caranfindel | On further review: More thoughts about 11.08

Spoilers for 11.08 but nothing else.

Let's talk about Dean. Some people didn't agree with me that Dean was unnecessarily douchey to the zanna. I get why he was angry about Sully. He resented that Sully was there for Sam when he wasn't able to be there himself. And he's never been one to immediately take to supernatural beings, even when they saved his life, or Sam's. So I don't think it's over the top or out of character that he's annoyed with the zanna right from the beginning. The part that seemed "off" to me was when he was talking about Nicki, the dead mermaid zanna. First, he suggested to Sully that they could "find a giant toilet and flush it." This was cruel to Sully and beyond disrespectful to Nicki. Second, when her boyfriend Weems (who didn't yet know she was dead) expressed that he was lucky to alive, Dean said "Well, the mermaid wasn't so lucky." Again, it seemed needlessly cruel. And it makes me wonder... other posters have suggested that Dean is still not quite right, that he's not all the way over the MoC's influence, or his bond with the Darkness is having an impact. I'd love if that were true.

And now Sam. I said young Sam's dismissal of Sully seemed uncharacteristically cruel as well. But as

meadowphoenix wisely pointed out, Sam didn't know Sully was a sentient being, with his own thoughts and emotions. He thought he was a figment of his imagination. So when he said "I don't even know why I made you up in the first place. I wish I could un-make you up," he wasn't talking to anyone else. He was talking to that little piece of his heart and mind that thought he could escape from hunting and have a normal life. He wished that part of himself didn't exist. And oh, god, that hurts.

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Yes definitely agree about young Sam not realising that he was rejecting a person. Which made Sam's apology to Sully in 11x08 extra sweet, kind of? You know, he doesn't say 'I didn't think I was hurting anybody', he says 'I was a jerk kid,' like Sam you were so not a jerk. SAM IS SO AWESOME as Sully wisely observes.

As for Dean... I'd love if he were under some kind of influence (because I'd like to see him get OUT from under it and maybe, I don't know, offer some kind of apology to Sam for the stuff that went down over the last two years - "It should be you up there, not her," anybody?!) but I'm not totally convinced. I liked that he accepted Sully by the end of the episode. I found lots of the stuff with him (esp grumpy morning Dean) very cute. But yes, he's being pretty harsh this season in general. He wanted to kill nice benign soulless Len as well, when they first met him. Maybe it's just recalibration after the MOC. But it doesn't say great things about Dean's behaviour over the past several seasons that so many people can be so unsure right now whether he's soulless, somehow tainted by the Darkness, or just being kind of a jerk...!

Hm! After reading this, as well as Jess' reply, I guess I can see it, re. Dean. Monsters are always a tough sell for Dean, but yeah. Maybe it's Amara's effect on him? We shall see...

I'd like to think that Amara does have some sort of connection/effect on Dean, I think that would tie in nicely to his journey this season and make the Darkness that much harder to deal with.

But I can also see that Dean has never warmed to 'good' supernatural beings; he's more of a black and white kinda guy, whereas Sam has seen shades of grey (especially in the early seasons). The comments you mentioned do seem particularly harsh, but I'm not sure at this point what to think...is is purposeful? Accidental? I'm sure looking forward to finding out!

I think what everyone is overlooking re: Dean and Nicki is that Dean, in true 'bad cop' style (because you know that's gotta be a habit with him) is assuming that Weems did in his girlfriend (Weems is said to be 'clingy') and so is treating him like a suspect. You can see that *look* on his face when he says that Nicki is dead.

It's not a 'ha, take that, you stupid creature!!' look, but a 'say this bit of information and see how they react' very calculating look. And that is *all* Dean.

Hmmm... Interesting!

I hope that Amara has something to do with how callous Dean has been. There was a lot of speculation after one of the earlier episodes that he has lost part of his soul, maybe all of it. Maybe the callous approach to just about everybody has something to do with that. Some of his attitude reminds me of soulless Sam with no verbal filter.

The hard thing is that the Dean that I really liked has been a real ass since at least his time in Purgatory. I really miss the Dean that had some compassion under the snark. Not perfect and certainly overly violent but it was more balanced with the love he had for family and the way he expressed that as well as regrets and fears. Because of how 2 dimensional Sam and Dean have been through S8-S10, it's been hard to tell if they've played up the asshole aspect of his personality for laughs and because they think it's a defining Dean characteristic or if they mean to have him just become more generally nasty due to what he's been through. This Dean would have a totally different way of expressing what he did in hell than S4 Dean. I can't picture him with a tearful confession about much of anything. Maybe Famine was right that in a way, Dean is already dead inside. Maybe there's hope though. So far this season, we've gotten a look into Sam's head and heart like we haven't in many seasons and he's become a character with depth. I hope that maybe Dean's character can be redeemed somehow.

The only thing I will say on behalf of Dean if he's all Dean is that he's like me in the way that the more emotionally uncomfortable he becomes, the more snarky and flip he gets without noticing or caring about the resulting toll his comments take on their targets. To find out that Sam had an imaginary friend that was actually something real probably really threw him for a loop for a lot of reasons.

I totally agree with the comment above that his interaction with Weems was being the bad cop.

Edited 2015-12-07 17:35 (UTC)

Because of how 2 dimensional Sam and Dean have been through S8-S10, it's been hard to tell if they've played up the asshole aspect of his personality for laughs and because they think it's a defining Dean characteristic or if they mean to have him just become more generally nasty due to what he's been through.

Good question. Like the gluttony and ogling in Halt and Catch Fire (was that just last season?) - does it mean something, or is it just the writers reducing him to a parody of himself?

Heh, to be fair to Dean, even he knows he's crossed the line with the "flush her" remark. I wouldn't be surprised if something's going on with him, but I also wouldn't be surprised if something isn't. This sorta of emotional hardening does seem to be Dean's reaction to the complex nature of being both perpetrator and victim in some of his trauma.

Honestly, I thought Dean was nicer in the last ep than he's been in a long time, but he did seem deliberately cruel to Sully and to Weems. He doesn't see them as people, as he said himself, and that's consistent with his worldview over the course of the series.

That said, the Mark of Cain seems to have a long-term effect on its bearers. If I'm remembering correctly, Lucifer was the first one to act as the lock against the Darkness. While he transferred that responsibility to Cain, he still went from being God's most beloved and beautiful angel to ... well, Lucifer. Someone who had to be caged. Cain, AFTER transferring that responsibility to Dean, went on a killing spree, hunting down his descendants.

Now Dean has been cleared of the Mark. It's not really reasonable to expect him to emerge unscathed. I don't think he's lost his soul or anything like that, but I do think he's been affected by having had the Mark of Cain.

On further review: More thoughts about 11.08

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