I've felt that all incarnations of Cas after Leviathan!Cas were too forced. I mean, yeah Cas has always had the sort of stilted, alien mannerisms, but since then it's felt like Misha was trying too hard and Cas ended up being a parody of himself? IDK it just came across as very awkward to me (and not in a meant-to-be awkward way like Cas was originally). And it didn't help that crazy!Cas in S7 was so obviously trying to be ~random~ and failing.

Will be interesting to hear your thoughts on the ep. I have many about it myself (pre-series canon is something I am VERY... um... passionate about LOL).