like the graphic says, play your roles or be stuck in tv land forever! if that ain’t the most meta thing ever said in canon...

This episode is definitely a favorite, but it’s also a really rich one to discuss for so many reasons. It’s basically just a way scaled back and condensed version of s15. Thematically, if you leave off the wtf of 15.20, it’s the s15 speed run.

Since I ran so long in the talky-talky, I’ll keep this short and get right to the links for this week:

The Superwiki page for this episode

My tag for this episode (7 pages, but very worth it) (and all the tumblr links below are to posts in this tag… but seriously click through because there’s so many awesome gifs and fanart posts too)

This post about the cosmic structure and Gabriel’s role

And this one about the function of Free Will in this episode

Meta about 4.16 technically, but very relevant to this episode

Rewatch notes from June 2019

Sometimes people just die

The Cosmic Timeline

April 2017 rewatch notes “Dean’s Instincts”

Dean knows what makes Dr. Sexy sexy

Filming locations map

Interview with Richard Speight Jr. (archived link)

The CW promo video

SpaceTV promo video

Supernatural the sitcom opening theme video