Previous: Supernatural S 15 E 19 Inherit The Earth
Carry On
Written by: Andrew Dabb
Directed by: Robert Singer
Air date: November 19, 2020
After fifteen years and fifteen seasons, the series has come to a close. It is the final ride for saving people and hunting things.
Tropes
- Always with You: Before he dies, Dean tells Sam that he will always be with him every day he is living and hunting.
- Back for the Dead: Jenny comes back for the first time since the Season 1 episode "Dead Man's Blood", only to be decapitated by Sam.
- Back for the Finale: We see the original Bobby return at the end after not being seen since season 11.
- Back from the Dead: Though we never see him, Bobby says Jack brought Castiel back from the Empty, as he is stated to have helped him reconstruct Heaven into a better place.
- Bloodless Carnage: Not for the episode as a whole, but Dean's death is almost completely bloodless. The only reason we know he's injured is because we see it happen and are shown a small amount of blood on Sam's fingers when he tries to move Dean off the rebar.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: After Sam and Dean reunite in Heaven for the actual final shot of the episode, after the fade to black, Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles address the audience to thank the fans for their support over the years, then the camera zooms back showing the entire crew waving goodbye to the audience.
- Brick Joke: In an earlier episode, "Atomic Monsters", Becky mentions that her fan fiction mostly comprises of Sam and Dean doing laundry. Come the start of this episode, we're shown a montage of Sam and Dean doing domestic chores like cleaning, making breakfast, and Sam doing the laundry.
- Continuity Nod: Rather appropriately for a final episode, there are quite a few Call Backs to previous episodes in the series.
- Sam and Dean consult John's journal to find out more information on the vampire nest they are looking for, something they haven't done since the early seasons of the show.
- Jenny, a kidnapped victim who was turned into a vampire in "Dead Man's Blood", makes a surprise return.
- Dean once again describes what he and Sam do as "saving people, hunting things".
- Bobby meets up with Dean in Heaven next to a recreation of Harvelle's Roadhouse. He also mentions that several other characters who died throughout the series have places around Heaven that Dean can visit.
- When Sam and Dean reunite in the afterlife they meet up together on a bridge reminiscent of the one that their first onscreen case focused on and when they started to reconnect after being estranged for a few years, while wearing the same clothes that they had for that case.
- Sam and Dean previously entered Heaven in Season 5's "Dark Side of the Moon", where Castiel told Dean that driving along the Axis Mundi, which appears to Dean as two lanes of asphalt, would lead him to Sam. Sure enough, Dean takes a drive instead of reuniting with his friends and family, and eventually finds Sam.
- Creator Cameo: Robert Singer, who has been attached to the show as executive producer, writer, director and co-showrunner since season 1, has a background cameo. He is the man laughing at Dean getting pied by Sam.
- Dead Guy Junior: Sam names his son after Dean.
- Deadly Distant Finale: The ending is set decades after, as an elderly Sam dies on his deathbed, having retired from hunting to live a long life and have a son. Upon death, he is sent to Heaven, where he reunites with Dean.
- Dénouement Episode: With the main arc of the final season having wrapped up last episode with Chuck's defeat this episode is used as an emotional send off to the series and to resolve the loose plot threats left over, including the fate of the Winchester brothers.
- Died Happily Ever After: Dean reunites with Bobby in a recreation of the Harvelle's Roadhouse in Heaven. Bobby states that John and Mary live nearby, as does Rufus, and this time, there are no walls, meaning they can visit whenever they want.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Dean dies for real, not from any cosmic or universal-endangering threat like Chuck or Death, but from an ordinary vampire hunt. This is the point, as Chuck is no longer God, so he has lost his Plot Armor.
- Dying Declaration of Love: Dean delivers one of the platonic variety to Sam, which marks the first time in the entire show he's ever said it to him.
- Earn Your Happy Ending:
- After fifteen years of pain, torture, and fighting supernatural beings, Sam Winchester finally gets to retire as a hunter and live a normal life, starting a family with a wife and son.
- Arguably, Dean's death is also a happy ending for him. Because he dies doing what he does best and his beloved brother is by his side the whole time. Furthermore, he goes to Heaven, reuniting with Bobby and later Sam.
- End of an Age: Not just on the obvious meta level, but in-universe as well, as following Dean's death Sam leaves the bunker for good, represented by shutting off the lights behind him.
- Final Speech: Dean gives one that lasts seven minutes, in general telling Sam how proud he is of him, reminiscing on the Pilot episode, reassuring Sam he's not going to be alone, and capping it all off with a Dying Declaration of Love and a Headbutt of Love.
- The Ghost: According to Bobby, Castiel helped Jack remake Heaven into the paradise it was always suppose to be, implying that he was resurrected from the Empty at some point. Despite this we never see Cas as the finale is firmly focused on the Winchester brothers.
- Go Out with a Smile: Both Sam and Dean die happy and smiling.
- Grand Finale: The 327th episode of the series serves as the definite finale, after a long run spanning fifteen years.
- Groin Attack: Dean punched one of the monsters in the groin when it was distracted.
- Headbutt of Love: Sam and Dean give each other one right before Dean succumbs to his injuries and dies.
- The Hero Dies: Both Dean and Sam die throughout the course of the episode.
- Heroes Love Dogs: It's revealed that Dean adopted Miracle the dog he found in the previous episode. After Dean dies Sam adopts Miracle.
- Killed Off for Real: Dean Winchester suffers his true final death in this episode after being mortally wounded while on a hunt. He also makes sure that Sam promises him not to bring him back since those deals always go rotten. Later in life Sam dies of old age and joins Dean in Heaven.
- Last of His Kind: After Sam dies, his son, Dean, becomes the only surviving Winchester blood, assuming he's Sam's biological child.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
- Dean lampshades how random it is to run into Jenny of all people after all these years.
- When Dean's going for a drive in the Impala in Heaven, "Carry on Wayward Son" — which is the closest thing that the show's had to a theme song — starts playing on the radio, with Dean stating that he loves the song.
- Lonely Funeral: Only his brother, Sam, and his new dog, Miracle, attend Dean's funeral.
- Malevolent Masked Men: The vampires the Winchesters hunt in this episode and do Dean in wear skull masks
- Maybe Ever After: While it's shown that Sam got married at some point after his and Dean's final case, since the only time we see Sam's wife is afar, it's left ambiguous if this person is Eileen (his current love interest) or if this is someone we've never meet before.
- Meaningful Echo:
- When Dean is dying he and Sam repeat the lines of dialogue they gave each other from the pilot when they were discussing Dean's ability to find John on his own. The lines are repeated here though Sam and Dean use each others words and the context is much sadder.
- Sam's last words to Dean were to tell him that it was okay to let go and holding his hand as he finally died. Years later on his deathbed Sam's son, also named Dean, tells his father the same thing and holds his hand as Sam dies of old age.
- Never Trust a Title: Rather than the And the Adventure Continues setup suggested by the title "Carry On", this episode brings the series to a very definitive end.
- Nostalgia Heaven: The first thing Jack does to Heaven is to scrap this concept by tearing down the walls between the personal heavens, reshaping Heaven into a place where people can genuinely live happily.
- Plot Armor: Averted by Dean, who dies fighting a bunch of season 1 vampires after one of them, inadvertently, backs him into a piece of rebar.
- Production Foreshadowing: After Dean's funeral, Sam gets a call for a case in Austin. Jared Padalecki would star in another The CW production, Walker, set in Austin, a few months after the episode aired.
- Retired Badass: After Dean's death, Sam retires from hunting to live a normal life. It's unknown if he still has the skills of a hunter, but it seems that he still has some of the knowledge since his son has a tattoo sigil, like Sam and Dean.
- The Reveal: Fifteen years after the pilot episode, Dean admits to Sam that he'd waited outside his dorm for hours because he was so afraid Sam wouldn't want anything to do with him, putting Dean's overly casual reunion in the episode proper into a completely different light.
- Reveal Shot: Dean stops driving at a bridge, gets out and looks over the water, then smiles, says "Heya, Sammy" and the camera pans over to reveal Sam behind him.
- Revisiting the Roots: After spending the last few seasons dealing with cosmic level threats the Winchesters' final case turns out to be a vampire hunt. The boys even whip out John's journal and consult it, something they haven't had to do in years. Word of God stated this was intentional and they wanted to homage the old school feel of the first few seasons of the show which were all about Wandering the Earth "saving people, hunting things."
- So Proud of You: The dying Dean tells Sam that he's always been proud of him.
- Surprisingly Sudden Death: After decades of fighting monsters and Punching Out Cthulhu, Dean dies in a fairly mundane fashion after a spike punctures his vital organs during a routine fight with some vampires. Justified, as Chuck no longer being around to give him Plot Armor to mess with him means that he'll die like any other hunter, i.e. suddenly and messily.
- Time Skip: The episode itself is purposefully ambiguous about how much time has passed between the last episode and the finale. The script says six months, though both Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles have their own interpretations that it lasted several years.
- Titled After the Song: The title is a reference to "Carry On Wayward Son", which plays during the recap of virtually every season finale of the series (the only exception is the first season, where the song is played during the penultimate episode's recap).
- Together in Death: Dean is greeted by Bobby in Heaven. And, years later, he reunites with Sam after the latter dies of old age.
- Wham Shot: Dean getting impaled.
- The Window or the Stairs: The vampire they interrogate for the children's location needs it explained to him that he's better off being decapitated with a big knife rather than a little one.
- Year Inside, Hour Outside: Bobby tells Dean that "time is different" in Heaven. This is illustrated by Dean taking the Impala for a drive shortly thereafter; he stops after a while and meets Sam, who has just arrived in Heaven after what was to him 30 or 40 years.
