. That was the next one.

Sam: Well, we have Rowena's notes for the spell so...
Dean: Okay, "Samwitch".

Anael: So you want me to be on your side... against God?
Dean: I mean, we are better-looking.

Trivia

In "Heart" (ep. 2.17), Sam beats Dean at Rock Paper Scissors and says, "Oh, Dean, always with the scissors." While in the wall, Alt-Sam and Alt-Dean are playing RPS, and the second time Alt-Sam wins playing scissors and Alt-Dean paper. Then Alt-Dean tilts his head because Alt-Sam stole his move.

This was the last episode to air before the COVID-19 pandemic caused all TV and movie productions to halt and shutdown. Episodes resumed again in October 2020.

The episode title is a reference to the American girl group Destiny's Child.

During the scene where we get to know Alt-Sam and Alt-Dean and their world, the Alt-Winchesters say that have two private planes, and Sam says, "How do you afford it?" In real life, Jared Padalecki, who plays Sam, has a private jet of his own, which he often used to fly the cast in and out of Vancouver during their filming days for Supernatural.

This is the first time Danneel Ackles and Genevieve Padalecki have been in the same episode and the first time Anael and Ruby have interacted with each other. However, Sister Jo fell with all the other angels, so she and Ruby couldn't have made that deal all those years ago.
posted by orange swan at 9:49 AM on May 13, 2022


It was necessary to remind us of the existence of Meg and Ruby with the opening flashbacks, but those opening clips of Castiel's reaction to porn and Dean eating pizza seemed a little like something the editors put in because they thought it was funny.

Bringing back Ruby didn't make a huge amount of sense, but I did like that they brought back the Rachel Miner version of Meg. Rachel Miner has MS and had to leave the show because it had become physically too difficult for her to participate in such an action-driven show. By the time this episode was made, she was confined to a wheelchair. It speaks well of the show that they found a way to make it possible for Miner to come back in the last season to reprise her role.

The chemistry between Jared and Genevieve Padalecki came through in their scenes as Sam and Ruby (appropriately, because their characters were getting it on), but Jensen and Danneel Ackles were able to suppress whatever chemistry they have. Dean looks at Anael with dislike and distrust. As he often says, "angels are dicks", and he has basically never liked or accepted any angels but Castiel and Anna.

Did Dean not ever know that Sam had been sleeping with Ruby?

When Alt-Sam and Alt-Dean give each other a fist bump (something we never see "our" Sam and Dean do), I noticed for the first time how very much smaller Jensen Ackles's fist is compared to Jared Padalecki's.

Alt-Sam and Alt-Dean are hilariously douchey, coddled, vapid daddy's boys, and dear God Sam's hair with its tiny manbun was one for the books, but what's really funny is how painfully embarrassed our Sam and Dean were by them. They couldn't wait to hustle them out the door and be rid of them. It was this episode that made me realize on my first watch that it's the lives that Sam and Dean have led that made them the men that they are.

Why was Sam left to hold the door on the hellhounds by himself? You'd think either Castiel or Jack would have been helping.

A few episodes back, I wondered what Sergei was, and in this episode we learn that he is a shaman.
posted by orange swan at 10:23 AM on May 13, 2022


For more Jensen and Danneel Ackles fun, check out their recreation of Paul Simon's 1986 video for "You Can Call Me Al", in which Jensen plays Paul Simon and Danneel plays Chevy Chase. They do seem like a fun couple with an easy rapport.
posted by orange swan at 6:19 PM on May 15, 2022


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