13x04 āThe Big Emptyā Cas vs. Himself (?)
Alright so, the one thing I had to think about with the Empty scenes was that to me it felt like Cas meeting his shadow self inside his mind (in a way to me it felt even similar to Dean meeting with Amara for the first time, who I always analyzed to be somewhat of a metaphor for Deanās darker self) and not just meeting it, but (re-)connecting with it. In this regard what the scenes between Cas and Empty!Entity! or Shadow!Self!Cas reminded me of a great deal in how Cas was forced to re-live some of his worst memories inĀ 6x22 āThe Man Who Knew Too Muchā in which Sam needs to confront all his worst memories in order to put himself back together again after being re-souled (and conveniently like Casā other version in this weekās episode in Samās case his own āmindā also tries to keep him from āgoing backā initially). So to me in a way these scenes could work as a set up to truly reveal Castiel having come back not as an angel, but human, but differently than before when his grace was stolen with a soul (I have always headcanoned that Castiel had āgrownā a soul throughout the years so this would work nicely with that crazy assumption).
In any case, I think itās noteworthy that Shadow!Self!Cas doesnāt seem to be immune to Castielās pain when being subjected to all of his memories. At least from the looks of it, he did feel all of it to to some extent. And in that regard I think itās important to look at the ending scene with Castiel waking up in a field. Tbh if this is really ājustā Cas than they could have spared us the entire Empty stuff including Castielās death, because frankly it would be boring as hell, that is why I think even if Castiel may be the true Castiel to come back (though the looking up into the sun and waking up, etc. could also perfectly be Other!Cas - then again that also would be too easy imo), his Shadow!Self has hitched a ride inside of him and is more of a part of him than it was prior - they could tie it all back to a āsoulā in the end. I personally definitely felt like one needs to see Castielās expierences in the Empty in relation to Jack confessing to Mia that he āsays he feels bad, but that he actually doesnāt feel anythingā, because it works nicely with and calls back to S12 where the boys for a brief period of time had tried to extract the angelic part from Jack leaving him āonlyā with a soul. At the very least this line - even if Jack isnāt comparable to Soulless!Sam at all in all other departments - feels very similar to how Soulless!Sam tried to operate once Dean was with him. But given how hard it was for him to pretend, it remains to be seen if Jack will hit a similar wall at some point as well. I sure donāt hope so, but without any ups and downs his arc would be too boring, I suppose.











