Sorry, can you explain to me what this means for Walker, as if I were five years old? Thank you.

deadline*com/2024/04/cw-canceled-renewed-all-american-homecoming-walker-status-1235889923/

Link.

This is a classic negotiation tactic.  Nexstar’s goal is to keep the cost of buying episodes low, and CBS studio's goal is to make Netstar pick up all the production cost in season 5.

During the first 4 years a show is given a minimal budget by the network and then the studio and production company have to pick up the overage costs. In year 5, the network has to pick up all cost. In year 6 the actors renegotiate their contracts for much higher pay, which the network has to pick up. This is why most successful TV shows usually have 6 or 7 seasons.

So Nexstar is trying to force CBS studio take the current low costs knowing CBS studio really, really want to reach year 5 so they can stick all the bills on Nexstar while CBS studio reaps profits on distribution rights.  Walker is in its 4th season and only needs 19 more episodes in season 5 to reach the magic syndication number of 88 (tho that number is not set in stone). 

Each side will leak stuff in a PR battle i.e. CBS studio threatening to pull Walker and put the show on its own streaming service, thus denying Nexstar/CW its highest viewed show, unless Nexstar agrees raise its licensing fee on top of picking up all the bill for season 5.

I know its beens awhile but what did you think of S15 as a whole?

As a whole I think season 15 was an above-average season due to below-average execution and ended with a stellar series finale that added rewatch value not just for season 15 but also all of 15 seasons.

Season 15 started and ended with callbacks to previous seasons; from season 1's woman in white and Sam's goal of returning to a normal life, to season 5's Dean's time in hell as Alastair's apprentice and bringing closure to Adam Milligan, to season 8's endgames for Sam and Dean.

The first half of the season 15 was about free will vs determinism, with Sam representing the former and Dean representing the latter.  Sam and Dean’s confrontation with God parallels how they've reacted to family and authority their entire lives: Sam challenged God’s Divine decree over His Creation while Dean accused God of abandoning His Creation.  When Abraham spoke with his heart and mind to God over His plan to destroy Sodom & Gomorrah, it led to Abraham transcending himself, leading the way for God, and becoming the father of faith. Metaphorically it's all about lessons in honest, meaningful relationships with our fellow human beings.   People often suppress their true selves and principles for the sake of avoiding conflict instead of taking the relationship a step further into a place of sincerity.   From season 11 to 14, Sam and Dean spoke their hearts and minds to God and the brothers' relationship became at its strongest, never wavering even when occasional arguments sprouts up because they were honest with each other.

Sam and God became connected through Sam's hope which manifested in their identical wounds. Secular-based hope is about anticipating something good to come in the future.  Sam has hope in a better future, so Chuck showed him a bleak future to make his lose that hope.  Once Sam lost his hope, God leaves.  That’s pretty much what happens to people in real life, when they lose hope, they feel there is no God or God abandoned them. Another physical manifestation of a bleak future is Dean's old friend who retired from hunting, Lee, who became so corrupted that Dean is forced to kill him.

The return of Sam and Dean's half-brother, Adam, brings welcome closure.  Adam is not out for revenge as he acknowledged his own culpability for agreeing to vessel-ship in the first place.  Him and Michael only having each other for 10 years in the Cage led to their codependent-symbiotic-ish relationship that parallels Sam and Dean to some extent.  

I like to call the second half of season 15 the "Dean redemption tour" where side characters were used to address Dean's unresolved issues in order for him to be good enough for Sam in their eternal afterlife. Normally whenever Dean interacted with side characters it is about the side characters, not Dean (see example here and here). But when the formula is reversed, it becomes a bit disjointed, and the audience picked up on it. The final redemption act target Dean's anger issues that both Amara and Chuck discussed.

Chuck: This is my ending.  My real ending. 

Very next scene: *Dean pulls a gun on Sam*

Dean’s been so obsessed with having free will that he’s actually following Chuck’s writing.  As usual Sam broke through to Dean, in effect breaking Chuck’s influence. Then a very mad mad Chuck shows up.

Chuck:  “Are you kidding me? After all that, you did it again!”

Then 15x18 happened. Ignoring the hilarity of that scene, the speech was supposed to remind the general audience that Dean is A HERO before he dies two episodes later. By 15x19, free will vs determinism comes to a conclusion.   Michael and Lucifer betrayed the Winchesters and succumb to determinism, fulfilling their destiny to destroy each other.  Sam and Dean manipulated Michael to lure Chuck into a trap to replace him with a new God, Jack. Chuck is left only with human frailties and for the first time Chuck has no idea what happens next, bringing the free will theme to a full circle.  

Due to interactions with Sam, Rowena became the new queen of Hell while Jack becomes the new God of Heaven. Jack promises Sam that He will have a hands-off approach and people don’t need to pray or sacrifice to Him. Jack’s perception of humanity is distilled down to, “When people have to be their best, they can be.” 

Before the story ends, the protagonist is supposed to accomplish their primary goal that had kept them driven and move the story forward.  Sam’s goal was attaining normal life, it was never about eradicating monsters to extinction or avenging his mother’s death.  In fiction it always seems like the main character want many things, but there is always a primary goal.  Harry Potter gets dragged into many subplots such as conflicts with his best friends, romantic misfires, and incidents with secondary characters, however his main goal was always to defeat Voldemort and that's what the audience is holding out to see.  Sam Winchester’s journey is flipped from Harry Potter’s; Sam gets dragged into many subplots of saving the world, defeating the Big Baddies, and conflicts with his brother, however his main goal was always to have a chance at a normal life. But this can't happen while Dean is still alive.

Dean has everything he wanted: Sam and hunting.  Dean is a complete person; he doesn’t need anything else. But Sam had given up just about everything so that Dean wouldn’t be alone. 15x16 reminded the audience that Sam wanted out of the hunting life since he was a child. Sure, Sam is very good at his job and even became a leader, but they always made sure to show that Sam doesn’t have passion for the family business other than saving people’s lives.  Claire Novak shows way more enthusiasm for the job. But Dean would never retire from the hunting life.  Even when Michael gave Dean a fantasy life, Dean still conjured up monsters so he can fight and kill them.  As long as Dean is alive, Sam will never be free to pursue a normal life.  Think back to Dean's speech in season 8 telling Sam to pursue his normal life only after Dean dies with a gun in his hand and a smile on his face.

The pivotal barn scene in the 15x20 finale was genius, bringing the series to full circle with callback to the pilot, fleshing it out, adding backstory to Dean’s pov that brings his fear, need, relief, and love to stark relief.  It hurt like hell, and at the same time, cathartic because Dean was honest.   The way Dean said, “Come here. Let me look at you. There he is!”  That’s Dean in dad mode, the parental figure to Sam.  The show reminded the audience in 15x18 that Dean raised his little brother.  Still in dad mode, Dean then tells Sam that he is proud of him.  It’s what every son wants to hear from their dad.

Dean then goes into brother mode and tells Sam he admires his strength even when they were children.  Sam’s strength is such that Dean was afraid that Sam doesn’t need him. Fearing rejection, he stood outside of Sam’s dorm for hours before finally going to Sam because it’s always been Sam and Dean, and Dean can’t comprehend if he didn’t have Sam. 

From there Dean gives Sam his blessing to keep living his life.  “I love you so much, my baby brother”. Sam’s reaction was pure and raw, he has always been honest about his wants and needs but craves Dean’s approval to pursue them, and now he has it.  Sam’s faith in Dean went answered with Dean saying how proud he is of Sam, how much he admired Sam’s strength so that Sam knows he is strong enough to go on living without Dean.  

Another reason why the barn scene is genius is the pilot callback sets up Sam and Dean’s reunion in New Heaven as pilot 2.0.  From there they will build their relationship just as Sam and Dean.  They are at peace without monsters disrupting their lives, without vindictive angels disrupting their afterlives, and without childhood angsts weighing them down.  They have both freedom and peace.

This applies to all of the hunters.  Jack’s New Heaven is like a retirement home for hunters where they can enjoy their peace and socialize with their friends and loved ones and even upgrade themselves to the people they were meant to be on earth.

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Awe! That's so sweet!

completely agreed with your post about dean's ending. a good amount of people who complain about it seem to see it as a competition with sam too, like sam was always trying to abandon dean to get the ending he got but dean had to die young and get none of that?! it's such an intentional misreading of the characters to think that dean wasn't stoked to die ~young on the hunt while all his bones still didn't creak and sam was right next to him keeping him company. even typing that i could feel dean shudder somewhere in heaven. sure it would have been an impactful choice if they subverted it and switched the 2 deaths but it wouldn't have had much meaning to either of them for it to happen that way, and i've never understood why people don't recognize that. a couple more years in the bunker working fun little ghost cases wouldn't have changed anything for dean. he WANTED to go first and he WANTED it to serve a significant purpose in sam's life. thank you for getting it!

I don't think Dean was stoked to die. I think that he just accepted it, and had accepted it as an inevitability much better than Sam had. Sam may have given up on longing for a normal life and had truly made peace with his life the way it actually was, but I think he still wanted more out of life in general, he had more expectations for the long run. I think he'd hoped that the long run included more of his brother though. But Dean had lived his life as if each day could have been his last. He took his pleasures when and where he found them and he indulged himself on the regular. While he would have continued to make the most of each and every day he may have gotten, there wasn't anything different or more out there for him because he already had everything he really wanted. That lends a certain peace to life and, I hope, to death when it comes.

There is no way though that Dean could have carried on if Sam had been the one to die in that barn. No amount of bacon double cheeseburgers or pie or pussy or whatever was ever going to fill the void in that passenger seat for him. If Sam had died, Dean may have lasted for a little while but he would not have lived more than a couple of years. He would have either drank himself to death or done something careless on a hunt and gotten himself killed anyway.

But even though Sam grieved for Dean for the rest of his life, he actually lived for decades. He had a son, and a relationship of some sort with a blurry woman, and a home, and he continued helping people. Yes, Sam was sad at times, maybe even most of the time (there's no real getting over a loss like that) but he still had things to live for, and he did.

And if they had both died at the same time, Butch and Sundance style, then there wouldn't have been anymore Winchesters in the world, their legacy really would have just faded away with the memories of the people who knew them and who they had saved. And that would have been too closed off of an ending, I think.

Like I know that a lot of folks are really upset that the ending wasn't happier, or whatever they wanted it to be, but seriously, the rest of the show wasn't happier. It was funny and sweet and uplifting, but it was also horrifying and dark and heartbreaking. It only made sense that the end be a mix of all of those things.