Mine is an unpopular opinion but I see posts discussing Crowley and Dean’s relationship in 10.01, mainly how Crowley doesn’t have the hold on Dean he must have hoped for when manipulating Dean all last season, and I see this dynamic between them differently. While of course ultimately Crowley isn’t going to win (this isn’t Supernatural: The King of Hell Diaries afterall 😉 ), I don’t think he’s lost yet. In fact, I see him as the same manipulator he was last season with a similar influence over Dean’s actions (as I speculated might be the case here). They’re not sailing smooth waters for sure but Crowley for me is, for the time being at least, very much still at the helm.
Take this scene for instance. Crowley and Dean are speaking at the bar when Dean stands to leave.
Crowley, not finished, tells him to sit. Which doesn’t work. Of course it doesn’t. It’s Dean Winchester. This is a reminder, much like we saw being suggested more than once last season, that to try to overtly control Dean is a mistake and does not end well. Crowley already knows this and so I have to suspect that partly this was done by him to try to give Dean the sense of autonomy that were he to feel was lacking, Crowley truly would lose any and all control.
So we see Crowley move back into surreptitious manipulation territory, speaking in terms that frame them more as equals. In fact, he even frames the discussion in such a way as to suggest that Dean is calling the shots, that Crowley wants to leave but since it’s Dean who holds the power all he can do is try to convince him. And sure enough, pretty quickly Dean is sitting back down, placing the two more on an equal level again.
Crowley then resumes with emphasising how they are equals, that they’ve shared various experiences together and, once re-establishing that they are connected, are a team, broaches one of his main objectives and that is how the two of them together might rule Hell.
And once he has Dean considering his suggestion, where does he position himself next?
Right where Dean was at the start of the conversation, higher up, with authority, ensuring that he as ‘alpha’ speaks down to his ‘beta’.
And just to further drive home his dominant status…
…he moves closer into Dean’s personal space, which from a body language point of view absolutely emphasises his authority, and proceeds to remind Dean who really is in charge.
Now, I’m not suggesting that this is Dean knocked into submission and compliant from here on in. Not at all. There’s much more to Dean than that. He will be playing his own game, this is going to be a relationship fraught with tension with both jostling for the upper hand over the other. But, to me, I feel as though nothing we saw in the Season 10 opener suggested Crowley had lost control of the situation.
Yet.
As always, just some (likely unpopular 😉 ) thinky thoughts.
I am of much the same mindset in regards to the dynamics that Crowley is attempting maintain in his ‘professional” relationship with Dean. He has reinforced their status as equals – as best friends – by lavishing in sex and decadence and their epic bromance. But while I do believe that a part of him is desperate for companionship – for love – Crowley doesn’t understand how to have a relationship that isn’t a business transaction in which one partner is owned by the other. Crowley was the King of the Crossroads for centuries. Deals and ownership are his life. He hasn’t learned any better.
Crowley is, first and foremost, a politician. Always has been, always will be. He has taken on the roll of the Consigliere, while allowing Dean to believe that he is Michael Corleone in all of this. But when it comes to business, to purpose, to the job – Crowley becomes Al Capone in all his alpha male glory, laying his minions into subservience for the sake of his wants and his needs. So while Crowley does have a heart, he doesn’t understand that love and respect and gratitude cannot be earned by force of will, that just because he wants it, needs it, doesn’t mean that he can manipulate his way into obtaining it by making Dean fall to his knees.
I don’t believe that Dean is buying any of Crowley’s crap, mostly because of a certain amount of clarity that he has maintained. This is why we see Crowley moving his chess pieces across the board – sending demons at Dean like mice to a snake, allowing Sam to find them… It’s all a part of the plan. Crowley says that the less he feeds, the more aggressive Dean becomes. But since when does a demon not lie? Feeding the Blade has always been what causes Dean to get lost, to fall, to float farther and farther away from his humanity. And the more demonized Dean becomes, the easier Crowley believes it will be to keep him by his side as he rules the new kingdom that he intends to build together.
The problem is that the more consumed by the Mark that Dean becomes, the less he cares, the less he understands about partnership and companionship. Crowley wants companionship. He wants someone who is just like him. The problem is that he has a great deal more humanity in him and a lot more feelings than Dean does. He doesn’t doesn’t know how to wield them because he’s not human. All Crowley is truly succeeding in doing is pushing Dean farther away, pushing his soul further down into nothingness, and creating a monster that he has no idea how to control.
Hmm. All interesting points to consider. I think though, that for Crowley, in an Ideal world, Dean would be as equally ambitious as he is. But alas, Dean is not. Dean is pretty much the opposite of ambitious right now. This is partly what makes him a bit easier to influence. So it’s not because he’s gullible, he just doesn’t care. But that can only get Crowley so far. It’s kind of like trying to ride a lazy mule. You can steer it left and right once in a while, but it’s still more interested in stopping to chew on grass than it is in getting you from point a to point b. So I don’t know if it’s so much a question of overt versus covert control (although in some cases I think that may be true), as it is about motivation. Crowley ‘s trying to figure out what kind of carrot he needs to put on the end of the stick to get Dean to follow.
That’s an interesting description considering that they are at the Black Spur the whole time we see them. You can lead with the carrot or you can poke with the spurs. Crowley was totally attempting to “spur” Dean on as well as offering the carrot. We can’t know this yet, of course, but I think Crowley is having some success, perhaps by switching back and forth between the two. He tricks Abaddon’s followers into going after Dean when he knows Dean can’t lose (and specifically had one attack Dean at a place with a security camera), and he sits around while Dean sings and plays darts and drinks and has sex, and then he conveniently “forgets” that Sam might trace the call and tells Dean Sam’s coming right when Crowley was ready to leave. (Maybe because Dean was starting to get along with Ann Marie a little too well?) Dean may have left without Crowley, but how are we to be sure that’s not what Crowley intended to happen? Maybe he’s planning on popping back up right when Dean is in need of something and providing it so that Dean will be happy to have him around again.
Crowley’s biggest non-supernatural power is the spoken word. He goes back and forth between telling lies, and telling the truth, and saying he shouldn’t be trusted because he tells lies, and saying he should be trusted because he doesn’t lie. I think that’s how he gets everyone so twisted up in knots, because as soon as they’re sure he’s lying, he says something true that they don’t believe and then later they feel bad about it. (Like Linda being alive, for example.) So then they start working with him and trusting him and he trips them up again.
That’s what was so beautiful about Cain’s trick of silencing Crowley. That’s probably the worst thing you can do to him. As long as he can speak, he can weasel his way out of practically anything.
I’m bolding what you’re saying, Larinah, because, one, I think it’s nicely insightful, and two, it’s what makes this interaction so intriguing for me.
What is being implied here? That the web Crowley is spinning is going to be his downfall? That Dean knows that Crowley is spinning a web and it’s pissing him off? That Crowley’s web-spinning is working and keeping Dean off balance?
I can’t really put my finger on exactly why, but I have a hunch that Crowley is spinning Dean and Sam along, ramping both of them up and setting them on the path of a confrontation. Maybe it’s what you were saying about Crowley laying down breadcrumbs for Sam and then putting the spurs to him with that phone conversation they had. Maybe it’s that and the fact we have a lot of clues that the Cain and Abel theme is still alive and well.
Given what we saw in the preview for the next episode and Dean’s urges around Sam, I have to wonder if Crowley is spinning Dean along a knife edge of addiction, feeding the Mark just enough to keep Dean functional, but not enough to fully sate it. I have to wonder if Crowley knows something about the Mark that hasn’t been revealed yet. And I have to wonder if that thing is that the Mark is goading Dean to kill his brother to complete the Cain and Abel cycle, and thus it’s control over Dean.
Dean: You know what video would have gone viral, if we still had it? When you were 5 and dressed up as Batman and jumped off the shed cuz you thought you could fly?
Hearseeno 