Warning: Spoiler Alert
Last season, Supernatural left us with one of it’s best cliffhangers yet. Dean (Jensen Ackles) was dead (again), and Sam (Jared Padalecki) was on a mission to bring him back (again). Same old, same old, right? Here’s the twist: Instead of his brother or our favorite trench coated angel, Castiel (Misha Collins) flying to the rescue, it’s Crowley (Mark Sheppard), King of Hell that saves the day. He is the one who brings our boy with the Mark of Cain back…sort of. After a very dramatic, and frankly, very cool speech – with lines like, “Howl at the moon with me.” – from Crowley, Dean’s eyes pop open, but they aren’t the Disney princess green that we fell in love with nine season ago. Jet black, DEMON eyes flash back at us.
Full disclosure, I knew this was going to happen. I tend to watch all my shows the day after they air on the DVR, and the internet was positively abuzz with fans freaking out about Demon! Dean. I couldn’t get away from it, and I love a good spoiler anyway. But even so, when his eyes opened and they were black, I screamed. I screamed like a tween girl at a One Direction concert. It was eyes, screen goes black, I grab a pillow and scream into it like a little sissy chicken baby. Seeing it in theory on the internet was one thing, but seeing it in practice was downright shocking. It was expertly presented, and it set the fandom afire.
According to all the promos and spoilers I’ve seen, Dean jumps right into demon life with great gusto. At first, I had the knee-jerk Fangirl reaction of “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY POOR BABY!”. But, I have had some time to think about it. It makes complete sense. Who else would make a better demon than Dean? He is a lusty being, a glutton at heart, and wrathful at the drop of a hat. That’s three of the seven deadly sins just from the core basis of his character.
As a demon, it is as if a weight got lifted. He goes to karaoke, hits on the waitresses and drinks a lot of beer. He is so free with himself. But where does that leave Sam? We have seen the brothers fight before, it being something of a running theme throughout the entirety of the show. With Dean being a demon, he doesn’t have any of his morals anymore, however loose they may have been. From a San Diego Comic Con sneak peek, we see Dean chasing Sam through the bunker with a hatchet, taking swings at him. He taunts him with calls of “Sammy”. Sam turns the tables on him and gets a knife to Dean’s throat. Dean flashes his demon eyes and says, “Do it.”
Most people, I think see that as a dare from Dean. A sort of “go on, ya pansy” sort of thing. The way he says it, though. Its sort of sad. No, it’s really sad. Demons are the one thing that Dean has hated most in life. He has always been self-loathing, but now he has become his worst nightmare. There is an episode very early in the series where Dean hallucinates himself as a demon. The fake demon Dean yells “This is what you’ll become!”. Beautiful foreshadowing on the writer’s part, even if it was unintentional.
Dean is not the only one with serious issues. Castiel has angel grace back, yes, but it is a stolen grace. It isn’t meant for him, so it is burning out fast. When it burns out, Cas goes poof. The only way to fix the situation is for Cas to get his own grace back. But, where is it? I have a theory that it’s gone forever. Metatron (Curtis Armstrong) used Castiel’s grace for the spell that kicked everyone out of heaven and locked the doors behind them, so it would make sense if it burned up in the process. Without his grace, Cas will eventually die. I can’t see him going the rest of existence stealing other angels’ graces. It’s just not Cas. But if they kill off Cas, there is no justice in the world, and I will never be able to enjoy television again.
There are other options, though. One, Cas becomes human, but that’s been done and it’s boring. Metatron keeps hinting that Castiel’s grace’s locked away somewhere in heaven, possibly sustaining the spell that is keeping everyone out of heaven. This could go two ways. One, Metatron is lying and Castiel kills him (which has to happen at some point anyway), but then takes Metatron’s grace, which is so powerful, it can keep Cas going forever. Option two, Metatron is NOT lying, Cas gets his grace back, kills Metatron, and bam, happily ever after.
Some characters could make another appearance this season, which make me endlessly excited. Charlie Bradbury’s (Felicia Day) rumored to come back. She got stuck in Oz after following Dorothy through a portal. It’ll be very interesting to see how they go about getting her back into this world. There has also been a lot of chatter about Osric Chau reprising his role as Kevin Tran. The fandom just about exploded over his death at the hand of Gadreel, who was possessing Sam at the time. The fans just outright loved that kid.
There is just so much to look forward to this coming season. Dean doing karaoke, the possible return of Charlie and Kevin, Castiel just being on my television (I’m sorry, he’s my favorite), and the magical 200th episode, which is a…wait for it…MUSICAL episode.
I may explode from excitement before October 7th gets here.
Supernatural will premiere Tuesday October 7, at 9:00pm on CW.
