As mentioned in this conversation thread, I had a slightly different interpretation to Dean and Lucifer’s interaction in Into The Mystic to those I’ve seen going around, and especially regarding what about it unsettled Dean, and I thought I’d explore it a little more.
Dean has a deep-seated desire for affirmation, and he especially desires it from the people he loves. Although teased throughout the first two seasons, we first really see it in Dean telling Carmen Porter, his imaginary companion, “You know, I get it. Why you’re the one” in What Is and Never Should Be . What Dean desperately wants is for someone to tell him that he’s done good, that it’s not his fault, everything’s going to be alright, and that he’s not alone. Dean has wanted someone to tell him these things ever since his mother, caught in her own pain, replaced these words with pie when he was a child, which we saw in Dark Side of the Moon.
Castiel is not, and never has been, very forthcoming with his verbal affirmation of Dean – not because he doesn’t think Dean deserves it, but because he doesn’t know how to express it. We saw a change mid-ninth season of Castiel affirming Dean and Dean’s choices – but not to Dean, to Sam. All of season ten, Castiel took Dean’s side, he supported Dean’s choices, he’s was there for Dean all the way, but not in a way that Dean was able to see, not verbally affirming Dean in a way that he could understand. Dean doesn’t know that Castiel is in his proverbial corner, all the way, until the end of the line, because Dean’s problem, which Castiel outlined for him when they had just met, is that he has no faith in himself. So why should anyone else have faith in him?
And here is Lucifer, suddenly giving Dean the thing that he has wanted for so long, the thing that he needs: Castiel affirming him. Having faith in him. Telling him that he’s doing the right thing, he’s making the right choice, and that Castiel will stand by him while he makes this choice. Lucifer is telling Dean what Castiel was trying to tell Dean at the end of The Prisoner, but in a way that Dean is able to hear.
In The Prisoner Castiel tells Dean that he will stay with him until the end, and what Dean hears is that it’s all his fault and he brings Castiel, brings everyone nothing but pain – whereas Lucifer just comes out and says it: you won’t be alone, I’ll be with you. There are many such contrasts between Lucifer and Castiel, beginning with the simple fact that Dean finds Cas in the bunker of his own volition in the first place.
We saw the flipside of this in Soul Survivor: Dean wants Cas in the bunker. Castiel likely wants to stay in the bunker, but doesn’t think he can. What Castiel tells Dean is that it’s alright. What Dean hears is that he tried to kill his brother and that he’s in constant danger of losing everyone he loves because of his own actions.
In the episode Lucifer takes responsibility for destroying Amara, expressing the sentiment that it is his responsibility and not Dean’s alone. Dean thinks it’s all on him alone pretty much full time. That’s his most enduring character trait.
Lucifer wants to hear more about how Dean was unable to kill Amara. He’s understanding, offers his sympathy. Contrast this with Our Little World in which Dean thinks Cas is accusing him of not being able to kill her, both of them defensive.
Lucifer asks Dean to tell him everything, offering what seems like a sympathetic ear. Castiel, well. Castiel wants to Dean open up to him, but what Dean hears is:
Many people have paralleled the shoulder touches between the episode and Meta Fiction, but there’s more to it than Lucifer merely grabbing ‘the wrong shoulder’. Lucifer tells Dean that what he’s done may turn out to be a good thing, whereas Castiel asks Dean what he’s done. Castiel is worried, Dean hears an accusation because he’s already feeling guilty.
Lucifer promises to help Dean find out what it is they’re dealing with, regarding Dean’s connection to Amara. Castiel has habitually vanished to do his “Caine from Kung-Fu crap“ both because he is weighed down by his responsibilities and because he doesn’t think Dean wants him to stay in the bunker.
Lucifer agrees to let this stay just between the two of them, to not tell Sam about what Dean confessed to him. Everyone has been telling Dean to share everything with his brother, that their problem is that they don’t talk about crap. Lucifer is, that is, validating Dean’s choice, even though Dean knows Castiel knows it’s a bad choice.
Lucifer is transporting Dean and Castiel’s interpersonal dynamic to that moment in Road Trip before it all went to hell, and Dean thinks he doesn’t get to have that. Thinks he doesn’t deserve it. Oh, but he wants it. That’s what he wants – from Castiel.
Lucifer says things that he doesn’t mean to further his own agenda. Castiel means things he doesn’t say, maybe out of respect for Dean who, after all, has expressed his disinclination to participate in ‘Chick flick moments’, or maybe because he just doesn’t know how to say them.
But hearing the things Lucifer told him and hearing them from Castiel? That is Dean’s fucking sunset, right there.
I’m not sure about this just because I really believed he was unnerved by the end of their first conversation, but this would be a tragic reason for Dean to say that he thought something was off with Cas at the end of the episode.
Sure, he’s unnerved, but there doesn’t seem to be anything unnerving him beyond Castiel not following ‘the script’, meaning that there were no signals of anything supernatural, signals of any gut-feeling that would have tipped him off.
It’s tragic that “if it’s too good to be true, it’s not true” would be the tip off, but it fits the pattern: Dean knew his father wasn’t his father because he was too kind, Kevin knew that Sam and Dean weren’t Sam and Dean because they were too nice.
And actually Sam in “Baby” was sure that john wasn’t really his father as he told him all he wanted to hear…
Excellent point: that was Robbie’s episode and is textually close enough for an intentional cross-reference. There’s precedent.
Plus, that was Lucifer pretending to be John in Baby. The precedent was set for him specifically, this season. Lucifer thinks the way to the brothers’ hearts is through saying what they think they want to hear. In reality, *no one* ever says what they need to say to each other in this show. Not until it’s almost too late. So, it’s what gives him, and others, away. But for Lucifer himself, every time he’s dealt with a human, he says exactly what they want to hear. He just doesn’t realize that will never work on the Winchesters. Lucifer is powerful, but not infallible. His lack of understanding humans has always been, and will always be, his downfall.
Good points! I think there was a further parallel in Baby in how Dean wanted very much for someone to acknowledge his portmanteu ‘werepire’, which Sam refused to do. He needed someone to validate him. And when Castiel did it, he said it, Dean wasn’t there to hear it. Dean doesn’t know that Castiel validated his idea, validated him.
Everything that Lucifer told Dean might well be things that Castiel could tell Dean if he knew how, if he knew Dean needed it. Castiel means the things Lucifer says, and yet one the last things Dean heard the real Castiel say to him was that he needs to go it alone because Dean is a frail human.
This is the stuff star-crossed lovers are made of.
reblogging for added commentary
The conversation in 11.11 immediately made me recall Dean’s reaction to John all the way back in 1.22, when Dean realizes John’s possessed because John said he was proud of Dean instead of being angry about “wasting” one of the Colt’s bullets to save Sam. Dean’s issues go back a lot farther than his relationship with Cas.
So while Dean might have felt relieved to unburden himself to Cas(ifer), and to have Cas(ifer) validate him in 11.11, I can’t help but see a layer of this uncertainty over the change in their usual dynamic, as described above. Much as he might want Cas to be that open and understanding and affirming with him, it’s… not… natural. At least, not in a way that Dean can put his finger on at the end of the episode.
Oh, hey! I hadn’t even noticed there was more conversation here.
I think this deserves another look now that Dean has found out the truth of the matter, especially in light of the end of The Vessel. Outwardly, it would seem like Dean’s faith in Castiel is unshaken – he refuses to believe that Castiel has chosen to become a vessel for Lucifer out of his own volition or that he continues to do so out of his own choice.
But when he tells Sam “That’s not possible,“ he looks away. He looks away as though he doesn’t quite believe the things he is saying to his little brother. Because this? This is much easier for Dean to believe – that things have gone terribly sideways, again, that he’s fucked up, again, that this is all his fault. And Dean is blaming himself for everything because that’s what Dean does, make no mistake.
This is familiar. This is something he knows. It hurts, but he knows how to deal with this – work it like a case, drown it out in bouts of violence and alcoholism. Conceal, don’t feel. Dad still loves you. I love you, too.
When we finally see Castiel and Dean communicate with one another, that’s going to be one painful experience.
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