Mr. Flutie and I had a long discussion about this scene when we watched TBAI the other night. I told him that there’d originally been dialogue here (quoted the script from memory, actually, because that’s how deep down the rabbit hole I’ve gone) but that it had been cut in the editing room, a choice that had left much of the fandom pretty angry. And oh my, was he was horrified. Like, we’re talking spittle-flying, arm-flailing outrage, all over the mere idea that Dean would’ve said anything in this scene. Mr. Flutie said, and I paraphrase, ‘dialogue in this scene would’ve fucked up not just the scene, not just the episode, but the entire season.’

I’ve come to appreciate the scene as is, though it took me some time. So I asked him to explain why.

Season 7 is about Dean’s grief, he said, and the rub about grief (and particularly the way men in our society experience grief) is that it can’t be communicated. You can talk about the symptoms and you can talk about the causes but you can never talk about the feeling, because some feelings defy explanation; some feelings must be felt to be adequately understood.

What’s more, men are particularly encouraged to experience their grief silently. They know they can talk about it, because this is 2013 after all, but that doesn’t mean they will, or even that they know how. And often that silence that will consume them from the inside out, prolonging their grief and making it even worse.

Combine that with the fact that Dean, like many men in our society, is not a verbal communicator. When he does express his emotions, he rarely does so vocally. Instead, he does it through action. Remember, for example, Dean expressing his grief and guilt over his father’s death by smashing the half-fixed Impala, or how he expresses paternal feelings by teaching Ben how to fix his mom’s car. Non-verbal, perhaps, but still expressions of emotion. Even when he DOES express his emotions verbally, Dean still tends to frame them in the context of actions — the best example I can think of is when Dean finds Cas again in Purgatory, he communicates his unwavering faith in his friend and their bond by saying, “We ganked those [Leviathan] sons of bitches once, we can do it again.”

But the thing that makes Dean and Cas’s bond profound, said Mr. Flutie, is that their silence DOES communicate, far better than their words ever do. They are men of action, not words; after all, once you save someone’s soul from eternal damnation, what words could you possibly say that would carry anything close to the same amount of meaning? We’ve seen this from the very beginning. Consider the finale to season 4; Cas tells Dean that he is forsaking Heaven not through words, but by staring him down and giving him the demon-smiting knife; in response, Dean doesn’t say anything but silently nods, indicating that he understands the meaning and gravity of the action. Likewise, their “profound bond” broke in Season 6 not because Dean and Cas didn’t talk to each other — watch the season again, they actually do plenty of talking to each other, attempting to explain why they do what they do — but because they didn’t trust each other. Again — not words, but action (or the lack of thereof). They understand each other innately. Words often aren’t necessary, and sometimes even get in the way.

So mending that bond, assauging the grief over its loss, it can’t be done with words. It must be done in actions. That’s just how Dean and Cas communicate. And just as Cas once wordlessly gave Dean a demon-smiting knife to symbolize the cementing of their bond — one man granting the other his ultimate innate power — Dean had to wordlessly give Cas a blood-stained coat, to symbolize that bond’s reaffirmation. (Because to Dean, coats aren’t just coats; they’re identities). Cas gives Dean power, Dean gives Cas identity, and the equal gifts symbolize the heft and, well, profundity of their profound bond.

Sorry, this got a little long, when all I wanted to say was that maybe Jensen, Misha and Bob Singer were onto something when they decided to amend — and later cut — Sera Gamble’s original dialogue.

i think i have a crush on mr flutie