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elizabethrobertajones · 8 years ago

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9x22 Rewatch

God, the end of season 9 was some quality nonsense. Pretty sure I never recovered.

We’re finally entering the “I have literally never re-watched these episodes for any reason” part of the show that extends from here -> 11x01 so this will be a trip.

The recap proves 9x21 only needed to be 30 seconds long. Beautiful.

Aw, crap, I forgot about Tessa. (like, wilfully forgetting. She and Billie are hanging out on a beach somewhere groaning about Winchesters being the worst) Thanks, Dabb.

I suppose reapers were already retconned to hell, and you just went with a friendly face, as well as the really obvious step that Tessa vs Dean’s descent is an important step, as much as having vampire episodes to parallel to it. If you assume what you’re writing is the most important stage of his journey so far and worth spending Tessa on (I’m paused at the ice cream shop awful mom demanding “10 blueberries, not 9, not 11″ which a lot of people read as commenting on how many seasons they wanted and surprise - Dabb ends up taking over in 11 when Carver drifts away very clearly feeling this sentiment in his bones... Anyway, feeling this was building up to some great end, you can use up one of the most significant characters on the show just like killing Death at the end of 10 (though I still wonder if that was spite for this same reason :P)...) then it makes sense... Tessa has been linked to some really significant stages in Dean’s journey on the sort of really grim path that you can kind of see was always leading here, when you take Dean in broad strokes and look from current canon back at the past. As I know a lot of people did, really taking stock of Dean’s cumulative trauma that starts to make this seem inevitable by season 2 – hi Tessa, the stuff in 2x03 in Cain’s house about Dean being a killer, selling his soul – and it just keeps getting worse and worse until he’s given all he has, like, by season EIGHT.

In 2x01 Dean wanted to go with Tessa and NOT become a vengeful ghost, but not before struggling hugely with his duty and the fact there was still a battle to fight. She was ready to Valkyrie him off the battlefield before John intervened. In 4x15 he talks about how he felt her as something he’d been missing all that time - the sense he should have moved on, making their conversations in 2x01 clearly a factor in him selling his soul, and feeling he had to make use of his death/resurrection/pass it on to someone more deserving of that life, in his eyes. In 6x11 it goes back to his nature as a killer by her helping him be Death, and to learn how the natural order works (and I am fairly sure Dean declares he’s the natural order at some point while being a demon)... Now Dean’s confronting a whole bundle of mortality stuff, from having to die/wanting to die to not become what is heavily paralleled to being a vengeful ghost AND his nature as a killer is explored in this arc, and Tessa is more appropriate than any other character to vouch for the natural order being fucked. Dean’s wrongness parallels with the wrongness of the universe (because he’s the centre of the universe) and both are only truly put right in 11x23. Tessa is one of those keystone characters who can hold this whole narrative together.

Anyway, ice cream shop scene: angels and food - this angel enjoying an ice cream is a subject covered in a lot of meta. Highlights: angels & sweet tooth, check. Just eating it because a kid would and she’s playing along (see also: playground angel), check. Fridge horror of SPN being really wary of killing kids but forget about vessels when blowing up a little girl, check. (Though there was another little human boy there who died too)

The angel that comes in to kill her is blatantly wearing a trenchcoat in order to mimic Cas because he’s one of the “For Castiel!!” bombers, we discover in a minute. For now, the visual association does the trick. Useful to consider that Metatron among many other things, gives us a handy code for saying the character in the trenchcoat is ALWAYS meant to be a Cas parallel, which is handy for 10x13, the episode with the wife in a trenchcoat and the husband with the blatantly Mark paralleled vengeful ghost stuff.

Side note: still not sure they didn’t swerve from a grace cure/power of love resolution to all that.

Side side note: it looks so dodgy here on this guy, but it does suggest Cas wearing the trenchcoat with no shirts under it, which I think is an image Dean would like.

The number of times I have watched the following short scene is absolutely astronomical, to the point where you could show me the first frame of Sam lying on the bed on top of the covers fully dressed with a gun under his pillow and I’d just be like “9x22, Stairway to Heaven, opening scene, T-minus 20 seconds to “weird, dorky little guy...””... probably not the date and time the promo dropped but like, wow, this was an event :P

(Theoretically I had been existing in fandom for 3-4 episodes at this point but I’d been so bemused about the whole thing that 9x21 was the first time I engaged, and only understood what the promo pics were AFTER and why people were talking about the promo scene and so on. This time I was primed and ready to go.)

Has anyone ever tallied all the Destiel nonsense in this episode?

1: “I called Cas”

(”We got in like 2 hours ago” There’s 2 options here - Dean only just phoned Cas after restlessly pacing for an hour and 55 minutes, had a brief exchange wondering if anything was up, and immediately got the news something was, without exchanging any more details (the lack of talking about any more plot stuff gets more and more obvious as the episode continues and not just because Cas didn’t feel like sharing). Noticeable that even though Dean is the one who phoned Cas, Cas is the one who suddenly had something urgent for them to do.

OR Dean phoned Cas up to talk to him to try and take the edge off and was having one of those moments like in 9x10 where he asks Cas how he’s doing just to humour him, and sat through a 1hr and 55 mins lecture on some bizarre ancient history/natural world thing Cas thought would be soothing for Dean to hear, until one of Cas’s minions decided he’d been on the phone long enough and the bad news about the attack had to be brought to his attention immediately and interrupted him - Dean bothered Cas until he was allowed in because he wanted something to do)

(I guess there’s always that Dean phoned Cas, Cas had been planning to keep it to himself and deal with it, but Dean guessed something was up, and bothered Cas into talking to him and inviting him to help)

Anyway! This was I recall fairly exciting to confirm that Dean and Cas even talked on the phone with each other off-screen sometimes, because remember what I said last episode about us being fucking spoiled? This is another one of those things where Dean phoning Cas genuinely seemed to be exciting at the suggestion they’d been having an OFF-SCREEN conversation rather than these 5 second one sided calls we saw on screen. Especially that Dean called him of his own volition when he didn’t have a gun to his head or anything better to do.

These days Dean walks into any old scene after having had a long chat with Cas where we only hear the summary as he hangs up. The world has changed :P

2: “... he’s a weird, dorky little guy.”

Honestly since 9x22 entered the Deep Past of the show, we mostly just quote that part on its own. It’s funnier in context. Dean starts aggressive, dismissively says “he’s a weird guy,” and this is all in a camera angle from the back of his head. And THEN we cut to Dean’s face and oh - oh no, Dean. You’re in deep, honey. You’re like 99% demon waiting to go, angry about everything and then you start talking about Cas for 1 second and you just... Stare into the far distance thinking about how dorky and smol your BFF is with that far-off daze in your entire expression. Then suddenly realise what you’re doing and snap back to reality with a “But!” like Cas really has like 1 redeeming feature, which is his army of angels, overcompensating for that weird lapse.

Sam, of course has not had enough coffee for this.

DEAN Because he is a weird guy, okay? He's a weird, dorky, little guy. But he happens to have an army of Angels behind him, and, even though I hate to say it, if we're gonna take a shot at Metatron, they might be useful.

This also sounds very ambiguous about if Dean thinks Cas is useful or his army is - he’s affecting a huge distance to him and later we can see much more clearly when he’s arguing with Cas that he cares about him and is worried about the army, and what might happen to Cas if he has to play Commander too long... Right here and now it certainly could suggest he barely thinks Cas will be any help, but the resources he’s scavenged might be.

That’s especially if you don’t read too much into Dean’s tangent about Cas being weird and dorky.

Meanwhile, all the times I mentioned Sam not getting concerned fast enough:

SAM No. In all fairness, we didn't decide. You did.

DEAN Okay, I decided that a hockey stick that can kill anything might come in handy, so sue me.

SAM How many times have we been around this block? Magic that powerful comes at a price, and right now we don't know what that price is.

NOW he’s arguing with Dean deciding things but in a way it’s now all set in stone because he’s decided while Sam was still not taking a strong stance on it. Not blaming Sam because this probably would have all happened one way or another, but he could have been a LOT more prepared/done more research/begun lining up cures sharpish. Instead it’s all snuck up on him and he’s only getting concerned when Dean’s waaay past the point of no return. He probably should have been resisting even looking for the First Blade, instead of helping.

SAM And I'm glad, honestly. I'm not saying we bury the thing. I'm saying we just save it for when we really need it.

Also he still doesn’t quite get how bad it is.

Still wonder if Dean Force-pulled the Blade into his bag.

Or if he made a really terrible excuse about needing to go to the loo before they left and doubled back and Sam just… was not… suspicious enough.

SPEARS AND AGUILERA

Cas tries.

He’s probably already Beyonce here, but we don’t get a chance to find out what it was until much later.

Probably something to say about the implication that Cas only realised this after the pop culture download, and made a misinterpretation (a harmless one) of the text to a sort of wacky result. Not sure if it fits with the fan commentary from last episode and definitely way less pointed, especially since Sam and Dean still roll with it and don’t kick up a stink about Cas getting it wrong beyond asking him in a really bemused way (Sam) and offering a “wow” from Dean who despite “weird dorky little guy” is not really in the best place to appreciate Cas being adorable. They don’t correct him and turn it into a whole thing about not using obviously girly/pop music aliases (honestly couldn’t tell you which one Dean is more offended by but I’d lean towards pop music :P).

Anyway it WORKED and they’re on the crime scene, so it was a valid reading after all... I think really it belongs with the writing thread of this season, especially with Cas struggling to catch a clue with subtext – Mittens was watching 9x10 on TV earlier and asked if Cas even knew that Dean was blaming Gadreel for making him kick Cas out, and I figure not likely if Dean doesn’t directly say it, especially if Cas still feels he doesn’t belong like 3 years later… He has a bit of a wider pool of info to draw from but he’s still not grasping all the nuance of pop culture of what it means or why people like it… Same box as him not getting WHY a Death Star reference at the appropriate moment.

Anyway I’ve had it paused way too long because Cas is standing in this really powerful pose and honestly he knows he’s on borrowed time as much as Dean does and this episode points it out loudly, but I still feel like Cas’s last vestiges of denial about that are also the last time we really see Cas “OK” after this except for maybe 5 minutes between the end of 10x18 and 10x22.

I had an attention span fail and left it paused way too long on Metatron posing in a knock off of Cas’s coat TRYING to look all imposing and really failing. I do love that it’s a knock off of the knock off coat, and further silently tells us the connection between the now 3 trenchcoat-ed angels we’ve seen in all of like 4 minutes of episode.

I think before I paused I was about to type something about it being left ambiguous about which angel it was who was left when Cas mentions there was only 1 angel in the ice cream place, and the way he indicates that it was one of his angels is really understated as well – I had glanced away and thought he literally changed the subject out of awkwardness. But no, he doesn’t realise his angel is the aggressor here, or that they were no longer “his” angel. Of course we’d believe since we saw what happened that Cas’s angel would be the little girl, the innocent in that encounter… Because we’d never think Cas could do this, although the episode has set itself up to be really ambiguous about Cas and his army and if they’re good or not.

I also like “this is abhorrent even for him” and then cut to Metatron wearing the trenchcoat – like this really is the biggest violation :P

I love though that this shows that Metatron attempted to be GOD and that wasn’t good enough and now he’s sort of got more of a measure on the angel stuff than he did at the end of season 8, having been out of the loop forever and probably only latched onto Cas because of the obvious chatter in Heaven of him going rogue at the time they clued Metatron in that it was time to listen, he’s now trying to ape Cas instead, seeing how he looks in a trenchcoat and petty and bitter about Cas’s popularity and sex appeal.

And he’s EMBARRASSED about it. And it gives Gadreel another reason to really judge Metatron (oh the beauty of his end of season faces…) and he’s contemplating being turncoat on Metatron already – he at least sounds sincere to argue with Metatron that they’re losing and Cas’s army is better than theirs despite having the high ground… But this also makes a compelling list of reasons to demonstrate he’s losing faith in Metatron and is starting to realise he’s as much of a loser as he seems (the bowling angel interaction has a lot of this as well) – especially Metatron clearly idolising Cas as cooler than him, well… Gadreel’s really starting to get the message already.

Plus, in 9x18 he complained if it was Metatron’s plan for him to be caught, which was the first real crack between them… now:

GADREEL No, we -- we're losing, Metatron. Castiel's followers outnumber us. And while they haven't gone on offense, they have proven capable. They stopped you from killing him, and me, for example.

METATRON I told you, we had our shot with operation Lee Harvey, and we took it. I gave the orders. You weren't to be harmed.

GADREEL You had me followed.

Because again Metatron is using Gadreel as a pawn in his game and not telling him what he’s doing while constructing these narratives about it.

METATRON Yeah, and you met with the enemy... In secret. What is that old line about sins and stones?

GADREEL He spoke. He lied. And I listened. That's it. But I serve heaven. I serve you.

Gadreel looks SO guilty and then he is super defensive. Again, knowing he doesn’t even do as Cas suggested and inform on Metatron but outright defects to them by the end of the episode you can see he’s already considering the offer….

METATRON Good. Don't forget it. I mean, I-I don't get this whole Cas lovefest, either.

Metatron deflects back to bitching about Cas, again projecting a bit much because he OBVIOUSLY gets it… I mean he could just be trying on the trenchcoat to see what the big deal is or if it gives him magic powers of sex appeal and likeability, but he was clearly checking himself out, and this whole episode really is Metatron’s jealousy and disdain for Cas in equal measures. It’s become, to HIM a petty rivalry for Heaven, while it’s a sort of urgent mission for Cas approached like every other horrible mission he has to do to just get some freakin’ rest… Like, Metatron, do you know WHY Cas never read a book? He’s been too fucking busy tidying up after assholes like you :P

And of course it’s the huge example of the personal vs impersonal. He’s in love with humanity/it was all for Dean Winchester. Metatron makes the proclamation about humanity, and then seems to go after humanity next episode, but it clearly was a lure for Dean, a trap Metatron set. He didn’t really care about all the rest, he just wanted to get at Cas and make it PERSONAL. The pettiness we see here is probably the best scene to explain Metatron’s motivations, such as they are. He wants to tell this big story but it’s all caught up on the characters and he has a personal vendetta to tear Cas down.

(With Dean’s upcoming reminder about Cas and power going to his head, that I seem to recall is in the scene at the HQ of Cas’s army coming up next, there’s a reminder of season 6, and I wonder if this is sort of commentary on Cas’s treatment there, being built up and torn down, but this time Cas resists. Especially with the repeated sentiment of Cas doing it all for Dean, which was his clearly stated motivation in 6x20 when he talked to Dean… Hm. Never considered Metatron as a retroactive Gamble parallel as well, although that is kinda petty rather than the self-mockery of the useless showrunner which I feel has been the trademark since day 1 when Carver called his writing the work of some marshmallow :P)

METATRON and still -- still, they're choosing him over me. I mean, sure, he's cute. And Castiel has this simple...charm. He's like a mentally deficient puppy. But I'm lovable. And funny. I made God laugh -- twice!

GADREEL You're the one who asked him to lead an army.

METATRON Well, I didn't think he'd be good at it.

This is just… perfect. Poor old Metatron :P Now with 11x20 I’m inclined to feel a tiiiny bit more sorry for him, especially because God really didn’t think he was that special. But he’s clinging to these ideas about himself that he’s so much better than he actually is, when he’s the most jumped-up character ever. I mean Cas being God at least had some serious dignity and terror involved. Metatron’s just... rubbish :P

(I love him of course. Ahhh what a brilliant character)

Anyway he sees a really surface version of Cas, one that leads him to drastically underestimate him; he had set him up to be a useless rival, one he could crush, but Cas’s appeal despite EVERYTHING with his history, still draws the angels to him. Inclined to think it’s more because in a “Cas or Metatron” scenario the angels are like, you know what, Cas probably isn’t that bad after all…

METATRON And I have to make a good impression. I know. I've got a plan.

GADREEL [motioning to the trench coat] It's not that, is it?

METATRON Shut up!

Yeah, really convincing the other guy in the choice between the badass trenchcoat angel and the posturing angel wrapping himself up in a trenchcoat pretending to be cool :P It’s good commentary on politicians claiming to have all the same traits as their rivals to win their voters over to them.

Gadreel has like, 0 faith in Metatron’s charisma and it’s hilarious. He really is at breaking point even before the meeting…

HANNAH!

“Commander!”

“Ugh, it’s just creepy.”

Shut up, Dean, have you seen the rest of the subtext in this scene? :P I should probably file that under

3: Dean’s immediate jealousy of Hannah, which is a permanent feature of how he relates to her, right through to the last time she’s directly mentioned to him.

This episode is a great case study in the opening 10 minutes of Sam and Dean reacting ALMOST the same but not, and Dean’s reactions being way more Cas focused. Again, “I love you/I love all of you” – Sam is clearly weirded out by the angels and when “Benjamin” takes the box of evidence from him he has a serious Sam raised eyebrows expression. Sam asking about roll call he has a REALLY weirded out judgemental face about angel behaviour.

4: Dean’s reaction about “Commander” COULD be about how the angels are all weird but he makes it weird about CAS and himself and weird sex references in comparison to how Sam is judging like, the entire social order here:

SAM Uh, roll call? You hold, uh, roll call?

CASTIEL They like to hear me say their names.

DEAN I know a couple of women like that.

That same aggressively deflecting comment which I think can be filed under Dean’s jealousy of Hannah since she’s the one who brings it up and therefore “roll call” seems to be a thing between her and Cas, this “likes to hear me say their names” thing and he turns and announces that, innocent of the innuendo. Too much for Dean to handle – he’s canonically got the most dirty mind ever.

So feeling like Cas and the angels have some sort of borderline creepy cult going on and that they’re all literally lining up to bang Dean’s favourite angel… He sort of snaps back about it, revealing how he really feels about this – worth bearing in mind for a little way down the line where he openly accuses Cas of it being a cult since he doesn’t sexualise it so much then, but this is all centred around Hannah and Cas.

Checking Josiah’s recent purchases is quite amusing –

aside from the recent Gas n Sip, the transactions show he has been clothes shopping on the same day, probably buying a nice new set of duds to join Metatron’s team. He only in like the last 4 days went to that same shop while working for Cas still.

(Ongoing squeeing about Cas’s army – he knows their names, and the names of their vessels and where those vessels are FROM… They have definitely been having group circles where they share stuff and chat. Who knows where Cas picked that up from but it goes with the same stuff as him letting them all have a Friday night off and the going to the bar in 9x21 :P)

Within the last NINE days Josiah (and I am assuming it was him and that he hadn’t been with Cas’s army literally THREE days especially as he went to the same clothes place both times) also went to a deli and the cinema, and a few days before that a grocery store and car parts warehouse.

I wonder what on earth he was doing, but this poor guy’s family are going to have a hell of a time building a picture of what happened to him when they’re trying to track him down once they realise he’s missing :P

“Benjamin” is reassuringly called “red shirt angel” in this transcript so I guess wherever they got the intel about his name from for 9x21′s transcript, it never really stuck and is unofficial :P

Anyway

DEAN And that's how we do things in the pros.

This is addressed directly to Hannah… Honestly starting to think I need to make a gifset just of Dean being weird AT Hannah in relation to Cas because he is SO fucking jealous.

Like, the Dean Is Jealous Of Hannah series is probably something I SHOULD have delved into in season 10 because around 10x18 I floated the idea and a few people picked it up but there were also comments on the post with the most circulation that it seemed like a real stretch to explain Dean’s behaviour in 10x18 when Cas blames Hannah for everything instead of Sam to be read that way… I backed it up with 10x03 but I really did not think to explore this episode and suggest it had been their dynamic from the start, and as I said somewhere else recently, Cas x Hannah was already being teased from 9x18 with the look she gave him at the end, and this makes it a much more blatant romantic squabble of “me or him” when Hannah tries to make Cas punish Dean… But people were kind of reluctant to discuss it at the time – people were already on edge over the potential love interest thing when it was announced she’d be back in season 10, and then the first part of season 10 happened and by 10x07 a huge wank storm blew in with the promo & kiss…

And like I said I have not been back to any of this since they aired, or at least since before season 10 for these episodes, so… No later context ever applied to them in my head along with all the biases and stuff we talked about later to look at again >.>

Also I’ve never watched this on a big screen in DVD quality instead of crappy streams and tiny gifs, so I am very amused at the discovery that Dean is wearing a black plaid tie.

SAM So, this was some kind of hit?

CASTIEL I don't know.

DEAN Stop saying you don't know.

6: Sam’s still off to the side somewhere. Dean and Cas are talking face to face with very close camera angles as if in a private conversation. Just to be clear about how Sam having the line leading into this is at a literal remove from them. :P

7: Dean’s voice breaking when he says “stop saying you don’t know” as if with fear, betraying his first ACTUAL vulnerability for like… weeks. Look how far we’ve come since 8x22: Dean’s built Cas right back up and now no longer expects the worse immediately (“Sounds like him”) but is terrified of a reality where Cas isn’t actually in control and that his dangerous angel army is crumbling from underneath him (honestly, how much of Dean menacing Cas’s peeps through this episode while doing the interrogations is from his fear of terrible stuff happening to Cas as a result of this? Again like with knowing Gadreel defects, with hindsight though he’s angry here, Cas is a SOFT SPOT for Dean and it’s blatantly shown at the end.

Aaand then Dean gets angry, because that fear is too much and he has to move away from it and since this is Mark!Dean he just... crumbles into anger. Gosh I love Jensen’s acting.

CASTIEL You can't think I would allow something like this.

DEAN Cas, I know you try to be a good guy, okay? I do. You try. But what you got here, this is a a freakin' cult.

CASTIEL Dean.

DEAN And the last time you had this kind of juice, you did kill humans and angels, and you did nothing but lie to me and Sam about it the whole damn time!

It’s like he works through it from fear, to expressing concern about the cultishness, to suddenly dragging in everything and NOW we have our 8x22 moment of Dean bringing up Cas’s season 6 drama again when he’s most hurt/scared for Cas. And then he moves to the personal baggage and why it hurt him in the first place. Cas is not lying about ANTHING here, but Dean fears he might be and that’s enough to make him angry because EVERYTHING makes him angry, and again he lashes out and hurts him, even though he built things up better with Cas - especially by being abruptly dragged down from his own high horse by hurting Cas in 9x03. He had to deal with that every episode he saw him from then on until they were square in 9x10 (a moment when they shared this equality before Dean obviously moved on to his new life phase and wrecked everything they’d built and WAS the one keeping secrets from Cas by not telling him about the Mark :P)

8: the look Hannah and “Benjamin” exchange while Dean and Cas old-married-couple argue in front of them

This is also much worse from Cas’s POV knowing he is genuinely innocent, and having Dean get all worked up and angry and levelling these accusations at him. As I said – very narrow window of Cas being OK and like 10x22 wrecks them completely, Dabb does seem to be responsible for their yearly awfulness three years running and it’s always Cas who takes the brunt of it, as this is the point in the story it seems that Dean and Cas HAVE to be destabilised for drama. 11x23 of course completely makes up for it and I wonder if Dabb ever felt bad about having to write these episodes at the end of the season where they fall out/Dean is horrible to Cas :P Remembering he wrote and then subverted this pattern does make me happy. Anywho Cas gets angry in the next scene as far as I remember but

9: Cas’s horror that Dean doesn’t trust him, after everything, and probably missing that bit entirely where Dean’s voice broke because CAS is horrified about the bomber and the last thing he needs is Dean turning on him too and going off on one when all the angels in the room can hear and Hannah and “Benjamin” as our representatives of Cas’s army as a whole are equally horrified and suspicious of the bomber…

10:

SAM Can we, uh -- can we take this somewhere else, guys?

[They enter CASTIEL's private office]

SAM Will you stow the baggage, Dean.

SAM Look, we've got a case. Let's work it. Cas, did you know the angel in that video?

CASTIEL Yes. His name was Oren. He was a new recruit. He worked in community outreach.

Hm, Dabb vs cars here – Cas already showed he knew the dead angel and it WOULD have been Oren he was talking about because they didn’t know Ester was there because she was vaporised. This really just adds to my theory about the ambiguity of which one was Cas’s angel there, because this is an OOC clarification for our purposes that Cas WAS talking about Oren in that scene. Like, that he knew it was deliberately so ambiguous it needed an over-clarification here.

God Sam is still so pissed off… He really gets fed up with how distracted they are :P

Finally he gets them all calmed down by singling Cas out to level ALL the questions at… And he nearly gets Cas back on track before

CASTIEL So, what do we do now?

DEAN Well, you don't do jack.

Dean has valid concerns but phrased COMPLETELY wrong by still accusing Cas of running the cult by comparing him to Charlie Manson. Again you can see his ACTUAL concerns and worry about Cas under the surface but it’s all filtered through this Mark of Cain douchiness, while in practice he’s mostly just upsetting Cas :P

He IS right that Cas investigating his own angels would set them on edge and Cas would miss stuff because he’d desperately WANT every angel to be loyal…

The REAL solution to this episode would have been for Sam to stay because he’s neutral and not angry and looking for something to rough up. I can’t believe I thought that first and THEN that it would mean Dean n Cas got to go have a little adventure together, but there you go, apparently I’m more invested in telling Dean he’s being a dick than shipping him with Cas right now :P

Anyway I know I squealed about it last rewatch post but here is where Cas says he has angels working in “community outreach” and I just love him so much, okay. Even when he can’t personally do it, he delegates angels to go help. I think if Cas, OUR Cas, got to run Heaven, he would implement a ton of stuff like this using ALL their resources instead of sending angels to like, one local hospital. He just wants to help!

And of course this comes in the “in love with humanity” episode, so there’s got to be an obvious demonstration of surface text Cas genuinely being good and loving humanity. Like, even beyond something as simple as saying his motivation is to stop Metatron to protect people, not to do a power grab (I think in that respect he mostly sticks with doing it because of his duty to fix his mistakes and repair Heaven) like, this is just hypothetical. I can’t remember him ever saying that, actually. It’s next episode when they find out how much of a threat Metatron might be when he stops picking on Cas, having sorted out all his angel issues, and turns around to threaten Humanity.

But nope, the way they do this is just showing us how much Cas GENUINELY wants to help random humans, just like those other times we’ve seen him healing people to no greater purpose than just to do it.

Still, something about Cas in this episode is revealed to be un-angel-like despite this love of humanity seeming to be part of their duty… and of course in CONTEXT the choice Cas has to make and Metatron’s gloating are *already* about Dean even before he just goes and says it next episode…

Oh no Cas has photos of falling angels on his wall.

Here Cas stands up for himself where Sam doesn’t – that whole thing about it being a “dictatorship” from later – we’ve seen that already with Dean being like “no” and saying “YOU decided” and then doing his own thing. Cas is free of the co-dependency and it shows because this arc after all is meant to highlight SAM AND DEAN’S problems, and Cas is a bystander/innocent victim/friend who assists them/Colette parallel, but never directly involved in this crap.

So, compare and contrast. Dean won’t let Sam decide things for them, or to be swayed by advice he doesn’t want to hear. It’s taking him to an extreme of their dynamic, but while he may be much grumpier with Cas, this highlights that there is a difference and that it’s only between him and Sam where things are rotting and awful. Sure he’s a dick, but his voice cracks with concern. I’ve seen people argue that he just found Cas easier to manipulate (and sure Cas’s motives here to go to Colorado DON’T get in the way of anything Dean wants to do – if anything sending Sam with him means he can boss Sam around AND send them away to leave him to menace the angels in peace).

But IF you find the way in to read it as concern instead of a different tactic to control Cas (and 12x10 helps with a textual confirmation Dean is a dick when he’s a concerned and right now his dick meter is turned up to 11 – there are probably better ways I could have phrased that) then I think it makes a lot of sense that Cas would get emotionally preferential treatment in this episode, even if you approach it from him as the control subject and Sam as the real point of conflict, rather than shippy. However you shake it, though, here Cas confronts Dean angrily, and they spar a bit, but Cas stands his ground, adapts to Dean’s demands, and finds a way that suits HIM to do what HE wants around what Dean wants, and Dean just says, okay, fine, and sends Sam away.

Again, if you read Sam as the reason for Dean’s dickishness, when Cas says “because you don’t trust me” and Dean says, “no, to help”, though this has all been really charged between them, Dean’s pretty much mostly demon!Dean, is more irrational about Sam than at any other point save next episode where he just plain punches him out to have him not come with him (and last episode he “only” lied to Sam to get him to not come with him, out of concern SAM would get hurt too – his humanity is draining away and obviously killing Abaddon was the worst blow so Dean between 9x21 and 9x22 is already a radically different Dean and that’s NOT character inconsistencies) and again he does NOT want Sam with him.

Cas offers a perfect opportunity to ditch Sam, and so Dean changes track – the fight is over for him because this has turned up and Cas standing his ground has opened a door for him… I don’t really think it is about Cas at this point any more, to the point where Cas asking if Dean doesn’t trust him throws him a bit, because the entire time while he’s been having this stupid argument about cults and Godstiel references, it’s NEVER been because he doesn’t TRUST Cas though it sure sounded like it. He’s a dick and he’s worried about Cas and also, did I mention he’s a total dick right now :P

CAS’S CAAAR

CASTIEL Abaddon is dead.

SAM And then some.

CASTIEL Oh, no.

SAM Okay. Um...Ominous.

See also: Dean and Cas didn’t talk about anything significant, see also: Sam is not worried enough part however many of infinity this season

It takes Cas’s OUTSIDE view (again, co-dependency stuff) to get some context to understand how worried he should be. I don’t even think it’s Cas’s “expert” advice because I think Cas knows about as much as Crowley here only unlike Crowley he’s not hoping for a “miracle”. I think it’s just literally the fact someone who Sam trusts who is NOT Dean can comment on the fact that Dean does not seem to be doing well…

CASTIEL Does Dean seem different to you?

SAM Yeah. Lately, he seems to be...amped up --you know, on edge.

Cas trusting SAM’S expert advice on Dean, his self-worth nowhere near as bad as it will get, but still Dean’s words get to him and I don’t think he entirely trusted that Dean’s anger was entirely coming from the Mark, and not that Cas had fucked up somehow (HE HASN’T. HE’S PERF. HE’S LITERALLY DOING NOTHING WRONG AND EVERYONE ELSE RUINS EVERYTHING FOR HIM TODAY)

Sorry, wait, I’m not a bitter Cas fan, I just… *follows him with blankets and a cup of cocoa*

I think it’s because they’re talking in his car and I get emotional.

CASTIEL He does seem angry. I mean, he's always a little angry, but now it seems like...more. I think a part of him actually believed that I ordered those angels to, you know...Sam, you don't, do you?

At the end of the episode Dean clears this up for Cas – and again, despite his rabid “THIS IS A DICTATORSHIP” to Sam, I feel like the difference is not that he’s putting on a face for Cas but it’s meant to show how far gone he is with SAM, so I trust him to be genuine about this, to apologise and say, no, he didn’t think that. Dean and Cas, weirdly, are good for pretty much all of season 9 right through to the end of season 10 and keeping Cas at an arm’s length from the Mark of Cain stuff means so much more to me with hindsight. >.> I mean I wasn’t all that bitter about it at the time for this season but now we have all the hindsight, the way these two emotional arcs ran against each other, yes it is a total relief that Dean never got all aggro against Cas until pretty much every shred of his humanity, including the part that protects children, was gone (and he still didn’t kill Cas, despite how monstrously cruel that fight was). So with hindsight, I’m absolutely supporting that Dean didn’t think this about Cas.

Cas however, thinks this about Dean because he values Dean’s opinion of him, guides himself by Dean’s morals, has enough trauma and guilt about all the things Dean accused him of, and is genuinely afraid of fucking up again like that, as he repeated while clinging to “I’m not a leader” just a few episodes ago. Now he’s exercising that power as responsibly as he can, and it’s still not good enough for Dean, who freaks out about it. Cas, understandably, takes a blow to his self-esteem.

Anyway Sam and Cas bond – the start of the Adventures of Sam n Cas, having a very lovely conversation. *rubs their heads*

They have a really nice build up to relying on each other more as Dean, the previous emotional link between them, rapidly loses his emotional stake in anything, forcing Sam and Cas to pick up the slack to keep the family together. Well, their nice moments so far this season have been sort of because Dean left, Cas just wanted to catch a word, and now because Dean set them up together so they’re not doing it deliberately, per say, but the writing is and the world they’re now in is one which is making them rely on each other and communicate. The stuff about trust last episode, with Gadreel and Cas both vouching for each other because Sam, is a great way to show all these ties and trust between them in action. Now they have meaningful conversations which aren’t about Dean! :P

(I mean this one starts about him but moves onto others stuff)

SAM No, man. Cas, listen. You got a weird thing going on back there. Those other angels, the way they stare at you, I-it's like you're part rock star, part L. Ron.

Sam cautions him about his followers but honestly aside from their over-the-top feeling of betrayal from Metatron’s speech, they don’t get wildly out of control – I think because Cas is a good leader not because there wasn’t time for it to fester. Of course Metatron plays off that adoration and how that sort of heightened love for a leader can quickly be turned by a sense of wrongdoing because it makes people question their OWN choices. Metatron gets to save their morality by proving Cas’s is worse, and their choice to pick Metatron comes because he saved them from following a bad leader…

And also of course Sam gives the surface text about the cult, explaining his OWN discomfort and what we’re to assume is Dean’s discomfort (hint: all the Hannah stuff says it’s not just that :P) by trying to explain that there’s just a really creepy aspect to the way the angels look at Cas. Sam WAS picking up on it, he just wasn’t jealous in the same way Dean was.

CASTIEL They've put their faith in me.

SAM And maybe that's the problem. I mean, people have been doing messed up crap in the name of faith -- in the name of God -- since forever.

CASTIEL Well... I'm not trying to... play God. I'm just trying to get my people home.

Cas as a religious figure – Moses this time, instead of God. Sam vs faith as well, something we rarely see surface, but he struggles with it a lot. He and Cas have both had arcs where they did the wrong thing because of misplaced faith – Sam’s ironically because he had his own righteousness about the demon blood thing being the greater good when CAS was telling him not to do it in season 4, while Cas took his resurrection as a cue of God pointing him on the right path to do what he did in season 6. This is something they KNOW.

I love Sam n Cas.

Bowling angel!

I swear they cast a really tall guy just to make Metatron look extra small. Gadreel of course, standing behind him as the hired muscle, being also twice his height.

Metatron toadies and claps at Tyrus getting a strike which he probably shouldn’t have done – he’s making himself look like the grovelling underling despite his powerful position as the one angel sitting in Heaven. He then goes on to prove he’s got really, well… wooden dialogue:

METATRON Beautiful -- a symphony of wood.

What the fuck you’re the worst writer :P

I say like it’s so easy to be poetic out loud. But yeah, if they WANTED to show us Metatron being a good writer, he’d have had an eloquent piece of poetry about bowling – either ripping off something he read or actually coming up with a nice observation here. He thinks he SHOULD say something poetic in situations like this, but it immediately shows he doesn’t CARE. He has no attachment to bowling, and Tyrus is one of many angels who feels settled and happy on Earth; Metatron not only has an offer he doesn’t want to accept ever, but he also makes it clear they have no common purpose whatsoever by just not *getting* why bowling is great.

Also, the innuendo.

TYRUS Yeah, I sign on the dotted line, and, well, my people, they get a ticket upstairs. What if we don't want to go?

GADREEL But it's home.

TYRUS It's boring. I mean, you -- there's nothing like this in heaven.

I LOVE the angels that change and grow and appreciate life on Earth and doing human things.

METATRON So, wait. You're turning me down because of...bowling?

TYRUS And I like being an independent operator. And I hear you're losing. And I hate your face.

Also that.

I love the way it goes from this abstract poetry about how great Earth is and the authenticity and the FREEDOM which he doesn’t even mention but yeah, and then when Metatron challenges him, he gets political and then personal.

Gadreel also doesn’t get it when Tyrus asks them to take a whiff –

GADREEL Old shoes and... Alcoholism? I...

But he doesn’t not get it because he sucks, like Metatron, he just has that same sort of remove from humanity and the experience that Cas sometimes has (and rapidly has less and less of when it comes to UNDERSTANDING, especially since he TRIES to understand, though the social stuff still gets him :P I like that Gadreel is one of the few angels played GENUINELY like Cas in how he relates to the world – he serves as a season 4 Cas mirror to it all to show how Cas has changed (no more apparent when they work together) and then next season Hannah does the same thing for a few episodes.)

Aaah yeah and Tyrus’s bowling team he’s infiltrated (“Jack” is the name of his vessel according to his shirt) is called “The Saints” – the whole buccaneers vs the saints thing from last episode. Metatron is going to beat him anyway because despite getting turned down he has a plan B which plays off of this:

TYRUS Please. You knife me, and all my guys will go running to Castiel. Even you're not that stupid

Because he has one of his “Castiel” bombers come take him out instead, so he can play the victim. Metatron loooves this sort of set up >.> I’m not entirely sure he’s a buccaneer in the sense that it’s a romantic term and what he’s doing is really not terribly analogous to piracy despite how he’s taken over the ship – I think it almost suits better the angels who want to flout the rules and stay on Earth and enjoy themselves. Next season they’re the “rogue angels” Hannah wants to round up, and I bet a lot of them were in this faction.

Awww Cas in a Gas n Sip

He’s looking around like “their counter display is not very well arranged”

There’s a huge bowl of oranges on the counter for some reason

– knowing Sam, Cas and this dude don’t die, that’s really incongruous.

On the other hand this guy’s name tag says “Jeremy” and we already had the detail about the blueberries about season numbers, so maybe this is a “Carver out” warning for season 10 :P

I guess Jeremy is wearing a sort of brown plaid that’s more Dean-like than not. And he’s gonna die.

FLAGSTAFF! Dabb really has such a knack for one off characters, and also writing angels brilliantly…

DEAN What do I call you?

FLAGSTAFF My angelic name is 18 syllables long. Let's stick with Flagstaff.

What a great way to make her instantly memorable. She’s still my fave random angel from Cas’s army, even over “Benjamin” and his friend in their snappy wardrobes :P

I’ve seen a lot of discussion about what that means about angel names, and I think it makes sense they’d have nearly unpronounceable names in their own language, but like Ents choosing to not speak Old Entish because it takes forever, they communicate with humans differently. All their names are Biblical (or well, mostly anglicised Hebrew names I think? I admit I don’t know much about this sort of thing, says the person wandering around called “Elizabeth”) or I think Latin? I mean people have made completely unrelated posts about the possible translations of “Castiel” and pointing out the “-iel” part is about God in angel names and so on and that’s from Latin. Anyway. Human languages. Easy names. Maybe Flagstaff never came to Earth before and never had to use any sort of name so this is just something she picked up – perhaps it’s where she fell to or something.

Which does mean maybe Cas has a secret unpronounceable dozens of syllables long name.

FLAGSTAFF Not funny "ha ha." But you thinking you help people -- it's amusing. I help people. A clogged artery here, a tumor there. I do good in this world. You -- you believe every problem can be solved with a gun. You play the hero, but underneath the hype, you're a killer with oceans of blood on his hands. I hate men like you.

*muffled screaming about Dean from the pillow I have hidden behind*

Honestly this is one of those scenes I just watch through because aaaah too good to pause all over. The endless discussion of Dean as a killer – repeated a lot this season – weirdly feels more relevant because of Mary being described as a killer in the most recent episode. Of course their characters have a lot of similarity but this is Dean going as dark as he’s been to date by MILES, and he’s not done yet.

Of course there’s 2 sides to it – “Saving people” and “hunting things” and their dark arcs always come down to forgetting the saving people or putting it aside for one reason or another, and allowing the hunting to take over them. Very literally in this case. The BMoL for Mary represent this uncompromising but simple and easy promise of killing EVERYTHING. Whether she’s still going along with them or not entirely next episode, it sounds like the episode where this will really be confronted.

Hopefully before she has “oceans” of blood on her hands.

Obviously this gets to Dean because he thinks of all the innocent lives he’s hurt – maybe the vessel problem with killing demons and angels without checking and what they have to tell themselves to kill so many demons (thankfully so many helpfully demonstrated already dead or dying vessels that Sam and Dean let themselves relax about stabbing them, but obviously it still bothers them because they can’t exactly check…) That’s definitely the biggest regular blood on their hands thing they do as MOST MotW have at least a neutral to positive result when it comes to saving people, and they averted the entire apocalypse plus dealt with other giant threats to the world already. Carver era is designed to make them guilty though, with not closing the gates of Hell and so feeling an abstract guilt for everything. Cas, too, has the angel fall sprung on him.

Likely, though, when Dean’s face just gets consumed with rage, he mostly thought of the guilt he was carrying over Kevin, who personifies the blood on their hands, as it was that set of mistakes that fuelled all of Dean’s descent…

Anyway, light entertainment break as we return to the Adventures of Cas n Sam

I really miss that car. I should make a pointless gifset of it in this episode.

It has eyebrows.

CASTIEL Sam, this place is... radiating power. I haven't felt anything like this since... since heaven. We have to get in here.

Warning sign – this is what Hannah told Cas about what Gabriel’s horn felt like in 9x18

That sounds wrong

“I don’t got this” don’t worry we love you anyway

Like with 9x01, I think there’s an element of Cas realising he’s just not *that* powerful, and see above: stuff I’ve been talking about him seeming okay for as long as he can. He knows he’s not exactly as powerful as he was and it’s not even his grace, but in 9x01 adapting to being human he had a lot of drama like nearly getting hit with a truck or being easily knocked out or not being able to knock others out, or needing to drink… Since Cas got grace back he’s been functioning and healing people and missing his wings but still trying to carry on like normal. Something like a door old Cas would have confidently smashed down with his weight applied liked that (assuming Metatron’s warding wouldn’t be so pointlessly good that it would keep out even a non-existent full powered angel) is suddenly an impassable object, and Cas is no longer an unstoppable force.

Having to admit “I don’t got this” is really humbling and part of the slow unravelling of Cas that begins now, because I really haven’t caught anything like this so far and now in this episode several things all at once that start to hint Cas is not the same, and in more ways than just his grace burning out. He’s adapting to being a different sort of angel – that even when he SEEMS fine is still not that powerful – I mean, at this point or in season 12 it’s about the same difference to how powerful Cas is, and yet here he’s burning out and in season 12 he’s just wandering around being Cas.

Meanwhile, Dean is being dramatic, lurking in the rain behind a column WAY too narrow to conceal himself, yet still stepping out from behind it when he knows Tessa is coming.

[obligatory yelling about reapers but I am tired]

DEAN Howdy, Tessa. You're supposed to be working at the hospital tonight, but when I stopped by, you were gone. So was an ambulance. Pro tip -- they all have GPS.

Well, and this seems to confirm that they were grounded like angels

I think the whole “angels of Death” thing is something the show never committed to early on because they didn’t want to commit to angels, or, well, even Death. But then by the time it was more acceptable to link them up they’d developed reapers in a way that didn’t work with their ANGELS, so kind of left it alone. I think somewhere in the back of their mind they always kinda wanted to connect them, but just… didn’t… until Buckleming finally bit the bullet and did it TERRIBLY, and long story short this does not explain why Billie could still go everywhere she wanted, unless she was Actually Death, or Tessa wanted to be talked out of it and let herself get caught or or or I need to stop.

This one is never getting untangled.

TESSA Good to know. So, you're here. Why? You just love musical theater?

DEAN Only if it's "Fiddler." We need to talk.

Oh I remember the meta at the time for this :P I suppose it’s even funnier knowing Dean liked the Supernatural musical only like, 6 episodes from now.

Constantine, the next suicide bomber, is not dressed in a trenchcoat because that would be too… well, maybe copyright infringement grounds. He’s wearing plaid but in a sort of Misha way not a Winchester way.

I love Cas. I LOVE CAS.

There was like a solid month of glee over “prime numbers can be intimidating” like hell yeah they can, humanity still probably hasn’t even discovered them all and they only get more intimidating the further up you go. And Cas knows them ALL.

Also Cas’s beautiful pop culture obliviousness/savviness. His knowledge and (mis)application of 3 major franchises (LotR, Indy and Star Wars) are vitally important in the end of the season. After this, honestly the entire thing is dropped, like, Cas carries on blinking off references and not making any more himself, really, to this extent. Even when he watched a bunch of TV he hasn’t really started applying a TON of life lessons from it. His lack of context which made it such a delight in these 3 episodes where it was actually a thing, made it very easy for it all to slip away again in the writing. At this point it seems weirdly like once again this is something fandom remembers better than the writers, though considering Dabb played with it more than even Robbie or Carver with this little game of Metatron’s, you’d think maybe it would show up more now. :P

Ah well, it was clearly never that important to Cas, but it’s a weird thing that he literally has ALL that extra culture in his brain and he doesn’t see to even casually interact with it? At the very least it’s like having a giant Kindle library where if he’s bored he could space out and pay closer attention to some of the things.

Maybe that’s what the TV was in 11x18

Headcanon accepted for the sake of the fandom fridge horror that this is a season 9 only thing and literally three episodes ever directly refer to this :P

Cas doesn’t deadpan shit like “I’m very pop culture savvy now” so often any more either.

[SAM's phone rings] Hey.

DEAN How is he?

SAM He's, uh...He's Cas. What about you? How's it going?

Sam has his own amused/fond reactions to Cas being Cas, but not in Dean’s thousand mile stare about his dorky little friend. Anyway

11: Dean immediately asking about Cas when he calls. He doesn’t have pleasantries for Sam, sure, because their relationship is currently dead on Dean’s side, but that just means he’s concerned about Cas and while he seems to be calling because he’s amused it’s Tessa and wants to let Sam know about her, since he does kind of know her too (they met once, while they were all disembodied, that one time) the way he opens the conversation asking about Cas... yeah, that's a thing that was heavily featured in gifsets of Dean being ridiculous about Cas. :P

Sam demands to know what’s going on because this is a seriously out of context phone call but it’s really worrying (and WHY don’t Sam and Cas turn back now? Well, Sam continues to not worry about Dean enough, and also because he’d stay for Cas and CAS has to do this and it’s important. It’s not a coincidence this call comes after Sam figures out how to open the door for him – and he’ll help Cas not get murdered by the trap, as well – but that’s the decision point and because the door’s open the call to continue on is so much clearer than if Dean had phoned before, and they were stuck and considering giving up.)

Anyway Sam and Cas have team work and I love it.

12:

FLAGSTAFF I know he's the commander's friend, and I know we're supposed to pretend we like him,

The angels had that conversation. Or Cas had that conversation with them. One way or the other a big gaggle of Cas’s angels sat in a room together and had a conference about Cas’s weird attachment to his human friends, probably after Cas let them hang out there in 9x21.

HANNAH Oh, God.

TESSA There's no God. There's only Castiel.

DEAN Oh, and you're done.

(Can we carry on assuming angels DON’T even think “oh my god” is a weird thing to say any more than Christians who might say it while also believing God is the Creator because that “oh my dad” last episode is still hurting my soul :P)

But – 13: Dean’s reaction to Cas’s fanatics continues, this time with a character we’ve been reminded kissed HIM in 4x15 in the recap of this episode, but now is one of Cas’s creepy cult apparently – I think she means this in a more defeated way, all existential crisis, unless Metatron REALLY brainwashed them, in which case I feel even more sorry for her, because brainwashing on this show can often have characters seeming to be entirely themselves, except for how they’re motivated to do one particular thing…

Anyway, it love triangles it between him and Cas and Tessa with Cas stealing her affection, given the very specific way Dean reacts to Cas’s angels and the cultishness that Metatron’s working off of fro the other angle, so like, perfect storm of how Dean feels about it and what Metatron is agitating…

HANNAH You wounded her.

DEAN More like "defused," okay? I cut up that old testament graffiti she carved into herself. I figured that would break the spell.

Alter the symbol, alter the spell.

Considering the phrasing, you have to wonder if Dean ever tried this for his own problem.

(Grossly, there was so much idle speculation about if you could chop off Dean’s arm and the Mark would grow it all back for him – I think him just trying to cut a line through the Mark or something no worse than all the random times they cut themselves with silver knives to prove they aren’t monsters…)

HANNAH It's horrible, but there's only one person who can punish her.

DEAN Let me guess. Yea big, trench coat, sensible shoes?

14 – Dean having another go at describing Cas :P

Also more discomfort at the angels’ veneration of Cas. I didn’t stick this one in the Dean is jealous of Hannah gifset because the sensible shoes thing is overwhelming with the Destiel in another direction of Dean just thinking Cas is a smol dork, but he is bouncing off Hannah once again emphasising Cas is their leader and Dean is just so uncomfortable with it he snarks back at her about wow wonder who that could be NOT THE ANGEL YOU’RE ALL SO OBSESSED WITH MAYBE?

(Dean, honey, you are so obsessed with Cas)

HANNAH You have to understand that Castiel is the only thing holding us together. A month ago, half the angels in this place were trying to kill the other half. Castiel has given us a purpose. But more than that, he has given us a way to live in peace. We have rules. Order. If I let you take matters into your own hands, what's to stop one of them from doing the same?

I LOVE CAS AND HOW HE MADE ALL THESE ANGELS WORK TOGETHER

I think these rules did sort of go back to Heaven without him but Heaven is still really such a mess.

Anyway it reminds me of the Leviathan – without their leader they were useless, and they couldn’t even pick a new one or something – without God the angels are useless and even the angels who try to keep order and become God or rule Heaven have been panicking and upset so overreacting at best (the archangels (both apocalypse attempts), Naomi) or total disaster zones (Godstiel, Metatron) – the fact we DON’T know who’s ruling heaven right now is GOOD because all the alpha personalities are gone, and they may attempt democracy, and here no news is good news. Anyway I like to think Cas helped Heaven get a little more settled even if it was indirectly and he’s still exiled >.>

I love how more and more angels show up through this conversation until Dean’s facing off at least 10 angels armed with one angel blade and the hidden first blade – I think itching for the fight, but it gets to the point where he knows he possibly couldn’t take them all, and the fact it takes like 10 angels for him to decide to back down and surrender his angel blade is pretty terrifying.

SAM You sure you don't want to go back, Cas? Look, if Dean is right about Tessa...

CASTIEL No, I, uh...I do. I just... give me a second.

Aw Cas. You have to do this :< You don’t even know yet that this is SUCH a personal quest for you, but it certainly feels important.

I don’t think he really accesses all the pop culture but the sense of a quest is in these trials – the door, the penitent man thing – so I feel like fiction is subtextually pushing him onwards.

Sam is now concerned, but not enough to abandon Cas. He makes it about Cas and what he wants so that it’s all Cas’s decision to turn back.

Cas does have good reflexes

I love how Sam’s response is just how terrible the reference is. Like why would you do this. It’s so cheap. We’re in a dusty warehouse corridor. Why. Where is your special effects budget, Metatron.

DEAN Okay. Well, let's start with an easy one. Who are you working for?

TESSA Castiel.

HANNAH Liar.

TESSA People like you, they never understand. Sacrifices have to be made.

People sitting in that chair really like to make judgement about other people in the room :P

But yeah I guess this echoes Dean and Flagstaff just to have Hannah react – she’s not so different after all, in that way where she can be just as emotional in response… In this case, in Cas’s defence, twice, refusing to believe that Cas would send the bombers. Dean has been set up to look like he thinks Cas might, which isn’t corrected until the end of the episode. Dean and Hannah now are balanced against each other again in how much they care about/trust Cas and of course Hannah want to be loyal and trust Cas. In a way it’s unquestioning for now until she confronts Cas over what Metatron says at the end when her trust is betrayed, maybe not because of the bombers but because Metatron gives enough reason to doubt because of the grace thing, which IS true. In front of the whole army, they have to have order and trust and all that she spoke about that holds them together. If they shook it off it would leave however much of the army NOT trusting Cas and cause more factions for him… If this hadn’t worked instantly it still would have destroyed the army long-term…

Anyway, using Hannah’s interest in Cas to balance against Dean’s, blah blah skip to the end of the episode, Dean wins both Cas’s not-killing-him thing for the giving up the army thing which is Dean’s reason for saying he trusts Cas. But like Hannah he really don’t want to hear that Cas is behind it – that “Oh and you’re done” earlier. It makes him uncomfortable and he hates it, just the same as Hannah is lashing out. So, like, I guess just a comment they’re still in the same orbit (Cas) all episode. Though reacting differently openly.

DEAN So you go after one of the bad guys, and if a few humans get microwaved, no big deal, right?

TESSA In the grand scheme, they don't matter.

DEAN Oh, Tessa, you are so wrong.

Anyway for no reason WHATSOEVER Dean has a big reminder that he is Dean “Humanity” Winchester and this is where his heart can ALWAYS be melted and he can ALWAYS stand up for humanity and and and and that happens this episode

I mean ignoring everything else he and Cas are clearly soulmates in the non-SPN application of the term

I mean the way he completely changes character to say that an MELTS like aaaaaah Dean loves humanity Dean IS Humanity he always has been this is the sort of stuff he fought for back in season 4 and 5 and WON CAS OVER WITH

I wonder why it was necessary to shoehorn in a brilliant Dean “humanity” Winchester moment in this episode

I also can’t believe Dean manhandled Hannah, a full powered angel (as they come right now) out of the room. He could have taken at least the first 7-8 angels that swarmed him earlier >.> Easily.

HANNAH Is -- do you think she's telling the truth?

DEAN She thinks she is.

This IS sort of also why Dean would rather he (or Sam) do the interrogating, because angels lack this sort of subtlety in many cases. Which I think is why this plan works so well for Metatron. He’s playing off their faith in Cas.

Oh no Cas is so happy when he thinks he found the door to Heaven. Oh he’s so optimistic and – aaargh

CASTIEL I can hear it. It's calling to me, Sam.

This somehow all feels very typical of Cas and the angel plots – this is why I get so upset about Cas in 7x21 being SO happy when he says “Sam – he’s talking to angels” – he LOVES angels and Heaven, and just being in the presence of this spell mimicking Heaven, it’s an actual CALL to him. And for so long it’s a pull he can’t resist when it comes to angels.

(I like that in 12x10 it was a personal favour and personal investment in Benjamin that sent him off to deal with another round of angel nonsense, rather than this broad duty/obligation that gets him every time, and the overall question of his love for Heaven doesn’t come into it really, aside from Ishim and Mirabel reminding him of all the crappy stuff that happened and saying they “didn’t think he’d care” because it all puts Cas at such a distance from this feeling… I wish things were better with him and Heaven and he could choose his own path with their blessing, as it were, but at least he’s not being yanked around by them any more.)

Anyway, this is such a cruel thing he does to Cas – even the music as Cas walks in before we see anythig is that torture-related music, “cheek to cheek” that Alastair sings in 4x16 (the beginning of Cas’s journey, that episode) – but this is all set up to just completely dash Cas’s hope.

God, that fake heaven though. Dogs and dolphins and cherubs and I think a Pegasus hidden behind a cloud… The dog has wings and a halo so I think it’s also an early “dog that thinks it’s people” joke (which is interesting when Josiah tells Cas he doesn’t see an angel)

Even on DVD quality I can’t tell if that one cherub is holding pie for real or not. But regardless, this mockery of Cas’s place in Heaven, the presence of his “heaven” on Earth, and the general connection to Dean through the song will always mean the entire set up has at least half a point for all the Destiel nonsense :P I won’t count it for now because I think it’s less overt but OH the meta I read about this room when this first aired… I really really wish I had reblogged more at the time >.>

CASTIEL So, all of this -- it was a a lie.

Oh Cas

This, like the Flagstaff scene, is one of those genuinely intense, dramatic moments that I just LOVE when this show really gets into it and takes it all seriously and builds the tension properly. When Josiah grabs Cas he’s pulling him in for that one urgent last conversation, and unlike Dean’s problems getting the truth from the angels and getting a confession from Tessa that matches his OWN despair, Josiah’s blinded eyes which apparently still can see Cas, or maybe COULD see Cas, make this huge potent moment when he describes Cas and explains to him why he went against him and his lack of faith in Cas…

Josiah dies with all his faith gone though, because

JOSIAH Supposed to be here...Gate... He told me... After Ezra, he told me that I should come to him. Metatron told me that I could go home. I just wanted to go home.

This is symbolic of all the angels this year feeling exiled and betrayed by their leaders. For the regular angels the factions and squabbling has got them nowhere, and the one angel who would be able to let them into Heaven is pulling cruel tricks on them. And Cas, who seems like he’d have the best shot at taking Metatron, as Gadreel points out and it’s obvious from his HQ he’s got a great shot at it, is morally estranged from the angels, so they don’t trust him anyway.

JOSIAH No! I would rather die than owe my life to you, Castiel. You play at being noble. You play at being one of us. But I look into your eyes... And I don't see an angel staring back at me.

I don’t think it’s JUST Metatron corrupting him to think this. I think the angels are really genuinely struggling to understand Cas and what he is. His hybrid nature is a Thing ever since 9x09 when he took another angel’s grace, or 8x23 when Metatron apparently bestowed a soul on him.

I think this is the big moment in Cas’s arc and I think season 9 is brilliant at the set up – I’m just sad the plot accordion got in the way because this genuinely feels like it all got buried until season 12 so this TENSION and visceral HORROR about what Cas is all gets kind of diluted out. Cas got some self-reflection here and there, but being questioned about what he wants, who he is, is a very season 9 thing, and his arc towards humanity and picking his real family is sooo slow and it’s put off and dragged out. THIS is the culmination of the natural build-up of the season to make us question SERIOUSLY what Cas is and what he wants, and how it’s all affected him, and after everything he’s been through so far, how he’s changed in ways that other angels just can’t understand. Ishim called him an angel’s angel and while he really hasn’t been since season 4, like I said somewhere around 8x23 or 9x01 in this rewatch, the Cas of 8x23 is 1000 miles from even the Cas of 9x09 or 9x10 once he has some grace back, in a way that the Cas of like, 8x23 and pretty much any version of Cas before that who’s fully himself aren’t SO different, despite what he’s learned along the way. He’s written differently, acts differently, and is visibly changed by the experience of being human, like he never quite recovered from it, and it’s more than just being weaker and having no wings, or knowing pop culture (thanks Metatron)…

Ugh, I just love this moment. It’s so shocking, and it HORRIFIES Cas about what the angels think about him, what he is. He is so determined to help them, and I think this one moment could easily horrify him enough to spur him to work with Hannah next season, because he has so much to prove. His last line of the season – he just wants to be an angel – betrays so much of his weariness and anxiety on this arc of his, and at least in this part of it, he’s still clinging to his old culture, and his old family, though they have begun to reject him, and the set-up has already begun that he truly belongs with another, human family.

I suppose the “I love you” in 12x12 is the final answer to this, especially since this scene is with an angel laying splayed out dying and using that confession to tell Cas what he is. Then skip ahead 2 seasons and there’s Cas splayed out dying and instead of in a room that’s a mockery of his shaky attachment to Heaven it’s on that plaid couch >.>

DEAN Just you and me now. Let's talk about us. I mean, we got history, yeah?

TESSA Sure. I still remember our meet-cute. You were dying.

DEAN Good times.

Oh Dean >.>

But yeah, flirty flirty dialogue (about welcoming death >.>) and reminds us Dean missed Tessa – had a hole in him for a YEAR that was not going with her. She represents what Amara does in season 11, that call of oblivion and Dean wanting it to be over.

DEAN Here's the deal. I like you, Tess, okay? For an angel.

*grinds teeth*

I suppose having Dean have a thing for an “angel” is again juxtaposing him and Cas – Tessa is death, Cas is life, just not one he thinks he can have.

DEAN No, forget Cas. Why are you doing this? What would make a person want to pop their top, huh? I mean, look, I've been in bad shape. I have. But I have never been that damn low.

Oh Dean :< You just do some huge self-destructive gesture to save someone else or in this case get your revenge and don’t even see it as suicide because you think it’s for a great cause outside of yourself, like you’re not even WORTH it as a person to consider in all that. I mean it’s worth remembering Dean’s feelings about not dying when he was supposed to ended up contributing to his mindset of season 2 that eventually led to him selling his soul with a ONE year contract. Now you’re being gobbled up by the Darkness and you don’t even care.

TESSA I guess I just can't take the screaming.

DEAN Who's screaming?

TESSA All of them. The lost souls. The ones that can't get into heaven now that it's been boarded up. I hear them. They are so confused. They're in so much pain. All I want to do is help them. It's what I do. It's my job. But I can't. So I suffered... Until death, nothingness. Suddenly, it didn't seem so bad. It seemed quiet.

*sad music* *epic well-delivered well-written speech* Dabb really goes for the epic sad speeches. I’ve been commenting on that as he writes more and more dramatic episodes once he’s writing on his own and he has SO MANY huge moments in this episode :P It’s not quite the style of some of Edlund’s episodes that felt like plays but it’s got really endearing quality that he puts his heart into writing all these moments.

I can’t believe this also just kind of vanished until the end of season 11 when Billie was like hey some use for all these souls and then God presumably put them all in Heaven where they belonged.

Anyway this is beautiful Tessa characterisation even if she’s apparently an angel now and all, because she’s always been about that natural order, and if you’ve stuck with this rewatch you’ll remember 4x15 was mostly just me rambling for paragraphs about what a brilliant character she is and the fact that she’s all retconned and messed up by the current plot and yet Dabb STILL manages to capture how TESSA should be within all this…

*grudging fist bump*

TESSA I thought about it. But I was too weak. Till Castiel gave me a reason to die.

DEAN Yeah. See, that just doesn't sound like the Cas I know.

14: See????? He doesn’t believe it long before he tells Cas he didn’t doubt it based off the fact he gave up his army. Pfft.

TESSA But doesn't it, though? And the Cas you know, would he raise an army of angels without telling you? 'Cause this Cas did.

And the fact the drama is about trying to undermine Dean’s faith in Cas all episode!! Like!!! It’s all about how much he cares about Cas and trusts him despite everything!!!!! AAAAH

And you have to ask why are we seeing all this NOW when Dean’s humanity is being steadily destroyed and we’ll soon see it’s aaall gone when we get to Sam and then Gadreel at the end, and I would say in 9x23 he’s just demon!Dean and doesn’t know it yet.

DEAN No. No, see...the fun's just getting started.

[DEAN pulls the First Blade from his jacket. TESSA starts back]

TESSA Dean, what have you done?

DEAN What I had to.

Tessa knows what this is. Uhoh.

“Welcome to the club” – Did I see speculation that Dean was gonna be an angel of death because of this statement? It’s more about the “did what I had to do” statement, and that Tessa is showing Dean where it leads, to this horrible dark end where she kills herself to make the screaming stop. (I swear muuuuch later in season 10 Dean mentions off-hand he’s tormented by visions and screaming? Like, 10x18 or somewhere in that late part of the season)

Anyway it’s probably important Tessa kills herself on the blade, making it an unsatisfying kill because Dean didn’t bloodlust into it, and then he fails to kill Gadreel, because the Blade really wanted to kill angels – the closer to God the better I guess, as it’s Amara’s hatred fuelling it all. This is the part of the show where counting and analysing what Dean kills is almost like keeping track of power ups he collects in a video game, and in 10x10 Metatron confirms the blade has a sort of hunger and power level that it’s after.

Dean doesn’t watch Tessa die, but averts his eyes. Unlike Zach dying right up in his face which he DID drink in with satisfaction, this is one he can’t watch. One of the few times he really does NOT look, which given his huge bloodlust at the moment, yeah. Significant.

After she drops to the floor, THEN Dean turns his attention to the Blade, and it gives him that little moment of satisfaction.

Also, lovely close up on it with really bloodlike blood on it, because sometimes these weapons have like, chunky bright red paint on, but it looks translucent and dark and really real.

*Dean attempts to fight all the angels*

Off screen, sadly :P

HANNAH He put up a fight.

CASTIEL Get out.

Cas is really dismissive of Hannah there, like he’s really disappointed they did this to Dean, though they’ve clearly heard what Dean did. Cas is pissed about that too, obviously. And disappointed in Dean.

Still, once Sam and Cas are back, they un-tape Dean’s mouth and uncuff him, despite the face this interrogation room is now being used against Dean.

Anyway, Cas is so in charge now and if Dean wasn’t distracted he’d be really enjoying it :P

DEAN Yeah, you think I don't know that? You think I wanted that to happen?

SAM I don't know, Dean. Did you?

Uhoh :P Sam’s finally beginning to get a measure of how far gone Dean is, as I said, after Cas raised his own concerns. Their deal not to bring the First Blade is brought up again and Dean dismisses it as a stupid deal despite everything that just happened.

CASTIEL All right, that's enough. Stop it.

HANNAH [opens the door] Commander, I'm sorry, but you have a call...From Metatron.

Dun dun duuuun

I find it funny how Cas tells them to shut up (another version of “stow your crap” from earlier – with Dean currently broken, Sam and Cas both have to do their part to peace keep in the messed up new dynamics – anyway as soon as Cas tells them to put THEIR issues aside, Hannah shows up making it all about CAS’S crap

Or, well, Metatron is. Hi!

Someone pointed out how Dean is holding his Mark arm like it’s been sprained all through this, like he’s still recovering from the kill. It probably is really bothering him >.>

METATRON Just to tell ass-tiel, there, that I'm still alive. His bomber failed.

CASTIEL My bomber?

METATRON

The crazy guy. Big knife. Kablooey.

Fake news >.>

CASTIEL Who are you to lecture me on lying? Your deception led to the fall.

METATRON I did what I had to do. I have always done what I have to do, for God and for the angels.

“I did what I had to do” is exposed in a completely different way, as a phrase to say what you WANT to do as if you have no choice >.> The denying yourself your own choice that this phrase conjures when it’s used in so many contexts about choices with consequences that COULD have been avoided… Like Dean not reading the small print on the Mark. The way it was explored with Tessa instead showed the consequences, not the moment of choice.

Anyway Metatron falls back on family as an excuse to do a ton of backstabby stuff:

METATRON What I did was neither good nor bad. It was necessary -- a small hardship to make us all stronger, to make us a family again.

Same thing as Samuel wanting Mary back, doing it all for family, but sacrificing a bunch of family on the way to that >.>

“No more stupid angels” – he’s always been ready to sacrifice a bunch of them to get what he wants.

HANNAH Why would we follow you?

ILY Hannah :P I mean you do fall for it but you sound so sceptical and rightfully suspicious of him here. It’s only the reveal that CAS is compromised that makes her challenge him… Of course Metatron offering an amnesty means she like many angels chances it for the chance to return to heaven – as Josiah and even Cas showed, they’re all desperate to get back up there and be home again. I don’t judge her for doing that?

ANOTHER incredible speech because Dabb is just on a roll:

METATRON Well, look around. You've seen earth. You've had a taste of free will. I got to ask you -- do you like it? I mean, the way you've flocked off to follow Castiel tells me you need to follow someone. It's in your DNA. But Cas -- he's not what you think he is. He sends angels out to die. Have you told them about your stolen Grace, Castiel? How it's fading away, and when it burns out, so will you? So...No, then. I'm not the best, but I'm the best you've got. You want to stay with Castiel, fine, but he's playing you, because at the end of the day, the only thing he cares about is himself and the Hardy boys there. You've got a choice to make. Make the right one.

First Metatron references Tyrus, the angel who loved Earth, who he obliterated, aka that option is off the table and as your leader I think we can all agree Earth sucks. Then he snarks about free will, after all we’ve seen of Cas letting his angels have Friday nights off to go to the bar, and of course, calling back Cas’s plea to God in 6x20, about teaching poetry to fish when it came to angels and free will. They’ve come so far but the appeal of order and someone telling them what to do… “DNA” is an analogy, but season 8 showed us all that stuff about angels having operating systems that can be hacked but how they were built to serve. Their core being is one without free will…

One lie, immediately followed by the stolen grace and how he’s dying, which he can’t deny. He constantly keeps glancing at Dean while this is happening. When Metatron says the thing about sending out the angels, because of how he thinks Dean doesn’t believe or trust him, and then again checking Dean’s reaction when Metatron says how he is dying. Dean is off screen but Cas’s eyes just won’t stop going to him.

We don’t see Dean’s reaction to the end, thought we can catch Sam in the corner of the screen looking really concerned. Sam stays blurry in the corner, while

15: - the line about the Hardy Boys doesn’t really include Sam, the camera pans over Cas onto Dean

He looks really sad and concerned about this… I would NOT say those are his angry eyes :P

Anyway Metatron ends with saying the angels have a choice again, and tell them to make the right one, and they all turn in creepy unison to Cas to explain himself and give HIS side of the story, when Metatron has woven such a clever trap for Cas.

Hannah sounds so betrayed about the grace thing. In a couple of episodes she’ll be breaking into Heaven beat up Metatron for the location of Cas’s grace :P

CASTIEL It's complicated.

HANNAH So he wasn't lying.

CASTIEL He was about everything else. He...you believe me, don't you?

HANNAH I want to believe you, but I...we need proof.

“it’s complicated” and his direct appeal to Hannah as a “you” who he hopes would believe him over everyone else in the room again makes a personal connection between them - and break up language

She goes to “We” instead of “I” and starts speaking for the angels. (I can see WHY they picked her as a leader at least for a while)

And she’s quick to go to “punish him” because she doesn’t like Dean when she’s supposed to, and HE not he and Sam in general is the ~human weakness~ for Cas that he needs to cut out. (I feel bad casually quoting Ishim :P)

HANNAH You gave us order, Castiel, and we gave you our trust. Don't lose it over one man.

17: Ahahahahahaha but he’s in love with Humanity – I can’t believe the “one man”/”one human” stuff – these last 2 episodes pair together so much and 9x23 plays off almost everything said about Cas and Dean in this episode… Obviously next episode Metatron making it about “one human” blurs this with the “humanity” thing even more.

Dean really thinks he deserves it and worries Cas would do it. Cas stares at Dean and KNOWS he can’t do it.

I can’t remember if it’s this season or season 6 & 7 I just went through with my mum where “can’t or won’t” is such a big deal, but “can’t” implies so much more in this case than “won’t” because it sort of suggests the forces involves are just too HUGE for Cas to overcome. “won’t” is still a strong choice he would make, but “I did what I had to do” – implies that there’s NO choice, and in this case it’s true. Cas didn’t have a choice here, though Hannah put the lade in his hand and ordered him to do it with everything riding on it.

18: To everyone’s total surprise Cas picks humanity and his human family over Heaven and his shot at fixing it properly.

HANNAH Goodbye, Castiel.

Such a break up.

*Dean and Cas exchange horrified looks about what they mean to each other*

*Cas watches his army go resigned to his choices and with his real family standing beside him*

*I cry a bit*

Metatron’s office! Ah, his gloating phonecall. I wonder where angels get his mobile number. Apparently that’s a Thing. Like demon bathroom walls.

GADREEL You should have told me what our elite unit was for.

METATRON Why? It was none of your business.

Poor muffin. He gets lied to and manipulated forever. Like, that’s his life story. >.>

METATRON So? Well, that's an old writer's trick -- flipping the script.

Mmm season 12. But Dabb flips the entire world around to see what happens :P

Little worried that’s from his terrible bad writing lesson from Metatron section but oh well. Nothing is funnier than Metatron giving Gadreel creative writing classes while Gadreel visualises stabbing him in his mind

METATRON You start by building up a seemingly unbeatable enemy, like the death star, or a rival angel with a bigger army.

The way Metatron pauses and gestures on “bigger…” never won’t make me laugh, because it clearly looks like in that pause he’s about to imply Cas has the much bigger dick, but then when you’ve used the subtext and his gesture to fill in that gap, he says “army”

I mean, this is LITERALLY THE SAME SPEECH NOW as that other meaningful pause. A sort of practice run on filling in a HUGELY suggestive gap.

[innuendo intended?]

Also the flipping of the script is the part where Cas’s weakness is revealed – the script gets flipped in season 12 and bam, “human weakness” from Ishim, “I love you” from Cas. Done and done. See what I mean about season 9 leading directly into 12? :P

METATRON And then, after a rousing speech, his true weakness is revealed. He's in love........................................ with humanity. And now...I'm inevitable.

(18)

GADREEL What about Josiah?

METATRON Mm. He was a loose end.

Heh, Dabb going around clearing up all the plotholes in season 12.

METATRON Anyway, point is --while everyone else is playing checkers, I'm playing monopoly, and I always build a hotel on Boardwalk. And I always win.

So much board game meta… Mostly about chess, not checkers. Metatron doesn’t even know what game everyone is ACTUALLY playing.

Nice over confidence, you dick :P

Anyway Dabb vs cars, masterclass. Cas has a car. Why is he in the Impala? DRAMA REASONS. Because it is a powerful emotional beat.

Uh how did his car get to the Bunker in 9x23? Don’t ask. Just. Don’t. It’s worse than 10x22 after the reveal Cas had no car anymore because at least that was 5 episodes and a hiatus later so you could pretend it never happened for a while :P

….

I do like Cas sitting gloomily in the back of the car while Dean drives them all back to the Bunker. He’s chosen to be with this family, but shotgun STILL goes to Sam, even now. I think this may be more Sam’s insistence than Dean letting him, as well as force of habit. Remember 9x01 and how Sam set them up in his imaginary Impala, still letting Dean drive… Cas is another backseat character… For now. He’s given up his army but he has so many questions about his belonging with the Winchesters. We have a long ride until season 12…

19: Dean carries in Cas’s bag for him because he cares, because Cas is sick and even though he’s like 99% demon!Dean he’s gonna look after his angel, okay.

(Cas has a weirdly compelling side to demons… Maybe Dean just caught it :P)

DEAN About what? Yeah, I lied, but you were being an infant.

Dean used “baby” and “infant” on Cas in the end of season 6 about HIS choices

This is a totally unfair comparison and it wasn’t fair on Cas then either but it’s like 100x more unfair on poor Sam who is just trying to keep some semblance of control without realising -

DEAN Oh, I'm not apologizing. I'm telling you how it's gonna be.

[...]

DEAN That Blade's the only thing that can kill Metatron, and I am the only one who can use it...so from here on out, I'm calling the shots. Capisce? Look, until I jam that Blade through that douchebag's heart, we are not a team. This is a dictatorship. Now, you don't have to like it, but that's how it's gonna be.

*Dean eyeballs Sam angrily*

He doesn’t even use “brothers” he uses “team” – Sam disowning him in 9x12 has never been rescinded, and Dean has carried that hurt with him while deteriorating. Anyway, culmination of all I was talking about earlier about Dean turning on Sam, and how his worst tendencies come out there, because…

20:

DEAN So, batteries...

CASTIEL I'm fine.

DEAN No, you're not. How long you got?

Dean immediately switches back to a more reasonable sort of Dean who has GENUINE CONCERN FOR CAS. He still seems brash and a little flippant to begin but he has URGENT QUESTIONS

DEAN Cas, you just gave up an entire army for one guy. No, there's no way that you blew those people away.

CASTIEL You really believe we three will be enough?

DEAN We always have been.

And then he softens, when he has to talk about ACTUAL EMOTIONS when Cas brings up his concerns about Dean not trusting him, and Dean has to tap into a place of genuine emotion to answer it, and over the course of this very short conversation, he melts back to a relatable version of our Dean that we can make cutesy gifsets of them looking at each other over this table with…

And that “we always have been” is so soft AND at this point, with Sam out of the picture in Dean’s head, I do wonder if it’s sort of about Cas in that way where he falls behind stuff like “you’re OUR brother Cas” in ways to say and feel emotional squishy things about Cas without getting out from the safe zone where Sam is included too… But Sam’s not included here >.> Dean’s a shade off the guy who chases him with a hammer.

(Dabb’s thing about letting Dean and Cas even start to talk… This used to be like the one reason I fell back on to say I trusted him before I knew him better :P)

Anyway mirroring Cas’s scary entrance in 9x21, here’s some heavy footsteps here to ruin everything – if this was a NORMAL day of the week Gadreel would be their saving grace, and instead…

The fact he knew how to get into the Bunker the ENTIRE FUCKING TIME and never told Metatron or came to get them even while they were enemies. Love him :P

The filming of this entire sequence from the moment they get in uses weird camera angles that make the Bunker space look really different from normal – more confined and close, even hostile… Even the library looks strange filmed from the angles Dean and Cas are sitting at. And the close over the shoulder camera angles and low ones to catch Gadreel’s feet, and angles to catch Sam coming in and out of the corridors – if the directing had been a touch more brave, ALL the war room stuff would have been like, shaky hand cameras :P

Anyway I love how Dean just assumes his best Murder Face, like, you know in 7x20 when they were terrified Bobby would go vengeful if he set eyes on Dick? This is Dean setting eyes on Dick. Bye bye Dean.

GADREEL Because I can give him to you. I know where Metatron is. I know everything. I know the bombers. They were his agents, not yours. You don't trust me, fine. I understand. I've...made mistakes. But haven't you? Haven't we all? At least give me a chance.

LITERALLY ANY OTHER DAY OF THE WEEK, MATE. That is like, a prize speech. Wins Sam and Cas over, and they’re the ones fucked over materially by him. Dean is carrying his big bundled up poisoned guilt, and can’t listen, because it’s all gone twisted inwards with HIS burden of it that he made. And so his descent which he started in 9x10 finally all comes out now when confronted with Gadreel and unable to forgive him because he hasn’t forgiven HIMSELF and taken on a curse which only makes that worse and –

Ouch.

He’s busy still making the mistakes – Sam and Cas meanwhile were bonding over their mistakes earlier because they’ve been through the descent and recovery, while Dean hasn’t even finished his descent yet.

Goes to shake left-handed in defiance of the fact handshakes were traditionally right-handed to STOP people going for a hidden weapon and stabbing someone. Where does he even keep getting the First Blade from? He’s definitely teleporting it back into his pocket.

Anyway hi demon!Dean

You are truly, truly scary.

Yeah I’ll always stick with this thought because after this, which I suppose is for 9x23, all the stuff about smelling sulphur around the Bunker – that was all about Dean and not Crowley. The whole thing about a demon in their home, which really is for the end of 9x23 or the demon!Dean stuff in 10x03… That sense of wrongness and that they can sense something is off… Dean gives into revenge and is completely lost in that moment, all his humanity gone. He tries to gather it back for a moment in 9x23 but it makes him sick, and he gives in, calls Crowley, and doesn’t even eat, hasn’t slept since who knows when… Crowley knows he’s already pretty much over the precipice and just needs that liiittle shove. Anyway he needs that symbolic death and transformation to officially become demon!Dean but if you just treat him as demon!Dean in 9x23 it’s much easier and I just LOVE the unravelling of Dean through this episode. It’s so so beautifully done.

#9x22 #weird rewatching #spn rewatches #Marshmallow Era #but also #Dabb vs cars #suicide mention cw #this isn't as long as it looks #I had to quote all the long dramatic speeches and Dabb sure loves his long dramatic speech #my stuff

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