Survival of the Fittest Recap

The finale opens with “Carry On Wayward Son” accompanying scenes from previous episodes… it wouldn’t be a Supernatural finale without this song!

The episode opens with Crowley who’s been summoned by Dick Roman and is currently being held in a devil's trap. Dick forced Kevin, the prophet, to translate the ‘Word of God’ tablet for him, and now he knows that Sam & Dean know how to make a weapon that will kill a leviathan: it’s the bone of a “righteous human”, washed in the ”three bloods of the fallen” – a fallen angel, a father of fallen beasts – an Alpha – and the ruler of fallen humanity. They have the first two blood samples but they need the righteous bone and the blood of Crowley, the “King of Hell”.

Dick tells Crowley he won’t kill him, because he's sure Crowley has his blood stashed somewhere so that it can go immediately to Sam & Dean if he is killed. Dick Roman has a proposition for Crowley. The demons can have all the humans in Canada, but the entire U.S. will be saved for the leviathans to feed on, and all he has to do in return is to give The Boys a vial of regular demon blood (not Crowley's; it's from an “unimpressive demon from New Jersey”...everyone LOVES to pick on New Jersey!) so they will come at Dick with a powerless weapon and play right into his hand. Crowley agrees saying he'd love to see Sam & Dean “digested” once and for all. Then Crowley and Dick set about ratifying an insanely long scroll that details the rules of this agreement, since Dick says he "I don’t kiss on the mouth" to seal a deal - to which Crowley replies, "Your loss!"

…Sam & Dean are trying to find the second-to-last piece of the weapon – a 'righteous bone'. They aren't sure where to get it. Dean apparently made a joke about a righteous bone coming from a nun ...Sam thought it was a bad joke but the best idea either of them had had so they are off to a nun crypt. On the car radio, they find out that Dick Roman is holed up in his office at Sucracorp…

Meanwhile, Bobby is still possessing the hotel maid (see the previous episode). He walks past several TV's playing clips of Dick Roman and is becoming angrier. Crowley and Dick are still going over the contract…

Sam & Dean enter the convent crypt. They are reading the bios of the nuns buried there. They pass over several nuns and settle on a nun who lived a quiet, regular, prayerful life. Dean says (which we can't believe could be done with a straight face), "Let's bone this nun!" Sam, as usual, shows he doesn’t share Dean’s sense of humor… While Dean is smashing open the nun’s burial place, Dick and Crowley are just finishing up reviewing their deal, and they prepare to sign it…
Sam & Dean are back at the cabin and have summoned Crowley but he doesn't appear immediately, making them nervous. Dean thinks Crowley is just playing with them but Sam thinks he might have a problem. There's a knock at the door… It's Meg. She says she's sick of dealing with Cas. She was trying to lay low halfway across the world when Cas showed up and zapped her back to the cabin. Dean asks why. She says, "I don't know; you go ask him, he was your boyfriend first."

Cas is outside sitting in a car. He's still out of it and talking about things like how unfair it is to test cosmetics on monkeys and how important is lipstick to Dean, who manages to keep a straight face, but he’s frustrated by Cas’ lack of focus on their goal of killing Dick Roman. He manages to get Cas to come inside but Cas is nervous and says he refuses to participate in any ‘aggressive activity’. He says that he hasn’t heard anything from his old angel garrison and when he went to find Kevin (who was being protected by angels), he was gone and all the angels were dead or in hiding (presumably he just meant his own garrison). He explains to Sam & Dean that leviathans can kill angels; that's why God locked them away in Purgatory. Dean wants to know if Kevin is alive, and after trying to avoid the subject, Cas tells Dean that he is alive but the leviathans have him, and that the problem is now in his and Sam’s hands…

Meg notices the summoning paraphernalia on the table and asks what they are doing with it. They tell her they tried to summon Crowley but he didn't show. Meg becomes nervous, knowing that Crowley is no fan of hers… Crowley appears and is surprised to see Cas, the angel who double-crossed him, there, alive, with Sam & Dean, and of course Meg, who’s already tried to kill him (Season 6, episode 10).

Meg tries to escape but Crowley stops her. Cas tries to defend Meg telling Crowley to "leave her be" but Crowley vents his anger, saying he came to help The Boys and they’ve been lying to him and have been harboring the one angel he'd love to “crush between his teeth”. He soon realizes that Cas has lost it – he isn’t Cas anymore - when he starts babbling incoherently about preferring insects to angels. This placates Crowley, who sees no satisfaction in trying to kill Cas when he's defenseless like this.

Crowley offers his blood to Sam & Dean. Crowley tells them about Dick's plan to give them ordinary demon blood but swears the blood he is giving them is the real thing. Crowley tells Meg he's going to take her back to Hell, but not yet because Cas would be upset without her and Sam & Dean need Cas to get Dick, but he doesn’t explain why and Cas won’t say anything about it. Crowley tosses Sam the vial of his blood and disappears.

The scene changes to Bobby (in the form of the hotel maid) walking on a street. He looks like he’s trying to steal a truck and when he finds the door is locked he goes round to the back and accidentally touches some iron in the truck-bed and his spirit is separated from her body. She asks him to please leave her alone and let her go home. He seems to take pity on her for a moment but then he sees a photo of Dick Roman in her newspaper that's fallen to the ground: his anger is re-ignited and he possesses her again…

The scene switches back to Dick, who asks his assistant Susan to go to the freezer “for the arm” so they have a plan “for when they screw you”. He says he always has a backup plan when he makes a deal with someone - he obviously doesn't trust Crowley...

Kevin is still locked in a room at Sucracorp headquarters. The door opens and a young woman is thrown in; she seems to be in a stupor. Kevin tries to ask her questions but she barely responds.
Meanwhile, Sam & Dean are finishing the leviathan-killing weapon, mixing the three bloods together and pouring them over the sharpened bone. They wait for something to happen – thunder and lightning or something momentous – but nothing does. They wonder if Crowley double-crossed them after all… Sam asks Cas why Crowley said they need his help and he tells them Crowley was wrong.

The scene changes back to Dick Roman in his office. He opens a cooler, which contains the arm of the real Dick Roman, which he must have saved from the time he first cloned himself as Dick Roman (and presumably he then ate the rest of the real Dick).

A bunch of important-looking people show up at Sucracorp as if arriving for a board meeting. Dick Roman greets them…

The girl in the room with Kevin – Polly – is taken out and Kevin tries to pick the door lock with one of the bobby pins she left behind.

… Now Dick is having a meeting with his top leviathans; saying the last time they were all together was when they were “inside that angel”. They talk about how the human slaughterhouses are almost ready to “go live”. He explains where humans will be bred, slaughtered, and processed. Kevin has escaped the room he was held in and overhears everything. He tries to run, but Dick Roman's assistant, Susan, stops him, asking why he's out of his cage. Polly is already in the board room and Dick introduces her to everyone…

The scene switches to Sam & Dean, who are outside Sucracorp headquarters and are checking out surveillance footage inside the building from their computer; they thank Charlie for the skills for getting them the footage. They see that there are multiple Dick Romans throughout the building – decoys!

Polly, standing in the board room is asked to disrobe. Dick Roman says she's too skinny even though she eats like a horse. They need to breed these “defective” skinny people out of the human food population as quickly as possible. He injects Polly with a substance and she foams at the mouth, collapses to the floor, and dies. This additive, 3.0, which they are putting into creamers, targets the physical characteristics they want to breed out of the human race – high metabolic rate and high intelligence among them – and they are ready for shipment to Los Angeles…

Back to Sam & Dean outside Sucracorp: Sam sees the hotel maid from the motel and recognizes her. He figures out that Bobby is possessing her. Dean tries to stop him but Sam tells Dean he has the weapon and “eyes on Dick” and he goes after Bobby.

Sam confronts Bobby/the maid, telling him he's going to get the maid killed if he keeps this up. Sam tries to hold him back and Bobby starts to choke Sam until he sees his real reflection in a car window and wills himself to let go of him. His spirit leaves the body of the maid and Sam carries the maid off to get her medical attention.

Back at the cabin, Meg doesn't understand why they gave up on the whole mission just to save a maid. Dean tells her to shut up and Sam tells her there are "decoy" Dick Romans, at which point Cas starts acting very shifty… Dean sees this and asks Cas if he has anything to say that might help them take down Dick Roman. Cas admits that he destroyed everything once and he'll do it again, so he can’t help. Dean can’t or won't let it go. He says to Cas “No-one cares if you’re broken, clean up your mess!” but Cas again tries to change the subject and disappears.

Meg points out that all of the leviathans were once inside Cas. He knows them and is probably the only being that can figure out which of the decoys is the head leviathan and which are clones.

Sam & Dean are trying to figure out a way to tell which guy is the real Dick Roman, but as far as they can see, all the clones in the surveillance are perfect copies. Bobby appears out of thin air and asks if that is the best "you idgits" can do. Then there’s the most emotional scene of the episode between Dean, Bobby and Sam…

Bobby turns the conversation to himself, telling them they should have burned his flask right off as soon as they realized his spirit was attached to it. He admits he's not in control of his spirit because he wants vengeance on Dick so badly: he wants to go back even now and possess another person to take revenge on Dick, even if it kills them. He admits he almost killed Sam and the maid. Sam tells him it wasn’t really him doing that, but Bobby knows it is him – it’s his spirit anyway. Dean asks Bobby what it feels like to be turning into a vengeful spirit and Bobby tells him it feels like an itch you can't scratch out. He tells them he's done. They need to get Dick Roman because it's the job, not because it will avenge Bobby's death. He tells Sam & Dean that when it's their time, they need to go. “Don't stay.” Sam & Dean have tears in their eyes: they know what they have to do…

Bobby says, "Here's to running into you guys on the other side, only, not too soon, alright?" Dean lays Bobby's flask on a bed of hot coals and it melts. As it does, Bobby disappears, but we don't see this, we only see a bright light illuminating Dean's face. Sam & Dean feel the loss of Bobby's death all over again and look at each other with sad, painful expressions and tears in their eyes, but no words. Cas watches silently from the staircase. Bobby is gone.

A short amount of time passes....

Dean tells Cas he needs a wingman, and when Cas protests Dean says he knows Cas doesn't want to ”jump into the jaws of death”, he just wants him to run an errand with him…

Dean and Cas are now standing in a storage barn, where the Impala is hidden. Cas flew them there. He says that if they attack Dick and fail, Sam & Dean die heroically and he dies trying to fix his own stupid mistake, or maybe he'd be brought back yet again? Cas now sees that resurrection is a punishment because the life you're brought back to is worse every time. He says he's not good luck. Dean says he'd rather have him with him than not, and aren't they all cursed anyway? Cas smiles a bit and Dean asks what he's smiling about and Cas says he detects a note of forgiveness from Dean, who agrees that’s probably true since they might die tomorrow. This changes Cas’ mind and he tells Dean that he'll go with him tomorrow when they go after Dick Roman. Cas asks what the plan is. Dean says that, according to Crowley, Dick knows they're coming, so they're going to announce themselves in a big way….

The Impala's back...squealing tires and all (and some cheesy camera work!) with Born to be Wild playing in the background. The Impala crashes at full speed right into and through the Sucracorp sign, and Meg gets out. Dick Roman's security guards shoot her, but she’s a demon so of course she doesn't die. She decapitates the security guards. In the meantime Dean, Cas and Sam are sneaking inside…
Dean has Cas check out all of the Dick Roman clones to see who is the real Dick, while Sam looks for Kevin.

Outside, several demons confront Meg and throw her to the floor, telling her the King of Hell will see her now…

Inside, Sam finds Kevin tied up and frees him. Kevin tells Sam what he overheard in the board meeting. He tells him they have to blow up the lab so that the additive to kill thin people doesn't get out.

Dick is in the laboratory talking to the lab tech guy. Dick turns his back and when he turns around to face the technician again, the leviathan tech is on the floor, beheaded, with Dean standing in his place and Cas by his side. Dean puts the machete he used to kill the leviathan away. Dick is unruffled. He thanks Cas for the "ride into paradise" and says “Good on you for pulling that together, A plus” to Dean as he pulls out the leviathan-killing weapon… Dick doesn't seem unduly worried. Both Dean and Dick Roman have put their trust in Crowley and neither really knows for sure if that trust was well-placed. Dick asks if Dean is even sure he's about to kill the right guy. Dean says no, he's not sure but Cas is, since he can see the leviathan's real identity. Dean tells Dick that Crowley will "always find a way to bone you".

Dick declares the meeting to be over and Cas moves to attack him, but Dick easily throws him against the wall behind him. Dean stabs Dick in the chest with the weapon as he turns back towards him, but nothing happens. Dick pulls it out and snaps it in half. Dick asks if Dean really thought he could trump him. Dean says, "Honestly, no" and he pulls out a second weapon, the real one, from inside his jacket. Cas is behind Dick and pulls his head back by the hair as Dean runs the weapon through Dick's neck from side-to-side.

Sam & Kevin burst into the room...

Dick starts to pulsate with shock waves. Dean looks around nervously. Black goo runs from Dick's nose and he smiles an evil smile. The shock waves seem to pull back into Dick's body and he laughs, then there is a massive explosion of black goo.

Sam had turned away when the explosion came; now he turns back, he and Kevin are standing alone in the lab. Kevin says they should go – “More chompers any second, Sam” – but suddenly Crowley appears and tells Sam not to worry, he has a small army of demons outside. Crowley repeats what the Word of God tablet said, "Cut off the head and the body will flounder." He says that the leviathans will be in disarray now because they've had one leader since before the first sunrise and now the remaining leviathans will be just like any other monster – hard to kill, but he told Sam that he knows he loves a challenge and it would be his job is to keep the remaining leviathans from organizing…
Sam asks where Dean is. Crowley tells him that God’s weapons often have a bit of a kick and he doesn’t know where Dean and Cas are now.

Crowley snaps his fingers and two demons appear on either side of Kevin. He tells Sam that the prophet is “his" now; he snaps his fingers again and the demons disappear, along with Kevin.
Crowley tells Sam that he got what he wanted...Dick is dead and the world is saved, and all he, Crowley, wants is one little prophet. Crowley says to Sam, “You’ve certainly got a lot on your plate now; looks like you’re well and truly on your own.” Crowley disappears leaving Sam alone in the room.

Sam looks around the lab; he’s breathing hard and looks as if he has no idea at all what he should do now that Dean’s gone…

The scene changes to a nightmarish forest and it is very dark. We see Dean lying unconscious on the ground. Cas tells him to wake up and his old, deep ‘angel’ voice is back. Dean doesn’t know where he is and asks Cas, who responds by asking Dean where Dick would go in death, to which Dean responds, "Purgatory". Cas tells him that every soul there is a monster, that it’s the place where they come to prey on each other for all of eternity. Dean asks how they are going to get out. Cas tells him they are much more likely to be ripped to shreds.

Dean hears a noise behind him in the bushes and turns to see two sets of red eyes stalking them. He turns back to Cas, but Cas has gone. Dean is left standing in the forest with shadowy shapes speeding past behind him, glowing eyes in front of him, and the sound of growling…

Editorial note:
RIP Bobby Singer.　　
Bobby was kind of a footnote in this episode which centered around killing Dick Roman but we both truly feel Bobby was the 3rd Winchester; more important in Sam & Dean's lives than their own father, John, and a truly great character. We thought "At Death's Door" was a very emotional episode, but we have different opinions on Bobby’s send-off in this episode. JBB thinks that Bobby deserved a better end than to see him sent quietly off into eternity by burning the flask, even though it provided a brief moment of emotion in this episode. However on reflection I like this ending very much: Bobby was dead and there was no coming back. I feel this was the best way to handle it, letting Bobby take the decision to go before he turned into a vengeful spirit, and that also meant The Boys didn’t have to make that choice for him. They’d also said their goodbyes before so the muted farewell was understandable… and the light on Dean from Bobby’s spirit ‘crossing over’ was a great effect. JBB agrees that the choice to not let us, the viewer, see Bobby’s last moments was very effective; focusing instead on showing the faces of those that loved him the most.

A recap by Journalbookbinder and Supernaturalfanforever