#s13x05

I admit that instinctively I was disappointed in Dean for the strip club aftermath. Part of me hoped it was a ruse for Sammy in order to satisfy his brother’s craving to make Dean feel better, or to get him out the door so Dean could pull something Sammy wouldn’t approve of, and welp. Now I feel pretty lousy that that was my first instinct, and I’m going to explain why.

Dean makes it very clear: he likes beer, he likes chili fries, and yes, he likes strippers. These things are all part of his coping mechanisms, and those aren’t working, and he makes both those things clear in this episode as well. I think the episode essentially makes it clearer to Dean as well as to Sam. But what can Dean do? Keep trying even though he feels it’s never going to be okay, or roll over and die and hope his death achieves something? There’s a whole thing about how Dean’s choice to die is a motivational tool to the story structure (the hero at his absolute lowest) that I’m sure other people will touch on, moreover how it relates to how devil may care Sam was in season 1--I’m looking forward to reading it, but I’m going to stay on topic here lol)

The strip club aftermath scene, then: Sam is obviously asleep when Dean creeps out, he returns with his tie wrapped around his head, a pink bra around his neck, drunk and carrying a cat-o-nine-tails. i.e. he went to the strip club Sam suggested without him, presumably so Sammy doesn’t have to hear his sad drunk storytelling.

It’s important while searching for a character’s interest in the same sex not to be effacing his interest in the opposite one. If the intent is that Dean is bisexual (as I strongly believe and personally connect with) then you have to accept that he likes women too. Dean enjoys looking at women’s bodies, and he likes strips clubs the same way he likes chili fries, and karaoke, and riding the bull. It’s a fleeting pleasure, not a commitment. I love fries too but I’m not going to settle down with it.

Moreover before the show reunited Dean with Cas and sent them off for their cowboy bromance together, if the intent is to eventually have Dean out as bisexual, then it can’t be done by turning away from his interest in women entirely. So it gives us this scene imo because it gives us the big Destiel reunion at the end. It says “Dean likes both, but Cas is the man he’s fallen in love with”.

Why? Why does it have to do that? I know the instinct is to think ‘oh great another no homo scene’, but erasing someone’s bisexuality because they settle down with someone of the same sex (or someone of the opposite sex) is a thing that happens. “Oh, she was never a lesbian she was straight all along,” for example. So I say again, if the intent is to reveal Dean as bisexual and romantically interested in Cas, underlining that he still has interest in women, and therefore that all of his past relationships with women were not a lie (as some people might accuse) is pretty fucking important.

Anyway, that’s what I think the inclusion of this scene was saying to the general audience. It was crass, and it made me headdesk, but on reflection I’m much more okay with it. I honestly think the choice of Dean getting drunk at a strip club was less about being with a woman than indulging in a guilty pleasure. If the intent of the scene was Dean getting over Cas with sex, then that would have been what we were shown: Dean going out and hitting on a waitress, or at least checking someone out. We didn’t get that. We got the sexual equivalent of fast food; the strip club is put on the level with chili fries and bacon. Bad for Dean’s heart but a bandaid on his soul. Nobody marries fast food. Just like me indulging in the odd fantasy about Misha Collins’ hipbones doesn’t imply I’m going to marry him, either.

And then we got so much Destiel in 15 seconds that international newspapers noticed it.

I don’t think Billie could have known that this was the plan from the start (though I know people are going back suggesting that was her motive all along, and I originally considered that too. Two things, really, first of all this:

Billie: This reality - it has rules, Dean. So many rules. And one of them? Kill one incarnation of Death, like you did, the next Reaper to die takes his place. So when Castiel stabbed me in the back, turns out I got a promotion. New job. New gear.

This implies she didn’t know it was going to happen, right?

I am just totally done with the irony of an episode that was about the brothers going out and hunting again, just the two of them, being underlined with a) one of the brothers sacrificing themselves for their own motivations dressed up as the noble cause (or attempting to) and b) the episode being punctuated by the reappearance of Cas (because things aren’t ever going to get ‘back to normal’ without him).

JUST CAS

This is how things usually go for me:  --gets (finally) outwardly upset about something (generally something that can’t be fixed) --everyone else volunteers to make me a coffee/tries to convince me to chill with the Sims/watch TV --eventually deals with my shit emotionally and calms down --goes back to dealing with feelings on the inside like a totally coping repressed empath

With volatile emotions from one person when you’re in a state of focus yourself there’s such a strong impulse to try and gain serenity that you’ll go out of your way to try and fix it. Doesn’t matter if you care about the person’s feelings or not, because the motives from someone who’s doing it selfishly or someone who’s doing it selflessly are the same: please stop being upset right now this is harshing my groove. If it’s for selfish reasons it’s usually because you want to get on with something else and the upset person is causing a roadblock. Selfless reasons imply you want the person to stop hurting because the depth of their upset it in itself agonizing for you.

Speaking in terms of how things go in our house: I generally refuse to accept these platitudes because I can see how false they are, but eventually I’ll suck it in and pretend to be okay for the sake of everyone (usually because emotional feedback from me sets off the other empaths in the house and they get snappish). Anyway, not the point.

Dean told Sam that he was not okay. Their argument was the first sign Sam had (really) that Dean was not okay and that this wasn’t just him being standoffish and brusque for no reason. When Dean then tells Sam that he’s still not okay at the end of 13x04 then we move to this: Sam trying to resolve the status quo by bringing things to Dean that he thinks he likes, and trying to convince Dean to go and do the things he likes.

In my opinion Sam’s motivation could easily be selfishness, compassion or both at once, but he’s basically doing the Sam Winchester equivalent of bringing me a coffee when I’m upset out of - in my opinion - a sense of helplessness that he neither knows what the problem is entirely or (because it’s so vast and nebulous) how to deal with it, not realizing that it’s really just something Dean has to work through on his own.