#but also because that 2x02 scene was a nightmare to colour

[devereaux]

2x02 | 2x12

[mittensmorgul]

Re: signs that 15x20 is unreal, how about the monkey statue? It's a feature of the Roadhouse in 2x02, so it seems fair enough it would appear in Heaven's Roadhouse. However, it also features in Dean's dream bar in 14x10 and in Lebanon, 14x13. You could say then that it represents Dean's desires ... but actually, both of these episodes featured dangerous fantasies that Dean had to choose to end in order to get what he really wanted. In Nihilism, Dean has to snap out of the supposed ideal reality in order to obtain freedom from Michael's control. In Lebanon, Dean undoes the pearl's granting of his "heart's desire" because although he could get Michael out of his head and also get his father back, it would mean losing Mary, Cas, and Jack, and becoming estranged from Sam. So, I really think that the monkey statue is a massive red flag. (Especially as it seems so prominent in an otherwise sparse set, sitting outside the Roadhouse, between Bobby and Dean - like a third character, or a barrier. Are there other theories about it?)

Also, the saturated colours, vintage vehicles and general retro Americana feel of both the street at the end of 15x19 and the pie festival in 15x20 bear an uncanny resemblance to Charming Acres from 14x19 - which of course turned out to be a false reality created, controlled and violently enforced by the mayor (one of those 'little men in positions of power'), a father who proclaims himself God. So, to me, everything from the end of 15x19 to 15x20 screams false, dangerous dream, which claims to be what you want, but isn't really.

It's the moment that Jack becomes God that everything stops making sense, really. Dean asked God to bring Cas back, but he doesn't ask Jack? Dean's worst nightmare is to be on his own, and yet when he gets to Heaven and finds out he doesn't have to be alone, that everyone is together, he ... drives off on his own???

Sorry, forgot to add: I love the way you said that either 15x20 obliterates canon or canon obliterates 15x20. That sums it up perfectly!

___

HELLO THERE! Before we begin, I have to say I LOVE THE HEN OF LETTERS. She’s ADORABLE! 

Okay, now that we have that out of the way, for reference purposes this is regarding this post I made yesterday (linked with an addition I threw on a few hours later, for the sake of keeping it as current as possible):

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/640259612227059712/so-signs-that-15x20-isnt-real-el-sol-beer

Thank you for contributing so much, and potentially saving me having to rewatch to try and catch all the details for sciencing purposes. :’D I’ll take your observations one by one, for the sake of orderliness. :)

1. The Roadhouse Monkey. Sort of an in-joke on the Supernatural set since s2 (Origin story here). It also appeared in the Black Spur Bar in 13.02 where Asmodeus killed the bartender and disguised himself as her in order to get information about Jack out of Dean. Which, if nothing else, serves as a sort of red flag for “this is not what it appears to be.” So what did Asmodeus chat with Dean about with the monkey as a backdrop? Deadbeat dads, running away from home, but still wanting the approval of their fathers more than anything. Imagine that.

Because of how to came to be part of the roadhouse set, with Jerry basically HATING the thing yet directors LOVING it and thinking it made for a great establishing shot of the Roadhouse interior, it also serves as a sort of “cry for help” from the production designers. Like... a “we had no other choice” warning. It was literally the establishing shot of the original Roadhouse’s rubble after it burned. 

And also what you said about it above, too. It’s a very meta monkey.

My tag for the monkey

2. YES. THE COLORS. Beginning with 15.19′s final scene and that incredibly weird montage with Sam and Dean’s drive into the fakey-fakey sunset. Like... one out-of-nowhere shot they’d been using in the promo for the finale was the final scene from 2.18 Hollywood Babylon where Sam and Dean walk off the movie set into the “sunset,” which turns out to be a fake sunset painted on a giant screen that rolls aside to reveal the cold grey gloom of reality behind it. Same exact feeling there with the extra-orangey light pervading the finale.

As to the “nostalgia for the past” aura of the episode, that started for me during the bunker montage at the beginning of the episode (and that SONG CHOICE had me cringing too, because heck... that was a depressing way to open the ep... little did I know it would only get more depressing from there). Dean’s precious Dead Guy Robe just gets unceremoniously tossed aside like so much dirty laundry in the room Dean once cared so much for... the old-fashioned alarm clock on his nightstand... Sam doing laundry in a literal machine from the 50′s while he just stands there waiting for it like he has nothing better to do... Dean cleaning all his guns for apparently lack of anything better to do... not being able to find a case and yet not being even remotely interested in exploring the brand new potential of the future and remaining trapped by now-nonexistent duty and the literal actual past... It’s... so wrong in every way.

3. And yeah, the emptiness of Heaven is partly attributable to Covid, but it didn’t have to FEEL completely empty like it did. Like, even devoid of the SIGNS of humanity, with Dean driving completely alone down deserted highways through the wilderness. The Roadhouse was the only tangible sign that anyone else even existed in this heaven, aside from the roads and the bridge in the final scene. Like... where are all these people Dean supposedly cared about LIVING? or... whatever you’d call existing in Heaven as a soul if not living?

And why would Dean’s first desire, when he’d been doing it his whole life and had been most recently doing it within minutes of having died, be to go on a drive? It’s beyond absurd to me. That was not the Dean that Castiel knew and loved. That was not the Dean who literally did everything out of love for the world and the people in his life. That was not the Dean that Cas sacrificed himself for. Sorry, it’s just not.

It’s almost as if all of Chuck’s storytelling power simply transferred over to Jack. It’s almost as if the storyteller interfering was irrelevant and only hindering his story actually playing out. Like the storyteller only needed for Sam and Dean to let their guard down, to believe their free will had won, for them to lose all their agency and become nothing more than irrelevant characters to be disposed of.

You can’t have both things. Either you believe the first 326 episodes of Supernatural, or you believe the 327th. They are mutually exclusive.