Supernatural: Lucifer Rising
By fred | May 15, 2009
(S04E22) Lots of season finale happening these days, and with a few shows there will be things that we saw coming, things we didn’t see coming at all, things that blow our minds, and things that we’re dying to find out but will have to wait months and months until the next season before we can hope to get any answers. It’s the way it goes, and we’re used to it.
This season was a really strong season, with a great mythology arc planned all the way through, some really cool villains, great moments between the brothers and of course so hilarious standalone episodes. All of this leading us to this moment, the end of the season, and I’m not sure whether or not you will agree, but I was somewhat disappointed myself.
Was the episode bad? Nope. Was it good? I’m not so sure… You see, while I liked Bobby getting into Dean’s face and telling him he was a better man this his daddy ever was, and had to call Sam, or the “fight” between Dean and Castiel, I can’t help but feel that this episode was also a lot of talk (I mean Dean did spend about 95% of the episode stuck in a room, waiting and chatting) only to get to the interesting bit in the last minute or so.
The final moment, the one this whole season has been leading to, and when that happened it was over. Like Lost, we end on a flash of bright white light, but where Lost had given us a wonderful episode filled with actions and revelations, Supernatural didn’t offer anywhere near as much. But nothing really happened until that moment (except for Sam to kill innocent people, because that’s how he rolls these days, after yelling how his powers were great as they allowed him to kill demons without hurting the hosts) and we barely learned anything new.
Almost from the beginning, for months I’ve suspected Ruby to be working for Azazel, we all have, that she was following his plan and pushing Sam into the “right” direction not because she was feeling bad for humans or whatever, but quite the opposite. So last week, I didn’t believe what she said, I thought that last seal was actually to kill Lilith, and that it had to be broken by Sam, chosen by Azazel, because he was special or a good guy turned demon or something.
I believed all that so strongly that this week, when Zachariah said Lilith had to break the last seal, I didn’t buy it. All we suspected got confirmed, and we didn’t even found out why Sam, why was he chosen / the chosen one. And Ruby dying was nice (although for that last “I’m awesome/I’m dead” part, I kinda wished we had Katie Cassidy), but felt a but anticlimactic to me. Couldn’t she have, I don’t know, escaped from her host’s body before she got stabbed?
Anyways, the only news was that all along the “good” guys wanted the exact same thing as the bad ones: both Angels and Demons were fighting for the same thing, to get Lucifer free, to bring the Apocalypse down to Earth. Both sides for the same reasons : they’re convinced they will win.
Which begs the question: did God really leave the building? Is he gone, MIA, trapped somewhere, were people acting against his will, or does he really want that? Given that arc angels were going after Castiel when he was visiting Chuck, I would imagine God actually is pro-Apocalypse as well. It’s in interesting twist, but then what was the point of killing Uriel? Hell, why was he even killing Angels? Since they all wanted the same thing in the end, it seems a bit unnecessary.
Sam was too deep into his lies that he refused to hear his brother’s voice in the back, and when Lilith was clearly not even trying to fight back and defend herself, so she could break that last seal, when instead she was pushing him to kill her, he couldn’t see what was going on, and if Dean started the whole thing, Sam is clearly the one to blame for what will now happen.
About that, I’m not sure I’m looking forward to a “Hell-on-Earth” season, I’m not sure what they have in mind, but that could radically change everything on the show. But maybe I’ll feel better about it in a few days, as for now I felt this episode, was not a bad one, was also not really satisfying/exciting, not really a kick-ass season finale.
What did everybody else think?
Posted in Reviews
Shows: Supernatural
After a rash of disappointing season enders, I thought at least this one would be satisfying. Nope.
I guessed that one possibility was that killing Lilith would break the last seal, but I also thought the stakes could be higher than that. Because Sam was so dead set on killing her, I was certain that we would at least hear the claim that her death would break the last seal, but I thought it might be disinformation from Lilith, and the real means to break the seal could be to break the bond between the brothers, probably by having one kill the other. The lie would have been a clever gambit on her part, because the safety of the whole world might be the one thing that would cause Dean to raise his hand to Sam. It would have made sense then that Ruby stayed away, in order to expose Sam’s demon-blood addiction and alienate the brothers, rather than almost having it screw up her entire plan. Lilith’s attempt to offer Sam a deal to save the world in exchange for his and Dean’s lives would have made Sam responsible for Dean’s death. There would also have been a nice irony in God using the humans Satan despised to bind him. As it was, conflict between the brothers was the subtext of the Apocalypse rather than the text.
The biggest problem with the outcome is that the series may have written a check its ass can’t cash. They did not allow Sam anything redemptive in the finale. He’s just left despicable for having been corrupt and foolish. Although there is shared blame because of Dean’s passivity and Castiel’s blind obedience to orders, the responsibility for Satan’s rising falls squarely on Sam’s shoulders. If the Apocalypse results in people dying in a battle between angels and demons, that’s on him. That doesn’t work. It can’t work. We need to like both brothers in order for this show to function. I want to watch Supernatural, not The Adventures of Dean and His Asshole Brother. Plus, now that Sam appears to have recovered his moral bearings, how can his own existence not be excruciatingly painful for him? There is also the problem you mention of navigating the series through a hell-on-earth setting. The Season 5 scenario seems unremittingly bleak: Sam is heavily compromised, Dean started the Apocalypse, the angels are sociopathic, the world is coming to an end, and God doesn’t give a damn. Pass the hemlock. Were the writers so focused on delivering daring, risky writing that they forgot that the audience has to want to watch?
There’s also a lot of confusion about Dean’s importance and why Sam should have the role he did. The initial reason given for Dean, that only the man who started the Apocalypse could end it, had a nice symmetry. Castiel even supposedly dragged Dean out of Hell to try to avert his touching off the Apocalypse and spoke grimly about dire battles and the breaking of seals. Now they tell us both sides actually wanted the Apocalypse (I guess except for the angels who were killed), and the angels lock Dean up so he can’t interfere. Dean’s now special because he can defeat Satan, not because he can stop the Apocalypse. Does any of this mean anything, or is it an “oops, we just got renewed, better rewrite that”? Sam is spoken of as “special” too, and Ruby says only he could have been the one to kill Lilith. There are a lot worse people out there, who wouldn’t have even needed to be corrupted to get on board, and there were even other babies poisoned with demon blood. So why him? Why should someone who was so recognizably a good person have been dragged this far down?
I was alright with the finale but I’m not analyzing and reading between the lines and guessing, i’m just along for the ride. yup hopefully we’ll be in for some good drama with sam doing evil things and such. hopefully the writers don’t lose themselves and then have to bail themselves out with a blunt talk (ex:Dean and Zacha…Zach about Dean feeling self-pity) also I can only hope God isn’t captured because wtf he’s God. I bet he’s just learned not to interfere with humans or something. I was also hoping they would delve into why the angels went bad on us like in Dogma they worked so hard and got nothing and humans a chaotic and corrupt race gets chances and praise at every turn.