Supernatural season 10 rewatch: GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS

So let me just say this is one of my favourite season ten episodes, and I don’t understand why season ten gets so much shit. Compared to last week’s episode, “Plush” S11x07, a LOT happens:

Resolution of the Cole story-line

Introduction of Rowena and new lore about witches



Dean attempts getting laid (as far as I know his first and last attempt post-Deanmon).

Attack dog spell is introduced

Hannah releases Caroline out of guilt and returns to Heaven, determined to put things right



Cas, for the first time in a long time, ponders Jimmy Novak and Claire (notably, not Amelia…)



Crowley’s soul collection problem is mentioned (I’m not sure it was before). We also are introduced to the fact that while demons still respect Crowley, they all view Dean as a distraction/moral lapse



Cas says “the mission” is the important thing; Hannah counters that human lives are the paramount importance above “the mission”



Dean puts his life in the hands of someone who isn’t Sam (Cole). Literally, he puts a gun (his favourite revolver no less) in someone else’s hands and asks them to make a moral judgement of him

Sam asks Dean if once again, he really meant that he’s not worth saving. Dean glibly replies that he was just manipulating Cole. You can see in their eyes that neither of them believes that lie.



There were many many threads introduced here that are still impacting things now.

Cole returns later in season ten, he’s still alive and now a hunter, presumably. Rowena, of course, ultimately turned on Crowley, got Charlie killed and freed Dean of the MoC. Cas was hit with the attack dog spell at the end of season ten and now has ptsd from it and things he did while under its influence (well…. and other things). Hannah came back in another vessel and betrayed Cas (for the sake of “the mission” no less….); Heaven is now rudderless again. Dean and Cas are now surrogate fathers to Claire, who’s been adopted by Jody. Cas is finally back with the Winchesters, but seemingly unmoored again; when last we saw him, Dean was giving him hell for letting Metatron off the hook.



We know from later in season ten that Dean was very well aware that the Mark of Cain wouldn’t let him die. Instead of believing that Dean was either confident enough in his ability to manipulate Cole into letting him go, or that he was relishing the prospect of returning back to being a demon, I think what happened here was simple depression. Early in the episode, he asks Sam “Is it really so hard to believe that a red-blooded American female would be interested in me?” later he says one of my all-time favourite Dean quotes: “this doesn’t look like love” to Shaylene.



He was excited thinking a hot girl wanted to get naughty with him. He forgot for a little while, I think, the stuff he did while under the Mark’s influence. Then he meets someone and it turns out nope, she didn’t want Dean for Dean. It’s more demon crap. More business. Then someone he hurt during his time as a demon shows up and makes him botch his actual job, the one thing he has left that he feels good at: hunting. Where does that leave Dean? Indifferent. Worn-out. He was literally up for anything at that point and welcomed the chance to say aloud how he felt without consequence. Regardless of what Cole ultimately chose, Dean felt he deserved to die. Cole has what Dean doesn’t have: a family to return to. A partner. A steady job. Service in the armed forces, like Dean’s own father.



Cole was in a place to render judgement to Dean because he was John Winchester all over again; a demon even killed his father (of course Dean wasn’t a demon then and that thing was probably no longer Cole’s father) the parallels are painfully obvious. Dean’s favourite pearl-handled revolver, how much do you want to bet it was originally John’s? And there he goes, putting it right in Cole’s hand.



Dean was depressed. Of course, this isn’t anything new. Dean has spent many long years hiding depression–the total bland indifference that comes from despair, that leeches all the colour out of life– with a happy-go-lucky facade. He takes Sam to a steak-house and doesn’t even eat his own steak. Dean abandoning food is extraordinarily rare; the only other time in recent memory that happened was in 9x23, when he leaves a hamburger untouched.



So in S10X07 Dean strikes out on every front save one: killing demons. He killed like five of them single-handed. Watch again, closely: Sam does not get a single kill this episode. Dean is always there with the knife. Sam deflects and Dean kills. He fails at hunting Rowena. He fails at saving the girl under the attack dog spell. He fails at getting lucky. Hell, he even fails at being a brother, because he dragged Sam eight hours away out of they way under false pretenses. There are two survivors from this episode, the one prostitute and Cole.

So my usual deep thinking about Dean aside, what does this all mean in terms of stacking up against S11x07? What actually happened in S11x07?



Donna returned and got “hunter” status from Dean

Donna was a jerk to a coworker and then moved past it

Sam was reminded yet again that he’s still not over being scared of clowns

The Winchesters are reminded that sometimes the monster is human

A lot of references to implied pedophilia (and this with “girl you’ll be a woman soon” as Amara’s outro the prior episode)



Sam prayed for answers and Dean ridiculed him

Dean reminded Sam that they’re all they’ve had to rely on for world-ending disasters in the past (and CAS. COME ON, DEAN) and it’s always been enough

Sam opened up about his visions of the cage to Dean, and Dean shut him down

A bit character delivers an anvilicious speech about regretting not trusting her own brother

No real expansion of lore; ghosts being able to possess objects is not new



Cas got a rather ambiguous mention. Rowena and Crowley got no mentions.



Overall, there was actually a lot of threads, subtle acting, and subtle emotions at play in “girls girls girls”. Whereas in “plush”, only Sam displays any real range of emotion at all. It’s like Dean has turned to cardboard this season (noteworthy exceptions being in S11X03 and S11x04) and . I guess time is going to have to tell where this season is going… but I’m really not happy with how flat Dean has been.

