Supernatural: What?!? God is a Dead Beat Dad?

Supernatural has got its groove back. It wasn’t very action packed but it shed some light to how things could very well end up in the future that we saw back in episode eighty-six. The biggest revelation is how Castiel went from angel cut off from heaven to the womanizing and alcohol-drinking creature Dean met in the future.

The episode literally has an explosive beginning when two hunters who knew that the younger brother started the apocalypse kill Sam and Dean via shotgun to the chests. The Winchesters have a penchant for dying and have apparently been brought back to life multiple times already. This time though we are shown what heaven is like. You can think about it wherein each soul that makes it there has a personal wonderland that is created from their best memories. Dean wakes up in the middle of a road in his car, where a much younger Sam finds him with a box of fireworks. They proceed to go to the forest where the older Winchester relives a very happy Fourth of July memory from 1996. After coming back to his car attempting to make sense of what was going on, Castiel contacts him via radio and tells him that he’s in heaven and so is Sam. All he has to do is to follow the road. Unfortunately it’s not quite like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz where the yellow brick road is in plain sight. After Dean finds Sam reliving one of his fond memories, their next “road” is a small toy car racetrack.

Castiel is able to contact them again via television this time and he tells the brothers to keep on the road till they get to the garden and there they need to find Joshua. Joshua is the only angel that God continues to speak to. The Lord Almighty is the last hope that these good guys have left, the only being capable of stopping Lucifer and Armageddon. After nearly being caught by Zachariah, Sam and Dean reunite with Ash (who had been killed in the Roadhouse Saloon fire during season 2). He explains that he’s been tracking the brothers since they got to heaven and he helps them find a shortcut to the garden. Before they depart, Ash brings in an old friend who wanted to say hello to the boys. It’s psychic Pamela Barnes who died while helping Sam and Dean send out astral projections of themselves.

Pam tells Dean that maybe becoming Michael’s vessel and having the apocalypse really get going wouldn’t be such a bad thing because being in heaven wasn’t all that horrible. She was actually happy. He doesn’t agree with her though and views heaven as fake and more like a prison. Earth was real. This exchange was great because it takes a conventional view of heaven and gives viewers a different perspective. It’s interesting that for Dean that hell and now heaven are really just cages that trap people.

They are saved from Zachariah’s clutches once again by Joshua, who claimed that God had a message for them. Fearing the Almighty’s wrath, the other angel backs off. The whole episode builds up to this moment, where Joshua tells the brothers that God isn’t going to stop the apocalypse because he doesn’t think that it’s his problem. Basically they are on their own and they won’t be able to find him no matter what. Dean is furious and even worse his faith is breaking. He angrily rants to Joshua that God is just another deadbeat dad then and he’s been around that his entire life. The angel though retorts back saying that the Lord has helped them numerous times, brought them back to life, brought Castiel back to help them, but that now he was done.

Sam and Dean are returned to their bodies with full memories of their time in heaven. They recall the events to Castiel who seems just as broken as Dean is. It’s Sam who tells his older brother that somehow they’d find a way through this, their roles switching and the younger Winchester must now be the stronger one. The scene ends with Dean throwing his amulet (this amulet becomes hot in the presence of God) in the trash, claiming he doesn’t need it anymore.

What is great about this episode is the plot development. The main characters are in even deeper trouble than they thought and God’s intervention would have allowed them a way out in a seemingly impossible situation. Now it all appeared to be hopeless that the most powerful being in existence is unwilling to help. They are faced with the grim reality that there really might be nothing more that they can do to stop the apocalypse from continuing. Questions that must be swimming through Dean’s mind are: Are humans truly helpless to be pawns in a game between supernatural beings? Does God even care about humans if he’s willing to let so many die? What’s the point of trying to fight if it all turns out the same way anyway?

The circumstances have never looked direr for the Winchesters and I wonder how they’ll get out of it. Can they even get out of it? It seems that they are all out of miracles this time around, but as a viewer you can’t help but root for them. They represent our interests in this unfair game of good versus evil, or maybe evil versus evil, depending on how you look at it. Makes you wonder though if the apocalypse is one of those “it must happen” scenarios where it’s not fair, but that’s life. So what are our heroes going to do now? I’m going to cling to the hope that it doesn’t all end tragically.

Season 5, Episode 16: Dark Side of the Moon (originally aired April 1, 2010)

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Photograph courtesy of The CW and Jack Rowand.