Thinky Thoughts: Inside Dean Winchester

"I've never had anything this nice." -- Dean Winchester

So now we're getting to the tough stuff. Forgive me, my thoughts are still very much jumbled on this.

If you'd like, read Part 1 and Part 2 before we get started.

While we waited through Hellatus, I had envisioned Rocky's Bar -- in my short stories Welcome to Rocky's and Last Call -- as a place where Michael kept Dean placated by sort of separating him into two halves... splitting the warrior off from the caretaker. The warrior, safely bound somewhere in Dean's mind. The caretaker, content to tend bar in a simple, but pleasant, fantasy. In my stories, Rocky is the absent owner, the guy who gets into scrapes, stirs up trouble, and Dean is "just Dean" -- a guy doing a job, who doesn't want to make waves with anyone.

Rocky's turned out to be quite different -- and more than I could ever have imagined.

A central question to me, though: Is this a place created by Michael as a pleasant prison, or by Dean, as a psychic haven?

We know how Dean has dealt with his trauma over his entire life -- by suppressing it, by carefully controlling himself, by comforting himself with the simple pleasures of touch, drink and food. So I very much like the idea that Dean wields great power over his own mind.

Imagine what Michael must have found when he first got there. Imagine the battle that raged. If Dean does have that much power over his own psyche, it's no wonder the archangel decided to take a break, head out and regroup.

I have to admit, though... the blackness that Sam and Cas encountered when they entered Dean's mind just about shattered me.

The idea of Dean having no self is as old as #Supernatural itself.

But being confronted with it, in such stark terms?

Unsettling.

— Dean's Not Fine #SPN300 💔🥃🥧 (@DeanIsntFine) January 18, 2019

And, more viscerally, more truthfully, going inside Dean's mind was like this for me:

#Supernatural This at once everything I've ever wanted and everything I've ever dreaded. I'm going to die.

— Dean's Not Fine #SPN300 💔🥃🥧 (@DeanIsntFine) January 18, 2019

So, Castiel's brutal talents as a mind reader -- and controller -- have been hinted at, but I love the way he gently illuminated each of Dean's traumas when he and Sam entered the blackness. (Elle on Tumblr has the best breakdown I've seen of what is heard and when. It all ends, though, with the ragged scream Dean let loose when Lucifer killed Cas at the end of Season 12.) 

Sam's thought about Michael cushioning Dean in contentment -- notice that nobody uses the word "happiness" -- comes the closest to what I'd imagined Rocky's to be. But when they get there, it's a lot more.

I won't get into every symbol and Easter egg that we see... They are all beautiful and well noticed, well cataloged already. (SO MANY nods to the past, and to Jensen. Bravo to Jerry and the team!) 

The question of Pamela's presence can't be solved until we answer: Who built this place? Michael or Dean? I'm starting to lean toward the fact that Dean is the builder, and therefore he chose Pamela as his companion. 

So, I don't ship it, but I understand very well that Pamela is telegraphed as a stand-in for Castiel -- with the angel wings necklace and the "To Hell and Back" tank top -- and all the talk of Dean flirting with her, but not really wanting her. If Dean can't accept his attraction to Cas, maybe Pamela makes a more comfortable substitute...? Anyway, you will never hear me say that Destiel isn't alive and real in the minds of our writers.

But I'm thinking more about the choice of Pamela, the psychic. Someone Dean can't lie to. Someone who already knows his truths without him having to spill them out all over the place, like some damn chick flick. Like she says to Sam: "You've never met anyone more real than me." 

My big takeaway from Pamela is that, for Dean, she is truth. She is the end of pretense. It must be more work than we thought for him to build the different facades he shows to the different people in his life. With her, he doesn't have to do any of that work. So she makes the ideal companion. (Plus, she's badass and easy on the eyes. Welcome back, T-bird Dinwiddie!)

I would give anything to sit down with Yockey for 15 minutes and get to the bottom of some of this. Ah, well...

So if we accept that Dean built this place, then he is in control, and that falls in line nicely with what happens when Michael shows up. 

As Michael spews a bunch more filth from that smug mouth of his -- there's lots more about that in my first post -- Cas realizes that the archangel is stalling, and Sam and Dean figure that he's not much more than talk as long as they're all inside Rocky's. But he's still God's firstborn, and it takes all three of them to trap him in the cooler.

But it's the job of just one man to keep him there.

Can we take a moment please to appreciate how my hero Dean Winchester went from

"I wasn't strong enough"

to

"I'm the cage."

❤️❤️❤️

— Dean's Not Fine #SPN300 💔🥃🥧 (@DeanIsntFine) January 19, 2019

Again, this episode is so important -- to me in particular. It lays down a lot of canon about God, his angels and his different worlds, sure, but it gets us inside Dean Winchester -- not the angry, cocky young version, but this Dean -- the one who is freer to love, the one who longs for sandy beaches, his family by his side.

He's in the fight of his life. And it's all in his mind.

As always, my money's on Dean. ❤️