‘Supernatural’: Emotional Series Finale Outrages Fans

Thursday night’s Supernatural series finale left fans divided. The culmination of 15 seasons and dozens of episodes, “Carry On” proved to be an emotional rollercoaster that some viewers felt wasn’t a deserving ending for the hit CW show, some so outraged that they even compared it to the much-hated Game of Thrones Series finale. Warning: This post contained spoilers for Supernatural Season 15, Episode 20, “Carry On.”

The show’s final hour — its 327th episode in total — kicked off with a standard vampire hunt gone wrong. As the Winchester brothers fought off the literal bloodsuckers, Dean (Jensen Ackles) was impaled on a piece of rebar sticking out of a wall during the fight. Although he has survived dying and going to hell, and numerous other things in the past, this proved unsurvivable, and after delivering an emotional monologue, Dean succumbed to his injuries roughly halfway through the episode.

His death sent shockwaves through the Supernatural fandom, who have spent years watching the Winchester brothers fight off evil and survive. As Dean took his last breath, and as the remaining minutes of the episode continued, many took to social media to express their outrage, blasting the series and what they viewed as an unfitting ending.

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“Hey, I’m not leaving you,” Dean said to Sam (Jared Padalecki) after being impaled. “I’m gonna be with you. Right here. Every day. Every day you’re out there and living and you’re fighting – because you always keep fighting, you hear me? I’ll be there. Every step… We had one hell of a ride, man.” 

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Dean was later shown in heaven, which, on Supernatural at least, is a beautiful forest. He was reunited with Bobby Singer and “Baby,” his 1967 Chevy Impala, which he drove along one of the long heavenly roads with “Carry On Wayward Son” playing.

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As Dean drove, viewers watched Sam’s life on Earth. He gets married and has a son that he names Dean, and he ultimately grows old, the series eventually showing him in a hospital bed in the family’s living room as an old man. He also dies and ends up in heaven, where he is reunited with his brother.

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While fans may not have been happy with the ending, Supernatural creator Eric Kripke told Entertainment Weekly that he felt it was “the best possible ending for the show.” Kripke said that he had “a long talk” with Ackles and co-showrunners Andrew Dabb and Bob Singler about the ending.

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“It was interesting, they pitched it to me and I went off to think about it for a couple days, and admittedly, me being me, I spent some time thinking, ‘OK, is there any other ending I would pitch back that I think is better?’” he recalled. “And I spent a couple days trying to chase down a couple avenues and couldn’t come up with anything better. So I went back and I was like, ‘Guys I think it’s the right one.’”

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“There’s some substance to it but there’s something emotional,” he added. “I think there’s a positive energy around it.”

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Kripke did tease that “there’s only one scene that I haven’t done that I would’ve done for the end of the show.” While he wouldn’t give any details on that scene, he did say that his “ending was so much darker than the ending they’re going with.”