I do not know how you do it, but I admire it. I know this fandom has gone through a lot (I was there during season 8, arguing for what I was seeing on screen, only for the show to change its mind last minute. Carver! -shakes fist-). Anyway, dealing with the negativity, the doubt, etc., it's a big burden and I do not envy it, but thank you for remaining positive. :)
Well, I mean, we know *why* Carver pulled back from what he believed had been the final season’s intended end in late s8. The show was renewed, and given TWO more seasons, even! We saw his cards though. He gave us enough of a peek in s8 to prime us ALL to see the thing, you know? And then WHOOPSIE?! It’s gonna go to s10? Alrighty, then, guess we gotta loop this bus back onto the spiral narrative and stop heading for character and emotional endgame!
Carver came up with his “three act structure” that was intended at the time to bring the series to a close at the end of s10, but then WHOOPSIE AGAIN! They were renewed for s11 early, and decided to keep making the show. This was also when they got word from the network that even future renewals were relatively “safe,” and “as long as they wanna keep making Supernatural, they’ll have a home at CW” or something to that effect. So the show went from “well we might only have one more season to wrap it all up” to an open-ended “until you’re ready to bring it to a close” storytelling.
Thing about s11′s renewal-- Carver already knew he’d be moving on to developing his own show, and Dabb was taking over in the background by mid season 11 at the latest. Instead of having to drive in that cycle of “getting close to endgame but not so close that we can’t pull everything back if we get renewed for another season,” suddenly the show became ABOUT the characters, peeling all their myriad layers of flannel and manpain back and poking at all the squishy bits that make them who they are as people. Dabb LOVES this. And it shows in the slowest slow burn in the history of fire.
Dabb has always had a general idea of where he would like the series to land. He LOVES this show and these characters, probably more than we do. He’s been creating them for ELEVEN SEASONS now. They are who they are in large part BECAUSE OF HIM. Because he and the team of writers he assembled and kept close (Bobo, Meredith, Yockey, Perez, even Jeremy Adams now) and have helped bring this all to this point... I just trust him completely. I’ve never spent so much time watching a tv show while constantly muttering “I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE YOU SLY DEVIL” and things of that nature. He LOVES his callbacks and references, and so do Meredith and Bobo (who have written the previous two episodes that have set up the pins for what the endgame will look like).
We are currently TWO CHAPTERS FROM THE END OF THIS STORY. What usually happens with two chapters left in a story? ANY story of this nature? Yeah... I’ve never been more excited to get to the end, and see ALL of this finally pay off.
I was debating whether or not to make a post and just dump the entire contents of my inbox into it, because so much of it is worry and doubt and even a sprinkling of denial. But I just don’t have the emotional energy to do it. Just know that I see y’all, but THIS ^^ is how I’m feeling about it all. I’m standing on the millions of words of meta I’ve written about this show, I’m standing on “the scheherazade of supernatural” and “it’s spirals all the way down” and “the grand unification of love theory” (i.e. the meta tags i’ve been filing relevant stuff under FOR YEARS). I suggest that if anyone feels doubt, or feels hurt right now, maybe go spelunking through those tags. If nothing else, it’ll keep you distracted for a little bit. :’D
I don’t even know what more I can say at this point. We’re two chapters from then end of an epic story, and I’m holding on for the ending to make sense and feel satisfying.
