sPN 7x21
Which I did. Grr.
Mostly my brain is trying to analyze Castiel's whole 'observing the universe' trip, and not buying it. By which I mean, I do think there was effort to illustrate how all right he wasn't, in for e.g. talking about himself in the third person and freaking out about conflict. (I enjoyed Dean being forced, for the first time, to really get a handle on his tendency to default to yelling at everyone--it was nice to see him having to force himself to be aware, and really kind of struggling with it.) I don't know if we're going to be stuck with this version of Castiel for a while, or what, but I will say that this kind of 'big picture' way of dealing with trauma isn't actually all that effective in the long run. As they kind of went out of their way to show that he's really *not* dealing with things, basically by not facing them, and is keeping his attention on some larger reality...well I hope that means that at some point we'll see him being confronted with his own Self and guilt and things he's not facing at this point.
I have mixed feelings about the whole Meg thing, mostly just due to the fact that after everything that happened with the Winchesters and Castiel it's sorta jarring to see him shifting loyalties or having emotions unrelated to the guys. On the other hand, from a character development perspective, if he's going to hold his own at all in the upcoming season he needs to have an existence outside of Dean and Sam, with his own wants and needs and motivations for doing things, which is something he's sort of lacked up to now. So having him develop them, in regards to a demon of all things, isn't a bad idea. I'm also sort of interested in the fact that they're both essentially immortal, so there's that.
Other random stuff:
1. I know for a fact Edlund damn well knows the difference between great apes and monkeys. So what the hell?
Sorry, it's just a pet peeve of mine. A big one. I realize that it wouldn't have worked as well for the line and what was going on in the scene, but it still bugs me.
2. Yes, I did enjoy Sam's Transformers trip. Yes, I get that it was OOC. No fic writer anywhere, EVER, would write that scene. But it's their show so they can do what they want. Furtherore, I like to think of it not as being about Sam not knowing what a Metatron is so much as him not knowing what the actual names of the Transformers are. Because that's what Dean corrects him on.
3. Dean's sadness was nice and nearly palpable here. I like the way his development has gone this season, especially contrasted with past arcs. So much of who he was focused on trying to fix things, make Sam be okay, with a kind of frantic desperation that showed that not being able to fix it cut him deep, deep down--at the core of who he was. (Being a fixer means that not being able to fix things shakes your foundation of self. It's why they wade into awful situations to try to make them better, because not doing so is self-negating.) These days there's that sense that he's so overwhelmed and frankly burned out from past efforts that he's completely lost as to what to do, or even WANTING to do anything. Curious to see how this'll play out.
4. Castiel was a captain.
5. Leviathans are more powerful than angels. So Sam and Dean shouldn't feel too bad about not being able to kill them.
6. I wonder if Meg's little speech about serving a cause will guide Cas in some direction. Alternately, it's interesting that her focus on serving is a sort of demonstrably angelic quality--the need to have orders to follow. Contrast that with Castiel, who by the end is cut loose of all orders. (On that subject, there's the whole cracktastic issue of Azazel having an angel's name, and Meg being his 'daughter'. So does she have some angelic qualities anyway? It'd explain her dedication to things.)
7. Bone of a righteous mortal, eh? Could be anyone. Could be...
8. Given that this is a show about violence, I'm really hoping Castiel not wanting to fight anymore won't be ongoing. It'd be nice if he was put in a position where he had to, to defend somebody. He wouldn't fight to defend himself, but maybe he'd do it for somebody else?
9. Like a lot of people, I also thought the large, unhappy dogs were dingos.