Some gathered thoughts about last week’s episode and the confession that rocked us all:
I’m getting to a point now where I feel weird about it. It’s digested enough that on one hand, I’m extremely proud of Misha and Bobo for fighting to get us this much. I’m thrilled they allowed Cas to admit it. That scene was so heart-wrenching.
And I get it, you know? I get loving someone so much that reciprocation doesn’t matter. I get that feeling of clenching, drowning emotion that only lets up when you’re able to say it out loud. I get how finally letting years and years of pent up, repressed emotion can be so cathartic that you have a single moment of happiness because of it.
And Dean needed to hear it.
I’m by no means saying this was accurate representation or that it’s not the “bury your gays” trope. As it stands, it is that trope, which makes it by default shitty representation. But, this show has always been so real to me. These characters have always been so real to me. And I’m starting to think that it’s not fair of me to put that on Cas, to wish that Cas would’ve died with that secret just so I wouldn’t feel so jaded by his sacrifice after.
They’ve been hinting that Dean is bi since season one. It’s been there, laid out. And honestly, I was happy with that. Because I’m tired of the assumption that queers have to be loud to be real. That they have to run around screaming it and fucking two genders right in front of someone’s face just to make them believe it. So Dean, with his visible bi panic with “his gay thing” and his Dr. Sexy crush and his western fetish and his “why do people think we’re gay?” to Sam’s “you’re kind of butch. People think your overcompensating” to Dean’s returning “fuck, is it that obvious” expression… with his “there are people, feelings, I want to experience differently… maybe for the first time” when he’s already been in love, had a family, and done just about everything with women that he could possibly do… with his ass slapping and soldier-butt checking out and blatantly looking at the one guy’s package under the sheet and helping Charlie flirt with a man like he was born to do it… his triplet threesome with Crowley (which, by the way… it was pointed out to me that the only triplets we see those two interact with are all men)… with all of Sam’s brotherly attempts to get Dean to just come out of the damned closet. “If there’s anything you need to talk about, I’m your brother. I’m here for you no matter what.”
It’s there. It’s quiet if you’re not looking directly at it, but it’s there. And I always respected that. If you met me in person, you wouldn’t know I was gay. I don’t dress like it, talk like it, act like it (of course, I mean the way most hets imagine gays dress, talk and act… we all know that there’s no “code” or rules). But that doesn’t mean it’s not true.
So with that said, I’m not sure why I’m holding anyone to a higher standard than that. There will always be anti’s. There will always be people that can look at the same things we have and go “nah, they’re bros.” And frankly, I just don’t give a shit about those people.
Does it suck that Cas died right after? Yeah. On a lot of levels, but… they’ve been building to one of them making the ultimate sacrifice since the moment Castiel said “Hey, assbutt!” and stole everyone’s hearts. What he did was completely, 100% in character for him, even if it hurts. Even if we hate it. Even if it’s the hardest thing we’ve ever had to watch. It was true to Castiel, to the things we love about him. To the things that made his journey so fucking real.
I don’t have any hope that Dean and Cas will have a happy ending, I just don’t. But with two episodes left, a lot can happen… and I’m not going to jump to conclusions until I see the credits roll the last time. The writers have surprised us too many times.
Maybe I’m just in denial. Maybe I’ve just gotten to a point where I don’t want it to hurt anymore, so I’m trying to rationalize around it until it stops. Or… maybe I had such an intense knee-jerk reaction to it in the first place because I just wanted Castiel to live so fucking bad.
Maybe they’ll fix it. Maybe Jack woke everyone up in the Empty and they’re going to come back and repair Heaven. Maybe Cas chooses humanity instead and lives a long, happy life with Dean.
Or maybe he’s really gone, but that final declaration, that final sacrifice was enough to smack Dean Winchester awake. Maybe we’ll see an epilogue of them five years in the future and Dean brings his boyfriend and their dog ‘round to Sam’s for dinner.
Or, maybe Dean will die a sad, closeted mess that spent his 41 years on earth putting humanity above his own happiness. But either way, it doesn’t mean it’s not there. It doesn’t mean that’s not his heart, his desires. If there’s one thing we know for sure… it’s that Dean doesn’t think he deserves happiness. So, of course he’s not going to pursue the one thing that actually might do the damned job.
So… who cares? Who cares that Cas died after finally confessing. It’s his M.O.
Who cares that Dean didn’t reciprocate? We know he feels it. He was smacked in the face with a lifetime’s worth of internalized… I’m not even sure homophobia is the right word, but a lifetime’s worth of repressed emotions and found out that yet again, the person he cares about the most besides his brother sacrificed himself to save Jack, and was now doubling down to use that same sacrifice as a means of saving Dean. Dean, who doesn’t think he deserves to be saved. Cas, who knew that the very first time they ever met. “You don’t think you deserve to be saved.” It wasn’t a question. He knew. And for all of Dean’s growth and maturation over the years, that’s the one thing that’s never changed. He still doesn’t feel like he deserves to be saved, so why? Why is it happening? And why — of all the times — is Cas choosing this moment to speak the words they’ve kept hidden for years?
It brings to mind Hermione’s quote to Ron and Harry about Cho. To paraphrase and swap it to fit… “He’s stunned by the suddenness, scared to death of actual Death literally knocking at the door, he’s overwhelmed by the emotion pouring off of his angelic, stoic, awkward, wonderful angel, he’s struggling with the confession in the sense that he doesn’t believe he deserves to be loved like that and yet here’s Cas, showing yet again he means every word, he’s grief-stricken to know that he’s about to lose him again and there’s nothing he can do about it, he’s being forced to look at all the things he’s refused to even glance at, he’s terrified that this is about to be the end for all of them and he won’t even have Cas by his side… and he’s heartbroken over the fact that his apple pie happily-ever-after just became a real possibility only to be gobbled up by cosmic goo eight seconds later.”
"One person couldn’t feel all of that. They’d explode!”
“Just because you’ve got the emotional range of a teaspoon…”
We know Dean feels things more profoundly than any other human in existence. He struggles with words not because he doesn’t feel things, but because he feels things too deeply and the English language is terribly inadequate.
“You wanted to know what about all of this is real? We are.”
God himself confirmed Cas’ theory there. The one thing on this Earth that God couldn’t control was Cas… and why? Because canonically, this was the only Castiel to fall in love with Dean Winchester. They, their bond, the love they share with each other… it’s the only thing that’s real out of any of it.
And that is canon. Full stop, no room for interpretation. The profound bond is the only real thing in the entire show.
So yeah. Maybe Dean never gets the chance to say it back. Maybe he does say it back but it still doesn’t matter. Maybe Cas comes back, maybe he doesn’t. But, I think it’s abundantly clear… that however the last two episodes play out, Castiel’s confession and sacrifice will somehow be the tide that turns the war. It’ll be the thing that saves the world, saves Dean.
“Dean Winchester is saved.”
So I don’t really care as much now how those of us on this side of the fourth wall see it anymore. “Bury your gays”, unrequited love, requited love. It doesn’t matter. Because Cas has been real to us in ways no other character ever has been. And for him? This act, this single, selfless, bursting-at-the-seams with love act… made his billions of years of existence worth something.
And I don’t think I’m prepared to let anyone take that away from him… away from me.
So… I think what I’ve come to, is that we have two choices. We can choose to be angry, to be spiteful and jaded that it didn’t happen the way we wanted it to.
Or, we can look at it for what it is. And what it is… is beautiful. Beautiful and painful and altering.
Would it have meant as much to us if it had happened any other way? I mean look at it. Really look at it. If Cas had just gone “Hey, I love you,” and Dean had given him finger guns and said “I love you, too,” it would’ve seemed awkward and forced… and fallen flat.
But this? This was so fucking raw. So pure, so genuine. So inherently true to who they are that it’s almost impossible to deny it.
I feel like we’re living out a twisted version of the mixtape scene. We were handed something simple that we didn’t know what to do with, and we tried to hand it back, not seeing it for what it was. And Dean, Misha, the writers, the members of our fandom that aren’t as deeply skeptical as we are… they shoved it right back at us. “It’s a gift. You keep those.”
We should keep it.
In a desperate attempt to see this differently than I had since the episode aired, I spent a few hours yesterday talking to people and watching old moments.
As a friend put it:
“This show has never been about romance. It’s always been about deathbed confessions and sacrifices and hope in the darkness. It’s been… from its inception… a show about family. About forging bonds that withstand any test. And this? This was just another test. Take reality out of it. Stop looking at it from your own eyes and see it through Castiel’s. This was the pinnacle for him. The moment his entire existence has been building up to. And he walked into it willingly, with eyes open and heart so full of love it was pouring down his face. And God himself couldn’t stop him, that’s how strong his love was. And Dean? Who always puts his brother first. "There’s nothing and no one that I would ever put above you.” That same Dean, in the middle of another apocalypse, ignored Sam’s multiple phone calls because he was so heartbroken. He was putting someone above Sam. That right there is a louder declaration than if they’d have fucked on screen in front of our faces.“
And she’s right.
From those first seeds of doubt in S4E16, when Cas said he “would give anything” not to have to force Dean to torture Alastair when those exact orders came from the superiors he’s obeyed without question for an eternity, to all the times he promised to walk through fire for Dean. “I’ll go with you.” “I’ve got you.” It’s been there.
He’s been in love from the start. He came off the line with a crack in his chassis, and that crack was Dean Winchester.
It’s been there all along.
"You changed me.”
Yes… and Cas changed Dean. He changed me. He changed all of us. And that’s still more than I can say of any other character in any other show I’ve ever seen, regardless of orientation or identity.
And that means something.
I actually do think Dean and Cas will get a happy ending. That may be naive and stupidly hopeful, but I do.
The rest though...YES. ALL OF IT.
