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Team Free Will so far on season 12

As an FYI, there is Destiel in this post, like, all over. So if that’s not your thing, I’d probably stop reading now. I know, you’ve already seen eight million posts about this–but I had to add my thoughts here. We’re all missing Cas, and as others have pointed out, I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to be missing him right now. We are meant to notice his absence. And to cement that feeling, there is a steady progression of Castiel-based imagery in 12x18 starting almost immediately after Dean and Sam talk about how he is STILL missing (A Destiel side note: Dean does that weapon-cleaning thing he does when he’s nervous because HIS HUSBAND HAS VANISHED and no one in a trenchcoat has turned up in the news either alive “or dead” because of COURSE Dean jumps to worst case scenarios because he’s so worried and he knows Cas has a tendency to have horrible things happen to him when he disappears…but I digress.) So the first thing I noticed:

Busty Asian Beauties is a fictional porn brand invented for the show. The actual domain was registered in December 2006, three months before the first mention on the show. Originally, when you typed in the URL, you were redirected to the Warner Bros. site. As of January 2010, the redirect doesn’t occur, although the domain is still owned by Warner Bros. (x)

Honestly I was giddy while watching that part because I felt like the episode was spelling that Dean was purposely reacting to his feelings about the absence of Cas with a night with a woman. Like, a woman Dean has had sex with is a specific emotional fill-in for Cas. I personally felt it very clear that the episode was framing the hook up as a distraction for his worry. I think the writing did its job in that (basically it’s the first non-strictly-case-related thing Dean does after the scene where they talk about Cas) but also Jensen has a series of specific tells when he plays Dean as seeking a distraction/playing a part (usually those things are connected, in various ways) - he basically “overdoes” what he does, I don’t know how to put it in words, and makes certain microexpressions Dean does when he’s not acting genuinely.

To be honest, I am not sure what kind of “guy” we expect Dean to be - the random hook-ups are a form of self-medication for him when he feels really upset. I mean, he likes sex, he enjoys it like people who like sex do, but he has a specific relationship with sex like he has a specific relationship with food - eating is also something people do and having certain eating habits or preferences is normal, but some people’s relationship with food is more complicated and invested with emotional layers. It’s like porn, it’s basically implied through the show that he doesn’t just read/watch porn for the mere purpose of getting off, but he invests his porn with additional psychological layers.

I personally don’t think that any of the sex that has happened on the show (involving Dean, involving Sam, involving Cas, involving anyone actually) is “random”. I mean, the hook-up is “random” in the sense that he flirts with a random waitress he meets in a random diner, but on a narrative level, Supernatural never has “gratuitous” sex scenes. They always belong in a wider emotional context. This was no exception - Supernatural does not have his characters have sex for the sake of saying ‘oh, X has had sex’ and nothing else.

Remember in s8 when Dean kept seeing Cas everywhere after he got out of purgatory?

Well now the audience gets to feel that way. A lot of this season is framed around audience perception of Cas and his place in general. Now we have this big gap and in every episode since, there has been reminders of him, both textually and not. They didn’t mention Cas in 12.16 because Dean wasn’t worried enough to say it yet, but we still saw Cas everywhere; in the clothing choices and Mick’s presence and parallels. I’m pretty sure that was intentional. He was textually mentioned in 12.17 and we had more Mick/Cas parallels. Mick “is not Cas” this reminder and Dean’s textual worry flanked the end of the episode.. “remember this” it says. 12.18 features Cas’ absence as framing all of Dean’s actions. He’s falling back on old coping mechanisms, he’s sleeping with ladies who wear Cas colors, he’s wearing Cas’ tie. He’s engaging in the SPN symbol for lust and desire even when it doesn’t make any sense given the situation. Sam even points this out. Dean’s harsh, dismissive behavior reflects this as well. He’s holding on to whatever he can, but he’s off his game. 

And as if we didn’t need another reminder, there are hidden Cas’ mirrors everywhere in 12.18. One walks past the sheriff’s office while the boys talk to him. There are two in the diner. There was a hidden Cas in 12.16 too possibly more. All times, Dean looked towards it. He moved it their direction. “Follow this eye trace” says the show. There’s a high possibility he sees them too. We’re in Dean’s PoV right now.

All of his behavior is framing. It’s off because it’s supposed to be. Cas is gone because we’re supposed to miss him. Dean misses him. Dean always misses him. 

Maybe now Dean will tell him how much. 

I said before that this is leading up to being Dean’s side of 12.09. Cas had just finished being without Dean and Sam for weeks. He made an extreme decision to keep Dean and Sam with him. Maybe Dean will do something similar for Cas. He’s framed as the most affected. He’s framed as the one who needs him. 

“The larger the buildup, the bigger the payoff”. That’s how these things are /supposed/ to work. When Dean was gone, we were feeling it too because it was the mid-season hiatus, but we only had an episode of Cas’ feelings about the situation. We weren’t ‘in’ the situation as we are now. This time, we’re in it, we’re watching that time pass on screen. It’s different, it’s supposed to be. In the mid-season hiatus, the uncertainty wasn’t anything to really fear. This time though, we’re right with Dean, we feel his uncertainty, I see it every day on my dash, we feel the days that pass and his longing, we’re right there with him when we see Cas everywhere.

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