We all saw it coming, right? If Crowley wasn’t going to let the Winchesters get their hands on a demon for the third trial, then of course Crowley was going to be the third trial.
The brothers call Crowley just in time to save his date, Sheriff Jody Mills, from a bloody hex bag fate. This is the deal: the Winchesters will stop the trials give up the demon tablet if Crowley stops killing people they’ve saved, and hands over the angel tablet. Crowley draws up a lengthy contract, and Dean uses having to read the whole thing as an opportunity to get close enough to Crowley to cuff him with the engraved cuffs from the Men of Letters lair.
They’re all set to begin the trial when Cas appears and begs for Dean’s help. Cas and Metatron had been pursuing a cupid’s bow for the second trial to close heaven when Naomi swooped in and took Metatron. Sam insists that he can handle Crowley, and Dean somewhat reluctantly goes with Cas.
What Sam doesn’t anticipate is Crowley biting him as he’s injecting his purified blood into him. With the blood he’s drawn from Sam, he’s able to call for help. Help comes in the form of Abaddon, and really, she’s out to take Crowley’s crown. After recovering from being thrown out a window, Sam is able to torch Abaddon, but she escapes in a cloud of black demon smoke. Sam continues the ritual and Crowley begins to crack, giving a startlingly passionate rant about how he deserves to be loved.
After giving the angel tablet to a very weary Kevin to translate, Cas and Dean stake out the bar where Metatron had been taken, as the bartender is scheduled to be struck by cupid at any moment. And before we get to that, shout out to Supernatural for obliterating the fourth wall when Cas asks Dean if it’s a good idea for him to be drinking on the job, and Dean responds, “What show have you been watching?”
So back to the bartender. A delivery woman arrives and flirts with both him and the one regular who is sitting at the bar. In an unexpected turn of events, she is the cupid, and she connects the two men. When Cas and Dean approach her, she hands over her bow with little fight, wanting the mess in heaven to be resolved as well.
But something’s not right. Kevin tells them that there’s nothing in the tablet about these supposed trials. That’s when Naomi appears. She’s been in Metatron’s head and insists that he’s not trying to close heaven, but destroy it, which Cas is not inclined to believe. She also tells Dean that if Sam completes the trials, he will die. The ultimate sacrifice.
Cas rushes Dean back to Sam just as he’s about to finish the ritual. Dean tries to stop him and it all falls apart in a way that reminds you that this show is really about these two brothers who live and die for each other. When Sam confessed his sins to purify his blood, he’d said his biggest sin was letting Dean down over and over again. He’d been carrying so much guilt about that, wondering who Dean would turn to next time he failed him. Dean reiterated that nothing and no one was more important to him than Sam. He’d had Benny go to his death to save Sam. And not even closing the gates of hell was worth sacrificing his little brother. And so Sam let’s go and for a second it looks like it’s over, but then Sam is struck down by pain.
Dean pulls him away from the almost-demon cleanse and they go outside just as sky starts opening and angels begin to fall like comets. Naomi had been telling the truth. Cas arrived in heaven to find her dead (or immobilized, as some fans are speculating – there were no wing burns). Metatron straps Cas down and slits his throat to take his grace, which is the third trial to take heaven down and make all the angels fall. He heals Cas’s wound and tells him to go and live out his normal life, and to come back and tell him his stories when he’s died and returned to heaven. Cas wakes up back on earth in time to see his brethren falling.
By the end of this finale, I was mostly still crying over the big Sam-and-Dean scene. But the biggest questions I’m left with are What will happen to Sam? To Crowley? To Cas? Where will this leave all of them? And of course, how will the world react to the fallen angels? Until next season, wayward sons!
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