spn 9x01 - I think I'm gonna like it here
Oct. 12th, 2013 09:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
butterflySeason 8 was perspective and perception. Season 9 is going to be about introspection – ‘who am I?’. The premiere episode was already heavily steeped in the theme, with much of it taking place inside Sam’s head. Sam’s head wasn’t a place we spent a lot of time in S8 after he said good-bye to Amelia. Instead of focusing on himself, Sam focused on his brother – he took over the place Dean planned for the trials, he avoided developing connections with other people while supporting Dean’s connections with others, and he tried to be the best little brother in the world.
As he focuses more on his brother, Sam falls back into co-dependency even as Dean continues to grow and is able to retain the majority of his connections, letting go only of the one Sam objected to (Benny). Season 8 starts with Sam appearing relatively well-adjusted while Dean appears shaken and half-wild because of what happened in Purgatory – it ends with Dean being both strong and sympathetic for the people he loves while Sam is broken. As we near the end of S8, it seems that Dean has learned how to balance his parental relationship with Sam against his other relationships. But then he realizes that Sam is broken and, seeing that, Dean cracks, too. Even more so because he didn’t see it happening, didn’t realize what his tiny comments and his trust appearing to extend more to others than to Sam did to Sam’s belief in their relationship.
Because as much as Dean did grow over the course of S8, Sam is still his weakest point.
Cas was absent for much of S8, yet prominent even in his absences, like John Winchester in S1 was. The space where Cas is not is something that looms very large for Dean throughout S8. S8 also spent a lot of time building up Cas in preparation for him becoming a regular in S9 – about three-quarters through last season, I called Cas “the third lead who happens to be gone a lot”, because his place in the storyline was treated with much more consistency than in previous seasons. We also have development of Sam in relation, specifically, to 'Dean and Cas’. Sam is the person who shows the reaction to Dean’s actions and behaviors re: Cas in S8. Sam’s own relationship to Cas is one of trust tinged with jealousy – this is hinted at in 8x08, when he behaves childishly in reaction to Cas wanting to be a hunter, and then comes full-flower in the church scene where he reveals that it stings that it feels like Dean trusted Benny and Cas more than he trusts Sam.
So, the end of S8 left Sam and Dean in a precarious position – Dean had to rush to reassure Sam that he was and always would be the most important person in Dean’s life, realizing nearly too late that Sam’s insecurities and fears, coupled with Dean not applying the lessons he’d learned in other relationships to his relationship with Sam, had led to Sam deciding his own life was tainted. That Sam hoped to burn away his sins in a cleansing death, leaving his brother to nest in the bunker and adopt little sisters and spend time with Cas.
It was a big reveal, meant to take us by surprise alongside Dean, and so it was in the S9 premiere that Sam Winchester’s mind is finally laid out to us. The twists in the S8 finale are what we take with us into S9.
Sam Winchester believes his best salvation is to be found in death, only pulled back from the edge by his brother.
Dean is devastated to realize that he’s made his little brother doubt himself and doubt Dean’s love for him, taking Dean back into protective!parent mode.
And Cas, of course, is made human, stripped of his grace and an unwilling betrayer of his people.
These are the stones we start with in the premiere.
In S8, Carver made rather an art of bringing forward situations that had gone badly in the past and having the characters do a better job of handling them the second time around – the most obvious example is Dean dealing with a potentially untrustworthy Castiel. In S6, both Dean and Cas made choices that came very close to destroying everything they’d ever built together as friends. In S8, Dean is forthright with his doubts and his trust, unwilling to repeat the mistakes of the past. Dean and Cas are able to weather the storm of Cas making a choice that ends up having devastating consequences, with Dean no longer belittling Castiel’s loyalties to Heaven and able to respect Cas’s choices even when he doesn’t agree with them.
Now, it’s Sam and Dean’s turn. I fretted a bit, over the break, because the set-up in the church could either take the brothers right back to co-dependency and keep them there or… or it could be the beginning of something new. 9x01 confirms, for me, that Carver plans the latter. There’s a gifset going around comparing Dean talking to the crossroads demon in the S2 finale with Dean talking to Ezekiel in 9x01. The set-up, the pause, Dean saying, “wait” and then giving away whatever the other party wants, heedless of the consequences, as long as it gets him back his brother. As long as it means he hasn’t failed at this, at the most important job in the world.
We’re back to the original sin of the Supernatural world. Dean trading his soul to save Sam is the small stone that caused everything that followed. Because killing John didn’t do the trick – Dean wasn’t willing to trade himself for that. But for his little brother, for the child he raised – well, it’s a fire sale and everything must go. And go he does, down to Hell, until he breaks, while above ground Sam is slowly being poisoned by Ruby’s words, influence, and blood.
The reason that Carver brings up old wounds is because he plans to heal them – at least, that’s been the pattern so far. He’s breaking open this wound – this, the greatest symbol of how Dean raising Sam defines and destroys them both – because he wants to do something new with it.
We already see hints of it in Dean’s characterization in 9x01. Because, yes, he fights like hell to save and protect Sam… but he also does the same for Cas. He’s not willing to throw everything away to save Sam. But he is willing to throw himself away and – and this is the new part – he’s willing to compromise Sam to save Sam. Sacrificing yourself for someone else may be unhealthy but it’s still a choice with more honor and respect than sacrificing parts of another person to save them. Dean is making choices he has no right to make.
Much as some of the rumors and spoilers about Cas’s separate journey make me nervous, he actually does need to spend this early time as a human away from Dean. Dean was able to do a lot of work on himself last season – he grew into himself by leaps and bounds – but Cas was constrained by Naomi’s influence. He needs to do some work on his self-growth.
We also see in this episode that he’s given a chance to regain part of his former self and rejects it, and his encounter with a chance-met angel is hopeful at the start but ultimately disappointing and painful, while his encounter with a chance-met human is painful at the start but ultimately rewarding. This is likely going to be something that echoes in his overall arc for the season (or perhaps the half-season, if we get a major change there, as we often do).
But back to Sam and Dean – in contrast to Cas, they need to be together to work out their issues. There are times in the show when it really could have used some genuine separation between Sam and Dean in order to give them some breathing room and let them heal, but Carver was able to do some of that nestled in the S7-S8 break and while it stuck more with Dean than with Sam, it helped.
In 9x01, while Dean and Cas remain firmly rooted in reality, Sam drifts in a dream. There’s a lot of meat in there to dig into – about how he views himself, about how he views the people he knows.
Up until Ezekiel enters the dream disguised as Dean (I know some people read this as Real!Dean but I’ll explain why I don’t when I get there), everything we see is implied to come straight out of Sam’s head, so let’s start with the sets: the Impala, the woods, the cabin.
There’s something noticeably missing from that list – Sam does not dream himself into the bunker. Even if we hadn’t already seen the hints of it from S8, this would tell us that Sam doesn’t view it as a home the way that Dean does. It’s a place to him. Home is the Impala and the cabin that was once Rufus’s, then Bobby’s, and finally his and Dean’s. A hunter’s cabin.
We’re given one direct contrast between Sam’s dream and the real world – the two car conversations, neatly bookending the episode.
Both scenes open the same way, Dean in the driver’s seat.
The first version starts out informative, with Sam alert and engaged. In the second one, he’s sluggish and obviously tired. Fake!Dean is forthright and honest, telling Sam straight-up that he’s dying, while Real!Dean lies his little butt off. However, Real!Dean can’t help making a flip comment with the bitterness directed at himself – he’s compared possession (angelic or demonic) to unwanted sexual contact multiple times in the past and he continues here, telling Sam he didn’t let anyone get 'too handsy’ with him while he was unconscious.
Over the course of all their scenes, Fake!Dean is never less than scrupulously honest with Sam – Real!Dean doesn’t consider having Ezekiel ask for Sam’s permission. He’s too afraid Sam won’t grant it, is near-certain that Sam wouldn’t. Of course, if Sam would have said 'no’, then Dean saying 'yes’ for him is an even greater betrayal, and Dean knows it.
In the real world, Dean hears from the doctor that there’s no hope for Sam, not if he 'continues along this same trajectory’. Without change, death is certain. The doctor mentions God, which naturally gets a bitter reaction from Dean but then, but then he sees the Chapel and goes in and prays to Cas. He reveals later that he’s been praying 'all night’, more than just than once, but this is the one we get to see. In it, Dean lays down his troubles, makes sure to clear the air and try to let Cas know he isn’t angry or blaming him for anything, and asks for his presence – a shoulder to lean on. Because while Cas and Dean have also been down the road of betrayal, they have come out of it with something stronger, something Dean refuses to let die again. “You’re hoping Castiel will return to you,” Naomi said in 8x19. And Cas did return to him. Then Castiel left again and, this time, Dean said goodbye and let him go, and yet, here Dean is again, still hoping. “I need you here,” Dean says, pulling another thread of S8 into S9. Still, he hopes and, still, he needs.
Prayers unanswered, Dean makes a choice – he reaches out to powerful players, asking any angels who hear him to come visiting. Once again, Dean is going out to the crossroads and burying his box, waiting for someone to come along and make a bargain to save his brother’s life.
There are four angels we know for sure heard Dean’s call – Suit!Angel, Ekekiel, Tractor!Angel, and an unvesseled angel that’s going to land inside the grief counselor, Kim. What’s interesting is that Suit!Angel appears to have decided not to disrupt his vessel’s life until he does hear that call (this may also be true of Tractor!Angel but we can’t be certain). I wonder what the angels said to the people to get them to say 'yes’. Suit!Angel is the one angel in this group to die, leaving behind a family that will never know why their father/husband ran off to a hospital and got stabbed in the parking lot.
In Sam’s dream, he names Dean as his will-to-live and Bobby as his acceptance of his upcoming death. They’re both well-suited for the roles.
The thing that Sam has to struggle the most with is the idea that he will die and yet nothing will be gained from it. When he was willing to kill himself with the trials, he was going to be a hero, out in a blaze of glory. But dying with nothing good coming out of it; that’s what Sam has the biggest problem with. It’s not so much death in and of itself, but death without a purpose.
That’s why he gives himself Bobby. He needs to find a way to convince himself with being okay with just dying. And that means he has to convince himself that the good he’s already done is enough, that he’s already balanced the scales.
The first item Bobby places on the scales is pointing out that Sam is the one who rescued Bobby’s soul from Hell and freed it to go to Heaven.
(we also have Fake!Bobby specifically calling out what Dean is going to do at the end of the episode as a terrible thing – “you mean when one of your idjits does a bass-ackwards thing to defeat Death, like selling your soul?” … “like that worked so well the last time.”)
That first piece Bobby gives Sam is enough that Sam moves from Dean’s domain – the car – and into the woods with Bobby, walking towards the cabin. Sam is closer to accepting death.
In the real world, Cas is making his first attempt to call Dean. Despite his injury on the road, Cas hasn’t yet internalized what Metatron taking his grace meant. He realizes it in bits and pieces – he can’t fly, he can get hurt, he can’t knock people out or smite. All throughout the episode, he resists the idea that he might be physically human now, with all the attendant needs.
On Dean’s side of things, we meet Kim, the grief counselor. Kim is also dark-haired and blue-eyed, incidentally. While Hael’s casting to look like Cas was obviously purposeful, Kim may just be a coincidence, but I thought I’d mention it.
The episode takes the time to establish that she’s a woman of faith (specifically, “a prayerful woman who believes in miracles”), so that it makes internal sense that she’s going to say 'yes’ when the angel asks to dwell in her. I doubt very much the angel mentioned wanting to use her to hurt anyone but once full permission is given, it takes extraordinary will to push an angel out again.
Dean goes out to see if Crowley can help but before he gets the chance to open the trunk, Suit!Angel attacks. Suit!Angel wants Castiel. Here is where Dean finds out that 'every angel ejected from their home’ is looking for Cas – this is likely why Dean never asks Cas where he is during their phone call, merely urges him to get to the place he’s most likely to be safe (the bunker). Suit!Angel lets him know that Cas is in active danger.
Ezekiel steps in to help Dean against Suit!Angel. Since there’s lots of speculation about Ezekiel, I’m going to quote his exact words – he uses an interesting cadence, too. It seems that the choices for Ezekiel were likely very deliberate on everyone’s part – whether that reason was simply to make a persona more distinct for Jared to act or whether another reason, we’ll find out later in the season.
Ezekiel: “Easy there, brother. This young man has prayed for our assistance. Are we creatures of wrath or compassion? I would argue the latter.”
Suit!Angel doesn’t recognize Ezekiel – Hael does recognize Cas, but it’s likely because of his vessel. He’s been using it for a few years, years during which he’s done some pretty huge things.
Ezekiel: “Happy to make your reacquaintance. After you disarm.” After Suit punches him in the face. “Come now, is that any way to treat a brother injured in the fall?”
Which is very interesting because, from what we’ve seen so far, no other angels were injured by the fall. Hael’s vessel is suffering grace decay but she herself is still strong. None of the angels that attack Dean in this episode seem injured either.
Ez and Suit fight, Suit’s angel sword drops, Dean stabs him. Two angels die in this episode, one killed by Dean and one by Cas, and both are killed with their own sword. Much like Dean and Cas are the two people tempted by angels this episode, though they make opposite choices, with Cas rejecting angelic possession and Dean accepting it (for Sam). It probably won’t be the last time this season that Dean and Cas’s situations are paralleled or set in contrast.
Ezekiel: “Never mind me. You’re Dean Winchester. I heard your prayer and I am here to help.”
This is the second time Ezekiel declines to share his name. Ez passes out, so Dean sticks him in a holy fire circle and waits for him to wake.
Now, I want to talk about Hael briefly, because she’s heartbreaking. There are a couple of great meta essays going around about how she visually echoes Cas (bright blue eyes, dark hair, blue, white, and yellow outfit echoing Cas’s blue, white and tan) and about the gorgeous and painful image we end on with her, with her crown of broken glass.
What I’d like to note is that, first, Cas lies to her (pretending he doesn’t know why the angels fall) even as he tells her he’s on her side and wants to help her figure out free will and being human, then he’s willing to abandon her for Dean, and, finally, he kills her even as he continues to protest that he wants to help her. It’s like a microcosm of Cas’s relationship with Heaven, all wrapped up in one hurt, lost, and vulnerable angel (and it is from her side, too – she wants Cas to pick her over Dean, wants to 'fix’ him by replacing his missing grace with her own, and is willing to do whatever it takes to bring him back to be with her, even commit violence on him and kidnap him).
Hael is one to tell Castiel that his grace is gone. Her realizing this (and she must be able to sense it, as her own grace is not gone, so it can’t be something that happened in the fall) is likely what made her start to formulate the plan to make him her vessel.
We also get a time stamp for the last time Hael was on Earth – our current best prediction for when the Grand Canyon was being carved out was at least 17 million years ago (though for a long time, scientists thought it was only about six million). Either way, Hael has been in Heaven for a very long time, much longer than all written human history. It is not unlikely that there are many angels like her on Earth now, angels that were not stationed here and have never interacted with modern humans until the moment of their fall.
Ezekiel, trapped in a ring of holy fire, finally gives out a name when Dean asks. Dean also asks how he can know Ezekiel isn’t just another angel out for Dean or Cas.
Ezekiel: “Oh, I’m sure there are many angels who are. Many more are on their way here, most likely.” … “You put out an open prayer like that…” … “Believe it or not, some of us do still believe in our mission. And that means we believe in Castiel. And you.”
Which is a fascinating train of thought, no? Castiel is famous in Heaven for so many things – the come-back kid, the angel who would be God, the rebel who disappeared. And Dean is his weakness. Uriel says it, Hester says it, Naomi makes it abundantly clear when she tries, over and over, to break Cas of his protectiveness of Dean. Naomi could program Cas to kill an innocent brother, but she couldn’t make him kill Dean.
If Ezekiel does want Cas, then holding Dean hostage is an excellent way of doing it. And there’s no better way to hold Dean hostage than to hold Sam hostage.
Dean asks about Ez being hurt.
Ezekiel: “I was. And tangling with my brother back there did me no favors.” Ezekiel makes sure to remind Dean that he came in to help Dean against Suit. “But what strength I have left, I offer to you.”
We return to Sam’s head, where he’s calmly talking things out with Fake!Bobby.
Sam: “So, what, I just die?”
Bobby: “Just die? All the good you’ve done, all the people you’ve saved, all the sacrifices you’ve made… you saved the world, son. How many people can say that? How many people can say that they’ve left this godforsaken hunk of dirt that much a better place? What you call dying, I call leaving a legacy.”
Point of interest. I’ve been going through the transcripts noting out what people call each other, just for my own personal reference. One of the things I’ve noticed? Bobby never calls Sam 'son’. Starting in S3, he calls Dean 'son’ occasionally, but Sam is 'kid’ or 'boy’. Apparently, Sam’s noticed that, too, and he fixes it here. I kinda want to give him a hug. And we know, from what Julian R. said about Death not eating in his scene with Sam being a clue that Death was another figment, that Carver was paying attention to the little things when writing the Sam’s head versions of the characters. It is based on the transcripts and not a rewatch of the episodes, though, so it’s possible he has done it but the transcriber missed it.
Anyway, this is Sam continuing to try to convince himself that 'just dying’ is okay, that he’s done enough in his life for good that it’s alright that he didn’t manage to make the big sacrifice at the end of S8.
It’s at this point that Ezekiel first checks on Sam’s health, telling Dean, “Yes, I should be [able to heal] but… he’s so weak.”
Cas is able to reach Dean – Dean, despite being willing to trust Ezekiel enough to let him see Sam and leave him alone with Sam, is not willing to trust that he won’t be willing to hurt Cas, so he takes the phone call outside the room. Dean gives Cas Ezekiel’s name, and Cas clearly has fond memories – he smiles, calls Ezekiel a 'good soldier’. The conversation is supportive, protective, and contains give-and-take. Dean takes in Cas’s words on Ezekiel, while Cas takes in Dean’s words on getting to safety without taking Hael with him. They listen to each other and try to look out for each other. Cas also, of course, worries and cares about Sam.
It may well be the most emotionally healthy relationship we’ve ever seen on Supernatural, at this point. I’m sure that means it’s going to get tested over the course of the season.
The hospital starts shaking and Ezekiel confirms it’s an angel: “Trying to secure a vessel.” Looking for someone who believes in angels and might say 'yes’ without thinking about it too much.
Ezekiel doesn’t ask why Dean ducked out of the room to talk on the phone, but it wouldn’t be surprising if he guessed it was to talk to Cas. Dean puts up angel warding to secure the room.
Now, we enter Hael’s pitch – she wants oneness with Castiel, to possess his vessel. “With us together, I think I could learn to like it here.”
Meanwhile, Ezekiel is alone in a room with Sam, left to consider his own options and plans. Perhaps picking out exactly which words he’s going to use to convince Dean to give him a stronger vessel, one that will let him heal.
In Sam’s head, Bobby calls Sam 'son’ a second time as he urges him on his way to greet death. Sam’s will-to-live makes one last attempt to convince Sam to live. With violence. This is something that Real!Dean has on occasion pulled out, but not to the extent Fake!Dean does. The part of Sam that wants to live is desperate, but the part of him that’s ready to give up and accept death is certain.
“It’s what I want,” Sam says and, with that, Dean disappears. Sam has accepted death and so, when he walks into the cabin, Death is there to welcome him.
We seen the axe go through the door and transition to a shot of Ezekiel, sitting quietly by Sam’s bedside. Notably, we don’t see him doing anything to try to heal Sam. He’s just sitting. Waiting.
Dean uses the angel banishment sigil to send away Tractor!Angel and Angelfied!Kim. Like Dean, I’m curious about where they landed since Heaven is closed to them. I kinda hope we see them again later in the season.
Dean comes back in the room, Ezekiel apologizes for being too weak to heal Sam. And that’s when we enter Ezekiel’s pitch.
Dean: “Are you saying there’s no way to save my brother’s life?”
Ezekiel: “No good ways, I’m afraid.”
Dean: “Well, what are the bad ones? What are our options here, man, good or bad? Let me hear 'em!”
Ezekiel: “I cannot promise but there is a chance I can fix your brother from the inside.”
Dean: “From the inside. So, what, you gotta open him up?” Ezekiel shakes his head. “What, possession? You want to possess Sam?”
Ezekiel: “I told you.”
Dean: “No way.”
Ezekiel: “Understood. It’s your call.”
Dean: “No, it’s Sam’s call. There’s no way in Hell he’d say 'yes’ to being possessed by anything.”
Ezekiel: “He would rather die.” Dean nods. “I’ll leave you two alone, then.”
Ezekiel begins to walk away.
Dean: “Wait.”
Dean knows that Sam wouldn’t want this. We, the audience, know that Sam has come to terms with death. Dean acknowledges that it should be Sam’s decision.
But his little brother is dying.
Last season, Sam refused to repeat the mistakes of the past. Instead of trying to raise a Dean he thought was dead, instead of seeking out dark power for a dark purpose, he grieved and forced himself to try to move on. He accepted Dean’s death then, as he accepts his own now. Dean has never been able to accept Sam’s, not in S2, not after S5, and not now.
“Wait,” he says now, just like he said back in S2. Wait.
He’s ready to make a deal. Ezekiel takes Dean into Sam’s head to hear part of his conversation with Fake!Death.
Fake!Death is also there to make things easier for Sam as he dies, to make it feel like a success at the end of a long and hard road rather than Sam missing a death that made a difference by a matter of a single day.
Death: “I must admit, when I heard it was you, I had to come myself.”
Sam: “I bet you get off on this.”
Death: “Perhaps. But not in the way you assume. I consider it to be quite the honor to be collecting the likes of Sam Winchester. I try so hard not to pass judgement at times like this, not my bag, you see, but you… well-played, my boy.”
Sam: “I need to know one thing.”
Death: “Yes?”
Sam: “If I go with you, can you promise that this time, it will be final. That if I’m dead, I stay dead. Nobody can reverse it, nobody can deal it away, and nobody else can get hurt because of me.”
Death: “I can promise that.”
That is what Sam wants. And the show makes sure that we see Dean hear it. And then Dean goes ahead and overrides it. This is not a choice he’s willing to let Sam make, no matter what the price ends up being down the road.
While Dean is making the choice to have Sam possessed, Castiel is making the choice not to be. He takes the wheel from Hael’s control, crashing the car.
Because Dean has made the choice: “How will it work?” Ezekiel claims that he’ll stay just long enough to heal Sam. And instead of being a bad option, now it’s the “best of a bad situation”. The fish is on the hook, now. Dean argues that it won’t matter what he says, because Sam won’t agree. And that’s when Ezekiel suggests tricking Sam. “He’ll say yes to you.”
Castiel doesn’t say 'yes’ to Hael. Dean allows Ezekiel to trick a 'yes’ from Sam. We transition directly from one to the other.
So, now we come to another 'Dean’ in Sam’s head. Some people argue that it has to be the real Dean, because he’s too sincere to be Ezekiel and he knows too much. However, Ezekiel is in Sam’s head, and likely far more desperate than he’s been willing to let on to Dean.
Dean: “Hold on.”
Sam: “Dean.”
Dean: “It’s okay, Sam. I, uh, would’ve brought cornnuts but time is short, so…”
Death: “By all means.”
Sam: “What’s going on?”
Dean: “I’ve found a plan.”
Sam: “It’s too late. I’m going.”
Dean: “No, no, no. Listen to me.”
Sam: “Why are you even here? I’m not fighting this anymore.”
Dean: “You have to fight this. I can fix this, okay, but not if you shove me out.”
I actually find this line the most telling because it’s Ezekiel who is going to be fixing Sam and Ezekiel who needs to be allowed to stay inside Sam.
Dean: “It’s not his time.”
Death: “That’s for Sam to decide.”
Dean: “Sam, listen to me. I made you a promise, in that church, you and me, come whatever. Well, hell if this ain’t whatever. But you gotta let me in, man, you gotta let me help. There ain’t no me if there ain’t no you.”
Let me in. Let me help. I wonder how long Ezekiel was going to last in that body of his, if he didn’t jump to Sam’s.
Sam: “What do I do?”
Dean: “Is that a yes?”
Sam: “Yes.”
Dean: “Come on.” He grabs onto Sam’s shoulder and transitions into being Ezekiel. So, yeah, rewatching the scene makes it even more clear to me that it’s Ezekiel during that conversation. The language choices, the VFX reveal, all that stuff. If it is supposed to be actual!Dean, it was written and filmed poorly.
We see that Ezekiel’s host was left in the hospital room, his memory having been wiped of ever being a vessel.
Dean and Ezekiel leave the hospital and it’s only now that Ezekiel drops his bombshell – Dean isn’t allowed to tell Sam about the possession. If he does, Sam could reject him and then die. Him only mentioning that after the possession took place points again to him being more desperate to make the swap than he’d let on to Dean earlier. Ezekiel has a hostage and, through Sam, he has one in Dean as well. It’ll be interesting to see what he does with that. For now, Dean agrees to Ezekiel’s terms. He doesn’t have much of a choice.
Covered in blood, Cas wanders into a laundromat. And has to choose between the outfit he’s worn all his days as an angel – what Dean knows him as – and the simple survival needs of humanity. Like Sam did with death, Cas accepts the inevitable. He is human, for now. He can’t keep trying to ignore that.
We end as we began, with Dean in the driver’s seat and Sam riding along.
But Dean is lying to Sam.
We also get a different perspective on the church scene. Inside Sam’s head, it was all about a promise made to each other, about Dean being nothing without Sam. Here, Dean says, “I meant what I said at the church. You’re capable of anything, Sam.” For Dean, here, his words were meant as a reassurance that Dean loves him, that Dean believes in him. And, now, that Dean hopes Sam will forgive him when the truth comes out.
The episode ends with Sam saying, “Good, 'cause we’ve got work to do.”
This line calls back both to the pilot and to the end of S2. It’s never a good sign – Sam was speaking out of the desire for revenge in the pilot and Dean had just sold his soul in S2. So, this, like the 'wait’ we had earlier is another reminder that Dean has made a dark choice and bad things are likely to come out of it. Plus, he’s actively damaging his relationship with Sam by lying to him.
As for Ezekiel. He is very careful with his words. So careful that I suspect he’s not actually lying at any point, just choosing what he says with great care in order to properly direct Dean to make the choice Ezekiel wants him to make.
Next week, we get to see Abaddon again. I’m super-excited.