You know how the cardinal rule of writing is “Don’t put God in the story”? You know, literal deus ex machina and all that jazz? Because once you put God in the story, everything kind of becomes redundant. If God could just fix everything, why doesn’t he? What is the point of anything if there is a God?
I’m going to need some more material before I come to a conclusion about how I feel about Supernatural literally putting a face to God. My preliminary feeling is that they’ve done it as well as they could have, if they absolutely had to do it. I mean, if you’re going to put God in your story, you may as well make him a deist.
Because that’s what this is, right? An affirmation of deism? Not to get too theological here, but it looks like Chuck (I’m gonna call him Chuck) created the world, then took a step back and let things progress on their own, from nature to nacho cheese. It’s a stark contradiction of what religions like Christianity and Islam preach, which is that God created everything and is behind everything.
So. To get to the heart of the matter. Chuck is God. Well. Haven’t fans been predicting that since, what, season five? I never believed it; I always thought it was too easy. Then again, I never actually thought the writers would have God show up. I assumed he would continue to be MIA, a reflection of reality in a show that otherwise channels the supernatural on every level. But I suppose with the inclusion of Amara, God’s sister (!), there was no way to keep that up.
In any case, the reveal was kind of (a lot) anti-climactic. Dramatic irony was not the writers’ friend here. That said, the conversation between Chuck and Metatron then played out beautifully, in a give-and-take that makes God seem like a pretty ordinary guy – a reflection of his creations.
The best scene of the episode was, of course, the final one. Metatron extols the virtues of humanity, including that they never give up, just as we cut to Dean doing just that – not giving up on his brother. As the scene plays out to Chuck’s lovely rendition of “Fare Thee Well,” the fog fades, the dead are back to life, all is well, and Chuck appears to Sam and Dean – God appears to be finally showing his hand.
Miscellaneous Observations:
→ Even if spoilers hadn’t already let the cat out of the bag about Chuck being God, the gigantic “World’s Greatest Dad” mug sitting beside Chuck would have probably let me in on the secret before they revealed it. Nice one.
→ So, judging by Chuck’s song and everything he said about being sick of witnessing Amara destroy his creation, I would tentatively wager that he plans to sacrifice himself to get rid of Amara, leaving the universe truly God-less. It would make the most sense – if he’s the light to her dark and they’re two halves of a whole and all that, I doubt one can exist without the other. The other option is to seal Amara back up again, this time with the help of Sam, Dean, and Cas, but I just can’t see Supernatural continuing normally with God just existing in the background. Frankly, I’m not sure how it’s going to continue anyway, now that Sam and Dean have met freaking God. Man, I miss the days when this show was just monsters on the road.
→ It’s interesting that, though this series is generally very big on Judeo-Christian mythology, the creation story they’re going for here contradicts that. Correct me if I’m wrong (and I was raised Muslim, so I could be wrong), but there is no “darkness” in Christianity or Judaism nor does God have a sister.
→ It’s a testament to how much I dislike and distrust Metatron that my first thought upon seeing him with a dog was, “Don’t kill the dog! Please don’t kill the dog!”
→ That scene with Sam getting that baby girl out of the car was super adorable! I know Dean is the one who got to play father and who is usually shown good with kids, but I think we should fix that. More scenes with Sam being fatherly, please.
Hadeer Elsbai 