THEN - Amara, shooting stars, Chuck is bent on destruction.  Jack explodes in the Empty.  Billie with her scythe.  With her book about how God ends.  People poofing away.  Cas's smile and tear-filled eyes.  

NOW - Kyoto, Japan - empty.  New York City - empty.  A playground - empty.  A swing.  A horse on springs.  Everything empty.  All humans gone.  Sam and Jack stand in the center of a town - the sun is brightly shining.  They are surrounded by cars and evidence of humans like a dropped bag of groceries, but there are no people anywhere.  A car alarm beeps.  Nearby, a car has crashed into a telephone pole.  The Impala pulls up, and the camera angle switches to an overhead view.  Dean gets out and looks around at the deserted town.  The words Hibbings, Minnesota appear at the bottom of the screen.  "I couldn't save anybody," Sam states with slightly desperate eyes.  "It was Chuck," Dean states bluntly.  "Where's Cas?" Jack questions.  Dean has full control of his emotions.  "He saved me," he says shortly, then continues to tell how Death was after them and the Empty came and took her and took him.  "Cas is gone," he looks over at Jack, then away.  Jack breathes hard but says nothing.  "This can't be happening!" says Sam.  "It IS," Dean tells him.  "I think everyone's gone."  Sam calls Jody on his cell phone, but only gets her voice mail.  "Jack, I'm sorry," Dean says directly.  The three men slowly walk down the deserted street.  The camera zooms out and out and out, past trees and clouds and the atmosphere until we see the whole round beautiful earth.  

****SUPERNATURAL****   "Inherit the Earth"

A blue bike lies discarded near the curb.  The Winchesters are still walking the empty streets of the town.  They enter a diner where food still sits on plates and music still plays.  The large-screen TV above the bar is showing a football game, but it is nothing but an empty field.  "Gives a new meaning to sudden death," Dean jokes dryly.  "We're it," says Sam.  "All that's left?"  "Yeah," replies Dean.  "You, me, Jack."  

Jack sits outside.  "Cas," he says, but then falls silent.  He stands and walks silently down the sidewalk.  As he passes, the plants in the huge cement planters outside the diner, wither, turn brown, and die.  

Inside the diner, Dean has poured himself a mug of beer.  "What now?" Jack asks, entering the room.  "I did this," Sam says.  "I resisted.  We tried to rewrite him, and teh whole world paid the price.  There's no one left to save."  Jack, perhaps too young to think otherwise, tells them, "We can't just give up."  "What other choice do we have?" Sam says.

Night.  The Impala is parked in front of a large building that glows faintly blue in the dim light.  Dean leans against the Impala's hood; Sam stands a little in front.  "Think he'll show?"  They look up.  He's there - Chuck - keeping his blandly pleasant face.  "Enjoying alone time?" he asks them.  "You win," says Dean.  "I always do," Chuck replies.  "We'll give you what you want," Sam says.  "I'll kill him.  He'll kill me.  We'll kill each other.  Whatever.  But put them back.  All the people.  And Cas.  Bring him back."  "We're surrendering," Sam adds.  "We're giving up."  Chuck, though, isn't satisfied with their capitulation.  "Yeah, no.  I aprpeciate the white flag, but it's too little, too late."   He CAN do this - he's God.  He likes the situation he's left them in:  "the two of you rotting on a lifeless planet.  Eternal shame, suffering, and loneliness - that's deep!  That's sophisticated!  That's a page-turner!"  

Jack lies on his bed in the bunker staring at the ceiling.  Sam walks through the bunker.  Dean is collapsed on the floor, head on a bottle of liquor.  Sam rushes up to him.  "You OK?"  Dean slowly pushes himself to his knees, holding onto the library table.  "I feel terrific," he groans.  Suddenly, Jack, wearing button-up blue pajamas, sits up on the edge of the bed:  "I'm feeling something weird." Dean is rubbing his face at the table.  "Me, too.  I need aspirin."  No, Jack has felt that something is out there.    

The Impala drives through a sunny day.  They pull up to a gas station - no waiting - and Dean heads to the men's room only to pause when he hears a whine.  He turns and sees a shaggy dog lying down on the ground.  He immediately begins to pat it and talk endearingly to it:  "How'd Chuck miss you?"  He calls it a miracle that he's there, then names hiim Miracle.  One moment he's ruffling the hair on the dog's head, the next he's approaching the Impala carrying the dog in his arms.  "Chuck didn't get EVERYONE!" he announces.  Sam is surprised that Dean is going to allow a dog in the Impala, but Dean says it's OK -- he's not going to give the dog shotgun!  As he places the dog in the back seat, Dean pats him again.  There's a warm smile on his face.  "You're the best thing that's happened --" The dog dissolves and disappears.  In an open field across from the gas station stands Chuck.  He salutes Dean with a smile.  "Unbelievable!' says Dean.  As they drive, Dean tells Sam, "We can't even save a freaking dog!"  "Maybe that's the point," says Sam.  "There's no one left to help."  

The Impala pulls up in front of a church.  In the dark night, lightning flickers.  Light from inside sends a glow through the colored stained glass windows.  Jack is picking up a presence from inside the church.  They have no idea what they are walking into, but they enter anyone.  They see open books on the pews, lit candles, statues.  Jack, a contrast to the darkly clad Winchesters in his light jacket and pale pants, follows them down the center aisle of the church so he's at the center when a figure appears at the end of the aisle near the door.  "So you survived," a voice says.  It's Michael, still possessing Adam.  The three men eye the angel cautiously.  "When teh Rapture first began, I took refuge here," he tells them.  After all, it's St. Michael's.  "And Adam?" asks Sam.  "Gone, sorry to say," Michael informs them.  Adam was exterminated along with all other humans.  Dean says, "Your old man thought it would be hilarious."  Michael remarks that he was curious about his father.  The believers loved him.  "My efforts were more effective than I'd hoped."  He'd touted the qualities of his fathers for centuries:  God the all-knowing, all-seeing, all0caring.  "Daddy's boy," comments Dean, getting a chuckle from Michael who stays unruffled.  "And now?' asks Jack.  Dean adds that they'd reached out to him.and he didn't answer.  "That was then; this is now," Michael says.  "What do you need me to do?"  

In the bunker, the men and the archangel stand around the lighted map table.  Sam brings Death's book about how to kill God.  Michael's eyes glow as he holds his right hand outstretched over the book.  The embossed cover begins to glow, but the book doesn't open.  "I'm sorry," says Michael.

Dean sits down and leans his head against a cement wall.  "Where's this leave us?" asks Sam.  He's sitting parallel to him, each brother on either side of a doorway in the semi-dark kitchen.  "Screwed," Dean answers.  "Chucks ready to make a move."  Suddenly, his phone rings.  He glances down.  It from -- Cass?  "I'm here.  I'm hurt!  Let me in!'  Dean goes up the iron stairs, opens the door with a mix of caution and eagerness, only to reveal the smiling face of Lucifer.  Dean slams the door shut, but Lucifer has transported inside.  He stands in the main room below, beaming up at them.  "Way to treat a pal!"  The Winchesters are staring down at him, Sam taut with tension.  "You're dead!" Dean says.  Lucifer laughs.  The Empty booted him out, told him to find the God book and use it on Chuck.  "Don't mess with the Empty!  What's up?  We're a eam again guys!"   "Not happening," Dean says.  Lucifer tells them that they're just not enough.  They need him, and he's brought a token of good faith.  Suddenly there's a tall, slim, dark-haired young woman standing next to him, chains wrapped around her upper body and a white rag tied around her head, gagging her.  Lucifer tells them that this is Betty, a reaper.  Why did he bring them a reaper?  He stabs her, light explodes from her eyes and mouth and she collapses to the ground.  "Really?" says Dean.  "Wait for it!" says Lucifer.  Suddenly, the reaper stirs and sits up.  "Meet the new Death!" Lucifer crows triumphantly.  The newly created Death stares at them.  Dean cautiously approaches her and reaches around to untie the gag.  Pulling her head back, she smashes it forward into his face, then shakes off the chains and stands.  "So do you have it?" she asks.  Sam, after asking Dean if he's okay, hands over the book.  Now that Betty is Death, she can read the book.  Betty steps into a room to look at the pages but closes the door in Sam and Dean's faces.  This isn't a group project. she tells them.

Lucifer is bending over the end of the table carefully erecting a house of cards when Michael comes around the corner into the room.  The cards collapse.  "I cheated," shrugs Lucifer. Michael can't believe the Winchesters are thinking of trusting him.  "I get the bitterness," says Lucifer carelessly.  Michael tells him that he Michael had done what he'd done, not to win their father's love, but because it was the right thing to do." "He has no love to give," Lucifer tells him.  Betty enters the room holding the book, clearing her throat for attention, then calling out, "Asshats!  It's in here.  I know how God ends."  "You sure?" asks Sam.  "I'm Death," she replies with the calm superiority Death always bears.  "You've been Death for an hour," Dean remarks, unimpressed.  Lucifer, however, snaps his fingers, and the elevated Reaper crumbles, dropping the book. Lucifer gleefully tells them that it was Chuck who let him out of the Empty.  Michael's a cock, he mocks.  He throws Sam and Dean across the room, then turns his focus to Jack, asking him to join "Gramps and me" on the winning team.  "It's the only way you're leaving here alive."  

Michael, however, isn't standing down.  His eyes glow blue as he confronts Lucifer whose eyes glow a devilish red.  Michael pulls a blade and stabs Lucifer who drops the book.  Nothing happens.  The two archangels stand as if frozen in place.  Then light explodes from Lucifer's eyes, and he's gone, destroyed, leaving nothing but tiny floating sparks which fade away.  Michael gasps for a moment, then says, "Thanks for the blade."  Sam nodes.  Jack looks confused.  

Later, Michael sits alone at the library table.  Dean approaches him and asks if he's ok.  Michael says he's a bit winded.  Dean offers him a beer and says he's glad Michael was here.  Chuck is getting desperate.  "Yes," says Michael, "he sent Lucifer.  He didn't even reach out to me."  "Did you want him to?" asks Dean.  "Certainly not!" asserts Michael.  The God book, though, is useless without Death.  "At least it's open," says Dean.  He informs Michael that Sam is trying to use the Book of the Damned to see if he can help figure out the end.

Jack sits at a table on the computer; Dean is at another table perusing a thick book.  Michael enters with another book.  Then Sam comes out.  It's been slow going, but he's found a spell.  They can create an unstoppable force to get Chuck.

The Impala drives out to an isolated spot near a lake.  Under the bright blue sky, the two brothers, the nephilim, and the archangel get out a bowl, drop in ingredients, and light it up.  A blue light shots out, then beams straight upward in a column of icy light.  Then - bam! - a concussive shock shakes the book and the bowl and the light, nullifying the spell.  There stands Chuck, wearing a light grey tweed jacket and his usual benign expression.  With a flick of his hand, he violently tosses Sam and Dean to the ground a distance away.  A second motion does the same to Jack, leaving father and son facing each other.  "Father," says Michael, stolid in his dark green jacket and earnest eyes.  "Son," says Chuck.  "I appreciate the heads up."  Michael tells him, "It's my destiny to serve you."  However, Chuck has a quibble.  Michael sided with the Winchesters against him.  He can't forgive that.  He holds out his hand, finger flexed, eyes glowing in intensity.  All that power is directed at his first born and powerfully and completely Michael disintigrates.  

Sam and Dean slowly get to the feet on the edge of the lake.  Chuck is sick of them and their machinations.  Watching eternal suffering is boring.  "We're done!  I'm canceling your show."  Sam knows it's useless but he punches Chuck, to no effect except to anger Chuck even more.  He squeezes his hand, and they both fall to the ground in pain.  He enjoys that for a moment, then is about to snap his fingers when he stops and decides to do it the slow way.  Crossing to the brothers, he uses his fists to mercilessly hammer them, smashing their faces with his fists, crushing them to the ground again and again.  Staggering and bleeding, they keep getting up, only to be battered back to the ground each time.  Chuck snaps Dean's arm.  He twists Sam's arm and dislocates it.  He steps on Dean's leg and breaks it.  "That's enough!" he commands.  They stand up.  He beats them back down.  "Just stay down!"  They don't.  "Give it up!  Stop it!  Stay down!  That's enough!"  Both brothers gasp into the sand as blood runs down their faces, then Sam helps Dean to his feet.  Despite their injuries, there's a grin on their faces.  "Why are you smiling?" wonders Chuck.  "Because you lose," Sam tells him.  Chuck turns.  Jack is standing there.  "Hey, Jack," Chuck says carefully.  He walks toward him hesitantly, then gives his fingers a sudden snap.  Nothing happens.  Another, then another, and again!  No matter how many times he snaps his fingers, Jack is unaffected.   Through his rising panic, Chuck sees Jack approach him and grasp his face in both hands.  A golden light cracks across Jack's face; his eyes glow, and the glow engulfs the creator.  Jack snaps his fingers.  Sam and Dean are restored, injuries healed.  

Chuck lies helplessly on the ground.  Sam picks up the book from the ground.  "What did you do?" asks Chuck.  "We won!" Dean tells him.  "That's my death in that book," Chuck states.  "See for yourself," Sam says, throwing it back down.  Chuck flips through the pages - they're all empty.  "There's nothing there!  Only death can read it!"  

Now, they reveal their plan.  They knew Michael was a daddy's boy, desperate for his approval.  Jack, after the explosion, was a power vacuum.  So they set Michael up, telling him that they had a spell.  When he killed Lucifer, Jack took in Lucifer's power.  "You killed your own son!" they told Chuck.  That released more power.  Chuck exerting power to subjugate the Winchesters also sent out power, which Jack inhaled until he was unstoppable.  

From the ground, Chuck laughs.  "This is why you're my favorites!' he says.  "I don't know what happens next.  Is this where you kill me?  After all I've done to you, to die at the hands of Sam Winchester, of Dean Winchester, the ultimate killer.  It's kinda glorious."  The brothers look at each other.  Then they walk away.  "Sorry, Chuck," Dean says.  "What?" says Chuck.  "That's not who I am.  Not who we are."  Sam checks on Jack who has Chuck's power.  "Not his power," clarifies Jack.  "You're just like us," Sam tells Chuck.  "You'll grow old, get sick, and die, and no one cares, and no ones remembers you, you'll be forgotten."  With Sam standing in the middle, the Winchesters and Jack walk away, headed back to the car.  "Wait, guys!" calls Chuck.  He tries to follow them, but he collapses back onto the ground.  He crawls after the car, calling, pleading, gasping.  The Impala drives away.  The camera lifts off into the trees.  We hear him whimper.

The Impala pulls up in front of Showalter's Garage on the empty street and the men get out.  "Alright, kid, you think you can pull this off?"  Dean asks Jack, who closes his eyes.  The empty New York subway.  An empty Chinese temple.  An empty restaurant.  Then, an arm, pouring a drink.  People talking, moving, living, riding bikes, filling the earth again.  A song is playing - "Come on, people now, smile on your brother.  Everybody get together.  Try to love one another just now."  The street around them is busy, humans resuming their lives as if nothing had happened.  Sam and Dean are smiling.  "Way to go!  I mean it!" Dean praises Jack.  "So you're the new - " Sam begins.  "Who cares!" Dean asserts on an adrenaline high.  When they ask about Amara, Jack says she's with him.  Dean is ready to return to the bunker, to install another recliner, big-screen TVs, but Jack says, "I'm not coming back home.  I'm already there."  "So you ARE him," says Sam.  Jack smiles.  What if they want to see him?  He'll be around, he tells them.  He'll be in the rain, the world around them.  "Hell of a time to bail," Dean says.  Jack says he's not bailing because he will be in everyone.  People won't have to pray to him or sacrifice to him.  He's part of them.  They can trust that.  Chuck put himself in the story.  That was his mistake.  Jack has learned from them, from his mother, from Cas.  When people have to be their best, they can be, and that's what to believe in.  "I'm really as close as this," he says, and puts his hand on his heart.  Then he lifts it, holding it palm out.  "Goodbye!"  Then he turns with a gentle smile and walks away, fading into nothing.  

Sam and Dean each take a beer.  Then sit shoulder to shoulder on the end of the bunker table.  Sam sighs.  "It's pretty quiet."  "To everyone that we lost along the way," says Dean.  They clink the bottles together and drink. Sam shakes his head.  Without Chuck writing their story, they get to write their own.  "Just you and me!" he says.  "Finally free!" Dean emphasizes.  A quick shoulder pat, a bright smile, and the brothers head out of the bunker.  Behind them on the table are inscribed the initials DW, SW, MW, and Castiel and Jack.

They drive, Dean behind the wheel, Sam smiling in the passenger seat.  Scenes fly by from Dean breaking into Sam's apartment in Stanford through the years, friends, foes, fights.  "Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels, looking back at the years gone by . . . I'm just running on, running on, running on empty."  The Impala's engine rumbles as she drives down a road suffused with a warm golden light.  

The brothers stand at the trunk and slam it shut.

THE END

Wow!  That felt like an ending to me!  So what will happen next week?

1. What is the significance of the title "Inherit the Earth"?
2. Did you expect to see Lucifer outside that door?
3. Michael and Lucifer faced off and Michael won.  If the Apocalypse had happened like it was destined to, would Michael have won then too?
4. If the Winchesters' loyalty to each other is a good thing, why is Michael's loyalty to his father a bad thing?
5. Did you feel that Jack overshadowed the Winchesters in defeating Chuck or not?
6. The fandom had a lot of intense feelings about last week's episode.  How did this week's episode make you feel?