I don’t recall Dean EVER wearing a vest like this, he looks quite cute. But something about this scene got my wheels turning.
Don’t anybody go taking this the wrong way now, but I got the feeling that the trucker Dean interviewed here:
isn’t straight. She also reminded me a little of another character we had who I really liked and gave us good parallels:
I realize Dean was being his regular, awesome, investigator self and likely wore the vest to blend in and gain trust with whomever he could speak with. But it felt different enough to stick out in my mind. Jesse and Caesar didn’t hide who they were(as a couple, obvi hunters hide their occupation). I think this is a good look on Dean, for several reasons❤️
Omg omg omg how is that I didn’t see that before! I was getting more focused on other things (post about it later) and… Thanks Sarah!!!!!
Her first outfit
Her second outfit
Doesn’t ping my straight radar much.
Let’s not forget that the preacher, whom she shares a table in her first scene, while being a shitty person, was signaled to the authorities for flashing a girl and picking up a boy.
She shares a table with Dean in her second scene. Which doesn’t have to mean anything, but hey, putting it out there.
Powerful queer vibes from the both of them in that scene anyway, honestly.
Also, she said that Mann(y)’s wasn’t the type of place she’d normally stop unless she didn’t have a choice. And when she met Dean in person and brought him to a place of her choosing, where she would feel “safe” to talk, she chose a place with sunny yellow sheers in the windows behind curtains covered in mandalas (or hex signs), which are protective symbols.
So Manny’s was where she stopped out of need, because she had no other choice (the same reason Wendy stopped there, where the two of them made significant eye contact, as if to say “yes I see you here in this place where we both don’t belong”), but this cafe was literally her “safe space.”
(I have now written this out. It’s not the most eloquent and i keep saying stuff is ‘good shit’. Apologies… but it is GOOD SHIT)
First off, I think the lights only showing ‘Mann’ might be a reference to Fritz Haarmann, the serial killer who dismembered, assaulted and mutilated victims– also known as the Vampire of Hanover. Would be a cool little reference if so, but who knows.
DEAN: Look, I know you’re in a dark place
right now OK. I mean, we lost Jack. Mom is… I think about him too, all the time
– but you can’t let it eat you up. Now look, when I was broken up you were
there for me. Well I’m here for you now. And I’m telling you the only way out
of this is through. Now when everything goes to hell, what do we do? We put our
heads down and we do the work. We’ll find jack – we’ll save mom, we will. But
right now, Donna needs our help.
This is great dialogue which looks back to when Dean was ‘broken up’ over Cas, and also points to how Sam feels as though he has let Jack down and let Mary down.
Also this brilliant acting by Jared – this occurs when Dean says that they’ll help look for the killer. Sam obviously doesn’t want to do anything other than try and find Jack and Mary and this unsaid thing is shown brilliantly here, without even a second of dialogue. GOOD SHIT.
Doug/Dean
DOUG: I she gonna be OK? I mean, I love
Donna […] I’ve never seen her like this […] I mean she’s barely talking to me.
And we always talk […] It’s a tough time, I know. But I think she’s hiding
something from me. Anyhoo forget it, it’s probably nothing and I’m probably
just spinning… nothing.
DEAN: Doug, you’re a good guy and you’re
gonna be there for donna. So you know, just trust her. OK?
So this bit of conversation could easily be
Dean saying this to Sam about Cas. Cas has been AWOL for a while and everyone
in the fandom is out here wondering if Asmodeus is calling Dean/Sam with Cas’s
voice. But he could just not be calling. Dean trusts Cas and he might have
heard nothing from him and is simply suffering in silence wondering about what
the fuck is going on, but obviously not sharing his feelings because Dean still
has a way to go with outright admitting his emotions and worries unless truly
prompted or angry. So what Doug is saying could be Dean’s thoughts, but Dean’s
response is also pertinent to the Cas situation. This is Dean saying that
although he hasn’t heard from Cas, he’s just got to trust him.
Hundreds of Monsters
There are hundreds of thousands of monsters
in the world. This is interesting because one would assume that after Sam and
Dean’s efforts after 13 years, plus the Leviathan decimating populations of
monsters that numbers would be lower. This would also make sense because lower
populations of monsters after this time leads to a positive endgame for SPN. It
also would mean that Sam and Dean’s lives aren’t futile. And yet here we get
canon knowledge that there are hundreds of thousands of monsters out ‘there’.
But here lies the interesting question; where is ‘there’? Because if there are
hundreds of thousands in the US, that’s quite a lot and the number of victims
are countless. However, ‘there’ means the world, then hundreds of thousands in
a world of billions insn’t too much. It’s bad, but proportionally it makes
sense.
Evil FBI Agent: See, those freaks that you
and your brother chase – those are just the ones who can’t pass; either because
they’re too mean or they’re too stupid… or both. But most monsters – hell, they
could be your next door neighbour who work a regular job, mown the lawns on a Saturday
– and they need to eat. Which is where I come in.
Well this is some worrying dialogue which
relates to the SPN universe. It matters because it fits in with this idea that
not all monsters are the bad guys, but then it counteracts this theme by
stating that monsters who don’t outright kill and act ‘normally’ are still hurting
and killing people in less obvious ways.
This is a common horror trope though; the
idea that you can’t tell what’s evil in the world. The smiling neighbour who
really wants to kill you (e.g. Open House which is fucking bullshit and awful
and don’t watch it, it’s got the shittest horror script and is pointless, sorry
rant over). But this idea that evil is unseen is super common, and this whole
script used perfectly very chilling horror tropes so it could be included
because of that… maybe.
The evil FBI agent isn’t a monster, and
maybe neither is the camera guy/torturer. This is great because it continues
this idea that humans can be truly evil (think Benders which is my personal top
scary episode which at some point I need to write about). I think this is why
this episode was scarier than most; because it referenced subtly The Benders and
it placed humans as the ones who are evil. Including the theme of a serial
killer also references the human evil in the world.
Yellow Curtains
Just putting the yellow curtains there behind Dean to remind us all of Dean burying Cas and his previous depression, and how Cas’s presence is always there. GOOD SET DESIGN SHIT.
Auction for Sam’s
heart.
Good metaphor. GOOD SHIT. Both plot and dialogue and metaphorical
exposition. Mmhmmmmm. GOOD SHIT. Sam is depressed and has no hope; he has a
heavy heart right now. And the monsters, to quote Moriarty want ‘to tear the
heart out of’ Sam (apologies for the reference to anyone still seething over
that show).
Doug
DONNA: You’re
going to be fine.
DOUG: Fine? I was
a vampire.
This bit of
dialogue was great because it’s so real. In SPN we see so many characters who
get involved in hunting and become the heroes and fight the monsters. But it’s
so great to see a character be truly afraid and not want to get involved. This
isn’t being negative about Doug, it’s just pointing out that it’s brave to say ‘no’
to a group of people who are brave and courgageous in more obvious ways and who
are standing in front of you. I so so connected with Doug at this moment and
loved how these few lines of dialogue exposed the crazy reality of SPN. We as
viewers now expect that when someone is cured of being a vampire of witnesses
some crazy stuff that they’ll pick themselves up and join the fight. So for a
character to experience this and point out that it’s fucking ridiculous for him
to just accept that everything is OK now is so refreshing. This grounds his
character and it grounds the show. It calls bullshit that everyone wants to be
the kind of heroes that Donna, Sam, and Dean and many others are. It says ‘yeh,
actually, that was super intense and it’s brave to walk away and admit that in
fact, it’s not fine.’
DOUG: Maybe you
all can live this life… But I can’t. I just wanna go home.
DONNA: So we’ll
go home.
DOUG: And what? I’m
a cop ‘cause I like helping folks, but… vampires? That’s… I’m not…
DONNA: Doug, I’m sorry I lied to you, but I can’t give this up.
DOUG: I know, Donna. You Kill monsters. You’re a damn hero. But that’s…
that’s not me… I’m sorry. I love you. I’m sorry.
Donna: Doug! Wait!
Sam: Let him go. Donna, when you choose this life, anyone who gets too
close – eventually they get hurt… or worse. So let him go. He’ll be safer that
way.
And then there is this wonderful dialogue. Where Doug tells
Donna that she is a hero and that this life just isn’t for him. He’s not angry
at her or disregards how awesome she is. He tells her, and then he chooses to
walk away. Fuck yes, Doug! I mean, of course it’s heartbraking but I just
really respect Doug. I fucking LOVE Donna and I’m sad for her that this
relationship has either ended or will be forever different, but I’m just so
here for SPN pointing out in a loving and respectful way that just because a
character walks away, that doesn’t mean that he isn’t brave or correct in
making that decision. No one called Doug out. No one got mardy at him for
making that decision. They all accepted it. And accepting Doug and his choice
is GREAT. GOOD SHIT.
THE END
(when I mention the end, I’m not taking about the SPN episode ‘The End’ btw, thought I’d mention that to avoid confusion)
DEAN: A little tough on Donna back there.
SAM: What?
DEAN: Just saying.
SAM: Was I wrong? I mean… when has knowing us ever worked out… for
anyone?
DEAN: Well, I mean we save people, Sam.
SAM: Yeh and we also get people killed, Dean. Kaia for instance. She
helped us. And she died for it.
DEAN: OK, look. I know you’re in some sort of a –
SAM: No, no, no, don’t – don’t… you keep saying I’m in a dark place but I’m
not, Dean! Everything I’m saying is the truth. It’s our lives. And I tried to
pretend it didn’t have to be. I tried to pretend we could have mum aback and
Cas and help Jack – but we can’t. This ends one way for us, dean. It ends
bloody……… It ends bad.
Whooooooaaaaaa. Ending on that line and cutting to black and the credits.
Whooooaaaaaa. So this is set up camera angles-wise in a beautiful way. We see
Sam, cloaked in shadow and shot from above, making him seem small and
powerless. He half-repeats his final line; ‘It ends bloody… It ends bad’ and
then we cut to black and the credits. So this is on immediate analysis set up
as foreshadowing. Placing this final line at the very end is used as
foreshadowing for shit getting bad in the next episode so that when the bad
shit comes everyone’s like ‘well, they did tell us this was coming.’
HOWEVER, is this foreshadowing? It’s set up like that, but that doesn’t
necessarily mean that it is. What is interesting about this line is that this
is what Jared and Jensen have both said that SPN will end. So blatantly saying
this here would be a bit too obvious, right? I mean, saying this and then it
ending bad and bloody is thus predictable. So maybe this is a curve ball? Or
pointing out that this is how viewers, the actors, and the characters think it’s
going to end, and then pulling a 180 on all of us – that would be better says
my forever optimist (but also analytical) soul.
The strange thing about this is that Sam is referencing THE END. Like…
THE END. Which was shocking to me. We’re just past mid-season and season 14
hasn’t been actually officially confirmed (right?) and they’re referencing the
end? This is so shocking because they’re not talking about their deaths or
something more specific, Sam is talking about how ‘this ends’. For them ‘this’
may be their lives, but for us ‘this’ is the end of the show. It works
perfectly with either translation. This line was like Davy was staring into our
souls and maniacally whispering these lines to us to have us shook. “THE END?
THE END? DON’T MENTION THE END! SPN IS NEVER GOING TO END!” say anyone who has
watched or been to a SPN convention over the past decade. The first rule of SPN
fandom is we don’t mention the end. The second is we don’t mention the end.
So why are is the writer talking about the end? Talking about how it’s
going to end bloody? But importantly, why now? This could be purely for
character reasons, in that Sam is evidently very depressed and can see no hope
in the future, but is there more to this? I’m not sure. I’ll have a think about
this some more and please reblog and add thoughts pertaining to why you think
this was mentioned now.
In general, I don’t think this is foreshadowing, but rather pointing out
that this is where the story has been leading us for many seasons, but not the
last. This may be the show pointing massive red arrows to the fact that in
earlier seasons, it was going to end bloody, and the boys knew that. We knew
that. Everyone knew this was gonna be heartbreak and violence before the final
credits. But now? Now I don’t think this is the case. But this old thought
needed to be pointed out so we all can recognise it, and so it can be flipped.
And this brings me back to the dialogue from earlier that there are
hundreds of thousands of monsters who aren’t known to hunters, and who it’s
hard to catch. What does that mean for the end of the show? How do you fight
against unseen terror? This all seems very doom and gloom prophesising.
Not to pour salt into our collective wounds, but to add to that, this is the episode that gave us the line ‘show’s over’. Now this is referring to the show where monsters are watching Sam get torn to pieces. Bidding to get his heart. Betting on the outcome. Bound to end bloody. Am I crazy or is there a direct parallel between the auction show and the Show, i.e. Supernatural? In wich we are the bidders, betting on the outcome, watching our heroes get torn apart week after week, chatting about it on some form of social media… Then Dean kills the orchestrator, the powers that be, someone in an actual position of power, who controls what happens, who claims to fight evil but who actual pulling the strings and rubbing his hands together. Which comes back to a notion of the character killing his creator, which narratively could mean a lot of things, especially in a show that is known for breaking fourth walls and have a ton of stories about, well, stories – think Chuck Shurley or Metatron, and of course The French Mistake. Show’s over. Except it’s not. Not yet. And hell if I’m gonna listen to how Sam and Dean have repeatedly told us it’s ending – even shooting the showrunner to take control in a attempt to keep control on how this is all going to end – bloody, in a blaze of glory. We have power, we can bid, and we can choose to demand a different outcome.
HOLY F*CK! I LOVE THIS! AMAZING! Yes!
To take this amazing avenue of analysis to this scene and run with it; so Sam is the one saying that things will end bloody and that we (the monsters in this metaphor) are watching him and Dean be hurt and tortured every week on screen. His attitude is that this violence is destined to be the outcome of his life. That he will inevitably die and we will watch that happen to him on screen. The writers/creators and directors/camera men and women (i.e. the evil FBI agent and the masked camera man) are orchestrating the show and torturing it’s subjects (Sam and Dean). Sam is fatalistic and assumes this is how it will end. But then Dean comes in and shoots the evil camera man and the Evil FBI agents, therein ceasing the pain him and Sam are going through.
So maybe this is really suggesting that whilst Sam sees his role in this story as someone destined to die on screen, Dean is going to save them both from this narrative. He is physically killing the evil men in this episode, but metaphorically he is killing their narrative of destined fatal violence. So maybe Dean isn’t being fatalistic, but Dean stands for saving them both from on-screen death.
And I LOVE how you say that we have the power to choose and demand an outcome like the monsters.
It’s interesting this whole discussion, because this again brings up the question on SPN of ‘if Sam and Dean can overrule the fate allocated to them by the writers/creators’. Also within this, can Sam and Dean overrule the fate we as viewers allocate to them. All of us, the viewers and the writers/creators watch/write with glee about their pain and suffering and choose their fate, but then in comes Dean demanding his own life and prevailing in gaining his and Sam’s safety.
Perhaps Sam is the viewers/writers who have always and still assume that it will end bad and bloody, but Dean represents those who think the characters deserve more than that. Maybe this is the writers impressing upon Jensen that his old viewpoint that it will end in their deaths can be fought against. I know Jensen is backing away from that now, but he (I think) still recently thought maybe Sam should die and he would live during a panel. Maybe this is the writers telling him that Dean can and should save Sam?
This all fits with this whole episode and its fatalistic attitude just being so out in the open. So obvious. But maybe this is a lesson to us all, that the viewers and creators of the show have been torturing Sam and Dean and we’ve been watching and many obviously assume this is how it will continue and end. But Dean and Sam have agency as characters and deserve to storm in and fight for their safety and their lives…
No one can convince me Dean and Cas didn’t have sex during the time-shift in Heaven Can’t Wait. Here’s my head-canon for it:
Dean, who has looked punchdrunk around Castiel ever since they came back from Purgatory goes “Where to, Cas?”
Cas gets in the car and says that he thinks his hand might be broken and might need to be taken care of. Dean suggests they go back to his motel where he can take a look at it.
At the motel, he feels up Cas’s hand and admits that it might be broken. He tells Cas to take off his shirt so that he can patch it up, and turns to around to get some supplies for a make-shift cast. Cas takes off his shirt, he doesn’t question Dean’s commands. Dean turns around and goes a bit dry in the mouth. He can do this.
Dean patches up Cas’s hand, and Cas keeps making noises, since he’s not used to pain. He’s not used to Dean touching him either. And once Cas’s hand is patched up, Dean just. He doesn’t know how to stop touching Cas. Doesn’t want to stop touching him.
And Cas says, “Dean.” With such need.
Like Dean is like the only, the only being in the universe. Cas has always needed Dean, but being human and needing Dean is something different. Something he doesn’t know how to deal with. It’s, all of it, in that one word.
They don’t need you like you need them.
And Dean, he needs to be needed. When someone needs him, all he knows how to do is to give and give and give. So he gives.
But, you know, when you get down to it, what’s the big deal, right? I mean, sure, there’s the touching and the feeling all of each other, my hands everywhere, tracing every inch of yer body, the two of us moving together, pressing and pulling… Grinding. Then you hit that sweet spot, and everything just builds and builds and builds until it all just…
And Cas grips Dean’s shoulder with his broken hand, right where his brand used to be.
Sticky.
Then, it’s the whole morning thing. You know, “Hey, that was fun.” And then, “adios,” you know? Always the “adios.”
I have friends. I’ve had lovers. That is not how friends say good-bye.
“Not every hook-up’s perfect,” Dean says to him, the next time they meet. But ours was.
Since when would Dean ever threaten an innocent person and force them to do shit against their will. This was so un-Dean-like and I need to vent.
Kelly Kline comes to mind.
It’s not the same though. With Kelly, Dean was trying to save the entire multiverse, and also trying to save Kelly herself. Here it’s just totally personal–he’s just trying to save his mom, not serve some greater good or protect the person from themselves.
I saw a theory that maybe Jack had inadvertently controlled Dean like he’d done with Cas to get what he wants, and I hope that’s the case, but if it is, it seems weirdly placed in terms of narrative timing because when exactly would they get a chance to bring that up in the near future?
Kaia wasn’t just an “innocent.” I mean… she had the ONE THING Dean desperately needed, and without her help it would continue to be HIS PERSONAL FAULT that Mary was suffering horrifying torture in the world HE FELT PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE for her languishing in… so… yeah, not ooc
This wraps up into all the guilt he has left over from Purgatory, for how he treated Sam for not looking for him in Purgatory, for how he’d been in complete denial that Mary was even still POSSIBLY REMOTELY alive… (and remember Dean has no idea that Lucifer is back now, because he was prevented from exchanging info with Cas). And suddenly he’s been delivered a literal vision proving that she’s not only alive, but suffering horribly in something highly reminiscent of the torture he experienced in Hell (which he’d been freshly reminded about just a few days earlier…). And he’s suddenly willing to do practically anything to save her from that (because again, Dean blames himself for all of this, because he once blamed Sam for not looking for him, and that blame drove them to really horrifying places…)
So yeah, Dean’s got a LOT of emotional trauma, guilt, and self-blame over all of this, and Kaia being potentially the one and only person capable of helping them get Mary back? To redeem HIMSELF? Yeah, he snapped. I can’t really blame him.
As horrible as it was to do to Kaia, heck I get it.
I’m going to do a proper post in the morning, but if you go back and listen to things right after Jack’s visions, Dean’s head is ringing. They put deliberate audio cues into the shot to tell us that either A) Dean was having a panic attack, B) Dean was having a shock reaction to either the vision or the subject material, or C) Dean was having a flashback to Hell.
Given the framing of everything, with Mary directly mirroring Dean’s own screams and the camera shots in the vision, my money is on C.
And yeah, it was horrible to Kaia, but this one….. That’s still Dean.
The thing is, we don’t often see Dean like this, where he’s got a family member to rescue, but when we do? He’s said it himself, “for you or Dad, the things I’m willing to do or kill, it’s just, uh …. it scares me sometimes.” (1×22)
This is… this is the same internal thread and struggle that’s been there since s1, but it’s rarely pointed at humans or innocents. And it’s almost never framed as being as blatantly WRONG as this was.
This ^^^
You have to see it from DEAN’s pov and no I don’t believe he would ever of actually really hurt her but threatening her a bit to find mom, who he thought was dead and didn’t search for when he just saw her get stabbed inside a horrific torture cage in an AU only Kaia can get to??
He literally has a panic like attack right there on screen first to show how overwhelmed he is!
Yeah he’s gonna do everything he can to get there and save her and that is not OOC at all.
He doesn’t and never will act perfectly all the time especially when under intense stress in moments like this, it’s a huge part of being human and so important to the overall morality and themes of the show. I’m not surprised at all.
Last night’s episode was so amazing. I knew I already loved Steve Yockey, but now he has completely
won me over. He is a great writer and he can stay. I wanted to talk
about that song choice at the end of the episode. (I wonder if it was all his writing, or how much TPTB were involved in choosing it? Either way, it’s just an A+ choice in my book.)
The song is Steppenwolf’s “It’s Never Too Late”. I turned on the subtitles, and got
some crappy screenshots for you guys. It’s about 40% gayer now. Oooh
boy. Here goes:
The song starts playing right after Dean has shared his feelings (what is that character development?! I am LIVING) – “I just need a damn win.” Poor baby 😥
As
the boys drive down the road the lyrics are timed so well. This is not a
mistake. Thirteen seasons in, the writers/editors/directors know
exactly what they are doing.
“You say you’ve only got one life to life. And when you’re dead you’re gone.”
Dean
just died. Again. (Just another Tuesday for him.) The lyrics speak to
that, and also fit the theme of death running throughout this episode
and this season. But that last line also echoes back to the paradox that
a Winchester never really stays dead. And what is Castiel? He is
a Winchester.
He is family.
They boys have said as much in past episodes. So the rules of death don’t apply to him either.
When Dean’s phone rings we don’t get to hear the caller, but we do get this line:
“You left us alone.”
Who left them alone recently? Mom and Cas, as Dean keeps reminding us.
And
then we LITERALLY GET A LIGHT SHINING ON DEAN’S FACE WHEN HE REALIZES
WHO IT IS. THIS SHOW ISN’T EVEN SUBTEXT ANYMORE WHAT EVEN?!
I also wanted to call out this beautiful imagery as the boys drive down
the alley. Further proof of who the call was from.
I love Jerry Wanek
with my entire gay ass.
“Tell me who’s to say after all is done, and you’re finally gone, you won’t be back again.”
I mean…Do I even need to expand on that? What a great line. To me it sounds hopeful. And the lyrics point to someone singing this line to another person – not to or about themselves. (Dean singing praying to Cas? Maybe…)
And then we get this beautiful cut to Castiel:
“It’s never too late to start all over again.”
Castiel is alive. He has escaped death again, like the Winchester he is. He has another chance to be with the ones he loves.
And who does the camera cut to?
Dean. Always Dean. 100% Dean. Forever Dean.
And that line is repeated as we see this shot of Dean. “It’s never too late to start all over again.”
It’s important that the line was repeated for both Cas AND Dean’s reactions. Cas and Dean have both ignored their feelings for each other over the years. Neither one brave enough to make the first move. Both of them afraid to face the pain of possibly being rejected, or facing their own feelings of low self-worth – that they don’t deserve the love they both so desperately want.
But now we are being shown that this is a new opportunity for them to be open and honest with each other about how they feel. They are finally coming together to be on the same page about their relationship, and what it means to both of them. They were both resurrected (within days? hours? idk timeline is hazy) to be with each other again. It’s not too late for them. They are both alive. Their story isn’t over yet.
This is their chance to finally come together! (heh)
The final shot of the episode, the raw emotion on Cas’ face when he sees Dean…
He’s so glad to see Dean again he almost cannot believe it is actually happening.
Wow. Fucking punch me in the face it would hurt less.
Side note: The last shots of the episode do not include Sam. They
could have given us a two-shot of both brothers standing by the Impala
seeing Cas again – but they didn’t. This is a moment just for Cas and
Dean.
Now of course, Castiel considers both brothers to be his family. He
loves both of them. But he loves each of them differently. The Show has
been telling us this since season 4. It has been used as a joke at times,
or it was merely hinted at. But now it is fully out in the open for
even the casual viewer to see. This is how you develop a relationship.
This is how you show that what we’re watching is a true love story.
IF THIS IS WHAT WE CAN EXPECT FROM SEASON 13 THEN HOLY CHUCK WE ARE ALL BLESSED AND I COULDN‘T BE MORE EXCITED
Tagging a few blogs who might enjoy this, under the cut
It frequently does seem to involve his heart, doesn’t it? I mean, going all the way back to 1.12 and his first literal brush with death, it was his heart.
(and the reaper stole the “heart” of a nice openly gay man to give Dean life again… he’s been living with that since 1.12…)
Metatron stabbed him through the heart in 9.23, and he rose again as a demon. Now he’s stabbed himself through the heart in 13.05 and Billie put him back.
I also find it interesting that Cas is the one described as having too much heart, when really, I think that’s Dean. Cas cares about humanity, and he loves Dean and Sam, but he’s also made very calculating decisions that could have harmed all three.
Dean, meanwhile, makes bad decisions that would only hurt him, at least initially, and he makes them when he’s in the depths of despair. And it’s Dean’s heart that suffers, physically or emotionally, every time.
Yeah… we know the Clam Diver was “just outside” the town, which implies driving distance and not drunken stumbling distance. If Dean was so drunk that he couldn’t even make himself land on the bed and looked like he was lucky he managed to hit the floor… I mean, he got one shoe off and used it as a pillow.
If he was really that drunk, the bar wouldn’t have let him drive home. They would’ve called him a cab. Not to mention, aside from his tie headband and his shoe pillow, the rest of him looked relatively well put together (buttons buttoned neatly, coat on properly, etc.).
And did he really walk around the rest of the night wearing a pretty pink bra around his neck? Did he wear it to the liquor store where he bought that bottle? Did he wear it walking through the hotel? Because he was too drunk to care about his appearance in a town where he was pretending to be an FBI agent for a case where one boy was missing and another had been rendered mute by his experience?
And if Dean was really so drunk that he didn’t care about any of that, how did he end up in that spot on the floor without waking Sam up? Opening the door in the middle of the night, so drunk that he could barely stand up (and couldn’t even make it to the bed), and yet not so drunk that his stumbling and fumbling woke Sam up?
He was apparently messing with the TV remote as well? How? I mean… how did none of this apparent fumbling around the room not wake Sam up?
It’s like Dean was just tired of Sam pushing at him to just be “okay” again. Because Sam wasn’t really pushing Dean to be okay, he was pushing Dean to perform a specific version of Dean. Not because it would make Dean feel better, but because it would make Sam feel better about how Dean is coping.
Dean: I’m fine. Sam: Look, you’re not, Dean. You said you don’t believe in anything, and – and that’s not true, that’s not you. You do believe in things, you believe in people. That’s who you are, that’s what you do. I know you’re in a dark place and I just want to help. Dean: Okay. Look, I’ve been down this road before and I fought my way back, I will fight my way back again. Sam: How? Dean: Same way I always do: bullets, bacon, and booze. A lot of booze.
That’s what Sam needed Dean to be, to perform for him. To believe in something again, because yeah, Dean believes in people. He said it in 12.23:
DEAN: Yeah. You know, Cas has faith in this kid. SAM: Mm. DEAN: I hope he’s right. But me? I have faith in us. You, me, Mom, Cas. And Crowley. Sometimes.
But within an hour of that, 3/5 of the people Dean believed in were gone. And Sam’s now insisting that Dean just magically be okay with that, just let that go and just transfer all of that belief over to Jack, who Dean directly blames for the loss of the 3/5 people he believed in…
And now that giving Dean the “mission” to help teach Jack (with the hope that Jack might eventually be able to open the rift to fetch Mary again) has failed to help snap Dean out of his funk, Sam is desperate to at least get Dean performing the motions that used to signal his unhealthy coping skills.
Heartily pushing a beer on Dean at breakfast when he just wanted a sandwich, tolerating his music instead of complaining about it, ordering him food he’d normally complain about Dean eating, reading online reviews of a strip club to recommend it to Dean when he typically avoids strip clubs himself, buying Dean hair of the dog. It’s annoying to Dean, but after his display in the motel room, when Sam hands him that bottle, he forgives Sam.
What does he forgive him for? For pushing him to just be okay when he just wanted to be left to grieve in his own way.
Notice Sam doesn’t push him again after that.
Notice also that Dean never drank either breakfast beer.
Sam: You okay? Dean: No. Sam I’m not okay, I’m pretty far from okay. You know my whole life, I always believed that what we do was important. No matter what the cost, no matter who we lost. Whether it was Dad or Bobby or… and I would take the hit. But I kept on fighting because I believed that we were making the world a better place. And now Mom and Cas and I – I don’t know. I don’t know. Sam: So you don’t believe anymore. Dean: I just need a win. I just need a damn win.
Exactly the mental state Dean had diagnosed Cas with in 12.19. In the past, he’d still had Sam to believe in, the two of them against the world. Just fighting for Sam isn’t enough for him anymore. Something is different this time, and Dean doesn’t feel like he should have to perform the emotional labor to keep up a false front of coping for Sam anymore.
Like twig!Tasha told him in 12.20:
TASHA: Yeah. Family’s always complicated. Parents always see smart and strong and perfect. It’s only when you grow up that you realize that they’re just people.
Sam is finally seeing that Dean is just a person. Not that Sam had ever had illusions about Dean being perfect or whatever, but that act of always believing they could push through anything and come out the other side again isn’t the truth, and has never fully been the truth.
Heck, I’m watching 1.09 in the background while I write this up. And it wasn’t even the truth way back then… Dean kept up the “everything will be fine” act in front of Sam, essentially hid out behind a gas station and made his emotionally charged plea to John for help in the scene we’ve been paralleling to his prayer to God in 13.01.
In 2.04, Sam confronted Dean yet again on how badly he was handling John’s death, after the case they stumbled over while Sam visited Mary’s grave. I mean, THEEEEEMES. Dabb is pulling all of these themes from early seasons, and standing them all on their heads. Because in 2.05, after Dean had spent weeks putting up a front for Sam, the truth is forced out of him by psychic manipulation:
Dean: We hunt demons. Andy: What? Sam: Dean! Dean: Demons and spirits. Things your worst nightmares wouldn’t even touch. Sam here, he’s my brother… Sam: Dean, shut up! Dean: I’m trying. He’s psychic. Kind of like you. Well, not really like you, but see, he thinks you’re a murderer, and he’s afraid that he’s going to become one himself, ‘cause you’re all part of something that’s terrible. And, I hope to hell that he’s wrong, but I’m starting to get a little scared that he might be right.
Dean had buried all of this and kept it from Sam, much the same way Sam had buried some things that were pushed out in the open by another psychic manipulation (by a creepy ghost of a psychiatrist at an asylum, conveniently enough)… in 1.10:
Sam: That’s the difference between you and me. I have a mind of my own. I’m not pathetic, like you. Dean: So what are you gonna do, huh? Are you gonna kill me? Sam: You know what, I am sick of doing what you tell me to do. We’re no closer to finding Dad today than we were six months ago. Dean: Well, then here. Let me make it easier for you. Come on. Take it. Real bullets are gonna work a hell of a lot better than rock salt. Take it!! You hate me that much? You think you could kill your own brother? Then go ahead. Pull the trigger. Do it!
Sam did it. But just like Dean brushing off the confessions Andy pulled out of him after the fact because it had been coercion, Sam brushed off what he’d said in that asylum, too.
Now in s13, Sam is asking– nay, begging– Dean to just brush this off again, to fake it ‘til he makes it, and Dean is saying no.
It’s honestly the healthiest damn way they’ve ever reacted in a situation like this.
I have no idea how I turned this ask into actual meta, but here you go.
Aw, season 1 stuff 😀 I’ve noticed that line before in this context and I think I’ve also seen people talking about it, somewhere, and I’ll go look in a moment.
There’s some good meta out there about season 1 Sam’s queercoding via abstract magic powers contrasted with the very different form of queercoding for Dean via shit he says and does and circumstances and tropes etc. They both feel like freaks, which is said on screen for both of them by like 1×06, so you have Sam who is magically different from everyone else, and Dean who just feels socially ostracised and the metaphor works on a social level instead, which makes it more directly personal to his upbringing and why he doesn’t feel he connects just as a person. It’s part of the structural subtext of season 1 that lends to a bi!Dean reading (like I was recently snarking in the tags of this post about) 😀 So I don’t think there’s any reason not to think that some sort of early bi!Dean subtext is out there in a sort of structural way which to me validates every reading of him taken off random lines and actions. And Dean going around saying stuff like that in season 1 is part of it 😛
I… I just looked through my tag for the episode and couldn’t find anything, which is really weird because I *remember* having a conversation about it and/or reading good long meta about it. The only post I could find was this one which is not only one of 2 posts dealing with bi Dean stuff in this episode (aside from some slightly larger collections), I didn’t write much myself for this entire episode and the only reason it’s mentioned here is my tags snidely alluding to it:
I’m going to have to assume that this is such an obvious line we all just kinda don’t pay it any attention because like the one about him teasing Sam about the hotter psychic, you have to go through a few loops more than you need to with later subtext, even though it fully counts in a projection/anxiety way that Dean’s behaviour is quite predictable even by this point about in other ways.
Well I don’t think these are my own thoughts but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it talked about vis a vis Dean’s awareness of the concept and social commentary e.g. he’s calling Sam out for not wanting to talk about it because he is trying to say he’s NOT as unwelcoming as the military and would be supportive of Sam if he’d just talk to him normally about it instead of getting defensive. Especially since Sam brushes it off as weird vibes and dreams, when he previously, in Home, was much more certain he was having premonitions and was visibly distressed and beating himself up about having predicted Jess’s death. Dean’s not stupid, he’d have been waiting to find out what Sam was hiding since 1×04 and he knew Bloody Mary’s MO so of course he knows that to Sam this is more than “just” weird vibes and dreams, but he’s having some serious plot-arc, thing-that-killed-Mom-and-Jess weirdness going on right now. Sam blows him off talking about it and Dean snarks at him that fine keep your secrets if you think I’m going to – well, dishonourably discharge you from the family for the truth, to finish the parallel.
Obviously Dean using the term critically means a level of social awareness to make the parallel and to use it as a negative concept. And then there’s the reflecting onto Sam, because the term obviously is *only* about being gay in the military as the first and only read you need to make of it in this context. And he barbs at Sam a lot for being feminine or gay or whatever in the early seasons, which is the negative side of the performing Dean thing: establishing that strength is one thing, that Dean doesn’t approve of these things, and that Sammy is instead, because obviously Dean’s the big manly older brother who’s never worn women’s underwear ever. Which just makes us go “oh hon” to Dean and try and steer him away from all these toxic masculinity related ideas of what he should be or not be.
But anyway the projection and anxiety that you get with Dean is he says stuff but secretly he’s afraid of it and how it applies to him, and ribbing Sam like that is a fast way to reassert himself to the top of the masculinity ladder, but it turns pretty much everything he insults Sam with into an I’m rubber and you’re glue situation. Because at the heart of it Dean’s biggest issues are he’s scared and doesn’t have full control of the situation, and most of the first MotW episodes in season 1 have something or other where they absolutely expose Dean’s layers. There’s some good recent comments from @wherethewildthingswerent who watching for performing!Dean rather than bi!Dean stuff and found a whole bunch of examples in the early episodes which prove that Dean NEVER had the facade for the audience. I think 1×03 or 1×04 pretty much immediately set us up to question Dean’s act anyways, like, the first 2 episodes are the only ones which are mostly about setting up the playing field and letting us know how this all works, and as soon as we are getting the idea of it, take it all away from Dean 😛
I suppose the conclusion would be that Dean fears as much as what he’s jabbing at Sam about fearing – that would his family disown HIM for his queerness if they knew and from Sam’s POV almost the entire episode is Dean acting like John and following orders. Being HIS soldier and trying to do what John would want and earn his approval. John as their drill sergeant is something he eventually confirms to them in his own words, so the military references to how their family works, especially with John as an ex-Marine, are really important.
That entire episode has John looming over it because he sends them to the case and Sam spends the first quarter expecting to meet John there, and then realises it’s been a distraction to send them away, while Dean is determined to work the case because John wants them to, and push Sam to do it no matter what as well. Hence the big outburst, and this episode leading directly into Scarecrow where they fall out completely for Dean not having a mind of his own and Sam wanting to get revenge instead of save people blah blah… Point being the idea about Dean there is he’s completely absorbed his own personality, wants and desires into being John, which isn’t even really called out and addressed until 3×10 when Dean’s demon!Dean dream self calls him out, and it takes further long years for any serious improvements to be made on Dean expressing himself, even if he’s begun to think for himself more after mentally grappling John’s ghost all of season 2, struggling with the orders, and finally being freed from that burden when they see his ghost move on in the sense of not being *directly under orders* any more, so he’s left to figure out the rest of his life how to be his own person or scuttle back into the safety of being John (and the timing of demon!Dean calling him out on that is pretty much because it’s season 3, John is dead and ALSO gone (which were 2 different events :P) and Dean’s still stuck in these things from back in season 1…)
It’s usually time to stop when the next paragraph would be summarising the rest of the show while making anguished Dean!girl noises. 😀
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And although tbh this was badly stocked for this episode, if you’re wondering about bi Dean stuff in the show, I have collected this shockingly large collection of posts that you can start with – you can use the search function to skip to episodes:
If I’m ever THAT bored for some reason I kinda want to change the links to descriptions of the meta but that is not currently something I am bored enough to do 😀
This kind of stuff is absolutely my jam and I’ve probably have many posts about it written by me or someone else in my blog but I am also unable to tag things decently so only thing I found was this post by f-ckyeahfutbol.
But yeah season 1 (and beyond lol) was about their different flavors of ‘freak’, which have been paralleled all along. I’ve been saying that the show has been paralleling Sam-and-the-supernatural and Dean-and-queerness (in a wide sense) throughout its course, and their endgames must be connected to that.
Now, I haven’t been around much these last couple of days because of health stuff, so forgive me if I say something that’s been said a million times already.
I wanted to throw down a thought about the nature of Dean’s show of anger, or better, about the way the scene in Mia Vallens’ studio is a play on reality.
It’s nothing new that the theme of the Dabb era is reality, and this episode has gone all out with it. Shapeshifters by definition are a monster that allows a play on appearances and lies and deception. In the first episode of the show featuring a shapeshifter, Skin, we got to explore the folds of the truth of Dean’s character. Nightshifter, Monster Movie, Ask Jeeves… all explore the themes of truths and lies and identity. But I don’t want to digress 🙂 So, this episode explores heavily the theme of deception, from the obvious element of the shapeshifter pretending to be someone else, to the visual metaphors like the ridiculously highly symbolic moment where “Dean” literally tears his face off like a mask.
And then there’s the crucial scene where Dean, Sam and Jack visit Mia Vallens’ studio and put up a performance to pretend they’re interested in her counseling service. The status of reality of the entire scene is ambiguous, and the anger shown by Dean is, let’s put it like this, ambiguously real.
I am not saying that there is no anger in Dean because that would be silly. He’s angry at God for dumping too-big responsibilities on them and disregarding their needs; he’s angry at Jack for the events in North Cove; he’s angry at Sam for ignoring the boundaries he’s trying to set regarding his role in dealing with Jack. But I think that we also have to consider that there is a level of performance to that anger shown in the counselor’s studio.
The crucial scene for the interpretation of Dean as aiming anger at his family is purposely a performance, where the line between reality and deception is ambiguous. I’d say that Dean draws from reality and uses that reality to craft a lie. That scene in Mia’s office is primarily a lie. Sam has to storm out of the room to go investigate the room (although he does take a moment to collect himself when he gets the cup of water, because the lie wasn’t a complete lie, of course), Dean has to keep the counselor busy.
Look at Jensen’s and Jared’s acting – for most of the scene, it’s the ‘pretend’ attitude. Only one thing, in my opinion, Sam brought up that Dean wasn’t expecting and made his controlled expression slip, i.e. the part where Sam talks about him not having the connection with Mary that Dean had.
Look at this bit for instance
Most of the scene is more or less like that – they’re blatantly acting with streaks of actual feelings intertwined with that. Only at this moment Jensen does a kind of face that signals that Dean is taken aback in a hurt-y way, the blink-and-retract:
It’s not about anger at all. He slips when Sam clearly goes out from the track they had been planning the scene to go, because Dean is obviously taken aback for a moment there. (Sam is also making it harder for himself, digging actual troubles of his, and he has to collect himself with the cup of water later).
When the scene is about Dean’s feelings, he is putting on a show for the counselor. And, while he does use actual feelings to make the show (of course, otherwise there’s no point to the entire episode if everything is a lie lol), Dean seems fairly in control of the persona he’s playing – let’s call it a John persona if we want. Anger, making Sam storm out of the door (sounds familiar?), blatantly drinking hard liquor, making the kid terrified of him – there is a truth to these things Dean is showing. He does hold some anger, he does mean what he’s told Sam to some degree, he has been drinking alcohol (but mostly beer), he has been acting aggressively at Jack (who, I might add, isn’t terrified of Dean, but terrified of himself – when he tells Sam that Dean said he’d kill him, he doesn’t it because he’s scared of Dean, but because he’s scared of why Dean thinks that about him).
But at the same time, Dean and Sam are playing a part. Dean makes a show of acting angry and aggressively oppositional to Sam, Sam leaves the room and go investigate (it doesn’t really matter if they’d planned it to go exactly like that – either way, they had to explore the counselor, they were there with a purpose). No matter how much truth there is behind it – Dean is still putting up a performance for Mia. He makes a show of drinking alcohol from his flask, something so blatantly “I am not taking this loss well lol” that is sure to capture the counselor’s attention on him.
I think that his anger is real (of course it can’t all be an act otherwise the emotional weight of the episode disappears and nothing makes sense), but the John persona he puts on is something he purposely play with for a specific goal.
I think that the scene suggests that he is emotionally mature enough that he play with the anger he feels. That he can use John as a performance on purpose. Maybe it’s not a coincidence he doesn’t seem to have particular reactions to Sam’s accusations that he’s acting like John – because he’s not in a position where he’s terrified of being like John, of his emotions escaping him, of being unable to control himself. It seems to me that he’s in control of his anger towards Sam and Jack, it’s not like Lisa and Ben when he felt his emotional reactions were escaping his control and was terrified. When Sam accuses him of acting like John, Dean simply reiterates his refusal to act as mother to Jack, which is the boundary he has been trying to set and Sam has been ignoring.
This actually makes so much sense a little ping went off in my brain and I let my dinner burn in my eagerness to discuss it. Because when Sam said, “You’re acting like Dad,” Dean’s said, “That’s a bad thing?” without any emotion what so ever. He actually shrugged.
Dean Winchester, the dude who almost started crying when he realised he was acting like John with Ben:
It scared him to think of himself as John when it came to Ben because he chose Ben–he chose that emotional labor of being someone’s father. But when Sam says he’s acting like John when it comes to Jack, he shrugs? Why? Because he knows exactly what he’s doing. And it’s not about cruelty or anger. After he nonchalantly asks if that’s a bad thing to be John right now, he follows it up with “I’m not going to hold his hand or tuck him in at night. I’m not going to be his mother.”
Because he’s not going to be, to Jack, what he was to Sam (i.e.: holding his hand and tucking him in at night, doing all the emotional labor that John wasn’t willing to do when raising a child) and instead he is going to be, to Jack, what John was to Sam; the rough, hardened, drill sergeant who left it up to Dean to worry about Sam’s feelings. He is leaving the emotional labor up to Sam. This is a conscious choice Dean is making. It is not irrational or fueled by rage. It is quite simply Dean drawing a line in the sand, creating an emotional boundary between Jack and himself. A boundary which he has every right to make. I am actually so proud of Dean for doing this for himself. For saying no and making something about his own needs for once. This is good.
Exactly! Sorry for your dinner. There’s also the fact that Dean… isn’t really acting like John acted towards him. He’s acting more like John apparently acted towards Sam. From what Sam has said about John over the course of the show, John was a drill sergeant type that barked orders and didn’t listen and had zero patience and sure became scary when he drank, but wasn’t nearly as bad as, say, Max Miller’s father, right? Dean’s experience of John… doesn’t seem to be exactly the same. Dean was terrified about acting like John not because he barked orders at Lisa and Ben, but because… well, slippery slope, right? Being snappy in case of danger is not bad, especially if you’re the competent one and you’re dealing with fairly unexperienced civilians. It’s the idea that the attitude could be a symptom for something deeper, for a stronger resemblance. Sam accusing him of acting like John possibly falls a little flat because, duh. If only John had had Dean stay sit in the car or get food from the kiosk. The John Sam experienced was a drill sergeant, the John Dean experienced was something darker and scarier.
*slides into the end of this post to add the reminder that, as the original post said, it wasn’t just about maintaining the emotional continuity of the episode, or making it lose all sense, their “act” HAD to contain an element of real feelings, because they went in to Mia’s office believing that she was a PSYCHIC. They believed that, if she were a true psychic, she would KNOW if they were being dishonest with her, which is why Dean wasn’t thrilled with Sam’s plan. Luckily for them, Mia was just good at her job– and a shapeshifter and not a psychic…*
But also, Dean’s entire cooperation in bringing Jack along with them on this hunt boiled down to Sam’s puppydog eyes and his plea to do it “for me.” Dean capitulated, but then at every turn Sam was pulling faces at Dean’s reticence to deal with Jack at all… because Dean was upfront about not wanting to, and he’d made his feelings about being forced to not only share space in his home but now emotional labor in dealing with Jack abundantly clear.
In some ways, Dean’s attitude with Sam about his reluctance to “get over” what happened to Mary strikes me as a retaliation against Sam’s repeatedly pushing Dean to “just get over” losing Cas, and the fact that Dean has flat-out yelled it in Sam’s face why he isn’t going to help him with Jack. And yet, Sam keeps pushing him. Even at the end of the episode Sam assumed that Dean was just ready to be okay with everything. I hope that brings the reality of Dean’s grief home to Sam, because he just hasn’t seemed to get it yet. Maybe this is what prompts Sam to suggest their hunt in the promo for 13.05… just the two of them hunting together like old times… (and what looks like some eerie callbacks to 1.10, which I am eagerly awaiting)
Reblogging this because I feel like it might help people understand Dean a bit better right now.
God thoughts in these posts.
And I was left wondering, if the “therapy session” was mostly an act (which I find pretty convincing) why is it that Dean should feel compelled to sincerely apologize to Sam for “being a dick” but not Sam to Dean for being a pushy jerk?
And the answer is, of course, because Dean is just that kind of considerate, compassionate person (being a “dick” notwithstanding). And Sam just isn’t.
Because Sam doesn’t see his behavior as wrong, he sees Dean’s attitude as unreasonable. Sam apologizes when his actions have consequences he didn’t expect/want (and the apology is about how he feels about it, because in his eyes making that mistake means he’s a terrible person and it becomes all about Sam’s feelings). When something he does turns out to be a mistake, he’s heartbroken about it and apologizes for the mistake; but he doesn’t apologize for being a dick, because what we see as being a dick Sam sees as being rational and reasonable. Dean will apologize for acting like a dick even if he was right. Dean is the one who carries the responsibility for the emotional integrity of the family, a role that was dropped onto him as he became the ‘housewife’ of the Winchester household after Mary’s death. If a member of the family does something wrong, Dean will apologize for not having acted better to prevent the other from making the wrong thing. I am not an expert, but I’m pretty sure it’s a thing commonly found in victims of abuse, especially parental abuse – they blame themselves, they shoulder the fault. With all the talk about Sam’s experience with demon blood lately, I feel authorized in digging this thing back – at some point, the blame ambiguously hovered over Dean for leaving Sam alone because of his damnation to hell. Heck, it started before Dean went to hell, before Sam started drinking Ruby’s blood – Ruby just had to suggest it, and the big thing stopped being Dean going to hell, the big thing became that Dean was leaving Sam alone. But it’s not just that. Dean has always been apologizing for doing something wrong when he was raising Sam, but the fact that he was a struggling kid himself doesn’t touch the radar. Only Dean seems to have realized that – his speech at Mary in Mary’s head is about that – but it doesn’t seem to have reached Sam’s radar yet.
(Doesn’t seem to have reached some fans’ radar either, because for some it’s all about poor Sam who didn’t get enough vegetables growing up.)
The scene in 13×04 is about Dean apologizing for being mean to Sam, and Sam saying something that requires Dean to provide him emotional support. Eh, in-character for both. Sorry if this came off as very critical of Sam but sometimes you just gotta be.
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