I need you

Hard to argue with that logic.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  

Sleek, shiny, and sexy as Hell, Dean Winchester’s 1967 Chevrolet Impala is indeed, as Erik Kripke once put it, as pivotal a character on the show as any. Over the course of 10 seasons she has become inextricably linked to her owner’s identity and state of being. Bashed up when John ordered Dean to kill Sam if all else failed, abandoned and overgrown in Endverse as 2014!Dean had become a shell of his former self, trash-filled and mud-covered while demon!Dean gave up on the world; whenever Dean goes through great emotional turmoil, Baby is a painful mirror of his emotions.

As we flash across the iconic features that make Baby the Winchesters’ home -the tiny soldiers symbolising their lives, the Lego blocks that still rattle when the ventilator is on, the initials DW and SW scratched into her in as much a claim of family as anything- the beginning of the episode reveals she has been wrecked, shattered, and is covered in blood. The relative innocence of Sam and Dean’s childhood is intercut with the brutal reality of their adult lives.

Season 11 started with the Darkness having snatched Dean from his trusted place behind the wheel of the Impala. Without either control or memory, apart from a vision, it is the opening shot across the bow that regaining control of his life after having had limited say in it for …well…ever will likely be an important story-arc for Dean. The cold open of episode 11x04 Baby starts with that same empty seat. Not only that, we find Dean chained up in cuffs in the back seat, completely out of control in his beloved Impala.

In fact, the episode started with a deceptively calm pan down the eponymous car’s driver’s seat from the audience’s perspective. It is a wonderful shot, which makes me want to grab the wheel and drive off. And that is the frame of the episode. It’s amazing the number of people who actually drive Dean’s beloved girl over the course of 45 minutes. And each of them represents an aspect of Dean himself, all of them aspects that might prove vital in defeating the Darkness.

First there is not-John Winchester. Appearing in Sam’s dream in Dean’s customary seat, one way to read it is to see him as an allusion to Dean’s role as a father-figure to Sam; the bond that lies at the heart of the shit-storm the Winchesters currently find themselves in.  But rather than appearing as the John Sam knew, he appears as young John Winchester, whom we last saw not as John, but as Vessel to Michael. So, the first person to drive Baby besides Dean is one who not only represents Dean’s role in raising Sam, but also reminds us of Dean’s formerly destined role as True Vessel to Michael.

While gut-instinct tells me who we are really looking at here is Lucifer (or maybe, maybe Gabriel) given the uncertainty which of the three beings trapped in The Cage it was that screamed, this only goes to feed my conviction we will see Michael again and perhaps also that Dean will once more be faced with the choice of whether or not to become an angel condom.

To further cement the connection between not-John and Dean, immediately after Sam wakes up, Dean shares his dream of being in the driver’s seat with John next to him, leading a civilian life. While I am not a dream analyst, it sure feels like a wish for control. Control over the way he leads his life, control over the influence his father still has over him. Simply a dream to be in control of his life.

Moreover, Dean finishes his story with a description of how proud John was of him for driving well dream!John says

perfect landing

a reference to flying that should ring alarm bells all over, both because of Dean’s fear of flying, but also because of Michael being an angel. (for a much more elaborate analysis of this scene, check out @dustydreamsanddirtyscars ‘s awesome meta)

Next we have Jessie. While driving up to Aunt Mel’s and seeing that there’s valet parking Sam notes

Come on, live a little.

when seeing Dean’s agitation. And sure enough, Dean puts control of Baby in her hands and off she is to live a little. I love her words to her friend here a lot. “Spider’s caught a fly” is a very predatory description that evokes a sense of cunning that comes with waiting long and patiently, kinda like the Darkness. Not for nothing I did a double take when she first got in the car thinking she might be Amara further grown up.

Set to M.I.A,’s Bad Girls, the lyrics

live fast, die young, bad girls do it well

I can’t help but imagine Dean taking Sam on a joyride in Baby at 16, doing wheelies and being shit-scared thinking about John catching them. In fact, when Dean calls Jessie to get the car back, she responds with a “ Yes, sir.”  which is exactly the way Dean would have addressed John, once again alluding to that part of Dean.

It is the symbolism in doing wheelies that really makes the scene a perfect symbol for the Winchesters. It’s fun, but they are for ever going around in circles and while eventually have to come out of it; exactly what was stated by Sam in Out of the Darkness Into the Fire.

Mrs Markham - Your family. You do anything for them, don’t you?

Dean- Absolutely. But not if it costs too much

Mrs Markham - No. You’d do anything for them. Everything else is meaningless. But I did it wrong. now I’ve ruined everything.

The parallel here is so clear and so heart-breaking. Having killed her romantic love for the sake of family, Mrs Markham represents the monster/human struggle we have seen time and again on SPN. Grabbing the wheel and chanting over and over again

I can makes this right. I can make this right.

in trying to fix the consequences of what she considers her irresponsible behaviour, she is perhaps the most obvious representation of Dean in the entire episode. What is even more intriguing is her question

what did you do with the Maker’s body?

While she is referring here to pack alpha Deputy Dumbass, once again we a potential allusion to Dean “I kill Gods” Winchester’s ultimate objective.

And it is Mrs Markham’s help that gets us to the last driver.

The pack alpha reveals himself to be a military leader creating an Army to fight the Darkness, to fight a battle Dean was earlier this episode told by Sam only they could fight. And most likely, it is what will need to happen over the course of the season. But an important aspect of what Dean needs to do is foreshadowed here. The fight with the deputy reveals that Dean will be required to forego the usual hunter approach of machetes, hacking, and bloodshed. The alpha is slain because Dean reaches into a pink Hello Kitty bag, by thinking before acting, by being in the backseat rather than the front of the charge. This again could foreshadow Michael’s involvement, but like with much of the exposition this season, I love it could go many ways.

And I also love how Dean shows his softer side with Cas. That side he so rarely shows with adults. But Cas saw him at his very worst and still rescued him, still became all he is. So, he can show that side.

The Standard Book of Spells, Grade One by Miranda Goshawk

Another print for the US cons this year

In previous meta, I’ve mentioned what the season 9 opening song could mean for Dean. The question “Who do you love?” was obvious and an answer was supposed to be given by the end of the Carver era. The end of the era hasn’t arrived yet because Supernatural got renewed for one more season, so many of the things that were supposed to be resolved simply got dragged.

Who does Dean love? His family. We already knew that, of course. He even reminded us this season that “family don’t end with blood”. However, the showed gave us two specific people that Dean loves. His Colette and his Abel.

In 9x11, we were told that Colette loved Cain unconditionally. She only asked for one thing: TO STOP. Isn’t it interesting that in the final encounters Dean had with Cas (in 10x22) and Sam (in 10x23), the only one who asked Dean to stop was Castiel? Sam said, “You have to be stopped at any cost, I understand”. Cas, on the other hand, used the actual words, “Dean, stop”.  

Dean couldn’t bring himself to kill either Cas or Sam. His love for them was so big that he found the strength to stop himself before it was too late. Some time ago I wrote this about Cain:

“What made Cain stop? The love HE felt for Colette. It wasn’t the love SHE felt for him that made him stop. It was what HE felt, what she made him feel. He was the one who decided to stop. CAIN WAS STRONG ENOUGH. He was the ONLY one who could make the conscious decision to stop. But Colette was the one that believed in him and made him feel worthy.” (x)

Some people might suggest that both Cas and Sam were Dean’s Colette. I disagree. I think the parallels to Colette and Abel are pretty clear. HOWEVER, I believe Dean’s love for BOTH SAM AND CAS was what made him stop. We could never question Dean’s love for his little brother even if we wanted to (which we don’t, really!). He’s been like a surrogate parent for Sam all his life. He’s sold his own soul for his brother! The whole show has always been about the love Dean has for Sam. It’s not surprising Dean couldn’t kill him. The thing is that Dean got very close to killing Cas, too, but he found a way to stop. Somehow, Dean also loves Castiel. Does Dean love Cas more than he loves Sam? I don’t think so. At all. But I do think the love he feels for both of them is different.

Remember that Dean is not really with the whole “love… and love”, right? Two categories. Just as Cain’s love for his brother Abel was very different from the one he felt for his wife Colette.

If Dean had killed Cas, “I suspect that would [have] hurt something awful” (Cain’s words in 10x14) even if Cas is not Sammy.

The last time they saw each other as themselves. And the first time again.

Oh god; it just hit me how Cas was watching Dean die for a season and a half from what was regularly framed as a terminal illness, and that somewhere between the moment Cas learned Dean had taken the Mark and 10x22 Cas made the decision to stick with Dean through it all. (The whole idea of not wanting to leave a doomed love to die alone also reminds me vividly of that time Rose jumped out of the lifeboat. Also, perhaps inappropriately, of spouses who stay beside and care for their ailing, elderly partners, even when their partners no longer remember them due to dementia.) Argh. No wonder he was so relieved when Dean told him on the phone that the Mark was gone; it was like having the Dean he fell in love with back from the grave. (For the second time, actually! Like, Metatron straight-up killed Dean and mocked Cas about it.)

Caaaas. I’m just gonna full-on hijack this post and talk my sudden onslaught of feelings out for a minute. I dare someone to watch Cas’ choices and the way Cas acts around Dean and tell me that Cas isn’t completely, totally devoted to Dean. Like, I dare them. Dean’s side of things aside, there is no. good. reason. to read Cas as anything other than loving Dean wholly and purely. I think I tend to agree that sexual attraction is not really a motivating factor in Cas’ love for Dean, but the devotion? the pure, earnest desire to make Dean’s life easier? the loyalty? the constancy? They weren’t kidding when they said Cas has “too much” heart; he loves perhaps the most purely, the most sincerely and unselfishly.

Okay so we have this weird out of place scene that seemed like a very unnecessary “no homo” moment that cropped up while Dean was in the middle of searching for Castiel. Dean walks past an attractive blonde woman and feels a need to say “hey”. As if Dean Winchester would actually hit pause on tracking down his very sick, very dangerous best friend who might be either harming himself or harming other innocent people.

The only thing the blonde woman says is “Get a life”. Which is fair, right? Random scruffy looking dude cat calls you in the middle of the night in a dark alley? Probably a good retort.

But here’s the thing. This isn’t a throw away scene or line.

CAS YOU SAP

Aura inspired Spn lineup! <3