By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
Photos copyright CW
I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.
Little did we know that in season 4 of Supernatural with the episode The Monster At The End Of This Book, that we were actually meeting the most powerful person in the universe. We meet Chuck, the writer of a range of Supernatural books detailing the lives of Dean and Sam. They aren’t bestsellers but have a cult following much like the show. Chuck has no idea how he is able to accurately write down Sam and Dean’s inner thoughts (never mind lives) but as we find out, this is the start of a game where Dean and Sam are puppets. Castiel (Mischa Collins) arrives and reveals Chuck is in fact a prophet of The Lord. His books are in fact the Bible of the Winchesters. While Chuck reappears in a couple of episodes, it isn’t until season eleven that Chuck is revealed to be God himself. The persona of Chuck was merely a coat to allow him to appear in the open and enjoy what his creation had to offer.
He first reveals himself to Metatron, who was his original scribe in heaven. Chuck is having trouble writing his memoirs and needs Metatron’s critical eye. Meanwhile Sam and Dean are fighting God’s sister Amara who is hunting for her brother. He locked her away millennia ago but Sam and Dean accidentally released her and now she wants revenge. She has unleashed a fog on Earth that kills anyone it comes into contact with by infecting them and turning them into killers. It is a no win situation for the Winchesters despite Amara and Dean’s mutual attraction. As the world falls apart, it suddenly reverts itself. Dean has an amulet that alerts him to God’s presence by lighting up. To their surprise that they find Chuck standing waiting for them. Metatron’s blunt home truths have made God wake up to himself and his creations.
He is afraid of his sister and needs the Winchesters help. Dean has some questions first like why God went away and doesn’t answer the prayers of all the people who turn to him. His reply makes perfect sense. He used to interfere but it only made things worse and humans didn’t evolve so the only answer was to step aside and let them find their own way. He was holding humanity back from their own potential. As for not answering prayers; all those miracles that happened to the Winchesters, like being transported away when Lucifer rose, and all the times they, or Castiel, came back to life completely out of the blue on multiple occasions, were Chuck stepping in. He has been dipping in and out of the lives of the Winchesters because they are his favourite people. Despite assembling allies to take Amara down and Dean turning himself into a soul bomb, God and Amara discover that all they need to do is spend some time together and be a family which prevents another apocalypse.
While having God on your side is a massive bonus, having the wrath of God up your ass is not a pleasant experience.
While Chuck has been enjoying time with his sister, Sam and Dean battle Lucifer again. He has taken the body of the President and gotten a human pregnant. In the climax to season 12 she gave birth to a Nephilim, Jack. As part human and part archangel Dean sees Jack as a threat to be killed but Sam doesn’t. Jack is a child and with their guidance he could be a force for good. He has so many of his mother’s traits and Castiel is his surrogate father. Chuck finds out about Jack and is afraid of him wanting him gone. By the end of season fourteen we discover everything the Winchesters have been through was caused by Chuck for his own amusement. He wants Jack dead and manipulates the situation by having Jack kill Mary Winchester, brought back from the dead as a gift from Amara for Dean. Sam brings Dean back from the edge as he aims a gun at Jack who wants to die for accidentally killing one of the few people he loved and had been a mother figure to him. Chuck is urging Dean on while Sam and Castiel dissuade him. But it is Chuck’s own words that stop Dean. Chuck wants the story to go one way but the boys keep changing it through free will. Dean turns on Chuck refusing to be his puppet as he realises they have been subjects in his game all along. Their chances of normal lives were destroyed by Chuck to suit his view of how the story should end. He murders Jack and says of their defiance, he will end it all. He will bring about what the Winchesters have fought for all this time. It ends with the apocalypse rising. It is the end of the world because Chuck is so disappointed in humanity’s failures so he will wipe the slate clean. Castiel, Sam and Dean are helpless as they are surrounded by a herd of ravenous zombies as hell is ripped open releasing all the monsters they put down there. Chuck doesn’t care what he has released upon the world as he begins to destroy all the alternate Earths he has created.
He had hoped the Winchesters would be the hope he wanted for humanity but humanity itself has let him down with all the bad they do. But Chuck is drunk with power and blind to his own faults. By writing the Winchesters lives, he has held them back despite all the good they have done and all the lives they have saved. It is Chuck they must face in their final season and this fight seems there most hopeless yet. Not even Amara can help them as she is absorbed by Chuck and Jack’s soul bomb fails to stop him. Death brought Jack back from the Empty to fight God but Death actually intended to defeat God and restore balance. Sadly this meant everyone the Winchesters saved and all those who came back from the dead would die including Sam and Dean themselves. But God has been one step ahead all along and knows what they are planning. Everything they try fails and they lose Castiel along the way. To punish them he wipes everyone off the face of the Earth bar Sam, Dean and Jack. He does leave a dog for Dean but takes it away just to punish Dean. He stands gloating at Dean’s dismay as the dog dissolves. Chuck is insane and enjoying the chance to remake the universe all because he is disappointed. This time there would be no sister or archangel sons to hold him back. Such is Chuck’s arrogance he fails to see that his once favourite creations that he allegedly knows so well as much smarter than he is and capable of delivering that surprise he longs for.
The Winchesters recruit archangel Michael who is bonded with their brother Adam while Chuck resurrects Lucifer to take the Book of Death from the WInchesters before they can perform the ritual that will allow them to destroy Chuck once and fior all. God doesn’t know that Jack has been turned into a battery, absorbing power from everything he passes. When he is in the battle between Lucifer and Michael he is able to absorb their energy making him powerful enough to stop God. The spell was all a lie created by Sam and Dean to bring together the feuding angels. Chuck tracks them to the location where the supposed spell is to be performed, thanks to Michael betraying them. Chuck callously murders his son for siding with the Winchesters; proving he has no emotional ties to anything and all that matters now is his vision of perfection.
Chuck decides rather than snap his fingers and wipe out the Winchesters, he will engage in an old fashioned beat down. He beats both of them to a pulp but they keep coming back forcing Chuck to expel more energy. He cannot understand why they are standing defiant against him until they reveal what they have done. Chuck turns and sees Jack behind him. He cannot click Jack out of existence and is horrified when Jack grabs his head, now energised by all the God power he absorbed in the fight. Jack absorbs all of God’s power reducing him to a mere human. Now Chuck will age and die like a puny human he was intent on wiping out. They depart as Chuck lies on the ground grovelling. Now Jack is God he restores the world to normal.
In the end the only way to defeat an all powerful megalomaniac was to use his own arrogance against him. Chuck has been spinning stories for years so how ironic is it that the Winchesters sin one of their own to bring God down. It is a triumph for them because not only have they saved the planet and all reality but they have taken back control of their own lives. Now they are free to write their own stories.
Sadly as we find out in the final episode, someone’s story will end prematurely but at least they die on their terms and not on Chucks. Jack is the new God and will be a vast improvement on the last. Jack will see the world through human eyes and watch the future unfold free from the tyranny of Chuck. Threshold’s Rob Benedict was the perfect God as he could switch from light-hearted to terrifying in a second. The twist that a simple pulp writer held the world in his hand came totally from left field. The execution was beautiful and exciting to watch as the character of God was taken in directions no one had ever tried before. The Winchesters went out in style facing a worthy foe.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 