Throwback to the constant torment Cas experienced while possessed by Lucifer - sitting in the bunker’s kitchen watching telly. Completely comparable to Sam’s time in the Cage.

It’s interesting how it’s nearly always an insult, a drawing of battle lines, just like Dean’s usage of “sweetheart”, which makes it all the more powerful in those rare instances where it’s accompanied by genuine warmth.

Rowena + Eye Shadow

I was hoping so much Dean would actually go through with his original plan! Because what Dean was planning to do with the box was not “checking out”, it was not giving up – not on “them”, like Sam said, and not giving up in general either.

It was the opposite – it was fighting. Fighting kamikaze style, true, but fighting with the best chance of success, because for now, Dean has the upper hand.

It was the safest solution. Now if Michael slips free and takes control again unexpectedly, I guess they’ll just have to ask him to please wait until they get from wherever they are to the box (or are they gonna take it with them wherever they go?) so that they can lock him up…

Also, to those who keep saying it had to end this way because the show couldn’t actually go on with Dean in the box, I say: Why not?

There are several movies where a character spends their entite time in a small, confined space (a box, a phone booth, a car…), so certainly SPN could figure out at least one episode where the Dean parts are in that box. We could get more of what we’ve seen in the opening scene of 14x12. We could get Dean trying to hide from his horrible reality in his mind, trying to go through his good memories or something. There are ways to make it work. And since it’s SPN, there are also ways of eventually getting him out. (And then we might get something about how traumatized Dean was by the whole thing, and that would be wonderful as well.)

And even if convincing Dean to put off his box plan was the only way to go, then there should have at least been a new plan in place, not just “We’ll find something at some point, and until then, let’s just hope you’ll manage to keep Michael under control.”

The show’s low budget forced them to be inventive in a lot of ways in the first couple of seasons - but they’ve grown a bit too comfortable since to think too much outside the box. Just think of the hellhound fight in 5x20 - scary, exciting and great cinema. Nowadadys we get lacklustre CGI animations.

So Dabb was probably like, “We don’t have the budget to film things at the bottom of the ocean” and that was it. Never mind that like you said, alternate solutions could easily have been found, given the show’s history.

@staycejo1 replied:  Sam and Castiel both have had archangels in them. In fact the same one, Lucifer.  Sam had to take hold and get him into the cage and Castiel had to keep Lucifer from killing Sam but he couldn't throw him out because he needed Lucifer to save Dean because Cas could not teleport. They know exactly what Dean is going through. They would go inside his mind and help barricade that door if they could! They just might!

Sure, Cas sitting in the bunker’s kitchen watching telly is perfectly comparable to what Dean’s going through right now in his mind.

caption this

SPN Hiatus Creations | Week Seventeen | Sets or Scenery ↳ The sky

11x23 | Alpha and Omega

Crowley really doesn’t like seeing Dean in pain.

@rivkat: #at least not that kind of pain 

You’re not wrong. ;)