When a movie or television show, but especially something more “fluid” like a television show, is available for air in countries that do not speak English (this is how it goes on here, so I can only attest to this being my home country), the original script has to be sent to those in the other country who are in charge of generating subtitles in advance of that episode airing in that country. This is done so that they have plenty of time to generate accurate subtitles. And like I’ve said, it is usually the original script, barring anything catastrophically major that has to be changed before the episode or medium actually airs. But why is this relevant, you may ask? Of all things, to Supernatural? A lot of you may like the answer to this question…

In the original script of the episode where character Castiel confesses his love for Dean Winchester before being swallowed up by The Empty, Dean Winchester says that he loves Castiel back. However, the original script was changed in America from “I love you too, Cas,” to “Don’t do this, Cas”. We as fans and viewers are just now beginning to see that this change occurred by the subtitles that the show has in Latin America, comparing them to what was actually said on-screen here in the States. Actor Jensen Ackles even stated himself that there were changes to the “confession scene”, so we have an actor that was actually involved in this show and in this scene confirming this, and he did so at around the time that the episode originally aired in America. And furthermore, in the Portuguese subtitles, Dean is said to be saying “me too” (as in, “I love you too”) as he is sobbing beside the wall in the bunker that Castiel pushed him toward to get him away from The Empty before he could do something dangerous or reckless to try to protect him from his fate. Those who have watched the episode more than once, or a handful of times, think that Dean saying anything other than sobbing was intentionally cut (as in, the end part of that segment was intentionally shortened), but not after the original script had it in there, or why would Portugual air subtitles referencing it?

Both of them were silenced, even if — surprisingly — American CW did actually let Castiel say “I love you”.

This does not surprise me at all. Why can’t we have queer leads in prominent television shows? Why not?

When you can watch the finale of a show after only having watched the pilot and completely understand all of what’s going on, that’s when you as a writer should have had the first clue that you penned an absolutely awful finale. This literally erased fifteen years of character growth between Sam and Dean Winchester, the two that the episode focused on. This is yet another reason that long-term fans of the show are so angry.

I feel like I can write an entire post on the queerbaiting aspect of the last few episodes of Supernatural. One of the things that gives me hope about this show, sans the final three episodes of it, is the fandom, and the potential that almost all of the characters have. Supernatural‘s fandom is actually quite amazing, you know.

Anyway.

For having been on the series since the fourth season which ended up working out to a full decade as the character, for having as many close… encounters as he did with Dean Winchester, for having other characters in the show make passing jokes about their “relationship”, and for it even being parodied in the episode “Fan Fiction”, it honestly did not seem like Supernatural wanted to address the budding relationship (which, might I add, became canon with the episode “Despair”, and Misha Collins’ admissions at varying points that Castiel’s love for Dean was romantic and that Dean had to love him back, or loved him back… I’m not quite sure what the wording of that last part was). But then, when “Despair” aired, and Castiel told Dean that he loved him, they actually finally did, and the fans of the show who were also fans of the idea of a relationship between them (or a “ship”, as some people like to call it) got the “ship name” Destiel Trending on Twitter higher than election-related news or Russian-related news, and that says a lot. Their feelings and thoughts were validated. This was finally becoming canon, or something that was officially in the show.

Fans thought that the last two episodes of the series would expand on that, or at least elaborate on it, starting with finding out if Dean reciprocated Castiel’s feelings, and so they eagerly tuned in to find out.

If I am not mistaken — I hope I’m not — Castiel was casually mentioned three times since then.

You never actually saw him on screen again in Supernatural in any capacity.

Dean did not say anything to anyone on screen about the conditions that Castiel went to The Empty for.

Fans with their hopes up were left devastated, and that doesn’t even take into consideration the devastation that the series finale left in fans’ wakes, although that had to have been a part of it… this literally never being followed up on or even talked about, and essentially used for shock value. Some people have even said “why did they have him say it in the first place if they weren’t ever going to talk about it again,” and I’m inclined to agree with that sentiment. The writers clearly knew what they were doing penning their interactions in such a way as to suggest that there could be, and very likely was chemistry between Castiel and Dean, but to expose one’s feelings for the other and then literally never include that character in the show again aside from three nonchalant references reeks of queerbaiting being “taken care of” in the form of Bury Your Gays (since that’s what happened) And Forget About Their Very Existence. LBGT individuals, especially minors — the show is rated 14+, after all — were tragically let down by the inept mishandling of this. Hell, Supernatural fans were let down by the inept mishandling of this, but my focus is on the LBGT individuals who may finally have seen themselves on screen in a seemingly meaningful way, just to have the rug yanked out from underneath them. This entire plot arc was a decade’s worth of queerbaiting just for shock value.

To paraphrase, I have been a years-long fan of Supernatural, and so far, all I’ve seen as far as “written reviews” go are mostly positive or glowingly positive reviews of the series finale that aired on November 19th. I’ve seen a lot of the negative sentiment that has been espoused on social media, and I wanted to at least write something up here that described how I felt about how the fifteen-season show’s ending. Normally I queue posts to go up in my blog to cover times when I might be busy or have a migraine, but I wanted to come here to write something about this “in time” because of how much the show meant to me.

Warning: this is probably going to be a long post. I’ll try not too ramble too much.

One of the things that I’d taken notice to from… for me, seasons five or six, onward, all the way to the eighteenth episode of season fifteen, was the queerbaiting that almost seemed to run rampant through the majority of the time Castiel had been on the show between Castiel or Dean Winchester. It became an almost eternal game of “will they or won’t they” that was joked about in the show’s universe by varying characters and even jokingly acknowledged in the episode “Fan Fiction”. However, all of that came to a head during the (as mentioned) eighteenth episode of the fifteenth season when Castiel finally admitted his long-standing feelings for Dean Winchester, telling him that he loved him. You would think that his declaration of love would have been the end of the “will they or won’t they” game, but moments later, Castiel was whisked off to his demise at the hands of The Shadow because of a deal that he had made to save Jack Kline from The Empty. Somehow, Supernatural‘s writers could actually do more with the “will they or won’t they” thing…

To be chronologically correct writing this, I’ve chosen now as the time to point out that this declaration of love was pointedly cut out from all promotional footage of the show going forward. Various actors from the show might have come out in support of it when it aired and began Trending on Twitter, but aside from that, nothing. It wasn’t even mentioned in the one-hour lookback that aired before the series finale. And for a lookback that was supposed to sum up the fifteen seasons of the show, for something that had been “built up to” with the near-constant “will they or won’t they”, as people have said: that’s one hell of a thing to miss.

Supernatural execs even used promotional footage of Misha to promote the show after Castiel’s death, and Misha Collins himself did not make it a point to write a goodbye post on social media after his supposedly last episode like so many of the other actors for the show almost had ready to publish the minute their last episode with Supernatural ended. That was very telling. Fans quickly picked up on that convenient omission.

(For people who are reading this who might be confused, this show has a really big way of bringing characters back from the dead. This is actually a point that I’ll be getting to later in this review, heh.)

To salt and burn the actual burn that was this queerbaiting followed up almost immediately with the Kill Your Gays trope, characters then made it a habit to refer to Castiel as “their brother” whenever they talked about him after his demise. It was like the last two episodes of the series were penned by completely different writers for a completely different show, as many people have said. It was almost like the show actually regretted scripting Castiel’s declaration of love and had to double around to try and “remedy that”.

I find it extremely difficult to believe that, after all of the fighting Castiel and Dean have done for each other, in spite of how close they had been to one another for the preceding ten years, that Dean Winchester would simply dismiss Castiel’s death as something that just had to happen without at least trying hard to find some way to bring him back to life. He didn’t even do that. And I find it even more difficult to believe that Dean Winchester would be allowed to die a permanent death due to a rookie mistake made during a routine hunt. Not only do I find the complete manner of death questionable, but I find just as questionable his brother Sam Winchester’s… acceptance of his death after his death, how he was fine with letting him permanently die, even going so far as to give him a hunter’s funeral. Sure, Sam was sad over it as he was dying, and you could tell that it definitely got to him, but he accepted it far more easily than he should have given the last fifteen years of the show. The Sam Winchester I came to know and care about would have gone to the ends of any world required to bring Dean back from the dead, especially since he died at only forty-one years of age as dictated by the math given his date of birth. Again, someone here didn’t even try.

Sam didn’t even take out someone’s phone to try and summon emergency aid to try and save Dean’s life. (And wasn’t the character Arthur Ketch taken to the hospital to be treated for his injuries after Dean was forced to shoot him to free him from the demon’s possessory hold on him? Funny how I remember that…)

Dean would have, as he actually did in the show, go to the ends of the earth to save Sam’s life, and he would — at least with less questionable, more competent writers — have done so without a second thought if what had happened to him had happened to Sam. And the Dean that I know, or knew, would have been more excited, or at least more relieved, to find out that Castiel had actually been resurrected by now-God Jack Kline to help him in changing Heaven for the better, especially when Bobby Singer told him that, too.

For these reasons, I will not be re-watching Supernatural. I will watch each episode of it once, finishing up the few episodes of the fifteenth season that I have not yet watched, and that will be the end of it. I will continue to be active in the “SPN Family” and the Supernatural fandom, but I will not be re-watching the show at any point. And in case it needs to be said, I do not blame or fault the actors involved in any way for what actually transpired. I am keenly aware that they had no substantial “say” in the direction of the show.