Baby’s Rear View Recap: 11.23 “Alpha and Omega”

This post is about Supernatural season 11 episode 23 “Alpha and Omega” written by Andrew Dabb and directed by Philip Sgriccia.

*****Spoilers below*****

“You know when you're driving and a bug hits your windshield? I'm the bug.”

This episode opens right where the last one left off, with Cas and Chuck both unconscious and Sam and Dean on the floor. Sam and Dean make their way to one another and then Dean instructs Sam to check on Chuck while he goes to Cas. It turns out Lucifer is gone and Chuck is dying—and Amara is the only cure. Rowena and Crowley join them and the group heads outside to stare into the dying sun.

“If you've got something for me to punch, shoot, or kill, let me know and I'll do it. I'll do it till I die. But how are we supposed to fix the friggin' sun?”

Chuck snaps them back to the bunker, where Dean proceeds to give up and get drunk.

“On my way.”

Meanwhile in England, a classy lady arrives home. She’s greeted by some sort of servant and has just sat down to drink some tea when she receives a call. She’s being given instructions and it doesn’t look good for the Winchesters, as she’s got a cork board in a hidden room covered with pictures of them. With a goodbye kiss to what seems to be her son, she’s on her way to Kansas.

“Anything. That's my better idea, because anything is better than this.”

Rowena cares for Chuck while Crowley drinks and grumbles and Sam frets about what to do next. Sam bugs them until they decide that the next logical step is killing Amara to restore balance to the universe.

“But you're always there, you know? You're the best friend we've ever had. You're our brother, Cass. I want you to know that.”

Dean has taken Cas on a beer run, because that’s the logical thing to do when the world is ending and you’ve already downed half your stock of beer. Dean asks Cas how he’s doing after the whole Lucifer thing. It’s clear Cas isn’t doing too well and Dean assures Cas that he’s appreciated. Just then Dean gets a call from Sam and heads home, abandoning the beer.

“Well, desperate and stupid's pretty much all we got right now.”

The team dreams up a soul bomb, because souls are light and light is Amara’s weakness. Hoping to harvest souls, the team splits up. Cas heads to heaven, Crowley goes to hell, and Dean and Sam travel to Waverly Hills Sanatorium.

“Let's give the magic word a shot, because we're six.”

Once in the Sanatorium, Dean sets up a salt circle and Sam lures the ghosts inside it. As Sam struggles to keep abreast of the crowd of ghosts, Dean throws a magic crystal into the air and yells “haggis,” trapping the souls inside. As they leave, we see that Billie has been watching them.

“Little tip -- you want souls, call a reaper.”

Heaven is unwilling to help and hell is unable. Luckily Billie shows up at the bunker, ready to donate all the souls stuck in the veil.

“You know family: even when you hate them, you still love them.”

Amara talks to an old lady in the park about family and nature.

“You won't carry the bomb. You'll be the bomb.”

Once they get the souls from Billie, they need to figure out how to use them against Amara. Cas points out that Dean has the best shot at getting close to Amara. Rowena explains that it’s a suicide mission, and Dean agrees to do it. They put the souls into his chest and Rowena warns that he only has an hour before the bomb goes up.

“Where we headed?”

“Lebanon, Kansas.”

Meanwhile, the British woman has arrived in the states and is headed for the bunker.

“Come on. You know the drill. No chick-flick moments. Come on.”
“Yeah, you love chick flicks.”
“Yeah, you're right.”

The team convenes at the graveyard where Mary Winchester is buried so that Dean can say his last goodbyes. Sam tries to tell Dean he doesn’t have to do it, but Dean says he does. Chuck tells him that he doesn’t want to kill Amara, but that he understands. Cas steals Dean away from God to give him a hug and offer to go with him. But Dean needs him to stay behind to take care of Sam. Dean describes the funeral he wants, hands the keys to Baby over to Sam, and gives him a steely hug that will make fans everywhere cry for years to come. Then Chuck snaps him to Amara.

“You don't want to be alone. Not really. I mean, hell. Maybe that's why you wanted me. But deep down, you didn't really want me 'cause I'm not him. So maybe I can kill you. Or maybe I can't. Maybe if I pull this trigger, we all live happily ever after, or maybe we die bloody, or maybe it doesn't matter, because maybe there's a different way. So I'm gonna ask you again. Put aside the rage. Put aside the hate. And you tell me what do you want?”

Amara senses the bomb immediately and there’s nothing for Dean to do but talk. Dean tells her how revenge is never enough—you need family.

“You know, we, um we need you to try and hang in there just a little longer.”

Meanwhile the team sits in an empty bar, dejected and waiting. Sam tries to comfort God, but when he turns around with a glass of water, God is gone.

“Dean, you gave me what I needed most. I want to do the same for you.”

Amara has snapped God into the park so that she can talk to him about what she really wants. Dean watches as Amara admits that God’s creations are beautiful and that she just wants to be family again. She heals him, the sun comes back, and the siblings smoke off into oblivion. But not before Chuck rids Dean of his extra souls.

“You and I both know you're not gonna pull the trigger.”

Cas and Sam, who both think Dean is dead, arrive back at the bunker. Cas tries to comfort Sam, but he doesn’t have the chance because British Lady Toni Bevell is waiting for them. Toni banishes Cas and then tells Sam that she is under orders from the men of letters to bring him in for all the destruction he has caused. She’s got a gun trained on him, but he’s not feeling particularly cooperative. When he goads Toni, she shoots.

“Mom?”

Dean, who is not dead but is lost in the woods, hears a cry for help and runs toward it. He’s shocked to find that it’s his mother.

Questions:

So… Waverly Hills is in Kentucky? It’s not exactly close to Kansas. Did God snap them there? If so, how did they get back to the bunker? That would take at least a day driving… right?

Um, I don’t know if they know this but Amara eats souls? So is a soul bomb really a great idea? How could they not know that she would be able to sense that power? Did they know, and they just sent Dean in there anyway?

What would have happened to those souls in the soul bomb? Would they have been destroyed forever? Sucked into the oblivion? Shouldn’t that be addressed? Like I get that maybe saving the living takes priority, but destroying the dead is a little yech. Also, if Kevin got stuck in the veil, did Charlie too? So would her soul have been in there? And what happened to the souls when Chuck took them out of Dean?

Dean really has a clear picture of what he wants for his funeral. Doesn’t it seem like he’s thought about it a little too thoroughly? I mean, that’s really sad.

DID SAM GET SHOT?

Where did Cas get sent to? Why didn’t Dean pray to him immediately to tell him he was alive? Can Cas still hear prayers (sometimes I forget what powers he currently has)? Because he was stumbling around in the woods long enough for it to get dark and for Cas and Sam to drive back to the bunker at least, so you would think he would have stopped to pray instead of searching for cell reception. No?

Is Mary alive? Or was that some sort of ghost or other apparition? Is this temporary, or is she a real live human? Why is she in her nightie? If she was pulled out of time right before she was killed, shouldn’t she be 29? Is this on earth, or was Dean possibly sent to heaven? WHAT IS GOING ON?

Conclusions:

This episode for me was leaps and bounds better than last week’s. It was a little oddly paced, particularly for a finale, but it was based entirely around the emotional core that was missing so badly from the episodes preceding it. I love the emotional stuff; THIS IS WHAT I’M HERE FOR.

And those hugs. You guys, I can’t even.

I really loved seeing a finale that was slow and sad and where nobody died. It wasn’t perfect, but I will absolutely take it. The plot was a little rushed, probably because of the space given to emotions. I have to admit, I didn’t really feel like Amara’s decision in the end was justified by the explanations we were given. The entire season was built up around one thing, and then it turns out that the thing is nothing and that she suddenly realized for no reason that she wants a different thing? It felt a little anti-climactic. But on the other hand, I prefer this ending completely to both of them dying for nothing. I’m so proud of show for taking it this direction!

And it was still a pretty good finale. I am SO excited for season 12, where I literally wasn’t at all before this episode. That’s what a finale is supposed to do, right?

I loved the little moments, like Dean and Sam at Waverly Hills (yay Kentucky) and I also loved the over-all feeling and tone of the episode, as well as the story it told.

Also, this episode wins most re-watches of the season for me. I’ve seen it three times all the way through in the last week. And that’s not even taking into account rewinding and re-watching snippets, watching that beer run scene over and over, and staring at gifs forever.