Inherit the Earth
Written by: Brad Buckner and Eugenie Ross-Leming
Directed by: John F. Showalter
Air date: November 12, 2020
Everything is on the line as the battle against God continues. A familiar face returns to join the fight.
Tropes
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: After being drained of his powers and left to spend the rest of his life alone, Chuck begs the Winchesters to come back.
- Ambiguous Situation: By the end of the episode, it's left unclear if Adam came back to life with the rest of humanity after Jack undid Chuck's mass genocide or if he is truly dead this time.
- And I Must Scream: Chuck refuses to kill off the Winchesters even when they attempt surrender, figuring it'll be more entertaining to watch them wallow away on a planet devoid of life knowing they lost to him. Since Chuck controls not just time and space but the afterlife as well, it's unlikely that even death could end their suffering.Chuck: Eternal shame. Suffering. Loneliness. Woah, that's deep.
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: After becoming God, Jack decides that he can't be in the story in the same way that Chuck was and decides he needs to depart Earth. After assuring Sam and Dean that he will be in every part of Creation, Jack departs the Earth for good and Disappears into Light.
- Back for the Finale: Well, not the final episode, but the climax of the Myth Arc features the return of Lucifer and Michael.
- Back from the Dead:
- Chuck resurrects Lucifer to retrieve his death book.
- At the end of the episode, Jack brings back everyone Chuck snapped from existence in the previous episode.
- Back for the Dead: Lucifer is brought back only to be killed in the same episode.
- Batman Gambit: Unable to read the death book, Team Free Will instead trick Michael into thinking they have a ceremony that will kill Chuck, knowing that he'll rat them out, inadvertently leading Chuck into a trap.
- But Now I Must Go: After becoming the new God, Jack leaves Earth in order to avoid Chuck's mistake of being too involved.
- Call-Back: Jack's goodbye to the Winchesters is similar to how John says goodbye to them way back in the season 2 finale, where John looks at his sons with pride and tears before he Disappears into Light. Only this time the situation is reversed, as it is the Winchesters who look at Jack, who in a way is their son, with pride and tears before he leaves.
- Cruel Mercy:
- Chuck rejects an offer to kill Sam and Dean after he wipes out all life on Earth, preferring to watch them suffer on an empty planet for the rest of eternity.
- Rather than killing Chuck and giving him the dramatic ending he wants, they leave him alone and depowered, doomed to die of old age someday.
- Dead Person Impersonation: Lucifer briefly speaks to Dean using Castiel's voice to get into the bunker.
- Deliberate Injury Gambit: Sam and Dean continuously getting back up after Chuck beats them senseless isn't just the two defiantly standing their ground against an enraged God. It's all part of their plan so that Jack can absorb enough of Chuck's power to completely strip him of his abilities and render him mortal.
- De-power: Jack steals all of Chuck's power, leaving him human. According to Jack, the effect is permanent, as "it's not his power anymore."
- Dirty Coward: For all his talk about how "glorious" it would be for Sam and Dean to kill him and become the ultimate killers, Chuck cowers in fear when he thinks they are about to do so. Unfortunately for Chuck, Team Free Will doesn't intend to let him get away that easily.
- Disappears into Light: After saying his goodbyes to Sam and Dean, Jack walks away and transforms into light, disappearing for good.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: Michael is very upset that Chuck just cast him aside even after he spent centuries conditioning humanity to obey and worship him. It's this need for his father's respect that keys Sam and Dean to the fact that he'll sell them out.
- Due to the Dead: After finally defeating Chuck for good and saying their goodbyes to Jack, Sam and Dean raise a toast to all the friends and loved ones they lost along the way. It is also revealed that the two carved Castiel and Jack's names onto the desk that has Sam, Dean and Mary's initials on it to show that the two will always be family to them.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Michael and Lucifer both are killed. Lucifer by Michael, and Michael by God.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: While this isn't the end of the series, this is the culmination of the series' overarching Myth Arc and it does end on a happy note. With Chuck stripped of his powers and Jack as the new God, Sam and Dean realize that they are now free to write their own story rather than follow one someone else wrote of them. The two drive off ready to start a new chapter of their lives as free men.
- Everybody's Dead, Dave: Thanks to God destroying the multiverse and smiting everyone in the main universe, the only people still alive in all of creation are Jack Kline and the Winchester Brothers themselves.
- Evil Is Petty: Chuck hates the Winchesters so much after they kept defying him that, even when they volunteer to let him kill them in exchange for bringing everyone else back, he refuses in favor of leaving them alone in a dead world. Then he gives Dean a dog just to erase it as well and give him a cruel nod while he does so.
- Extreme Mêlée Revenge: Chuck is so angry at the Winchester brothers that he forgoes just vaporizing them to beat them down with nothing but his bare hands augmented by some power, which costs him his victory.
- Fate Worse than Death:
- Rather than kill them, Chuck decides to leave Jack and the Winchesters alive and alone in an empty world, living with the guilt of having failed to stop him.
- Team Free Will's ultimate punishment for Chuck — stripping him of his power and leaving him to live a perfectly normal human life, doomed to eventually end with a lonely, unmourned death.
- Forgotten Fallen Friend: Zig-Zagged with Cas. Dean is initially shown to be desperate to get Cas back, even begging Chuck to resurrect him, but when Jack gains Chuck's powers, Dean doesn't bother repeating the request even though Jack has no reason not to accommodate it. Meanwhile, neither Jack nor Sam have much of a reaction when they learn that Cas is dead and don't talk about him at all for the rest of the episode. However, Cas and Jack's names are shown to be carved into the table alongside Sam, Dean, and Mary's initials, suggesting that Cas isn't entirely forgotten.
- Gambit Pileup: Both Lucifer and Michael are revealed to be working for Chuck, Lucifer since his resurrection and Michael as a last-minute decision to gain his favor. And Sam and Dean are secretly playing them to bring Chuck down by manipulating their relationship so they destroy each other.
- Groin Attack: Chuck delivers a hard one to poor Sam.
- Historical Hero Upgrade: In-universe. Michael states that to await God's return, he had the angels and the prophets set up religions that painted God as omnibenevolent.
- Hope Spot: At one point, Dean finds a stray dog that Chuck apparently missed. Even that single bright spot is then snatched away when Chuck erases it too.
- Karmic Transformation: After spending all of creation constantly writing stories about humans and then discarding them when they stopped amusing him, Chuck's final punishment is to be rendered mortal and left to become just like every other human he forgot about, eventually doomed to grow old, get sick, and die an unmourned death.Sam: Then I think it's the ending where you're just like us and like all the other humans you forgot about.
Dean: It's the ending where you grow old, you get sick and you just die.
Sam: And no one cares. And no one remembers you. You're just forgotten. - Karmic Shunning: Chuck loses his powers to Jack and becomes fully human as a result. He starts ranting about what an honor it would be to be killed by Dean Winchester and waits for the inevitable Coup de Grâce... only for Dean and Sam to tell him he will simply die of old age and then drive away. Since Chuck was always looking for a satisfying ending to the Winchester story, leaving him with a deeply unsatisfying Anti-Climax is the most fittting form of punishment they can give him.
- Kick the Dog: Almost literally, as Chuck vaporizes the dog Dean finds just to spite him.
- Killed Off for Real: Michael stated that Adam, the Winchesters' half brother, was killed alongside everyone else, leaving his body for Michael. After defeating Chuck, Sam and Dean make a toast for everyone they lost, indicating that they aren't planning to bring them back to life. The same can also be said of Lucifer and Michael, who are finally dead for good.
- Killed Offscreen: Again, poor Adam. Lampshaded by Dean.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: When Chuck erases all life on Earth, the heroes get into an argument about their next course of action. Sam wants to surrender, since at this point they truly are out of options. Sure, they can continue to resist Chuck, but to what end? With everybody gone, there literally is nobody left to save. Dean offers some tepid objection, but can't argue with Sam's point. Unfortunately, Chuck refuses their white flag just to torment them even further.
- Large Ham: Lucifer has never exactly been the most low-key individual, but Mark Pellegrino really goes whole-hog in this episode, dialing up the snark and attitude to 11.
- Meaningful Echo: When Jack tells the boys that it is time for him to go, he does his usual Character Tic of holding his hand out in a pseudo wave. However, instead of saying hello, he tells them goodbye.
- Meaningful Name: Dean decides to call the dog he found, "Miracle". Cause he thinks its a miracle to find a dog when Chuck disintegrated everyone else. Too bad, Chuck had other plans.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Chuck ends up bringing about his own undoing. Firstly, he resurrected Lucifer to steal his death book, which instigates a fight within the bunker that allows Jack to absorb archangel grace. Later on, Chuck murdering Michael and choosing to beat the Winchesters with his bare hands allows Jack to absorb enough of Chuck's power that he can No-Sell him and absorb the rest, becoming the new God. The Winchesters take the time to lay out how everything that happened was his own undoing before leaving Chuck to his fate.
- No Body Left Behind:
- This time, Lucifer's death vaporizes his vessel.
- Michael is completely vaporized when Chuck blows him to pieces.
- No Endor Holocaust: Despite the fact that vehicles clearly crashed during Chuck's dusting of the world, everything is perfectly calm when Jack brings everyone back.
- No-Sell: In the final showdown, Chuck finds that his Badass Fingersnap doesn't work on Jack anymore, as Jack had already consumed enough of his powers.
- Not Worth Killing: After Jack and the Winchesters turn the tables on Chuck, he anticipates them killing him and sees it as "glorious". They won't give him that out.
- Offing the Offspring: Chuck kills Michael, claiming that he can't forgive him for siding with the Winchesters.
- Oh, Crap!: Chuck, when he can't vaporize Jack. Punctuated by him snapping his fingers repeatedly with increasing urgency before being outright drained.
- Power Parasite: His overloading of power in the Empty has given Jack the ability to drain energy, which he uses to steal all of Chuck's power after having absorbed the latent archangel power being released in the final confrontation between Michael and Lucifer.
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Michael sells out Team Free Will to Chuck to try and win back his favor. Chuck, however, doesn't forgive him for siding with the Winchesters in the first place and vaporizes him for it.
- Rousseau Was Right: Jack-as-God makes a speech that humans already have a natural tendency for good, and has faith in them that they can find their way with the free will he's given them.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: Sam and Dean refusing to give Chuck the death he wants.
- Too Dumb to Live: Sure, Lucifer, when you see Michael with an archangel blade, what has killed you previously, right in front of you, just activate your red eyes and taunt him instead of teleporting away, that totally won't send you back to the Empty.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Chuck kills Michael after the latter tells him about the ritual purportedly capable of destroying him.
- The Unreveal: The new Death, a reaper named Betty, is about to read from God's death book, but she can't get out more than a sentence before Lucifer dusts her. Which is itself a different form of reveal, as it exposes that he's really working for God.
- Villain Ball:
- Lucifer grabs it when he stands around mocking Michael after he turns up behind him instead of attacking him, especially since he was killed by Dean wielding the archangel blade so he should know the Winchesters would still have it.
- Chuck grabs it when he decides to beat Sam and Dean to death rather than vaporizing them. Perhaps justified by the fact that he just hates them that much.
- Villain Has a Point: Michael and Lucifer start arguing about their rivalry for their father's approval. Lucifer admits point blank that Chuck never loved anybody but himself. Of course, he's subsequently revealed to be working for Chuck, but it's implied he was being entirely honest regarding his feelings about the old man.
- Villainous Breakdown: The last we see of Chuck is him frantically chasing after the Impala and screaming after the Winchesters. And due to his pride, he doesn't even attempt to plead for forgiveness, instead pleading for them to not leave him in the middle of nowhere.Chuck: W-What? [...] What kind of ending is this? [...] Guys... Guys, wait. Guys. Guys! No, wait! Guys! Guys, please wait!
- Walking Wasteland: Jack's newfound parasitical power causes plants to wither in his presence.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: Leave it to Chuck to produce an almost literal example. While on the road, Dean discovers a lost dog, the only animal they've seen alive in days. He grins at how great it feels, how happy its very presence makes him... and then it vanishes just as Chuck wanted.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The poor reaper whom Lucifer kills so she can become Death and gain access to Chuck's death book, only to get killed again after she's done so.
- You Kill It, You Bought It: Non-fatal example. Jack absorbs Chuck's godly power and becomes the new God, leaving Chuck as a normal human.
