This Year's Model of Humanity

So, Dean’s three-part mirror in his bedroom – it made me think of TFW, and how we’ve seen that the support of a group effort is very important to saving Dean, but it also made me think of Dean’s three mirrors this episode.

Other people have mentioned that the two drifters Claire hooks up mirror Dean, and Claire herself is, of course, a Dean mirror, too. And it breaks down pretty elegantly, actually – we have a scuffy, kinda sleezy looking and acting dude (he carries the axe, the blade-edge); we have a much more charming con-woman (who carries a blunt instrument – a bat, in an episode where both Metatron and Dean use the word ‘slugger’); we have the rage-filled wronged child who was being used by her parental figures but feels emotionally lost without them (she provides the motivation for the other parts of Dean’s mirror to go 'hunting’ for Dean, but then she also provides the part that says, ’no’ and rushes out to warn him).

Claire is Dean’s inner core while sleezy dude and charming lady are the shells that Dean placed around himself to protect him in the very kinds of places that Claire also found herself in. They’re the facades he developed to keep the world from hurting the inner core.