Where do we go from here?
My friends, I am shooketh by that episode, which even a halting, pixelated livestream could not keep from piercing me through the heart! Where could we possibly go next?!?
I mean, who could predict!?! But in the short term, as I just said to my dear Anon, the place we are going is Beaver...something (ton? town? dale?) in 15x04. In other words, now that Cas is gone, let’s get back to Beaver....something. It’s a necessary detour, really, and I think we can expect these intervening episodes to work through kind of a lot on the Dean front. And what better place to do it than in a high school filled with nubile (dead) ladies?
I think actually we can all benefit from this schlocky (in a good way, I hope) Halloween episode about a killer stalking a high school and some murdered cheerleaders (cue Dean in the promo, “Someone’s got a fetish”). It makes me think that they’ll be using it for a kind of revisiting of 1) teen sexuality, 2) compulsory heterosexuality, 3) performing!Dean, and 4) “old school” SPN. Arguably, SPN started as something close to this kind of “classic” plot: no angels or demons; no half-human, half-angel kid; no insanely powerful witches; no Men of Letters of any type; no friends (like Kevin) or family (like Mary). Just Sam and Dean on a case in small town America tracking down a series of mysterious (cheerleader) deaths.
You want the old show, the writers seem to be saying, here--have a taste. There’s still a lot to like in the formula, obviously, and I love a Brothers Winchester MotW special as much as the next person, but I’m guessing that especially given how things ended today it’s not going to satisfy the way it used to. Just like certain things may not...satisfy...Dean any more.
Ok, yes I’m being a little silly in focusing on the “beaver” reference in 15x04 (even though it so nicely contrasts with all the “cock” references from last season’s Richard Speight-directed episode), but I think we can expect a (brief) return of rampantly “heterosexual” performing!Dean, determined to dust off those old coping mechanisms (a la 13x05) and show Cas that HE CAN MOVE ON TOO, DAMN IT!! (Anger is the first stage in the grieving process and Dean’s gonna have to grieve for Cas before he can accept his own role in all this.) And a stereotypical high school horror movie set is an excellent place for Dean to do that. Brace yourselves, though, because it’s not likely to be pretty. And it may even end up with him hooking up with a chick for the first time (that we know of) in at least 2 years. It may also not but....just sayin’.
On a meta level, it’s an excellent way for Dabb and Co. to demonstrate what a show with just the Winchesters looks--and more importantly feels--like now. “You and Sam have each other,” Cas said right before he left, implying clearly that there was no role for him in that. That’s the same thing a small but vocal segment of the fandom has been saying for years. Now their bluff is being called (temporarily) just as Cas has (temporarily) called Dean’s.
The most exciting aspect of all this, and the one that causes me to don clown makeup and a bozo wig, is that with these other characters dispatched and the entrance to Hell closed in the first three episodes it’s painfully obvious (and I do mean “painfully”) that Dean and Cas are the main fucking plot. We used to feel happy when Destiel plots were the B plot rather than being endlessly relegated to subtext and offhand comments. Well, now it’s the A plot upon which the rest of the season is going to turn.
We had to get here; to this breaking point, this rupture. I personally think that the “arrogant betrayal” of the description is Dean’s. And after the way he behaved, even while I’m a great lover of Dean Winchester, I think that Cas is right not to forgive him...yet. Dean’s got some soul-searching to do first. And maybe, the writers suggest, we as fans do too. Are we happy with how things used to be? Could we go back to those versions of Sam and Dean? To that show? This can’t be the REAL ending even more than Dean thought the ghost apocalypse could be Chuck’s! It’s painful! It’s unfulfilling! It’s...LAME!
So standby, my bozo buddies, and buckle up for a period of turbulence. It’s gonna be rough, but we’re going to get there in the end.