10 Things That Make Cassie Robinson Awesome
More for womenlovefest, We Love The Women That Fandom Hates.
This is not as succinct as the Bela meta/picspam. In fact, I don't know that "succinct" even applies here. You've been warned.
I don't think I've ever given this much thought to a single-episode character. And I'm not even sure if what follows makes complete sense. But I enjoyed exploring her character further.
Note: This contains spoilers up to episode 6.01.
10 Things That Make Cassie Robinson Awesome
(in a convenient numbered format with inconveniently ramble-y paragraphs)
1.) Her character helped to redeem a weak episode.
Let's face it, "Route 666" was a flawed episode.
The potential was there for strong social commentary, a way to weave America's Civil Rights Movement into what, on the surface, seems like a simple, fun horror show.
Perhaps it was too ambitious - the writers and everyone else involved with the show still finding their footing with Supernatural still in its infancy.
But "Route 666" wasn't a complete failure. The risible quality of an evil truck aside, there was the moving story of Audrey and Martin Robinson and their interracial relationship, culminating in a heart-tugging performance by Kathleen Noone, who portrayed Audrey.
"Route 666" shows us the different roads taken by people when their relationships encounter obstacles - a theme that recurs in Supernatural in romantic and non-romantic scenarios. Within the ghost story, there is the story of union versus division, and the gray areas between those two possible options.
The struggles faced by Audrey and Martin during the 60s sharply contrast the struggles faced by their daughter Cassie and Dean. Whereas Audrey and Martin's love helped to pull them through times of social opposition, Dean and Cassie face no apparent social challenge yet their own interpersonal difficulties test their love and pull them apart.
Love, Cassie and Dean’s story suggests, does not always conquer all.
2.) Cassie is a complicated woman.
According to the back-story, Cassie dumped Dean after he told her about “the family secret,” about being a hunter. She assumed he had concocted a lie, a lame excuse to get out of their relationship. As she tells him later: “Back then, I thought you just wanted to dump me.” This, she indicates is why she took initiative and dumped him first. But then Cassie admits: “Maybe I was looking for a reason to walk away.” While Cassie does not elaborate on this statement, one can infer a combination of potential reasons: from the overwhelming intensity of their brief relationship to the fighting that punctuated it. Was college-aged Cassie questioning whether or not she could fit a serious relationship into her life? Was she questioning Dean’s ability to commit to such a relationship? Was she simply questioning Dean, a man she’d just met? Any other number of unnamed factors may have caused her doubts. Yet, further complicating things, she admits that, at the time, she had hoped Dean would be in her future.
Her earlier mixed feelings about Dean become even more complex when she and Dean reconnect in Cape Girardeau, on the verge of reigniting that old relationship. Now Cassie knows that Dean had told her the truth. However, this also means she knows that if anything happens between them, Dean's hunter lifestyle will make him an inconsistent presence in her life.
A renewed interest, if not outright love, appears to be there. It's strong enough that she wants to accept the outlandish truth of Dean’s lifestyle and attempt to accept him back into her life.
But Cassie is not a princess in a fairy tale, fantasizing over a perfect, happy ending. She is a woman who knows that life doesn’t give you what you want - if you even know what that is.
3.) She is a realist.
Cassie says it herself.
At the end of “Route 666,” when Dean suggests the possibility that this goodbye will be a little less permanent, she cuts through his optimistic words with a common sense response. “I don’t see much hope for us,” she tells him.
Dean attempts to reassure her, and most likely himself, by affirming: “I’ll see ya, Cassie. I will.” But the expression on her face - a resigned disbelief, it seems - tells us she knows better.
We know better too.
Even thirteen episodes in to the first season, certain aspects of Dean’s character were already familiar. Dean’s language is a cut-off kind, clipped down to the minimal pieces, crouched in trite sayings when nothing else will do. With that in mind, can we know for sure if his promise to Cassie at the end of the episode is just empty words or if those words are meant sincerely? And is it a promise that can be kept?
To the latter, the most likely answer is no. But the promise to see Cassie again has the potential to be upheld, provided that Dean is willing to make the effort. Is he really?
The answer to Dean’s true feelings may be found where they often are: outside of words, in the absence of them.
Dean almost always exposes his feelings through his actions. As they drive off, leaving Cassie and Cape Girardeau in the Impala’s rearview mirror, Sam says to Dean: “You meet someone like her, doesn’t it make you wonder if it’s worth it? Putting everything else on hold, doing what we do?” Dean doesn’t answer Sam’s question. He slumps down in the passenger seat with a pair of sunglasses shading his often-expressive eyes, sending a clear message that Dean Winchester does not want to talk about it. Dean’s non-answer is as good as a “yes.”
4.) Cassie gets Dean, and sees through his bullshit.
One of my favorite little moments in the episode is when Cassie playfully tells Dean, “Don’t go getting all authoritative on me.” It’s delivered playfully, but that playfulness belies her strength and independence. It also takes Dean down a peg. She sees through the machismo. Maybe that’s part of why he originally fell for her and decided to tell her the truth - “a big first" for him. Perhaps Cassie, seeing clearly past his veneer, gave him nowhere to hide. As he goes on about that confession that led to their break-up in Athens, he concedes that he “couldn’t lie” to her. Although Jensen’s delivery of the word goes unstressed, “couldn’t” still sticks out.
The man whose job description includes lying to get information finds himself incapable of being untruthful with Cassie, a woman whose job depends on uncovering facts and laying them bare.
Thus, not only does Cassie see through Dean’s hopeful words during their goodbye, she calls Dean out on his issues. She tells him forthright, “Whenever we get close, anywhere in the neighborhood of emotional vulnerability, you back off or make some joke or find any way to shut the door on me.” Six seasons later, this remains an accurate description of how Dean typically deals with difficult emotions. Add a liver-terrorizing amount of alcohol, and you’ve got Dean Winchester’s self-help plan right there.
To be fair, Dean comes alarmingly close to acknowledging his vulnerability when he tells Sam, “It was stupid to get that close... look how it ended.”
I do wonder how much Cassie knew about Sam prior to meeting him. When she and Dean dated in Athens, Sam had already left the family to attend Standford - an absence that took an emotional toll on Dean to the point where, in “Dark Side Of The Moon,” he referred to the night Sam left as one of the worst of his life. It’s difficult to imagine Dean talking with Cassie directly about how it affected him when Sam left. But it’s not difficult to imagine that she could detect the loss and vulnerability he felt at having his family torn apart for the second time in his life. This, furthermore, begs the question: did she have any insight into that first family tragedy? I can picture Dean understating the event, simply telling her that his mother had died when he was young. But as previously mentioned, and as anyone who has ever watched the show observes, Dean exhibits a hair-trigger reaction to the mere mention of his mother. Therefore if the topic of family came up, as you would expect in any new relationship, Cassie surely would read through this too, knowing there was a bigger story than the one Dean chose to tell.
It is interesting that the way Dean often withholds his personal information parallels Cassie’s mother’s secret-keeping. Audrey holds back on the truth, keeping to herself the facts of what really happened with Martin and Cyrus Dorian. This, Audrey says, was done with the intention of protecting people - a mentality that also mirrors Dean’s limitless efforts to protect not only those people for whom he cares most but also for strangers. For Dean, “hunter” easily translates to “protector.” Here we have two caretakers (Audrey being Cassie’s mother, and Dean practically raising his Sam) who will go to great lengths to protect others.
However, in a direct contrast to Audrey’s kept secret, we have Dean’s revealed secret: the previously discussed Athens admission. Thus, this episode plays with the nature of secrets kept and secrets revealed, and seems to ask us: which is best?
In either instance, heartache and destruction prove to be the consequences. Dean’s revealed secret leads to an abrupt end of his relationship with Cassie in their off-camera back-story. Audrey’s secret protects no one in the end.
No one, except herself and her daughter.
Perhaps the no-win situation contains some success after all. Audrey and Cassie are still alive at the end of “Route 666,” and that may never have happened if Dean hadn’t told her the truth years before. If she truly did read Dean well, perhaps some small part of her believed him back then but her realist mentality dominated her judgment. Then her father's unusual death shook her faith in reality, perhaps shook loose that tiny belief in Dean, and caused her to make a different judgment call.
5.) Cassie is fearless but not afraid to ask for help.
Sam uses that very word to describe her: fearless. Indeed, she demonstrates courageousness, confidence and an unwillingness to back down.
Although her father dies at the beginning of the episode, she plows on through her grief, continuing with her job (not unlike Sam and especially Dean later in the series). Standing up for what she believes in, she argues forthright with Mayor Harold Todd when he recommends she and Editor Jimmy Anderson, in her words, “sit on” on the news story of the recent deaths. Later, she confronts the mayor again, urging him to close the section of road where the deaths occurred. She asks him up-front: “Would you close the road if the victims were white?” Once again, she cuts through the bullshit, showing her intelligence and inquisitiveness.
While we don’t know exactly what Cassie is like on the job when she’s not personally connected to a story, what we do see of her in action as a journalist at the Cape Girardeau newspaper presents us with the image of a tough woman unafraid to ask the tough questions.
But some things are beyond her strengths.
Despite being “skeptical about this ghost... stuff,” and originally thinking Dean was “nuts,” Cassie is smart enough to know her own limits. This is when she calls Dean, trusting in his strengths to help them when no other help seems available.
6.) She’s self-aware.
Other things that Cassie and Dean excel at are revealed midway through the episode.
Post-coital, she says to Dean: “Actually we were always pretty good at fighting. This [sex] we were good at. It’s all the other stuff, not so much.” Again, we get a glimpse into the struggles between them, in apparent opposition to their combined strengths.
Not unlike Dean, Cassie diffuses the difficult topic by admitting, “I’m a scary one all right.” It’s a statement of self-awareness that comes with an undercurrent of pride (pride that, in my opinion, is well-earned).
Once again proving that Cassie gets under Dean’s skin enough to extract the truth, Dean admits that working things out with her was tough. This was Dean’s first real introduction to how difficult relationships can be and often are. Cassie emphasizes this common aspect of relationships, but also indirectly alludes to her parents' exceptional difficulties, when she says, “Usually things get worked out when you really want them to.”
From there, she cuts the conversation short: in one sense echoing Dean’s typically abrupt way of ending conversations, but also succinctly showing how well she knows herself and him. “No more excuses, okay? From you or me,” she says.
Calling their issues “excuses” seems to be an oversimplification. Even Dean tells Sam, “We’ll be working things out ‘til we’re 90.”
But maybe Cassie, once again, is onto a lead toward the real truth.
Hunting is a dangerous job. Perhaps she realizes she does not want a life connected to that. Perhaps, also, she understands that Dean doesn’t want to bring her into that life. Dean’s main commitment will always be saving people and hunting things. Any love interest takes a backseat to his job and, of course, his family.
Nevertheless, is there truly no room for Cassie to fit into his life? Is there no place for Dean in hers?
As we see repeatedly throughout the series, monsters are everywhere in the world of Supernatural. Cassie knows that now, basically knows what Dean knows. It seems this would bring them closer together. Imagine, for instance, how her inquisitiveness would inspire her to learn more about the supernatural. Meanwhile, Dean might want to protect her even more, keep an eye on her at minimum, or teach her how to protect herself against any other supernatural beings. The latter, I could see Cassie researching and investigating on her own. But she also might wish to seek Dean’s expert assistance for hands-on training. They could work together to work things out.
If the trials of their relationship are all that hold them back, then it does sound like excuse-making. As Cassie says, these can be overcome when truly wanted.
Given Dean’s goodbye to Cassie and his non-response to Sam as discussed above, it seems safe to say that some part of Dean does want to work things out. Add to this the revelation in season three of Dean’s desire for a “normal” family. Although this desire becomes apparent in “The Kids Are Alright,” (triggered by the brief possibility of Ben being Dean’s son, which further triggers Dean to look to Lisa and Ben as the symbols of a conventional family life), the first signs of Dean’s yearning for the stability of a more settled-down life seem to be intimated in “Route 666” via Cassie.
7.) Cassie also understands the importance of family.
After the death of her father, she stays with her mom to watch over her. The theme of protection returns here. Making little mention of her own grief, she focuses on her mother instead, wanting to watch over her.
The similarities to Sam and Dean’s prioritization of family are impossible to ignore.
Since “Route 666,” we’ve seen the brothers’ family extend to include Bobby and Castiel (arguably Jo and Ellen Harvelle, Rufus Turner and others). Similarly, Cassie’s family seems to extend beyond her parents to at least include Jimmy Anderson, to whom she shows great reverence, laboring over his memorial piece and saying, “he taught me everything.” With that in mind, could Dean also have fit into the Robinson family? Could Cassie have fit into the Winchester family too?
Consider that Dean's relationship with Cassie was the longest he'd ever had (albeit numbered in weeks) prior to his post-"Swan Song" and pre-“Exile On Main St." year-long stint with Lisa. It’s also noteworthy that his year with Lisa happened approximately four years after his reconnection with Cassie. Did Cassie get under his skin that badly that no one else could compare? And does Lisa’s impact on him, merely ephemeral and emblematic until season six, carry the same weight?
Let me preface this by stating that I like Lisa. I like her a lot. Furthermore, I understand why Lisa was the woman Dean went to at the end of season five. Part of it was what she and Ben symbolized to him (and isn’t it easier to latch onto a symbol than the real thing?). But he also did it for Sam.
Sam was well aware that Dean wanted a regular family life, having been privy to his fantasy involving Lisa in “Dream A Little Dream Of Me.” I assume this is what Sam’s thinking of when, in “Swan Song,” he asks Dean to promise he’ll “go find Lisa” and “live some normal, apple pie life” after Sam is gone. It’s interesting, however, that Sam says, “You pray to God she’s dumb enough to take you in.” On the surface, this reads as brotherly ribbing. But underneath that, it shows that Sam is well aware of the complications Dean brings with him: as a hunter, as someone who has literally been through Hell. It almost makes me wonder if Sam believes any of what he says there. Does he honestly think "normal" is still possible for Dean?
Much like Cassie, Sam is a pragmatist. He knows what can work and what can’t in their world. And while that phrase, “dumb enough to take you in” doesn’t shine the best light on Lisa (unintentional on Sam’s part, I believe), it does set up the contrast between Lisa and Cassie.
Long before Dean went to Hell and acquired the baggage he has by the end of season five, Cassie was smart enough to understand that “normal” and “apple pie” were not in the cards when it came to dating Dean Winchester. Does this mean Lisa is dumb for taking Dean in? I don’t think so. In fact, she has exhibited refreshing intelligence and maturity when it comes to dealing with Dean’s issues - especially evident in season six when she addresses Dean frankly and openly about how they might make their relationship work.
Then, does it mean that Dean and Cassie can’t have something even if it doesn’t fit the confines of “normal”?
Not to get off-track too much: I think it’s important that when Dean goes to Lisa at the end of “99 Problems,” he says he has “no illusions.” But then he follows that with: “When I picture myself happy, it’s with you and the kid.” I may be nit-picking, but the use of the word “picture” stands out for me, matching up with “illusions.” It’s impossible to ignore that he says these things to Lisa with his mind set on the plan to say yes to Michael. What he tells Lisa then reads as a goodbye to a what-if, a notion.
Another problem I have with Dean’ latching on to Lisa and Ben is that he says he’s made arrangements for her and Ben for after he’s gone. Fair enough, but what about Cassie? Is it the lack of a child? Is it that he knows Cassie can take care of herself and only has herself to take care of? What about Cassie’s mother?
8.) She makes a strong impression on Sam and Dean.
The ultimate problem with Lisa being the one Dean goes to in "99 Problems" is that there was never any sign of love between them. As much as I’d like to imagine there was something more upon which they could base a relationship, the fact is we were never shown any contact between them from the second episode of season three (“The Kids Are Alright") up until the end of the seventeenth episode of season five (“99 Problems"). Given that, at the end of “99 Problems,” Dean mentions he didn’t have Lisa’s number, going further to observe that she has moved to a new house, I can only assume there was no contact. So Lisa and Dean’s interaction boils down to a few, brief encounters in “The Kids Are Alright” (most of which he spent chasing after changelings, not getting to know her) and a weekend of fantastic sex when they were younger. That’s all.
As much as I like Lisa, I do not see a basis for a loving relationship in that.
But with Cassie and Dean, there was evidence of love. And although a relationship between them may have been just as doomed as the one between Dean and Lisa, there was at least a foundation there that went deeper than mere symbolism.
Early on in “Route 666,” Sam calls Dean out. “You loved her,” he says. Dean’s lack of an answer, as mentioned, is of course typical Dean-speak for “yes.”
Additionally, Sam likes Cassie. He says so.
Come on, not all of my criteria can be substantive. I like Sam. Sam likes Cassie. I like Cassie. Let’s all join hands and skip in a circle.
But consider how, before his character arc revealed greater fallibility and complexity, Sam served as the basic hero of the show. In season one, Sam is at his most Luke Skywalker-like (A New Hope-Skywalker, not Empire Strikes Back and onward), making him appear trustworthy and endearing to the audience’s affections. His simple declaration of liking Cassie almost requires the same from the audience. Beyond that, Sam is one of Dean’s biggest loves (if not the biggest) and often his main focus throughout the series. There’s no way Sam's opinion of Cassie has no effect on Dean.
Besides, Sam seems to be attracted to smart, strong women. Think of Jessica, Sarah (“Provenance”), Madison (“Heart”) and Dr. Cara Roberts (“Sex And Violence”). Aside from his inability to properly mistrust Ruby, I’d say Sam has reliable taste.
9.) Cassie brings feminism to Supernatural.
While intelligent, strong, independent, bold, confident, complex women appear to be Sam’s preference, Cassie sets up the standard that this type of person is also “womanizer” Dean’s preference. Note, for example, Jo Harvelle, Anna Milton, Pamela Barnes, Casey from “Sin City,” Jamie from “Monster Movie,” Carmen from “What Is And What Should Never Be” (yes, a djinn-induced, magazine ad-inspired creation, but she still counts), and Lisa Braeden.
That Cassie and Lisa were the two who made the biggest impression on Dean redeems him from all his macho swagger. He might be a slut through much of the show, seem like a pig at times, but he wants more than a casual fuck. When it counts the most, he picks substance over superficiality.
Much as he does with Lisa later in the series, Dean goes head-to-head with Lisa. Their fighting, I believe, stems from their similarities: stubbornness, strength of opinion and the ability to express it when put to the test. Despite their different jobs, they both use their work and their skills to uncover the truth and they do it well. Essentially, they are equals.
Perhaps Dean telling Cassie the truth about his family in the back-story of "Route 666" is further proof that he felt she was an equal, someone who would understand.
At the end of the episode, Cassie understands a lot more than she had before. She gains greater knowledge about the Winchester family secret, a first-hand knowledge of the supernatural that emerges out of a personal crisis - something else she shares with Dean. And that knowledge brings her to the same conclusion Dean has come to time and time again: a realistic understanding that there is relentless evil in their world and not much hope.
But there is some hope.
Finding it is a challenge. But it seems to me that fearless Cassie Robinson and defensive Dean Winchester love a good challenge.
10.) She’s hot.
Finally, moving sharply away from any thinky thoughts, Cassie brings the awesome by being part of one of the hottest sex scenes ever on Supernatural. (All right, so there haven’t been many of those. At least this one wasn’t tainted by a Titanic hand smear.)
This is not to negate Cassie’s individual merit, or make it seem like her only value is vis-à-vis the boys or sex. But, you know, HOT.
Nothing wrong with enjoying the sexiness. :)
I think the history between the characters makes it even more intense.
And kissing. Kissing’s good too.
Remember that little string of saliva between them as they pull away from their goodbye kiss? I don’t know why, but that does things to me.
In conclusion: Ummm, most disjointed meta/picspam/thing ever.
But Cassie is awesome.
[Screencaps of the sexy times and the kissing times by raloria. Others unknown.]
p.s. If you actually read this, you get a pie.
This is not as succinct as the Bela meta/picspam. In fact, I don't know that "succinct" even applies here. You've been warned.
I don't think I've ever given this much thought to a single-episode character. And I'm not even sure if what follows makes complete sense. But I enjoyed exploring her character further.
Note: This contains spoilers up to episode 6.01.
10 Things That Make Cassie Robinson Awesome
(in a convenient numbered format with inconveniently ramble-y paragraphs)
1.) Her character helped to redeem a weak episode.
Let's face it, "Route 666" was a flawed episode.
The potential was there for strong social commentary, a way to weave America's Civil Rights Movement into what, on the surface, seems like a simple, fun horror show.
Perhaps it was too ambitious - the writers and everyone else involved with the show still finding their footing with Supernatural still in its infancy.
But "Route 666" wasn't a complete failure. The risible quality of an evil truck aside, there was the moving story of Audrey and Martin Robinson and their interracial relationship, culminating in a heart-tugging performance by Kathleen Noone, who portrayed Audrey.
"Route 666" shows us the different roads taken by people when their relationships encounter obstacles - a theme that recurs in Supernatural in romantic and non-romantic scenarios. Within the ghost story, there is the story of union versus division, and the gray areas between those two possible options.
The struggles faced by Audrey and Martin during the 60s sharply contrast the struggles faced by their daughter Cassie and Dean. Whereas Audrey and Martin's love helped to pull them through times of social opposition, Dean and Cassie face no apparent social challenge yet their own interpersonal difficulties test their love and pull them apart.
Love, Cassie and Dean’s story suggests, does not always conquer all.
2.) Cassie is a complicated woman.
According to the back-story, Cassie dumped Dean after he told her about “the family secret,” about being a hunter. She assumed he had concocted a lie, a lame excuse to get out of their relationship. As she tells him later: “Back then, I thought you just wanted to dump me.” This, she indicates is why she took initiative and dumped him first. But then Cassie admits: “Maybe I was looking for a reason to walk away.” While Cassie does not elaborate on this statement, one can infer a combination of potential reasons: from the overwhelming intensity of their brief relationship to the fighting that punctuated it. Was college-aged Cassie questioning whether or not she could fit a serious relationship into her life? Was she questioning Dean’s ability to commit to such a relationship? Was she simply questioning Dean, a man she’d just met? Any other number of unnamed factors may have caused her doubts. Yet, further complicating things, she admits that, at the time, she had hoped Dean would be in her future.
Her earlier mixed feelings about Dean become even more complex when she and Dean reconnect in Cape Girardeau, on the verge of reigniting that old relationship. Now Cassie knows that Dean had told her the truth. However, this also means she knows that if anything happens between them, Dean's hunter lifestyle will make him an inconsistent presence in her life.
A renewed interest, if not outright love, appears to be there. It's strong enough that she wants to accept the outlandish truth of Dean’s lifestyle and attempt to accept him back into her life.
But Cassie is not a princess in a fairy tale, fantasizing over a perfect, happy ending. She is a woman who knows that life doesn’t give you what you want - if you even know what that is.
3.) She is a realist.
Cassie says it herself.
At the end of “Route 666,” when Dean suggests the possibility that this goodbye will be a little less permanent, she cuts through his optimistic words with a common sense response. “I don’t see much hope for us,” she tells him.
Dean attempts to reassure her, and most likely himself, by affirming: “I’ll see ya, Cassie. I will.” But the expression on her face - a resigned disbelief, it seems - tells us she knows better.
We know better too.
Even thirteen episodes in to the first season, certain aspects of Dean’s character were already familiar. Dean’s language is a cut-off kind, clipped down to the minimal pieces, crouched in trite sayings when nothing else will do. With that in mind, can we know for sure if his promise to Cassie at the end of the episode is just empty words or if those words are meant sincerely? And is it a promise that can be kept?
To the latter, the most likely answer is no. But the promise to see Cassie again has the potential to be upheld, provided that Dean is willing to make the effort. Is he really?
The answer to Dean’s true feelings may be found where they often are: outside of words, in the absence of them.
Dean almost always exposes his feelings through his actions. As they drive off, leaving Cassie and Cape Girardeau in the Impala’s rearview mirror, Sam says to Dean: “You meet someone like her, doesn’t it make you wonder if it’s worth it? Putting everything else on hold, doing what we do?” Dean doesn’t answer Sam’s question. He slumps down in the passenger seat with a pair of sunglasses shading his often-expressive eyes, sending a clear message that Dean Winchester does not want to talk about it. Dean’s non-answer is as good as a “yes.”
4.) Cassie gets Dean, and sees through his bullshit.
One of my favorite little moments in the episode is when Cassie playfully tells Dean, “Don’t go getting all authoritative on me.” It’s delivered playfully, but that playfulness belies her strength and independence. It also takes Dean down a peg. She sees through the machismo. Maybe that’s part of why he originally fell for her and decided to tell her the truth - “a big first" for him. Perhaps Cassie, seeing clearly past his veneer, gave him nowhere to hide. As he goes on about that confession that led to their break-up in Athens, he concedes that he “couldn’t lie” to her. Although Jensen’s delivery of the word goes unstressed, “couldn’t” still sticks out.
The man whose job description includes lying to get information finds himself incapable of being untruthful with Cassie, a woman whose job depends on uncovering facts and laying them bare.
Thus, not only does Cassie see through Dean’s hopeful words during their goodbye, she calls Dean out on his issues. She tells him forthright, “Whenever we get close, anywhere in the neighborhood of emotional vulnerability, you back off or make some joke or find any way to shut the door on me.” Six seasons later, this remains an accurate description of how Dean typically deals with difficult emotions. Add a liver-terrorizing amount of alcohol, and you’ve got Dean Winchester’s self-help plan right there.
To be fair, Dean comes alarmingly close to acknowledging his vulnerability when he tells Sam, “It was stupid to get that close... look how it ended.”
I do wonder how much Cassie knew about Sam prior to meeting him. When she and Dean dated in Athens, Sam had already left the family to attend Standford - an absence that took an emotional toll on Dean to the point where, in “Dark Side Of The Moon,” he referred to the night Sam left as one of the worst of his life. It’s difficult to imagine Dean talking with Cassie directly about how it affected him when Sam left. But it’s not difficult to imagine that she could detect the loss and vulnerability he felt at having his family torn apart for the second time in his life. This, furthermore, begs the question: did she have any insight into that first family tragedy? I can picture Dean understating the event, simply telling her that his mother had died when he was young. But as previously mentioned, and as anyone who has ever watched the show observes, Dean exhibits a hair-trigger reaction to the mere mention of his mother. Therefore if the topic of family came up, as you would expect in any new relationship, Cassie surely would read through this too, knowing there was a bigger story than the one Dean chose to tell.
It is interesting that the way Dean often withholds his personal information parallels Cassie’s mother’s secret-keeping. Audrey holds back on the truth, keeping to herself the facts of what really happened with Martin and Cyrus Dorian. This, Audrey says, was done with the intention of protecting people - a mentality that also mirrors Dean’s limitless efforts to protect not only those people for whom he cares most but also for strangers. For Dean, “hunter” easily translates to “protector.” Here we have two caretakers (Audrey being Cassie’s mother, and Dean practically raising his Sam) who will go to great lengths to protect others.
However, in a direct contrast to Audrey’s kept secret, we have Dean’s revealed secret: the previously discussed Athens admission. Thus, this episode plays with the nature of secrets kept and secrets revealed, and seems to ask us: which is best?
In either instance, heartache and destruction prove to be the consequences. Dean’s revealed secret leads to an abrupt end of his relationship with Cassie in their off-camera back-story. Audrey’s secret protects no one in the end.
No one, except herself and her daughter.
Perhaps the no-win situation contains some success after all. Audrey and Cassie are still alive at the end of “Route 666,” and that may never have happened if Dean hadn’t told her the truth years before. If she truly did read Dean well, perhaps some small part of her believed him back then but her realist mentality dominated her judgment. Then her father's unusual death shook her faith in reality, perhaps shook loose that tiny belief in Dean, and caused her to make a different judgment call.
5.) Cassie is fearless but not afraid to ask for help.
Sam uses that very word to describe her: fearless. Indeed, she demonstrates courageousness, confidence and an unwillingness to back down.
Although her father dies at the beginning of the episode, she plows on through her grief, continuing with her job (not unlike Sam and especially Dean later in the series). Standing up for what she believes in, she argues forthright with Mayor Harold Todd when he recommends she and Editor Jimmy Anderson, in her words, “sit on” on the news story of the recent deaths. Later, she confronts the mayor again, urging him to close the section of road where the deaths occurred. She asks him up-front: “Would you close the road if the victims were white?” Once again, she cuts through the bullshit, showing her intelligence and inquisitiveness.
While we don’t know exactly what Cassie is like on the job when she’s not personally connected to a story, what we do see of her in action as a journalist at the Cape Girardeau newspaper presents us with the image of a tough woman unafraid to ask the tough questions.
But some things are beyond her strengths.
Despite being “skeptical about this ghost... stuff,” and originally thinking Dean was “nuts,” Cassie is smart enough to know her own limits. This is when she calls Dean, trusting in his strengths to help them when no other help seems available.
6.) She’s self-aware.
Other things that Cassie and Dean excel at are revealed midway through the episode.
Post-coital, she says to Dean: “Actually we were always pretty good at fighting. This [sex] we were good at. It’s all the other stuff, not so much.” Again, we get a glimpse into the struggles between them, in apparent opposition to their combined strengths.
Not unlike Dean, Cassie diffuses the difficult topic by admitting, “I’m a scary one all right.” It’s a statement of self-awareness that comes with an undercurrent of pride (pride that, in my opinion, is well-earned).
Once again proving that Cassie gets under Dean’s skin enough to extract the truth, Dean admits that working things out with her was tough. This was Dean’s first real introduction to how difficult relationships can be and often are. Cassie emphasizes this common aspect of relationships, but also indirectly alludes to her parents' exceptional difficulties, when she says, “Usually things get worked out when you really want them to.”
From there, she cuts the conversation short: in one sense echoing Dean’s typically abrupt way of ending conversations, but also succinctly showing how well she knows herself and him. “No more excuses, okay? From you or me,” she says.
Calling their issues “excuses” seems to be an oversimplification. Even Dean tells Sam, “We’ll be working things out ‘til we’re 90.”
But maybe Cassie, once again, is onto a lead toward the real truth.
Hunting is a dangerous job. Perhaps she realizes she does not want a life connected to that. Perhaps, also, she understands that Dean doesn’t want to bring her into that life. Dean’s main commitment will always be saving people and hunting things. Any love interest takes a backseat to his job and, of course, his family.
Nevertheless, is there truly no room for Cassie to fit into his life? Is there no place for Dean in hers?
As we see repeatedly throughout the series, monsters are everywhere in the world of Supernatural. Cassie knows that now, basically knows what Dean knows. It seems this would bring them closer together. Imagine, for instance, how her inquisitiveness would inspire her to learn more about the supernatural. Meanwhile, Dean might want to protect her even more, keep an eye on her at minimum, or teach her how to protect herself against any other supernatural beings. The latter, I could see Cassie researching and investigating on her own. But she also might wish to seek Dean’s expert assistance for hands-on training. They could work together to work things out.
If the trials of their relationship are all that hold them back, then it does sound like excuse-making. As Cassie says, these can be overcome when truly wanted.
Given Dean’s goodbye to Cassie and his non-response to Sam as discussed above, it seems safe to say that some part of Dean does want to work things out. Add to this the revelation in season three of Dean’s desire for a “normal” family. Although this desire becomes apparent in “The Kids Are Alright,” (triggered by the brief possibility of Ben being Dean’s son, which further triggers Dean to look to Lisa and Ben as the symbols of a conventional family life), the first signs of Dean’s yearning for the stability of a more settled-down life seem to be intimated in “Route 666” via Cassie.
7.) Cassie also understands the importance of family.
After the death of her father, she stays with her mom to watch over her. The theme of protection returns here. Making little mention of her own grief, she focuses on her mother instead, wanting to watch over her.
The similarities to Sam and Dean’s prioritization of family are impossible to ignore.
Since “Route 666,” we’ve seen the brothers’ family extend to include Bobby and Castiel (arguably Jo and Ellen Harvelle, Rufus Turner and others). Similarly, Cassie’s family seems to extend beyond her parents to at least include Jimmy Anderson, to whom she shows great reverence, laboring over his memorial piece and saying, “he taught me everything.” With that in mind, could Dean also have fit into the Robinson family? Could Cassie have fit into the Winchester family too?
Consider that Dean's relationship with Cassie was the longest he'd ever had (albeit numbered in weeks) prior to his post-"Swan Song" and pre-“Exile On Main St." year-long stint with Lisa. It’s also noteworthy that his year with Lisa happened approximately four years after his reconnection with Cassie. Did Cassie get under his skin that badly that no one else could compare? And does Lisa’s impact on him, merely ephemeral and emblematic until season six, carry the same weight?
Let me preface this by stating that I like Lisa. I like her a lot. Furthermore, I understand why Lisa was the woman Dean went to at the end of season five. Part of it was what she and Ben symbolized to him (and isn’t it easier to latch onto a symbol than the real thing?). But he also did it for Sam.
Sam was well aware that Dean wanted a regular family life, having been privy to his fantasy involving Lisa in “Dream A Little Dream Of Me.” I assume this is what Sam’s thinking of when, in “Swan Song,” he asks Dean to promise he’ll “go find Lisa” and “live some normal, apple pie life” after Sam is gone. It’s interesting, however, that Sam says, “You pray to God she’s dumb enough to take you in.” On the surface, this reads as brotherly ribbing. But underneath that, it shows that Sam is well aware of the complications Dean brings with him: as a hunter, as someone who has literally been through Hell. It almost makes me wonder if Sam believes any of what he says there. Does he honestly think "normal" is still possible for Dean?
Much like Cassie, Sam is a pragmatist. He knows what can work and what can’t in their world. And while that phrase, “dumb enough to take you in” doesn’t shine the best light on Lisa (unintentional on Sam’s part, I believe), it does set up the contrast between Lisa and Cassie.
Long before Dean went to Hell and acquired the baggage he has by the end of season five, Cassie was smart enough to understand that “normal” and “apple pie” were not in the cards when it came to dating Dean Winchester. Does this mean Lisa is dumb for taking Dean in? I don’t think so. In fact, she has exhibited refreshing intelligence and maturity when it comes to dealing with Dean’s issues - especially evident in season six when she addresses Dean frankly and openly about how they might make their relationship work.
Then, does it mean that Dean and Cassie can’t have something even if it doesn’t fit the confines of “normal”?
Not to get off-track too much: I think it’s important that when Dean goes to Lisa at the end of “99 Problems,” he says he has “no illusions.” But then he follows that with: “When I picture myself happy, it’s with you and the kid.” I may be nit-picking, but the use of the word “picture” stands out for me, matching up with “illusions.” It’s impossible to ignore that he says these things to Lisa with his mind set on the plan to say yes to Michael. What he tells Lisa then reads as a goodbye to a what-if, a notion.
Another problem I have with Dean’ latching on to Lisa and Ben is that he says he’s made arrangements for her and Ben for after he’s gone. Fair enough, but what about Cassie? Is it the lack of a child? Is it that he knows Cassie can take care of herself and only has herself to take care of? What about Cassie’s mother?
8.) She makes a strong impression on Sam and Dean.
The ultimate problem with Lisa being the one Dean goes to in "99 Problems" is that there was never any sign of love between them. As much as I’d like to imagine there was something more upon which they could base a relationship, the fact is we were never shown any contact between them from the second episode of season three (“The Kids Are Alright") up until the end of the seventeenth episode of season five (“99 Problems"). Given that, at the end of “99 Problems,” Dean mentions he didn’t have Lisa’s number, going further to observe that she has moved to a new house, I can only assume there was no contact. So Lisa and Dean’s interaction boils down to a few, brief encounters in “The Kids Are Alright” (most of which he spent chasing after changelings, not getting to know her) and a weekend of fantastic sex when they were younger. That’s all.
As much as I like Lisa, I do not see a basis for a loving relationship in that.
But with Cassie and Dean, there was evidence of love. And although a relationship between them may have been just as doomed as the one between Dean and Lisa, there was at least a foundation there that went deeper than mere symbolism.
Early on in “Route 666,” Sam calls Dean out. “You loved her,” he says. Dean’s lack of an answer, as mentioned, is of course typical Dean-speak for “yes.”
Additionally, Sam likes Cassie. He says so.
Come on, not all of my criteria can be substantive. I like Sam. Sam likes Cassie. I like Cassie. Let’s all join hands and skip in a circle.
But consider how, before his character arc revealed greater fallibility and complexity, Sam served as the basic hero of the show. In season one, Sam is at his most Luke Skywalker-like (A New Hope-Skywalker, not Empire Strikes Back and onward), making him appear trustworthy and endearing to the audience’s affections. His simple declaration of liking Cassie almost requires the same from the audience. Beyond that, Sam is one of Dean’s biggest loves (if not the biggest) and often his main focus throughout the series. There’s no way Sam's opinion of Cassie has no effect on Dean.
Besides, Sam seems to be attracted to smart, strong women. Think of Jessica, Sarah (“Provenance”), Madison (“Heart”) and Dr. Cara Roberts (“Sex And Violence”). Aside from his inability to properly mistrust Ruby, I’d say Sam has reliable taste.
9.) Cassie brings feminism to Supernatural.
While intelligent, strong, independent, bold, confident, complex women appear to be Sam’s preference, Cassie sets up the standard that this type of person is also “womanizer” Dean’s preference. Note, for example, Jo Harvelle, Anna Milton, Pamela Barnes, Casey from “Sin City,” Jamie from “Monster Movie,” Carmen from “What Is And What Should Never Be” (yes, a djinn-induced, magazine ad-inspired creation, but she still counts), and Lisa Braeden.
That Cassie and Lisa were the two who made the biggest impression on Dean redeems him from all his macho swagger. He might be a slut through much of the show, seem like a pig at times, but he wants more than a casual fuck. When it counts the most, he picks substance over superficiality.
Much as he does with Lisa later in the series, Dean goes head-to-head with Lisa. Their fighting, I believe, stems from their similarities: stubbornness, strength of opinion and the ability to express it when put to the test. Despite their different jobs, they both use their work and their skills to uncover the truth and they do it well. Essentially, they are equals.
Perhaps Dean telling Cassie the truth about his family in the back-story of "Route 666" is further proof that he felt she was an equal, someone who would understand.
At the end of the episode, Cassie understands a lot more than she had before. She gains greater knowledge about the Winchester family secret, a first-hand knowledge of the supernatural that emerges out of a personal crisis - something else she shares with Dean. And that knowledge brings her to the same conclusion Dean has come to time and time again: a realistic understanding that there is relentless evil in their world and not much hope.
But there is some hope.
Finding it is a challenge. But it seems to me that fearless Cassie Robinson and defensive Dean Winchester love a good challenge.
10.) She’s hot.
Finally, moving sharply away from any thinky thoughts, Cassie brings the awesome by being part of one of the hottest sex scenes ever on Supernatural. (All right, so there haven’t been many of those. At least this one wasn’t tainted by a Titanic hand smear.)
This is not to negate Cassie’s individual merit, or make it seem like her only value is vis-à-vis the boys or sex. But, you know, HOT.
Nothing wrong with enjoying the sexiness. :)
I think the history between the characters makes it even more intense.
And kissing. Kissing’s good too.
Remember that little string of saliva between them as they pull away from their goodbye kiss? I don’t know why, but that does things to me.
In conclusion: Ummm, most disjointed meta/picspam/thing ever.
But Cassie is awesome.
[Screencaps of the sexy times and the kissing times by raloria. Others unknown.]
p.s. If you actually read this, you get a pie.