"Moriah" – Supernatural S14E20 Review

And so season 14 of Supernatural comes to an end. I've been hard on season 14, and the opening "Carry On Wayward Son" musical recap at the beginning doesn't convince me otherwise. A lot of time is spent on Michael, both in the recap and in the season. And yet he was casually killed off. And a lot of time was spent on Lucifer and Nick. And yet Nick was casually killed off and Lucifer never showed up except in hallucinations and as a black man-shaped blob. There's also a lot of focus on John and not so much on Mary.

"Moriah" pulled itself out of a lot of this muck, just by ignoring most of it past the opening recap. The episode focused on Jack and the danger he posed. And the "surprise" appearance of Chuck (Rob Benedict). And giving him a heel turn of sorts which promises interesting things for season 15. Even if it seems like a lot of blasting from the past, mixed in with some The Walking Dead.

Oh, and "Moriah" was where Abraham sacrificed Isaac. Which gets a callout in the episode, sort of, when Chuck tells Dean his killing Jack is like Abraham and Isaac. Which it isn't, really. And as far as I could tell, Moriah never gets a mention.

But why and how is Dean killing Jack? As noted last week, Jack escapes the Ma'lak box and seems to be omnipotent, since he assumes the Winchesters locked him in there. I'm not sure why he does that: he was in it for about five minutes of screen time, and there's nothing to reveal their "plan" to lock him up until they found a cure to his soullessness Maybe he got omniscience along with near-omnipotence?

Jack teleports off rather than hang around, and Dean figures they need to kill Jack because he's too dangerous. Sam isn't big on that since Jack gave up his soul to save them from Michael. And Castiel is even less thrilled because he thinks of Jack as a son, or stepson, or something. The Winchesters don't have any idea how to find Jack, so they go to a computer company to hack its software. The company is named "Mirror Universe", but I don't believe we've ever heard of it before.

Jack is walking down the street and hears everyone lying, so he tells everyone in the world to stop lying. And they do. This leads to chaos and confusion, including at Mirror Universe where the employees attack each other, break down sobbing, and mutter "I'm the Stapler Queen". Sam can't lie about who his favorite singer is (it's Celine Dion, not Elvis as he's always claimed), and Dean can't lie about their usual cover story, casually telling a receptionist he's Dean Winchester, he's looking for the devil's son, and his FBI badge is a fake.

Castiel tries to go to Hell to inspect the Cage to imprison Jack, but a grumpy demon is having none of it. Chuck appears to Castiel and does... godlike things. He ends the lying curse (including a brief news bit where the unnamed U.S. President tells the truth about his ties to Moscow and tax returns – no real-world politics here!), including the fact he made a deal with Crowley. Chuck teleports Castiel and the Winchesters to the bunker. They have a sit-down, and Chuck admits he can't restore Jack's soul or kill him. He does give the Winchesters a gun that will let them kill Jack, but it works like the Ultimate Nullifier at Marvel: to kill Jack, the shooter will die himself.

Jack goes to visit his grandmother Helen (Chilton Crane), and she reveals she knows Jack didn't work with Kelly and Kelly is apparently dead. Helen starts screaming at Jack, who tells her to stop as his eyes glow yellow. We then get a couple of scenes of Jack walking away. He ends up at a cemetery somewhere, which I think is where Mary was buried but maybe not. Later, we find out Jack didn't kill Helen or do anything to her.

Castiel somehow finds Jack at the cemetery, and Dean somehow finds both of them there, and Sam somehow finds all of them. Chuck then finds them there, but he's God so it makes sense he can find anyone anywhere. Dean prepares to shoot Jack, and Chuck urges him to do it. Finally Dean refuses, telling Chuck they're not his playthings and the story ain't going to end the way Chuck has been manipulating it to end. This has been gaslit by a discussion between Chuck and Sam about how Chuck is never there when they need him.

Chuck knocks out Castiel when he tries to interfere, and Sam picks up the gun and shoots Chuck. It doesn't kill Chuck or Sam, and a PO'd Chuck kills Jack with a snap of his fingers, and then says they wanted the End and now they got it. The sun disappears and souls come out of Hell via a hole in the ground, while Chuck disappears. We get three scenes involving the ghostly woman who lets men pick her up on the highway, Bloody Mary appearing in two girls' mirror, and a creepy clown (John Wayne Gacy from "Lebanon"?) arriving at a kid's birthday party.

Jack finds himself in the Empty, with the black blobby Lucifer. Billie (Lisa Berry) is also there, and says Jack isn't exactly dead. So I figure Alexander Calvert will be back next season.

In the cemetery, a hundred or so undead zombie types come out of the graves and attack Sam, Dean, and Castiel. And that's the end of the season.

So it looks like Chuck is the Big Bad for season 15, along with Jack, and whatever Billie and the Empty and Lucifer have in mind for him. But then some of us thought Michael was the Big Bad for season 14 and look how that turned out. It also looks like some of the Winchesters Greatest Enemies From Season 1 will show up, now they've been freed from Hell. Although does a "good" spirit trapped in the real world go to Hell if they commit evil deeds? I don't know about the mythology there.

That's assuming Castiel and the Winchesters survive the undead horde. But I'm sure they will, or it'll be a quick end to season 15. That leads us to what is apparently the Apocalypse, and God ending his "story" about the Winchesters. He talks a lot in the episode about how the Winchesters are his favorite versions of all the Winchesters in the multiverse. But like Castiel says, writers lie and Chuck is a writer. Mr. Benedict also does a good job of portraying Chuck as a bit more swarmy and underhanded than usual. Whether he's getting PO'd at Dean when he tries to sing and Dean breaks his guitar, or his talking about the Winchesters like they're his favorite pets rather than sentient beings, Benedict brings his 'A' game to the portrayal. So we've gone from Chuck the hapless writer, to Chuck aka God, to Chuck the PO'd God who isn't as good and godly as has been shown in the past.

There's also some meta-commentary, as Chuck notes how relatively minor the Leviathan and British Men of Letters battles from previous seasons were.

Calvert wasn't so annoying this time, as they dropped the naivety and mostly had him as regretful and sorrowful, telling Dean it was okay to kill him because he had become a monster. Misha Collins gave an understated performance as someone stuck with a monster as a child, and trying to find a way to save him while realizing the child probably can't be saved.

Jensen Ackles gave a good performance as the hard-as-nails older brother. I'm not sure I buy his final merciful turn, but we all figured Dean wasn't going to stone-cold kill Jack even though Jack killed Mary. Jared Padalecki as Sam is okay.

My only major gripe about the season is how many detours the creative team took. Even with only a 20-episode season, Supernatural seemed to take a lot of time off for bits with Michael, and Nick, and Lucifer, and the one-offs, and anniversary tributes and what not the creative team does during any given season. I suppose it built up Jack as a "monster" to be pitied and spared rather than exterminated. And showed his slow descent into monsterdom as he sucked up Michael's grace and brutally killed Nick. But it seems like the kind of thing they could have done in ten episodes, tops, and maybe less. But it's American Network TV, where 20+ episodes per season for a major show must be filled and by god, the creative team is going to fill those 20 episodes. There were a lot of points where it really felt like they were struggling to provide a season's worth of Supernatural, though.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?