I did restart Supernatual like I originally joked about. I, like many others, wasn’t too happy with the ending. Like that’s it? 15 years and this is the ending? Yes yes. COVID-19 ruined everything but I, for one wouldn’t mind if it took them even longer and give the boys a better ending. Sam and Dean spending eternity relaxing with their family. But what about Cas? What about Dean and Cas?
I knew from when I started watching SPN in season 5 that they would never have a happy ending. Spending three weeks before season 5 started binging the series that Dean wouldn’t have a happy ending. Dean and I are a lot alike. Yea I’m sure a lot of people say that but there’s just a lot of cool people then! But in all seriousness: we’re both the oldest who has had to take care of their younger sibling (multiple in my case), daddy issues, mental abuse, expectations that were expected of us as we were kids, abandonment issues, family issues, excessive drinking, we have a cover to make sure no one sees how much pain we are in, emotionally stunted, and had our best friend confess his love to us while we stood there slacked jaw right before he died.
Okay wait. My friend didn’t die but do you see what I’m saying? I was mad. I was so very mad at how they did that because of how close to home it hit and that they didn’t a better ending then I did. But I understood the ending! With people like Dean and I, we’re smart yes, but sometimes it takes a minute to process emotionally what we’re feeling. Sometimes we blurt out the first word that crosses our mind (ie no) or we stand there and say nothing. And that what Dean did.
Let me tell you this though from someone who knows….
The regret hits hard after.
And I get it. From looking at Dean’s character growth from Season 1, I can see how he would be speechless from a simple confession from his friend and then spout this essay of a confession to his brother. He was sad. He was scared. He was dying. He was regretful. He didn’t get to say what he wanted to his friend of 11 years and he was scared he wouldn’t get to say it to his brother.
So I get it. I don’t like the ending but I get it. I wish they didn’t silence Dean. I wish that Cas got his happy ending. I’m glad Dean opened up a bit to Sam and said some words that needed to be said ages ago. But I wish he got to say it to Cas.
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AND THEN HE TOLD HIM THAT EVER SINCE HE TOOK THAT BURDEN THAT CURSE HE WONDERED WHAT IT COULD BE, WHAT HIS TRUE HAPPINESS COULD EVEN LOOK LIKE. HE NEVER FOUND AN ANSWER!!!!! BECAUSE THE ONE THING HE WANTS… IT’S SOMETHING HE KNOWS HE CAN’T HAVE!!!!!! BUT HE THINKS HE KNOWS… HE THINKS HE KNOWS NOW. HAPPINESS ISN’T IN THE HAVING IT’S IN JUST BEING IT’S IN JUST SAYING IT!!!!! DO YOU UNDERSTAND NOW??????
As far as I’m concerned, I’m now imagining the Empty having to deal with Gabriel and Balthazar redecorating the Empty into the angel/demon afterlife (probably with a lot of wacky alternate realities and bad porno) with all the free will angels and redemptive demons invited, Cas finding Meg and eventually Jack again for his true happy ending that he can have and Crowley probably trying to install himself as king again. Then when Rowena finally exits as Queen of Hell, she’ll join and Crowley will annoyed, but Gabriel will be happy to see her again. LOL.
Megstielers also got robbed hard with all that setup of Cas still pining for Meg for YEARS, the Empty using her image (not Dean!) to taunt him (the Empty clearly saw Meg in Cas’ head when it could have taken the form of anyone, including Cas like last time) and a whole dropped plot thread that Cas made a deal with Ruby to break a demon out of the Empty, which only makes sense with the one and only demon he’d actually want to let out of the Empty. That’s dangling one ‘ship a whole bunch of carrots (like every single Clarence reference for a decade) to rip the rug out from under them.
I suppose I should’ve seen it coming when the previously on segment for 15x13 was a Pizza Man and the Babysitter retrospective that shoved Cas out of the Pizza Man role beside Babysitter Nurse Meg to shove Dean into Megstiel’s sexy times meme. I guess it turned Cas into just Dean’s Baby in a Trench Coat (which was an insult about being useless to Dean’s cause without powers, which suggests Cas has no worth to him otherwise), since he got infantilized with the removal of the Pizza Man originally being him.
I still haven’t watched the episode. The Tumblr crap is that off-putting.
What should’ve been an epic moment in Cas’ story is now tainted by his love of humanity, found family and free will (his real love story is with all of humanity and finding belonging, in spite of always being on the outside looking in on a life he can’t have because he’s not human) being reduced to horny girls who just want fetish smut with Dean and don’t give a fig about canon Cas outside of a toxic, abusive crack!ship. It’s always so immature and vapid!
It was immediately clear when I joined the fandom that shockingly few gave a crap about any character but Dean, even refusing to see what he’s become in later seasons. Also numerous examples where they admit having not seen the show in a decade or only knowing the show via manipulative .gif sets. Cas and Sam (if they remember him at all) are just props or prizes to be won. They ignore context of familial/platonic relationships. Canon love interests aren’t good enough because they’re not the big prize of being a main. I also note the deluge of Wincest girls who hate Cas for existing (he’s in their way) in the anti-Destiel tag.
I can’t say the .gifs are making me want to watch, even though the dialog is vague enough to still fit Cas’ actual character for the general audience who isn’t glued to social media.
As for Dean’s non-reaction, I had similar problems with Jensen’s constipated acting back in 15x03 when Cas finally walked away while Dean looked like he couldn’t care less, which the writers coincidentally praised Jensen for (holy crap that interview was up his backside) and completely ignored Misha actually giving a good performance in a scene that actually meant something long coming for Cas. I certainly can’t say the same about the quality of this scene, which just looks forced on both ends.
I hope I like the episode more than the sounds of it, but my hopes aren’t high. This is not how I wanted Cas’ final moments on the show to be.
After:
Well, I got up the stomach to watch it tonight. Thankfully, in context, it definitely got blown way out of proportion by what the Hellers turned it into (as usual). Yeah, even when watching while unfortunately not blind to the wackadoodle fandom discourse, it played out better on screen than the .gifs. And frankly, a whole lot less like creepy Care Bear stare nightmare fuel than the few choice screenshots kept showing (yikes). I still wish Sam and Jack had been there, because they’re just as much part of what connected Cas to feeling like part of a family (even more so in the later years), but it’s not the total monstrosity it was turned into online.
Average viewers who just take canon as is without trying to read into it what they want to be there instead, IMO, will safely interpret it platonically (even if coming after a particularly hellish few years in Dean’s personality rot where the whole friendship was beginning to be questionable) more often than not because that’s what the canon has said for a dozen years. Again, I repeat that Cas already told the Winchesters he loved them when he thought he was dying.
It’s a crime to have Cas’ perfect philia (brotherly), storge (parental) and agape-style (sacrificial and unconditional) loves being immaturely twisted into eros in a way that degrades the whole meaning of the character’s journey. People telling each other they love one another when it’s not sexual should never be mocked into being afraid to do so because of this insidious, willful misinterpretation. If only somebody had told Cas they love him instead of him always being the one with his heart on his sleeve!
This character went from being tortured into a robotic, emotionless, ancient, not-remotely-humanoid being who couldn’t relate to the simplest of human needs to being someone deeply in love with humanity and wanting to find belonging amongst it despite knowing it would always end with him watching them all grow old and die after having families and such experiences angels are forbidden from having (another reason why Jack was so important to Cas’ story).
The wording is valid for that philia/agape interpretation, given Cas definitely equated Dean (whom Cas watched sacrificing himself for Sam endlessly, including why he had to be raised from perdition in the first place) with a guide role in his learning to understand humanity and proudly-defiant free will before he could love it. It’s valid enough to say that Cas wouldn’t have broken his programming permanently without being challenged to question everything he’d ever believed and give up his entire angelic belonging. That much of it did begin with Cas just happening to be the angel who succeeded in the Hell rescue.
Obviously, it’s also canon that Cas had a long history of not following orders and getting lobotomized by Naomi, but Cas actually understanding humanity and what free will means did happen only after this particular rebellion. I’m very glad at least that was in the speech, but of course, it’s being hopelessly ignored.
I stand by my interpretation that what Cas can’t have has always been the tragic version of The Little Mermaid where she turns into sea foam in the end. Cas has always looked in on what everyone else takes for granted from the outsider’s perspective. There’s a part of him that will always be left out, no matter how well he learns to fit in and how much those around him begin to treat him as a real person. Cas never really got to truly belong with humanity, no matter how much he loves and is loved by it. He’s also not getting to stay where he wants to be. There’s no Pinocchio ending for Cas that turns him into a real Winchester.
Sadly, Dean’s constant othering of him and Jack like they’re just more monsters to hunt only alienated them more. Jack was someone Cas could relate to as a supernatural being capable of human emotions, which might also have furthered his draw towards Meg. Sam was also someone Cas could relate to as freaks and abominations amongst their own kinds. Sam always had that same struggle, also with his own family. It goes a long way towards explaining why Sam was always so empathetic to Cas and Jack in a way that Dean couldn’t be. All three kept conflicting with that black & white humans = good/other = bad mindset that sometimes creeps in with Dean. When Cas was Dean’s “best friend” in the early days, he rationalized it by thinking of Cas as being “like” a human (“You used to be human, or at least like one.”).
Yet it still remains true that Cas often found himself looking to Dean to teach him about humanity back when he didn’t know enough about it to be inconspicuous amongst them. Dean gave him the crash course in both what humanity is willing to do for each other, but also its flaws and failings at the same time.
Perhaps the saddest scenes in the episode were actually Sam watching everyone poof in front of him. Sam has really been forced to watch a lot of death scenes this season all by himself (as with Rowena), but he looked the most broken by Eileen’s. Cas is going to be hard on him, because I genuinely think Sam was far closer to him in the end. Sam was the one who actually was trying to reach out to Cas when Dean repeatedly kept him out of the loop. Sam being left out from the final words with Cas or even hearing first-hand about the deal with the Empty just furthers that tragedy. While Dean has been raging at everything in sight, Sam and Cas have both looked broken, sad and tired all season.
Come to think of it, the show’s two biggest “Oh Dean, you’re so good” speeches were Sam’s in Trial and Error and now Cas’s in Despair. From a storytelling perspective, both those speeches about what a good person Dean is were just a tool to prop up the speaker and make them look more noble, self-sacrificial or whatever.
Sam made his speech so that he could take the Trials storyline from Dean and become the hero, pushing Dean to the sidelines.
Cas made his speech so that his sacrifice would even make sense at this point (because he’s repeatedly shown he’s perfectly willing to throw Dean under the bus for Jack), and so that his death would be more tragic and impactful.
So I’m not celebrating that the show said something nice about Dean for once, because as usual, it wasn’t really about Dean at all.
This kind of Destiel – Cas hopelessly in love with Dean who doesn’t feel the same way about him – is my favorite kind of Destiel, and the only one that works in canon.
Or it would have worked if Cas had shown any interest in Dean in the past few years, instead of being All About Jack ever since Jack showed up, and only going, “Oh, I just remembered I love Dean!” right before he dies. Because that was just dumb.
What’s also dumb is the show suddenly going, “Oh, I just remembered Dean’s a good guy motivated by love above all!” after dedicating years to portraying Dean as an abusive angry guy who shouts, pulls his gun on everyone and is morally inferior to every other character on the show.
So this sudden turn of perspective just so that Cas could give his big “Dean, you are so good and I love you and it’s all very sad” speech, and so that his “tragic” death would pack a bigger emotional punch, came out really unconvincing. (And I’m sure we’ll be back to mean, evil Dean next week.)
Well, at least Sam and Dean being the only ones left alive means the show might finally start focusing on them again.
Except there’s also Jack, so… Not keeping my hopes up.
(And I can’t believe I’m saying this, because I’ve only seen Cas as an annoyance for years, but it feels wrong that he won’t make it till the end of the show and Jack, an even bigger annoyance, will.)
