Recap of Supernatural
Season 11, Episode 22:
We Happy Few
Sam and Dean face their biggest challenge yet. Rowena makes her move.
Writers: Robert Berens
Director: John Badham
Body Count
For this episode: Four witches.
For the series so far: At least 1273 humans (of which 19 were witches), 1126 angels, 186 demons, 71 vampires, 52 ghosts, 36 Jefferson Starships, 22 gods, 19 zombies, 17 werewolves, 10 hellhounds, 8 Bisaan, 7 shapeshifters, 7 skinwalkers, 6 changelings, 5 djinn, 5 reapers, 4 dogs, 4 ghouls, 4 Leviathan, 3 Khan Worms, 3 Thule, 2 Amazons, 2 arachnes, 2 kitsunes, 2 rugarus, 2 vetalas, 2 zannas, 1 banshee, 1 cat, 1 crocotta, Death, 1 deer, 1 dragon, 1 fairy, 1 familiar, 1 lamia, The Mother of All, 1 nachzehrer, 1 okami, 1 phoenix, 1 pishtaco, 1 Purgatory creature, 1 qarin, 1 rakshasa, 1 rawhead, 1 shojo, 1 shtriga, 1 siren, 1 soul eater, 1 Titan, 1 wendigo, The Whore of Babylon, 1 wicked witch, and 1 wraith.
Tropes
- Anything but That!: Amara's reaction to Chuck's attempt to re-imprison her. She says she'd rather die or kill him a million times over than be trapped again. It even gives her enough resolve to deliver a fatal blow to Chuck before he can finish binding her.
- Armor-Piercing Question: God asking Lucifer if he really could've kept humanity safe with him still around and asked what he would've done if he was in his place.
- Awkward Father-Son Bonding Activity: God and Lucifer sit down to talk about their feelings. Awkwardness ensues.
- Backhanded Apology: Chuck starts with this to Lucifer because he refuses to accept that he should feel bad for his "right" actions involving putting his own son in the cage.
- Badass Fingersnap: Subverted. Lucifer reacts to Dean getting snarky with him by attempting to blow up both him and Sam with a finger snap, but God deactivated his powers to prevent exactly something like that.
- Combined Energy Attack: Amara being repeatedly pummeled by these is what finally manages to deal some real damage to her. First Rowena and a group of witches performing a combined spell on her, then angels hitting her with another mass smite, and then finally Crowley and an entire army of demons.
- Death by a Thousand Cuts: Basically the strategy to beat Amara: while witches, angels, demons, and Lucifer can't have a hope of beating her alone, hammering with them en masse one right after another is enough to nearly kill her.
- Department of Redundancy Department: Sam suggests they look for more "hand of god" artifacts to aid in the coming battle, to which Chuck waves his hands and quips that it'd be kind of redundant.
- Dysfunctional Family: God, Amara, Lucifer, and the rest of the Angels.Dean: It's like the worst episode of Full House ever.
- Enemy Mine: Everyone against Amara. Rowena, Lucifer, and Crowley all despise each other, but Amara's a big enough threat to force them to work together.Dean: Nobody likes each other, but it doesn't matter.Sam: We only have the fight ahead.
- Forced to Watch: Amara begins carrying out her promise to her brother. She delivers a fatal blow that leaves Chuck dying so that she can make him watch his whole creation die along with him.
- Hazy-Feel Turn: After Chuck's heartfelt apology, Lucifer is on board with team Winchester but it's up in the air on whether the direction of his actual moral compass has changed.
- Hope Spot: For a moment it looks like Amara has been defeated and Chuck begins to seal her away again, using Sam as the new bearer of the mark. Then she summons the strength to stop him and deliver a fatal blow which leaves Chuck dying.
- Humiliation Conga: What happens to Amara when the Witches, Angels and Demons team up to fight her. She gets electrocuted, burned by a second Bolt of Divine Retribution, pummeled by demons in their smoke form, and finally Impaled with Extreme Prejudice by Lucifer wielding the previously seen and presumed to be Spear of Destiny. She winds up a slashed, burned, bleeding and broken wreck by the time she reaches Chuck who apologizes and tries to get her to see his side before attempting to trap her within the mark once again.
- After the humiliation that Crowley's been suffering over the last few seasons (held prisoner by the Winchesters, reduced to a junkie, ass kicked by Abaddon, bringing in but then being unable to control either Demon!Dean or Amara, being manipulated by Rowena, and finally being Made a Slave by Lucifer), the other demons have finally lost all respect for him. Between that and the pending destruction of the world, his attempt at regaining the position of King of Hell falls flat.
- Kill the God: She doesn't quite succeed in one stroke, but Amara puts Chuck extremely close to death and says that he is fading and dying.
- No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: Chuck says they only have a slim chance of weakening Amara due to being down by three archangels. He also says he can't just reconstitute Raphael and Gabriel because archangels have primordial power that takes a great deal of time and effort to produce.
- No-Sell: Rowena's first attack on Amara is one of these.
- Power Nullifier: In response to Dean pointing out that they saved Lucifer's ass, he tries to explode the Winchesters in customary fashion with a Badass Finger Snap, but Chuck nullifies his powers.
- Reality-Breaking Paradox: Both Chuck and Lucifer allude to this happening if they just outright killed Amara. They both agree that light and darkness exist in a kind of balancing act together, and the death of one would cause the end of the other, and the universe for that matter.
- Self-Serving Memory: Both Chuck and Amara have this about the events which led him to imprison her. Amara believes he just wanted to make lesser beings to feed his ego because initially the two of them were alone and equal to each other. Chuck actually accepts this indictment, but says it's not the whole truth. He tells her that his creation wound up being something greater and more beautiful than that, and he tries to open her eyes to it.
- Shout-Out: Some witches are mentioned in this episode; one of them is called Thomasin.
- Take Me Instead: Sam volunteers to bear the Mark this time as a way of locking Amara away.
- Tarot Troubles: Clea is alerted to the coming end of everything by turning up all Death cards. These may have another significance, as she's killed in the confrontation with Amara.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: God, Lucifer, Crowley and Rowena are all on board for the fight along with the angels and demons, but it still leads to a fair amount of Snark-to-Snark Combat. Sam and Dean get them all to agree that the fate of creation is at stake so they put aside all grievances until it's over.
- The Devil Is a Loser: Chuck takes away Lucifer's powers for a portion of the episode. Lucifer's reaction is basically to throw a tantrum and lock himself in Sam's room playing loud rock music like a bratty teenager.
- The Unapologetic: Chuck starts this way with Lucifer because he's too focused on the fact that he was right to do what he did to keep creation safe. Sam tries to explain to him that apologizing isn't about backing down even though you're right, it's about being sorry.
- Underestimating Badassery: Amara doesn't view anyone other than her brother as a threat. She pays for that when she's attacked in mass and in waves.
- Villainous Breakdown:
- Lucifer basically turns into a bratty teenager throwing a tantrum when God takes his powers away.
- Amara slowly breaksdown into hysterics as she begins losing until she's having a freak out over the prospect of being put back in her prison.
- Visual Pun: God says "enough from the peanut gallery" and then banishes Sam and Dean to a balcony.
- Wham Episode: By the end, God is dying.
- Yin-Yang Bomb: The thing that does the most damage to Amara is the angels hitting her with a mass smite followed instantly by an army of demons assaulting her in their smoke forms.
- Zerg Rush: While the Angels and Witches can combine their power, the Demons' assault on her amounts to this.
