Supernatural 5.03, “Free to Be You and Me,” was an enjoyable and solid episode, but I find myself without much to say about it. It was fun, but I didn’t particularly care for the way Castiel was portrayed in the episode: I had a hard time reconciling the character we’ve come to know, a no-nonsense angel, with the character seen in “Free to be You and Me.” I just didn’t buy that Castiel would consent to carouse with Dean at a brothel, and I didn’t particular care for the comedization (that so should be a word, but apparently it is not – I’m using it anyway) of his character. I like him as an inhuman badass angel; I didn’t want to see him humanized. Apart from that, the rest of the episode was… fine.

Then came Supernatural 5.04, “The End,” and I was blown away. Not only was it a great episode on its own, but it also put “Free to Be You and Me” into more context. Ultimately, I think the two episodes are best viewed and reviewed together. 5.03 is a precursor for 5.04 and adeptly sets the stage for it. On its own, I would have rated 5.03 about 3.5 Metallicars. Taken in conjunction with 5.04, I give them a combined average of 5.

“The End” begins with the beginning: The ‘Road So Far’ capsule summary at the episode’s start calls back to incidents early in the show’s history, including the Season Two episode “Croatoan” as well as episodes featuring the Colt, a demon-slaying gun that featured prominently in Supernatural‘s first main story arc. As the episode proper begins, Dean is on his own, walking the streets of Kansas City. He is stopped by an evangelist, who asks him if he has taken the time to think of God’s plan for him, and whether his soul is “rapture-ready.” Dean brushes him off and enters a motel where, road weary, he crashes. Just as he collapses into bed he receives a cell call from Castiel. Castiel tells Dean that if Dean is going to insist on his crazy plan of attempting to kill Lucifer, then they will need the Colt. The Colt’s continued existence comes as news to Dean, who had assumed it destroyed by demons. The conversation between Dean and Castiel is brief but laugh-out-loud funny: when Dean attempts to crack wise, Castiel scolds him, saying in deadpan delivery “This isn’t funny, Dean – the voice says I’m almost out of minutes.” Lending humor to Castiel’s character at the start of this episode continues the progression and humanization of Castiel’s character from the episode prior. At least this time it’s truly funny, and not quite so unwonted. Castiel wants to meet right away, but Dean declines, in need of sleep. They agree to meet in four hours. Dean concludes his conversation with Castiel only to receive a telephone call from Sam. Sam admits to Dean that he has learned that he is Lucifer’s vessel. Sam practically pleads with Dean that they should join up again; not for revenge, but for redemption. Dean declines. Dean explains to his brother that they are stronger when they are apart. Dean is determined to go his own way, abandoning his brother.

Dean lies down in his bed, but when he wakes the following morning he finds himself on a bare box-spring, the hotel room charred and destroyed. He makes his way to the motel window and looks out to see that he apparently has slept through the apocalypse. Buildings are in ruin, cars are strewn across the road, the world looks abandoned. He wanders the street and eventually encounters a young bedraggled girl squatting amidst shards of broken glass. She attacks him, unprovoked, and as he extricates himself he notices the word “Croatoan” scrawled in graffiti on a nearby wall. This is not a good thing: the word is a callback to a second season episode involving what boiled down to Demon germ warfare, where an entire town turned on itself due to a demonic virus presumably similar to one that must have afflicted the colonial town of Roanoke, Virginia. Roanoke vanished with nary a trace but for the word “Croatoan” carved on a fence post[1]. The same word appears on a board in River Grove, the locale for Supernatural’s eponymous episode. While the episode “Croatoan” felt like a bit of a redux of John Carpenter’s “The Thing,” the episode “The End” feels more like “28 Days Later.” Hordes of angry/possessed/afflicted people spot Dean on the street and start running for him. Dean escapes by the skin of his teeth, and only because the horde is dispatched by a nearby contingent of militia out hunting ‘crotes.

Later that night, out exploring, Dean finds a sign, dated August 1, 2014, labeled “Croatoan Virus Hot Zone.” Dean jacks a car. The angel Zachariah manifests in the passenger seat while Dean is driving. Zachariah explains that he was able to locate Dean thanks to the bible freak that accosted Dean at the episode of the beginning. When Castiel took Sam and Dean off the angelic radar courtesy of protective Enochian rib etchings, Zachariah and his crew were forced to resort to alternate means of locating them. Zachariah explains that they enlisted the aid of fringe religious groups, and one informant responded to the BOLO after spotting Dean. Before vanishing, Zachariah explains that it is his plan to have Dean spend three days in the future so that Dean will understand that his choices have consequences.

The following morning, Dean visits Bobby’s home. Bobby is presumably dead; Dean finds only Bobby’s bullet-riddled wheelchair. Stashed in Bobby’s secret hiding spot, Dean finds Bobby’s journal. One of the last entries includes a photo of Bobby, Castiel, and a few others standing at the entry to Camp Chitaqua. They are posing with weapons and seem reasonably happy, it being the apocalypse and all. Dean presumably knows the location of Camp Chitaqua, or is able to find it, because later that night he is there. He sneaks in, finding the rusted hulk of the Metallicar just to the inside of the gate. While mourning its loss, he is clubbed to unconsciousness by… himself. Yes, this episode features Jensen Ackles playing two parts: Dean and FutureDean. Not only does Ackles have the acting chops to pull it off, but the director does an admirable job of not making it too hokey. Rather than lots of sloppy split screen, the episode instead is heavy on quick dirty frame cuts from one Dean to the other. It works quite well and is technically not distracting at all. It flows naturally and is fun to watch.

Dean awakens to find himself in a wooden lodge, cuffed, a prisoner. FutureDean begins interrogating Dean. FutureDean ultimately accepts that Dean is from 2009. He explains to Dean that the Croatoan virus is the demons’ endgame. It is efficient, uncurable, and scary as Hell. It started hitting major cities two years prior.[2] Asked where Sam is, FutureDean explains that there was a heavyweight showdown in Detroit, and that “Sam didn’t make it.” Dean is taken aback that FutureDean and Sam apparently did not have each other’s backs for the showdown, but FutureDean explains that they had a falling out five years prior and hadn’t spoken since. Presumably, FutureDean is referring to the parting of the ways that happened two episodes prior.

FutureDean leaves Dean cuffed while he goes to run an errand. Dean, of course, promptly escapes. Outside the cabin, Dean runs into Chuck. Chuck assumes he is FutureDean and begins to speak with Dean about the logistics involved with running the survival camp (supplies and morale are low). They are interrupted by Risa, recently spurned by FutureDean. Dean takes the brunt of her wrath. He then seeks out Castiel. He finds him in the midst of making preparations for an orgy. Castiel immediately recognizes Dean as PastDean and correctly deduces Zachariah’s involvment. Dean demands that Castiel send him back to 2009, but Castiel explains that he’s pretty much human, now. The angels have abandoned the planet and, when they did, Castiel’s angelic power just kind of fizzled away. Left behind, Castiel has turned to a life of stoned debauchery. It’s a path that we saw the first glimmers of in the episode prior, and the fact that the show laid the groundwork for it in “Free to Be You and Me” makes Castiel’s debasement seem like a payoff rather than a joke. In the context of this episode, the prior episode makes more sense.

FutureDean returns back to camp and Dean witnesses him killing Yager, one of the men on his expedition, in cold blood. The other men see Dean, and FutureDean explains that it is a messed up situation. To Dean, FutureDean explains that Yager had been infected with the Croatoan virus while they were in the hot zone and that he would have started showing symptoms soon. It was a mercy killing, he claims. FutureDean explains to Dean that the prior night’s mission was successful: he shows the Colt to Dean. He tells Dean that obtaining the Colt took five years, but that now that he has it he will be killing the Devil.

FutureDean rallies his troops for a planning meeting. He explains that Lucifer’s location is known; having been determined by FutureDean through the torture of a demon. Lucifer is in the middle of a hot zone and it is not going to be an easy mission. FutureDean wants Dean to come, because he wants Dean to see what Sam has become. He explains to Dean that Sam said “yes” to becoming Lucifer’s vessel. He wants Dean to see this with his own eyes, so that Dean can do things differently. Specifically, FutureDean wants Dean to say “yes” to becoming Michael’s vessel, so that Michael can inhabit Dean and take out Lucifer before Lucifer can destroy the planet. Even though this will likely mean a battle that destroys half the world, FutureDean argues that “half a planet is better than none” and he tells Dean that he would do so himself were it still possible. Dean expresses his reluctance, perhaps realizing that FutureDean is asking him to do exactly what Zachariah is trying to convince him to do. He argues that there must be a different way. FutureDean explains “That’s what I thought. I was cocky. But I was wrong.” (As it turns out, FutureDean is right – Dean is cocky. He does think there is another way. When Zachariah returns him to 2009 at the episode’s end, he doesn’t learn his lesson. He doesn’t say “yes” to let Michael in, but he tries to find another way. That other way is reuniting with Sam).

The following morning, FutureDean and his crew drive out to the hot zone, Dean in tow. Dean and Castiel drive out together. Castiel explains to Dean that he went mortal, and is “practically” human. He has embraced the decadent world of women, wine, and drugs that Dean introduced him to at the brothel in the prior episode. As he explains to Dean, it is the end of the world, so why not. They reach the hot zone, where Dean questions FutureDean’s plan to conduct a frontal assault. FutureDean explains that while Castiel, Chuck, Risa, and the extras are going to go through the front (and die, as a diversion), he and Dean will slip through the back. This plan to sacrifice everyone does not sit well with Dean. The Deans fight, and FutureDean wins. Dean gets knocked out cold. When he awakens, the plan is already in action. He runs toward the tenement where Lucifer is holed up, and arrives in the courtyard there just in time to find FutureDean die under the bootheel of Lucifer, embodied within Sam.

Lucifer and Dean speak. Lucifer explains that his sin was loving God too much, and loving Earth too much. He couldn’t abide by God’s direction to love humans – ugly hairless apes – above all else. For that, God threw him out of Heaven. It’s an interesting play for sympathy, made more compelling by the fact that we humans have, in fact, really screwed up the planet. Dean, however, doesn’t buy it. He contends that Lucifer is no different than the other supernatural trash he is used to dealing with; Lucifer is scum like all the rest, just with a bigger ego. As they have their discussion, Lucifer fondles a red rose. Perhaps this is nothing significant, or perhaps it is a bit of a reference to the rose that grows in the vacant lot of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. Dean and Lucifer are talking about choices, and realities, and fate, and – as Lucifer points out – no matter what, everything leads back to this confrontation. Lucifer tells Dean he will see him in five years. With that, he vanishes. As he does, Zachariah appears and zaps Dean back to 2009 with a touch.

Back in 2009, Dean asks Zachariah how he knows that all that he has been shown is the real future and not just some trick. Zachariah responds that the time for tricks is over. He implores Dean to say “yes” to Michael so billions need not die. Dean, cocky, says “nah.” Before Zachariah can attempt to school him again, Dean vanishes – summoned by Castiel for their morning appointment.

As a result of his experience in the future, Dean calls Sam and they reconcile. Dean returns Ruby’s knife to Sam. The episode concludes with a great exchange between the two brothers, where Sam’s response can be read two ways: Dean says “So now we make our own future,” to which Sam responds “I guess we have no choice.” Does Sam mean that they have no choice but to make their own future, or does he mean that they have no choice because the future is set in stone?

My score for this episode: 5 Metallicars.

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[1] History lesson, courtesy of Wikipedia (parts redacted):

Roanoke Island was the site of the 16th century Roanoke Colony, the first English colony in the New World. [The first attempt to settle Roanoke, in 1585, failed]. In 1587, the English again attempted to settle in Roanoke. John White . . . left the colony to return to England for supplies that he felt would help the colonists to survive, expecting to return to Roanoke Island within three months. Instead, he found England at war with Spain, and all ships were confiscated for use of the war efforts. His return to Roanoke Island was delayed until 1590. When he finally returned, the colonists had disappeared. The only thing he found were the letters “CRO” carved into a nearby tree and the word “CROATOAN” carved into a fencepost. Before leaving the colony for England three years earlier, White left instructions with the colonists that if they were forced to abandon their settlement on Roanoke, that they were to carve out the name of the place where they were going and a Maltese cross under the carving if they left due to danger.

“CROATOAN” was the name of an island to the south (modern-day Hatteras Island), where a friendly native tribe was known to live, and it was thus reasonable to assume that the colonists had left the Roanoke settlement bound for that island. However, foul weather would keep White from venturing south to search on Croatoan for the colonists, and they returned to England. White would never return to the New World. The fate of the colony has never been authoritatively ascertained, and consequently it became known as “The Lost Colony”.

Later, in 1880′s, a man living in North Carolina wrote about what the Natives looked like there. He wrote he noticed some had “fair skin and light eyes and hair, with Anglo bone structure.” These are not found among Native Americans normally, so some believe that the Roanoke colonists assimilated into the Croatoan Indian tribe.

[2] If FutureDean is in 2014, and the Croatoan virus took hold two years prior, then this would put Supernatural’s full-on apocalypse at approximately 2012 on the calendar; a date that coincides with the end-date of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. In recent years December 21, 2012 has been popularized as the next expected end of the world (Y2K having passed uneventfully). There’s even a new major motion picture called 2012 coming soon to a theater near you. It’ll be interesting to see if perhaps a later episode of Supernatural does anything with the 2012 meme – they’re certainly chronologically leaving the door open to do so if they like.