SPN - Trial and Error

[pocochina]

So you know that first phone call you get around four on some Sunday afternoon, and your friend is all over the moon because her meth dealer boyfriend took her out for a perfect romantic dinner and told her all about how he's going to leave his fiancee

Comments

[pocochina]

It seems that his attitude has changed, though. From rage to grudging acceptance (the ending of "Torn and Frayed" where he basically let Sam go off, if that's what he wanted).

Even that struck me as all tell and no show, though? Because he waits until Sam is good and terrified for Cas, and then he throws down the ultimatum. It all but guaranteed Sam was going to stick around, and to feel too complicit in the whole thing to challenge The Way Dean Likes Things Done. If he'd been consciously playing Sam he couldn't have done better. Maybe he was signalling a genuine desire to change, but since then there hasn't been any sort of test of that resolve, and so I don't have any reason to buy it, especially not against, you know, the everything else.

Although yes, self-glorification mixed with self-loathing...that's our Dean. "You can't do the trials because it's all about MEEEEE and my (not really but it's my go-to) death wish."

Right. And I think it's the chickens coming home to roost on the Winchester absolutism. He HAS TO be willing to die for it, has to WANT TO die for it, or is it really worth everything he's already missed out on or given up? And I think that's a set of questions that he really has to deal with if he's going to handle his shit long-term.