12: Reaction To "The Winchesters" Finale

SPOILER WARNING: This episode contains reactions to and discussions of The Winchesters' season finale, "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye." 
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
In this raw audio episode, Chrisha and Catherine discuss their initial reactions to The Winchesters' season finale, "Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye," with particular attention to the healing work this episode and the entire season did in the wake of Supernatural's series finale, "Carry On."

A full analysis of the episode will happen at a later date, and they will continue to release episodes about the rest of the season in order!

Follow us on Twitter @TheFangirlBiz and on Bluesky @thefangirlbiz.bsky.social

Join our Kofi Discord community at $1/month: https://ko-fi.com/thefangirlbiz/tiers

Support our podcast by buying our new merch: https://www.redbubble.com/people/thefangirlbiz/shop

Thanks for listening!

Transcript

Disclaimer: Welcome to The Fangirl Business: A Supernatural Podcast. The information presented in this podcast is intended to be for entertainment and educational purposes only. It should never be used in place of advice given by a mental health or medical professional or as a substitute for mental health treatment. If you are struggling with a mental health issue, please seek treatment from a mental health professional in your area.

Intro Instrumental Rock Music: “Play the Game” by VooDoo Blooze

Chrisha: Hello, and welcome to this episode of The Fangirl Business. 

Catherine: I'm Catherine. 

Chrisha: And I'm Chrisha. And today we are here for a very special episode on season one episode thirteen of The Winchesters, “Hey,That's No Way to Say Goodbye”. And we are recording this at– it is 10:52pm Eastern Time on March 7th, 2023. So this is less than two hours after the episode ended for me and – what – less than an hour for you, right?

Catherine: Yes, yes, we had a bit of a snafu going into this where we realized at the last minute that it was airing here an hour later than it was on the East coast.

Chrisha: *dryly* And what does that remind us of?

Catherine: *laughing* Yeah, I literally… I posted a tweet going: I'm totally fine about this and I'm not having flashbacks to the Supernatural finale at all.

Chrisha: *pained* Post-traumatic fictional stress, yes.

Catherine: *still laughing* Right?! I was so stressed and we were trying to figure out like a digital way around it and it was just not working and people were trying to help us in the Discord and they were being so sweet and amazing, and it just– it wasn't happening. 

Chrisha: Nothing worked.

Catherine: Nothing worked. So we– that's why we're recording with quite a bit of a delay for East coast but that's okay, we're here, we’re doing the thing–

Chrisha: And we still have big reactions. Yes. Plenty of feels to go around!

Catherine: *sighing* Oh my gosh… 

*inarticulate noises of simultaneous pain and laughter from both Catherine and Chrisha* 

Catherine: So I will just start off by saying two things that happened: I shrieked so loud that one of my cats took off running in the opposite direction to the far end of my apartment, which has literally never actually happened before, and I ugly sobbed. I did like heaving full body ugly sobbing that lasted for probably like the last fifteen or twenty minutes or so. I just like– I sobbed. I full full sobbed. It was like completely like, catharsis sobbing. How about you?

Chrisha: This was everything that the Supernatural finale should have been.

Catherine: Ffff– *catching herself mid-curse* Frig yes. This is gonna be so hard not to swear. *both laughing* We’re trying to get this out to you without editing. 

Chrisha: Bleep!

Catherine: It's gonna be so hard not to swear!

Chrisha: I just kept thinking– because from an emotional perspective, I couldn't even feel all the things I was feeling at once. It was– there was so much I was like, blue screening? Because I was just like, ‘Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god! Oh my god!’ And starting out with Dean Winchester looking like that?! Like, there's no way I'm processing anything else for the next three to five business days. But I came to at some point during the process and was just like, ‘I can't breathe… And this is what a finale is supposed to be’. The only times I looked at the clock were at commercial breaks going, ‘It's only been twenty minutes, are you kidding me? I'm going to be dead by the end of this hour! I haven't breathed in twenty solid minutes! I don’t know how much I can take!’ But worth it!

Catherine: Yes! See, I started watching it on a bit of a delay and caught up to live during the last commercial break. 

Chrisha: Oh, so it was relentless for you!

Catherine: And I literally didn't know– Yeah, I didn't know what to do with my body by that stage. I was just like, flailing fangirl stereotypes, I mean, like that was happening. Oh, wow. So… wh– I… Where do we even frickin start with the react? *sighs, overwhelmed* Uh… um… Bobby was there.

Chrisha: *emotionally* Bobby was there. 

Catherine: Bobby was there and he was Bobby. He was– he was our Bobby. He didn't feel like some weird… explainer guy–

Chrisha: Right. Exposition Bobby.

Catherine: Yeah, like Exposition Bobby. I can’t even word at this stage. Like my words are not wording… He didn't– he didn't feel like that, he felt like himself. He was like… when they said– when he said, “I'm gonna go bring in the cavalry… I'm gonna go get the cavalry” I shrieked because *wheezing* the closet scene!

Chrisha: We [meaning the actors] used that word very specifically, we sure did!

Catherine: We really did! The cavalry is coming! And it's in the scene where John is wearing that jacket. I didn't realize that was his army jacket! That was in the closet. Yeah, it was his army jacket that was in the closet, that was– that was the thing on the right in that scene with the closet and the music box [from episode 7 “Reflections” of The Winchesters]. That was– that was– that was it and he was wearing it in that scene, and– and– and with the crossed saber and rifle and– it's… ‘the cavalry is coming’, is in that scene. I just… the levels, the layers, the complexity, but it's not even like– I haven't even fully processed it. It's just like, emotive reactions. Like my whole body just went like– *dramatic gasp*

Chrisha: I did a lot of that. I did a lot of shrieking ‘Dean!’. Um… like I was a teenager at a boyband concert. Just– *high-pitched squeal* Deeeean! DEEEEEAN!!!!

*both laughing*

Chrisha: Like once I realized that we were in a flashback scene with John wearing his military uniform, I was like, ‘Deeeean!’. I knew it had to be the handoff scene–

Catherine: Like, it’s gonna happen! It's gonna happen! We're gonna see him! And then he had his Beau hair and his Beau beard [referencing the character of Beau Arlen that Jensen was playing on Big Sky at the time]. And so he must have not been finished filming over at… um, at… what's it called? 

Chrisha: Big Sky.

Catherine: Big Sky. Yeah. And–

Chrisha: Or they just made a choice.

Catherine: *agreeing* –or they just made a choice. Listen…

Chrisha: He looked like him. Like he looked like relaxed him, not hunter him. He just looked like so much more relaxed, you know? You don't have to shave every day. You don't have to get a haircut all the time. You don't have to worry about monsters grabbing it or whatever. Like he can just– although Sam would give him bleep for the hair. That's– we'd have to say that but–

Catherine: He would, too! And for the beard, because he gave Sam such a hard time when he grew a grief beard.

Chrisha: Yes! Oh gosh. Ooooh my gosh. But like, he just looked so… he just, yeah, he looked so chill to me. He looked so relaxed, he looked so, like, calm. And in context of all of the journaling that he had been doing and the introspection and the healing to then get this visual of him where he is just like, relaxed? I was a mess. Like an immediate wreck. I couldn't even figure out specifically why.

Catherine: And this is in the opening scene?

Chrisha: Mmhmm.

Catherine: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chrisha: And then when they tied it together at the end, just an absolute wreck.

Catherine: You were, too? 

Chrisha: Oh yeah.

Catherine: Like you were ugly sobbing, too?

Chrisha: I didn’t ugly cry because I think I went… I like locked up emotionally. It was like too many at once. It was like Dean in fifteen eighteen [referencing Supernatural season fifteen, episode eighteen]. It was just like *error noise* error.

Catherine: *giggling* The gears are trying to work and they're not going. Yes.

Chrisha: *laughing* Things are smoking. It's… you know. So I definitely teared up a couple of times, but there was just so much intensity and so much going on I couldn't settle on one emotion to like, feel it properly, if that makes sense. Because it was just– I was breathless through like the whole thing. It's– I can't– I can't believe how much story they told in the episode. 

Catherine: Neither can I!

Chrisha: Especially compared to the godforsaken finale from before when we're like, ‘Where's the intensity? Where's the pace? Let's get things done!’ And they're just like, *flippantly* ‘I'm gonna make eggs’.

Catherine: *mockingly* ‘We're gonna have– we’re gonna have three montages set to music that are set in slow motion practically’.

Chrisha: And that was– they had a montage. 

Catherine: They did!

Chrisha: And this one felt so different. So different.

Catherine: Yep. It really did.

Chrisha: And that in and of itself was cathartic. Because it was like, ‘no I'm not… I'm not nuts’. Like it– They were moving towards something. They were growing. They were happy. They were laughing. They were connecting. It wasn't– ‘We don't know where we're driving. We're just sort of going’, you know? And the montage made sense. There’s that…

Catherine: Yes. Yes. Mmhmm. And I think–

Chrisha: And it’s just so– *breaks off as she overlaps Catherine* Sorry, go ahead.

Catherine: No, no, no, I think you know, like– *sighs* We'll get there. Nevermind. What were you gonna say? 

Chrisha: Just that it was– There were little healing things, little cathartic things. Like they made sure when they introduced Baby, which– Oh, our girl got the entrance she deserved. 

Catherine: *emphatically* She really effin did. 

Chrisha: Shrieked… like I shrieked. I was just chef’s kiss.

Catherine: Do you remember– Do you remember how after the finale, like, at least for me, there was this ambivalence about Baby? The way that, like, it ended with Dean alone in Baby just driving around? I was like this is– I tied it to the reduction of Dean. I tied the car to the reduction of Dean to a stereotype of Dean. And so for Baby to have this entrance, where she was the key to everything and she's like, sitting there shinin’ under the light, and they actually did a little, like, twinkle gleam effect–

Chrisha: They did a little thing! And that's what I was gonna say because for me, it wasn't– I didn't have ambivalence toward Baby, I felt that Baby was… I felt that she was cheapened too in a way that was upsetting. She was dirty. You know, she was like neglected in these ways that I just found so upsetting. And so when they introduced her, they made sure to show off how pristine and shiny she was. And I was just like *emotionally* there she is! Oh!

Catherine: Yes. And do you– like they highlighted the grumbly engine like so many frickin times. I heard that grumble of the engine and I was like, ‘I'm home!’.

Chrisha: Yeah, I felt like I could breathe. 

Catherine: I’m gonna frickin tear up all over…

Chrisha: Hearing Mary rev this car going like, ‘ahhhh, it's so soothing’. And it’s this muscle car engine revving.

Catherine: I know! *laughing shakily* I just… Yeah, like it was–  for me it healed that like– I just, for me personally, I just didn't feel the same way about Baby afterwards. Because I like viewed her as part of his isolation and it made me sad and– and so it's a slightly different thing from yours where you felt like she was cheapened too, and you hurt for Baby? But I just felt like it was part of like the reduction of Dean and so like to have her come back and be the hero car, like the thing that saves every– like literally the hero car because on set they used to have like the hero cars and like the other cars, and– and literally she was the hero car. She saved the day. Baby saved the day!

Chrisha: She did. She damn well did.

Catherine: Oh my gosh. Um, I need to talk about the Ada storyline? They– I was so upset last time that we recorded, which hasn't aired yet. But when we talked about–

Chrisha: Spoiler alert! 

Catherine: Yeah, spoiler alert. I am going to be pissed. I was so upset that Ada was going down this plotline that we've seen so many times before with Jack, and with Sam, and with Dean when he became demon Dean, and then with like Amara taking people's souls, and like this nun chick stealing souls for Abaddon, and like– It had just been done so many times – with Donatello! – I mean, it just like… that story had been done so many times, and it never ended well, it never ended well. And so the fact that like, in this universe, she was able to be healed? Even though she made this sacrifice? *choking up* Chrisha, she was able to be healed even though she made the sacrifice.

Chrisha: Yeah. And it was because she was honest. And it was because she worked with her family and didn't try to be secretive. Didn't try to handle it herself. She shared and so they figured it out. Together.

Catherine: They did. And they made sure that it didn't happen before it needed to happen. They– they– when Lata was like, ‘I've got you’, I just… my heart. It just– there were just– I think that's the thing. Like there were so many healing moments for me in this episode. Like so many healing moments. And that's why I ended up like sobbing. Like, when Dean was like, ‘I took a little detour and I like– I wanted to go see if my family ended up in a happy place anywhere in the universes’ I was just like– that's like– that's just… My words are failing me again.

Chrisha: Well, it's– Ok, so getting to the Dean of it all, so we understand–

Catherine: Did we ever leave the Dean of it all?!

Chrisha: No, no we didn’t. But getting into, like, factually what we now know is that Chuck created the Akrida in case he failed to wipe out humanity, so…

Catherine: Which– which one? That's something that we've talked about on the podcast, because people in our Discord group have been talking about it, and I think it was specifically Jess who was like, ‘what if this is like the last plague?’ What if this is like the plague that Chuck released on the world with a– because there are the Akrida and there are the locusts and we've talked about, like, you know, and like, that's what happened. That's what it was!

Chrisha: And they're very like the Leviathan, which he also created and who he recognized as being so dangerous he had to put them away. So it was like, he got ‘em back out just in a different form. So like it so fits. And so knowing that, hold on– Knowing that and then knowing that Dean– *choking up* Here we go… Knowing that Dean wasn't just by himself for forty years, like he went off to find his people? And he went off to try to find a world in which things went better for his family and also for him, because ultimately trying to make things better for his parents is trying to make things better for himself. And so, seeing it come full circle as: this is a story about Dean reflecting on his life, reflecting about what he has learned, reflecting on which he– what he wished his parents would have known so that they could have been better parents to him? That is such hard emotional work that he was doing, that he just decided to do and, you know, in the finale [of Supernatural] one of the most brutal things for me, like– His death pissed me off, I will die mad about it, right? Like, it was unnecessary and it was awful. And like, that's just a full stop thing. But that he then went to Heaven and just drove around for forty years, lost all of his identity, lost all of himself, it was just waiting for Sam like he was nothing without him? That I found so viscerally offensive that I just couldn't– I just, it made me so angry. And so this story is now filling in that gap, saying, ‘No, that's not what happened. He was looking for his people. And he was doing some real active healing work. And then also trying to pay that forward to a different version of himself. He's trying to make things better for a different version of him’. Which, again, feels like that inner child work that we were talking about, like with Mary going to those younger versions of herself, you know? And to be saying, ‘it sounds like Dean was doing some inner child work’ in a sentence is, like, I love this show so much, I can't believe it's real. I can't believe it's real. 

Catherine: I know. I know! I mean, not to jump Winchesters too much but, like, John said he was thinking about going to therapy.

Chrisha: He did! ‘I don't know if it's meditation or therapy but I know I gotta do something’... I was like– I don't know what sounds were coming out at that point. But there's something! 

Catherine: Breaking generational cycles, breaking generational trauma, making things better for your children instead of being caught in a state of– like, we've been talking about this all frickin season.

Chrisha: And now John has this journal, from Dean, to help him navigate these emotional things. And what will that do?

Catherine: And we know who he was writing it for! We know who Dean was writing it for. Oh my God, Chrisha…

Chrisha: And like, when I do clinical work and people ask me, like, what is the best thing I can do to be a good parent? My response is always to manage your bleep, right, to get yourself together to handle your stuff. And so Dean didn't go to a different version of him. He went to a different version of his parents to help them handle their stuff so that they could then be good parents.

Catherine: Yes. *shakily* And somehow, through time and space, because the Colt that we know melted– was melted into parts by one of the Princes of Hell, he got a Colt and he was finally able to warn his mother. And he was finally able to do it and have it stick.

Chrisha: And not just warn her but like, arm her.

Catherine: Arm her! Warn and– yes! And arm her. I’m gonna cry again, frick. 

*shaky sighs*

Chrisha: So, yeah, it's um… these are the kinds of things that I wanted from Supernatural. This is the kind of healing that I wanted and that we just did not get at all. And yeah, and just the recognition of–  I mean, having Jack there was super cool. I don't know that I was expecting him but that was because Jack was such a wild card there at the end, I didn't understand him enough to ever anticipate what he might do. But– 

Catherine: When Carlos did a wave and Jack did a wave back I just completely lost it. I just– I was making like wild animal noises, just like frothing at the mouth.

Chrisha: I froze up when Carlos was calling Dean ruggedly handsome, I was like oup! Oup! Oup! 

Catherine: Seriously! *laughing*

Chrisha: And just giving him eyes. ‘Cause it’s like, I know honey, happens to all of us.

Catherine: *still laughing* I know! And then Dean knew his name and Carlos just like fumbles. Like, he just like *makes a scrambled noise*

Chrisha: That’s fair. That's an understandable response.

Catherine: But oh my gosh, it was so fantastic.

Chrisha: But Jack, like, scolding Dean was hilarious. It didn't have the– it still didn't have the lightness that their relationship used to have?

Catherine: No, it just– that was the– there are a few things that I want to talk about that I think need to be, like, addressed. And that's, I think, one of them. Like maybe we can talk about Jack a little bit more in a bit, because there was some stuff that just made me go, “Mmm?” *in a worried tone*.

Chrisha: He did restore the AUs [alternate universes] though, we have confirmation of that. And that just–

Catherine: *shocked* Oh my gosh! I hadn’t even like–

Chrisha: Like he said it, like ‘when I restored everything’. And I was like, ‘Oh, thank you, God!. Thank you! All the fanfic is back to canon, thank you so much.’

*Catherine is losing it in the background*

Catherine: Oh my gosh, Chrisha! I had not even processed that yet! I like– I just– I didn't– my brain… *laughs in disbelief*

Chrisha: Yep.

Catherine: He restored the AUs! 

Chrisha: Yep.

Catherine: And Dean was traveling through the AUs. Like this is, this is huge, because this was another part of the thing that the fandom was so upset about was that they removed all of the possibilities from the wider stories. They took them all away from us after giving them to us. It was like ‘you can have this but no you can't really’. And– and that was hard, man. That was so hard.

Chrisha: But and– that's what– that's what, sorry, not to cut you off, but just at the end of this episode that was all that my brain was thinking was just like possibility, possibility. All this possibility. So much possibility. And just how good that felt. Oh, my God.

Catherine: Yes. Yes. I mean, like we– you specifically have been talking about opening up the sandbox and– and making everything possible again. And they did it. 

Chrisha: They did. 

Catherine: They fricking did it. And I've been talking about how, like I thought that there was some God-level stuff going on? *Chrisha agreeing in the background* And Jack showed up. And it was all Chuck's fault. Like the feeling of getting what they were laying down, like picking up what they were putting down for us and getting that affirmation is just wild.

Chrisha: Isn’t that cathartic?

Catherine: That is wild. I was so scared to make any kind of like, theory theorizing about what was going– like every time we said it I think we both were like, ‘it's probably wrong’. It's probably like, we're– ‘we’re probably wrong, don't take us seriously, we don't know anything’. And we were right. And I mean, I think, you know, again, that speaks to the fact that we are right about what was the– the trajectory that Supernatural was supposed to go on and then veered off, and I think– what did you say? Drove off a cliff–

Chrisha: –burst into flames–

Catherine: – ran into a tree, exploded– *breaks off laughing*

Chrisha: – hit by a meteor. Yeah. Yeah, it's really nice when a show goes the way you think it's going. Isn't that just like the fact that that's a luxury around these parts of like, ‘aww, it ended the way it was set up to end. Wow’.

Catherine: Oh wait, there's– I think it was this Joss Whedon-esque thing that like was to completely subvert expectations all the time, every time *Chrisha blows a raspberry in the background* and that became such a thing that like, you couldn't just tell a story to its completion. You had to like pivot in these wild directions. And like it wasn't just Supernatural that did that, I mean, a lot of shows have done that in the past like, few years and so to have like a satisfying ending–

Chrisha: *dryly* Weiiird. 

Catherine: –was like what?!

Chrisha: And to just have answers. I mean to have Dean say like, ‘This is where I was, this is what I was doing, this is why I was doing it.’ I'm like, oh my God, like we know what happened!

Catherine: And it didn’t feel like exposition!

Chrisha: Right! I was like–

Catherine: It was totally exposit– expository. But it didn’t feel like it.

Chrisha: I was on the edge of my seat, though. On the edge of my seat. Give– talk to me, Dean. Like talk to me, I am desperate for you to talk to me and tell me what the hell is going on! Oh my gosh. And like, yeah, Bobby was there and– *sighs heavily* Yeah, I don't know. It– And knowing– I mean, I know you kept having hope that, you know, maybe things were going to turn out differently for this John and this Mary and I don't think– I don't think I had that hope because I just– I have so many feelings tangled up in it, but that's ultimately what happens. This is the version that– that's okay. Which is wild. I–

Catherine: This is– this is the version– this is really the Schitt’s Creek world where like, people can live their truth and like, there's no– People can go to therapy, people can live healthy lives and grow and change and become like the best version of themselves. And, like–

Chrisha: And Dean's gonna grow up in that world.

Catherine: *emotionally* Oh my gosh.

Chrisha: Sam is gonna grow up in that world.

Catherine: *shaking voice* Like, my heart is full and my heart is broken, both at the same time. I want that for our Dean and our Sam. But I'm so glad that there will be a Dean and a Sam who will get to live that life.

Chrisha: Well, you know, as I have sat with this for the whole, you know, two and a half hours that I've been sitting with it – so, you know, long swaths of time, most of it spent screaming like a wild animal – you know, one of the things that occurs to me is that again, in Supernatural, it felt like Dean was just driving around aimless, kind of lost himself, you know, was nothing without Sam. And what we learned is that instead, it was the absolute opposite of that, that he was really doing a lot, to– I don’t know… to connect, to protect Sam, to try to protect himself, to try to understand himself and heal. And I get that he's dead and I'm still pissed about it. It's like, always going to be. But why would he be doing this kind of healing work if there wasn't a next step? You know? And so I really, truly believe that Dean is doing this– like he took this time away from Sam to work on himself. And that's what he needed to do. I mean, that's what we all wanted for him was to like have some time to focus on himself without the pressures of saving the world, without the pressures of taking care of Sam and– and that's ultimately like, yeah, he went after the Akrida because like, he can't help but nudge, but like, it really wasn't his fight. He was just like, playing support. And part of the way that he was playing support was by doing his own work so that then he could share it. And so it– like it– it was what I wanted for him. And when we have Jensen and Jared – we have Robbie – in interviews coming out tonight, like we have all of these folks that are, you know, crucial to this franchise – Misha – saying, ‘We're coming back. It's not if it's when’, there's a future for Dean. 

Catherine: Yeah, there is.

Chrisha: I don't, you know – And so what is that going to look like? Now that he's done this much healing? Now that he can show up and just talk about his feelings? Because, you know, *pointedly* there's– there's one thing that was not addressed in this finale that was very absent.

Catherine: We talked about that absence being loud in a bunch of the Supernatural season fifteen episodes. That was the case here, too. It was like–

Chrisha: Where’s the angel?! 

Catherine: Yeeees. Where is he?

Chrisha: *amused but frustrated* Don't– Don't think I didn't notice, Robbie Thompson, in the scene where they're saying goodbye and she's wearing a tan coat and he's wearing a brown coat. And I’m like–

Catherine: *shocked* No! No, no, I didn't notice the coat colors, Chrisha!

Chrisha: Sir… *aside* Is it a brown coat or a green coat? I don’t know, it was something very Dean. I can't remember now. It was just like– I was going ‘okay, yeah, you're doing a thing. I see you’. So they said goodbye and they went away from each other and then what happened? *meaningfully* She came back on the hood of his car. ‘On my car!’. *laughs* Sorry, sorry, that one just slipped out. *Catherine laughing in the background* ‘Covered in bees!’. Anyway. Moving on.

Catherine: *cackling* Oh gosh, I love you.

Chrisha: I mean it is the one thing that I feel like was missing, notably, was any reference to Cas. I mean, I didn't expect Cas but I expected a mention.

Catherine: A mention of his name.

Chrisha: Yeah.

Catherine: Absolutely!

Chrisha: Or even just like a, you know, ‘We got other people to get home to’ or like some– something. Something.

Catherine: Right. Right right. There wasn't. No– Absolutely no mention of Castiel.

Chrisha: Just so weird.

Catherine: Um, but– but the thing is, going back to the– going back to the subtext, I’m sorry… I mean, they literally… they– Mary says ‘I have something that I need to say to you’–

Chrisha: *emphatically* Mmhmm!!!

Catherine: –to John. And he's like ‘That's okay, you can say it after I come back’. And then it never gets said! But they do get back together and they do go on a road trip together. So like…

Chrisha: Drive off basically into the sunset. *dreamily* I’ve seen this film before. Which Lata actually says which I thought was so funny since that's currently a Taylor Swift quote. 

Catherine: What? What does she say? 

Chrisha: She said, ‘I've seen this– you've seen this movie before, John’. And I was like, seventies equivalent to Taylor Swift lyrics. Anyway…

Catherine: Can you– Ok, can you explain that to me who is not a Taylor Swift person? Because I don’t–

Chrisha: Oh, she just has a song that’s– “I've seen this film before / And I didn't like the ending” [from the song Exile]. *Catherine gasps in the background* And so that's quoted by people a lot when they see something they recognize that is, like, unnerving. So… *chuckles* So.

Catherine: *in disbelief* So… And what was the title of this episode again?

Chrisha: Yeah. “Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye”. It's a true story. It's not a way to say goodbye and– oh God, like we're gonna have a whole analysis episode where I will shriek in, you know, high level tones that we will have to edit down to hearable about the fact that John is wearing Dean's flannel from the finale and Mary is wearing the same color that Mary died in when Jack killed her. And then Dean shows up, basically wearing John’s coat from like, older John with the collar popped, with the floppy hair? So it's like John and Dean switched clothes? *Catherine exclaiming in the background* Wild, man. Just wild.

Catherine: *impressed* What? What? The costuming on the show is bonkers.

Chrisha: It’s– Mmhmm, and then to have Mary wearing a tan coat to say goodbye. And then we think she's gone and then she comes back because they're gonna figure it out together. Their future which, again, we have Dean who in this context of The Winchesters is working through his past. Like… That's the thing, like– I am frustrated at the lack of Cas, I mean, yeah. I'm just gonna own that. 

Catherine: Oh, absolutely. 

Chrisha: But at the same time, for Dean to ever have a healthy relationship with anyone, including Cas, he was going to need to work on himself, and he was going to need to do some healing. Otherwise, you know, I think–

Catherine: It would be doomed. 

Chrisha: Well, yeah, it would just certainly be much harder than it needs to be. I mean, Cas puts up with a lot of crap from Dean. 

Catherine: He sure does.

Chrisha: But for them to come together as equals, as partners, and move forward? You know, he would have needed to do this work anyway so, you know, they didn't make that explicit, like, that's why Dean's doing some healing is so he can move forward. They didn't spell that out, but at the same time, logic would dictate that he would need to and that if he is doing healing, it's for a purpose. That there is a future for him. So they have now opened up the sandbox, like blown the hinges off, literally anything is possible again… Oh, it's exciting. It's exciting!

Catherine: And I mean, like, also just like the [Supernatural] finale ripping when Jack says, ‘Time for a little of that peace when you're done like the end of the song’, *both laughing* I was like ‘What just happened?! What. Just. Happened’. 

Chrisha: And I– That interaction– I have to go back and watch it, but I was laughing because Jack is like, ‘Hunters always have another hunt’. Like Dean is basically saying, ‘Cast me out if you need to’, which I'm like ‘does he really think his kid is gonna send him to Hell or Purgatory or something?’ Like what?

Catherine: That was a weird– That was a– It was a weird dynamic in that whole interaction. I want to talk with you more about that but yes, keep going. 

Chrisha: But basically yeah, Jack saying ‘I know there's always going to be another hunt, but go finish this one and get to have some peace’. So it's like, so contradictory right there, that I expect you to have peace knowing full well you're never going to. *dryly* ‘Okay. Thanks, God’. 

Catherine: Well, he said a little– I think he– Didn’t he say ‘a little of that peace’? ‘A little of that peace when you’re done’?

Chrisha: *suggestively* Oh, he’ll get a little of that peace. Anyway, sorry. Sorry! 

*Catherine bursts into shocked giggles* 

Chrisha: *sighs* Recording live is hard. 

Catherine: *chuckling* Good lord, woman… Good lord, woman!

Chrisha: I blame the bees… on my car. 

*Catherine still laughing*

Chrisha: I apologize for nothing. *laughs*

Catherine: Good. Good. That was perfection right there. Oh my gosh. But yes, like it went from like, implicit to explicit finale ripping. Because the thing from the finale was everyone was like, ‘Okay, A) like, why did we have two versions of that song that back to back?

Chrisha: We heard it over and over again, and yet there was none. So…

Catherine: Right, and like, B) half of the people didn't remember that it was even in the finale because they were so freaking traumatized. You included, if I'm remembering correctly?

Chrisha: That is correct, I didn't remember. Yeah.

Catherine: And C) then like the cry from, you know, like everybody was like, ‘Where's the peace? There's no peace in that, what the heck?!’ Like– What?! *sighs aggravatedly*

Chrisha: No, and so then for this – because I was wondering if they would incorporate "Carry On Wayward Son" and I didn't know how I felt about that – we got "Ramble On" by Zeppelin. Like they got actual Zeppelin. 

Catherine: They did! Oh, my gosh, and they've talked about at cons how, like, Supernatural could never afford Zeppelin. Listen, we had like three or four episodes where there was like zero music. Maybe it was only two or three? And now we know why and I'm like, yes. Yes. Do it again. Do it again. 

Chrisha: Well, they also used– they also used Radio Company in this episode.

Catherine: They did?! 

Chrisha: It was in the background when they were talking to Joan at the bar? Yeah, it was real subtle. 

Catherine: *flabbergasted* No! Because my spine was tingling that whole time. I was like, ‘This is not a hunter. Look at the back of her neck. What is happening?’ I was like *strangled noise* and then I was right. I was like ‘Nooooo!’. Anyway, but yes… They had Radio Company! 

Chrisha: They did! And so when this album was announced, when the name was announced that it's called "Keep Ramblin’ On" [note: album title is Keep On Ramblin’], everyone first immediately went to "Ramble On" by Zeppelin being Dean's favorite song. And it's one of those things that it's like, you know, there's that like, ‘Aww, Jensen has, you know, Dean Winchester brain rot just like we do or like, way worse than we ever will’, that then to like, keep going and keep seeing just like how in Dean's headspace, he must be, to you know, to bring "Ramble On" by Zeppelin to this finale episode of The Winchesters. Like, it just really ties it in like, this isn't like– this isn't random or speculation. It's like he's very purposely doing so many things for Dean, and it's just–

Catherine: Well and just like as you're saying this, remember how for me, like, carry on, like ‘carry on’ the term was just kind of like, ruined? And the only context that I use it now is for the podcast? Because it’s– for some reason I've dissociated from that. But like the whole ‘carry on’ thing, what is ‘keep ramblin’ on’ other than a different version of saying ‘carry on’? And, like, what did they do? They shifted everything in this episode by presenting it in a different way than we'd seen it before now. And it's healing. And then at the end we got ramble on. Keep going. I just… *takes a deep breath* So, let's just like sit with this for a second. Because, for me, the amount of healing that is actively happening, like it was actively happening while I was watching the show, that was why I was sob-crying. Like, I've been going through it lately and I've been doing a lot of crying. But like, I haven't had a cathartic cry like that in a really long time. Like, I could feel the healing happening as I– my whole body was like shaking with sobs. And, like, we did like four whole episodes on how destructive and damaging the finale [of Supernatural] was in so many different ways, right? To have a finale for a series where the whole time we've been going ,’I think they're trying to fix stuff. I think they're trying to like, make this right’, to have an entire episode where like, I just kept feeling this active healing happening. I just like– I don't even know how to begin to say thank you. Like I– they gave us a whole series to help us heal.

Chrisha: Yeah. 

Catherine: And that's what this was. 

Chrisha: And that's what it is for me is that the finale of Supernatural made me feel invalidated and excluded and unseen as a fan. And this entire series of The Winchesters was all about– was all about healing those things like saying over and over, ‘We see you, we understand. We're fixing it. We're changing it. It was wrong. And this is what's real. This is what's true. You– You weren't imagining it, you know, these are the things that are real’. And like I didn’t–

Catherine: Down to the– sorry, just down to the fact that like Dean turns around, sees Jack and Bobby and says to the found family there, ‘It's okay. That's my family’. And neither of them are blood related to him. And one of them he's actually really afraid that he's going to mess them up. But like he claims his found family as his family.

Chrisha: *softly* Yeah. It was like I– After the finale of Supernatural, I feel like that is what so many fans, myself included, just wanted was that acknowledgement. Like somebody just come out and say, ‘Yeah, we screwed it up and that was terrible’. And they were never gonna do that. And I knew they were never gonna– like Misha got close, I think. But he couldn't address the finale because he wasn't in it, you know? So it was like, it just... And I knew, like Jensen is not the kind of guy that's gonna get up on a stage and like, trash his own show. And I don't know that I would necessarily even want him to. I feel like that would feel… I don't know. I don't– I don't know how I would feel about that. But this… this series of television, like, this was him saying, ‘We see you. And that was wrong’. So I am very grateful. You know, I am sad that Cas was not there. I feel like that was surprising? Since he was such a big part of why the finale hurt. But they addressed found family so thoroughly, so directly, so purposefully over and over and over. That I'm like, ‘Okay, well… okay’.

Catherine: Yeah, I mean, they addressed found family, they addressed, you know, open and joyous sexuality in this episode with Carlos just being like, ‘Look– look at this rugged, handsome man’. I mean… They– they addressed healthy relationships, they addressed healing. They had John Winchester talk about going to therapy, I mean, like… They addressed so many important things. That, like, we never got…

Chrisha: *thoughtfully* Well, and that's– that's the heart of it for me is that I didn't get every single thing I wanted from this but it built enough trust for me that I can now, I think – not going to say fully trust the process… I'm not going to be like, ‘No, I'm all in whatever you want to do!’. But kinda? I mean, this repaired a lot, I think, of my trust with this franchise to say like, okay Jensen and Robbie and Danneel. They– they want what we want, I think, you know? At least in terms of broader themes and messaging and inclusivity, they want what we want. They want healing for their characters. They want growth for their characters. They don't want them stuck in these constant freakin’ cycles that go back to over and over and over. They want them to break free. And for right now that's, you know, that's enough, that's enough for me. I'm ready for what's next.

Catherine: I agree. I agree. Same. Do you think we should leave it there?

Chrisha: Yeah, I think so. We will have more to come with so much analysis that you'll probably get sick of us talking but like, whatever. In the meantime, we are screaming in all caps in the Discord if you would like to join our Kofi and come scream in all caps with us.

Catherine: Yes. And it is only $1 a month, so– 

Chrisha: Uh huh! Come on down! 

Catherine: You can come on in and we'd love to have you. And I will also say, just as a little bit of housekeeping, we are working away on the backlog of episodes that we have recorded. 

Chrisha: They're all recorded! All the other ones.

Catherine: Yeah, all the other ones are recorded. We're just working our way through editing them and getting them out to you. We released a new episode the day of the finale and– and so we'll– we'll continue to kind of work on those. But we wanted to give you our initial thoughts and reactions as soon as we could, so we're kind of breaking the pattern so we can give you this.

Chrisha: So we can scream at you–

Catherine: And I’m very glad that we have.

Chrisha: –in your ears immediately.

Catherine: Exactly. Exactly. I'm not even going to like, do a big master on this with noise reduction. So I'm sorry that we're gonna blast your eardrums but not sorry. Anyway…

Chrisha: It is what it is. 

Catherine: It is what it is. You can message us and stay up to date with the latest on our Twitter page, which is @thefangirlbiz, that's bee eye zee or bee eye zed depending on where you live in the world. We will see you again next time. I didn't mess it up this time! We'll see you again next time. And until then, carry on wayward friends! We love you. Bye!

Chrisha: Bye!

Outro Instrumental Rock Music: “Play the Game” by VooDoo Blooze