thedogsled:

I think we have to be honest and say that Bobo spoiled us last night. He shared his frustrations with the Wayward judgement, and he basically said ‘fuck this we’re canonizing my ship right tf now’, and throwing in John/Michael mirrors and dealing with Dean’s fear and anger and just. Well. I feel like Bobo and I both would have written this episode similarly (except that I would have had Claire crashing in to rescue all the boys again at the end, but then, Kathryn Newton is busy so you can’t have everything). I also like to imagine a situation where Dabb shows up and he’s like “Okay, you get to write the Dean/Cas reunion” and Bobo is like “I’m sorry but every different way I try and write this they end up banging”, so Dabb throws his hands up in the air and is like “idk separate them, then!” So keep an eye on AO3 for Bobo’s coda any minute now, amirite?

For the record, despite the saltiness I’m sure there is about Dean and Cas being so clumsily separated, they HAVE improved on last year just based on the fact that they are showing us The Many Adventures of Castiel on screen rather than leaving them off screen this year. And okay, the many adventures still leave Cas as a bit of a failure, but his development emotionally and in respect to how much he fits in are leaps and bounds ahead of where he was pre-Empty.

But anyway, back to Destiel by proxy. It was clear to anyone with a brain that Dreamhunter was paralleled to Destiel. They crammed every inch of Destiel’s arc into a single episode to get this done, and it was so obvious it was there on the surface read that anyone in it for the Destiel saw it at once. I’ve already come across someone today who didn’t see the reveal coming, but they also don’t believe in Destiel and deliberately ignore and dismiss the Dean/Cas subtext. Well, surprise!

The thing is, the dialogue throws shade on all those things, but also underlines the parallels to Destiel for Sam explicitly. Let’s look at it again.

Jody: I promised Claire that human cases are mine but anything monstery I’d loop her in. This… Gah. Claire’s been doing so good. And I mean anything connected to Kaia she’s a powder keg.
Sam: Hm.
Jody: First love strikes quick, and to lose it like that…
Sam: Oh.

Credit X <-Spookydestiel, please go reblog the original set, it’s awesome!

But more accurately, he runs the whole gamut of understanding with his ‘Oh’, and it really. You have to watch it over and over again. Remember, he basically saw Claire arrive with Kaia with no idea of their story arc, got rescued, and saw Claire mourning, then left while the situation was still raw. Jody’s not stupid, she’s been there watching Claire mourn, it’s turned her into a powder keg of emotion, frustration, pain, rage, because she’s lost her first love.

So Sam is a) finding out Claire is queer,  finding out she’s lost the love of her life, accepting both, acknowledging – that’s what the headtilt is – and then moving on with this new knowledge.

But who else does Sam know that was a powder keg at the mere mention of someone’s name, who deliberately avoided saying it because it hurt too much, whose pain was different to his own because it was more profound?

It is particularly interesting to me that they film Dean snapping in a really similar way in this episode. This is by no means the last time we saw his fear turn to anger (and god I hate it btw I jump out of my skin like Sam and it’s a really hard narrative to watch and even if it’s growing into character development now I still… Dean dealing with his fear-to-anger issues is horrifying and painful and hard and it’s meant to be. I could write a whole post on just that subject honestly.) but this is the time it’s about Cas, so.

If I’m optimistic, then, this is the opportunity, or the catalyst, that Sam needs to put two and two together himself. That would of course require a Destiel endgame, and for the other writers to be on board with what was conveyed with just a headtilt, but honestly it’s right there on the surface read now. The Destiel parallels with Dreamhunter were blatant, and they’re basically just saying “here’s some more”, because Claire is once again paralleled to Dean, catatonic with grief for something she’s lost before it even began.

I need to go watch this episode a hundred more times. For now, I leave you only with this. Dean = Claire and Castiel = Kaia. She even stabbed her Claire mirror in the freaking shoulder and left a scar the same as Castiel’s, only opposite. To illustrate this they gave us the scene with Dean looking at it in the mirror. Directing choices showed us deliberate straight line parallels to Dean/Cas right there in our eye holes, so that we were reminded of it while we’re watching. The subtext in this episode in the Destiel mirror was outright moved from subtext into text. So what’s next? Where do we go from here? And what role could Sam potentially have in it.

Anyway. Well played, Bobo. Well played.