HECK. I have another message nearly identical, so I’m putting it here…

I’m not sure if it’s Michael related, because I’m still holding my current opinion that Michael hasn’t been “inside Dean” since 14.02. Which… looks likely considering Michael seems to be in the corporate looking woman from the 14.09 promo– at the very least she seems to be playing Michael’s current suit in that promo clip.

That said, is there a chance Michael will either jump back into Dean or otherwise control Dean in 14.09? It’s possible. But I really hate speculating, and instead prefer to do what the show has been actively encouraging us to do for the last several years. I prefer to look back to the past for what the current story is showing us.

Dean’s never sat shotgun while Cas drove. Even when they were in Cas’s car.

In 9.10, Dean even made Cas sit in the back seat of his own car to babysit Crowley.

Sure, Cas has sat shotgun in the Impala numerous times, but typically when Dean is in a car, he’s driving (or at least in the front seat). Sure there was that time in 1.22 when he was unconscious in the back seat, and Sam has driven a good number of times over the years while Dean slept or rode shotgun in the passenger seat, but never while Cas was driving.

This is why 12.09 was so… shocking, when Dean not only gave up driving duties, but also chose to sit in the back seat with Cas and let Sam ride up front with Mary. That was already setting up the dynamic we saw play out in s13– with Dean primarily upset/mourning for Cas, while Sam spent the early part of the season having accepted Cas’s death but growing increasingly desperate to find a way to rescue Mary from the AU.

The way characters are paired up like this, paralleled to each other like this, is significant when it becomes an ongoing pattern. Which is why noticing shifts like this helps us understand the evolving dynamics.

Almost as interesting as Dean letting Cas drive and being content to ride along, effectively giving Cas the lead here despite being grumpy about Sam having left the bunker and Cas not having tried to stop him, is the fact that for the second time in two weeks, Cas is driving a different car.

He’s driven his old Pimpmobile, then stole that brown pickup truck in 12.01 and drove it for the whole season, only abandoning it when he was killed in 12.23. When he came back, he didn’t really have his own car for all of s13, mostly riding along in the Impala again. And we haven’t see what car he’s been driving all season long to this point, but in 14.07 he drove a little blue compact car (A Fiesta! Perfect for Party!Cas!), and one episode later has what looks like a newer pickup truck again.

Where is Cas getting all these cars? Especially since they’re all relatively new compared to the usual cars they usually steal or borrow or use when they’re not driving the Impala. Is he actually renting them or something? Or has he just gotten a taste for more practical cars than the old cars he’d been driving before?

Cas does still have booping ability, with the full-on These Are Not The Droids You Are Looking For power. Could be he’s just “asking” people around town to borrow their cars when he needs one and then returning them when he comes back home. We honestly have no idea where he’s getting them, but I’m finding it hilarious. I hope he’s got an entirely different car next time we see him driving.

Maybe he’s just taking them all out for test drives, trying to find one he really loves to settle on permanently? Which I’d find incredibly interesting since that’s basically what Cas has been doing regarding pretty much everything for years now– trying to figure out who and what he wants to be, and where he wants to belong.