13x04 “The Big Empty” 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 Dean’s 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 in 6x22 “The Man Who Knew Too Much” 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 Cas’ other version in this week’s episode in Sam’s case his own “mind” also tries to keep him from “going back” 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 “grown” a soul throughout the years so this would work nicely with that crazy assumption).
In any case, I think it’s noteworthy that Shadow!Self!Cas doesn’t seem to be immune to Castiel’s 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 it’s important to look at the ending scene with Castiel waking up in a field. Tbh if this is really “just” Cas than they could have spared us the entire Empty stuff including Castiel’s 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 “soul” in the end. I personally definitely felt like one needs to see Castiel’s expierences in the Empty in relation to Jack confessing to Mia that he “says he feels bad, but that he actually doesn’t feel anything”, 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 “only” with a soul. At the very least this line - even if Jack isn’t 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 don’t hope so, but without any ups and downs his arc would be too boring, I suppose.












