Angel Cuddles

like, just. the final season 15 big bad is literally God - but he’s not really God, the Christian God, he is the incarnation of the writers themselves. the character of God was originally a tongue-in-cheek avatar of the actual writers as the author of the Supernatural books (yes, inside Supernatural there are Supernatural books, and Supernatural conventions, and a Supernatural musical), Carver Edlund - as in Jeremy Carver and Ben Edlund, two of the primary writers at the time. he was, at the time, a ‘prophet’ who could foresee the future and write what was supposed to happen.

the character of God is the author of this story, and this entire season has been about how the protagonists have to defeat God - they have to literally defeat the story itself in order to be victorious. in a fucking unprecedented level of meta, the villain of the final season is literally the story and the writers themselves.

and then you have Castiel, a character who was supposed to be in a handful of episodes 11 years ago and then permanently killed off. a character who was meant to be permanently killed off again three years after that, who was kept and brought back again and again because the fans demanded it, because Cas and Misha Collins became so intrinsic to the story. 

at the end of his first season, the ‘prophet’ (God) told Castiel that he wasn’t supposed to be in this story, and Castiel replied, Yeah, well, we’re making it up as we go.

and then, in the episode before the one with this confession, God confronted Castiel and called him the one thing that he couldn’t ever control. God, Cas’s “father” (the writers who created him) shouted at Cas for never doing as he was told, for always being the spanner in the works.

and then, Castiel culminates years of character development with a beautiful speech about how happiness is in the being, not the having, and comes out as explicitly queer. he confesses that everything he’s ever done has been for love.

and what is Supernatural about? Supernatural is about love saving the world. that was literally the final message of the season 5 finale, which was originally intended to be the series finale. the first time Supernatural ended, “love will save the world” was its final message.

Castiel is the queer love that the writers never intended to exist but that they couldn’t control and couldn’t stop, that they tried to kill and couldn’t. 

Castiel didn’t die, Castiel is the queer love that couldn’t die. 

and, i think many people don’t realize, the deal that Cas made with the Empty was something put into action - two seasons ago, i think? it was quite a while ago that he made this deal. this has been planned for a long time, it wasn’t a last minute fan service thing. there are people putting meticulous care into this story and they’re not playing around with it, they are laying out their final hand with deliberate intention. the writer who crafted Castiel’s confession (a gay man, fyi) wrote that speech as the first thing he wrote for the season. there is care here.

people unfamiliar with the show may also not realize that when Castiel first came on the show, he saved Dean from hell - because Dean had also made a deal, a deal trading his life for the one he loved most, his brother. Castiel made a deal trading his life for the one he loved most, his son. 

that is a parallel, a rhyme to this story, that can only be completed with Dean saving Cas from hell. that is a beautiful, poetic, fucking incredible way to bring this to a close. i have been very wary about actually trusting this show after getting burned over and over, but even i can’t deny the care being written into this and the self-aware beauty of the story that is unfolding. 

Castiel has died a dozen times before, at least, as has Dean - in fact, two seasons ago Cas escaped the Empty, the “hell” he was just taken to. leaving your story there would be hella weak sauce, and make no narrative sense.

but Dean, who has been galvanized by rage for so long - Dean, who has been lost and furious knowing that he’s a puppet whose strings have been pulled for a capricious God’s amusement and who now knows that maybe the only real thing in the universe is that an angel is in love with him - laying down his anger and choosing to fight for love, saving Castiel the same way that Castiel first saved him? our protagonists, collectively known as Team Free Will, defeating the Author and choosing their own destiny, choosing love and saving the world? 

now that’s a fucking story.

Hi anon. I personally haven’t seen anyone say the scene looks awkward (maybe if they hate Destiel they would have this opinion)? Jensen and Misha filmed together right before the virus shut down production. I’ve seen deliberate awkwardness filmed but that scene wasn’t it. If anything, there’s still a lot of narrative space in 15x18, visually. There was some other episode this year that I remember talking about things “hanging” and I’d say this episode also falls into that.

Everything with Dean and Cas visually this episode continues to play with negative space in what is by now, a long-standing visual trend between the two. Then there’s that one scene when they first return to the bunker where they circle and pass each other like two galaxies colliding or something. I’m no gif maker so I don’t have a shot of the 15x18 scene but visually it recalls this:

Then there’s another scene where Billie stalks them around the corner where they are crouched then the reveal and we see the space where together they are now visually missing. Rich used this negative space technique a lot, like... a lot.

The further apart Dean and Cas physically are, the sadder the show generally becomes, with Cas’ death frequently being the greatest distance/sadness for Dean. Just showing and lamenting the negative space, the distance, is the narrative asking for the distance and sadness to be removed. Dean and Cas yearn to be together.

So any “awkwardness”, to me, is simply what I just described. And Jensen doesn’t get mad/frustrated/whatever about Destiel any more. He hasn’t had that attitude in a long time. Here’s them around the same filming time.

Jensen loves Misha and they both love acting their scenes together. He even says stuff like this ⬇️ these days because he’s known about this scene since the show started S15. Bob Berens wrote it first thing when breaking the season.

…excuse you…

Top 30 ships (as voted by my followers): 21. Phoebe Halliwell and Cole Turner [Charmed]