#i'll always love meredith's acknowledgment about pretending to be something he's not

[shallowrambles]

"I'm gonna human and i'm gonna human so good, you'll see. I'll keep everything stocked and change out the lights I WILL be the soldier of the gas n' sip!"

Yeah, I think pride could be a factor (he likes being competent), but I still really enjoy pairing Heaven Can't Wait with Hunter Heroici.

Cas is so often literally and figuratively running away from (or being chased by) Heaven. I still think...this is thematically Hunter Heroici part 2 for Cas. His conclusion in that episode comes through Sam's soliloquy about running away, and using happiness as escapism. (I'm not saying Sam is 100% right but that was his conclusion about the type of happiness he was seeking and why. It can be seen as a tragic entrapment within War -OR- or simply that they need to balance happiness with obligations and duty to the ones that count on them.)

SAM: Look, it can be nice living in a dream world. It can be great. I know that. And you can hide, and you can pretend... [the background is now brightly colored rectangles] ...all the crap out there doesn't exist, but you can't do it forever because... eventually, whatever it is you're running from – it'll find you. [CASTIEL appears to be taking SAM’s words to heart.] It'll come along, and it'll punch you in the gut. And then... then you got to wake up, because if you don't, then trying to keep that dream alive will destroy you! It'll destroy everything!

The background changes to bright white light. We see a close-up of CASTIEL, who disappears into the light.

///

CASTIEL: You don't understand. I have been trying to pretend that I can escape what I did in Heaven, but I can't. All that pain that I caused – I – I have to come back, to make things right.

I feel like, somehow, in Heaven Can't Wait, the "eureka" moment comes during the fight itself. Something about facing the Riet Zen made Cas confident to not only rejoin the fight but to get brave enough to do it as a weak human, and it's almost as if he's reclaiming that soldier part of himself by the end of the episode, when he's staring at the tv. For me, that's just how I choose to satisfy this episode.

CASTIEL: Do you really think you're doing Heaven's work down here?

EPHRAIM: I know I am.

CASTIEL: Well, you're wrong. Earth can be a hard place. But these humans, they can get better. They're just doing the best they can.

///

EPHRAIM: Shh-shh-shhh. It'll be over soon. I'll take the pain away.

CASTIEL: I want to live.

DEAN is struggling to pull himself together.

EPHRAIM: You say you want to live. But you can't see what I see. By choosing a human life, you've already given up. You … chose … death.

EPHRAIM lifts a hand to CASTIEL's forehead.

DEAN slides the knife across the floor towards CASTIEL.

CASTIEL grabs it and stabs EPHRAIM.

Cas chose to live, to fight, but he also understood (at least in this moment) death more completely, I think. I see this in parallel to Metatron's wonder in 11x20:

Metatron: And do you know what was the first thing I heard when I woke up in my cold hospital bed? It was hands-down the sweetest, loveliest song I ever heard in my whole, long, sad bottom-feeder existence... My heartbeat. I was still alive. The joy of knowing that you're still alive, and the simultaneous panic of knowing that someday that heart is going to stop beating, that's humanity. It's frail and it's flawed, but damn it, it's worth fighting for.

///

I think if you get too hung up on Dean, you can miss what's going on with Cas and Heaven here, that's all. And Cas and Heaven is a big part of his story and I like it.

///

I also really like what comes next. I feel like seasons 9-12 are (in many ways) Cas's attempts to mimic and integrate his emotions (what he categorizes as "the human-feeling and fear of death bits").

So much dog-thinks-it's-ppl comments in seasons 10 and 11! It's also why we get him awkwardly pretending to be human in the Crowley-Cas buddy comedy era but he reverts to his trademark angel-ey growling impatience in the terminal seasons. I'm thinking of the "Get out!" In Lily Sunder and the "Is this funny to you / no, sir!" In Ouroboros, specifically, btw.

The arrival of Jack in a sense represents the attempted merge of the human and the divine, and Cas's default personality returns in key ways. I personally think it becomes more integrated.

Meredith's Good Intentions, my beloved, you will always live in my heart:

#himself without the bells and whistles perhaps #i think in seasons 9 through 12 ish he struggles to be human like you know? #in seasons 13 and 14 there's more self acceptance? resolve? about angel instincts #cas did insist he was an angel in season 11 torture scene hmmm #i'll always love meredith's acknowledgment about pretending to be something he's not #it just makes it all click!