13x23 “Let the Good Times Roll”
“This is the end. Of everything.”This was proably the one scene that got me most about the episode, because this moment was just one of the most saddening and painful things to me, because in that moment Dean essentially stopped being Dean. And that long before he had even said the small word “yes” to Michael. Yes, to me the most saddening and heartbreaking thing here lies in the fact that Dean refers to himself as an object here. He doesn’t say “what if we worked together”, he doesn’t say “what if I became your vessel”, he says “what if you had your sword” and that makes all the difference in the world and to me drives the point home like little else how Dean is giving up being a person, giving up his individuality, his everything.
Of course this whole thread of dehumanizing Dean and treating him as an object is nothing new within the show, but has been an integral part of it since the very first season and looks back on a long tradition: from him being called “a good little soldier” (though that at least still saw him as a person), to being as “mindless and obedient as an attack dog”, to Amara using Dean as “a puppet” and most of all the show and some characters referring to Dean as “daddy’s blunt little instrument” or “a vessel”.
To me Dean referring to himself not even as “a vessel” (which is already an objectification) here (And can you remember with what disdain in his voice he used to ask Zachariah “a vessel?” when he told Dean about his status as Michael’s sword, because I can and it hurts!), but a tool and a weapon is truly one of the most tragic things ever, because even though the show and other characters have tried to make Dean an “it” and “object” to move around the board he always remained himself at his core, remained what makes him such an important and beautiful character: human. A person. With flaws and strengths, not an object.
So seeing Dean at the end of his rope giving in and “becoming” what so many always treated him as only truly is the toughest thing for me personally, because it just shows and emphasizes so clearly Dean’s disappearance (even though he thought he had made a deal - come on, Dean, you didn’t truly trust Michael, did you?) as a person and I can just hope that for that very reason that Dean is treating himself as an object here, he will also be the one to overpower Michael in the end all by himself by his sheer willpower and wish/strength of wanting to fight for himself. Because that, Dean saving himself and recognizing his own worth as a person would be one of the most important things for his character development and also vital in a long journey of healing (especially considering the trauma he will carry from this experience of being locked inside his own body and unable to interfere and take back control - yet).