I’ve been delaying writing this recap because I’m still not sure exactly how I feel about the finale. I liked all of the components (except one, which I’ll get to), and it was emotional, exciting and ended with a massive cliffhanger – all of the traditional elements of a successful SPN season-ender. And yet, I don’t know – it didn’t feel as epic as SPN finales usually do for some reason. Maybe it was just me? I hope it was just me. Anyway, before we get too far into it, let’s relive the always awesome ‘The Road So Far’ montage set to the unofficially official SPN theme song:

I love that they start it off every year this same way. The sense of tradition and history (it’s been seven years – that’s a long time in tv land!) grows stronger each time, and that song never fails to put me in the mood to watch a couple of brothers go about the business of saving people and hunting things.

When we last left off, the Winchesters had most of the ingredients necessary to do permanent damage to Dick and put an end to his plan to turn humans into veal via the mass dissemination of high fructose corn syrup. This week we learned another aspect to the plan – some humans have fast metabolisms, or anemia, or a million other things that would prevent them from fattening up for slaughter – what to do about them? Well, Dick was just about to unleash a new non-dairy creamer that would target and slowly kill those people off, so that eventually they wouldn’t be infecting the population with their bony frames and lack of delicious flavor. And he demonstrated his point by having a very slim, very young girl strip down to her underwear before getting injected with the stuff. Why? I’m not sure – but he definitely earned his name this week.

Sam and Dean had the Alpha blood and the Cas blood – this week they needed to get Crowley’s blood and the bone of a righteous mortal. They took care of the bone by grabbing one from a dead nun who Cas identified in one sniff. And that was one of the less weird things he did this week. But Crowley was the wild card – he had been approached by Dick in an effort to double cross the brothers in exchange for the Leviathans staying out of Canada and leaving those poor saps to the demons. First of all, we Canadians are whores for seeing ourselves mentioned in American pop culture so even though we were being offered up as monster food, I know we all thoroughly enjoyed it. Second of all, Crowley got a shitty deal. Doesn’t he know that Canada only has 30 million people compared to America’s 300?

But Crowley is ultimately a mensch, and we knew he’d come through for Team Not Dick (maybe he did know about that population thing after all). There was no way that Dick was going to live to bib another subordinate past the season finale and the brothers ended up with everything they needed to take him out. I guess maybe if I had to say why it felt less epic than previous season finales, it’s because the actual battle was really no different from any other monster kill and there was a lot of prep leading up to it. Think about Michael vs. Lucifer in the field – THAT was an epic fight. THAT took up about half an episode and featured Impala flashbacks, tears, deaths and resurrections. This fight was a few quippy remarks and a bone through the neck. It did have one MAJOR unforeseen consequence however, but we’ll get back to that.

First we have to talk about a couple of other things, one being the return of a major character that we haven’t laid eyes on since the beginning of the season: the Impala! I admit it – I was totally fist-pumping the return of the Metallicar as Meg drove it through the Sucrocorp sign in front of Levi HQ. It’s been so long! And as eye-rolly as it may be for fans to attach such importance to an inanimate object, the car really has become vital to the characters and to the show, and there has been a definite void in its absence for all these months.

Just as we got the car back, we had to say (a permanent) goodbye to Bobby, since he finally realized that desperately clinging to his ghost life was more problematic than anything. While I love Jim Beaver and I’m always happy to see him, this is the aspect of the episode that I had the biggest problem with. I haven’t been behind this idea of vengeful ghost Bobby since its inception, but I admit I thought it was going to pay off with him having a big hero moment in the finale before he left for good. I figured he’d have a big hand in taking Dick down, you know? Like he’d turn his powers of mindless anger into a weapon to help out his boys somehow. But no – he simply realized, after totally fucking with the life of an innocent hotel housekeeper, that he was headed down a dark path and asked the boys to burn the flask and send him on his way. And it all happened way before the big showdown. This is a good thing for the character, but by doing it when they did, I have to wonder what the point of it all was. Was it just to have Bobby around as long as possible? Now that I’ve seen the arc wrap up, I just don’t really get it. It undermined the intelligence and hunter-like detachment that we know Bobby possesses, and it seemed to be largely pointless. I don’t know – I’m sure that there are others who disagree, so definitely share your opinions on this in the comments. It was a nice goodbye though, I’ll give them that (even if that metal flask did melt far too easily, like an ice cream cone on a hot summer day):

So back to that cliffhanger ending: taking out Dick didn’t turn out exactly like Team Impala had hoped. First of all, it didn’t succeed in killing off all leviathans – it simply left them without a leader. So, as Crowley helpfully pointed out to Sam, it’s now their responsibility to prevent them from organizing again, because organized monsters are the most threatening monsters. More importantly, Dick took a couple of important people with him when he got sent to the monster retirement village known as Purgatory. Dean and Cas are now trapped there with the worst of monster-kind, and I’m guessing that they are targets 1 and 2 on everyone’s list down there. Plus, there is the small matter of Sam, left alone on earth (Crowley helped himself to Kevin and Meg) to figure out where they are and how to get them back. I am excited that we’re finally getting a taste of the mystery that has been Purgatory, and I’m excited to see how it’s resolved next year, especially what it might mean for Cas. I mean, look – we know that Dean is going to come back. That is not even a question. But how it happens, and what happens to Cas, the contientious objector to the monster war, is up in the air. Personally, I’d love to see Cas forced back into fighting form by his predicament so that he can return with Dean and resume working with the brothers again. It’s been fun (and surprisingly emotional) to see his broken side (see the opening gif of this post), but it can’t go on forever. And lets face it – there is literally nobody left that the brothers can count on (except for Sheriff Jody Mills, but something tells me that she won’t be riding shotgun in the Metallicar anytime soon). They need all the help they can get, and I for one am not ready to say goodbye to that trench coat just yet. Or ever.

As some of you know, Sera Gamble, the longtime SPN writer who stepped in as showrunner this year is leaving the show and another longtime writer, Jeremy Carver, is taking over next year. I have never been down on Gamble like some of the other fans have been (and for fuck’s sake – the crazier members of the fandom have been absolutely VICIOUS in their criticism of her) and I did think that overall this season was really enjoyable. I’d even go so far as to say that it was more coherent and successfully laid out than the Season of Eve where the big bad seemed to change on a weekly basis. She’s also written some really fantastic individual episodes of the show over the years. She’s done a good job, OKAY? But I am excited to see where Carver takes the story, because he has written some of my very favorite episodes ever – A Very Supernatural Christmas, Mystery Spot and Changing Channels to name a few. I have every confidence that he will kick ass in his new role, so I’m really excited for what’s to come. And in case you don’t follow the upfronts as closely as us tv bloggers, the show will be moving to Wednesdays next year (out of Friday Purgatory – yay!).

So that’s it for me – I guess overall my feelings were mixed on the episode, but when all was said and done, it was classic SPN and what’s not to like about classic SPN? Now I want to hear from you guys – thoughts on the finale? The season overall? Predictions for next year? I want to hear it all, even it’s just ‘FUCK YEAH, METALLICAR!!!’ Thanks for hanging out with me this season – can’t wait to see you all back here to rehash the episodes on Thursdays in October!