Supernatural‘s season 10 finale, “Brother’s Keeper,” airs this coming week, as the conflict with the Mark of Cain comes to a head.
There is a lot left to cover in the final hour of Supernatural‘s tenth season, and the finale promises to shake things up based on the synopsis, which reads:
“SUPERNATURAL SEASON FINALE — Dean (Jensen Ackles) makes a shocking decision regarding the Mark of Cain that would change not only his life, but Sam’s (Jared Padaleck) too. Meanwhile, Crowley (Mark Sheppard) and Rowena (guest star Ruth Connell) face off and Castiel (Misha Collins) gets caught in the middle. Phil Sgriccia directed this episode written by Jeremy Carver.”
Watch the trailer for the season finale, “Brother’s Keeper”:
A few hints about what may be to come stick out:
The episode title
The phrase “My brother’s keeper” appears in Genesis 4:9 after Cain has killed Abel. God asks Cain where his brother is, and Cain replies, “I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?” In doing so, Cain not only lies to God but deflects any responsibility for what happened to his brother.
In response, God curses Cain: “And he said, ‘What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now [art] thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand; When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.'”
In other words, Cain spilled his brother’s blood on the earth, which cursed the land. This meant Cain, once a farmer, would never be able to grow anything again. He also received the Mark of Cain, which protected him from dying a premature death and warned others that killing the now nomadic Cain would provoke God’s vengeance.
Dean and Sam, as we may remember, are descendants of Cain and Abel. Cain also warned Dean that he would eventually kill his brother to feed the Mark. As impossible as that scenario once seemed considering the brothers’ codependency, Dean’s words to Sam over Charlie’s pyre — that it should be Sam on the pyre rather than Charlie — and his killing Cyrus Styne — a clear Sam stand-in — suddenly makes that scenario seem not so impossible after all.
In that context, the episode title “Brother’s Keeper” becomes much more ominous.
Cast interviews
Jensen Ackles recently told Variety that Dean has frozen Sam and Cas out in terms of the Book of the Damned because “it just seems fruitless to him, so he basically says, ‘Guys, stop. Leave it alone. There’s nothing you can do, and there’s nothing I can do except fight until I can’t fight anymore.’” Ominously, he adds, “And unfortunately, we’re gonna see what that means in the last episode.”
Does the inability to fight the Mark anymore mean giving into its thirst for Sam’s blood?
Ackles further explains, “Unfortunately, Sam can’t find a cure, and of course, the loyal brother that Sam is will die trying, and Dean knows this. It really is this inner struggle where Dean can’t seem to get a grasp on the evil power that’s inside him, and Sam can’t seem to let go of trying to save his brother.
“We’ve seen similar things with this before with the demon blood and soulless Sam; it’s usually flip-flopped as far as the characters go, but it’s a heavy internal struggle that finally comes to a head at the end of the season.”
Meanwhile, Misha Collins adds that difficult situations lead to unusual alliances. The characters will “make deals with the devil and the ends justify the means and enormous sacrifices are made in our efforts to cure Dean.” This seems apparent from the extended trailer in which Castiel asks Crowley for help and Dean summons Death himself.
Collins adds, “[T]here’s an episode towards the end of the season when we make a sacrifice that I was thinking, ‘How are our characters okay with this? This is terrible, what we’re doing. This is disgusting.’ We’re making some serious compromises in order to rescue Dean.”
Considering we don’t seem to have seen this sacrifice Collins is describing, it’s likely we’ll see it in the season finale, indicating something pretty drastic going on. And the most drastic thing that could happen on Supernatural?
One brother killing the other.
Whatever happens, though, Ackles calls the finale “one of the best scripts I’ve read in years.”
Supernatural‘s season 10 finale airs Wednesday at 9:00 p.m. ET on The CW.