Castiel (Misha Collins) sits and contemplates, well reveals much about his life over a vast millenia. Being at a shoreline - old fish - wash up, Tower of Babel and how it fell, Cain, Abel, David and Goliath, and recalls the Apocalypse cos it never happened. Beaten by "two boys, a drunk and a fallen angel. Who has ideas of his own, big plans. Leaving freedom and choice and no destiny..." How would he know if he made the wrong choice? "Let me tell you everything."
Cas in Dean's (Jensen Ackles) car - Satan Jr's alive, meaning Crowley (Mark Sheppard). Cas claims to be looking for him and he looked suspicious when he so innocently sat in the Impala asking Dean all those questions. Crowley is torturing more monsters - see Cas was sneaking around. Eve opened the door to purgatory and Crowley would have. Cas screwed up cos he's distracted. Crowley can smell the Impala on his coat (always that coat.) Shame no one smelt the smell of Crowley on that coat, actually that should read the scent of betrayal. Cas had to find out what they know. Cas: "My interest was conflicted." Cas was their guardian and they "taught him to stand up, what to stand for and what happens when you do." Sam (Jared Padalecki) was 'put back' at the end of season 5.
Sam watches Dean after he's freed from Lucifer's cage in hell. Cas was full of confidence but didn't raise all of Sam. Crowley referring to them as "denim wrapped nightmares." Cas needs to find purgatory or they'll both die again and again until the end of time. Crowley is the King of hell.
Dean tells of Cas and he didn't tell him anything. He was their friend and now he's lying to them. Bobby is unsure about Cas and his loyalty. Cas listens in on them. Sam would die for Cas and Bobby thinks Cas has gone darkside and should stock up on Kryptonite. Dean calls Sam 'Lois Lane.' Cas thinks Dean was trying to be loyal.
Ellsworth, (John Tench) the demon version of Bobby, is the dispatcher. So now Cas will dispatch him for Sam and Dean, only cos he'd lead them to Crowley who would then kill them. Was he protecting the dudes or himself? Cas: "I don't know anymore...my motives used to be so pure" before the corrupting influence of humans, ha. He saved Sam and returned to heaven where he met Rachel. (Sonya Salomaa). She tells him God chose Cas but he is sure they are "free to make our own choices and free to make our own destinies." He had to meet Raphael who demands Cas pledge his allegiance to him, free Lucifer and Michael and bring the Apocalypse.
At Ellsworth's Bobby comments on the place being too clean. Dean wants to call Cas cos that's what they'd normally do. Dean tries to convince them it's Cas and he's helped them. They "owe him the benefit of the doubt." Sam calls and he doesn't come. Cas was afraid and Sam, Dean and Bobby are attacked by Crowley's 'bitches.' Cas must save them. Another choice he had to make in saving them cos they're his friends. Cas believes Crowley's alive. Dean: "You think Kojak?"
Bobby posits Cas burned the wrong bones. Dean should have asked him straight out. They trusted Cas and he remarks, "Superman going to the darkside. I'm still Cas." Dean comments they can put away the Kryptonite. Cas is angry at Crowley. Crowley responds as long as long as his minions believe Cas is good - he can do the same. Cas threatens to to end their arrangement if he touches them. He's still an angel. Raphael was stronger and he wouldn't survive, so he went to Dean for help - but couldn't. Crowley calls him the "Angel of Thursday." Crowley wants to deal with him. Dean rakes the garden and is watched by Cas.
Cas thinks of himself as prideful and Crowley takes him to Hades when all Cas had to do was to reach out to Dean, no really. The souls in hell wait in line and when they get to the end the line starts up again, not very original. May as well put them on a production line. Cas should be a leader and start a civil war in heaven. Crowley knows about purgatory: all those souls for the taking. Cas doesn't want to go to Dean cos he's "retired" and that was an excuse. He would have had time for Cas, cos Sam wasn't around anymore. So Cas was actually corrupted by Crowley and not humans. He can use Samuel instead. Wouldn't Cas have preferred to have Crowley in charge of hell. Crowley gives him 50,000 souls for heaven and they strike a bargain.
Raphael is disposed of. Sam has a plan to track Crowley by putting Cas in a ring of fire. Dean tells him his talk of Superman and Kryptonite shows he spied on them. Cas can't look Dean in the eye. Sam repeats "trust you." How can they? Cas raised him from perdition. Sam says he did a poor job. Did he bring back Sam soulless on purpose? Dean tells him he had a choice and made the wrong one and he's not willing to make another deal with the devil. Cas: "Where were you when I needed you?"
Souls rain in from hell, so why listen to Cas when he tells them to run? Crowley has to put the fire out and comments on the "artfully tousled heads" of Sam and Dean not being touched. Cas doesn't want to see Crowley and he tells Cas, "You are what you're Castiel." Likening him to a whore.
Angel symbols are on Bobby's place to keep Cas out but he gets in with Dean saying, "Too bad it wasn't angel proof in the first place." Cas claims he did this for Dean cos of Dean. He told him about freedom and free will. They were close, a family and he was like a brother to Dean. But Dean is only a man. Cas: "I am an angel." Cas asks God if he's doing the right thing and desperately needs a sign but nothing comes. So he should have fallen on his sword and done the right thing.
Cas is conflicted here - on the one hand he believes he's on a righteous path in averting the Apocalypse if Raphael gets his way and so he has to defeat him, needing those souls from purgatory, saving not only Sam and Dean but the world. On the other hand, he is full of pride. He's an angel and nothing and no one can stop him. Cas falling into the usual trap of giving himself away when he mentions Superman and Kryptonite. In many respects he is still a child as Dean says. A child with a new toy of free will, which he clearly doesn't know how to control or use it making deals with Crowley.
Crowley bought back Samuel and it was Cas who brought back Sam, suspected as much and Sam asking if he he was returned without a soul deliberately. Sometimes you have to wonder since he "gripped Dean tight" and pulled him out of perdition, he was intact. Did Sam have his soul when he was Lucifer's and Michael's plaything in the cage?
Does the title refer to King of heaven or king of hell. Dean is genuinely shocked Cas could do that to him, to them, betray so completely. He passionately attempted to defend Cas and the number of times Cas threw his arrogance around since he's an angel was prove he didn't know what true friendship or loyalty meant.
Cas and Crowley or Casley could start their own comedy double act, since there were some laugh out loud moments in this episode. Like many fans I was also in two minds over this episode. There were some downright excellent moments and some parts were a little tedious. Overall the episode managed to redeem itself especially with the more emotional scenes with Dean realizing he's been betrayed and wondering how far it extends. I liked how it was Cas who raised Sam from perdition as he did with Dean in 4.1 Lazarus Rising. We've come a long way since then with everything that's happened from that season to now.
I really think Cas should have been more firm of mind - stronger in his determination to win the civil war without resorting to dirty tactics and deals with Crowley. So this was his 'dirty, little secret'. Cas was an angel with morals, even if he didn't always understand human nature or fallacies. The writers have taken this and made him weak in his resolve. The lines between good and evil and just forsaking people that matter must have become so blurred in his mind. Don't' think Cas knows why he did the 'dirty' on Sam and Dean.
I was reminded of the season 4.7 It's the Great Pumpkin Sam Winchester, episode where Cas was also doubtful of what he was doing in helping Dean. Sam is upset by Cas's behaviour in wanting to smite the town to prevent a seal being broken and Dean wants Sam to maintain his faith in Cas and their plan. Dean at the end of the episode sits on a park bench watching the children they've saved. Cas reveals he was ordered to let Dean do whatever he felt and this was a test. Cas was hoping Dean would decide to save the town and he divulges his own doubts to Dean over heaven's plan. Cas does not want to be in Dean's shoes when he has more tough decisions to make. Cas was on the bench here - alone looking to heaven, to God for answers and he watches Dean later on raking leaves. A bit of a reversal in this scene as in 4.7 Cas went to Dean. Here he ponders and is taken in by Crowley instead.
Yet Cas never faltered in season 4 as he does here and it makes me wonder if this was one reason Cas was unable to bring back the whole Sam - soul intact, as he did with Dean. I don't truly believe it was intentional. But the beauty of Cas was his lack of emotions and poker face. So it wasn't immediately apparent if he was lying, being honest, funny, disloyal, which is the result of great acting on Misha's part.
The title is from a movie with Sean Connery and Sir Michael Caine. Bobby's character in Deadwood was Ellsworth.
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