Though this season has had some great moments, and has set the stage for some interesting developments this episode has made me believe more than ever that Supernatural should have ended last season. In this episode Sam survives remembering a brief moment in hell. He agrees with Dean that they shouldn’t dig into the time he spent hunting with Samuel the previous year for his own sake. Immediately they movie on their next case.
The Winchester boys come across a haunting where a ghost is using mannequins to kill workers at a factory. After some digging they find out that a ghost was a woman killed by the workers accidentally during a prank gone wrong. True to the rules of ghosts in Supernatural, Sam digs up the body and burns the remains. The only problem is the murders still continue. It is revealed that the ghost donated a kidney to her sister before she died, and that kidney is what’s binding the ghost to Earth. Meanwhile Dean gets a call from Ben, his surrogate son and child of his ex Lisa. Lisa is depressed, and Ben needs Dean to help. Ben’s call is a parent trap, trying to get his mother and surrogate father back together. Lisa and Dean end their relationship for good. After, Dean meets up with Sam and the girl with the haunted kidney. When possessing and destroying the Impala, the ghost unintentionally kills her sister.
I didn’t get the point of this episode. It was a downer on nearly every front. The brothers kill an innocent girl to save a group of murders. Dean turns his back on his family and Sam gives up trying to find redemption for his actions while soulless. The darkness of “Unforgiven” and nearly every other amazingly depressing episode of Supernatural should be to show the fortitude of heroes. They keep hope alive when all seems hopeless. Sam was willing to risk his life, and sanity to make amends for something that wasn’t really his fault. That shows tremendous strength of character. Dean being able to have a family with Lisa and Ben showed that there’s more to the elder Winchester than just a warrior. If the brothers give up those elements of their humanity, than their mission has to at least be an important one. They’d be like Batman, giving up any chance of happiness to save Gotham City. But none of that matters unless Batman can stop the Joker from killing innocent people. In this episode the girl they meet just ended up as another body to stuff in the refrigerator.
The only bright spot at the end of this episode is that Sam tells Dean he “has his back”. We’ve done this before. We know Sam and Dean love each other. Sam was able to overpower Lucifer because of his love for his brother. Unless we want to get into the creepy “Wincest” faction of Supernatural fandom, which argues that the brothers are lovers, there’s no need to continue with this. Take the characters in a different direction. Show them trying something else to make their live worth while. We know the boys are damaged, but they’ve been given about a million second chances to make their lives count for something.
Swansong was the perfect ending for Supernatural. Dean gets a bittersweet ending and hope for a better life. Sam gets to go out in a blaze of glory throwing the Devil back into Hell, atoning for releasing him in the first place. Give us something different. You were onto something good with the “Mother of All”. Explore that. Show us the fall out of Castiel and Raphael’s war in Heaven. Explain where Mama Winchester’s soul is. Do something new! Cut it out with these retreaded filler episodes.
On a scale of 1 to Epic, (Epic= 10) I’d give it a 6.5