11.23 Alpha and Omega
Title | Alpha and Omega |
Episode # | Season 11, Episode 23 |
First aired | May 25, 2016 |
Directed by | Phil Sgriccia |
Written by | Andrew Dabb |
On IMDB | Alpha and Omega |
Outline | With Chuck dying and the world coming to an end, the Winchesters make one last desperate attempt to stop Amara that will come at a cost for both Sam and Dean. |
Monster | Amara Vengeful Spirits |
Timeline | Immediately after 11.22 We Happy Few |
Location(s) | Lebanon, Kansas London, England Louisville, Kentucky Greenville, Illinois |
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Synopsis
Castiel regains consciousness, and tells Sam and Dean that Amara removed Lucifer from his vessel and he is gone—although Cas does not know where. Chuck is greatly weakened and revealed to be dying from Amara's attack. Rowena returns and takes them, and Crowley, outside, where the group sees that the sun is dying.
Somewhere in England, Lady Antonia Bevell watches news about the strange solar activity. After taking a phone call, during which she seems to accept to undertake a task, she heads through a door with the Men of Letters Aquarian Star symbol, to a secret basement room full of material on the Winchesters. She then says goodbye to her young son, and heads out to fly to Kansas.
In the Bunker, Dean settles down to drink his way to the Apocalypse—as does Crowley. Chuck and Rowena compare notes on how hard parenting is. Sam is frustrated and insists that all is not hopeless. Dean and Cas head out to get more beer. Dean asks after Cas, who feels guilty for letting Lucifer free. Dean reassures him that he did the best thing under the circumstances, and that he is a brother to him and Sam, the best friend they've ever had. A call from Sam has them heading back to the Bunker—there may be a way to stop Amara.
Chuck has agreed to help kill Amara, telling everyone that the Darkness can be cancelled out by light. They hit on a plan to use the power of souls to make a bomb to destroy her. Sam and Dean head to a haunted asylum to collect souls. Crowley goes to Hell and Castiel to Heaven, but neither the demons or the angels will help. Billie the reaper appears, and offers them souls from the Veil to use. She puts the souls into a bomb Rowena has constructed.
Meanwhile, in a park, Amara talks to an old woman about family. "Even when you hate them," she says to Amara, "you still love them." With the bomb ready, Chuck needs to find Amara, and then someone with a personal connection to her, Dean, needs to get close with the bomb. The twist is that the bomb will be inside Dean—killing Amara will also kill him!
At the graveside of Mary Winchester in Greenville Cemetery, Dean says goodbye to Sam and Cas. He asks for a funeral with an "open bar, choir, Sabbath cover band, and Gary Busey reading the eulogy" and for his ashes to be scattered next to Mary's grave. Chuck sends Dean to Amara, and the rest of them head to a nearby bar.
Amara explains to Dean that it is not her who is dimming the Sun, it is Chuck dying. When he dies, so will everything, including her. Dean explains that Chuck doesn't want her dead. He talks to her about the importance of family, and how he thinks what she really wants is a connection with her brother. He pleads with her to put aside her hate. Amara summons Chuck, and talks to him about how he hurt her, and how all she wants is her brother back. He eventually agrees, and Amara heals him. The sun starts shining again. Outside the bar, Crowley, Rowena, Cas, and Sam see it too—but think it also means Dean is dead. Amara and Chuck tell Dean they are going away to spend time together. Before they leave, Amara thanks Dean for giving her back Chuck and says that she will also give Dean what he needs most.
Cas and Sam return to the Bunker. They are confronted by Lady Toni, who uses an angel banishing sigil to send Castiel away. She points a gun at Sam, but he advances on her. She shoots him. In a darkened field somewhere, Dean hears a woman cry out. As he approaches, he recognizes her. It is his mother, Mary.
Characters
Definitions
- Adam and Eve
- Alcohol
- Angel Banishing Sigil
- Angel Blade
- Aquarian Star
- Biggerson's
- Book of the Damned
- British Men of Letters
- Campbell (family)
- The Cosmic Balance
- The Darkness
- Dean's Police Record
- EMF
- Ghosts
- Hand of God
- Healing
- Heaven
- Hell
- Hugs
- Impala
- Iron
- Key to the Bunker
- Leviathan
- Men of Letters
- Men of Letters Bunker
- Moose
- Nicknames
- Photo Album
- Reapers
- Resurrection
- Richard Roman Enterprises
- Salt
- Sam's Police Record
- Souls
- Soul Catcher
- Spells
- Stanford University
- Table of Death
- Teleportation
- The Veil
- Vengeful Spirits
- Winchester (family)
Music
- "Carry On Wayward Son" by Kansas
- (plays during "The Road So Far" recap of events; also played in 1.21 Salvation, 2.22 All Hell Breaks Loose: Part Two, 3.16 No Rest for the Wicked, 4.22 Lucifer Rising, 5.22 Swan Song, 6.22 The Man Who Knew Too Much, 7.23 Survival of the Fittest, 8.23 Sacrifice, 9.23 Do You Believe in Miracles?, and 10.23 Brother's Keeper)
- "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying" by Gerry and the Pacemakers
- (playing in the bar Sam, Chuck, Crowley, and Rowena are drinking at)
Quotes
Chuck: You know when you're driving and a bug hits your windshield? I'm the bug.
Sam: No!
Chuck: Hmm. Yeah, well I'm not helping anyone right now, obviously. She's been... nice.
Crowley: For now.
Chuck: Now's kind of all we got.
Castiel: I was just... so stupid.
Dean: No, no, no. It wasn't stupid. You were right. You were right to let Lucifer ride shotgun. Me and Sam wouldn't have done that.
Castiel: Well, it didn't work.
Dean: No, but it was our best shot, and you stepped up.
Castiel: I was just trying to help.
Dean: Well, and you do help, Cas. You know, I-- You know, sometimes, me and Sam have got so much going on that.. we forget about everyone else.
Castiel: Well, you do live exciting lives.
Dean: Yeah, that's one word for it. But you're always there, you know? You're the best friend we've ever had. You're our brother, Cas. I want you to know that.
Sam: Look, Chuck's dying. Uh, no offense, God.
Rowena: H-he's not wrong.
Dean: Okay, so, if we got this kind of juice, then what?
Dean: Well, desperate and stupid's pretty much all we got right now, so...
Amara: So you hate him.
Dean: 'Course I do. I just have to get close. I can do that, okay? I can do that.
Sam: You know, if this works, um, that bomb goes off.
Chuck: No. I -- Even after everything she's done, Amara's still my sister. She's my family. I can't -- I don't want to see her dead, but...
Dean: Yeah?
Sam: Done.
Dean: And for my ashes, I like it here. Yeah. You know, as far as eternal resting places go.Dean: And into darkness.
Dean: No, no. No. He zapped me here, yes, but He didn't want this. This wasn't His idea. You're family. He doesn't want you dead. He doesn't want any of this!
Amara: No! I just wanted to hurt Him. I wanted to make Him pay.
Dean: Yeah, that's revenge. It'll get you out of bed in the morning, and when you get it, it feels great... for about five minutes. I've been there. Me and Sam -- we have had our fair share of fights -- more than our share -- but no matter how bad it got, we always made it right because we're family. I need him. He needs me. And when everything goes to crap, that's all you've got -- family. And you might be a-an all-powerful being... but I think you're human where it counts. You simply need your brother.
Amara: Just stop.
Chuck: I did. I do.
Amara: But then you went and you made all these other things. I hated them. I hated you for needing something else, something that wasn't me. And then you locked me away, and all I could think about was making you suffer.
Chuck: You had your reasons.
Amara: I did. And I thought revenge would make me happy. But I was wrong. What you've made... it's beautiful. It took me a long time to see that. I know that we can't go back to the way things were. I don't want to. But I wish... I wish that we could just be family again.
Chuck: Earth will be fine. It's got you... and Sam.
Sam: Dead. Listen, lady. I don't know who the hell you are or what the hell you want-
Toni: Stop.
Sam: Put the gun down.
Toni: I said stop.
Trivia & References
- “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.”
Castiel: I didn't know dogs had breakfast.
- "A dog's breakfast" refers to something that is a total mess.
- This could refer to the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, which contains this line.
Chuck: Adam and Eve were the same way.
- In the creation story of the Abrahamic religions, the first humans—Adam and Eve—were originally naked.
Sam: Yeah, but we would need a whole lot of them.
Dean: Waverly Hills.
Sam: Waverly Hills Sanatorium. Of course. Thousands died there.
- Waverly Hills Sanatorium is a hospital in Kentucky, used in the 20th century for people with tuberculosis. It is reputed to be one of the most haunted places in the US.
- Casper was the eponymous ghost in the cartoon series Casper, the Friendly Ghost. Dean first referred to a ghost as "Casper" in the 1.01 Pilot.
Dean: Haggis!
- The national dish of Scotland, haggis is a savory pudding of sheep's heart, liver, and lungs, minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt. It is traditionally cooked in the sheep's stomach.
Minutiae
- Sam and Dean's FBI wanted posters from 2011.
- Sam's birth certificate—through zooming in, it reads Sam's full name as Samuel William Winchester and John's full name as John Edward Winchester. However, Sam's birth date is listed as April 13, 1983, and Mary's full name is written as Mary Catherine Howard. Clearly Toni's information isn't reliable.
- Numerous photos from security camera footage of Sam and Dean from 2.12 Nightshifter.
- A photograph of Henry Winchester.
- A photograph of Jimmy Novak.
- A copy of Jimmy Novak's driving license.
- A picture of the stained glass window in the likeness of Castiel from 7.01 Meet the New Boss.
- A photo of Castiel as "Steve".
- "Cassiel" scrawled on a post-it.
- Various maps.
- Copies of police investigation information into credit card fraud by Dean.
- A police sketch of Dean.
- A Winchester/Campbell family tree.
- A photograph of Henry, Millie, and a young John.
- A fingerprint match report of Dean's fingerprints.
- A sketch of a leviathan.
- Sam and Dean's mugshots from 2.19 Folsom Prison Blues.
- Pictures from security cameras of Demon Dean from 10.01 Black.
- Pictures of their leviathan doppelgängers from 7.06 Slash Fiction.
- A printed-out screengrab of Sam's Stanford University email account.
- Pictures from traffic cam footage of the Impala.
- A copy of a news report about Biggerson's contaminated turducken meat (this article was previously seen in 7.11 Adventures in Babysitting).
- Some information on Richard Roman Enterprises.
Sam: Yeah, you love chick flicks.
Dean: Yeah, you're right. I do. Come here.
- In 1.01 Pilot, Sam apologizes to Dean after an argument to which Dean replies, "No chick-flick moments."