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Anyway I’m thinking about Dean opening Singer’s roadhouse in Bobby’s honour and proudly wearing his wedding band and making it Very clear that bullshit will not be tolerated and becoming a refuge for queer hunter kids and Claire laughs at him because ‘is there a queer hunter kid in America you HAVENT adopted’ and he just grins because he loves all his kids and he loves Cas and he finally feels good about himself and his impact on the world.
Looking back into “Our Little World”
There was a mirror leaned up against the wall behind Cas while he watched television for hour upon hour. His back was to it.
Metatron was revealed by his reflection on the back of a vehicle’s side view mirror that was caught by his own camera and broadcast to where Cas saw it.
Crowley threw Dean through the mirror Amara had previously seen THE DARKNESS in. Dean was later thrown into the same spot by Amara, and lay there in the shattered pieces as he watched Amara leave. (She walked right past the computer she had previously been looking at pictures from the outside world on and had used to bash Crowley over the head when he threatened Dean.)
I LOVE THIS BUT WHAT DOES IT ///MEAN///???
Well hey let’s take a look at some episode themes shall we. The key word today, boys and girls, is repression.
Cas’s storyline for this episode was that of a traumatized soldier: flashbacks, anxiety, refusing to leave the comfort of home, coping by ignoring the problem and drowning his bad feelings with mindless drivel from the television, etc. This dude is repressing HARDCORE: hence, his back to the mirror. As long as he is in the bunker, Cas refuses to acknowledge trauma, his lost sense of purpose, and most importantly his own identity (tangled up in puppet strings) now that he’s allowed to make his own choices again. It’s all a little overwhelming for our little cupcake, understandably. Back to the mirror = denial of internal truths, that seems pretty obvious.
As for Metatron: he’s human now, and feels that he has sunk as low as he can possibly go. He’s got bed bugs for god’s sake. Metatron defends himself in front of Castiel with arrogance - he’s doing great on his own, he’s clawing his way to the top and he knows he’ll get there, since he’ll do whatever he has to in order to succeed. He’s too confident in his abilities. But while getting beat up, human blood trickling into his eyes, we learn that’s just an act. He confesses that it’s exhausting to live a life like this, that it’s nearly impossible to do it all by himself. I think it’s also significant that Metatron has a swollen eye in the fight scene when he admits all of this: he can’t see things clearly in his diminished state. The way we find out where Metatron is - WHAT he is, costume and all - in this episode is by seeing him reflected back to us in a mirror and making a judgment based on what we see. Prior to this point he’s been preoccupied with hiding behind a barrier of film that’s meant to reveal the true nature of OTHER people and not the person behind it. The mirror shows us a photonegative of the angel Metatron once was despite his best efforts to be something different, to hide himself away like the recluse we know him to be, and his ultimate failure to do so.
Even Crowley’s actions seem pretty clear. Crowley catapults Dean into the visual embodiment of Amara’s future self and destroys it. He’s trying to split them up, to literally break the connection between them in favor of forming one with her himself. He also asks that Amara play by his rules, stop growing up so fast. He doesn’t want to see what Amara sees in the mirror. But Amara doesn’t like that, does she? So she breaks the computer over Crowley’s head: severing the connection HE’D wanted to create with her by providing her with a filtered version of reality, the world he’d wanted her to see rather than what she knows is true (her own potential - what are volcanoes and Nazis to a pre-biblical force? - and that’s what reflected back to her in the mirror). The mirror is true prophecy and the computer is a poor imitation, a curriculum designed and shaped by Crowley. By throwing Dean into the mirror, Crowley simultaneously tries to suppress Amara’s growth AND destroy the weird bond Dean and Amara have that threatens his own safety. He, like Metatron, fails to construct a world where he comes out on top, and his shortcoming is emphasized by the very presence of a mirror. Breaking the mirror does nothing for Crowley in the end but betray his desperation.
But Dean. Hm.
How many times have we seen Dean solemnly thinking about what Amara said to him in the field about being bonded, only to shake it off and never mention it aloud? Dean is the only one in that room who hasn’t been acknowledging a connection with Amara. He doesn’t WANT it. And yet he’s powerless to keep it from developing. After initially being the instrument at Crowley’s hand to break the mirror, Amara throws him back to that spot in choosing to spare his life. At this point he’s once again surrounded by shards of mirror, still mentally processing how he was totally frozen during his one opportunity to kill her - it’s as if Amara’s visage has just multiplied, encircling him and taunting him and overwhelming him. That picture’s not complete now, but it WAS. It WILL be very soon, since Dean can’t seem to get his shit together at the fault of their connection. HERE’S THE PARALLEL: Dean doesn’t see AMARA in that mirror, he sees HIMSELF. Reflected back at Dean is, by literal mirroring, the very same thing Amara saw. The very essence of Amara will be reflected right back at him every time he looks in a mirror, because Dean’s got the darkness in him, too. (Angst, angst, angst, more angst.) Dean, I think, is beginning to understand this, and it scares the shit out of him. He doesn’t want to go back to that mental state of the Mark of Cain, so he denies the bond with Amara. He won’t become that. He lies, he represses. Unfortunately, that’s resulting in destruction. Lack of empathy where Cas is concerned (only in this episode when this all comes to a head), darkened mental state to the point where fandom’s beginning to consider him soulless, a desperate need to prove himself, lashing out at the people he loves for stupid things… it’s all because he’s being thrown around by the darkness.
Dean’s mirror is a complex symbol to nail down because it means different things for different characters, unlike the angels’ mirrors. Amara sees empowerment and a potential that will eventually be realized, so the mirror remains intact in her room. Crowley sees a threat that needs to be eliminated, so he breaks the mirror. After his failure to do what he knows he should, Dean sees his doom and his worst fears, so he lies about being “overpowered” after laying surrounded by the mirror shards.
TL;DR: Mirror placement in 11.06 underscores the significance of the following plot points: Cas doesn’t want to face his past trauma and the identity he’s adopted based on said trauma, Metatron doesn’t either and takes deliberate measures to avoid self-reflection but ultimately can’t help it, Crowley’s trying to keep Dean and Amara apart and Amara docile but like Metatron fails, Dean’s ignoring the connection he has with Amara because it’s dangerously close to being applicable to himself and that has disastrous effects on his relationships, and Amara’s forcing Dean to come to terms with all of that as not a ‘bad thing.’
????? maybe?????
Can we talk about Cas in this scene for a sec? I just love the way he’s leaning against the wall here, hands in pockets, letting his body be supported.
Old S4!Cas…he would’ve spent the time waiting just standing awkwardly in the middle of the sidewalk (like Sam is doing, only more unnaturally). Just standing. S10!Cas is more like “Fuck everything. I’m tired, and I’m leaning against this wall while I wait.” It’s not as though the kid they’re waiting for knows him. He’s not doing it to be concealed, and even if he was, standing at the wall would achieve that. But he’s not standing. He’s leaning.
It’s crazy how through such a simple way of holding himself, you can see six seasons worth of growth and development. Six seasons of complete life upheaval, of everything he was for thousands of years being transformed into something else.
Now it might have been either the Director or Misha’s choice to stand at the wall, but the acting choices Misha’s made on how to hold himself… Brilliant.
They let Jody give the talk.
Is this foreshadowing for them getting a happy ending and letting other people take over?
Honestly YES. I think it might be - or rebuilding their own personal network, at least.
