Oh, narrative parallels. These are some quick-and-dirty gifs, but they make the point. SPN makes liberal and obvious use of narrative parallels constantly. That’s not exactly special, honestly, parallel narratives are part of the bedrock of storytelling. It’s a super straightforward concept: they show you a thing that clearly means X, then they show you another thing that draws similarities to the first thing to show that the second thing also means X.
You can’t just conveniently forget how Storytelling 101 works just because something looks kinda gay. This episode is pretty light on Sam-specific development because Sam’s main job today is to make Dean look queer.
Yes, I’m serious.
In the scene where Sam and Dean meet Rio and Gunner, they each do 4 distinct things: they get giddy over recognizing their childhood idol, they stutter and flail while they try to look cool, they admit they had a thing for the person, and they do something fannish and embarrassing. Like so:
Now normally I don’t usually consider the same things as a No Homo that a lot of people seem to (because bisexual means he likes BOTH, yes good okay), buuuut I’m not going to deny that “HEY, REMINDER THAT DEAN LIKES WOMEN, YES?” isn’t something that happens, and that it doesn’t end up being fodder for the Dean-is-straight-and-you-are-dumb people.
So. That fucking said.
The moments in this ep where a No Homo would have been shoved in not only just didn’t exist, but were DELIBERATELY PASSED OVER. Let me explain. –No, it’ll take too long, let me sum up.
Dean walks into the bar, and sees the girl dancing on the table.
He looks, but he doesn’t get invested. No smirking, no once-over, none of the tell-tale “aw yeah” reactions we usually get from Dean. The one who gets his attention is Rio, who gets a friendly, nonsexual nod of solidarity.
Then there’s a girl laying down on a table with her mouth open and being fed alcohol all sexy-like. Dean not only doesn’t look interested, but he gets that “oh, well, all right” face that people tend to make when they’re watching something that isn’t quite their thing.
And then he sees Gunner and makes a goddamn beeline.
Here’s his face when Gunner knows his name without asking and hands him a shot.
This is not subtle. It’s not played off as so much of a joke that it’s an effective No Homo. If you made it through tonight’s episode without at least suspecting that Dean isn’t straight, those Hetero Lenses are welded to your damn face.
dean is going to be surrounded by giant hairy sweating men the entire episode and seems extremely excited about it. join us next time for another episode of “dean winchester’s rapidly deteriorating heterosexual facade”
The way his lips twitch into an almost smile when he sees Cas… priceless 🙂
I really love the way the entire scene was shot. A lot of people have pointed it out, but the way it was built up actually mirrored the date on prom-night sweeping down the stairs, stealing the boy’s breath. Of course it was meant to be funny/ironic, but in a very sweet and adorable way. After all, Cas is still a guy with a stubble and an ever-present frown; the coat and cheap suit do not really look that good on him, and the way he presents himself is awkward at best.
But Dean’s reaction is all joy and adoration, probably because that awkward angel in his ugly over-sized trench coat has come to mean so much to him, and he just realizes he never wants to miss him again.
Of all the scenes that hint at some sort of physical attraction between those two, this is the one I liked best. It was funny, but it didn’t make fun of Dean and Cas.
I guess what I love about Dean/Cas is that they are so much about that sappy old trope of loving/being attracted to someone’s soul. It’s clearly the case with Cas, who basically fell in love with Dean’s soul, but in Purgatory and afterwards, it’s become actually obvious that Dean feels the same: he may not normally do guys (not openly anyways), and though Jimmy certainly wasn’t ugly, Cas just drowns in his clothes and he’s all awkward and complicated, but I think in that scene, Dean realizes that for him, it’s really just about the fact he’s Cas.
For me, this symbolizes such a fundamental human craving we’ll probably all have in one way or another, which is to be loved for who we are, rather than for what we do, what we look like, or what we pretend to be.
Dean/Cas is such a perfect embodiment of this old-fashioned romantic idea that I cannot help but feel a little like tearing up whenever I see Dean look at Cas in that scene.
Thank you for saying everything I’ve ever wanted to say about this scene.
♥
Also, if people want to compare Dean’s reactions to an actual platonic friend getting cleaned up versus Dean’s reaction to Castiel emerging from getting cleaned up, check out Benny doing the exact same thing in Ben Edlund’s episode Blood Brother.
Why, it’s as though the show wanted people to contrast the scenes.
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