Let’s do this.
OH. And forgot to mention:
To those of you who watch commercials/promos for upcoming episodes, to those of you who listen to what creators/actors say at conventions or on Twitter or anywhere else, please don’t mention any upcoming plot-points as revealed through those outside sources in the comments below. If you please! I actively avoid any information about anything coming up next. I don’t watch commercials or promos. I don’t even want to know guest stars and guest spots. So please! None of that!
Things that are fair game:
— discussion of the current episode
— discussion of all past episodes
— wild fears and hopes for the future
— any and all philosophical and psychosexual speculations
— connecting links through various Arcs over the last 12 years
— any information regarding 16th century demonology
— Sam’s hair. Which is now – apparently – on his chest as well.
And anything else that comes to mind. Just not any glimpse of what’s to come.
MANY THANKS.
Catch you on the flip-side.
This is one of my favourite SPN gifs. I was very proud the day I managed to insert it in a conversation.
That is all.
This was a heartbreak.
HeartSHUTTER.
All I could think by the end of the last scene was, “Mary, but look at him, he is FOUR!!!! ”
Ah, 12×03, or, alternatively, “How Dean Winchester is never ever allowed to be a child. Ever. ”
Sam did grow up. So, so much.
But Dean?
Is stuck. 12 thirty-sOme years later, and he is still stuck!
That is one hell of a tragedy.
I mean, remember the line, “everybody is gonna leave me”????
All that got cemented on this episode was Dean’s assurance in Sam being his only family, friend. Anything. “Dad left me” comes to mind.
Now Mom did too, and she took whatever was left of Dad with her????
How am I suppose to live with that???
Dean felt it coming, I swear. Drinking under the bunker’s counter. That was him knowing it won’t last.
The end was heartbreaking. Sam’s flinch. Dean’s refusal to hug her and his face at the end. Thank God, JA, no single man tear. It wasn’t necessary. We feel your pain.
God bless Berens. He knows what he’s doing. This episode was genuinely creepy and scary, though I admit I always find children and baby ghosts rather creepy and sad. There was some action and I loved the Partridge family shout out and the guy who played the coroner. Their casting director always finds great people to play the smaller supporting roles.
I admit that I was surprised at the end but I understand Sam and Dean’s reactions. Sam has never known his mother and while he is happy that she is back, she is a stranger to him. She is the idea of “mom” but who is she really? And he understands much more than Dean will ever understand, her need to grieve for her husband and the children that she left. However, what I don’t understand is Mary’s comment about her husband and children in heaven. Sam and Dean didn’t die and John’s in hell so is her heaven an illusion that God gave her? I didn’t get that part.
But her sorrow reminds me of the episode of Buffy the vampire slayer where Buffy had died and the Scooby gang brought her back because they needed her. Her sorrow at leaving heaven was also sad and maybe Mary feels the same way.
Dean, on the other hand, who has always been much more black and white than Sam ( who is the epitome to me of the many shades of gray)is pissed and hurt. Dean wants his family back and more importantly, the family that he had at 4 years old. Last week, drinking beer and looking at the old pictures means something to him. Full stop. Family over all and he is crushed that Mary can’t do that. (Did you hear the family theme playing gently in the background. That killed me.) The question I have is what happens when Mary comes back. I’m convinced that she will come back but will Dean forgive her? She’s left him twice now, and this time she did it on purpose. Will Dean just grow a big scab over that scar like he has for Bobby, and Jo and Ellen and Kevin, etc., etc., etc.?
Remember that Heaven is personal, filled with whatever and whoever makes it Heaven for you. They aren’t actually *there* because your Heaven may not be theirs. So Mary’s Heaven has her family as it was when she died. It’s heartbreaking that she yearns for it. AND DEAN’S FACE WHEN HE PULLED AWAY FROM HER ATTEMPT TO HUG HIM. OMG. Yes, his mother rejected her Big Boy because she still only loved her little Dean. Heart. Crack.
Wow! I literally just wrote earlier today about how would Mary feel about being snatched away from heaven, but I did not see this coming at all.
I admit to some confusion as well. I thought she was asking them to help her get back to Heaven, but then she walks out…FMW! She keeps saying, “I just need a second or a little time.”
Dean’s reaction was so satisfying to me. I was like, “Don’t give it to her. She needs to see how much she’s hurt you.” I’m sure that’s the loudest that door has ever clanged and Sam’s wince was great. I think… I hope… I’m pretty sure Sam understands how deeply this will wound Dean.
Yeah, Sam’s reaction to that door! I flinched too!
Yeah I just need a minute… to rip your heart out, drag it up these steps, and slam it in this big f***ing metal door!
So we’re 3 episodes in and Lady Cucumbersandwiches, Freaking Mary Winchester, and the fabulous Vincifer have all ditched or been ditched, BUT despite repeated promises of neck-snapping Rowena remains. That’s just mega-awesome.
That was a heartbreaker. We knew the relationship was heading to a crisis but I didn’t expect her to walk out.
All I could think throughout the whole episode was how much Mary is such a mix of both her sons in so many ways, evoking Dean with her joy of eating and music and then physically with her badass slide across the floor when fighting ghosts, then evoking Sam with her ability to empathize with the victim’s mom and then reaching out to the ghost child, trying to understand the situation better. She certainly has the patented Winchester “I’m fine” speech down, and the “I need time” walking away from family (Sam has done this how many times?)
Bob Berens did a great job – it was a creepy ghost story and I didn’t even mind the B story this time. Although one little piece of wank. Lucifer didn’t recognize Rowena’s manipulation or some of the sigils used? Hmmm, not sure I buy that, Bobo.
The brother’s reactions to Mary was as heart crushing as I thought it would be. I keep coming back to Dean’s pullback and Sam’s flinch, like two puppies that have been kicked. Ugh.
I saw that parallel to Sam’s walking away too: “This is what I need right now; I’m doing what I need to do,” whereas Dean puts aside what he wants for what his family needs – John when he was younger, Sam for most of his life. Mary’s refusal to put her son’s needs above her own will just cement in Dean’s mind that he’s not worth anyone’s love or devotion.
SAM’S HAIR!!!!
Overall, wierdly low key, introspective, sad, kind of dragged in places. It was like Supernatural has become a slightly different show with Mary around. That’s not a criticism.
But hey, I’m with Mary – just googling stuff and not talking to people looks a bit boring. OHMYGOD, are Sam and Dean boring now? Or is this like parents seeing kids playing computer games and going ‘You need some fresh air. Go kick a ball around.’ Those scenes of Mary looking at Hunting20.16 shows just how far this has moved on since Season 1 – where are all my lovely libraries and bookshops? Where are all the overenthusiastic archivists and antiquarians?
Also, avocado and quail’s eggs? Has gentrification reached Supernatural, like some rolling tide of doom? Did those poor people instagram their dinners before being frozen to death by Mr Whotsit? Did they get many Likes? Can you imagine? ‘Well I’m sorry they’re dead, but their last supper sure looked delicious.’
Mary needs someone to talk to, someone who’s not her overgrown sons. But who will it be, give all likely candidates are dead?
Aw, you get your heart’s desire and it just means losing everything all over again. And Dean can’t even go out for a comfort bonk now, because Mom. Where can you go now she’s gone? Mom’s changed all the rules. It just looked so weird seeing the three of them together, the change in the dynamic, everything.
I like Rowena more now her hair is all tonged straight. It’s never been a problem of performance, always what the character was doing and the kind of world she brought with her – I do hope she is gently being phased out, because how many mothers do we need now, but damn you SPN, you just do what you want and don’t mind about my feelings.
//did those poor people instagram their dinners// BWHAHAHA
//wierdly low key, introspective, sad, kind of dragged in places// imho, I think this is Bob Berens’ signature, which I kind of like. Some of his other eps were similar like Alex Annie Alexis Ann or The Werther Project where he wants to take his time and be introspective. That works against him when he needs to include a lot of exposition and we end up with hot messes like We Happy Few or Our Little World.
Good catch, Paula. AAAA is one of my favourite later SPN episodes and for that alone I’d forgive Behrens the ones you mention.
As I mentioned this wasn’t a criticism, just noting how the mood is steadily become more entangled and fraught. And the occasional dragging in pace was made up by many other things, not least creepy dolls and ghostly children. And I’d rephrase that anyway, rather than dragging it was an almost imperceptible darkening of mood. Oddly enough it was all the scenes with characters who normally drive me to distraction that had some zip.
Talking of wild hopes and surmises, I foresee Crowley and Castiel opening a charming B and B together at some point.
//OHMYGOD, are Sam and Dean boring now?//
Visually very creepy, but, gotta say I was a little bored by the ghost story. Just this time last year I was begging for a good Lizzy Borden ghost story and remember how great the Mentalist ghost story was? I read lots of mysteries and if they’re too easy to figure out I get annoyed. This kinda falls in the “I saw that comin’ a mile away” category so I’m gonna go with ‘purposeful’.
I was thinking back on the fact that the MOTW story usually speaks to the brothers’ personal story. Clearly the baby crying evoked Baby!Sam for Mary and the little boy, begging for help, screamed Little!Dean. And possessed Mary freezing Dean’s heart was, in retrospect, almost too on-the-nose. Dean wrapping the chain (and his arms) around Mary and, mid-ghostfight, saying, “I got you, Mom” was really sweet. Please don’t be implying that Dean is somehow subconciously trying to bind her to him in some unhealthy way. Of course he is, but they ARE bound whether Dean acts like a 4 year old or not.
So true about the baby and the little boy and possessed Mary freezing Dean’s heart. Dean holding Mary to him, though certainly metaphorically meaningful, was done for HER good primarily: it was keeping the ghost from doing evil, it was keeping her from being a helpless puppet for a murderer, it was Sam shooting John in the leg, Bobby burning the binding link off Sam, Bobby stabbing himself in the leg, Sam injecting Deanmon with human blood.
//where are all my lovely libraries and bookshops? Where are all the overenthusiastic archivists and antiquarians?//
I miss them too.
I re-watched the Wether Project today, and Cuthbert Sinclair is all “you guys are just librarians”… What do you mean, JUST librarians, motherfucker?
This episode. I just. SO MANY FEELINGS.
I mean, aside from the fact that I want to sit them all down for some family therapy. . .
Every. Single. Thing. That I have thought about since Mary was revealed at the end of last season was addressed. Mourning the loss of her babies and their childhoods. Trying to figure out how – or IF – they fit together now. Reunions like this rarely go smoothly. (Obviously, not EXACTLY like this, but there are real-life analogues – adoptees reunited with their birth families, abduction victims returning home, reunions with non-custodial and/or deadbeat parents, etc.) We see the emotional, ecstatic Oprah reunions, not the fallout afterwards when the tough questions start getting asked (and we all know what question Mary is dreading from Sam, and I’m willing to bet Sam is dreading the answer), or even the reunions that go badly from the start.
I don’t know why books I read in childhood keep coming up for me in relation to this show, but in this case, it’s one that I recently re-read after giving a copy to my niece because there’s now a movie of it. The Great Gilly Hopkins (spoilers ahead, for anyone interested in reading it) was possibly the most influential book I read as a child, and to this day, despite being a little outdated, especially in terms of newer laws governing foster care and adoption, it is the most accurate depiction of children in foster care that I have ever seen. At the end, after Gilly has spent the entire book idealizing her mother and imagining their joyful reunion and riding off into the sunset with her perfect mother when she comes back to take care of her, they finally meet, and it’s made clear within five minutes that her mother is not staying, and not taking her, and she has no interest in actually being a mother, and she only came to visit because she was paid to, and just like that, every one of those idealized fantasies is crushed. But even before that, Gilly doesn’t know how to handle the reunion. What to say to her mother. Whether to hug her. It’s awkward. It’s heartbreaking. And it’s real. (Gilly’s life philosophy, by the way, is, “if you’re not hard, you’re had.” Remind you of anyone?)
And I kept thinking of that after watching the final scene last night. It’s not exactly the same – Mary DOES love her boys – but for Dean especially, it might as well have been. The look on his face, my God. He knew it was coming. The way his defenses went up immediately. It was confirmation of his absolute worst nightmare. If given the choice, Mom will leave him, too. He’s so worthless that not even his mother will voluntarily stick around.
And not only does it not occur to him that there could be any other interpretation of Mary’s actions (seriously: I could have a cognitive-behavioral FIELD DAY with him), it doesn’t occur to Mary that her children might interpret her actions as abandonment because they’re not good enough for her.
And as for Sam, he’s probably feeling much the same as Dean, plus worrying about Dean and Mom on top of it. His worry about how Mom was adjusting wasn’t because she was doing what he and Dean BOTH do – it was because it’s what Dean does. He’s watched it over and over.
I could keep going on and on. This episode was just fantastic. Between this, AAAA, and the Werther Project (which is near and dear to my heart for reasons I haven’t yet been able to adequately verbalize), I’m going to go out on a limb and say that one of Robert Berens’ strengths is in capturing emotional nuances, whether internally or relationally.
A couple other little things: although I agree with the general consensus that the cutesifying of Cas and Crowley should be avoided, I kinda loved Agents Beyonce and Jay-Z.
I am in awe of Rick Springfield.
Also, could be a coincidence, but aside from the obvious parallel to Mary approaching Sam’s crib, the slow walk to the crib and pulling back the blanket was also majorly reminiscent of Labyrinth. And teaser victim’s name was Natalia. Just saying.
Confirm or deny, Mr. Berens?
Great comment! Love the connections to Gilly Hopkins and Labyrinth! Your descriptions of Dean’s and Mary’s perceptions are so spot on too! As a side note, I’m just flabbergasted that Mary thinks walking away is wise: she KNOWS how dangerous hunting is. How can she assume that her sons will still be there when (and if) she decides she’s ready to get to know them? Perhaps by then a rougarou would have taken them out. I really thought Sam and Dean were trying to be so careful with her, to give her her space, to not overload her with neediness, and she still ran! Maybe she thinks they have an angel who’d keep them safe. But I just think it’s hugely presumptuous to assume your hunter sons will be available on your timetable.
BTW, of course, WE know that the main characters of the show aren’t going to die – at least not permanently — at least not YET. But Mary doesn’t know that.
//I’m just flabbergasted that Mary thinks walking away is wise: she KNOWS how dangerous hunting is. How can she assume that her sons will still be there when (and if) she decides she’s ready to get to know them?//
Great point. I come from a family of people with dangerous jobs, we all have a “memento mori” attitude. Parting even for a little while is done like parting forever. No loose ends and no crap you think you might sort out later.
Damn, I could really feel Dean’s pain and anger. Kinda hoping he’ll get angry at her and not himself… for a change!
//seriously: I could have a cognitive-behavioral FIELD DAY with him//
What does it mean?
One of the foundations of cognitive-behavioral theory is that we all have faulty thought patterns called cognitive distortions that cause us distress. These are usually rooted in past experiences that color our perception of current events. If you’re interested, googling cognitive distortions will give you good results with lists and definitions and examples.
I would say that Dean’s most common cognitive distortion is polarized (black and white) thinking which organizes everything into a rigid dichotomy, and that definitely comes into play here. Dean’s polarized thinking has driven the conflict of several of the show’s episodes and even arcs to some degree. (The “humans good, vampires bad” mentality in Bloodlust that is challenged when he is confronted with a good vampire and morally ambiguous hunter, for example.) So there is an element of that here, for sure, and if Dean were my client it would be worth exploring, because there are a few different directions I could go with it, the most obvious being, Mom is perfect, and since she doesn’t want me that means I’m bad. Rigid. No other possible explanations or gray areas.
But that pulls in conclusions he’s drawn based on OTHER cognitive distortions. Personalization (the belief that others are doing things “at” you, even though it might have nothing to do with you) – Dean can’t see that Mary’s actions have nothing to do with his worth. In his mind, she is leaving because he’s not good enough. No other possible explanation. Or she doesn’t love him like a mother should love her child in his idealized fantasy of her – “shoulds” being another cognitive distortion, along with the fallacy of fairness. Overgeneralization – everyone always leaves me because I’m not good enough- but he can’t see the people who stuck around for him and/or came back and/or didn’t leave willingly. Control fallacies – it was up to me to keep her happy enough to stay and I failed.
I could honestly keep going. There was SO MUCH there in that scene. I mean, just in his facial expression and stepping away from Mary when she tried to hug him alone.
Thanks for you answer! I have heard of cognitive behaviour therapy before, but it was just a vague and theoretical notion, so those examples were illuminating.
It is probably very telling that to a lot of things you explain here, my first instinct is to go “yeah but…”, ha!
If you want to say more, please do!
//It is probably very telling that to a lot of things you explain here, my first instinct is to go “yeah but…”//
Hahaha! That’s usually clients’ first instinct, too!
I think I’ll let everyone else draw their own conclusions about what other cognitive distortions might be at work here, if they are so inclined. But you’re welcome, and thanks for indulging my desires to “talk shop,” lol!
Without going into too much detail, it’s also because I have a lot of cognitive distortions in common with Dean, really. Which explains some of my very strong reactions the first time watching, and also why I am still completely oblivious to some very fucked up things that happen until someone here brings it up. And I’m like “oh wait, it’s not totally normal to [complete here with one of the many fucked up things Dean does]? I had no idea.” Ha!
Well – there’s a difference between “normal” and “healthy.” To be fair, there’s plenty about Dean that is neither normal nor healthy, but there’s also a lot that’s not healthy, but normal in the context of his experiences, or at least, to be expected.
Also – we ALL have cognitive distortions. I could give examples of filtering, overgeneralizing, and catastrophizing that I have caught myself using in the last six hours. So it’s not necessarily unhealthy or abnormal to HAVE them. What’s unhealthy is when they become so embedded im your worldview that they become unchallengeable fact to you (which is definitely where Dean is, and is also where most of the people I work with are), so the initial reaction to having the distortions challenged is pretty typically going to be resistance. That’s why I like to turn it around to, “would you interpret it this way if it were [insert significant person’s name here]?” and then have them explain why the cognitive distortion applies to them but not to their friend/child/sibling/etc. Most of the time, they can’t, at least not in any logical way. It’s a therapeutic technique that I like to call “logical entrapment,” because if there is an official name for it, I never learned it.
My point is, even if you think/do some of the same unhealthy things Dean does, you’re probably more normal than you think.
Yes, heartbreaking.
But also: isn’t it interesting how we react when one member of the Winchester family states clearly what she wants/needs and is not in complete auto-destruction mode? How DARE she betray us? How come she gets to be an individual?
Huh.
//isn’t it interesting how we react when one member of the Winchester family states clearly what she wants/needs and is not in complete auto-destruction mode?//
Not sure if you mean us as fans or the characters here, or both, but either way I absolutely agree with what you’re saying. I don’t think Mary is wrong here at all. I’m heartbroken FOR her as much as I am for the boys.
Related personal digression: my sister took off with my nieces (I’ll call them Big C and Little C for clarity) and the father of Little C, when Big C was 8 and Little C was about 7 weeks old. Big C had been living with my parents for nearly 2 years at that point and I saw her at minimum 3-4 times a week, and Little C’s father was an unstable, toxic, potentially dangerous man. (As it turned out, we were right about the potential danger – he was physically and emotionally abusive to my sister and Big C, and probably to Little C as well, but she was still mostly pre-verbal before he was out of the picture so we can’t know for sure what happened.) We did not have any contact with Big C for six agonizing months, and even for some time after that things remained strained between my sister and the rest of the family so that when and WHETHER the next visit would happen was a constant source of stress, and it was close to 18 months before we really got to have any interaction with Little C.
Things are much better now than they were during that time period. My family sees both girls regularly and has very solid relationships with them. But that period of separation took a toll. I have trouble accepting Big C’s current age and stage of development. I still see the 8-year-old she was before all of this happened. I feel robbed of a piece of her childhood and the growth and development that occurred during that time. It’s even more pronounced with Little C. I don’t have the same struggle with accepting where she is now, because there wasn’t really a pre-established relationship, but when my sister puts pictures or videos from the time we missed on facebook, it hits me like a punch in the gut. She recently posted a video of Little C learning to walk, and I couldn’t watch it. I’ve talked to my parents about it, and they feel similarly. We are mourning that time lost, and the baby we didn’t get to know, and the little girl we didn’t get to watch growing. Even though I have them in my life now, I think I’ll probably always mourn that loss. It’s a very strange and ambiguous grief.
So I get where Mary is coming from. I don’t criticize her need for time to process at all – if I struggled that much with losing just over a year of my nieces’ lives, what must it be like to lose THIRTY-THREE years of your own children’s lives?
Part of the heartbreak for me is that she is incapable of seeing what walking away now is doing to the boys. She is seeing everything through her own filter, just as much as they are. They’re grown men. They lived for 3 decades without her. They seem pretty self-sufficient. Why should it occur to her that this will feel like abandonment, especially to Dean? She has no context of what their lives were actually like without her. She thinks John was a good father.
This is why I want to play family therapist with them, lol.
(This might also explain why I had SUCH a powerful reaction to this episode. Just, you know, a teensy bit of transference there.)
//Not sure if you mean us as fans or the characters here, or both//
Well, we fans are often with them in that freaking Winchester Bell Jar (© Sheila O’Malley), aren’t we?:)
Wow, no wonder you relate to Mary’s struggle. Of course! Thanks for sharing – and thanks for “talking shop,” it was very interesting!
//Well, we fans are often with them in that freaking Winchester Bell Jar (© Sheila O’Malley), aren’t we?:)//
True!
And thanks – it was a pretty harrowing time for me. I white knuckled my way through most of it. And, come to think of it, it was not long after we finally started having contact with Little C again that I started watching SPN (and got sucked in at possibly unhealthy levels). Probably not a coincidence.
What was with the motorcycle? When Dean comes out of the gas station, there was a serious nod to a motorcycle outside. Did I miss something?
I noticed that, too! A reference to solitude and going off on one’s own? Possible foreshadowing of Dean going rogue with Mom gone? The bike was basically the motorcycle equivalent of Baby.
Maybe it belongs to Mr. Ketch and we’ll see it again soon.
There has been a terrible lack of motorcycle in the show since Dorothy went back to Oz.:)
Maybe a bit small to be the equivalent of an American muscle car, but it looks like a Triumph Bonneville, so that would definitely mean British!
My thoughts also. GMTA
Ugh. I was trying to forget that Mr. Ketch is a thing. (Stop trying to make Ketch happen, SPN.)
;-)
My first thought was it was Mr Ketch’s. It was way too Chekov’s Gun for it to be a throwaway a line.
I was reading the post on All Hell Breaks Loose Part 2, and a couple things jumped out at me that I thought applied to 12×3.
Sheila, you wrote, “His whole life has been devoted to avenging her death. To honoring her memory.” And when she walks away from him, couldn’t that seem not just a rejection of him as a person, as her son (which I think is what he’s feeling), but it also seems to negate his entire life. He gave up all hope of a normal life, and for what? Dean says to Bobby in AHBL 2, “It’s like my life could mean something,” and it seems to me that Dean could read Mary’s action as showing that his life was purposeless . But I don’t even think that would register at this point for him because he’s so lost in the pain of her abandonment.
Also in that post, there were comments about how we feel protective of them. Oh, my goodness! I felt SO protective of Dean . . . and Sam too, but especially Dean . . . after Mary walked out on them. I wanted to protect him so badly from this personal agony, of feeling that he’s not enough for his mother after spending his whole life first not feeling good enough to ever live up to his father’s expectations or later always failing Sam (his perception). That feeling of failing is seen so clearly in his speech to Sam’s body at the beginning of AHBL 2 and has recurred at various times in the show. The whole next day at work how traumatized Dean appeared was all I could think about, and you can tell it’s still bothering me! So when I read people talking about feeling protective, I recognized that as my own feelings in this episode!
Dean’s mentions home – it’s such a powerful word. “Baby” seemed to solidify where and what Home is for the brothers. (And I’m reminded of John’s wish in season 1 that Dean has a home.) But Mary doesn’t feel at home. This isn’t home to her — which makes sense but is incredibly painful for Sam and Dean to here. They’ve longed for her and here she is only to find that she’s not longed for them. Instead she’s longing for the baby and the four-year-old she’s had in heaven for the last three decades. (Which also made me wonder: how self-aware was she in her after-life? Ash seemed to be in his heavenly version of the Roadhouse and Bobby too, reading in his heaven in Inside Man. But was Mary not aware that these were just projections, not reality? And if she KNEW it wasn’t real, of COURSE she would mourn for them, but to actually walk away from her present-day sons because she wanted her mental image of them more? It had to cut their souls like a knife. (I also thought about Dean in What Is and What Should Never Be and how he walked away from the fake life, even though, in it, Sam was happy and had Jessica and he had his mom and a loving girlfriend.)
What is it about this show and the devastating things that characters do and say to each other? A few of them have included Sam’s statements to Dean in The Purge and Dean telling Sam it should have been him on the pyre instead of Charlie. And now what Mary has done? I’m haunted after watching such pain being inflicted.
As heart breaking as it was, I loved this episode. I think the fact they gave Mary her autonomy, that she could acknowledged that the situation wasn’t working and she put herself first was amazing. Yes it contributed to the “manpain” (and dear lord, it was painful), it gave her an arc that was consistent with the strong female characters we have come to know and love.
And once again Jensen Ackles shows that his understanding of Dean is absolute. His turnaway from Mary was so much more telling than anything else would have been, and his little nod shows that he is taking Dean back to the wee boy, it’s my fault mentality that we have seen so often. And Jared’s ability to look about 5 years old is always amazing. How two 6foot plus men can look so small and broken is beyond me. But even with that, and even with her two heartsick boys, I can totally forgive Mary for leaving.
But if anything happens to that journal, she’s dead to me.
//But if anything happens to that journal, she’s dead to me// right behind you on this