#narrative threads

And it’s so beautiful that it’s the loss of Cas this time that allows for Dean to do this, because he’s always plummeted into despair without Cas. His progression has slowed to a crawl without Cas in the narrative. His entire sense of self, his entire source of faith in anything, being drained out of him. 

This has been romantic and lovely and fabulous, but it’s also so unhealthy. 

Dean being shown to mourn, to want Cas back, to expect Cas at the end of that phone call, only for him to move away from the need and want to have Cas back, recognising that it’s possible Cas’ return is now an improbability and choosing to look to the future, because now he’s feeling worthy of a future, this is such an important detail for the love story to move from profound bond territory...

(where Cas used the bond forged by Heaven as an excuse for why he kept hanging around Dean) (Dean was his charge, his mission, he was meant to protect him) (a view shattered by Hester in S8) (and properly dismantled by the human!Cas arc) (at least the way I see it because that’s where Cas got that love he feels brought into actual stark relay like oh fuck I’m in love with him)

...to the healthy, selfless, loving side to that bond, which isn’t about self-deception, miscommunication and fear, but about blowing all of that apart, letting feelings flow freely, opening up to the truth of them, the strength of them, and these two men being able to finally free themselves of all those past doubts by embracing their true identities.

I realise there’s frustration that we only got part-textual Destiel. I felt it too. But I never expected canon Destiel. I hoped and wished, but up until Cas’ declaration of love, I questioned whether the studio would be onboard, and it turns out they weren’t okay with making SPN an overtly queer narrative. Was Cas’ declaration of love baiting or BYG? I hope my meta reading in this post will tell you how little I feel it was.

So then. Letting go of the initial shock of it all, I’m leaning on what I did expect: the love story so strongly highlighted in the subtext that we were all left with zero doubt that we’d been seeing it there for a reason.

Subtext is part of the text. For any writer worth their salt, subtext is more important than the surface text. Text without subtext is flat and dull. The text we’ve been dealing with for fifteen years has always had layers upon layers.

These final three episodes, as I’ve already pulled on above, brings it in spades and our subtext tells us plainly:

Dean Winchester is in love with Castiel, just as much as Castiel is in love with him. 

How does it tell us this plainly?

Cas is finally able to integrate because he opens up to the truth he’s carried with him for so long: his love for Dean. Unconditional. He no longer needs Dean to say it back, to validate the emotion, Cas is realising that happiness in the feeling itself, in acknowledging it and allowing it free rein. Cas moves into making peace with himself, for himself.

Now, we know Cas loves Dean because, well, declared, but why is it plain that Dean loves Cas back?

Firstly, because of the episode being entirely structured around people in love losing one half. That’s as much of an in-our-faces use of mirroring as underlining of the subtextual love story that we’ve ever gotten from Berens. 

Even stronger than the mirroring, for me, is the fact that Cas’ love for Dean allows Dean to finally move into integration. 

Cas’ words infuse Dean with a sense of self-worth that immediately paves way for him beginning to have all that faith in himself that Cas has always represented to him. The build from 15x18 through to 15x20 is like a gentle moving away from Cas being the external source of Dean’s faith, to Cas’ love and expressed faith revealing Dean’s internal source of faith in himself.

A source which has been suppressed and repressed out of a whole layer of different fears, which have in turn brought on the belief that a toxic masculinity armour was necessary for survival and that all feelings are weaknesses, but because of Cas’ faith in him, because of Cas’ expressed love, Dean is able to no longer need an external source of faith, because he’s now internalised and embraced the truth of what makes him who he is.

Just like Cas is shown to do, we’re given Dean recognising that the love he feels isn’t a weakness, but a strength, because Cas’ words is about Dean’s capacity for LOVE. It’s this love that takes away Chuck’s ability to tell Dean who he is. 

No one can tell you who you are -- you choose who to be. 

For his entire life, right up until that moment in that room with Cas, facing death (literally) all Dean can see himself as is someone who can do nothing and who knows nothing except how to give into his anger (he’s never been able to control it because he’s never recognised the source of it) and find something to kill.

This view of himself has been constantly whispered to him and reinforced by his unconscious, his Shadow-side, who’s kept Dean thinking that he doesn’t have good things last for him, ever, so he can’t have love in his life or a future to look forward to, because he doesn’t deserve it. A perpetual emotional roundabout where his Shadow-side has stayed in complete control.

One might argue this has always been the source of Dean’s anger: his inability to dare open up to his true identity that has kept the toxic masculinity armour in place, kept the performance up, kept him more often than not lying even to himself of who he is and who he wants to be, because he never felt there was a choice in the matter. 

Truly allowing himself to recognise and feel all that longing for love that’s been like a tight ball in his chest always, meant giving into weakness meant getting Sammy killed or himself or both of them meant failure.

But the only way to beat back and conquer our Shadow-side is by recognising and accepting our flaws and no longer feeling unworthy because of them.

That’s what Cas’ words and his love does for Dean. 

That’s right there in the subtext: Dean, even in the moments before certain death, being unable to open up to the truth of who he is and what really drives him; Dean needing his external source of faith, this man that he’s loved for a long time, to tell him that how he sees himself is wrong, to afford him a different view of himself, to bring the truth to light so that Dean can finally feel worthy it, because Dean couldn’t beat his Shadow back on his own, his dark view of himself was much too ingrained for that.

It had to be Cas. The narrative tells us it always had to be Cas. And so it is Cas who saves Dean from himself. And saves Dean’s life. And saves Dean from having to spend his afterlife in a prison of the mind.

Love wins.

And Cas only ever entered the narrative due to Dean’s need to Protect Sammy at all costs, because that has always been such a huge identity marker for Dean, his entire self-understanding and sense of self tied to whether he can keep his brother alive and out of harms way, which, as he grows up, then translates itself into Dean’s enormous capacity for selflessness and caring about others. 

His core trait was never weapon, it was shield. It was protector. Stemming directly from all that love he carries around and can’t allow himself to feel because it means weakness and that means death and that means he’s failed and is worthless and around it has always gone.

And would always have gone, too. If not for Cas.

Love fucking WINS.

I mean. DAMN! It’s so gorgeous.

(this angle still holds even if Dean in any way was ever meant to actually reciprocate in that scene, because it’s made so clear to us how Cas never expects Dean to say it back) (if Dean is meant to say it back and the love story is meant to be textual that would be mind-blowing head-exploding joyful news) (but it doesn’t change the subtextual move away from unhealthy holding on to healthy letting go) (the textual would only ever strengthen the fact that we have subtextual confirmation) 

But what about...?

Yeah, but what about that ending then? What about the last twenty minutes? What about all the focus on the brothers? 

Was the execution of the finale perfect? No, I wouldn’t say it was, but I could see, when I watched the finale again on the 21st, that there was efforts made to make something good enough. Something geared toward tying our narrative up as best as possible with the means presented to Dabb. 

I understand why people feel stuff is missing.

Because stuff is missing. Dabb told us they had to change the ending, that they were supposed to have a whole lot of people back to populate Dean’s Heaven. Found family galore. Misha said the same thing. They couldn’t (I’m not going to speculate on why, it’s just clear that they couldn’t) and so the ending had to be modified. To me that’s fairly plain in how it’s structured.

Did they have to focus so hard on the brothers?

Well... given the restrictions, I think this was the only way to end this narrative, because the story has always been centred on these two brothers and the bad choices and sacrifices they’ve made, and the blood, sweat and tears they’ve shed in order to remain together.

Their absolute inability to let the other go actually kick-started their onscreen journey.

Because this is a story about dependency, and letting go of that dependency to make way for a healthy, equal coexisting; which is what, to me, that final shot is all about.

Should Cas and Jack have been there? Sure! There will always be stuff missing from the final two eps that I’ll wonder about. Like, if Cas was never meant to be in the story (as per Misha he was but let’s say for argument’s sake) then why didn’t Dean just ask, very calmly, in 15x19 of Jack our New God: “What about Cas?” and then Jack our New God could’ve answered gently, but plainly: “He’s at peace.” Simple. Why didn’t we get an establishing of Eileen as Sam’s wife? And it would’ve helped so much to have Charlie and Stevie reestablished in the visual narrative as alive, however plain it is to me that Jack will have brought them back with everyone else who were away-ed by Chuck.

Sure, there could’ve been more.

But what I love about that final shot of the brothers is this canonical fact:

It would not have been possible without Cas. 

Cas learning and growing and integrating to the point that he knows exactly how to fix the home he’s broken more than once, and how to bring free will, at long last, to Heaven, to the benefit of humanity.

And Dean’s little sideways smile (his “I want this smile”) when Cas is mentioned, when he realises that Heaven is different thanks to Cas, well, isn’t that just the darnedest thing? 

*forever headcanon that Dean was expecting to see Cas again somewhere somehow he just didn’t know when and now... here Cas is* 

When Cas went, it took a little time to adjust, but Dean let go of Cas and didn’t make a deal and didn’t go crazy or self-destructive, there was no nosediving into depression, because Cas’ words made those types of coping mechanisms no longer necessary. 

Dean drinks and indulges at the start of 15x19 because he’s still processing, but by 15x20 Cas’ words have been fully internalised, Dean has integrated, and he’s looking to the future. Set on living, because otherwise he’d render Cas’ sacrifice meaningless.

Dean’s death has zero blaze and glory to it. He didn’t expect this day to be the day. But it is. And he accepts it. And because he does, because he’s open and honest with his brother, because he tells Sam all the words he needs Sam to carry with him, gives Sam all the faith in himself that Cas left Dean with, he’s brought to a Heaven that has been readied for him by the love of his life. 

Cas is right there. And he’s been waiting. And he’s used his time well, because Heaven is now the afterlife that Dean deserves. The ultimate salvation. Love and happiness and companionship and LOVE LOVE LOVE. Forever.

If that isn’t the biggest reward for the both of them after everything they’ve been through, I don’t even know what is!

Sam arriving is a given, but I have to say I genuinely do not see Sam as living his life in pain and grief. He’s happy. He loves his kid. He’s a good father. Just like Dean was, and Bobby, and Cas. All the Good Father figures threaded through 15x20. And this narrative has been about these two brothers. It ending on them together, at peace, feels fitting. 

Yeah, but shouldn’t Dean have gotten to live his life?

Sure, this is my interpretation 100%, but Dean’s death feels softly ironic and fitting because it is unexpected. 

I can’t hit on this enough: there’s no blaze and glory.

Dean was ready to make the most of life, but through accepting death and accepting separation from Sam, Dean is brought into the same moment Cas was brought into, a moment of recognising what’s important, where Dean opens up fully to vulnerability and hands over his trust and faith in that Sam will be fine without him, which pushes Sam into the same integration that Cas’ words afforded Dean. Voicing trust and faith will do that for a person.

And Sam’s arc was always dependent, narratively, on the progression of Dean’s arc, so it makes a lot of narrative sense that this needed to happen for Sam to get pushed out of the nest and forced into having proper faith in himself. Because there’s no other choice. 

He’s left doing what he has to and it results in a balance between that family life he’s always wanted (foreshadowed in 15x01) and staying aware of and raising his son to be aware of the reality of their world, given to us via the tattoo on Dean Jr.’s wrist. (oofta I wish he’d had a different name but since everything had to be done in the visual narrative it’s the easiest way to connect us with Dean still being present in Sam’s life so I get it)

There’s also that romantic in me that feels as though Dean is greatly rewarded for all his suffering and struggles, for all those years of living his life in fear and feeling as though he doesn’t matter by not only bringing him into a Heaven he made possible, but by reuniting him with the love of his life and this time they’re equally immortal, equally made of light, equally eternal, equally integrated and balanced and ready to accept all that love and happiness.

That just makes me fucking happy. For them both.

Bring on the New Beginnings

The fact that the narrative has opened itself up to being interpreted as somehow glorifying death or saying that happiness can only be found in death is distressing, but I hope that the threads I’ve pulled on here gives enough of a basis for me to say how I truly feel like this is simplifying why the choice was made for Dean to die.

It’s not about happiness only being found in death. 

It’s not about devaluing living your life, it’s about the idea, the soft hope, even the narrative promise that death, for our characters, not for humanity as a whole, but for these specific men, who have always avoided it and made bad deals and feared separation and been brought into a crisis of identity (Dean because he doesn’t know who he is without Protect Sammy as purpose and Sam because he genuinely and continuously seem convinced that he can’t hunt without Dean to lead the way) whenever death has touched them have now reached a point where the separation is an accepted part of life.

And this acceptance is rewarded: because the separation isn’t forever.

Death is not the end. It makes way for new beginnings. For all three of TFW. Actually all four, because of course Jack is included in this endgame.

There’s a transformation that takes place, thanks to them integrating. They get to transcend what’s come before and move onto the next plane of existence together. 

Together.

TFW 3.0!

Death on this show has always been about a moment of rebirth, of entering a different leg of their journeys.  

I don’t find it out of place at all that the ultimate moment of death for our characters mean just that. 

Not an ending, but a new beginning.

In conclusion

Could there have been more? As said, yes. Absolutely yes. But I doubt Dabb isn’t aware of that. I don’t think this is the ending he originally intended. It might have been a brothers focused ending, because I think Dean was always meant to die and go to Heaven, but Dean’s Heaven was meant to be a celebration of found family. 

The subtext of this narrative is what I’ve been reading and what I’ve been hooked on for four years, and what I’ll continue to be hooked on for the rest of my life, I’m fairly sure. I wish it could be celebrated, the way it always has been, the way we’ve always known to look deeper.

I hoped Supernatural would turn out to be a vehicle for overt representation. I always hoped that, and believe that was what the writers wanted. The fact that we didn’t get overt bisexual Dean and Destiel as unquestionable canon was distressing to me too and I’ll always think of this ending as a missed opportunity and I wish the CW would learn and fucking do better already. 

I understand the frustration, I understand the anger, I just wish we could all look at the richness of this ending and everything it says about the narrative, about our subtext, about our love story, about our character journeys, and lean into the treasury of it.

And omfg we got Cas as canonically queer. 

We got a main character on our show that is overt representation, on a journey towards a moment where he gets to express love and hope and clarity and this in turn moving through and enabling the integration of Dean and ultimately of Sam as well.

Truth begetting truth. Happiness begetting happiness. And love saving the day.

So, my friends, I will say this: saying that all the writing is bad, or claiming that there’s no depth, nothing to pull on, that it all just plain sucked, that doesn’t quite cut it. These three final episodes, just as any episode ever of this goddamn show, contain all of those layers and layers, especially when looked at together and certainly when taken into the context of the show as a whole.

And yes, you are, of course, more than welcome to your own interpretation! 

To finish I’ll quote Bruce Almighty: