Five Years After Supernatural Killed Off Castiel, Watching Misha Collins' Final Scene Is Even Sadder Than The First Time Around

The 2025 TV schedule has included new gigs for some former Supernatural stars, but also delivered milestones like the 20th anniversary of the original pilot with Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki. This year is also the five-year anniversary of the final episodes of the series, and I decided that I would rewatch one of the defining moments of that last arc. On this day in 2020, the Season 15 episode called “Despair” aired on The CW, and Supernatural killed off Misha Collins’ Castiel for the last time.

It wasn’t Cas’ first death, with Misha Collins already able to pick his favorite from several options years earlier. But with just two episodes left after “Despair,” fans could guess at the time that this would probably be his last. Using my Netflix subscription, I revisited that pivotal scene, and I discovered that the twist was even sadder on November 5, 2025 than on the same day in 2020.

What Happened For Castiel's Final Death

With just two episodes left in the series, Supernatural paid off on a twist from two years earlier. Castiel had made a deal to bring Jack back to life, with the price that he’d be dragged off to The Empty forever whenever he experienced a moment of absolute happiness. Cas managed to avoid activating that deal for the next couple of seasons by usually being at least a little bit miserable, but the desperate times of “Despair” called for desperate messages.

Cas and Dean were being hunted throughout the bunker by Billie, who had murder on the mind. As Dean said, she was going to break through their barrier, kill Cas, and then kill him. They were out of options… as far as he knew, anyway. Already tearing up as soon as he realized that they had an out, Cas came clean to Dean about the deal, and then gave this speech:

Dean still had no idea where Castiel was going with this, and in his defense, they had kind of a lot happening at the time, none of which seemed likely to tie to the angel finding true happiness. But Cas went on, smiling and crying as he acknowledged that Dean sees himself as “destructive,” “angry,” “broken,” and “Daddy’s blunt instrument” driven by “hate and anger,” but said that wasn't true. He went on:

And despite this being Supernatural, a show that often played Castiel’s “more profound bond” with Dean for laughs, the angel went on to say “I love you.” It made Cas happy enough that it triggered his deal, with The Empty swarming up to drag him away just as Billie broke through the barrier. Both were dragged off, leaving a shell-shocked Dean on the floor with tears in his eyes. According to the terms of the deal, Cas was gone for good.

I didn’t entirely believe that back in 2020, though, which is part of why my rewatch was sadder than the first time I tuned in. But before I get into that, I really need to take us back in time to the craziness of that fateful night five years ago.

On This Day, Five Years Ago

As people who were watching live on November 5, 2020 may remember, it was just a bonkers night on social media while the episode was airing. The results of the 2020 United States presidential election still hadn’t been confirmed, rumors were circulating about the death of a foreign leader, and the wildly improbable twist of Castiel canonically declaring his love for Dean Winchester was unfolding on The CW.

My knee-jerk reaction at the time wasn’t sadness or excitement or even nervousness about what Castiel being dragged to The Empty meant for the upcoming series finale, but generally just a feeling of “WTF is happening right now?!” It was a pretty surreal night, not helped by the fact that Supernatural was fairly fresh off of its abrupt COVID hiatus. Never in my wildest dreams did I believe the show would go there on screen for Cas.

The surprise wasn’t that the angel died, since the stage seemed set at the time for Castiel to once again die. How it happened was the kicker. Whether you'd boarded the good ship Destiel, saw Cas as a third Winchester brother (sorry, Adam), or just saw them as platonic pals with a capital P, it was a pretty great love confession from the angel to the human, and not something I ever thought would happen on screen.

Why It's Even Sadder In 2025

While the whole situation was just too surreal for me to be immediately sad when I watched “Despair” for the first time five years ago, I also have to note that I was pretty confident that Supernatural would once again find a way to bring Misha Collins back for at least a cameo before the final credits rolled.

Even until the final moments of the finale when both Winchesters were dead and in Heaven, I was expecting Castiel to walk up. His death just didn’t seem permanent enough at the time for me to mourn too much. I talked a big talk at the time because I didn’t really think it would stick. It never did, right?

This time, I was watching with the full knowledge that the closest we’d get to an on-screen return from Misha Collins was a voice cameo in the penultimate episode. Bobby exposited in the finale that Jack had brought Cas back and Cas had helped reshape Heaven, but the last we ever saw of the angel was being dragged off to The Empty.

Knowing that now, Misha Collins’ performance in his final scene hit a lot harder, and I have more appreciation for what Jensen Ackles brought as well. After all, viewers from home knew what was going to happen and saw what Cas was trying to say, but Dean was getting a whole lot of information in mere moments, when he was expecting Billie to break in and kill them both any second.

Smaller notes packed more of an emotional punch this time too, like Cas’ handprint on Dean’s shoulder as a mirror to when he’d first pulled the eldest Winchester brother out of Hell all those years ago and Dean actually screening Sam’s calls at the end of the episode so that he could sit and cry alone. Plus, the cancellation of The Winchesters meant that Cas couldn’t even make a comeback that way.

On the whole, I’m glad I rewatched Castiel’s death scene for the five-year anniversary of “Despair,” but it hasn’t made me think any better of the series finale now. Who knows? Maybe I’ll need to rewatch that for its upcoming anniversary in a couple of weeks. If you want to go on a blast to the Supernatural past yourself, you can find all fifteen seasons streaming on Netflix now.