So, went on a spiral last night trying to piece together the full story of Mark Sheppard's final episode now that we have this script. For anyone curious, here's what I've been able to conclude/piece together:
1) TPTB didn't confirm he would be killed off, but he knew he wouldn't be coming back for S13. He's talked often about how they started running out of ideas of what to do with his character since late Season 10. He felt he went from "the smartest character on the show to the dumbest" in two seasons.
2) At a Comic Con Copenhagen panel, he gave a short version of the story. He got the script for 12x23 and didn't like it all at first. From what I could tell, it was a lot more focused on Fergus and Rowena. BUT him and Dabb had a "long conversation about the ending, what was gonna happen." Mark said, "If you're gonna do it, do it right...we created this story, this idea, and he wrote it and it was really good. And he out all the things that I wanted. And then we did it and shot it and it was a very good way to go. And then we cut all the stuff that I made." He also talks about how one of the lines he wrote, the iconic "Even when I lose, I win" wasn't used but ended being repurposed and reversed for one of AU!Kevin's dying lines, "Even when I win, I lose."
3) He got to tell the full story thanks to a panel at C2E2. Wayward Winchester included the full portion of the panel in his video, I made a transcript below:
Panelist: "I love, love, love the story you shot for your character's last episode. Could you share that versus what the audience saw onscreen?"
Mark Sheppard: "Well, look...I mean. Fair play to Andrew Dabb. He'd written an endpiece, a placemaker endpiece [the rat getaway in 12x21.] He wasn't quite sure I don't think what he wanted to do with the end. He did the death in [Episode] 21, which didn't really make a lot of sense since I don't spark out...So it just sort of turned into this sort of very complicated thing."
Mark: "And I already knew I was done...I'd already driven all my stuff from Canada, I didn't have my apartment anymore. I was aware I wasn't coming back for Season 13. It was the...situation that dare not speak its name. So, I said my love and goodbyes to everybody. I took my time, took a couple weeks to thank everybody that I knew. It wasn't an event, it was a sort of...slow letting out of a balloon."
"[Episode] 21 was [Episode] 21. I was like, 'Are you gonna fix it?'. Said it'd make more sense to leave him dead there [instead of the rat getaway], 'much more of a shock.' And he said 'No, no, no we have to get this right.' And I said okay. And he sent me a script [for 12x23] and I said: 'Look. I love you and thank you for everything you've done but you know maybe we can focus in a little direction here.' And I said, 'You know, I... the only thing...Crowley doesn't care about Fergus and he doesn't care about Rowena and he doesn't care about any of that stuff. He never really did. He only cares about winning. He always cared about winning.' And you know, he just constantly won."
"And you know, there was a thing...I had a joke with Jeremy [Carver] for years that even if they wrote me losing in a situation, I was going to play it like it was my idea anyway. He started laughing. I was talking to Robbie Thompson [at the convention] today and I was going 'It doesn't matter what you guys wrote for me, I always wrote it like - always played it like it was my idea.' Like 'I always knew that this was gonna happen, like I knew they were going to get the drop on me.' And so it was fun to play it that way."
"So they rewrote the end and the end was written. And you know, Andrew did a really good job writing. There's this HUGE speech in the Men of Letters and I'd asked him for a line that I wanted to put in. So when Rowena's dead, [I'm like] 'Lucifer?....Funny I always thought it'd be me that killed her.' And everyone was like 'You can't, that's awful, that's terrible' And I was like, 'But it's absolutely correct.' And they're like, 'Yeah it is kind of absolutely correct. It makes sense.' Rowena was never really a mother to Crowley. The thing that was the problem for Crowley was that it's Fergus's mother, not Crowley's mother, and that's always what gets so irritating about it. I've always played as 'Well everybody else has a mother, so why can't I?' and [Ruth] always played it rather brilliantly in that way."
"They put in this huge, great speech that Andrew wrote about like...I've been trying to keep my job for so long I never realized how much I hated it. I think that was a bit personal for me." Laughs. "But it was like...it was written very caustically in that way and I think Bob [Singer] deliberately designed the shot so that he could cut the middle out, containing the words, 'I just kept going on and winning and winning and winning. Never stopping, winning even when I lost. Even when I lose, I won.' You know, never stop winning...and then I come back into the conclusion of the thing to them at the table."
"And at the end when Lucifer is there. And I step up and I know that I'm the only answer in this way. He goes 'you know you took it personally and I was like 'I hate that, let's just play it that out...yes you humiliated me. How the hell could Crowley be humiliated? I mean he has no...the guy was as deviant and odd as you could possibly be."
[Sidenote: as a lot of us know, he had a lot of issues in general with the Lucifer vs. Crowley storyline and how it was written to make Crowley seem weak, humiliated, that he lost the upper hand i.e. that Crowley and the dog leash thing.]
Panelist: "He would flip everything as winning!"
Mark: "Exactly! Yeah. It didn't make any difference so it was like okay I'll let that go but it's like...He goes, the line was 'You know, you're going to lose.' And my line was 'Funny you should say that.' And then I say, 'Because even when I lose, I win.' And I turned around to the boys and I said 'Goodbye Boys' and then stabbed myself. Which is supposed to be the big shock moment...and so they cut it out. And I was like...hmm. Well that made it less fun than it would've been." Panelist agrees. "So it was a little bit ehhhh...so I did a t-shirt in revenge and we raised plenty of money for charity."
He is of course referring to the Stands shirt he did for charity with the cut phrase:
3) This script won in the auction by @spnscripthunt is a Production Draft. For anyone new to screenwriting, Robbie Thompson broke down the process before:
- Production Draft (then different colored drafts for production revisions)
One line Mark came up with did make it air and was in this Production Draft (the line about Rowena's death.) Script vs. what aired below:
There were also some lines and mentions of "winning" during his speech in the Bunker in both.
However, the infamous "Even when I lose, I win" line was neither in this Production Draft or the aired version. My best guess is that it was a Production Draft Revision. Here's his final lines in both instead (the script focused more on his relationship with the boys, the aired version had the set-up for the line but skipped right over it clearly indicating it was cut.)
4) It's hard to blame this all on Dabb, because he did write the scene and lines that Mark wanted and created a story they both agreed on. Mark mentioned Robert Singer was likely the one to cut it/direct it so the new lines could easily be cut.
It's possible the monologue was cut because of the dark, almost suicidal nature of it all (thank you to all who tagged CWs for it.) But to cut out the lines about winning even he loses IS demoralizing and humiliating. It takes away any sense of dignity and pride both the character and actor was able to get in his final episode, just to make Lucifer seem more powerful.
5) The script also says "or is he?" in regards to Crowley being dead. This is also used in the script for both the Rowena and Castiel death reveals, who both come back in S13 (Misha's return was definitely planned, Rowena/Ruth didn't appear until 13x12.) It's possible the show was planning on finding a way to bring Crowley/Mark back in some form, just not as a regular. And possibly not even in that season.
When Jim Michaels tried to comment publicly that maybe they hadn't seen the last of Crowley yet though, this exchange happened:
Mark also stopped appearing at Creation-run cons that year, though he did appear at non-Creation conventions for Supernatural and of course general comic cons like C2E2.
Overall, it's a BIG mess. Between this and the recent Kim Rhodes livestream on how she feel like there should've been a goodbye for Jody, there is definitely a running trend that the side characters always get anticlimactic and impersonal endings. Kim and Mark were not in as many episodes as Misha but have been on the show since S5. Yet Kim's last episode was all about Claire and Kaia, since she had to be the emotional stand-in for Claire. Cas's final scene was mostly about Dean. Crowley's last episode was bookcased with Rowena, Kelly, Castiel, and Mary's death/disappearance plus the introduction of Jack and the apocalypse world. Actors shouldn't feel like villains for simply wanting a proper ending for their character, for both them and the SPN family. It's not selfish to want that closure.
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