WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Season 15, Episode 19 of Supernatural, "Inherit the Earth," which aired Thursday on The CW.
As expected, the penultimate episode of Supernatural brings back a major player: Archangel Michael. Not only is the character's return welcomed by Sam and Dean Winchester and his nephew, the Nephilim Jack Kline, who were feeling pretty lonely on a planet Earth wiped clean by God/Chuck, but it's also fitting for long-time fans of the show who recall its originally-planned ending: Michael, using Sam and Dean's half-brother Adam as his vessel, battled Lucifer, in Sam's body, at the end of Season 5 -- ending with the two tumbling into Hell and aborting the Devil's apocalypse.
10 seasons on, things get even more eerily familiar when Lucifer suddenly joined his brother for Thursday night's installment, completing the auspicious reunion. No longer the biggest power player on the board, Lucifer fully embraces his snake-like trickster role in the episode, only to be delivered the (final) ending he truly deserves. Like father, like son.
Lucifer's reintroduction is as cruel as you'd expect -- pretending to be a not-dead Castiel so a freshly heartbroken Dean would let him into the Bunker. The Devil then spins the Winchesters a pretty convincing lie. Resurrected by The Empty's shadow ruler, he claims he's here to help them read Death's book containing the answer as to how God will die. Only the Grim Reaper can read the book so he brings a trussed-up Reaper with him and promptly kills her, knowing that she'll be reborn as Billie's replacement to fill the current void. However, before the new Death can reveal the nature of the All Mighty's end to Sam, Dean, Jack and Michael, Lucifer turns her to dust.
His betrayal revealed, he explains that it was actually God who raised him from The Empty, knowing that he'd be more than happy to take Michael's spot as the golden child and do his bidding. Swiftly taking out Sam, Dean and Michael, Lucifer tries to convince his son to join him and Jack's grandfather on the 'winning' team, pointing out the boy isn't strong enough to resist. But Lucifer, as usual, underestimates his opponents: the Winchesters sneak an angel blade to Michael, and Lucifer dies his last death.
Once the greatest threat Sam and Dean ever faced, Lucifer is reduced to a mere pawn in Chuck's desperate ploy to claw back the only advantage the Winchesters have over him. Further back, when Chuck turned out to be the biggest bad of them all, his fallen son looked much more sympathetic by comparison. Though not excused from the sins he'd committed, Lucifer suddenly became entitled to the biggest 'I Told You So!' in history -- the only one of the Lord's flock who truly knew of his critical flaw: his incapacity to truly love his creations without their unconditional devotion to him. For his flagrant disrespect, he was cast out of Heaven and made the ultimate pariah and the ultimate symbol of evil.
Out of all his sons, Lucifer is perhaps, in retrospect, the truest reflection of what his father became -- an insecure, petty sociopathic with one hell of a temper. This is probably why he was initially his favorite, as well as why the two clashed so violently. The key to Supernatural has always been family dynamics and this is what colors Lucifer's final moments. Lucifer can't resist twisting the knife in the Winchesters' guts or rubbing his brother's face in the fact that he's back in daddy's good graces. Given yet another shot at life, the Devil could have truly helped defeat God, as he pretended to at first. Instead, he squandered the chance to possibly reconcile with his son and enjoy Jack's tenure as the soon-to-be-new God in order to become the then-deity's lapdog.
For his part, Lucifer got exactly what he always had coming to him, and become a pitiful footnote in the ending to Sam and Dean's story. The same can be said of Michael, who turns on Sam and Dean at the last moment, succumbing to his need to be at his father's side also. It's a sorry end to a cosmically dysfunctional family, but proof immemorial that when people show you who they are, believe them.
Supernatural stars Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles, Misha Collins and Alexander Calvert. The series finale airs Nov. 19 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The CW.