I find it kind of baffling that ppl are reading Dean validating cas in his choice to let lucifer possess him as contrary to the rest of the season in which Dean was so worried sick. Dean was listening to cas beat himself up over it and he wasn’t about to pile on? He’s aware enough of their situation to know how important he is to cas? How would that have made cas feel better if Dean was like “yeah it fucked me up when you were gone, your sacrifice was a big mistake and a waste of time” ?? He’s taking care of cas emotionally because he understands what he needs
I love that Dean passed on his most important mission to his best friend - take care of Sammy. And look at Cas doing his best, staying with Sam and even offering him a shoulder.
It’s like a mom who knows she’s going to leave her child orphaned so she passes the parenting role to her husband
Let’s also appreciate the fact that this kind of thing does not come naturally to Castiel. He was making a huge effort here.
I think the way Dean has expressed his love for cas so far speaks so much to his dysfunction on these matters, and it's so sad:-( Dean loves so deeply. But imagine having so many horrible things happen to you that you don't know how to maintain connections or even name your feelings properly, much less express them. Plus, imagine growing up like Dean did with a father like John, and during the 80s. The AIDS epidemic. The homophobia. Dean must've been clueless and terrified. And still is.
Yeah, he’s been performing The Dean Show for a really long time, but they’ve also been knocking holes in that mask for the last few seasons. He wore shorts! He likes cake too! He unapologetically loves chick flicks! He ~grumble grumble~triplets ~flickr albums~ with Crowley! Taylor Swift! What’s it like settling down with another hunter? Overcoming mind control to yell out for Cas! (no really that was the most over the top tropey-ridiculous nonsense i have ever witness with my own two eyes)
He’s not about the love… and love, YET HE FILLED HIS HEART WITH THE POWER OF 100,000 SOULS AND SAVED THE UNIVERSE WITH A SPEECH ABOUT LOVE.
One little question…Castiel and Dean do share a profound bond, doesn’t that mean he’s low-key able to tell if Dean is dead?
Maybe that’s why he is so confused when he sees that the sun is fine now. So he asks “And Dean?” Because he finds it weird that he still feel that tingling sensation in his heart. That distinctly “Dean” feeling. He had been waiting for the tingling feeling to go away, for the cord to break once the bomb went off. So it really confuses him when the sun comes alive once more but the sensation is still there. In the end he tells himself not to get his hopes up, that maybe that tingling sensation is just the remnants of what was there, a ghostly feeling that will soon go away once the universe understands that Dean Winchester has left the earth.
No I’m not on the bus holding my tears back, you are
You know, Sam and Dean's lives are fucked up for sure, but I'm dying to know what the Man of Letters thought about Cas. They have Godstiel's portrait for god's sake and next to that is Steve :p Like how do you even explain that shit? "Alright, this is a powerful angel impersonating God, who later impersonates.. a sales associate." "Maybe the vessel is back..?" "Then why the false name?" "Fresh start?" "So do we call him Steve or Jimmy?"
I hope they also found evidence of Emmanuel’s existence. Or maybe just interviewed Daphne.
“So you’re saying your husband left you for the guy in the big black car?”
Toni draws a thick line between Dean and Cassiel on her mood board.
(It’s interesting she blamed Sam for the Leviathan - or, the Winchesters in general. More of this theme of grouping them all together - their past failures are a team effort, at least in the eyes of the MoL who don’t know the nuances of how Godstiel happened, just that Cassiel is a known associate of theirs (and then a sales associate :P) and so terrible shit related to them is all their responsibilities…)
(I hope they interviewed Nora about Steve’s existence
“So you’re saying the guy in the big black car showed up, distracted him at work all day, hung out with him when he should have been babysitting, and then Steve quit the next day?”
Toni makes a second underline underneath the line connecting Dean and Cassiel)
The top gif is full of duty. Dean’s face is set strong, he’s not going to fall apart because he knows Sam couldn’t handle it. He’s being the parent, putting on a show. His arm stretches across Sam’s shoulders protectively and he kind of vice grips him.
But, in the second gif, Dean’s face is soft and full of regret.
He’s easier with Cas. More open and vulnerable in this shot.
There are things unsaid there, a million thoughts and nothing he can do about it, because he’s all out of time. He doesn’t vice grip Cas. His hand is dead center on his back, pushing their chests together. It’s a warm, intimate hand placement, and he just kind of holds him.
Really, his face has love in both gifs, but I think it’s two different examples of love. Familial versus romantic.
This idea is followed through later when Dean asks Cas to look out for Sam when he’s gone. Dean views himself as Sam’s parent, and asking Cas to fill in for him in his absence is like asking a significant other to step up. It’s very, very much a “look out for our son” kind of moment (without Sam actually being their son).
Of course, this is just my musings on it. If anyone has anything they’d like to add, I’m all ears!
All of this. The ‘look out for Sammy’ bit was like a married couple discussing their kid’s future after the other one is gone…
(And, since we haven’t cried enough about this - when hugging Sam, Dean is mostly sad for Sam - because he knows Sam will be alone now, and Dean hates to see his baby brother upset and in pain - but when hugging Cas, he’s also sad for himself - for all those feelings we know he wants to experience differently, maybe even for the first time and that will now come to nothing - Dean is sad for Cas, but is also sad for himself, because he’ll never know what sharing a life with Cas would have been like.)
I didnt think Destiel would go textually canon either but I did think the show portrayed their relationship as intentionally amiguous and intentionally didnt want to label it in a certain way (not canon romance but also not canon bros-only) to maintain various interpretations. after this season with the whole pining stuff etc the scene felt climatic in ending the romantic subtext firmly setting for platonic with the brothers line, in a way I havent felt once since season 8
You could be absolutely right, but I don’t feel that way though. I feel like people are getting WAY too hung up on that little word “brother”. It wasn’t just put in there to platonicize. Take a look at the bigger picture. In the beginning of the season Castiel was told by an angel that he was NOT considered a brother. Cas has been disowned by his previous family, his previous brothers and sisters, to the point where in this finale, he called them “the angels”, not “my brothers and sisters”. The angels are “they” to him now, not “us”. He felt disconnected and unloved, expendable, adrift, family-less, and so he said yes to Lucifer. What Dean did in the Impala scene was to explicitly adopt Cas into the Winchester family. He’s THEIR brother now, THEY’RE his family, THEY are his home. Cas’ journey from Heaven to the Winchesters has been a long one, but it’s finally complete. That scene was about Team Free Will, not Destiel.
But a few other details in the episode WERE about Destiel, if you want to see it that way. Dean and Cas stayed together the whole episode until their goodbye hug, like they never wanted to be apart again after Lucifer. Dean was just going for a beer run and he said, “Come on, Cas” why? Because he thought it was their last day on Earth and he wanted to drive around with Cas for a bit. Not to go pick up chicks and get laid, just to talk to Cas alone. And there’s “I could go with you.” Cas offered to follow Dean to a certain death, just so Dean wouldn’t have to face it alone. Sam didn’t offer to do that. Dean, knowing that both Sam and Cas would have it rough after he was gone, gave Cas a new mission: to look after Sam. He knew that Cas would need that to hold on to. And when Sam and Cas got back to the bunker, Cas was already in full swing trying to fulfill that mission.
Dabb is the new showrunner, and he’s always been one of the most Destiel-friendly writers on the show. I’m excited to see where he’s going to take season 12.
