Supernatural - S11E21 - All in the Family
Previously on Supernatural, “Don’t Call Me Shurley”
With only three episodes left (including this one), Supernatural is done with standalone monster-of-the-week episodes and prepares for the stretch by ramping up the main storyline in the fight against Amara. Leaving off where last episode ended, Sam and Dean are confronted by Chuck. Chuck tells them he’s been God all along, but of course Dean doesn’t believe him until Chuck snaps them back into the bunker and conjures up dead prophet Kevin Tram (Osric Chau), who has a quick, but somewhat emotional, cameo as he verifies Chuck’s veracity and tells them to trust him before he’s whisked back to heaven.
Having proof, Sam now stands in awe of Chuck to the point where he starts babbling about nonsense, but Dean is gonna Dean and tells God he ain’t shit. He starts bringing up old shit like where he’s been during the World Wars and plagues and rise of evil, but Chuck is having none of it and tells Dean not to get it twisted: He’s not John Winchester. Sam recalls that Lucifer once helped him beat Amara so perhaps they can rescue him to beat her again, but Chuck is also having none of that as he fears Lucifer and Amara have teamed up and are setting a trap.
Meanwhile, Amara releases another smoke monster which destroys another town killing everyone except one guy named Donatello (Keith Szarabajka). (Yes, Dean thought he was named after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.) Donatello happens to be God’s new prophet. Once Sam and Dean verify this, they give him a crash course in everything that’s happening causing Donatello to turn into a hot mess.
While watching the news, Metatron notices that Chuck has contacted the Winchesters and immediately meets to tell them of Chuck’s real plan: to sacrifice himself to Amara. When Dean confronts Chuck, Chuck admits that he’s going to make a deal with Amara to allow himself to be caged in exchange for saving humanity. When Dean asks what’s to stop Amara from wiping humanity away once Chuck is caged, Chuck answers that humans will have to find a way and that he’s saved Dean and Sam countless times because they are the firewall that protects light from Amara’s darkness.
Surmising that the only way to get Chuck to act is to have Lucifer on their side. Dean, Sam, Metatron and Donatello meet up to devise a plan to free Lucifer from Amara. Since Amara’s been sending visions to Dean all episode, Dean meets up with Amara, while the rest of the boys go rescue Lucifer. As an extremely thirsty Amara is busy telling Dean she wants to take him inside to literally make him a part of her, Sam, Donatello, and Metatron are freeing Lucifer from his bonds. Eventually Amara catches on to the deception and teleports back, but not before Donatello senses her. In a surprising move, Metatron sacrifices himself and stays behind to face Amara while the boys escape in the Impala, but Amara brushes off Metatron’s attack and apparently destroys him. She then appears to have the boys trapped in the Impala, but before she can dispose of them Chuck finally decides to get involved and snaps the Impala back to the bunker saying he does answer some prayers.
Supernatural S11E21
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Plot: a lot of plot holes - 7/107/10
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Dialogue: one of the few episodes where a lot of the comedy fell flat - 7/107/10
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Action: Metatron’s light spell on Amara looked '80s cheesy - 6/106/10
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Performances: I don’t know how Dean conjured up those tears, but it was good - 9/109/10
Summary
It’s apparent Supernatural doesn’t have enough story for the allotted amount of episodes dedicated to the main plot line, let alone for an entire 23-episode run. I went back and of the 21 episodes that have aired so far, only 8 have dealt with the main plot, and of those, Amara, the big bad, has appeared in only 6. Because of the need stretch the story we get episodes like this one which drag on with virtually nothing happening. While we get Chuck’s plan, and Lucifer/Castiel is freed, I felt those things could have happened last episode instead of spending half the episode with Chuck whining in his bar. Also, this episode is full of plot devices that, although not a big deal, still took me out of the episode. I understand making a joke by having God take long showers, but he’s fucking God! Can’t he just remove the dirty molecules off of him? It works for the Molecule Man. Also, when Donatello sensed Amara was coming, what took her so long? Metatron was able to conjure a spell that released Lucifer from his bonds, Sam and Donatello were able to carry Lucifer away while Metatron gave his speech about sacrificing himself, and she still hadn’t arrived. WTF? Did she take the subway?
Anyway, there’s only two episodes left and while I’m ready for the season to end, I am curious how they’re going to end this because unless Amara is the big bad next season, too (God I hope not), I just don’t see where they go from here.
Deans man-tears were awesome. It reminded me of last seasons episode where he was trying to get Sam to stop trying to save him😢😢😢