Directed by Tony Wharmby
Written by Cathryn Humphris & John Shiban
Nietzsche wrote,”When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.” I thought of that while writing the re-cap. “Dead Man’s Blood” is an abyss. The longer I look at it, the more it looks back at me, the deeper it goes. The associations are dizzying. To use another image, it’s a Hall of Mirrors. It works so well because the mirrors are so omnipresent that the endless reflections actually become reality (something that doesn’t happen in more awkward episodes). That dizzying effect could be seen as a metaphor for what it is like to live in the Winchester family. Are you seeing yourself in the reflection? Or are you seeing someone else’s version of you? Are you you? Or are you just an extension of your dad, your brother? The abyss quality of “Dead Man’s Blood” is reflected in the look of the episode which is often so dark you literally cannot see what is happening. It’s darker than the pilot. Vampires are nocturnal. So are the Winchesters. The Winchesters may not be the “Undead” but they squint in the sunlight too.
The Winchesters fight all kinds of beings but when they fight vampires, things get twisty psychologically. You can isolate all of the vampire episodes and see that, down to the disturbing one in Season 9 (one of the sickest SPN episodes ever). Vampires are symbolic, in ways that other monsters are not. There are a couple of reasons why that might be, but I prefer to let it just swim around un-named in the abyss. Because I am still seeing things and finding things in the vampire episodes. They are still revealing themselves to me. I think one of the things that happens is that vampires were once human beings, so it’s not as easy to label them as “Other,” because they look and talk like us. Also they operate as families. They run in a pack. They have fierce loyalty and even love for one another. “Dead Man’s Blood” sets that up right away. Every time there has been a confrontation with a vampire on this show, it is impossible to ignore the fact that what we are seeing in the vampire world is just a dark mirror of what is going on in the human world. And Sam and Dean, alternately, get caught up in that Hall of Mirrors too. Repeatedly. Vamps reflecting your own past, your own pain. The concept of “watching” is used a lot in “Dead Man’s Blood.” “You like to watch, don’t you? Me too,” says a vampire to his victim. Looking on as violence occurs, looking on as sexual assault occurs, what it means to watch, what it means to be the watcher, especially when what you are watching is happening to a family member … it shows up repeatedly and disturbingly in “Dead Man’s Blood.”
I’m not a huge vampire person, although I’ve read Dracula, of course, and recently had a lot of fun reading The Historian (I love that the scared mom in “The Kids are All Right” falls asleep on the couch reading that book). I’ve read the Twilight books. I’ve read Anne Rice. And there are almost too many vampire films to count. F.W. Murnau’s 1922 film Nosferatu is still terrifying today.
You know Serge Ladouceur has seen Nosferatu. I mean, that’s a “shadow”, isn’t it. That’s the Shtriga, too.
Vampires tap into a deep pool of desire and repulsion. They are scary, but not like werewolves or vengeful spirits are scary. Vampires bring with them sex, and submission, as well as the possibility of eternal life. Over the years, vampires have changed and morphed, as stories do, to fit the times. They became associated with Satanic forces (hence the idea that you could repel them by holding up a cross). But vampires are a reflection of the needs/fears/desires of people at any given time. You know us by our vampire lore, basically. So in Twilight, they become a glamorous symbol of self-sacrifice and the difficulties of chastity (I mean, it sounds ridiculous, and it is, but there you have it). As Dean observes in “Twihard,” vampires like that are a little bit “rapey”. Vampires have always been a little bit rapey. They take down their victims by biting the neck, an erotic image, something that Twilight dwells on explicitly. Eric Kripke et al. were conscious of the over-saturation of vampires in today’s culture but knew they wanted to include them in the series. So the challenge was how to make them “theirs,” to distinguish them from Twilight, obviously, but also from other references. So how do they do that? Bluntly, with John informing his sons, “Most vampire lore is crap.”
The structure of the episode is full of mystery. It withholds information from us, from scene to scene to scene. Sometimes we go 4 or 5 scenes where questions are posed and NOT answered. Like the Colt, for example. The Colt hovers over the action from the teaser, and we have zero idea why, and the episode is patient enough to make us sweat it out. The characters, at all points, know more than we do. They also keep secrets from one another. But the overall effect, of information withheld, is disorienting. You want to know what John’s plan is. You want to know what he’s thinking. And, of course, isn’t that just how Sam and Dean feel? There’s a lot here about information itself: who has it, who controls it, who is in charge of it. This leads below to one of my “digressions” about cults and how they operate, an enduring interest of mine.
The episode is called “Dead Man’s Blood.” In Season 1, Supernatural was pretty literal with its titles. “Bugs.” “Asylum.” “Scarecrow.” That is clearly no longer the case, the episode titles now being snarky literary-reference-heavy, pop-culture heavy, inside-jokey, clever. “Dead Man’s Blood” strikes me as a curious title. While vampires are the reason for the episode, the real point of it is the introduction of the mythical Colt revolver, a game-changer. But it’s not called “The Colt,” it’s not called “Vampires,” it’s called “Dead Man’s Blood.” In Supernatural vampire lore, you can temporarily take down a vampire by injecting them with the blood of a dead man. Just riffing on that idea: the Winchester men have been “taken down” by the death of Mary. It has stunned them all, traumatized them all in different ways, and they have been staggering around like a stun-gunned animal ever since. You could also see it as a harbinger of what is to come, John Winchester’s influence on his sons, and the fact that he’s going to die in a couple of episodes. Vampires are susceptible to “dead man’s blood,” but we all are susceptible in different ways. Nobody is invulnerable. Nobody is a Terminator. There are chinks in the armor, things get to us, against our will, no matter our defenses. There is always a “way in.” And so those ideas connect to the Colt. The Colt is a “way in.” The Colt may very well be the most effective “dead man’s blood” there is.
TEASER
Manning, Colorado
Present Day
Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “The House is Rockin'” leads us into the roadhouse. It’s a pretty funny song choice. Certainly a favorite of dive bars everywhere, but the lyrics take on a double-meaning, considering what goes down in the teaser:
Well, the house is a rockin’, don’t bother knockin’
Yeah, the house is a rockin’, don’t bother knockin’
If the house is a rockin’, don’t bother, come on in
And the vamps don’t bother knockin’!
No establishing shot yet, we have no idea who it is but we already have learned enough to know a hunter’s journal when we see one. The man is in partial darkness, like the Winchesters often are. Gloomy, obsessive. The bartender has to say his name twice to get his attention. He looks ROUGH. This is Daniel Elkins (Terence Kelly). The bartender is kind, and when another customer jokes to her, under his breath, “I thought they caught the Unabomber” she says compassionately, “He’s a nice old man. He’s just a nut.”
As she pours him another shot, you can see Mr. Elkins sense something. The door to the bar has opened and a swaggering sexy group enters, led by a hottie biker chick. There’s an aggressive and self-congratulatory, self-regarding energy in the group. “Yeah, we’re here, we’re vampires, get used to it.” It’s like Roger Corman’s motorcycle gang pictures, or, even earlier, like The Wild One, where Marlon Brando plays the head of a motorcycle gang who terrorizes a small town.
They take up a table near the bar, sprawling out obnoxiously. There’s a weird vibe. Elkins clearly senses it, but so does the bartender and the other customer. Vampires are “too much,” too intense. They seem like trouble. The bartender notices Elkins’ abandoned drink, and looks up to see the bar door closing behind him. He’s gone.
Up in the canyon, Elkins hurries into his cabin. It’s so dark you can’t see a damn thing. He, like Rufus, like John Winchester, shows the end result of a hunters life. It is where Sam and Dean are going. They’re still young, but they will become this. It’s a mathematical certainty. Once inside the cabin, he stops, again sensing something, and turns. Kate, the head honcho, played by Anne Openshaw, is standing there.
(Openshaw does a great job. She brings both a voracious hunger to the role, as well as a needy sort of blank-ness, the blank-ness of the predator who needs to feed, the blank-ness, too, of a creature totally in thrall to another. There are some interesting closeups of Openshaw later in the episode where we see her anxious almost Donna-Reed-housewife energy: “See what I brought for you, baby? Aren’t I a good girl?”)
Elkins knows what she wants. Her greeting to him suggests a history. They have crossed paths before. Elkins, knowing he’s a goner, runs into another room, barricading himself in. Flipping the combination on the safe behind the desk, urgently, quickly, his fingers can’t move quickly enough. We are about to welcome The Colt into the series, and I, for one, am in love with it. (I wrote about how aesthetically pleasing I find guns in the “Nightmare” re-cap, a controversial opinion, but I’m trying to keep it real. So, naturally, the Colt appeals.) Elkins, frantic now, pulls out the wooden gun box, and starts to load up the silver bullets, all as she rattles at the door trying to get in. “Don’t bother knockin’, sister. Come on in.”
Then, two vampire Boondock Saints-types slo-mo crash through the windows in the ceiling. Slo-mo is not really the show’s style, but it’s impressive nonetheless. Elkins is then pinned against the desk, just as Miss Biker Chick pushes her way into the room, strolling forward like Marlon Brando’s lazy motorcycle gang leader in The Wild One, who never hurries, is never worried.
The gun, knocked out of Elkins’ hand, lies on the floor, and she leans down and picks it up. She seems tickled by it: “Nice gun. Wouldn’t do you much good, of course.” With a cue from her, the vampires pounce on Elkins, and his screams pierce through the air.
1st scene
Somehow the Winchester brothers are now in Nebraska. They were last seen in upstate New York. The gaps in the timeline are always interesting to me. Their lives don’t just exist onscreen, shit is going on that we don’t see.
They sit in a little breakfast joint, Dean reading the paper, Sam on his laptop. It is clearly a real-life location, with the Impala parked at the curb outside. Shooting on location is one of the show’s challenges (for the production team) but also one of its strange little aces-in-the-hole. When you are filming in a real place, with a real function, it shows. You could have built a set for a little coffee joint, and there are, of course, some built sets for the show, but in general, the cast is out there in the world. It makes it feel like the events we see onscreen could, conceivably, in some alternate universe, actually be going on.
The conversation doesn’t start right away. Dean reads, Sam reads. Dean folds up the newspaper, sighs. The dialogue that follows (“No leads in Nebraska, you?” “Nope..”) is really just a repeat of what we just saw in the behavior. I’ve said it before that I love how Supernatural, which has so much action in it, doesn’t feel the need to be go-go-go all the time, or talk-talk-talk, a la Aaron Sorkin. They allow for pauses, breathers, silence.
Jared Padalecki has said that his favorite scenes in Supernatural are these types of scenes, the brothers discussing possible cases, and then deciding, at some point, “Okay, let’s go for it.” Padalecki said he admires that can-do attitude of the brothers, and in others, and so he loves these scenes in particular. I thought it was a very illuminating moment in terms of who he is as an actor. He didn’t say “I love the big fight scenes,” or “I love when there’s huge conflict” – he chose these almost mundane scenes that happen in every episode. He’s a nuts-and-bolts guy. And he’s right. These scenes are always good, and they always find a way to make them different, unique, which is no small feat considering the format is so repetitious.
Sam brings up one weird story he found, and Dean says it sounds more like “That’s Incredible than Twilight Zone.” I love that his frame of reference for culture is not just current-day. He is certainly up on what’s going on and he goes to see Black Swan twice, but, I mean, That’s Incredible?
Memories. Light the Dark Corners of my Mind.
Fascinatingly, Dean takes the pause following to suggest maybe “heading back East” to go pay a visit on Sarah. He manages to sound and look lecherous, but in his typically friendly way. Dean operates from a sexual place primarily. It’s his milieu. Here he is, giving Sam the full blast of it, which is kind of strange at the same time that it is endearing at the same time that it is obnoxious. I will leave you to contemplate how Ackles pulled THAT off.
I love that the dynamic is carried over from “Provenance.” Half the time in the “Route 666” re-cap I was be-moaning the total erasure of Cassie from the record. It was Season 1. They were still figuring stuff out and figuring out the structure. Who could have guessed that by Season 9 they would have a rotating enormous cast of recurring characters? It felt like a twofer type show, and it WAS a twofer type show in the beginning. It sort of grew into its ensemble state, although Sam and Dean are always the center. So I can see how they would drop Cassie, not being sure if they wanted to follow up that lead, and here they are, 9 seasons later, and moronic fans like myself are still griping about it. It’s hysterical. But anyway. Dean bringing up Sarah, referencing the episode that just occurred, is a bit of a sea-change. John keeps coming back, we have continuity with him, and we have continuity with Jess, and with that larger Season Arc. But so far they aren’t referencing back to their former cases. I like continuity, obviously. Continuity adds to the feeling that (totally elementary point) these fictional characters are supposed to be human beings, with memories that accumulate. I mean, was there an accumulation of memories with these two individuals?
Not really. Each episode was its own distinct thing. Same job, different day. There was very little carry-over. Supernatural very easily could have been a Monster of the Week, each episode a different case, and they may have enjoyed a nice two-season run. It’s that other stuff, the grand operatic emotional thru-line, the accumulation of memories (good and bad), that hooked fans in like terminal junkies. Dean calling back to Sarah, and picking up the teasing of Sam, is just one of the small simple ways the show did that. Maybe by episode 20 they started trusting themselves more, trusting the characters more, trusted that the fans would show up the following week. Momentum was growing.
Despite the smoochy-smooch Sam shared with Sarah at the end of “Provenance” (“That’s my boy …” Stop it. Now.), Sam does not look interested in Dean’s suggestion. At all. There’s a sort of faint smile on his face, acknowledging Dean’s teasing, but Sarah is strictly in the rear view mirror. Emotions are rarely linear. People zig-zag, they backtrack, they have second thoughts, they regress. Sometimes it gets repetitive on Supernatural. There’s continuity and then there’s beating a damn dead horse. But I do like that the emotions are not linear, because that’s real. People DO argue about the same shit over and over again, especially in a family. People DO take two steps backward, recoil, side-step.
Sam brings up another news item about a guy named Daniel Elkins in Colorado who was mauled in his home. The name rings a bell to Dean. He pulls Dad’s journal out of his bag and starts flipping through it, coming on the contact list page and showing it to Sam. There is an absolutely eye-achingly gorgeous closeup of his thoughtful face as he flips through the journal.
They’re gaining in confidence now in how they film him. Look. He’s gorgeous. They know it, he knows it. How to really present that, though, is the question, how far to go with it, and how to do so while undercutting it at the same time. I wrote about this at length in the “Shadow” re-cap, in a little sub-section I called “The Importance of Beauty.” It’s an artistic conversation, something that floats up and above and around the actual plot of the series, and also floats up and above and around the fangirl-y “OMG he’s hawt” response to him (which is completely valid). “The Importance of Beauty” is, artistically, how Supernatural works. People respond to beauty, of course. People squeal about it.But I’m interested in why. Season 2 is when the aesthetic feel of the show really kicks in, when you can barely deal with the beauty presented onscreen. But already, they’re understanding what they actually have with these two lead guys. The key is that the lighting is not glamorous, the lighting is not overtly objectifying or soft-focus. The lighting feels natural. (Not anymore. We are now in full-on Music Video Melodrama Land with the lighting by Season 9.) The guys’ looks feel like a natural phenomenon as opposed to something manufactured for fan enjoyment. It’s difficult to break down, and explain, but I will continue to try because it’s important. It’s not enough to be good-looking. Everyone in television is good-looking. Who cares. But if there is consciousness behind that beauty, if there is a conscious plan to present said beauty in a certain way … that’s when you start to get into very interesting areas. Especially when you’re talking about men, and not women.
Dad had a contact name in his journal with a Colorado area code. Seems like a pretty thin lead to me, and Colorado’s a big state, but the brothers know better than I do. Thank goodness I’m not in charge.
And just as an exercise, for those of you who find editing/shot construction conversations interesting or illuminating: watch this scene and forget about the plot, forget about the lines, forget about the story, and forget about the Hotties on the screen. Watch the shots. Watch the cuts, watch when we move from one image to another. Watch when the camera moves, and watch when the camera doesn’t move. Watch how we move from a closeup of Dean, seen over the top of the journal, to a closeup of the journal itself, with Dean in a blur above it. You won’t notice these things because it’s a perfect example of how to put a scene together without calling attention to the specific choices you have made. But each cut, each edit, each camera move, is thought out. The scene is put together in a very natural and fluid way. Sometimes the best work is the work that is done so carefully and thoughtfully that you don’t notice it at all.
2nd scene
Mountains are shorthand for Colorado.
Dean and Sam, in the dead of a snowy night, break into Daniel Elkins’ cabin out in the middle of nowhere. The music is ominous, and even more ominous, you can hear the wind whipping around the isolated cabin throughout the following scene.
A word on Elkins: It’s difficult to remember that in Season 1, the only “hunters” we know of are Sam, Dean and John. There is very little sense at all that there is a larger community out there, a whole sub-culture. Dean calls “Dad’s friend Caleb” for help with something, so that’s a clue that there will be other contacts, other people out there doing the same thing they do. But Sam and Dean have been isolated. They don’t run into other hunters, it feels like they are the only people in the world who do what they do. That will change in the Finale to Season 1, when Bobby (Jim Beaver) enters the scene, and of course everything changes in Season 2 when they discover the roadhouse. Dean and Sam seem amazed that such a place existed. Daniel Elkins’ existence gives us a hint of the larger world out there, the fact that Sam and Dean belong to a community, albeit a scattered and paranoid one. Bobby was a factor in their childhood. So was Pastor Jim. But in general, it was the Winchesters alone, easier for John Winchester to keep control. I like how slowly, slowly, the Winchester world opens up over the next season. Obviously the creators felt the need to introduce new regular characters. If the show was going to survive, it had to be more than just Sam and Dean. But on a story level, it works quite well: once John dies, they start to see just how much he had shielded them. You can see Sam and Dean struggle, struggle with trusting others, outsiders … a vibe common to all hunters, and for good reason. Nobody has a lovely open relationship to one another. Everyone is on high alert. You suspect your own mother and toss holy water in her face when she leaves the room for 5 minutes. Hunters are traumatized drunks covered in weapons.
Sam sees salt on the floor by the door, a clear sign. Dean goes through the piles of stuff on Elkins’ desk. It’s pitch-black, the only light from their flashlight beams. Sam comes to join Dean, asking, “You think this guy Elkins was a player?” Dean, engrossed in Elkins’ journal, replies, “Definitely.”
They seem vulnerable. Physically.
Even more so, when we see a dark figure standing off a ways outside the cabin, looking on. In my first viewing, I assumed it was Biker Chick or one of her minions. I can be quite dense.
Back in the cabin, Sam and Dean move into the overturned inner room. Glass on the floor. “Looks like he put up a hell of a fight,” observes Dean. In the mess on the floor, Dean catches sight of what is the empty gun box. Of course Dean, the commando, would be drawn to it. No gun. No bullets.
But he moves on. Dean’s flashlight beam shines over some scratches on the floor, smeared with blood. I am so easily pleased (as I’ve said, I think it is one of my best qualities), but I love how he squats down, considering the scratches, then reaches up to the nearby desk for a scrap of paper and a pencil, so he can trace over the scratches on the floor. He gently pats the paper down on the floor, the blood making it stick. It’s a simple bit of business, done in one shot, Ackles having to actually deal with all of those objects and the activity- and it’s the simplicity that makes it effective.
Dean peels the paper back off the floor and hands it up to Sam, who immediately clocks it as the location and combination of a P.O. Box. Good work, Sammy, cause I’d be like, “What the eff is that.” Dean is not surprised: “That’s how Dad does it.”
And Geez, Mr. Elkins, you’re more bad-ass than I thought because AS the vampires were chewing on your neck, AS your throat was being severed, you had the wherewithal to scratch out a locker combination on the floor. It’s amazing the local cops didn’t see those scratches and decide to investigate. The Manning police force are slackers.
3rd scene
In a shadowy post office, Dean flips around the lock on one of the boxes. Sam and Dean look totally suspicious. Criminal.
Dean pulls out a single envelope, stares at it for a second, and then shows it to Sam. Look at how dark the scene is. Look at how sketchy they both look. Their handsomeness is “taken for granted,” and the scenes are so dark we don’t get a good look at them at all. The technique plays on audience expectations and adds to the tension. It’s a burlesque act, it’s a tease.
We aren’t shown what the envelope says, not in that moment. But suddenly we are back in the Impala, with a closeup of the envelope, addressed to “J.W.” Sam and Dean don’t know what to do. At that moment, a knock comes on the car window, scaring them both out of their pants, practically. Dean jumps like he’s been poked in the ass with a pin. And suddenly, there is John, at the window. He is so out of context for them, and so unexpected, that I love the response of the two actors (both in the same frame at the same time, so neither one is privileged over the other: They are completely “one” in the moment.)
The following scene is pretty heavy with exposition, John explaining Daniel Elkins, John talking about vampires. The Colt.
Why the scene is such a powerhouse, though, is because of the mood underlying all of that talk-talk-talk. There’s something being revealed in “Dead Man’s Blood” that is so out of control that even the creators don’t seem to be fully aware of what they are unleashing. Why the scene is so fascinating to me is because of the behavior. The small looks, the small glimpses of thought, the glances over at one another in silent reaction … It works like a three-dimensional tapestry, complex, detailed, in constant motion. It’s the abyss mentioned above, staring into the abyss and getting the sense that the abyss is staring back.
So I’ll break down a couple of things I notice.
Dean and Sam glance at one another, alarmed, as Dad hustles his way into the back seat. In that moment, it’s almost like they are the parental figures, dealing with an unruly child who has gone missing, who is “acting out.” Parents put on a united front sometimes, despite underlying disagreements, and you can see Sam and Dean both struggle to do that while in the face of their compelling and sometimes domineering father.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays the hell out of John Winchester. It is hard to imagine another actor topping it. Why it works so well is that Jeffrey Dean Morgan does NOT play John Winchester as a villain. Villains don’t see themselves as villains. They often see themselves as the most reasonable man in the room. The good villains don’t telegraph their bad-ness, and that’s why they get away with so much. Seen from outside the gaslit bubble of the Winchester family, it is obvious that John is manipulative, that he loves his sons, but his love has, by this point, become something totally abstract. And look out for people whose love is abstract. You can justify anything when your love is abstract.
Later in the episode, Sam rails to Dean about Dad’s “need-to-know” way of dealing with them, one of John Winchester’s most infuriating qualities. He cannot let go of himself as the Alpha Dog. He has erected an entire philosophical construct to justify that, and “Dead Man’s Blood” ends up being all about that, where we actually get to hear him explain and defend himself (to Sam, interestingly enough). But we’ll get to that.
Manipulators can be calculating, but if you’ve spent a lifetime manipulating, then you won’t FEEL calculating to yourSELF. And that’s what Morgan brings to the role. He’s so compelling, and he seems so emotionally connected. A friend of mine said to me once, “I never believe what a man says. I only believe what a man does.” (We were talking about a boyfriend of mine, but you could insert the word “woman” or “people” in that sentence, it would also apply.) John Winchester’s actions, seen through his eyes, are all BECAUSE he loves his sons, BECAUSE he is honoring his wife’s memory and seeking justice (i.e. revenge, another theme that comes out in “Dead Man’s Blood”). He seems to appreciate Sam more than Dean (although the two butt heads) BECAUSE Sam shows the independence that John Winchester prizes in himself. And Dean, the good soldier, the obedient son, thinks that somehow he can be good enough to please his Dad. If he keeps his head down, and performs his tasks perfectly … maybe he’ll get that “extra cookie” (the mythical extra cookie he references in “Asylum”, that never came anyway, no matter how good he was).
We’re not going to unpack or understand all of it in one episode. And whatever is revealed in each specific moment in the car scene, you can also see its exact opposite. That’s how disorienting the scene is, and how disorienting John is.
You get the sense that if Dean was alone in the car with Dad, Dean wouldn’t say shit beyond, “What next, Dad?” Sam, though, has questions. “What are you doing here? Are you all right? Why didn’t you come into the cabin?”
John is slightly (juuuust slightly) annoyed in his tone, “You know why. I had to make sure you weren’t followed.”
We see Dean nod at that, almost imperceptibly. He’s in thrall. John then gives his sons a rare compliment: “Nice job covering your tracks, by the way.” A compliment is almost too much for Dean to handle, and two episodes later, he will understand that his father has been possessed because he is being too complimentary. That moment alone is an indictment of John Winchester. Dean’s voice is husky and gruff when he says, in a practically sycophant way, “Well, we learned from the best.” A smile is almost on his lips, but he seems to think better of that, gets rid of it.
It is one of those moments that looks entirely different once you’ve seen more of the series. Dean looks broken, almost irreparably. But the moment is gone in a flash, moving on to Sam yet again taking the initiative, something that seemed to mildly alarm Dean back in “Shadow.” You just don’t initiate stuff with John Winchester, because the man is a land-mine and he could explode in your face if you say the wrong thing, or take the wrong tone.
You can see how Dean gets discombobbled when John is around. All of his smarts and initiative and creativity get squashed, and his entire focus becomes propping up Dad’s sense of himself.
John reveals that he and Elkins had a falling out years back, something that will become par for the course as we learn more about John. He alienated everyone. Morgan plays it with a grave and almost self-important sense of melancholy, “He was a good man …”
Dean looks uncertain for a second and glances over at Sam, who says, “You never mentioned him to us.” It’s fascinating to see how Sam becomes The Voice in the scene. Even though Dean seems to fear it (“wait, what is Sammy saying?” “Wait, how is Dad reacting?”) he needs it.
John asks for the letter and Dean almost eagerly hands it over. It feels good to be able to obey, to have obeying be something simple and easy. John scans the letter, saying, “Sonofabitch. He had it the whole time.”
Ah, the Colt. The MacGuffin to end all MacGuffins, although your mileage may vary.
To have a MacGuffin be of use for as long as the Colt was “of use” in the story of Supernatural is hilarious to me. Nobody could let it go. What the hell, let’s just bring the Colt back!
By the end, it’s like the Colt is the one doing the gaslighting. Sam and Dean take an awestruck approach to it, they almost whisper when it is mentioned. The Colt does what it promised. But it also doesn’t. And yet it continues. I love the Colt. It’s such a blatant DEVICE, reminiscent of another mythical weapon that could conceivably solve everyone’s problems.
Of course the underlying ridiculous-ness of that device is made perfectly clear here.
If the Colt was as reliable as legend foretold, then we wouldn’t have a damn show. The Colt brings with it hope that one day all of this could be over. No wonder the brothers invest so much emotion in it. Even better, story-wise, there are a limited number of bullets. Kripke loves the Colt, knows some fans hate it, but he loves it so much he doesn’t care. To someone like myself who thought that starting a series called Gun Porn would be a good and not-weird thing to do on my blog, the Colt is awesome.
John asks Sam and Dean if they saw an antique gun in Elkins’ cabin, a “Colt revolver.” Dean says he saw the case, in a hesitant tone. He’s cut off, emotionally. The guy we saw in the first scene, leering and drooling over the memory of Sarah, cracking jokes, and being totally on top of his job analytically, is no longer present.
John is out of the car before either of them can say another word, and there’s another glance between Sam and Dean, a wondering glance, a silent “what do we do” glance. A parental glance. Sam calls after Dad, leaning across Dean, “You want us to come with you?” Dean looks so worried.
Like I said, something uncontrollable is unleashed in the scene in all three actors, but mostly in the sons. What they are living/feeling/experiencing is not on the page, it’s in a wordless space where shit is being stirred up.
John says they need to find the gun, and there is a sudden huge closeup of Sam, urgent, unafraid: “The gun? Why?”
Dad’s answer is: “Because it’s important, that’s why.”
The trouble is already starting.
When Dad says the things that killed Elkins were vampires, we get a sudden sharp move of the camera from Sam’s to Dean’s face. Dean says, stunned, “Vampires? I thought there was no such thing?” The camera shoots back over to Sam, who says, “You never even mentioned them, Dad.” It’s great. If there had been a cut, an edit, showing a closeup of Dean and then a closeup of Sam, we wouldn’t be getting the impression of how tight the two of them have become since the pilot, how close the brothers are, the relationship they have managed to form despite everything.
John says, “I thought they were extinct. I thought Elkins and others …” (Gordon? There’s a phone call for you, you maniac.) “had wiped them out. I was wrong.”
Dean turns to look at Sam. They don’t speak. You can interpret it any way you like. Dean checking in with Sam, he needs that counter-balance. Sam’s almost grim look back. Dad admitting he was wrong. How often has that ever happened? It’s a potent full look between the brothers. You could see that if John Winchester were a more volatile type (he’s pretty coiled and controlled) he wouldn’t like the sight of Dean and Sam “bonding” (don’t like that word, it’s weak). Dean and Sam are becoming stronger as their own team. John Winchester has not received that memo. John Winchester has a mistaken belief that they are still his to protect. Dean nervous about Sam’s independence, Sam’s contempt for Dean’s obedience. You could go on and on with what is going on here. At a certain point you just have to say: “Great fucking acting moment” and move on.
Some things actually are not to BE boiled down. That’s why Supernatural works on repeat viewings. I get that some people see emotions like little puzzle pieces that need to fit together (“well later he says this, and that fits in with that, and then this supports that, and that supports this …”) – but emotions are messier than that, and far more interesting. Sometimes things don’t fit. Or sometimes things look different depending on your perspective. If I could label what was one of the major hooks of Supernatural for me (besides the humor), it would be that it devotes itself almost entirely to the ins-and-outs and ups-and-downs of emotions.
John quickly fills Dean and Sam in on vampires, and we are given a series of images, not quite a montage, but close enough, because everyone needs a montage.
John voiceovers information as a sexy dark scene unfurls, showing vampires lolling about around a car in the woods, guzzling down alcohol, flashing silver translucent eyes.
They’re not filmed like, say, The Wendigo. Nobody wants to be a Wendigo. But there’s something … appealing about vampires. They are who we could be if we didn’t say “No” to our darker impulses. Bad girls, bad boys, biker chicks, biker guys, strippers and drunks, tats and cowboy hats, a violent sub-culture. A car approaches, and the vampires wait thirstily. We see a cute normal couple in the car (Christine Chatelain and an actor named, I kid you not, Damon Runyan – Runyan/Runyon what’s the difference), and she’s teasing him about his loud shirt. But of course he’s wearing a loud shirt. His name is Damon Runyan. The couple is so sweet and vanilla I want to punch someone in the gums already, and normalcy as we see here briefly is so far outside the Winchester experience that it actually looks almost insanely naive. You people need to get it together. Educate yourself. You are sitting ducks.
There’s a figure lying in the road, and Damon Runyon takes times out of cruising the Manhattan underworld of floating crap games and offtrack betting to slam on the brakes. They’re in the middle of nowhere. Girlfriend dials 911 as Boyfriend gets out to go investigate. The figure at first appears to be dead, but then of course he turns his head, opens his mouth, and huge fangs descend from his gums. It’s a very cool effect, although it grosses me out because I have a thing about teeth, and moving teeth, and teeth falling out, which naturally made the shape-shifter scene in “Skin” a shrieking nightmare for me.
One of the most upsetting effects in the entire show is that closeup of Dean in “Twihard,” in the dark bedroom with Lisa, feeling his fangs descending, knowing it’s happening, and knowing he can’t stop it. The look in his eyes is so terrible I am thrilled when the scene is over.
4th scene
The camera moves across a room, and we see Sam and Dean lying asleep on twin beds in a rustic cabin, John huddled at the nearby table listening to the police calls coming in. I feel strangely protective of those two giant men suddenly. They’re asleep. John is not. John is still working. They never have a chance to catch up to him, and besides he’s not filling them in anyway.
Later in the episode, there’s a shot of the vampire nest in the barn, with the vampires all crashed out, horizontally across the screen, in hammocks. It’s an identical shot set-up as that one. So make of that what you will.
John hears the police call come in, jumps up, and bats his sons on the legs to wake them up. Sam and Dean both wake up, and Dean rubs his eyes with the backs of his hands – a compulsive waking-up gesture I have written about before. It makes him look like a toddler and it makes me anxious for him.
Don’t do that in front of your Dad, Dean. Wake up in a more manly fashion so I won’t feel nervous for you, Kthxbai.
I implicate myself with that comment and I admit it freely. Supernatural implicates its audience repeatedly. I don’t even FEEL that way. Wake up however you want. Rub your eyes however you want. I won’t judge you. But John Winchester’s presence makes me nervous.
Jeffrey Dean Morgan hasn’t had 20 episodes to create his character the way Ackles and Padalecki have. He has appeared in only a couple so far, and in some of those episodes he has just a brief scene. Nevertheless, he has created a full character, and full relationships to the actors playing his sons (this, despite the fact that he is really too young to be playing their father at all. The closeness in age works in the show’s favor. John is just as strapping, just as virile, just as sexually viable as they are.).
To see John in the flesh is jarring. But I realize, only in retrospect, just how good Morgan is when I felt a little jolt of alarm at Sam’s questioning of him. It’s like I have been wrapped up in the mythologizing of Dad, too, and it happened without me noticing it.
John is already at the door of the cabin, and snaps, “Just follow me, okay?” And there’s such a great tone in his voice, a lot of history, a lot of frustration at his disobedient and independent son who has always, always, given him problems. Sam is left to flail about alone in his frustration, because Dean is still waking up, sitting on the side of the bed, laughing to himself about the fact that they are chasing “vampires”. Vampires? One of those moments when his own weird life gets too weird even for him.
5th scene
We get a long shot of the country road, with police cars huddled around the spot, and John walking back towards Sam and Dean at the Impala. Sam is grumbling, “I don’t see why we couldn’t have gone over there with him,” which seems like a pretty weak complaint, and shows Sam’s general annoyance at everything right now. What, all three of you are gonna walk over there and ask questions? In your leather jackets and flannel? You realize how weird you already look? John isn’t present yet, he’s on his way back, so Dean feels a bit safer to say, “Oh God. Don’t tell me it’s already starting.”
It’s all one shot, the camera starting up and moving fluidly down, and there’s a cool moment when the three Winchesters are in a diagonal line across the screen.
Look at how dark that is. It’s grim-looking, bleak, cold.
Sam snaps at Dean, “What’s starting?” but now Dad is upon them, so Dean drops it.
Dean is trying to control the uncontrollable Sammy narrative, the thing they’ve been arguing about for episodes, from the very beginning: how to interpret their father. Sam’s interpretation is flying off the handle right now, Dean can feel it, knows there will be trouble, and his role is to try to make the peace. It pains him that Sam and his Dad are almost at each other’s throats (to use an appropriate analogy). Why can’t everyone just get along? We’re all working a case again. Can’t we be happy about it? Nobody said Dean wasn’t a fantasist.
John says yes, it’s vampires, they’re headed west, we need to follow them, and Sam is already seething, and asks, “How can you be so sure?” Dean intervenes – “Sam – ” (peacemaker Dean is so touching to me, for some reason. It’s who he is. It’s automatic.) The arguments Sam and Dean have been having since the pilot have now reared up, and Sam has gone from 0 to 100 in about 5 seconds.
John heads back to his Phallic Symbol of a truck, and as he walks by the Impala, he says, “Hey, Dean, why don’t you touch up your car before you get rust. I wouldn’t have given you the damn thing if I thought you were gonna ruin it.”
It’s emasculating. Dean has done nothing wrong. (Neither has Sammy, but let’s ignore that for a second.) Dean has not asked questions, has done what is asked of him. Sam is being the problematic one, but Dean gets in trouble anyway. It’s a fascinating moment, another one of those abysses, made even more complex when you see Dean’s shame-faced grin over at Sam, and Sam looking back at him, almost psyched that Dean is under fire too.
The situation is so collaborative, what is happening in the Winchester family. That hall of mirrors again. The dizzying reflections. Also the “being watched” and “watching” theme, Sam witnessing Dean getting in trouble, and how … painful that situation is. But all three of them collaborate to continue that dynamic.
It’s interesting to note too that when John and Sam confront one another, they look each other in the eye. John is always looking directly at Sam, even when he’s angry. But in the Impala bitch-slap, John doesn’t even bother looking at Dean. It’s a casual and contemptuous side-swipe, and the last bit is said with his back to Dean, as he’s walking away.
It’s a reprimand but it’s handed out so dismissively. Dean isn’t even worth an eye-to-eye confrontation. And, of course, John knows how proud Dean is of his car, and how proud Dean is that it was a gift from his dad. John’s comment is a negation of that, a critique that cuts to the heart of Dean’s identity. Now it may very well be true that the Impala is a bucket of bolts and Dean needs to handle the rust. As a matter of fact, it probably is very true, and Dean knows it. What is unfair is the timing, and the tone.
The Impala moment is John’s way of saying: “And I’m not happy with YOU either, son.”
Can’t let the family whipping-boy relax too much, now can we? Who KNOWS what THAT might lead to.
Speaking of which, happy 30th birthday, Ghostbusters.
6th scene
Dean rides shotgun. It seems to signify the diminishment of him that just went down. Dean is reading out loud some information on vampires, all as they careen after John’s truck.
Dean is reading about how vampires take victims to the nest and keep them alive for weeks sometimes, “bleeding them” for food. It’s a motif that will continue, horrifyingly, any time vampires come up. We saw it most recently in Alex Annie Alexis Ann (Season 9). The ultimate bait story-line, with sexual overtones (as opposed to undertones), and Stockholm Syndrome and clear statutory rape going on, with the willing participation of the girl in question just to muck up the waters … and how trauma manifests itself, and how one does what one needs to do to survive. I told ya, any time Supernatural brings vampires into the fray, shit gets psycho-sexual in an undead heartbeat.
Sam smolders at the wheel, making passive-aggressive comments. Dean has already let the Impala moment go. His Dad is his superhero, Dad is “the best”, it’s thrilling for him to be Dad’s second-in-command (and also maybe a relief to give up the reins, to let someone else “take the wheel”). Sam’s anger pisses Dean off. It doesn’t make sense to him. What happened to your teary-eyed “I need to find Dad” sentiments? Can’t you put your ego aside?
There is an interesting back-and-forth of almost hesitation going on. They’re still not ready to really fight yet about Dad. Dean is unwelcoming, Sam is intimidated. It’s a triangle, with Dad at the apex. Sam glances at Dean, backtracks a bit, “Look, I’m glad he’s all right, I’m happy we’re working together again – ” and although Sam is clearly not done speaking, Dean acts like he is and says, “Good.”
They’ve been so in sync, they’ve been growing in strength, and it’s … maybe a bit shocking to see Dean regress. Sam wants Dean to get mad, too. In a way, that’s his own codependence. Dude, Dean’s on his own schedule. Let him BE. Instead, Sam gets pissed off for both of them.
Sam’s litany of complaints, as they start coming out, sound whiny the way he does it. It’s his own regression. It’s Sam the teenager, buckling against the unfair-ness of his Dad’s treatment of him. He sounds very young to me: “He barks orders at us like we’re CHILDREN!” and etc. Dean is in a strict state of eye-roll-ery in the passenger seat.
Nobody has boundaries here, Dean least of all. Sam and Dad bristling at each other affects him, it’s like it is happening TO him. But the best Dean can come up with is, “It’s just the way the old man runs things.”
I love Sam’s response: “Maybe that worked when we were kids, but not anymore. Not after everything you and I have been through.”
It’s one of Sam’s first moments acknowledging the importance of having his brother back in his life, of their relationship. Healthy parents are thrilled when their adult children get along. I know that nothing made my Dad happier than when the O’Malley kids were all home at the same time, playing a board game in the dining room, drinking beer, and roaring with laughter. There are four of us. We care about each other. My parents revel in that, are happy about that. John Winchester has made it all abstract. His sons are abstractions, his dead wife is now an abstraction. The fact that Sam and Dean may have a relationship separate from him doesn’t seem to count at all or even register. A classic narcissist, in other words. But Sam reminds Dean: “You and I have been through a lot. Dad cannot just sweep in here and treat us like this. No.”
Sam gets pretty aggressive with Dean at the end of the scene: “Are you telling me you’re cool with just falling into line, letting him run the whole show?”
When Sam gets aggressive, I get excited.
The closeup of Dean that follows is one of those small moments where Ackles shows you everything and tells you nothing. The subtext contradicts the text. And there’s a flicker, just a glimpse, of uncertainty, before his reply, “If that’s what it takes.” If Ackles had made the choice to say the line with gusto, or without that flicker of uncertainty, we would lose the nuance. In his face is the price he pays. Dean will be less and less able to pay that price. And that small flicker … you can see he doesn’t like Sam’s wording … it’s not how he sees himself, at all. When Dad is absent he is better able to prop himself up and feel awesome and like he is the awesome star of an awesome movie. Sam’s question forces the issue. And it’s just not in Dean to fight back. Not yet. And how fascinating, how compelling, to see a character like Dean Winchester, so strong and so brave and so heroic, crumble with uncertainty like that. Kudos to Ackles, kudos to the writers (these two are still obviously with the show), and kudos to the show itself to allow that dichotomy.
Sam seems really taken aback by Dean’s behavior. He idolizes his older brother. In many ways, that’s why he fights back, in order to distinguish himself from Dean with the powerhouse personality and Bossypants nature who becomes a total submissive in the presence of their father. But make no mistake, Dean is his hero. To see Dean diminished like that, and to see Dean participate in his own diminishment – willingly- it’s just not right. In many ways it may be what pisses Sam off the most.
7th scene
The Vampire nest, in a big abandoned barn. An orgy of anything goes. One is dancing sexily on the table. One throws money at her. The couple from the car, tied up against a post, watch. Liquor is poured down everyone’s throats. It’s a day for celebration. Elkins is gone. They have victims to bleed. Everyone is ready to start fucking.
Beau (Dominic Zamprogna), the vampire who assaulted the guy holds out a bottle to the victims: “It’ll calm your nerves.” It’s kind and creepy: Your kidnapper offering you alcohol to calm you down … before he kills you. The whole thing is a terrible juxtaposition: the party mood of the vampires on full display for the terrified trembling victims. And the guy and girl … they can’t help one another. They are helpless. It’s haunting. You could see them, if you wanted to, as a mirror of Sam and Dean. Tied together, forced to witness the humiliation of one another. Unable to do anything about it. Autonomy removed. And it’s almost worse if your loved one has to look on. Dean can justify his autonomy being removed … or, he could, if Sammy wasn’t there to press the issue and remind him that he is an independent person. Flashback to the confrontation at the end of “Asylum,” where, yes, Sam was possessed, but, as always, there is some truth there.
The girl appears totally traumatized, in a state of almost total dissociation, as Beau forces liquor down her throat, saying gently, “Atta girl,” and she then spits the alcohol out of her mouth into his face. Kate, who has been looking on, practically drooling with delight and anticipation, stops Beau from backhanding the girl, saying, “Wait for Luther.”
Luther is the Apex of the vampire triangle. Everything revolves around him, his plans, his way of running things, his predilections. Kate is certainly a badass (i.e.: a Dean-like figure), but her entire consciousness revolves around Luther.
The barn doors fly open and Luther (Warren Christie) enters, in almost a Castiel-like entrance, with headlights streaming in from behind him, making him seem otherworldly and intimidating.
There is the small matter too that I find Luther hot as hell. As I’ve written ad nauseum, beauty works ON us in sometimes strange ways. We want to get close to it, we envy it, we hate it. Luther is clearly the hottest one in any room. And he knows it. It gives him part of his power. But, just to muck things up further, Luther also has a certain code of ethics. He doesn’t want to go too far. He has lines, boundaries of behavior you do not cross. Christie does a great job with his part. He is a John Winchester-like figure, in some respects, and in other respects, he’s like Dean. But Dean can also be seen as a Kate-like figure, in thrall to a more powerful figure, and also totally willing to put himself out there as bait, “if that’s what it takes”, just like she is, the two of them meeting in the dark road later in the episode, both asked to be there by stronger figures. You could get lost in the associations.
Kate has been quite frightening up until now, but the second Luther comes in, you see the need for him fill her face, blotting out all else. Forget the tied-up victims. Luther is her life source.
Luther and Kate embrace and you want them to get a room. Vampires don’t mess around when it comes to their mates. Kate, eagerly, like a little girl wanting to get an “extra cookie” tells Luther, “We’ve got presents.”
Luther goes to inspect the victims. He caresses the girl. When he turns to the male, his gentleness vanishes. Luther orders, “Lock him up.” He can barely be bothered to say more because he is back to making out with Kate, but he says in almost a throwaway manner, “On second thought? Treat yourself.”
Whooping and cackling like the Bender family, the vampires cut the guy loose, drag him off, and pounce on him as a group. Screams erupt through the air, and the poor girl struggles against her binds, crying and screaming.
When John, Sam and Dean are filmed in “Dead Man’s Blood,” the light is gritty and dark. So, too, the vampires, but they are filmed with an almost painterly glamour. It’s all part of the web being woven, the web of desire and repulsion that the vampires represent. They are not filmed ugly, they are filmed beautiful.
Kate, breathless and eager, says that they brought Luther these things “from your old friend, Daniel Elkins. I caught his scent. I thought I’d surprise you.”
Luther does not give her the reaction she wants. He is alarmed. “Kate. What did you do?”
Being reprimanded by Luther is so destabilizing for her that she breaks. You can see it happen. Her face goes blank, then anxious, then back to eager. She has no self. (Supernatural is begging us to make those associations, otherwise the dynamic would be different. They want us to identify with the creatures, to see their motivations, what they want, who they are to each other. It’s different than the Wendigo, than even other ghosts, who are not “personalized” at all.)
All Kate sees is “Luther is not pleased with me.” She says, “I did it for you. For what he did to your family.” To Luther, Daniel Elkins is like the demon who killed Mary Winchester. Kate has internalized that information and has sought revenge for her mate. But Luther can see further than his own circle of loss, and says, “Revenge isn’t worth much if you end up dead.”
It almost … almost … crosses the line into too on-the-nose. Revenge is a major theme of Supernatural, the dangers of it, the appeal of it. When either brother starts to operate out of revenge, they lose their way. And John obviously operates solely from revenge. It’s why he has a falling out with everyone in his life. Anyone who would try to talk him down, or calm him down, or take another viewpoint, would be classified as an enemy. It makes me think of Death Wish, a great revenge film, controversial then, and controversial still.
Or Abel Ferrara’s fantastic Ms. 45, about a woman raped twice in one day who then goes on a killing spree through Manhattan of anyone who happens to be male. I participated in a discussion with two other critics about Ms. 45 here, if you’re interested.
People get worried about films like Death Wish and Ms. 45, films that seem to glorify blood-lust and revenge. It’s a valid concern, I suppose, if you think human beings are sheep who can’t separate what’s on screen from reality. Revenge is a powerful impulse in people, so naturally art will want to “go there”. Art isn’t necessarily safe or cozy, art is about fantasy, and (like I wrote in my post about Eminem’s revenge fantasy/nightmare “Kim”), fantasies aren’t just rainbows and unicorns and happy smiley people. Fantasies are often ugly and mean-spirited, which is why we hesitate to share them.
Kate is rocked that Luther hasn’t overwhelmed her with sexy gratitude. Openshaw nails that dynamic. She nails it in a way that Dean Winchester can’t, although that one “flicker” we saw in his eyes shows where he’s really at. Kate is representative of Dean’s internal life. That’s what it feels like in there for him.
Luther catches sight of the Colt, and picks it up, stroking it like the sexy phallic symbol that it is. Kate has no idea what the Colt is, saying, “I thought you might like that. Looks like it was made around the time you were born.” Luther looks thoughtful and worried, what she has done is bad bad news for them: “This is no ordinary gun.”
Maybe you want to give Dean and Sam a call to explain it to them, Luther? Because Dad ain’t talking.
8th scene
In the time that has passed since the earlier driving scene, Sam has now entrenched himself in rage. It’s gotten worse, not better. Look out. Sammy’s about to blow. Dean is on the phone with Dad, all business, “Yup, okay, bye …” He tells Sam to pull off at the next exit. Sam, eyes on the road, seethes, “Why.” Dean answers, “Dad thinks we got the vampire’s trail.” Sam, eyes still on the road, “How.”
Uh-oh.
Dean can’t deal with what’s happening, so he doesn’t look, hoping it will go away. We’ve seen enough of Dean in action without John. We’ve seen enough of his smarts, his analytical abilities, his initiative. The Dean who submerges his initiative is so not right that it’s the propulsion Sam needs to force the confrontation. At least that’s the way I see it. Where the fuck ARE you, Dean? Do you see what Dad does to you??
Sam speeds up to overtake Dad’s Penis-Vehicle, and squeals to a halt in front of it, and it’s an awesome bit of stunt-driving (something the show rarely indulges in, for obvious financial reasons. Too bad, because there is nothing I love better than a well-done car chase.)
The fight unfolds in an almost chaotic manner, everyone hauling their asses out of the cars, and converging, to shout in each other’s faces. John stalks right over to Sam, in a rage, you think he might punch his son out then and there. The first part of the fight goes down in one long take, no cuts, with Sam and John facing off, Dean in the middle.
There’s a lot of text. They chose to not go close-up to close-up, a smart move. Let the fight unfold. Let the actors create that fight. It’ll be scarier that way, I promise. It’s also great because Sam is taller than Dad. There’s an obvious height discrepancy. And Dean? Forget it. He looks tiny. And he’s 6 feet tall.
Our first closeup comes a while in, with John saying, thinking a direct order will still work: “Get back in the car.”
I love Sam’s response: “No.”
And Dad says again, “I said get back in the car.”
Sam, on a roll now, not afraid, “Yeah. And I said no.”
Dean is off-screen, but we hear his voice chiming in, a small detail I love. The fight is not about him, and he can’t stop it, but of course he tries. Dean is trying to calm the situation down, and he grabs Sam and pushes him back towards the car. I find it so interesting that Sam mutters, with his back to John, “This is why I left in the first place.”
Even now, even with a fight in full bloom, Sam is not brave enough to say that to his dad’s face. He chickens out.
And bless Jeffrey Dean Morgan for his reaction. He looks almost excited. It’s vicious. “What’d you say?” It’s the confrontation he’s been itching for for years.
And now it’s John’s turn to sound whiny and childish, and it’s an incredible feat, seeing as Morgan is so powerful onscreen. Listen to his voice when he says, “Yes. You left. Your brother and I needed you. You walked away, Sam. YOU WALKED AWAY.”
It’s basically a lover’s quarrel, kids. And nobody has the perspective to say, “Y’all, that’s effed up.” Dean, again, from off-screen, “STOP IT. THE BOTH OF YOU.”
But it can’t be stopped, and Sam, once they’re on that topic, lets his father have it: “You’re the one who said don’t come back. You’re the one who closed that door, not me.” Screaming. He’s so powerful.
It’s a comment that will come back, brutally, in Season 4.
It starts to get physical. Dean intervenes. As he has done his whole life. Dean pushes them apart, shouting at them to stop it. They are re-enacting something that has gone on for years. God, these actors. Seriously. So impressed. Now that Dean has initiated himself, it’s almost like he remembers who he is. Courage comes from self-knowledge. It’s hard for Dean. But there’s a small standoff with Dad, when Dean says, “That means you too.”
He’s totally the parent here. Everyone is misbehaving. The whole thing shatters apart at that moment, and you can see it shatter in the camera moves. Back to John, back to Sam and Dean, Sam getting in the car, John walking away, Dean left alone, watching everyone shatter and break apart … the camera finally moves in on him alone. And I love Ackles’ theatrical choice here, a gesture almost so big that unless it were connected emotionally it wouldn’t work at all. He does a huge shrug to himself – and says, frustrated, “Terrr-ific.” He sounds like a pissed-off harried mother-hen. It’s a big choice. Theatrical. Awesome.
9th scene
Kate and Luther are practically screwing, making the traumatized victim watch. It’s actually as graphic as the show has gotten, sexually, made even more explicit by Kate’s groaning sex noises which sound pretty legit to me. And it’s Luther who is nude, not her, not at first. Another flip-flop of what we expect, gender-wise. Vampires are all around, lying in hammocks, doing their own thing, passed out, as Luther and Kate bump and grind on the table. Hey, whatever floats your boat, but in this particular context it’s pretty awful. Like, Symbionese Liberation Army awful. Forcing the girl you have kidnapped to watch you have sex, after you have mauled her boyfriend, and forced liquor down her throat, is basically saying, “Get ready, honey, cause this is what is in store for you.” The vampires know she is watching, and they get off on it. It’s interesting to go directly from the family fight on the street, with a triangle – Dean, Sam, John – to another screwy triangle, with Luther, Kate, and victim. You could go to some pretty sick places in your mind making associations based on the choices like that made in “Dead Man’s Blood.” Sex is intimate, but it’s also performative, it’s also a part of how you “use” yourself if you want to contribute to the team.
Luther glances over at the victim, grinning: “You like to watch, huh? Me too.”
No, Luther. She doesn’t “like to watch.” She is tied up and has no choice but to watch. It’s sick.
The following scene, disturbing and vile, reaches a kind of pinnacle of beauty (for Season 1, anyway). The fact that the screen pulsates with a dark Renaissance mood, a deep and throbbing chiaroscuro, romantic and thick, like Caravaggio … during a scene involving sexual assault and the threat of death (which is also, remember, a promise of living forever …)… is sick in the extreme. It also is reflective of what I was saying earlier about our feelings about vampires and what they represent: they are scary, they could kill us, they live in the shadows, they are Undead … and yet at the same time, they represent catharsis, submission … total surrender, all things which are extremely attractive and make up so much of our fantasy world.
Luther and Kate hover over the girl, in almost a parental manner, like they’re looking down into a manger. It’s a family unit. Luther lovingly and sexily cuts open Kate’s vein, blood pouring out, which she sucks out, in a stunning shot. Kate then moves in on the victim, kissing her on the mouth, obviously pushing the blood down the girl’s throat with her tongue. Graphic as hell. You can’t see Luther’s face. You sense the ritualistic aspect of their behavior. This is what they do. This is what they do for one another.
Luther whispers to the victim, once the deed is done, “Welcome home, baby.”
It’s awful, and again, very Symbionese Liberation Army. The conscious campaign to brutalize and brainwash Patty Hearst so that she would then be “welcome” into their group, but only if she denounced her past, and renounced her identity … Violence to the soul, that’s what THAT was.
Some thoughts on cults
Cults/brainwashing hold a fascination for me, and there’s something in how the Winchester family is set up (post-Mom’s death) that is cult-like, with John as the charismatic leader. Nearly impossible to break free from, as Sam discovers. Resistance is so threatening to John’s sense of himself that he literally cannot allow it to exist. AND, most importantly: he’s not “just” a bully. His behavior is completely justified in his own mind. Turning off your critical thinking skills is a requirement to joining a cult, and there are many ways that that process occurs (see the important work of Robert J. Lifton on brainwashing, after studying the POWs in a Chinese prison camp who underwent a program of “thought reform”, i.e. brainwashing. Lifton’s work has been used by people who study the operations of cults ever since. See Lifton’s essential 8 criteria for thought reform, the criteria that need to be in place for brainwashing to occur). The way John set up the Winchester family shows most (if not all) of those criteria, in varying forms.
The programming that has gone on has been intense, and you could flip-flop on who had it worse, Sam or Dean. Dean has memories of “the time before,” Sam doesn’t. So Dean had to go through the steep curve of adjustment, post-Mom’s-death, when his whole world changed and his loving Dad changed. That’s a trauma from which he has yet to recover. His boundaries were assaulted by that primary event. Sam, on the other hand, was born into the cult and has no memory of anything else. I could make some analogies to a current cult, the one I have tried repeatedly to infiltrate, but I’m sick of writing about those bozos and am now content to just stand back and watch it self-destruct from afar. But with that cult, there are those who joined as adults, and then there are those who were born into it. I’ve read memoirs written by people who belong to both groups. In a way, the ones who joined of their own free will, the ones who actually spent time outside the cult in their lives, are MORE zealous, more intense true-believers, and the staunchest defenders of the cult’s structure and belief system. We certainly can see that dynamic with Dean Winchester. The ones who were born into it, who had no choice in the matter, are far more prone to realizing early on: “Do all kids have such sucky childhoods? I wanna jump rope and watch cartoons. All of the adults in my world are fucking insane. I want NO PART of their belief system.” And we can see that with Sam.
Now, neither one chose to be a hunter. It was imposed on them. And Dean, as a 4-year-old, was not an adult. He was a total victim and not able to choose. Of course he was going to try to please his Dad. There is no blame on Dean. But stuck in that loop, as he is, with those vague fuzzy memories of “the time before,” it gives him all the MORE reason to hunker down and defend the childhood he experienced, because if he rejected it, or called it into question, then where would he be? What would his whole life mean THEN? It is the ultimate con in cults and the really successful ones create a noose around the minds of their members so that they are culpable in their own victimization. There comes a point when you actually do have to choose, and many people, once they get out, can locate the exact moment when they CHOSE to turn off their critical thinking skills. It’s chilling. So there is the shame of realizing that you CHOSE to be duped. It is why many people feel they cannot get out. They are too embarrassed to admit that they fell for it. Add onto this the bad things you do while you are in the cult, the un-ethical things, the sometimes unforgivable things … these are the people who often dig their heels in fiercely and become loud angry spokes-models for the awesomeness of their cult. They HAVE to, because if they examined what they did, who they were, while in the group, their sense of self would shatter, they would have nothing.
10th scene
The Winchester family huddles in the bushes, staking out the vampire’s nest. A battered car (the vampires, like the hunters, drive old-school gas guzzlers, duct-taped together) pulls up, and Luther greets Beau at the big barn door. The mood is grim. Luther shades his face against the sun with his hand. But there is no cringing or screaming like the Wicked Witch of the West when confronted with water. Dean is amazed at the evidence before his eyes that vampires are not afraid of the sun. Filmed like a Vietnam platoon, through the reeds, John gives his sons a crash course in the nature of vampires.
Dean and Sam, crowded into the same frame (I love it when Supernatural does that, and it does it all the time) look worried and intimidated.
Side by side, Dean and John pop open their respective trunks. John has a state-of-the-art weapons panel that pops open, with different sized slots for each gun. It’s totally Bat Man. It’s a bit silly. How much did that cost, bro? For real?
It is totally unlike the chaos of the heaping clank of metal in Dean’s trunk. Dean sees John’s set-up and you can see him get impressed/inadequate/emasculated. All he says is, “Wow.”
Dean says, “Dad, I got an extra machete if you need one,” and John slowly draws out his own, saying thoughtfully, “I think I’m okay, thanks …” and the moment is so solemn that I always laugh. They could be talking about frying pans or spark plugs.
The music is mournful, an interesting choice for a pre-battle scene. It feels eerie and elegiac, as opposed to urgent and throbbing with anticipation. The music clues us in to the mood, the sad and lost mood of these men, the broken relationships. John is gloomy and burdened, and he has something on his mind. It’s the real reason for his suicidal plan (or, one of them), which, yeah, it might be good to fill in your underlings on what the hell they are supposed to be doing. John says, “So. You boys really want to know about this Colt?”
That simple line infuriates me. Instead of just filling them in, accepting that knowledge is there to be shared, and duh, of course he should fill them in, John Winchester psycho-dramas it into a burlesque dance (like father like son, maybe), throwing out clues, retreating, and cloaking the entire thing in mystery. Maybe for their protection, but maybe too to retain his power. The power of withholding, as I have written about before with Dean Winchester. Go back and look at Lifton’s 8 criteria for thought reform again. The one who knows the most has the most power.
Cult leaders often focus on a specific object (or place), imbuing it with mystical power, focusing the group’s attention solely on that one thing. That’s what John is doing with the Colt. But he is also being a passive-aggressive little bitch about it. By asking them the question, “You boys really want to know about this?”, as opposed to saying matter-of-factly, “Okay, so lemme tell you about this Colt …” he puts the responsibility on THEM. You’re the ones who are begging to know about this thing…- And what are they gonna say: “No thanks. I don’t need to know about the Colt.” Or “GodDAMMIT Dad YES I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT IT.” Of course not. They are going to be submissive and complaint and eager to hear the golden words of wisdom dropped from his lips. It’s so manipulative.
Dean and Sam walk right into it. They look at Dad, quiet, still, and Sam says, “Yes, sir.” After the explosion from Sam on the road, his submission is fascinating, automatic.
They move closer to him, listening and accessible, which is what he has wanted from them all along. It’s how he keeps them in line.
As he tells the story of the Colt, we get a dreamy montage of the gun being made, the devil’s trap etched into the barrel, the gleaming bullets. “Back in 1835, when Halley’s Comet was overhead, the same night those men died at the Alamo …”
Well.
The Battle of the Alamo was in 1836, Mr. John Winchester, so get your facts straight. It is true, though, that Halley’s Comet made its appearance in 1835, and it always makes me think of Mark Twain, who was born directly following the comet’s perihelion in 1835, and made the following comment in 1909, near the end of his life:
“I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.’ Oh, I am looking forward to that.”
Almost too good to be true, but Mark Twain got his wish, and “went out” with the reappearance of the Comet in April, 1910. I remember when Halley’s Comet passed overhead again in 1986. My friends and I went and laid on our backs in a field in my hometown and watched it go by. Kind of a cool thing to have experienced.
Samuel Colt, of course, was a real guy. He was a businessman, a gun-inventor, an industrialist. The revolving cartridge was one of his contributions, as well as the fact that his guns had interchangeable parts. Guns became modern machines, part of the “assembly line” revolution that was going on in the Industrial Revolution. He had some false starts, but it was when the Texas Rangers ordered a bunch of his guns to fight the war with Mexico that Samuel Colt’s name was made. Samuel Colt hailed from Hartford, Connecticut (something you would never guess from Supernatural, which places “the Colt” into a strictly Wild West context). He had a factory operating in Hartford, and the guns they made were shipped to both the Union side and the Confederate side in the Civil War. Samuel Colt, like gun manufacturers before and after, was a bit of an opportunist. The Colt was also used in the Westward push of manifest destiny – alongside, in many cases, the Winchester rifle. No surprise, thematically, that a family named after the “gun that won the West” would become obsessed with another type of gun used in the same struggle. Also, just because I’ve already mentioned it, the Colt .45 is the most famous model invented by Samuel Colt, and that’s what the avenging rape victim uses in Ms. 45.
Interesting side note though: Samuel Colt, the real guy, actually began production on what would be his famous revolving-cartridge gun on the day the Alamo fell in 1836.
In the Supernatural world, Samuel Colt becomes not only an ally of hunters, but a probable hunter himself. He made a special version of his Colt revolver “for a hunter.” “The story goes, he made 13 bullets. This hunter used the gun half a dozen times before he disappeared, the gun along with him. Til Daniel got his hands on it.”
The legend is that the Colt “can kill anything.”
The inscription along the Colt is “non timebo mala”, “I will fear no evil” in Latin. I come from a family of Latin nerds, with two great-aunts (nuns) who speak it fluently. Who also, speaking of which, were professors of Classics (Greek and Latin) at none other than Albertus Magnus College. My mother went to Albertus Magnus. So did all of my aunts. Basically what I am saying is that my kickass Nun aunts were (and one still is) Women of Letters. There’s an interesting Reddit thread about the phrase, which obviously comes from Psalms 23, one of my favorites of the Psalms.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.
Dean is swayed by the story, and by Dad’s power of telling it. He is intrigued, obviously, but it is Sam who understands: “Like the demon.”
The end-game has been clarified, and the Colt brings with it hope. Dad thinks that the gun might not just send the demon back to hell, but kill it. Actually kill it, something no one ever thought possible. One wonders, too, if the conflict with the vampires is a test-run for the Colt, reckless though it may be. If they can get the Colt, and use one of its precious bullets on a vampire, then they can see if the legend has some truth to it. A dress rehearsal. Breaking into the vampire’s nest in broad daylight is part of that plan. It really has nothing to do with the poor people who have been kidnapped (and killed, or turned). It is a reconnaissance mission to retrieve the Colt. And there is also a secret John continues to withhold, an ulterior motive for his reckless plan.
John seems so commanding here, with the gun panel blurry behind him. Sam and Dean, staring back at him, seem both extremely young and extremely pumped-up at the same time. John’s certainty is catching, John’s belief in the Colt is infectious, it gives them strength. But at the same time that they seem strong, they also seem submissive … so, you know, it’s just part of the psychological clusterfuck that is “Dead Man’s Blood.”
11th scene
Breaking in through the hayloft of the barn (Sam rises up into view as though he is on a motorized crane, accidentally hysterical), the Winchesters tiptoe around, all of the vampires splayed out in hammocks as though they are in the belly of a whaling ship. As is typical with the show in these earlier days, Sam and Dean are filmed as though they are villains, with darkness, and shadows, and black silhouettes, underlining the fact that they live totally off the grid, and from a legal standpoint they are actually criminals. The show does not fall into the trap of filming them as though they are heroes. And the vampires, when we get glimpses of them, seem sexy and downright attractive.
Dean accidentally knocks against one of the hammocks, and there’s a nice shot of the still-sleeping Beau coming towards the camera and away, towards the camera and away. Dean, get your shit together. Sam comes across the now-blood-stained girl victim, tied to her post. Meanwhile, John tiptoes into Kate and Luther’s “room,” where they lie sprawled in bed together, satiated, rolling over as one. There’s a skeevy vibe in the whole thing, John standing over their sex lair, watching. Luther and Kate are a married couple, for all intents and purposes, and their intimacy is something John has lost, and will never have again. There’s a reason he’s the one who goes into their bedroom, and not Sam or Dean. Dean tiptoes off to get a look at the other victims, locked inside a cage. And still, at this point, it seems the Winchesters may be all working different plans. Sam and Dean are on a rescue mission and John is looking for the Colt. What the hell are they all DOING.
The eerie thing about the “plan” is what we learn about it later. John informs the boys, after the whole encounter is over, “Once a vampire has your scent, it’s for life.” So that was the REAL plan: Put the boys into the vampire’s nest, let the vampires pick up the scent, so that the vamps will target them specifically and give chase. So let’s just think about that for a second. He dangles his offspring in front of the monsters, without their consent (they may have consented to it anyway if they had been told about it, but they were not told), in order for the vampires to “get their scent”.
Sam is untying the girl, not realizing that she is now “turned,” and Dean struggles to unlock the big padlock of the cage. There are wonderful ominous shots of all of the vampires snoozing in the hammocks.
Meanwhile, John seems to catch a glimpse of the gleaming Colt. Out in the barn, the blood-stained victim wakes up, and Sam hurriedly whispers at her, “Sh. I’m here to help you.” She then screams at the top of her lungs, and there’s a reverb on her voice, making it sound monstrous and animal-like. We don’t see her face, but Sam lurches backwards in alarm, clearly confronted with something supernatural. The vampires, as one, wake up.
The screams wake up Luther and Kate, who see John Winchester standing over their bed like a rapist. Luther pushes against John, who is launched back across the room. Thinking quickly, he grabs a bottle and hurls it across the room, shattering the window, allowing light to stream in. Luther and Kate wince, and we hear John shout out, “BOYS. RUN.”
Automatically, they obey. No questions asked. Well-trained. They run through the barn, with the vampires chasing after them. They burst out into the sunlight, and the vampires do not follow. Running, wielding machetes, they make their way back to cover, where their cars lie hidden. We’re in handheld camera mode now, a trope that is so tired because so overused in cinema – but Supernatural is smart with it. It uses it sparingly, it uses it to maximize effect. Ideally, handheld camera work gives a sense of jagged spontaneity to what you are seeing. It feels improvised, it feels chaotic. That’s what happens here. John is not immediately behind them, and Sam and Dean stare into the thick brush, waiting for him to appear. Finally, he emerges, running towards them. Telling them, “They won’t follow … They’ll wait til tonight.”
Dean says, “What the hell do we do now?” and Dad’s comment is cryptic (what a shock): “We gotta find the nearest funeral home, that’s what.”
12th scene
Now comes a huge important scene. The only one, really, of its kind. An emotional and semi-open conversation about the past between Sam and John.
It is absolutely inconceivable that John would tolerate a similar conversation with Dean. If Sam is stubbornly insistent upon his own individuality, and his decampment for Stanford showed Dad that Sam actually meant what he said … so if all of that is true (and it is), then, strangely, John almost respects it. He hates it, but he respects it. Why? He respects strength not weakness, and Sam “presents” as stronger than Dean. But also, chillingly, he respects it because it reminds him of himself. I despise that kind of partiality, those who only assign “good” motives to things they understand, things they would do themselves. My first boyfriend had a little bit of John Winchester in him, which is why when I finally emerged from that nightmare it was like breaking out of a cult. Boyfriend’s attitude had infiltrated my whole personality. He was right, his “way” of doing things (from being in a relationship to going on vacation to cooking dinner) was clearly the right way. I was corrected, constantly. Now there are all kinds of reasons for why he was that way, and he had a terrible childhood with chaotic selfish (even full-blown narcissistic) parents. But whatever, I’m not a believer in the “Twinkie excuse.” I’m old-fashioned. Take responsibility for your actions. I’ve got shit in my past too. I don’t try to control others. I remember when my boyfriend would be confronted with someone who did something totally contrary to how HE would do it (someone other than myself, I mean), and he would nod, his mind twirling around trying to contextualize it, and he would say, “Huh. That’s cool.” But he didn’t really think it was cool. He thought it was bonkers. He was in a constant state of judgment, assessment, coming down on one side or the other … I just don’t operate like that. And I like MY way better, but when I was in that fucking relationship I didn’t know which end was up. That sort of certainty in one’s own right-ness is something that can be quite valuable, especially when you’re, say, fighting a war. You have to believe in your side. But that same certainty is DEADLY when used in interpersonal relationships. John’s grudging approval of Sam is only because he sees himself in Sam, a classic narcissist’s attitude.
Whatever our attitudes about John are, the fact of the matter is that in this scene he tries to mend some fences with Sam. He still doesn’t say what we might want him to say, and he doesn’t apologize, but he does try to explain. They come to almost an agreement, or at least an acknowledgement of understanding. And here’s the deal: Sam, in listening to his dad, in taking in what he has to say … he’s not totally selling himself down the river. He is too independent to be co-opted like that. The same would not be possible for Dean. Dean and John are locked in codependency with no separation between them. What Dad wants is what Dean wants. What Dad thinks is what Dean thinks. Dean’s submission to his Dad’s will and personality means John doesn’t respect him as much as he respects Sam. Anyone who has ever been in an abusive situation will recognize that dynamic.
There’s a line in the Season 1 finale, where John, tormented, says to his sons, “I want you to go back to school, Sammy. I want Dean to have a home.” Having a home is, of course, very important to Dean, and he has a way of making even temporary situations his “home”. The Impala is his home. His duffel bag is his home. His music collection is his home. He is a Sherpa, carrying his “home” around with him. I am not discounting home’s importance but it’s a very revealing line: what, is Dean Little Orphan Annie? He’s 27 years old. We don’t think of grown men as needing a “home” like that. We also assume that grown men have shit to do, things they want out of life, families, jobs, possessions, friends, whatever. But that’s not what John can even see for Dean. Sam is the one who has things to do in life. But Dean? The best John can come up with as an alternative life for Dean, is for Dean to “have a home”. I am not trying to explain that line, or even come up with a thesis statement where the puzzle pieces fit together. The concept is too big for that and it lasts the entire series, and it is shown in many different facets, good, bad, indifferent, successful, failure. John seems to have no sense that Dean might want something else. Maybe Dean could join the military. Seems like it would be a perfect fit. Maybe Dean could open his own business. Maybe Dean could go to school, too. But John’s understanding of Dean is truncated to the point that he has no sense of his son as a separate being. And Dean reflects back what Dad wants to see, reflects back the obedient “yes sir” son that Dad expects.
The loyalties are shifting. And you can think of the movement not in lateral terms, like left-to-right, but more like the natural eddies and flows of a stream racing along between its banks. The water is one entity, it’s all going in the same direction, but it scoots itself around jutting rocks or fallen logs, diverging course, but then coming back together again. These “obstacles” can cause rapids to form, sometimes dangerous rapids, but in general, the water is all going the same way. So Sam and Dean, in working together over the past year, have cohered, and Sam, pacing back and forth, worries about how long it is taking for Dean to return, he wants to go join Dean, he wants to be with Dean.
It is John who initiates the conversation, telling Sam that on the day Sam was born he put 100 bucks into a savings account for him. He had done the same for Dean. It was a college fund, and every month he put another 100 bucks into it. Until …
Sam stands in the middle of the room, listening to Dad talk, a whole conflict of emotions fighting it out on his face. John says “My point is … this is never the life I wanted for you.”
John is still wearing a wedding ring. And there’s an almost-unconscious fiddling-with-the-pen behavior going on during his monologue, evidence of Morgan’s brilliance with text and gesture. The words are pretty open (for the character). But the way he fiddles with the pen all along is the betrayer, the “tell”, of his nerves, and the fact that he honestly can’t control what is happening. If he had stood up and spoken the whole thing straight out, it wouldn’t have had that slightly uneasy is he on the level feeling that it currently has. I love the pen-gesture. It seems to be going on without John being aware of it.
The fight on the road last night is still on their minds, and Sam asks, “Then why’d you get so mad when I left?”
John prefaces his next monologue with “You gotta understand something …” Once his wife was killed, the whole world seemed “evil,” and the only thing that mattered was keeping his sons “alive”. Not even safe. Just alive. “I wanted you prepared. Ready. Somewhere along the line, I stopped being your father. And I became your drill sergeant.” It’s quite an admission. Dean wouldn’t have even allowed John to go on. Dean would have interrupted early on with, “You don’t need to explain yourself,” or “It’s okay, Dad, I get it.” But Sam listens.
Sam starts to move forward to the desk, getting closer, and the camera moves in on John, a clear clue that we are totally in “Sam’s POV” here. The whole POV of the show is an interesting conversation in and of itself, and reminds me of an interesting comment Matthew Weiner made recently about Mad Men, that the most important character on the whole entire show, the one who really matters, the one whose point of view is the most important, is Sally Draper. Unfortunately, I can’t find the exact quote. And you actually can see that happening in the last half-season of Mad Men, where more and more we are invited to see Don Draper ONLY through the eyes of Sally. The POV of the show is shifting, in other words.
John says, “My only thought was … that you were gonna be alone.” He does not apologize for that attitude, if you notice. He explains.
The key to the moment, however, is not in anything John says, and not in anything Jeffrey Dean Morgan does. The key to the moment is Sam’s reaction shots: they are so open and vulnerable and needy that he looks like he is literally drinking in Dad’s words.
And so that’s how you know the POV of the scene. Even when John says, “Sammy … it just never occurred to me … what you wanted …”, there’s no blowup. It’s a concession to Sam’s formidable personality. Sam looks so vulnerable, so child-like. And despite everything I just said about John respecting Sam for how much Sam is like HIM (narcissism), John says, “We’re just different.” He would never give Dean that space.
But also consider what John now suspects about his youngest son. It gives a more sinister twist to John’s insistence that he and Sam are different.
And then, like the rushing stream eddying around obstacles in a chaotic and yet organized way, Sam laughs a bit in response (and it’s a beautiful seemingly spontaneous moment from Padalecki). The emotions that are there are almost of the sort that would bring on tears, but a laugh comes out instead. A laugh of feeling overwhelmed with validation, recognition, and also the strange dark comedy of their ridiculous lives and all of the misunderstandings. Sam says, and it’s the first time we’ve heard him say such a thing, “We’re not different.”
Look at Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s close-up response. I prefer to not label it. It is the heart of darkness, a total mystery. It could be anything.
Sam says that “after Mom and Jess,” he bets that he and Dad have more in common than anyone. Going in even closer to John now, he appears to be extremely full, emotionally, and it is one of those moments that looks very different once you get further along in the series. What people SAY is almost irrelevant with behavior like that. But he says, “I guess you’re right, son.”
A silence grows between them. Some kind of truce has been made. Uneasy and fragile. Then Sam says, in a “hey, I just thought of this” tone, “Dad. What ever happened to that college fund?” And from his expression, you know he knows. And you know he already thinks it’s funny. Sam’s got a good sense of humor and an excellent sense of the absurd.
Dad says, “Spent it on ammo,” and Sam bursts out laughing, and, beautifully, weirdly, so does John. It’s the only moment where he betrays even the slightest sense of humor, or even the slightest sense of true self-awareness of his own absurdity. And it is Sam who allows it, who brings him there. Again, the scene would flat out not happen between Dad and Dean. It is impossible to picture.
It is at this moment that Dean returns, and you have to wonder what he thinks, seeing Sam and Dad sitting around like old war buddies, laughing. He doesn’t react, though. He’s too much in his own Burlesque Act of life. When I say that I mean performing your life, as opposed to just living it. Dad brings on Dean’s Burlesque. It’s like Kate’s “we’ve got presents” earlier on in the episode. Dean has had success on his mission, and we have no idea what’s going on, why he had to go to a funeral home. Dean pulls out a jar of liquid from one of his cavernous pockets, and there’s a sort of eager and almost awkward manner to him here. He can’t get the jar out as smoothly as he wants to. The wait for it to appear is just slightly longer than is comfortable. It’s vulnerable, in an unnameable way. Maybe Dad’s satisfied smile as he picks up the jar and looks at it would be enough for Dean. Dean is used to gorging himself on the crumbs from the table. If he ever had a full meal of affection from Dad, who knows what that would be like for him. Well, we find out later. It makes him suspicious and paranoid.
John says to Dean, “You know what to do.”
13th scene
The creepy scene by the road has generated a lot of discussion in the comments section to former re-caps, and thanks to Helena for pointing out some nuances I missed. The script for the episode withholds a lot from us, so that we struggle to play catch-up. When John says, “You know what to do,” Dean and Sam have jumped into gear, suggesting that whatever the plan is it is a well-known tactic they have used before.
But consider the plan: Dean places himself on a lonely dark road, looking under the hood of his car. The vampires have his scent, as has been established, as John made sure of. And so now, Dean dangles himself there, as bait, for the vampires. Because it is Dean, the whole thing has a sexualized context, because it is what he invites, it is what his persona suggests (think Joan on Mad Men, Dean Winchester’s psychic and sexual twin, strange as that may seem). And if he has to, he’ll fuck whatever vampire shows up in order to get what he needs. Male or female. John probably figured out that Dean was perfect bait early on, teenage years. And so that “asset” of Dean’s, the fact that everyone, man, woman, monster, wants to fuck him silly … is something that can be used in the fight against evil. John trained Dean to use that side of himself. He has probably put Dean into incredibly sketchy situations repeatedly, because … well, because it WORKS, that’s why. And it WOULDN’T work with Sam, hunk though he is. Sam isn’t believable bait. You have to think like a predator, unfortunately, to have all of it make sense.
Dean is strong, and a fighter, and will kick your ass. But he also is somehow sexually vulnerable, and everyone can sense it. Who knows how that quality would have developed if Dean hadn’t had hunting in his life. My filter for Dean, however, is not “victim.” My filter for Dean is “survivor.” He survives his life the best way he knows. And his survival tactics change and morph over the course of the series, and he finds that some things that used to work no longer do, or some things that didn’t bother him, now do. There’s a moment in “Twihard,” when he is being propositioned by the head vampire that is as queasy-making as the show has ever gotten, and you can see Dean’s stomach turn at what he knows he has to do, what he has done many many times before, the shame, the revulsion, the guilt at his own participation … and how can he say No NOW when he said Yes so many other times … (and on and on … you could drown in it).
So the scene in “Dead Man’s Blood” is another one that looks very different once you’ve seen more of Dean through Season 3, and 4, when the Trauma Motif gets explicit. The fact that Dean is being used as sexual bait for the vampires is not even questioned in “Dead Man’s Blood.” Not by anyone. As a matter of fact, it is handled so casually and automatically that you almost could miss it.
Dean is a grown man. It may be gross what happens here, and it is gross, but it’s part of his life. He doesn’t blink an eye. We don’t see any hesitation. Picture the very same situation, with Dean at 15, 16 years old. A virgin Dean. Like the young girl in Alex, Alexis, and etc. who lures men to come with her. Multiply that out … the amount of times Dean has had to use himself that way over his lifetime …. Of course it would be “rote” for him. The miracle is that Dean’s sexuality is as pleasure-loving as it is, considering his history. And that’s what I mean when I say he is a survivor. His love of pleasure has always seemed to me to be a conscious choice on his part, something extremely self-aware, to take something that has been used against him repeatedly (his sexuality) and to make something not only good but AWESOME out of it. Cue Marilyn Monroe. Cue Joan from Mad Men. You would have to really believe that sexuality is somehow inherently bad or dirty to see them as victims. Instead, they insist that their sexuality deserves to exist, on its own terms, and of course they are “thanked” by being treated like whores, but they still stand in their belief that their curves are beautiful and that they “get” to be sexual too. They will not be punished or shamed for it. Those women are survivors.
The scene is made even creepier by the fact that John and Sam lie in wait in the bushes, watching the sexual assault occur, and watching Dean participate in it. If Sam feels sick to his stomach, we aren’t shown a reaction shot. It is normal to them. It is Dean’s “role.”
Kate approaches Dean from behind him and says, “Car trouble?” Dean turns, and we can see him gearing up for what is about to happen. It’s gross to him, but he’s done it before.
And because of who he is, and because his sexuality flashes out aggressively in dangerous moments, he “goes to the Sex”, saying bitchily, “I’ll pass. I usually draw the line at necrophilia.” She whacks him across the face, knocking him to the ground. He’s hurt. He struggles to get up. (Now would be a good time to appear, John and Sam. What the hell are you waiting for.) She is on him, though, before he can gain his footing, grabbing his face between her hands with her creepy French manicure, and it looks like she is actually hurting him, digging into his face. She lifts him up into the air. Dean clearly could kick out his legs and knock her in the gut, but that’s not part of the plan. The plan is to be assaulted. He wisecracks his way through the whole thing, God bless him, even laughing, or trying to: “I normally don’t get this friendly until the second date.”
She coos, “We could have some fun. I always like to make new friends.”
Just to throw yet another wrench down the Hall of Mirrors, she has also been “sent out” into the line of fire by her supposed protector, Luther. Her job is to overcome Dean, sex him up, maybe even fuck him if she has to. She and Dean are two sides of the same coin, and neither of them say, “Hey, wait a second. No, I’m not cool with using myself this way – can’t we come up with another plan?”
She’s lowered him to the ground, to her level, and then moves in and kisses him passionately, still gripping into his cheek with her manicured nails. It feels violent, he can’t move. It goes on for what feels like forever, Dean a passive grossed-out recipient. He will gargle with mouthwash for 15 minutes in the motel later. Meanwhile, another vampire emerges from the shadows as the kiss goes on, smiling lecherously. I guess all vampires like to watch.
When she moves off Dean, he gasps for breath, and laughs a little bit, saying, “Sorry, I can only stay with a chick so long – definitely not eternity.” So Han Solo.
Suddenly, with a whoosh, arrows seem to fly in from out of nowhere, one, two, piercing first the watching vampire, and then Kate, who lets Dean go. John and Sam emerge from the bushes, conquering swaggering heroes, wielding machetes and stun-guns. I love watching how John deals with Kate. He calls her “sweetheart,” first of all, a clear diminishment of her, something Dean tries to do all the time, most notably with Meg in “Shadow.” With Dean it looks like a way to handle his anxiety, a way to try to cut her down to manageable size. But with John it looks like contempt. John can barely keep the sneering smirk off his face, especially when Kate’s face registers his words about the dead man’s blood. She collapses, falling backwards into Dean’s arms. “Load her up,” says John, and Dean obeys. John slices off the head of the other vampire, with a huge blood splash across a tree trunk.
John and Sam get to shoot guns and slice off heads. Dean has to get tongued by a vampire.
14th scene
Deep in the woods, the Winchesters have built a fire, Kate tied to a tree at the far end of the little clearing. John babbles on to Dean about the different things to throw on the fire, things that will create a smoke-screen that will block their scent (and hers) for a little while. Hence, her presence. But she is drugged and comatose, and the whole thing is just so sick and CASUAL. They seriously seem like cold-blooded serial killers.
John explains to them (and to us) what is happening. “The blood sickness is gonna wear off soon – you don’t have a lot of time … And then I want you out of the area as fast as you can.”
Sam and Dean both protest. We don’t even know what John’s plan is. The show, again, withholds it. But we know that Sam and Dean assume that they would continue on together. Sexual bait aside, they work well as a team, it’s good to have backup. The Colt could bring them to the Demon that killed Mom, and they all should be together when they stand off against that thing. Things have changed since “Shadow,” when the family parted ways.
Sam is getting worked up again. He feels the abandonment coming, his anger rising at being ordered around, not consulted, not considered. “But after … we’re gonna meet up. Right? Use the gun together. Right.” His tone is so serious and so knowing that it gets Dean’s attention. Dean is so swayed by John’s presence he misses things. Sam is the outside eye here. Dean needs it.
When John hesitates, Sam knows.
“I don’t get you. You can’t treat us like this.”
“Like what.”
“Like children.”
Sam doesn’t sound whiny now. He sounds righteous and pissed. John pulls out the blah-blah-blah with, “You are my children. I’m trying to keep you safe.”
Someone ring the church bells, because Dean intervenes, and says, “Dad, all due respect, but that’s a bunch of crap.” Love the line and love that it MUST be prefaced with “all due respect,” it shows exactly where Dean is coming from, and it shows exactly how much it takes for Dean to say such a thing. How often has Dean gone up against Dad? Watch how he says it. His eyes are all over the place. He glances at Sam, looks up, looks around, and finally, looks at Dad.
It’s a clue how rare such a comment is from him because everyone is shocked. Sam almost does a double-take. Did Dean just say that? John barely seems to understand what was just said it is so unexpected.
Talk about changing the dance-step. Everyone expects Sam to be the loudmouth troublemaker pushing the envelope. Nobody expects Dean to have a mind of his own. John says, stunned, “Excuse me?”
Now that Dean has spoken, he’s got his courage, he knows where he is. He’s more direct now. He can stand off with Dad. He knows what he’s saying. “You know what Sammy and I have been hunting. Hell, you sent us on a few hunting trips yourself …” and he attempts to laugh, and it’s painful to watch. It’s not a laugh at all. It’s a flash of pain and abandonment, it’s a kid who was thrown to the wolves, it’s gallows humor only. “You can’t be that worried about keeping us safe.”
John is now in a position where he has to defend himself to Dean. Nobody knows how to handle it, nobody knows what to do. You can feel it. That weird laugh from Dean, mid-sentence, and John’s almost automatic answering of Dean’s comment … John is so discombobbled that he doesn’t even think to say to Dean, “You do what I tell you to do and that’s final,” the way he did earlier with Sam. John’s explanations (“I can’t do my job if I’m worried about you guys …”) rings just as hollow as always and Dean calls him on it. You’re on some kind of death-wish, you just want to be “reckless”.
John pulls out “your mother’s death almost killed me” and “I can’t lose you two”, and it’s powerfully played, don’t get me wrong, but it goes back to the abstract quality of John Winchester’s love for his family. It has become entirely theoretical. It is a story he has told himself over and over and over again. Now, granted, this sometimes happens in battle situations, where the “concept” of home (or freedom, or liberty) becomes idealized, fantasized, an Emerald City of perfection … and many a soldier has kept his spirits up and found the will to go on through such abstractions. In the midst of the shit, if you know that what you are fighting for it helps you be brave. John Winchester LIVES there, though.
The discussion goes on, Dean pressing his father to try to see it from their side. “What happens if you die and we could have done something about it? I think maybe Sammy’s right about this one. We should do this together. We’re stronger as a family, Dad. You know it.”
John has closed back down, the shock of Dean having a voice of his own dissipating: “You do your job and you get out of the area. That’s an order.”
I wonder what his reaction would have been if it had been Sam saying those words, and not Dean. I think on some level John tunes Dean out. Dean is not worth listening to, really.
15th scene
Panic in Vampire Land. Beau returns to report that “Hank” is dead and Kate has vanished. At that moment, you hear the far-off rev of an engine, passing by. Luther stares off in the direction of the sound, and his dismay/unease at being separated from her, his worry for her, his codependence with her, it’s all there on his face. “She’s in that truck,” he whispers.
It’s John, of course, driving by so that the vampires will catch the scent, and chase them. Time to test the Colt, basically, although none of it has been said outright. Kate is drugged and passed out in the passenger seat, and John is impassive and stoic, until he sees the headlights in the rear view mirror bearing down on him. The moment has come.
16th scene
Back at the almost-empty nest, Beau holds down the fort, swigging down liquor and wandering around in the near pitch-black, looking uneasily at the vast empty spaces of the barn. Suddenly, Dean is behind him. Obviously the eye of newt potion at the campfire had blocked Dean’s scent (“I’ve missed your musk!”), making it possible for him to get as close as he does without detection. Dean says, cool as a cuke, “Boo” and then hacks the machete through the air. Head. Off.
Dean and Sam have clearly decided, on their own time, off-screen, to disobey Dad and do their own thing. I like to think of their ESP moment after John leaves the campfire with Kate. It would only need to be a “Fuck THIS” glance and they would know what to do. A couple of moments from now, John says to Luther that his “friends” are “cleaning out your nest,” but we only see Dean doing that, making us wonder, Wait … where’s Sam?
Meanwhile, the cars chase Dad’s truck down a dark road. And talk about cool as a cuke, look at John’s face in the middle of a high-speed car chase. But then the car vanishes from the rear view, and he must have missed its sudden swerve. Whatever the case, it is no longer there. Until John swerves around a corner, and there the vampire group stands, in front of their car, like an album cover from 1983.
Luther orders, “Get out.” John does. Like John, Luther is single-minded in his loyalties, and in his sense of responsibility for his family. Survival is almost secondary to protecting his mate. Luther asks, “Where’s Kate?”
John yanks on the rope in his hands, the one tied to Kate, and his line “Come here, sweetheart” is brutal. It is the kind of unnecessary cruelty that ends up making Dean balk at Gordon’s actions in a similar situation in Season 2, also having to do with vampires. The “vampire” episodes of Supernatural make a fascinating mini-Arc of desire, repulsion, morality, cruelty, sex, loyalty. The themes that erupt when vampires enter the scene are deep and totally out of control.
Kate falls out of the truck into John’s arms, and he puts a knife to her throat. Luther’s entire body is taut with the desire to go to her, protect her. Instead he calls out, betraying almost no emotion, being super-calm for her benefit, “Kate, you all right?”
John demands the Colt be handed over. A trade.
It almost seems like it’s no contest. Luther says, “Just don’t hurt her,” and moves forward, placing the Colt on the pavement between them. Struggling with his prey, John squats down to pick it up, and Kate takes the opportunity to punch with her tied-together hands into John, who falls backward, and there’s a crack of glass, and the ensuing fight is so dark you can barely see what happens, but John has collapsed on the ground. Luther moves towards John, and suddenly, just like before, when Dean was bait, a shot whizzes from out of the woods, felling one of the vampires. It surprises everyone, they all whirl around, and then we see Sam and Dean, Dean holding the most macho gun I’ve ever seen in my life, shooting at the group of vampires as he runs, and hitting them, a helluva feat.
Bestill my heart.
But Luther “gets” Sam, wrestling him into position, with Sam’s machete turned against him. Dean freezes at the sight. Hall of Mirrors again. Basically two families standing off, and knowing the weak spots of the other, and using it against the enemy. I mean, it might never stop, at the way this is going, until nobody is left standing.
It is now Dean’s turn to be Luther, putting down the machete, holding out his hand, like, “halt, wait …” Don’t hurt Sam. Let’s trade. Luther says, and it is something we will hear from other vampires, “You people. Why can’t you just leave us alone. We have as much right to live as you do.”
Suddenly, John’s voice comes from off-camera: “I don’t think so.” Luther turns, still holding Sam in front of him. John is now upright, and he’s got the Colt cocked and ready. Despite the fact that Luther is holding Sam in his arms, John fires. It’s an enormous risk, even more so than dangling Dean’s dangly bits in front of a horny vamp. We get a closeup of the bullet in the air, a la The Matrix, which hits Luther in the middle of the forehead, a strict bull’s eye. It’s a risk because he could have hit Sam, first of all, but it’s also a risk because he’s not even sure if the Colt works the way it’s supposed to. What would happen if it was all bullshit? Of course these are questions the show never asks. But those questions reverberate beneath the surface of the plot, in its intricacy and nastiness. John Winchester needed an excuse to test the gun, so that he could then trust its powers before using it on the Demon. The stand-off with the vamps is the test. And if Sam happens to be in the way? Well, John’s a good shot, he is certain he won’t miss.
Once Luther is hit, he releases Sam, who staggers back towards Dean, and then everyone basically just stands around in the dark watching Luther’s death throes with almost a morbid scientist-like fascination. Kate screams in horror and loss, but the Winchesters just watch … Holy shit, look at him fall apart, look at him shatter, look at what the Colt does. My God, it works. It killed a vampire. The hope is enormous, heart-splitting.
Feeling hope through watching the murder of someone else, monster or no … well, hey, that’s how the Winchesters roll.
The other vampires, terrified at the Colt’s effectiveness, race to their cars and peel away. Sam and Dean both look stunned, and almost upset, and neither of them can take their eyes off John. Who smiles at them. It’s cold as ice.
17th scene
Dean and Sam stand over their beds, packing up their bags, and John walks in the door. He looks almost young here, the way he puts his hands in his pockets. A teenager. The betrayal, again, of his underlying nerves.
He moves towards them, saying, “So, boys …” and they drop what they’re doing and turn fully to him. Sam says, “Yes, sir,” and John says, “You ignored a direct order back there.” Messing with what we may expect, Sam says, “Yes, sir,” automatically. Dean doesn’t. Instead he says, “We saved your ass.” Sam is stunned, yet again. So is Dad. Nobody speaks. Closeup of Sam, closeup of Dad, closeup of Dean. John looks forbidding. Dean looks freaked out at what he just said, but holding his ground.
It’s impressive. And when John finally says, “You’re right,” it is Dean’s turn to be taken aback. He’s not sure he heard right. He’s not even sure he IS right. If John laid into him here, I expect that Dean would give up his line of attack. Instead, John concedes ground, and it seems like Dean experiences that almost as being hung out to dry. Dean says, “I am?”
Excellent writing. Simple and emotional, gives the actors so much to chew on.
John says, “It scares the hell out of me” (which gets John a big fat eyeroll from Yours Truly). Bottom line for John is, “I guess we are stronger as a family.”
Dean sort of takes that in. The rousing Supernatural theme starts up, soft, and then building in volume.
Ackles does something interesting with his closeup here, something very thoughtful, again, one of those closeups it’s not necessary to label. It’s validating, for his dad to say he’s right about something, but he’s not sure if it’s to be trusted. He also doesn’t want to SHOW Dad his feelings. That is still a big no-no.
John, back in Commander mode, says, “We go after this thing. Together.”
Surrounded by the blackness of the background, the brothers say in unison, “Yes, sir.”
It is a total repeat of the same “Yes, sir” moment in “Shadow,” the one I’ve mentioned before as so thrilling to me. It’s the exact same framing, the exact same placement of the two figures.
While Supernatural can be too repetitive sometimes (a situation bound to happen when you have 20+ episodes a season, as opposed to 12 or whatever), sometimes the repetition works in its favor. Themes are revisited, arguments. The family argument that makes up “Dead Man’s Blood” is the exact same territory covered in “Shadow” and hinted at elsewhere. But the end result is different. Progress has been made. Sam flipped his lid. Dean stood up for himself.
But it’s still impossible to ignore the fact that the episode ends with Sam and Dean saying “Yes, sir” in unison.
One step forward. Two steps back.
“Dead Man’s Blood” closes out with a strange and captivating silent triangulation of closeups. Sam. Dean. And then John. There is togetherness there, a shared sense of purpose. But the experience being revealed is not identical. The emotions are varied. The stream running along between its banks, a catapulting current, everyone going in the same direction, but shooting out and around obstacles, coming back together, clash of rapids, re-grouping, moving on.
Just awesome, Sheila.
Gun porn: just today I was in a discount bookshop and really, really contemplating buying a coffee table type book on the history of handguns. Of course it had a classic Colt on the cover, which is why I picked it up in on the first place. I was very disappointed to learn that Colt wasn’t a really hunter in the Wild West.
And on the subject of the magic gun/Macguffin, it has a possible predecessor here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freischütz
I really like what you say about how John Winchester’s love for his wife and sons has become abstract. It makes a lot of sense. It’s almost merely a rhetorical device by now: everything supposedly is prefaced on protecting his sons, despite the fact that so many of the things he does puts them directly in danger. I’d picked up on using Dean as bait, but of course Sam is bait too. Church bells ring out across the country when Dean finally allows himself to see that two and two make only four it’s on precisely this that he calls Dad out.
The shifting dynamic between brothers and dad is just awesome. Dad has his own gravitational pull, and it’s just assumed that Dean is part of that. Interesting in that spat by the car that Dad says ‘Your brother and I needed you’, dragging Dean into his argument, trying to isolate Sam. (Interesting also that when talking to Sam Dad calls Dean ‘your brother’ rather than calling him by his name.)
And that element of toxic self-importance JDM suggests in that self-absorbed, faraway manner of his. So powerful. Just sucks the air out of everything. Even that line after saying he thought vampires had been wiped out: ‘I was wrong’ manages to be accusatory. Bad job there, Elkins! Must try harder!
Holy crap – the Freischütz!! Definite inspiration – fascinating!
I love that you were drawn to a coffee table book with a Colt on the cover. It sure is a good-looking gun.
// Dad has his own gravitational pull, and it’s just assumed that Dean is part of that. //
I know. I have to admit, the first time I saw the episode, I was totally disoriented. It took me 2 or 3 times to even start to crack it open – and definitely the conversations we’ve had about it helped. I was drawn into the gravitational pull of Dad too. I’ve got some crappy shit that happened to me when i was a kid – and I think part of me was just not able to make those associations at first. Self-protection. I’m fine with it – I think it’s great how out of control the episode really is (emotionally), how much is between the lines – which really underlines that all of this is NORMAL for the Winchesters. I think that was one of the reasons I was “fooled” in my first viewing of it. They all just seem so casual about it (or as casual as they could be) – “well, Dean must be fine with it … ” I, frankly, just was not picking up on how SICK it all was.
I like your observation about how Dad draws Dean into the argument, isolating Sam – I missed that nuance. And yes, “your brother” – it’s manipulative, but I can’t quite put my finger on why.
// toxic self-importance JDM suggests in that self-absorbed, faraway manner of his. //
Great way of putting it! And you’re spot on his “I was wrong” being an accusation of his old nemesis Elkins. I missed that.
It’s dizzying – because the words he’s saying SOUND right, but the EFFECT is just … uneasy. I wonder how much any of this was talked about in rehearsal. Probably not all that much. They just cast the right guy.
and yeah – John’s all “I can’t lose you” “you’re my children” …
blah blah words, abstractions.
You don’t have them ANYway, John. Your love for them is based on the baby pictures you have in your wallet, and the happy faded family photo you keep in your back pocket. Your grown sons? You barely seem to even LIKE them.
Sheila, stop scolding John Winchester.
Oh, and I love that nine seasons on, Dean’s trunk is still the same frigging mess it was in Season One.
Thank God he resisted the urge to go all Bat Man. It’s not him.
Full disclosure: In my first viewing of the series, the John Winchester episodes were so disturbing and triggery for me (in the context of my past line of work – not any trauma that I personally experienced, although I wouldn’t rule out bouts of second-hand PTSD in myself) that they were something I had to power through, and until now, I haven’t re-watched any of them. When I saw that this recap was up, I went and re-watched this episode, and I was amazed by how much I had missed in the dynamics between the characters. I think I missed some of it almost deliberately, because it hit too close to dynamics and situations that I actually observed or dealt with the aftermath from. I mentioned in one of my first comments (on Nightmare) that I have worked with a “teenage Sam and Dean” before. There was actually a specific family that I had in mind with this comment, and at this point, I think it is no coincidence that this case that I think of sometimes when I see the Winchester family dynamic was not only the worst case of sexual abuse and exploitation that I have ever worked, it was the worst case that I have ever HEARD of. I’m comparing it to every case that I have ever seen in the news, every episode of Law & Order SVU that I have ever watched, every case that my colleagues worked, and saying that none of those stories come close to what these kids were subjected to. As you might imagine, it takes a lot to shock a social worker, and when I briefed my supervisor about what the boy who I think was very Dean-like had disclosed, she was pretty much speechless with horror. That’s saying something for a 15-year veteran in the field. For obvious reasons, I can’t go into specifics, but I will say that there was human trafficking involved, and it started before this boy hit puberty. By the time he was 14, he knew how to use his body to support himself on the street, without the involvement of his pimp/parent.
So, on re-watching, and understanding the context when John says “You know what to do” (which is the thing that I think I missed deliberately on my first viewing of this episode), the scene that follows is possibly the most nauseating scene in the entire series. John is a pimp. He is trafficking the son that he claims to love and want to protect, and he has done it habitually for who knows how long. You do not have to directly sexually abuse someone to be a sex offender. And it could possibly be argued that Dean is choosing this course of action, but I don’t buy it. It’s a given that he’ll do it, but it’s not a choice. It’s learned helplessness.
It is also nauseating to me (although not nearly to the same degree) when John tells Sam what happened to their college funds, and Sam laughs about it. I can’t put my finger on exactly why this exchange was so upsetting for me, but I think it has something to do with the fact that, in my mind, Sam should be OUTRAGED about this, and he’s not. He laughs it off in a way that I think betrays that his apparent emotional health is only adaptive relative to Dean’s. He only appears to be the “whole” one because his brother is so deeply cowed by their father.
I actually pulled out my counseling theories textbook and looked over the family systems theory chapter while reading this. I suspect that SOMEONE on the writing staff has to be familiar with FST somehow. It’s not my favorite theory, but it’s definitely applicable to the Winchesters. There’s a lot that I could go into, but I don’t want to write a dissertation, so I’ll try to limit myself. One of the things that stands out to me in the series as a whole is the concept of homeostasis. According to FST, families will try to maintain homeostasis at all costs, and will try to return to homeostasis as quickly as possible when something upsets the balance. In this episode, John upsets the homeostasis that Sam and Dean had developed in their relationship with each other outside of Dad. Before the series started, Sam upset the family’s homeostasis by leaving. And by the end of this episode, Dean (to the satisfaction of all of us) upsets the homeostasis by standing up to Dad for once.
Another piece of FST is the roles that family members play. Roles can shift (John alternates between “blamer” – which should be obvious in what it implies – and “computer” – which my textbook describes as being “sensible and rational, but distant and cool to others,” and Sam shifts between “blamer” and “leveler,” which is defined as having “high self-esteem and thus has no need to hide; communication is free and honest.”) But when John is around, Dean is almost always the “placator,” (textbook definition: “the ‘yes person,’ the one who is always trying to get others to approve of him. He ingratiates and apologizes”) and it is heartbreaking. Watching him and listening to him try to break up the conflict between John and Sam is just awful and wrenching. Dean can be a leveler in the absence of John, but when John’s there, it just isn’t in him.
So, yeah. These are some of the reasons why I glossed over these episodes the first time around. Thanks for reopening THOSE wounds, Sheila ;-)
I am here to re-open people’s wounds! Ha. No, I totally know what you mean, Natalie. As always, your perspective is riveting and very important. That story is awful. As I said to you, I am in awe of people who actually CAN do that kind of work. I have social worker friends who definitely get burned out, HARD. I can’t even imagine.
I hope that poor child will at least survive. Horrible. Haunting.
These are extremely disturbing episodes and I can see totally that the identification with your line of work would just be too strong – the trauma is just BOOMING off the screen and yet nobody is actually acknowledging it!
// I think I missed some of it almost deliberately //
I did, too, first time around. Interesting how self-protection works.
// the scene that follows is possibly the most nauseating scene in the entire series. John is a pimp. He is trafficking the son that he claims to love and want to protect, and he has done it habitually for who knows how long. You do not have to directly sexually abuse someone to be a sex offender. //
Agreed. And thank you for putting it so plainly.
I feel the need to clarify something – when I said “Dean is choosing it” I really meant “agreeing”. I don’t mean like, “Yes, I freely choose my actions here, I know what I’m getting into.” I’ll re-word it in the post, it’s giving me an uneasy feeling. We don’t see ANY of the preparation for that scene by the car in the road – which just adds to the sickening feeling that this is all just “another day in the office” for him. AND, he also may be looking forward to it a little bit, because he understands his role in this context, and Dad has groomed him for it, and it’s part of how he gets the job done and gets Dad’s approval. So it’s terrible. The more I watch the scene the worse it looks.
// in my mind, Sam should be OUTRAGED about this, and he’s not. //
I feel like the scene has a build, and that’s the come-down, the letting-off-steam moment. I understand your outrage totally, though. I think Sam got the explosion out of his system. But I like your observation that Sam seems healthy only in comparison to Dean. Sam is completely taken in by Dad’s confession – and NEEDS to hear what his father is saying.
Also, considering where Sam is going – with demon blood, and soul-less psycho stuff – I think, yeah, his mental health is pretty fragile, all things considered. He’s got a better game face, maybe. But I’ll have to think more about how that tracks.
I suppose we could look at John’s decision to share that with Sam as a manipulative disarming tactic. You know, let me diffuse him, let me give him a taste of what he needs, so he’ll be more in my control from now on. Certainly would not put it past him. I don’t think he’s playing that, as an actor – but it’s hard to name exactly WHAT he’s playing, as I mentioned up above. It could be so many things. It’s totally from Sam’s POV.
All of the FST stuff is very interesting.
// It’s not my favorite theory, //
This may be a tangent, and don’t feel pressure to respond – but why is that?
// In this episode, John upsets the homeostasis that Sam and Dean had developed in their relationship with each other outside of Dad. Before the series started, Sam upset the family’s homeostasis by leaving. And by the end of this episode, Dean (to the satisfaction of all of us) upsets the homeostasis by standing up to Dad for once. //
Interesting. It’s that image of the rushing stream again, racing around obstacles, coming back together, crashing into chaos, and then converging again. I’ll have to think more about that homeostasis idea.
Think, too, about how insane (albeit understandable) Dean’s wish in the hotel room in “Shadow” is, considering what we see in this episode – his wish to “be a family again”. It’s tragic. This is not a healthy system for anyone.
“You know what to do,” says John. I mean, it’s sinister.
// Watching him and listening to him try to break up the conflict between John and Sam is just awful and wrenching. Dean can be a leveler in the absence of John, but when John’s there, it just isn’t in him. //
That fight scene is painful, especially his voice coming in from off-screen. I’m not sure why it gets to me so much.
Thank you for taking the time to read and leave such a great comment!!
(I am totally kidding, of course. This recap was excellent, as usual.)
//I will leave you to contemplate how Ackles pulled THAT off.// It was the teeny tiny wink at the end that capped it
Love the wink! So cheeseball!
//how Dad draws Dean into the argument, isolating Sam – I missed that nuance.//
And Sam, in the same argument says ‘we want to know’ meaning ‘Dean and I’, drawing Dean into his argument. So Dean is completely stuck between the two of them at this point. Dad has a go at him about his car. Sam attacks him for not sticking up for himself, essentially for not sticking up for the both of them. Dean may well be asserting himself to Dad when he calls his argument a load of crap, but it puts him in solidarity with Sam, rather being completely independent. Interesting discussion with Natalie about the need for homeostasis in this kind of toxic family dynamic, and your image of water, too.
// “your brother” – it’s manipulative, but I can’t quite put my finger on why. //
He does it a couple of times – ‘your brother’. And not being able to put a finger on it is part of its power, I guess. It’s dismissive of Dean, but also reinforces (to me at least) the family relationship, the need to stick to family roles, of filial obedience.
Natalie, I’m with you on that scene with Sam and Dad and how Sam’s laughter is ‘off.’ I can’t help feeling that ‘spent it on ammo’ is self-congratulatory in tone, and Sam’s been played somehow. He needs this ‘heart to heart’ with his dad, and I don’t think we’re meant to read it as cynical on John’s part – the exchange has so much in it, a lot of what John really wants to believe about himself and his boys, as well as that undercurrent of emotional manipulation. Beautifully played by JDM. But it has always made my skin crawl a bit. Plus – Dean’s college fund? That little detail says a lot about how John’s treatment/view of Dean has changed since Mary died. Somehow since then Dean has ceased to become college material.
// Dean may well be asserting himself to Dad when he calls his argument a load of crap, but it puts him in solidarity with Sam, //
Right – and along with the “all due respect” (f0r Dad), he says, “Sammy’s right here” – or something like that. He needs those props.
I may be missing some moments – but it seems to me that Dean’s real expressions of anger come when he’s by himself. Demolishing the Impala post- Dad’s death (one of Ackles’ best scenes ever – seriously Movie Star Leading Man material – James Dean punching the desk in Rebel Without a Cause – and he is REALLY whaling on that thing) – and then the scene in the “dream” when he attacks himself, shouting about how unfair Dad was and how he had no right to put all that responsibility on his shoulders.
am I missing anything else? any confrontational moment where Dean is on his own feet, standing up for himself? I mean, it takes him 3/4s of season 3 to admit he doesn’t want to die. Huge moment.
In re-considering that scene with Sam – especially with that fiddling-with-the-pen gesture he does throughout – I think it’s totally possible that John is “playing” Sam there. He needs Sam to chill out so he’s throwing him a bone. And Sam drinks it up – because he needs it.
and right on about the “college fund” for Dean. Ugh. It’s awful. Now all Dean can hope for is “to have a home”, like he’s a ward of the state at age 27 or something.
Oh no wait – I thought of one. In the next episode – when Sam’s having visions and Dad gets all pissy and says to Dean “You call me when something like this is happening.”
Dean lets Dad have it. Not like Sam would, but it is definitely a pained and pointed standing up for himself.
“I called you from Lawrence. Sam called you when I was dying.”
That’s when John says, “I’m not crazy about this new tone, but you’re right.”
Ugh.
Natalie, thank you for the long comment previous to this one.
I am so glad that some of the commenters here have a mental health/social worker background to this show. I have NO background in those specialties. The way I understand the theme here was in the use of amonitrate’s essays which were linked to in the Something Wicked recap. “Parentialization and emotional incest” was so powerful for my understanding here. I see Dean as being put into the dynamic as “mother” from perhaps his fifth birthday on, Dad depending on him for his emotional support and as Sheila says here, disrespecting him because he has so subsumed himself into John’s worldview, he literally doesn’t exist except as another John.
Boy, this is so harsh for Dean, it is awful. I think what you were referring to was a comment from Something Wicked? Because I will go back there and reread it.
I don’t necessarily “see” John as “loving” Sam more (he must already be suspecting or have evidence that Sam was somehow the object of YED’s mission and that Sam is somehow bound to YED or to the supernatural world already) and I think that for instance if he knew about Sam’s visions or telekinesis from Nightmare John would act to get Sam at ease and then just blow him away.
Sam IS like John in the anger issues and the self-centeredness (in Sam’s case healthy) and the need for revenge. Dean has anger but his is directed at the monsters he is facing.
It’s like John tried to wipe out Dean’s personality. He thought he had. But then he found out that parts of “dean” still existed and it surprised him here at the end.
For those of you with psych backgrounds I would like to know if you have seen any writings (like amonitrate’s) which go correctly into the Winchester family dynamic.
Like when Hendricks was trying (later on) to “get into” Sam and Dean’s mind by quoting some profile he and/or an FBI psychologist wrote on the missing Winchester brothers. Like Hendricks always assumed Dean was in charge. My reading of the situation was that was off; Dean may direct day-to-day actions but that Sam was in control of Dean’s mission in most ways.
I really do wish I had some understanding of how they ARE and how they ARE/ WOULD BE perceived by mental health professionals.
I would LOVE feedback on this; I admire how the creators of the show took a long view and built up this dynamic. One would NEVER exchange lines from Sam to Dean for instance. They both have their own specific dialogue to say.
I don’t think I can ever forgive John Winchester for the man who used his kids as bait in Something Wicked and here who waited a couple of minutes too long to watch his elder son “pimped out” to a vampire.
It’s just ugly. His children only exist to be the instruments of his will. It is a harsh portrait and one I cannot accept as “hero.”
// I really do wish I had some understanding of how they ARE and how they ARE/ WOULD BE perceived by mental health professionals. //
I don’t know, seems like it’s all up there on the screen. And it can take lots of different interpretations. A diagnosis wouldn’t provide much by way of understanding, beyond Raging Unchecked Long-term PTSD. :) I say that as someone with a mental health diagnosis of my own. My diagnosis is the least interesting part about me. :) Also, it explains NOTHING.
//In re-considering that scene with Sam – especially with that fiddling-with-the-pen gesture he does throughout – I think it’s totally possible that John is “playing” Sam there. //
It reminds me of the Season 9 vampire episode where the mother vampire does the same thing before she turns her ‘daughter’. Soft and sincere and apologetic and just so manipulative.
//I may be missing some moments – but it seems to me that Dean’s real expressions of anger come when he’s by himself. //
No, I think you’re right about that. Can’t think of one where he expresses that kind of anger in front of anyone else.
Oh God that vampire mama!! Great performance! She really cared, and she saw that everything she did was from that, and it was just so sick, like Jeffrey Dahmer’s “I just wanted to keep my lovers with me all the time” sickness.
Yeah, Dean’s anger. An interesting topic. Socialization for girls is often about suppressing anger, being nice always, being the smoother-outer – and Dean certainly has that going on – giving him that malleability you usually associate with women. It’s why when he does let the anger out, he destroys cars and rooms with it. Even Sam can’t come close to what Dean unleashes in those two scenes.
In Don’t Bother to Knock, an early Marilyn Monroe film (it’s fantastic), she plays a clearly sexually abused woman who was recently released from a mental institution – who gets a job babysitting. Clearly not a good plan. Over the course of the night babysitting she basically starts to have a psychotic break. And there are a couple of moments where this rage at what has been done to her – starts to come out.
And it is just SO NOT what MM was EVER allowed to express in her other roles (as charming and funny as they are). Nobody wanted to hear about MM’s anger. She was supposed to be nice and pleasing. And she got a lot of love from being that way. But in Don’t Bother to Knock, she is allowed to seethe at the cruelty shown her – and it’s almost terrifying.
Dean’s anger has that same quality. He de-values himself to such a degree, anger really has no room to breathe much. But it’s there.
So many comments were posted when I was composing my own comment that runs below:
Question about “Dean needs a home” in this family dynamic:
Does John anticipate that he’ll set Dean and HIMSELF in a hone because I don’t think he could give him the agency of his OWN home.
Daddy is serious wacky here.
It makes Dean sound like a half-wit. It’s totally messed up. “What will happen to Dean??? He needs a home!!!”
Like he would be unable to rent an apartment or something. Like he would be incapable of taking care of himself and would need to go on public assistance.
I love the line: “Sammy can go to school. Dean can have a home.” Fascinating. And again, nobody in the Winchester family thinks it’s weird. Nobody thinks that’s a weird thing to say.
I think a lot of the argument relates to getting Dean on each of their sides.
An author I corresponded with AFTER I read amonitrate’s essays said that she thought a lot of Sam’s teenage anger issues might’ve stemmed from Dean’s pulling away into sex with females in HIS teens. Dean was the only thing Sam had ever had, in a way Dean was Sam’s world; Dean becoming less devoted to him and into his own world destabilized Sam, took his “mother” away from him in the same way a divorced mother beginning to date might destabilize her children.
Anyway, it’s a way of looking at this.
So do you think John would have the idea that if “Dean has a home” it means that John is the one giving it to him?
The whole dynamic to me is that Dad needs his #1 follower.
You see, Sheila, I did NOT see this until I read your recaps. I don’t have the background to even put explain to myself what I am seeing here. And then when I read what you say about what I am seeing, I understand WHY I have these feelings about, say John.
I feel like Dean’s whole life he has been used/abused by his nearest/dearest. It HURTS me and then I read your take on the issues I see and it resonates for me.
Dean seems needy but he also is committed to protecting others from WHAT HE HAS GONE THROUGH. He doesn’t blame his dad for what has happened at all, even when he starts firmly giving different ideas (like here and in the next episode – I got a better chance of winning the lottery than getting a phone call from you. John did not have an answer that anybody would accept.) He wants to go back to some golden age when the three of them were hunting and saving people and hunting things.
Do you think John would continue to hunt if he had taken the Colt and killed YED himself?
evave –
// I feel like Dean’s whole life he has been used/abused by his nearest/dearest. //
Sure.
But like I said, my filter for Dean is not “victim”, but “survivor”. I’m more fascinated by his survival techniques, his humor, his sexy-sexy, his cockiness, his love of sleep and food and music and making out. Not negating his pain – it’s just a different way of looking at him. You could psycho-pathologize him right out of being an interesting character.
And dramatically, he’s FAR more interesting because of his survival techniques. His unwillingness to see himself as a victim. Blind spot maybe, but also smarts, survivor-wise.
I’m not sure about the hypotheticals you present here. I think John is just worried about Dean “making it” in the world sans hunting in a way he isn’t with Sam. He can’t conceive of what Dean would even DO without it.
//He de-values himself to such a degree, anger really has no room to breathe much. But it’s there. //
And I think by the end of Season 9 that’s pretty much all there is, but not healthy anger we cheer when he does express, of dead and rotten kind symbolised by the First Blade. Very interesting to see dead-eyed Dad in this episode and how like Dad Dean has become in the latter half of Season 9.
I’d forgotten about that comeback to Dad in the next episode – ‘better chance of wining the lottery than getting you on the phone.’ He’s beginning to call Dad on his bullshit. But these beginnings of healthy self assertion get derailed once dad is dead, and Dean is guilt tripped out of expressing his own feelings to anyone, even himself.
Evave2 – I’ve read amonitrate posts with a great deal of interest and for me they contain a lot of stuff that’s useful for understanding Dean’s character. But they only tell part of the story, and they tell it from a particular point of view. They don’t explain why Dean, for example, is so frigging hilarious, or an ass, or how smart or stupid he is, or why as portrayed by JA he is so compelling to watch. Amonitrate is not interested in Sam and Dean vaulting over locked gates at midnight. Understanding possible underlying pathologies can be enriching – I love Natalie’s comments here -, but this is drama, so these lead, I would suggest, to possible interpretations, not definitive diagnosis. There are many possible readings. That’s why I love Sheila’s posts which examine acting, camera work, humour, draw on mythology and film and literary archetype, and generously welcome other interpretations. I’d kind of hope a mental health expert’s view would be, ‘I just thought I’d watch one or two episodes but I ended up bingewatching the whole damn thing.’
Helena –
// I’d kind of hope a mental health expert’s view would be, ‘I just thought I’d watch one or two episodes but I ended up bingewatching the whole damn thing.’ //
hahahahahahaha Totally.
// But they only tell part of the story, and they tell it from a particular point of view. They don’t explain why Dean, for example, is so frigging hilarious, or an ass, or how smart or stupid he is, or why as portrayed by JA he is so compelling to watch. //
Yes. Exactly. That is my frustration with a diagnostic model. I recently had to step away from a conversation on FB where throngs of people spent an entire day “diagnosing” Holden Caulfield. It got so elaborate. He has a death wish, he has a death fixation, he is gay, he has ADHD, he has NPD, and on and on and on. My only contribution was: “I don’t know, seems like he’s just really upset about the death of his brother.” I still stand by that. I think all of those people writing thesis papers on Holden’s attachment issues – and never once mentioning that his older brother JUST DIED – literally do not know how to read a book.
Maybe this comes from my acting training. If you set out to play Hedda Gabler, you have to play the story, and the moment to moment reality and you have to have an awareness of the societal pressures on her – but you can’t “play a diagnosis”. A lot of actors try to “play a diagnosis”, going down some checklist of criteria. You can see that kind of work. It’s condescending.
I too appreciate a sensitive psychological read like Natalie’s, presented as a possible filter for how this family operates. We can certainly see it play out in those group scenes, with the three guys in the same scene.
The strength of the show is that it deals with opposites and mirrors, and fluctuating interpretations. It’s trauma seen from the inside, which is why it all seems so normal to the guys and why it is barely referenced. That’s the best part of it.
Back to the other parts of your comment –
// But these beginnings of healthy self assertion get derailed once dad is dead, and Dean is guilt tripped out of expressing his own feelings to anyone, even himself. //
Right! That’s why that “dream” episode is so damn HUGE. It was painful, that confrontation with himself, but also totally exhilarating.
I remember being so frustrated in the early parts of Season 2 with Sam being all up in Dean’s grill, like, “YOU NEED TO GRIEVE.” As though working on your car is not a valid way to deal with grief. It’s yet another way that people are trying to boss Dean around and co-opt his feelings and try to tell him how to be. I have a ton of feelings about grief, and how horribly our culture deals with it and how the “grief industry” and “self-help industry” actually make it worse.
Working on your car for 24 hours straight is just as valid a reaction to loss as sitting in some hippie drum-circle and crying. I’m sorry. The “grief industry” makes me want to puke. It is the Oprah-fication of a primal process that everyone experiences differently. It is trying to homogenize something that is totally individual. Grief doesn’t look just one way.
So. Yes. I clearly had a personal reaction to that whole thing: .”Sam, don’t be on such a high horse. Worry about your own damn self. Leave Dean ALONE.“
Ah, The Colt. My (much much) younger brother LOVED the Colt. He was 10 when SPN started and has pretty much grown into adulthood while it has been on. The Colt will always remind me of his youthful enthusiasm for the show. (He still watches regularly. But it is out of habit now. As he said to me recently, “I’ve been watching this long. I’m not going to quit now!”)
Oh, when John takes that dig at Dean about the Impala! GAH! The constant criticism Dean receives is just so horrible. From everyone. Dean is only able to let his anger out when he is alone because, if he were to do it in front others, they would be all over him. They would BLAME HIM for his feelings. At least, all of Dean’s experience has led him to think this.
I think Sam sees this, to an extent, and it makes him angry that Dean won’t stand up for himself (mostly in regards to John). He is angry for Dean. But I don’t think he always realizes that he does it to Dean, too.
I didn’t read the college fund scene as consciously manipulative, on John’s part. I think he genuinely wanted Sam to understand and agree with him…and that he actually thinks just explaining himself should be enough of an apology for everything. A sort of “I get you think this was wrong, but this is why I did it, so you have to forgive me” kind of thing (he’s selfish). That’s what gives him power over his sons. They think him a good man, at heart. He means well.
Also, with John wanting a “home” for Dean…I think John sees Dean as damaged goods. Weak. Sam was always trying to run away, live his own life. Be a man. Maybe Dean is too much like Mary? or took too well to mothering for John’s tastes (he foresaw the nesting in the bunker)? I don’t know. I hate to admit it, but he is right. Dean needs a home.
May – hahaha about your brother and the Colt. I love, too, that he can’t give up on the show now. It’s been his whole adolescence!!
// if he were to do it in front others, they would be all over him. They would BLAME HIM for his feelings. //
Right, and again, that’s something we normally associate with women. (Especially beautiful women. They’re not supposed to show anger, or sadness, or irritation, or anything other than … Be Pleasing To Me.)
One of the reasons I was a fan of the Lisa-storyline was that she gave him a lot of space to BE. There wasn’t a lot of nagging. Even when she was annoyed with him, she framed it in a way that gave him space. He didn’t seem to know what to do with it. He snuck around. He lied. He acted out. But who she was being was so calm that he was able to come clean – apologize – for treating her like a prisoner – for yelling at Ben – for whatever. He can tell he’s acting like his dad. It happened without him even realizing it. I don’t know – I thought Lisa brought out very interesting things in Dean and it’s obvious why he felt safe with her.
Even though her skin, at times, was day-glo orange.
// That’s what gives him power over his sons. They think him a good man, at heart. He means well. //
Exactly – JDM plays it that way, and JP plays it that way too. That’s where JP’s big relieved laugh seems to come from. And the needy look on his face. Dad explaining something to him about his own childhood … Wow!!
// Also, with John wanting a “home” for Dean…I think John sees Dean as damaged goods. Weak. //
Definitely. It’s painful. Dean knows it too.
Okay, it’s late, and there’s such great, insightful stuff on here, and so much that I want to respond to. I’m going to try to get into as much as I can but I may have to zonk out and come back for more later!
//I was drawn into the gravitational pull of Dad too.//
And THIS is exactly why I struggled with the John episodes. Not even so much because the subject matter was so awful, but because John is actually a sympathetic character, and there is something sickening about being sucked into his perspective. I think my initial reaction to John was that I almost wanted to defend his choices and actions, and to give him that pass of “he made mistakes, but he was doing the best he could.” He’s so compelling, and this involuntary empathy I have for him feels so wrong. And, again, it is a feeling that came up in my work. (Not with the case I mentioned – the parents in that case were straight-up creepy and off-putting. I really wish I could go into more detail about how much the one kid specifically reminds me of Dean and the parallels between his family and the Winchesters, because there’s a lot there. I can say that he’s over 18 now, and I get periodic updates on him because a friend of mine was briefly a foster parent for him, and he has kept in touch with her and her partner. Overall, he is doing pretty well, although I think the damage from his childhood will always be a part of him. Also, his father is currently serving a 45-year prison sentence, which I pretty much consider to be the pinnacle of my career achievements.)
//he understands his role in this context, and Dad has groomed him for it, and it’s part of how he gets the job done and gets Dad’s approval.//
OMG, totally. That’s ALL there in that scene. And I did actually get what you meant with the whole “choosing”/”agreeing” thing, and it relates back to what you said about cults and brainwashing. Dean probably believes that he’s choosing this course of action. And I loved your points about people feeling culpable in their own victimization. That’s actually a big part of why victims of sexual abuse and assault might not tell anyone – because the human body will respond to sexual touching with pleasurable feelings, whether the touching was wanted or not, and victims will think, “I enjoyed it, so it must be my fault.”
//I suppose we could look at John’s decision to share that with Sam as a manipulative disarming tactic.//
I definitely think that entire conversation was manipulative on John’s part. I am on the fence about whether the manipulation was deliberate or subconscious. I think it may have been both at different points in the discussion – that there was a genuine desire to patch things up with Sam, but there was an undercurrent of finding ways to get Sam back under his influence. I’ll have to give that some more thought.
The college fund thing – it almost would have been less offensive if John had said that he spent the money on booze or gambling debts or something like that. He almost would have been able to justify that – that it was just something that spun out of his control, and maybe he always meant to replenish those funds and just never found a way to do so. Spending it on ammo, though – that was a calculated and cynical decision. He could have found a million other ways to buy ammo, but taking it from his children’s college funds was making a statement that their futures were no longer a priority for him, that he was making sure they would have no choice but to be hunters. And Sam (who has just put himself through freaking Stanford!) just laughs that off, like it’s something any father would do.
//his wish to “be a family again”. It’s tragic.//
I think there’s an element here that relates back to the points above that Helena made about John’s concept of his wife and his sons has become an abstraction. The same thing has happened for Dean, I think. He has this idealized picture of what their family is that has almost no basis in reality. I’ve noticed that coming up in his reunions with Sam at the beginning of seasons 4 and 8. There’s this sense that the reality of the reunions is not living up to his expectations.
I will come back to the FST and diagnosis stuff, I promise, but as Dean would say, I need my 4 hours first :-)
Natalie –
I am so glad to hear that dad is in prison, and that “overall” that child is doing well. Good work.
// I think my initial reaction to John was that I almost wanted to defend his choices and actions, and to give him that pass of “he made mistakes, but he was doing the best he could.” He’s so compelling, and this involuntary empathy I have for him feels so wrong. //
Yup. That’s all on JDM. If it had been a more “hardened” guy – a “colder” guy (and JDM is very very “warm”) – we wouldn’t have had that “involuntary empathy” that you mention – which is so much a part of why he works as a character. Why he is so compelling – and why it took me a couple viewings to even understand that he was not a sympathetic character. Wow!
Jessie, in one of the comments sections a while back – described this perfectly – the sort of “learning curve” an audience went through with John Winchester – I’ll see if I can find it.
In re: “spend it on ammo”. My read on it is that Sam is enough of a hunter now that he totally gets it. It’s twisted, and not domestic at all, but the shared laugh in that moment feels real, motivated, and coming from a place of “God, this is fucked up. But it’s sort of funny too.” Cynical for sure. But hardened warriors are often cynical. It’s sort of a “button” to a sentimental story – something that all hunters would understand. And even Sam seems to get it. I’m not saying any of it is rational, or I agree with it – but in the context of their relationship, and where they’ve come – in this episode alone – it makes sense to me. In a way, the moment is more about Sam than it is about Dad. I’ll have to think about it more.
And yeah, like I mentioned in the re-caps – that “abstraction” thing is key. There are very few times when the reality lives up to the fantasy. It’s why that Djinn episode is so damn GREAT. I mean, mowing the lawn. How awesome is that. And even with the “trouble in paradise” aspects of that episode, Dean is awe-struck at how good life could be. The final scene in the Djinn episode is one of the only times Dean EVER indulges in what looks like self-pity. Or at least acknowledging his own pain.
Killer.
Helena, I will say this before I go to bed for the night, though:
//I’d kind of hope a mental health expert’s view would be, ‘I just thought I’d watch one or two episodes but I ended up bingewatching the whole damn thing.’//
OMG, GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!!
Lol.
A great (if difficult/painful to watch at certain points) episode and a great recap.
It’s unbelievable, how much of a strong presence John had – and still has, even nine seasons later. He was only in a handful of episodes but in a way he’s just always there, at least for Dean. And I love how JA is aware of that, how he acknowledges John’s influence over Dean, John’s importance for Dean. He knows how much John has shaped Dean into who he is. It’s scary, how much Dean still idolizes his father, even after everything, after expressing his anger and frustration in In My Time of Dying and <Dream a Little Dream of Me.
I also love how the show still keeps throwing these little (or not so little) mentions of John and Dean’s relationship. We’ve had Dean defending John in As Time Goes By and in Bad Boys, then that cruel “If your daddy could see you now…” remark from First Born, even that brief exchange between Crowley and Dean, “I hope you were nice to your father.” – “What?” in King of the Damned.
It’s all so messed up. But then again, I feel like everything is messed up on Supernatural, and we all love it :)
Hunenka –
Yes, Dad is still present! That Bad Boys episode was fascinating, and a perfect way to re-visit that father theme before plunging on in to the Mark of Cain. Certainly not a coincidence, the episode being placed where it was in the season.
Again, with the continuity. I love the show remembering, and capitalizing on what it set up 9 seasons ago. Pretty amazing!!
Another great exposition, Sheila you rock.
The episode was definitely disorienting for what we learned about the family, though as drama it gave us a sense of how complex the A Game could be when the series lit out on its first arc. Even reading the recap was disorienting, I needed to listen to something affirming while reading just to keep my equilibrium. Some Marvin Gaye (more Mercy, Mercy Me and What’s Going On than Sexual Healing or Let’s Get It On.)
One of the things that bugged me about the Colt in this episode was that killing Luther with it didn’t prove that it could kill a demon. It only proved that there was another way to kill a vampire – something that they knew could be killed already. So all of the baiting, all of the testing, all of the manipulation, to get a weapon that only might work.
I think if you look closely at scene 16, Dean is using a crossbow with a sight (a macho weapon, though not a gun). I thought the usage of arrows, bows, and crossbows on vampires was the beginning of their Buffy The Vampire Slayer homage, extending to having Amber Benson and Mercedes McNab play vampires in later episodes. I’ve only gotten up to season 4 in my watching, so I don’t know if the reference/homage extended to later episodes. Kinda bummed to learn from the Provenance comments that Sarah’s return was not a happy ending – in any sense of the phrase. I’ll have a box of tissues near when I watch that one.
Perhaps because I’ve recently watched “A Very Supernatural Christmas” I do have a fresh sense of how hard Dean tried to give Sam a reasonable childhood – to create a home. I’m not as negative on John’s comment about wanting Dean to have a home. John’s not clueless about his boys, he couldn’t manipulate them so well if he was. He is a cult maker, a “my way or the highway” guy, no doubt. Or, I guess the comment about Dean needing a home is no less diminishing than the comment about Sam going back to college. “I want my little guys to not be damaged by all the horror I seeped them in. I never wanted all of this stuff I meticulously trained you for to become your life. Hey, use your credit card fraud skills to set yourselves up. Don’t let your schooling get in the way of your education. If you’re not in bed by 10, come home.”
Part of my disorientation is that I really don’t know what John wants – besides having and eating his cake/sons. Does he really mean to go off on his own with the Colt to kill YED, or is he playing hard to get so the boys really push to come along? Is he really explaining anything important to Sam when they are in the hotel room, or is he just sharing the next secret so Sam stays in the cult? Upon re-watching, I still don’t know.
And I agree, being a vampire looks like a lot more fun than being a Winchester, plus you get a family that loves you and you can easily make the family larger. A theme they return to.
Helena, that Freischütz was a really cool piece of info. And Natalie, 45 years in prison. Bless you for helping that boy.
Mutecypher – // I needed to listen to something affirming while reading just to keep my equilibrium //
Ha!! I know what you mean.
I’m sorry about the spoilers about Sarah in “Provenance”!! I really am. I won’t tell you any more about what happens. She’s just as lovely as ever when she returns, and that’s all I’ll say. :(
// So all of the baiting, all of the testing, all of the manipulation, to get a weapon that only might work. //
Right! And they have, what, 5 bullets now? Next episode shows John is not the sharpest tool in the shed by any means. “Yeah, let’s bring a fake Colt to the standoff with Meg. I’m sure she won’t notice.” Uh-huh. Much later in the series, Bobby says to Dean, “You’re a better hunter than your father, and a better man.” 100% agreed. John almost becomes a cautionary tale after he dies.
And Dean with a crossbow?? Even better. You’re right – arrows are involved. Macho as hell, especially when carried through the woods in a full-speed run. I mean, I don’t want to see that coming at me. It’s very Deliverance.
// I thought the usage of arrows, bows, and crossbows on vampires was the beginning of their Buffy The Vampire Slayer homage, extending to having Amber Benson and Mercedes McNab play vampires in later episodes. //
Good catch.
// “I want my little guys to not be damaged by all the horror I seeped them in. I never wanted all of this stuff I meticulously trained you for to become your life. Hey, use your credit card fraud skills to set yourselves up. Don’t let your schooling get in the way of your education. If you’re not in bed by 10, come home.” //
hahahaha I mean, it’s horrifying when you look at it like that. But yeah, that’s definitely part of what’s going on. And time stopped when his wife died. So to him Dean is 4 years old.
// Part of my disorientation is that I really don’t know what John wants – besides having and eating his cake/sons. Does he really mean to go off on his own with the Colt to kill YED, or is he playing hard to get so the boys really push to come along? Is he really explaining anything important to Sam when they are in the hotel room, or is he just sharing the next secret so Sam stays in the cult? Upon re-watching, I still don’t know. //
I’m with you. The ambiguity is fascinating. And in the next episode – they separate again. Leaving Dean and Sam for the standoff with YED, while he goes off to meet Meg. I get lost sometimes in the fluctuating plot-points – I still do. I also get so swayed by behavior and acting that it’s hard to remember that other things matter. :)
also: // having and eating his cake/sons //
hahahaha
Sheila, I notice that you’re able to indent your comments – to keep the threads more readable. Is there a command the rest of us can use to do the same thing, or is there no work-around for non-admins?
I have no idea. Sometimes I am unable to indent. It seems completely random.
I’m sorry – I don’t know what to do! Let me ask my hacker coding friend.
////I’d kind of hope a mental health expert’s view would be, ‘I just thought I’d watch one or two episodes but I ended up bingewatching the whole damn thing.’/////
Very odd coincidence, the Guardian just did a feature on films on about anxiety and the views of mental health clinicians.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/jun/08/film-anxiety-mental-health-walz-bashir-solaris
//So. Yes. I clearly had a personal reaction to that whole thing: .”Sam, don’t be on such a high horse. Worry about your own damn self. Leave Dean ALONE.“//
Yes. Those early episodes of Season 2, with Sam haranguing Dean to talk about Dad. And Dean calls him on it. I love it the whole dynamic, actually, as it plays out over these episodes. Sam, all for his healthy apparently ‘let’s share feelingz’ is spiralling through his own guilt and shame, on his own. He needs help, too, and isn’t getting it. He offers it to Dean maybe as a way of asking for help himself, and is completely rebuffed. Dean is going through his own spiral, not just of shock and grief at Dad’s death but his own sense of responsibility for it and the vile promise Dad extracted from him, which we don’t learn about til later. Going back to the pros and pitfalls of ‘medicalising’ or pathologising drama, I think what I find useful when people put posit recognised patterns and dynamics of dysfunction is learning how everyone gets caught up in it. So I feel really sorry for Sam – he can’t see the whole picture, and he’s not getting what he needs either.
Beating on that car, man. It’s like beating himself, his dad, and his wife, all in one go. Episode Two of Season Two is so genuinely fucked up, covers so much deep emotional territory, with that crazy clown plot jammed in the middle.
Helena –
// I think what I find useful when people put posit recognised patterns and dynamics of dysfunction is learning how everyone gets caught up in it. //
Yes. That collaborative aspect. Everyone is helping to create it and sustain it.
The concept of “homeostasis” is extremely useful and something I wasn’t familiar with, in terms of relationship dynamics but it makes a LOT of sense.
And true: Sam being all over Dean about how he’s not grieving “right” is so obviously his own way of dealing with what happened. Deflecting. Also showing their own interdependence. Dean working on his car is somehow threatening to Sam … or it feels “wrong” …
And yeah. That episode, with the damn clown, is fantastic. There is so much in it, it feels like it’s 2 hours as opposed to 40 minutes. That overhead shot of JA smashing up that car. It’s clearly him actually doing it. Amazing. Now THAT’S grief. Grief isn’t cozy, and box of Tissues polite. Or it’s not ONLY that. Grief sometimes looks like that.
Again, I have a hard time separating myself from it. I take it personally. You go ahead and beat up your car, Dean, if that’s how you grieve. Don’t let people try to calm you down or correct you. We’ve got enough of that in our culture as it is.
// and the vile promise Dad extracted from him, which we don’t learn about til later. //
Yup. I love it when Supernatural keeps secrets, in a long-term way, and that’s one of the best examples. It’s all leading to that confrontation with himself in the dream episode. How DARE you do that to me?? How DARE you.
Another thought:
Studies have been done about the value of repression to the survival of the human race – something that is totally counterintuitive to the self-help industry – which requires the “don’t repress anything” model to keep itself in business. (Now I am currently in treatment. I need to be. I am not throwing out the baby with the bathwater, and definitely not saying therapy is useless.) HOWEVER. There was a study done with survivors of 9/11 – and the ones who were “doing better” were the ones who successfully repressed the trauma. Poured themselves back into their personal lives – their families, jobs, hobbies. To a certain brand of therapists, these people were “living in denial.” Well, isn’t that handy, isn’t that a neat way to try to justify your job.
The ones who were encouraged to dredge up the memories of the event, in order to “heal”, got worse.
There was a huge article in, I think, the New York Times about repression, specifically in regards to 9/11 survivors. My sister was downtown that day and had to run for her life from the collapsing skyscraper, and she saw bodies falling through the air. She somehow incorporated it into her life story, has a husband, a kid, and doesn’t dwell. She feels happy she survived at all, that she is alive. Of course there are those who will be caught in the loop – the PTSD. Everyone is different.
But the power of repression should not be discounted entirely. In many ways, Dean is a master at it. It IS his survival. Until, of course, he can’t repress anymore. His time in Hell certainly changed him. Weakened him, made him culpable, guilty, shameful.
It is his survival techniques that I find so riveting, and … admirable, I guess. He’s NOT been crushed. That’s not my view of him at all. He’s not “fine,” but he’s also not destroyed.
And I look forward to seeing how all that will play out with Demon Dean!
//hahaha about your brother and the Colt. I love, too, that he can’t give up on the show now. It’s been his whole adolescence!!//
It really hits me, how long I’ve been watching SPN, when I think of it in that terms. That little boy so excited about the Colt is an adult now.
I’m so old. Someone fetch me my walker.
(On the plus side, I have SPN and Dean’s love of classic rock to thank for my brother’s appreciation of classic rock. One of his all time favourite bands is Led Zeppelin. It’s never played on the show, but Dean talking about it so much made my brother seek it out.)
//Right, and again, that’s something we normally associate with women. //
Yes. Dean is expected to absorb all their venting and criticism, provide all the emotional support they need, and be happy about it. John is obviously the worst about this, but Sam does it too.
It’s why I always harp on the idea of Dean as Sam’s mother. Sam has often taken Dean for granted, in the way a child takes a parent for granted. It isn’t vindictive or manipulative, he’s just used to Dean taking care of him. It is normal to him. As time goes on, he starts to see how messed up the whole thing is, but he falls back on that pattern of behaviour when he’s upset.
I like the Dean as mother interpretation! You can definitely feel that in Sam’s taking Dean for granted – which still continues. Dean going off the rails in Season 9 – it took Castiel to kind of slap some awareness into Sam: “Keep an eye on him. This is bad.” Clearly Sam sensed it. And had his own problems and anger that made him unable to really deal with Dean’s transformation. But that’s one of the reasons why Season 9 was so satisfying for me – finally … finally … we got to see Dean freakin’ lose. it.
It’s about time.
And, naturally, he gets no sympathy. Enter Crowley, another charismatic cult leader.
Very good structure.
//And true: Sam being all over Dean about how he’s not grieving “right” is so obviously his own way of dealing with what happened. Deflecting. Also showing their own interdependence. Dean working on his car is somehow threatening to Sam … or it feels “wrong” …//
It also shows how controlling Sam can be (like John). He seems “let’s talk about feelings” but it is almost always on his terms. His way is the only right way.
Sam also hero worships Dean (or did when he was growing up). And people have a tendency to want their heroes to be perfect. To behave the way they think they should behave, based on their own projections.
(I know it seems like I harp on Sam all the time. I actually like him a lot! It’s just that Sam echos John in a lot of ways…I just want to shake him and tell him to stop acting like his father!)
I really recognize Sam – in his way he is as in-depth as Dean, it’s just he has a better game face and he can “pass” more easily. That kind of reliance on the “right” way to do it, and his sort of tendency to lord it over Dean and get a bit prudey on occasion (about buying produce at farmer’s markets, and all that crap) … If you look at it humorously, you could see Dean being like, “You spent your time outside of ‘the life’ picking through produce at some vegan roadside stand? Ugh. What a waste of time.”
Then, of course, by Season 9, Dean is ranting with awe that there are 1,000 different kinds of tomatoes.
Sam’s like, “Yeah, Dean. I know.”
Yay!!
//I really recognize Sam – in his way he is as in-depth as Dean, it’s just he has a better game face and he can “pass” more easily.//
Definitely. Personally, I’m drawn to Dean. I identify more with Dean (as an oldest child, having responsibilities, etc, etc). But Sam’s nerd-arrogance? I’ve seen that in plenty of my peers and myself. Sam is the kind of guy I went to highschool with. Who I would have been friends with. Who I’ve dated. He’s very real.
//Studies have been done about the value of repression to the survival of the human race – something that is totally counterintuitive to the self-help industry – which requires the “don’t repress anything” model to keep itself in business. //
I can’t remember where I read it now (damn it!), but I’ve read about this too. About how forcing someone to relive the trauma through therapy actually reinforced the memories and made the PTSD worse.
Therapy is a great thing. But it is not a one-size-fits-all solution.
A good friend of mine had a near-drowning experience recently. She was completely traumatized and kept re-living it – she would wake up in a cold sweat, she kept finding herself back in that moment in her brain. I was extremely worried about her. The response she got from friends made it worse. “Well, but if your flipper was caught in the rocks, couldn’t you have gotten your foot free?” “I’m not sure why you didn’t call for help?” “You weren’t even in over your head. How could you even drown?”
grrrrr. It was so infuriating. Right, because when you’re drowning, you are able to calmly consider your options. People drown in, what, 10 seconds? It doesn’t take that long.
She ended up going to a PTSD specialist who did have her “tell the story” in full – multiple times – and she found enormous relief in it. It really helped her put it behind her. I’m not sure what he said to her – I don’t think all that much. It was in the re-telling that she was able to move past it.
So there must be some value in it.
However, the fact that there is loads of evidence on the other side of the scale – that repression has value – and that that evidence has been totally ignored by the self-help industry – well. It’s pretty sketchy.
Obviously I have strong feelings. My doctors have literally saved my life. But I’m doing Cognitive Therapy, which has been proven to help people with my bad-ass diagnosis actually keep the illness under control. Again, studies have been done. Cognitive Therapy is all about re-framing, re-wording – sometimes it feels like out-and-out deflection. For example, I am literally not allowed to think about certain things. There’s a whole process called “thought stopping” – some people wear elastics around their wrist and snap it when they catch themselves thinking a bad thought that has been identified by the doctor – or whatever. And you’re flat out just not allowed to think about it. Or to see it as a passing cloud, far overhead. And my God, it works. It’s been a life-saver.
I know it’s a very personal topic for people and like you say one size does not fit all.
Wow. I’m glad your friend is OK! And those responses she got from friends! Do they tell people with depression to just “cheer up”? Jeez.
I certainly think there is great value in therapy. I should have specified that I think different people and different situations require different approaches. I think most good therapists know this.
Self-help culture? Not so much.
I know – the uncomprehending and, yes, judgmental responses of friends made it worse for her, no doubt. She began to second guess her actions – when, duh, she was drowning.
She was saved by a woman who was strolling by in a snorkel mask, who saw immediately that my friend was in distress, reached down, unhooked her caught flipper, and held her up.
The other bad thing about the self-help industry is the unintended consequence of using “I was a victim” as a badge of honor – something that would be completely incomprehensible to the human race over the last 5,000 freakin’ years. Maybe we could learn something from our ancestors? Maybe they knew something we didn’t about survival. You shouldn’t STOP in that victim place. Therapy should help you incorporate it, move on, integrate.
I see this dynamic in acting classes too sometimes – where people are basically congratulated for being able to sob. The “criers” get all the praise. But too much focus on emotion in acting class ends up prioritizing emotion over other equally valuable things in the actor’s arsenal – like action and thought. If ALL you have is emotion, you can’t act at all. I see that all the time with beginning actors. Sure, you can cry, but you can’t make sense of a text, you can’t build a momentum, you can’t analyze a script, you can’t LISTEN … focusing only on emotion means an actor is focusing on the wrong thing. I see it all the time and I think it’s a byproduct of the omnipresence of the self-help industry. The good acting teachers have to really fight against it.
“The “criers” get all the praise. “
HAHAHA
Yes!!
also: // having and eating his cake/sons //
Hello, Dad!
Oh. My. God.
HA!
Um. My HA is in response to Helena’s post:
“Hello, Dad!”
Again – so sorry about the lack of indentation. I know I’m in charge here and I should probably try to figure it out.
Do the best you all can!!
//I should probably try to figure it out.//
Probably something to do with Fibonacci numbers. (I got nuthin’).
No worries! I know just enough about web code to know how frustrating it is to deal with!
Awesome breakdown all around Sheila, you kicked this one out of the park. I wanna marry your breakdown of the Sam-John conversation. The family stuff is g o l d gold. So many yes sirs. So many feelings!
Hi Elkins….bye Elkins. Another one bites the dust. The length of that cold open is awesome. I cannot deal with the excessive forced trashiness of the vampires (Luthor with his dirty square-face-Trent-Reznor thing is a big NO for me, ha ha. I prefer my vamps more playful) or that lace-up top but I can certainly deal with the time Kate gets to establish her presence. She’s great.
I love the natural lighting in the first Sam and Dean scene. Daylight, big windows, a little grey and washed-out. Absolutely stellar invisible work from the lighting team. I think Sam looks even better than Dean.
Dean recognising the name Elkins. He has his dad’s journal memorised, pretty much. In those gaps you mention…lotta time spent reading that thing. Heartbreaker. Speaking of gaps, I also love how much of the journal is crossed out. Who are those people John knew and then erased? Who are these people he “kind of had a falling out” with? It’s a general saying but my favourite iteration is from Justified: You run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. You run into assholes all day — you’re the asshole.
Hunters are traumatized drunks covered in weapons.
Which is why Garth and Charlie are the best and so utterly absolutely essential these days (especially the latter).
The PO Box! Elkins doing a time-out so he can grab a letter opener or whatever for his message…Dean’s perfect graphite rubbing….Sam’s superintense face approx 2cm from the lock as Dean cracks it. ha haaaa
Yes yes yes on the awful collaboration of those family roles. Sam fighting to get out of it is just part of the game. Not fair. I am so with you on the anxiety of Sam questioning him. These scenes hang over the rest of the season like the sword of Damocles — well that sword just fell on Dean for the nth time, I suppose. Dean almost invisible in the shadow in the car with his babyface on, Sam and John in the light, duking it out.
You are on point with your clips! I love watching early episodes when the lines that are so familiar from previouslies crop up. Saving people, hunting things, the family business; Samuel Colt made a gun; etc etc. It’s in our DNA now! And his voice in those voiceovers is astounding. Gravel out of the Marinas Trench. Dean’s voice has been sinking towards that point for seasons now but he’s not there yet — will never get there. Dean will never be enough for that, which is to say he’s too much. A good thing of course.
Is Sam driving with his KNEE up on the DOOR? How long are his LEGS??? That little double-take of aggression Sam does is amazing. I just love that a big part of what pisses Sam off is how much Dean is diminished around their dad. It’s not something you see represented much — someone being mad in that way. It’s complex and beautiful.
It’s hard to believe John was only in seven episodes, two of them a scene only. He is a heavyweight presence. Even when smiling he has zero levity; he is made of uranium 92 and will. That pause before he admits he was wrong goes on forever. You can believe anything of him — oh he withstood centuries of Alistair’s torture and then strolled up and out of the gates of Hell and wrenched Azazel out of his vessel? Yes sir I believe.
Okay Spongebob/Nosferatu is making me ROAR.
And dammit, Luther is totally Trent Reznor. Good call.
// Hi Elkins….bye Elkins. //
Ha. Yes, it’s an awesome opening. A really deep teaser, atmospheric.
// Who are those people John knew and then erased? //
That journal, man. It’s not a prop. It’s a character. I totally believe that every page is filled. And yes, the crossing out. Done. Erased from the journal, erased from life. The whole Henry Winchester thing – connecting to the journal – was pretty killer. Gave some shadings to Dad – something they never really discussed, unless I’m missing something. That he grew up without a Dad. Nobody ever really talks about it.
// You run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. You run into assholes all day — you’re the asshole. //
Oh my God, that is great. I have a friend who is always ranting and raving about how horrible customer service is. I bet, though, that she goes into those interactions already pissed off and is a bitch, which then sets the tone. Because more often than not I have wonderful experiences with customer service – sure, there are some jerks – but I try to go into that experience open and not blaming them – and blah blah blah. You really have to take responsibility for who you are being out in the world, not to get all woo woo about it.
// Which is why Garth and Charlie are the best and so utterly absolutely essential these days (especially the latter). //
Amen. I adore Garth. I am sad that he is probably out of the series now. What an awesome loving unembarrassed presence.
// Sam’s superintense face approx 2cm from the lock as Dean cracks it. ha haaaa //
hahahaha I love your eye for detail. Seriously, Sam can you move back a bit so I can swing open the damn door and not hit you on the nose?
// And his voice in those voiceovers is astounding. Gravel out of the Marinas Trench. Dean’s voice has been sinking towards that point for seasons now but he’s not there yet — will never get there. Dean will never be enough for that, which is to say he’s too much. A good thing of course. //
Dean’s whole vocal transformation is amazing and was one of my real clues that JA is a hell of an actor and that this is a character part. He’s a clear leading man doing a character role – very few leading guys are given that chance or can even pull it off. The voice! And how his voice shows up in “The End” – how Dad-like he is there. Even worse than Dad. A bit more manipulative and rough. Brilliant.
// Is Sam driving with his KNEE up on the DOOR? How long are his LEGS??? //
Hahaha, no wonder he’s leaning his torso back. He doesn’t have any damn room.
Those two car scenes between the brothers are just GREAT.
// I just love that a big part of what pisses Sam off is how much Dean is diminished around their dad. It’s not something you see represented much — someone being mad in that way. It’s complex and beautiful. //
Agreed. It’s so siblings-ish. It’s so protective and misguided and loving – all at the same time. Great writing.
// You can believe anything of him — oh he withstood centuries of Alistair’s torture and then strolled up and out of the gates of Hell and wrenched Azazel out of his vessel? Yes sir I believe. //
Cosign. And yes, phenomenal that he had 7 episodes – is that really all he had? Crazy. His work should be celebrated. He STILL haunts the show.
Awesome screencaps, by the way.
//John has a state-of-the-art weapons panel that pops open, with different sized slots for each gun. It’s totally Bat Man. //
That screen cap of Dad’s trunk, with slots for each weapon is hysterical. I’d never noticed the little white plastic bottles of holy water on each side, like something you’d find in hotel bathroom. Two different kinds of shuriken – who the hell ever uses those?
And Elkin’s journal. Is. Nuts. You can just make out bits of words in your picture. Handwriting -3/10, must try harder. And what is it? A translation of Hittite tomb inscriptions? Concrete poetry? Dadaism? Pages copies out from Finnegan’s Wake? Was he on acid in the ’60s?
John saying, “I think I’m okay, thanks” as he takes out his own machete almost feels like an out-take. It’s so solemn I could definitely see all three guys bursting into laughter at it.
And oh God, the trial size holy water bottles – hadn’t noticed those! hahaha
and in Elkins’ journal there’s what looks like a little red-pen snowman figure – with a devil’s trap in the belly. And yeah – is that an incantation going on?
// “I think I’m okay, thanks” as he takes out his own machete almost feels like an out-take. //
A complete ‘get out your rulers, boys’ moment. I can’t keep a straight face. Monster-size truck, monster-size machete, monster sized willy. Keep it zipped up, Dad!
hahaha totally “get out your rulers.”
I got on this episode review last night.
When I wrote my comments it was always in reply to something that somebody else had written, but my comments never posted in reply to others’ but always at the bottom of the other comments. It looks like I posted about four times randomly at the end.
Do you know why that is? Here I am just posting in Leave A Reply at the bottom.
I know – we’ve discussed upthread. I do not know why the comments are not indenting. Or it only appears that my comments are indenting. I don’t have time to investigate and need a coding friend to have a look at why that is.
Do the best you can.
Excerpt what you’re replying to – or the person’s name.
//And oh God, the trial size holy water bottles//
Lavender and lily of the valley, maybe.
//little red-pen snowman figure – with a devil’s trap in the belly.//
Satanic Frozen, maybe?
It looks like there’s a cartoon sun-burst in the head of the snowman – and then in the center there appears to be a number.
I am picturing some prop person scribbling all that down and I love that person whoever he/she is.
Got to stop saying maybe.
A man has to have a cologne, Helena.
as well as a necklace at the ready.
//I am picturing some prop person scribbling all that down and I love that person whoever he/she is.//
Yes. Props to that person. And to whoever did the three face screaming whatever on Elkins’s wall. Unless he’s a King Crimson fan.
Also Dad’s journal is full of fabulous drawings. Noone in the show ever comments on the fact that Dad’s an artist! I can just see Dad doodling away on long, lonely nights as he lies in wait for monsters in his big black lonely truck, or steadily crossing out names in his journal, one by one, until there are none left.
It’s a lonely life.
//A man has to have a cologne, Helena. //
Ah, John, I can smell your musk.
// I can just see Dad doodling away on long, lonely nights as he lies in wait for monsters in his big black lonely truck, or steadily crossing out names in his journal, one by one, until there are none left. //
Creepy! Awesome!
And yeah, the wall hangings in general are just amazing. Edvard Munch was the props designer. How could you sleep with those gaping maws on the wall?
//How could you sleep with those gaping maws on the wall?//
There’s a drawing in Dad’s journal of a demon/skeleton thing, with stippling that really reminds me of Maurice Sendak’s artwork. Was Sendak an inspiration ;-)?
Maybe Dad took a vegan art history course himself.
phenomenal that he had 7 episodes – is that really all he had?
He had 6 and change really, by my count; change being Home and AHBL2. Scattered throughout the first 44 episodes of nearly 200. Crazy.
Loving the discussion and allusions so far in the comments. The drawing out of John’s skeeviness and Mr Mysterioso act has been great. Sheila you said it only as a throwaway but re: other things Dean could do besides have a home; I do not want him in the armed forces. To trade one father for another? Nooooo! I would rather he finish his barista course and vegan art history degree!
John shooting Luthor is pretty much restaged when Dean shoots Azazel right? So much for revenge not being a life goal Luthor. You and all your friends were gross (sorry Sheila) and wore too many cowboy hats inside to live.
Natalie you should never have to pay for drinks again. Great work and many thanks to you and your colleagues.
// I would rather he finish his barista course and vegan art history degree! //
Nooooo! hahahaha “vegan art history.” ahhhh, comedy.
// wore too many cowboy hats inside to live. //
HA.
“So why’d you kill those people?”
“They wore cowboy hats inside.”
“Good enough for me.”
Good call on the echo of killing Luther in the Azazel moment – I need to re-watch. I can’t believe I am almost done with Season 1 re-caps. Nuts.
Also – there are moments here with these Dad episodes when I suddenly realize/remember that he had a whole other son – this whole secret life – which, of course, JDM probably wouldn’t know as an actor – but his performance is so mysterious you can project all of that onto it. The pictures of him taking his other son fishing and stuff – I need to re-watch that episode again. The shit that goes on between Sam and Dean is EPIC there.
Noone in the show ever comments on the fact that Dad’s an artist!
Maybe that was Elkins’s mistake. “Oh John that’s a great drawing of a skinwalker. Great effort. Hey just a suggestion, when you’re trying to foreshorten muzzles — put the gun away, John.”
hahahahahahahahahahaa
Reminds me of that Eddie Izzard bit about Hitler being a failed painter.
“I can’t get the trees right. I MUST KILL EVERYONE IN THE WORLD.”
Here’s a kicker: I think the maths pretty much works out that John would have visited Adam for the first time just after Sam left for college. Adam would not have been on the cards at all in these early days, but like you say, John is the heart of darkness and you can believe just about anything of him.
Jared or Jensen said something hilarious about that recently. “He got to have fun with Dad, screw him, he can stay in the pit.”
Poor guy. I always thought it was absolutely hilarious that we “met” this hugely destabilising, shattering character and it turns out he was dead the whole time. I love this show.
// “He got to have fun with Dad, screw him, he can stay in the pit.” //
hahahahahaha
and I know. That whole Adam thing was great. And it really just remains unresolved and un-talked-about – and he’s in the pit, and oh well. Ha.
I need to watch that first Adam episode again – I am not remembering a lot of the nuances.
Izzard’s the best! I hope Mary chose the honeymoon destination not John.
It’s great. The references — Cousin Oliver’s diner, etc. Delicious and traumatic in the best Supernatural way. Dean is out of his MIND the entire time.
He really is, as I recall. Looking forward to re-visiting. Dean doesn’t even dwell on the trauma though, right – doesn’t he skip immediately to “Dad wanted to keep him out of this life, so we’re gonna keep him the hell out of it”?
Loved this recap, Sheila.
I love the Colt! Best MacGuffin EVER! The only spinoff of SPN I want is
Supernatural: Frontier Days with a younger Samuel Colt hunting with Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. I don’t even care if it doesn’t make sense but I’d watch the hell out of that.
One thing I wanted to mention is the”Yes Sir” scene with John and the Boys. It only jumped out at me because you put the pictures next to one another.
I can’t articulate it very well, but to me, in Shadow, Dean looks a bit like a little boy with a submissive face showing that maybe he still thinks that Dad should be obeyed and probably does know best. But, in “Dead Man’s Blood”, to me, Dean is saying “Yes Sir” but he doesn’t mean it anymore at all. It’s all in something Jensen does with his face that shows that Dean in the space of these few episodes is a little bit older, a little bit wiser and a lot less naive about his Dad. I don’t know how Jensen does it but I am quite literally in awe of his talent.
pretty much — but then half of the freakout is over Sam’s willingness to bring him into the fold. The whole episode is one long does not compute. That genius reaction he has to Adam’s question about what John did for their birthdays, my god. There’s a really interesting team-up with Sam and Adam, you know, really practical in the most dire and dark way, as was Sam’s wont that season. And Dean is flailing on the outer.
And of course — it was never Adam anyway!
Right, we invest in this guy – and then all along he was a ghoul??
hahahaha SICK.
Except for the most sincere crier I’ve ever seen named Jensen Ackles :(. Man, it pisses me off that he’s never received one prime-time Emmy nomination for his work in Supernatural. I know, I know it’s all because genre show and CW but come on, people, wake up!
Maybe once the show completes it’s 10th season, he’ll get like a Lifetime Achievement Emmy or something for it. :(
RE: Adam
That first episode with him—well, Fake!Adam—was fantastic family stuff. What I particularly loved was how quickly Sam embraced Adam as family, how enthusiastically he jumped into the role of BIG BROTHER. Sam was excited because it gave him a chance to be Dean.
And Dean was just not having it. Poor Adam got the brunt of Dean’s issues with John.
I also love how not impressed Real!Adam was when we finally meet him. A chip off the old block.
May –
In re: the episode with Adam –
// What I particularly loved was how quickly Sam embraced Adam as family, how enthusiastically he jumped into the role of BIG BROTHER. Sam was excited because it gave him a chance to be Dean. //
Right! Showing him gun stuff (against that huge mural on the wall – absurd).
And I love the character of Adam. You kind of expect him to cower in the face of these impressive older brothers. Nope.
Sorry threading not working :(.
Re “Jump the Shark”
My favorite part of that episode is Dean skulking about the airducts and the mausoleum. And Jensen’s high-bar move to get out of the mausoleum is all manner of HOT HOT HOT. It’s Athletic!Dean porn and we need more of it.
Cat – Oh God, that acrobat move. Awesome. “we need more of it.” Hear hear!
God, I wish there were “like” buttons on here like facebook. There’s so much that I want to respond to and I only have so much time. All of the grief stuff here – yes to all of the above. Watching Dean whale on the Impala was upsetting and cathartic at the same time. I know there have been times when I wished I could let loose with my grief and rage like that. I am too reserved for that, and when I boil over, I implode instead of exploding. Dean is actually healthier than me in that regard.
//I really do wish I had some understanding of how they ARE and how they ARE/ WOULD BE perceived by mental health professionals.//
evave2 – Just to give some context to the perspective I’m coming from and my qualifications, my bachelor’s is in psychology, I was a social worker in various capacities for about 10 years (child protective services for 3 of those years, as well as 3 years in a residential treatment facility), and I am now a little more than halfway through a master’s program in clinical mental health counseling. I am heading into my second semester (out of 3) of internship, and I am, at this point, qualified to diagnose.
There is a difference between assessing and diagnosing. Diagnosis is assigning a label. Assessment is gathering information and organizing it into a (hopefully) coherent narrative snapshot of who the client is. It’s an ongoing process, not a one-time thing. (Ideally, psychological diagnosis should be an ongoing process as well, but it often is not.) What I have written in various comments about Sam and Dean and John is definitely assessment, not diagnosis. I have often joked with family and friends about being the “keep talking, I’m diagnosing you” type of person, but in reality, I am hesitant to assign DSM labels to clients and try to do so only when it will benefit the client somehow. (Insurance companies often make this difficult. They want a name for what they’re paying for. Adjustment Disorder, which is categorized in the DSM under trauma-related disorders, gets used a lot by therapists when the insurance company requires a diagnosis.) Reasons TO diagnose can include things like guiding treatment planning, ensuring access to needed services, and it can also be a relief sometimes to clients to have a name for what they’ve experienced, and with that, the knowledge that there are ways to make it better. The biggest reasons NOT to diagnose are that these labels will follow people for the rest of their lives, and though we’ve made progress, there is still a LOT of stigma and limited understanding around mental illness. (May, I loved your point about telling people with depression to cheer up. It is amazing to me that there’s so much public information about depression, and the go-to response for a lot of people is still this, “Well, have you tried NOT being sad?” Ditto to Sheila about your friend’s near-drowning. I think a lot of these responses are well-meaning and probably come from a place of wanting to make it better but not knowing how, but good god, we need to do a better job of teaching people to listen empathetically instead of trying to fix everything.)
As this relates to the Winchesters, like I said, my comments are assessment, not diagnosis. I would hesitate to diagnose any of them. I think Sam and Dean definitely meet the DSM criteria for PTSD. Sam might be responsive to that diagnosis. Dean definitely would not be. Dean would pretty much never be a willing participant in therapy. He refers to his one experience with it as being “thraped.” Still, I don’t know that either one of them would really benefit from a diagnosis. There is a limit to how far I am willing to go with pathologizing people for being products of their childhood environment. As my professor said in my Children and Adolescents class, “It’s a shame that there’s no diagnosis for Crappy-Ass Parenting.”
I think a case could be made for John having PTSD, too. It’s unclear how far back his pathology goes. He lost his own father at a young age, and assumed that his father abandoned him and his family. He was a Vietnam vet. I can’t recall any references to what his experiences in Vietnam might have been like, but there are hints in the form of his conflict with Mary in the Heaven episode that possibly speak to PTSD from his time in Vietnam affecting his family even before Mary’s death, and then it was just compounded when Mary died. There are also definitely narcissistic and possibly antisocial/sociopathic tendencies in John, but I would stop short of diagnosing him with a personality disorder. Those are a Big Deal in mental health. (The DSM-5 has actually done something interesting with the personality disorders compared to past editions, in that clinicians can look at the disorders as being on a spectrum rather than discrete diagnoses, which I think is a shift we definitely needed.)
It’s also interesting to note that parentification is not a recognized diagnosis. Should it be? I don’t know. There’s a definite “syndrome” quality to it – a distinct symptomology. And it definitely exists, and Dean is the most accurate portrayal of a parentified adult child that I have ever seen in popular media. But, again, it runs the risk of pathologizing the child for Crappy-Ass Parenting.
I hope this is at least somewhat the feedback you were looking for, evave2. Ultimately, though, Helena nailed it right on the head with the “I’ll watch one or two episodes” morphing into “where the hell did the last 8 weeks of my life go?” comment. Seriously, Helena, do you have a surveillance camera in my house? Lol.
Natalie –
// (The DSM-5 has actually done something interesting with the personality disorders compared to past editions, in that clinicians can look at the disorders as being on a spectrum rather than discrete diagnoses, which I think is a shift we definitely needed.) //
Cosign! The more I learned about my own diagnosis – the more I learned that it works on a spectrum – which was certainly a bit … calming, at least from my perspective, in the early days of getting a diagnosis when I was truly out of my mind. I don’t like labels – although it was a relief to FINALLY get a diagnosis (in my experience). But understanding that there are gradations of it … I don’t know. It’s heavy stuff. A diagnosis can feel like it IS your identity.
But the spectrum theory is hopeful progress.
And yes, sometimes the simplest answer may very well be best. What is wrong with that person? Their parents were terrible. Like my frustration with everyone diagnosing Holden Caulfield with various mental illnesses – without once mentioning that his older brother just died and maybe he’s, you know, grieving?
People do not give enough space or understanding to how grief actually operates.
I’ve said before – Old-fashioned folks had the right idea. After you lose a loved one, you wear mourning for a period of time – an outward symbol of what has happened to you. Or you wear a black armband for a year. It is a warning and reminder to others: “I am not fully operational right now.” They understood that it takes a YEAR to get back your bearings, in some cases. But now, boom, your dad dies and you go back to work the week after the funeral. And you are expected to be 100%.
I yearned for the black arm-band tradition in the year after my father died when I didn’t even know which end was up – sometimes literally. Grief was disorienting. One of my doctors said it acts like an actual concussion -memory is impaired, emotional fluidity – everything.
That’s why Sam giving Dean a hard time about how Dean isn’t dealing with Dad’s death – a WEEK after Dad died – a WEEK – really got to me. Strong feelings. Working on your car is a wonderful way to handle the first waves of loss or whatever else you’re feeling. Especially if the car is symbolic of your relationship to your Dad, etc.
Thank you for all this, Natalie – I think everyone gets a lot out of your perspective!
//This may be a tangent, and don’t feel pressure to respond – but why is that?//
(In case it’s not clear by now, I love tangents, and I love talking psychology/mental health theories. Be careful what you ask for ;-)
There are a bunch of reasons that it’s not my favorite theory. FST is a really useful theory for conceptualizing and understanding clients in the context of their social environments. I agree with most of the points in the theory – family roles, and homeostasis, and there’s stuff about overt and covert family rules (an overt rule might be “Susie’s bedtime is 8:00” and the covert rule is “Susie can push it back to 8:30 if she whines enough”) that all makes sense. It’s also valid that people do not exist in a vacuum. We are who we are in the context of the people that surround us, always. For me, personally, though, I don’t think the theory has much to offer in terms of interventions and therapeutic approaches that are not dealt with better in other theories.
I also find working with entire families stressful. (I have not taken the Couples and Families class yet, and I’m dreading it.) My strength is in working with individuals. I am an energy sponge, and when you get an entire family in a room, especially a family in distress, there is usually a lot of conflicting energy and it can be tough for me to get my bearings. When I can isolate one person and concentrate on them, I am not overwhelmed by the energy I’m picking up and I don’t have to try to differentiate who is bringing what to the table. I realize that this probably sounds kind of hippie-dippy and new-agey, but it’s my reality :-)
Also, my own personal worldview is more cognitive-behavioral than anything. Ultimately, I believe that the only person one can have any control over and change is him/herself, regardless of what the family system looks like. And I think thoughts and behaviors and emotions have a circular relationship with one another, but the parts that we can consciously control are the thoughts and behaviors, which will then influence the emotional responses.
Natalie –
I can only imagine how stressful it must be working with entire families. Ugh. Energy drain. Picking up on all that stress, and all the dysfunction.
I just saw an extremely upsetting film called “Hellion” – it opens on Friday – a widowed dad (played by Aaron Paul) who has two sons, age 13 and 10. There were definitely moments I thought of the Winchesters – but in general, the chaos of that family – how dad has checked out because of his own grief, and alcoholism, as well as guilt about some stuff in the past – and the two kids basically raising each other.
It’s a fantastic film, but truly upsetting – and I thought of some of your comments in the aftermath. There’s a CPS worker in it, who is just confronted with the situation of a man who obviously does love his children – but literally cannot take care of them, because he drinks too much, leaves them alone all day, is a wreck himself – and so difficult decisions are made. It’s horrible.
I felt for all involved. There are no villains.
And like I mentioned somewhere else upthread – my treatment is Cognitive Therapy. It’s worked wonders. I have had to practice, and to be honest, sometimes I miss the drama of my illness – the exhilarating highs and all that – but talk-therapy was useless for me. Talk therapy made me worse. (I am only speaking for myself now.) Cognitive stuff actually re-directed thought patterns, introduced new pathways of thinking, and – in many cases – just changed the wording of things. If you describe something differently, you may very well FEEL differently about it. I was skeptical about all of it. But my doctors help – and it’s really worked for me. Knock wood.
Things I’m thankful for today:
1. I’m thankful I didn’t say “John screwed over his boys,” because I don’t want to see whatever image Helena would post in response.
2. I’m thankful Sheila posted the training montage from Team America: World Police but not the sex scene. Dean draws the line at necrophilia, I draw the line at puppet coprophilia.
3. I’m thankful for Jessie’s Justified clip, I’ve already posted it under a “Perspecitve is worth 10 IQ points” heading on Facebook.
hahahaha
// Dean draws the line at necrophilia, I draw the line at puppet coprophilia. //
hahahahaha I think that’s a pretty reasonable line to draw.
Cat:
// It’s all in something Jensen does with his face that shows that Dean in the space of these few episodes is a little bit older, a little bit wiser and a lot less naive about his Dad. //
I agree.
The moment is exactly the same but it feels different. And that’s how you really successfully can use repetition in my opinion.
Sorry about the threading problem everyone – I saw that my coding friend was futzing around in here, testing – I’m on my phone currently – hopefully we’ll find some way to resolve it. That is, he will. Because he’s awesome.
Natalie –
When I can isolate one person and concentrate on them, I am not overwhelmed by the energy I’m picking up and I don’t have to try to differentiate who is bringing what to the table. I realize that this probably sounds kind of hippie-dippy and new-agey, but it’s my reality :-)
This sounds completely reasonable to me. I have a background in physics, and I think of the introversion/extroversion spectrum in terms of activation energies and energy equilibriums (homeostasis!) in the brain. We all give and get energy (thinking in terms of neurotransmitters, not new age stuff) during social interactions and it makes complete sense to me that some of us have a “I can never get too much” level (like Sheila’s came in through the bedroom window boyfriend) and some of us have much lower level of satiation/saturation – like me.
I don’t know if there’s any research to support that analogy (do you?), but it’s a useful way for me to reconcile my own “I’m full, I’m done” reaction to socializing in groups – no matter how much I may tell myself that it’s rude to leave, easily misconstrued by professional peers, etc.
Mutecypher –
Interesting! Energy, equilibrium – I have definitely learned to totally protect my “Okay, I’m done” feelings and not feel bad about them. Sometimes I have to even organize my life around them – I can’t go out 4 nights a week, for example. Even 3 is pushing it. I need down-time, to re-charge. I used to push it, feel bad about it. Well, not with “came in through the bedroom window” guy (hahahaha) – I never felt bad about saying, “Dude. I’m done. I have to get some sleep. GO. AWAY.” Maybe because he never took it personally.
But equilibrium – emotional homeostasis – nice! I really prize it now.
//Maybe Dad took a vegan art history course himself.//
Nope. Dad illustrated a children’s book but it was called ‘Kill the Fucking Wild Things Now’ with how to diagrams, and then a follow up, ‘What, you mean vampires aren’t goddam extinct yet?’
Kill the Fucking Wild Things Now, by John Winchester.
They should sell that book at SPN cons.
//Two different kinds of shuriken – who the hell ever uses those?//
Um, I think we all know why…
Seriously though, John seems like enough of a pretentious douche to think he needs/can use shuriken.
hahaha I love when he says, “I’m amazing.” in that clip. That whole fight scene is slapstick genius.
“Crappy-Ass Parenting.” I think that shall be my new go-to diagnosis :P
RE: John’s mental state. The more I think of it, the more convinced I become that the Cupid’s mark was what edged John into crazy-obsessive territory. He wasn’t perfect before it, and likely experienced enough trauma in his youth to be scarred by it, but Mary talks about him (in “In the Beginning”) as coming back from the war relatively unaffected.
We see in the Famine episode that Cupid induced love can lead to crazy town. We also learn that John and Mary couldn’t stand each other and were unwittingly forced together by Heaven. Heaven forced John to love Mary, despite any thoughts or feeling he might have otherwise, and when she died those feelings (or is it obsession?) broke him.
So many great comments on a wonderful recap. Just want to add-the line from Dean “and that means you, too” when he was breaking up the fight-that feels like a real turning point for Dean. That is where I felt it was no longer the Dean following John blindly, but where he was seeing John for what he was.
JDM-he really is a wonderful actor, because you can see his appeal so vividly for his kids. I almost bought into it the first time I watched Season 1-but the throwaway line about the Impala, how casually cruel he was to Dean-I thought “I know who you are”.
Maureen –
// because you can see his appeal so vividly for his kids. I almost bought into it the first time I watched Season 1 //
Yeah, me too. And that Impala moment was key. We’ve SO identified with Dean by that point in the series that that cruel side-swipe was like, “Nope, John Winchester, I am DONE with you if you treat him like that.”
Especially when Dean doesn’t fight back, or bristle, or even get annoyed. We see him get ashamed.
The whole family dynamic is just so richly set up. They did an excellent job and it’s still paying off … a DECADE later. That’s insane.
Oh Sheila I know it’s up on the screen but I cannot explain it to myself.
I “see” things but I don’t know how to interpret them into a complete character study.
I don’t think JDM’s John was ever a happily married man. The guy we saw 11/2/1983 was just there for one night. I think he was the end result of angels and demons screwing around with his life. The previous John WAS a nice guy. But JDM’s John was one mean motha.
Seeing how his kids were just laid out by his decisions is so upsetting.
Jessie:
In re: the episode with Adam:
Okay, I re-watched it last night. Dean is a WRECK. Just a WRECK. The “killing” of Adam in the background! Smashing his head! Intense. And I had forgotten the final moment, with Dean saying to Sam “You’re more like Dad than I ever was.”
Fascinating, in lieu of what we all are talking about here in re: “Dead Man’s Blood.”
Great episode.
Hello all:
So my coding friend is stumped in re: the threading issue on my site – I’ll let you know if he figures something out. He’s brilliant!
In the meantime: sorry! I know it’s annoying.
To quote the King of Siam, Tis a puzzlement.
//Seriously, Helena, do you have a surveillance camera in my house? Lol.//
Natalie, if it reassures you in any way, I’m just describing one of the aspects of Winchester Syndrome – highly contagious, and no spectrum – it seems to be all or nothing and it’s incurable. Other symptoms include sudden interest in antique guns, leather journals, Joan Crawford, Book of Revelation, Grumpy Old Men, classic rock.
Thanks for your awesome assessments and insights. All the best with completing the training. I think the profession will be lucky to have you.
Joan Crawford. hahaha
Definitely highly contagious and no spectrum! All or nothing!
Dammit, I just wanted to check the show out because I wanted to write about the passionate fandom and figured I should do some research beforehand – and look what has happened.
It’s like this….
//And I had forgotten the final moment, with Dean saying to Sam “You’re more like Dad than I ever was.”//
And that was not a compliment. Dean is disturbed by it.
//Dammit, I just wanted to check the show out because I wanted to write about the passionate fandom //
Are you going to write your passionate fandom article or …
RE: emotional homeostasis
I like it! I’ve always found descriptions of introversion/extroversion in terms of energy to be the most helpful to understanding the difference. Extroverts gain energy from socializing, introverts lose energy socializing. I’m highly introverted and I’ve always been annoyed with the assumption that I must be shy as well. I am not shy. I just don’t want to talk to you :P
// Vegan Art History//
Does that mean they only study art made by vegans, or that they only study things like “Still Life Without Pheasant, Lobster, and Octopus” and Warhol’s tomato soup images?
Still Life Without Pheasant. hahahahahahaha
//In re: the episode with Adam://
By the way, is this the one that starts with Sam sitting on the hood of the Impala brushing his teeth and Dean taking about five minutes to half climb, half fall out of the car? That’s one of my favourite moments of purely physical comedy in the whole series. No explanation as to where they are or why this is happening, it just happens. And then Adam rings, right?
We were talking a post or two ago about favourite moments and the balance between verbal and physical comedy. Some of the phone calls really hit that sweet spot for me. There’s one, I think beginning of Season 3, where they are in an abandoned house with the hunter couple who are giving Sam the stink eye. Dean’s offscreen making a call and in the midst of a deadly serious conversation between Sam and the hunters looms onscreen with the line, ‘And if you’re as pretty as your voice I would LOVE to have an appletini with you’ The difference between the tone of voice and facial expression, a kind of exasperated ‘for fuck sake lady will you let me get off the line now? And there’s another episode in Season I think, where Dean calls Bobby. It just goes something like, ‘Hi, it’s me. Dean. Winchester. You never hear Bobby say ‘who the fuck are you?’ or be completely obstreperous, it’s all played out through JA’s reactions. I love moments like that, a propos of nothing, adding nothing to the plot, just about character – I’m in stitches.
Helena –
Yes, the Adam episode starts with one of my favorite “Dean waking up” sequences ever. It is over-the-top. It is damn near balletic. It goes on forever! He’s staggering around, rubbing his eyes, falling out of the car, bumping his head, it’s so great!
I’m with you – I love the “moments”. JA, especially, doesn’t miss a beat.
And ha, forgot about when he has to say his last name to Bobby. “Dean. Winchester..” hahahaha
I am “replying” to this under your very good explanation of what it is you do.
I never knew any of this stuff. It makes sense to not “diagnose” due to the ramifications down the line. I was an insurance biller for a hospital and it always pissed me off that somebody could have their insurance cancelled for cancer treatment at 50 because they had acne at 15. Recission, anyone?
So you’re saying that Dean does fit into the life experiences of parentification but that is not a diagnosis because it doesn’t “mean” anything in terms of behavior just that we can see Dean’s “building blocks” of behaviorl towards Sam. I watched Trial and Error recently and Dean gives Sam a little speech that he was going to die bloody with a gun in his hand and the HIS happy ending is Sam out of it, with kids and grandkids and Viagra. I watched it with a friend and commented on the parentification theory, that that WAS what a parent would say, not a brother, and we discussed the theory in relation to what we were watching. It made me “see” Dean’s sticking the angel into Sam to heal him in a different light: it WAS what most parents would do.
Again, I hope this is RIGHT underneath your comment.
evave2 – as I’ve mentioned upthread, obviously my comments section is all messed up right now. “Replies” are not lining up. So far nobody can figure out why this is happening. So like I said, do the best you can.
And sorry, I know it’s annoying!
This is responding to Maureen and Sheila discussing John’s passing the shit down the hill onto Dean re the Impala.
I thought that maybe Dean HADN’T gotten Baby detailed or whatever for a while and knew that Dad was right BUT considering what Bobby said later in the Season (there was supernatural stuff going on like 10x more than even the last year) I don’t know when he had the time. PLUS he was now on the FBI’s most wanted list…I didn’t like John for it, it got my back up. But I DISliked Sam for laughing at Dean re the comment. Dean tried to discuss John/Sam fighting and Sam’s immediate pissing match with John while he was with Sam. And Sam LAUGHED at Dad’s dissing Dean. Not pretty.
evave2 – I don’t know. I have siblings. I totally relate to that moment when Sam almost seems psyched Dean got in trouble. I also just flat out like it as a moment. It’s human.
Helena – I’m not so sure I want to write the fandom article now. Have to think about it.
May –
//RE: John’s mental state. The more I think of it, the more convinced I become that the Cupid’s mark was what edged John into crazy-obsessive territory.//
Well, if you’re going to bring the actual plot of the show into it, sure ;-) Seriously, though, I don’t know – when I watched the Cupid/Famine episode, my only thought was that the “John and Mary couldn’t stand each other at first” thing was played for laughs – it’s pretty much the beginning of every single rom-com ever, as pointed out in one of my all-time favorite movies: http://youtu.be/7dnbt5cuunc?t=1m21s
But, of course, that wouldn’t be the first time SPN has played something both for laughs and on a deeper level at the same time. I may need to watch that episode again, now.
//He wasn’t perfect before it, and likely experienced enough trauma in his youth to be scarred by it, but Mary talks about him (in “In the Beginning”) as coming back from the war relatively unaffected.//
Again, I’m not sure. There is a “delayed onset” specifier for PTSD in the DSM, that the full diagnostic criteria are not met for a minimum of six months after the traumatic event, but there’s no maximum time limit. PTSD can hit years later, with only minor indicators in the meantime. Usually there’s some kind of precipitating event, which in John’s case could very well have been Dean’s birth. But, of course, this is all just speculation. It’s not like I can sit down and conduct a clinical interview with John. (Come to think of it, that might be a fun DVD bonus feature, though.)
Mutecypher –
//I think of the introversion/extroversion spectrum in terms of activation energies and energy equilibriums (homeostasis!) in the brain. We all give and get energy (thinking in terms of neurotransmitters, not new age stuff) during social interactions//
I have actually heard some about this before, and it definitely makes sense to me! I am beyond any doubt an introvert. I like the idea of saturation levels. I have not seen any research about it, but I’ll have to look into that when I have a chance. Thanks!
Helena –
//Natalie, if it reassures you in any way, I’m just describing one of the aspects of Winchester Syndrome – highly contagious, and no spectrum – it seems to be all or nothing and it’s incurable.//
I’m definitely going to be lobbying to get that into the DSM-6. This is one case where it’s a relief to have a name for my diagnosis! Lol.
Hello All,
Sheila great recap. Loved the connection to the abyss for this episode because man if the abyss isn’t your family and the self you see in and through your family, I don’t know what is. I also really loved your mention of how disorienting this episode is emotionally, how much is left open, which can seem dangerous or out of control.
You have all mentioned such insightful and intense perspectives on the family dynamic and character reveal. These posts are great to read. Natalie, cheers to you for your work with those boys.
I wanted to throw out a different idea. So, I also feel like the vampire episodes have a fascinating resonance to them, and it got me thinking…. your fault Sheila… are vampires Dean’s opposite? Like the negative of an image. There are certainly similarities in that they are outliers, nocturnal, hedonistic, fierce and family oriented. However on a fundamental level, where a Vampire (by definition) must leach off of others to survive, they are definitely the ‘takers’ in a group, Dean strives to save lives, give aide, give life… Interesting how the vampire stories have gone when examined through this perspective. I mean, Dean is the one we see reverse vampirism on the show. I feel like there is something here…
Heather –
Wow, so much to chew on. The dark side. Vampires definitely bring out fascinating things in the show – I haven’t quite figured it all out yet – I should watch only the vampire episodes, back to back, and see what else I get.
Dizzying.
Also consider Dean’s so-called “neediness” – the fact that he depends on his family members for emotional nourishment/purpose. Still. To this day.
So while there is a “dark side” aspect to the vampires – they also are pretty much accurately reflecting Dean’s subconscious, the stuff he knows but can’t really say. I kind of alluded to that in the re-cap with the anxious blank moment Kate experiences when Luther isn’t pleased with her. Dean has that same kind of thing going on. Dad is his life-source, Sam.
Thanks for this nuance.
There really is something about the handling of vampires – and they keep returning to it. I thought “Twihard” was as explicit as it got – but then came “Alexis, Annie, whatever”. The most interesting part of Alexis Annie was that Dean absolutely had no awareness that she was HIM, that she lived his adolescence – that they were the same, in many ways. He didn’t even experience it as a reflection. Sheriff Mills did, too – it was her stolen motherhood, her own trauma – that was what the episode focused on, while Dean just flat out wanted to kill the young girl.
You would think Dean would have empathy – but the show is smart about trauma.
Back to the whole cult conversation. Those who are in a cult often have zero empathy for those who struggle within the same said cult. Trauma is not to be acknowledged, AT ALL COSTS. The only thing that matters is propping up your version of events, defending it. It’s that life-or-death. So of course Dean would miss the fact that that overly-sexualized teenage girl WAS him.
I may be missing some specifics – but there are four names in that vampire title. Alex, Alexis, Annie, Ann. Three of those names come up in conjunction with the teenage girl – but one of them, “Annie”, is never mentioned. “Annie” is NOT one of her many names. It seems to me that that “blank” – is there for a reason. That the name “Annie” is the meant to represent Dean. Possibly. Otherwise why have it in the title? If it’s not once mentioned in the text?
I might be over-thinking it.
Sorry, one more thing:
The other thing that happens in cults is that there’s a collaborative aspect to the group (obviously) – and there are certain levels of initiation rites – and with many groups it has to do with sex. So the mindset becomes: “Listen, I had to go through this to be part of the group – so you need to go through it too. No whining. If I could put up with it, so could you.”
A totally closed system.
And that’s what I saw in Dean’s reaction to the young girl in Alexis – and it was going on without him even realizing it.
Listen, sister, I went through all that too. I fucked people for the family business. I lured monsters into traps using my sex. And I didn’t murder anyone.
But, of course, he did. Sure, they were monsters, but that’s just splitting hairs at this point.
So while the episode prioritized Sheriff Mills – and she did a great job – the elephant in the room was Dean, and what was going on with Dean. Screw the Mark of Cain. His reaction had nothing to do with the Mark of Cain, in my opinion. It was a clamping-down on empathy so that he wouldn’t have to look.
evave2 –
//So you’re saying that Dean does fit into the life experiences of parentification but that is not a diagnosis because it doesn’t “mean” anything in terms of behavior just that we can see Dean’s “building blocks” of behaviorl towards Sam.//
I don’t think it’s that it doesn’t mean anything – it’s just that it’s not a diagnostic label. Rather, parentification is more of a framework for understanding a client. It is a very real phenomenon, and Dean is definitely parentified. I agree that the way Dean treats Sam is definitely more like a parent than an older brother, and I’ve had the exact same thought with the angel possession thing. I don’t have any kids of my own at this point, but I do have a niece who I love just as much as if she were mine, and if I were ever in a situation where I had to make a tough choice to keep her safe, you’d better believe that I’d do whatever it took to save her life, damn the consequences. Parental love is not rational. (This is also why I was so frustrated with Sam’s attitude after he found out about Gadreel. He had a right to be angry – it was a definite violation of both his will and his body – but he’s not stupid, and he has to be aware on some level that Dean loves him the way a parent would, and of course he’s going to go to extremes to protect Sam.)
Sheila –
//It is a warning and reminder to others: “I am not fully operational right now.” They understood that it takes a YEAR to get back your bearings, in some cases. But now, boom, your dad dies and you go back to work the week after the funeral. And you are expected to be 100%.//
Seriously. It’s all “have your personal problems on your own time.” Life doesn’t work like that. I love the idea of having an unspoken way to send the message that you’re not at full capacity, and that others would respect that. My grandpa died this past March, the day before one of my midterms, and right before my spring break started. The professor allowed me to make up the midterm (and I would have been raising all kinds of hell in the department if he hadn’t), but in his email response to me, the first thing he said after a token condolence was “How soon can you take the exam?” And I just thought, “I just lost this person who meant the world to me and my whole life is upside down right now and will NEVER be the same, and fuck you, you can give me a couple weeks to deal with that.” And then I passive-aggressively did not respond to his email until the end of spring break.
//Grief was disorienting. One of my doctors said it acts like an actual concussion -memory is impaired, emotional fluidity – everything.//
This makes perfect sense to me. I’m definitely still reeling. It’s probably part of why I got so sucked into this show (Winchester Syndrome aside) – it was the perfect distraction from my grief, and still is.
I watched the trailer for Hellion. I’m not sure I’d be able to get through that one. Of my CPS caseload, I would estimate that 80% of the parents I worked with fell into the “they try really hard and love their children so much but are just not capable of caring for their children appropriately” category, and it’s heartbreaking. (For the rest of the case breakdown, if you’re interested: I would say there was about another 15% of parents who were good parents with really challenging kids that they needed help dealing with specific problems like mental health diagnoses and bad crowd of friends kind of stuff, and then about 5% of parents who were just plain evil – like the parents of the boy I talked about above.)
Natalie –
// the first thing he said after a token condolence was “How soon can you take the exam?” //
Ugh.
I’m so sorry. And grief can be, literally, dizzying. Certainly people pull their shit together – but at what cost? Even with all the progress made in psychology – there’s still so little understanding of things like death (or depression or mental illness) – It’s very difficult to explain from the inside. And, of course, nobody WANTS to be laid low by something. We fight to stand up, to keep going. And that’s admirable.
But still. These types of responses make it worse.
In re: “Hellion” – the scene where the CPS worker comes to make a home visit … It was fascinating because I loved the two boys so much at that point that I resented her intrusion. But she played the scene so matter of fact, taking photos of the piled-up beer cans and all that – that suddenly I realized: “Wait a second. These boys need a parent. She’s not the bad guy. Nobody is the bad guy here. This is a horrible situation.”
I really really feel for the little ankle-biters in that situation.
I also want to say thank you to all of you who have said kind things about my work and my comments here. I’m glad people are getting something out of the comments – I’m certainly having fun flexing that part of my brain. And CPS especially can be a really thankless line of work – so recognition for those who do it or have done it is very much appreciated. Thanks!
Your comments are a huge contribution – thank you!
Heather –
//… are vampires Dean’s opposite? Like the negative of an image. //
Hope you don’t mind me jumping in with this – you’re all asleep now in the US, and I’m awake in the UK, so I’ll take my opportunity! What a fascinating idea. Vampires are so rich, so repulsive and yet so attractive. They are the monster all the kids want to be in the ‘Twihard’ episode. You can’t imagine anyone lining up to be a wendigo.
Anyone, to chuck my tuppence into the well, I think a tactic SPN pulls again and again is to present an image of the monstrous vs the Winchesters, only for us to realise we’re being confronted with a mirror image. They reflect the same things, only a different way around. Sheila’s image of the mirror and the abyss – the ‘mise en abyme’ (as in Citizen Kane, and for that matter, in the final episode of Season 4) is exactly that, of mirror images receding into infinity. What does it tell us about humans, for instance, when a vampire is the voice of sanity, warning about the dangers of revenge, and it’s the human character who is so far down that road they can no longer see how much seeking revenge has ruined them?
If anything, vampires offer a mythical (rather than psychological) framework to understand the Winchesters. John Winchester is a kind of vampire, compulsive, controlling, compelling and repulsive at the same time. Not quite human. Dean and Sam, we come to understand, have been ‘vampirised’ – isolated, allowed nothing outside the vampire family circle, educated and trained to serve its needs which they are expected to do until the end of their lives. You could argue nearlyevery ‘virtuous’ impulse in Dean’s character – giving aid, helping people, the opposite to a vampire – also serves the Winchester dynamic. ‘Saving people, hunting things’ says it all, virtue and vocation intertwined. (You could also argue that these are actual, inherent qualities, or even choices, which miraculouslysurvive the onslaught of the Winchester family dynamic. I don’t think it’s either/or.)
Vampires fulfil many functions in SPN, but possibly the most interesting are a) offering the possibility of becoming what you most hate or fear and b) blurring rigid boundaries between human and non-human, evil sons of bitches and not-evil sons of bitches. Without being able to make this distinction to him or herself, a hunter is merely a murderer. (And to a vampire, that’s exactly what they are.) And the line between vampires and humans is very fine. Murder and bloodsucking aside, possibly non-existent. Anyway, to exemplify (a) Gordon becomes what he most hates, a vampire (and not incidentally, is killed by the creature he most wants to destroy, Sam.) To exemplify (b) Dean, from ‘hating’ (or ‘brainwashed into hating’) vampires, saves them, then becomes best friends with one, Benny. Who is immensely sympathetic, tragic even, and such a mirror of Dean in his inability to live in this world and trust other humans it’s painful to watch.
So, for me, to summarise, it’s the opposite-not opposite qualities that make vampires so interesting in relation to all the Winchesters, not just Dean.
Not sure this riff is very coherent, but I’m trying to keep it short!
Helena –
My response, in keeping with the Citizen Kane theme, is basically this.
Awesome!
And SPN directly references that eternal-reflection shot in Citizen Kane in that weird green room of Heaven – member that?
Headed out for a run – but will be back to say more. That was fascinating.
Helena – I’m awake with you :) I think we’re only one hour apart. We’ll take over when the rest are sleeping. I thought that was super-coherent. Made a lot of sense.
//Vampires fulfil many functions in SPN, but possibly the most interesting are a) offering the possibility of becoming what you most hate or fear and b) blurring rigid boundaries between human and non-human, evil sons of bitches and not-evil sons of bitches. Without being able to make this distinction to him or herself, a hunter is merely a murderer.//
Totally agree, I would like to add what was much discussed upthread, the cult of the nest, and the cult of the Winchesters.
I really liked what was being said there about cults, I’ve read those 8 criterias before and they made me think of AA and NA. This is a personal tangent and I realize this is gonna rub some people the wrong way, I also know that this isn’t everyone’s experience and that AA/NA has helped people as well. I was having problems a few years back and found myself in detox and agreed to go to rehab and I went to this 12-step program out in some compound in the woods. You know, as much “redneck” as Sweden can get :) I was absolutely horrified at first by the whole thing, and I knew I was right, I KNEW it, it was so “off”. There was this strong, aggressive alpha-male guy with dead sociopathic shark eyes who just zoned in on me and my questioning attitude and I could feel that this was all sorts of wrong and I actually left a couple of times, but I was in a really bad place and the need to sort myself out (and that I really didn’t have anywhere to go) made me come back and the last time I ended up staying for 5 months. And I so conformed to this insanity that was going on there that I still shame myself for it and when I came out I was disoriented and a totally different person. I was so weak and not myself, judgemental. I realized when I came out that the real meetings and people who go to them aren’t quite as insane as that place and those people. But I will forever associate AA/NA with that, it can never be a good thing for me. The language they use is reductive, to say the least. Stupid to be frank. “AA gives me the jeebs.” I LOVE Dean for that comment. It took a while for me to come out of that, but when I did I felt so violated. I didn’t understand how I had let them take my agency like that, that I had started to use their (limited) vocabulary and way of seeing things without question. I totally see AA as part of the victim culture. You want me to get up in front of a bunch of people and put this ONE label, use this ONE word, to describe myself, and confess to all the shit I’ve done and berate myself for it and talk of the perils of staying clean and sober for the rest of my life? Fuck that. It’s humiliating, reductive and self-pitying. And how much worse isn’t the shame then when you mess up? Sorry again if you have a different experience but in my mind this is very much a cult. That shark eyes-guy totally remind me of John Winchester, he was so righteous and believed he was on a mission and he allowed himself to say or do anything because it was means to an end.
//Working on your car for 24 hours straight is just as valid a reaction to loss as sitting in some hippie drum-circle and crying. I’m sorry. The “grief industry” makes me want to puke. It is the Oprah-fication of a primal process that everyone experiences differently. It is trying to homogenize something that is totally individual. Grief doesn’t look just one way.//
Hear, hear!
I just saw Firefly and Joan in Mad Men is in two episodes and she basically plays a totally Joan there too, turned up to 11. I find that actress fascinating. She really does have so much Dean going on.
About Led Zeppelin that I think May mentioned. They’ve been my favorite band forever and I was so psyched that it was Dean’s too! In the last episode I would like to here The Rover, I have totally associated that song with Sam and Dean. That solo. The lyrics. And they are totally rovers. And I would love to here In The Light when Dean goes demon. How expensive can it be? Very of course. But for the final finale? They have to go with Led Zeppelin!
Max – that story you told of the guy in the rehab made my blood boil. I am so sorry you had to go through that.
There’s that saying – something along the lines of: “People don’t join cults. Cults find them.”
Cults are very very slick, and position themselves as “the thing” that will help people in need. And the opening salvos – the love-bombing – is often disorienting, intense, and feels sincere. There’s a reason why so many cults operate on college campuses, with kids away from home, scared, lost, looking for structure.
// There was this strong, aggressive alpha-male guy with dead sociopathic shark eyes who just zoned in on me and my questioning attitude and I could feel that this was all sorts of wrong and I actually left a couple of times, but I was in a really bad place and the need to sort myself out (and that I really didn’t have anywhere to go) made me come back and the last time I ended up staying for 5 months. And I so conformed to this insanity that was going on there that I still shame myself for it and when I came out I was disoriented and a totally different person. //
Ugh. Horrible. He was trying to get into your head, get you to toe the line. I am so glad you got out. You knew. Somewhere you knew that this was not right.
I call such people evil. Because they COUNT on the good natures of people – they COUNT on the trusting of those looking for help – and they USE that.
// I didn’t understand how I had let them take my agency like that, that I had started to use their (limited) vocabulary and way of seeing things without question. //
It happened slowly, gradually, so you don’t notice. And Lifton’s point about the co-opting of language – huge red flag.
I am very glad you got out!!
I got sucked into a pretty strong controlling group for about … 2 years. It was more of a self-help type group – and it’s world-famous – and some friends of mine were “doing it” so I started “doing it” too. The language is totally insular. They correct how you speak. The hours are very very long. There are no clocks on the wall. So you lose track of time. The breaks are short.
Six Feet Under lampooned this group – the mother got involved in it and suddenly she was this weird evangelist for it, and her language changed and I’d seen the same thing happen with my friends – and by that point I was out of it, and absolutely felt VINDICATED to see that organization made fun of so SHARPLY in that show. Even down to some of the group exercises they made us do.
It was a classic situation where I was feeling lost in my career – unsatisfied – lonely – went to an introductory meeting, saw something there for myself, and signed up. When I finally got free (and I STILL get phone calls from recruiters and this was over a decade ago) – I felt like, “Jesus God, what the hell have I just been spending my time on?”
Also, I’m a language person. I know I have facility with language. I know that language is fluid and I respect language for what it can do. Their desire to make me talk like them … their desire to change the actual meanings of words – felt really really wrong. Please. You think you’re being creative with language? CHAUCER was creative with language. SHAKESPEARE was creative with language. Get over yourselves.
In re: Led Zeppelin: They are notoriously stingy with giving out rights. In the special features for School of Rock, there’s a hilarious “video plea” from Jack Black, literally begging the band to let them use “Immigrant Song” in School of Rock. Led Z saw the video, and said yes. So maybe JA needs to do something like that. :)
After all, the show is basically a love letter to Led Zeppelin in many ways!!
Shit that was really long, sorry!
//And SPN directly references that eternal-reflection shot in Citizen Kane in that weird green room of Heaven – member that?//
Indeed – I had a look this morning, just to check! Awesome referencing there, Supernatural.
Enjoy the run!
Thinking of the time difference across the globe, Sir Thomas Browne put it this way:
‘The Huntsmen are up in America, and they are already past their first sleep in Persia.’
Wow, Helena. The more you share about this guy, the more he feels like a hunter. Or at least a patron saint of SPN.
I really think they are going to bring Garth back at some point, they have to, he’s so great. First time I saw him I thought OMG it’s Sheldon’s cousin Leo! I think we have an answer for how to play a diagnosis. “Subtextually of course!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0SRzKTrPuY
I love the Garth episodes. I love the slo-mo they use when he’s walking towards the camera, totally a bad-ass, but also so so lovable.
I adore him.
Wow. Max. Thank you for sharing that experience, and I hope that you’ve been able to heal from what should have been a healing experience but sounds its own kind of trauma. What makes my blood boil about what you say about how you felt about it afterwards. That’s one of the trump cards of those bait-and-switch, gaslighting bastards masquerading as healers. A curse on them.
Anyway, yeah, Led Zep! – my thoughts too – Led Zep for the final ep and damn the budget.
//a patron saint of SPN.//
He was a lot like Bobby! Deeply fascinated by curious phenomena, interested in lore, history, the classics, archeaology, knew Latin and Greek, of course. As a medical man he believed in logic and rationality and wrote a lot about superstitions and folkloric beliefs in order to refute them. But he was also completely fascinated by all that, a collector of curiosities, basically, or else why bother? And very religious – his understanding of knowledge, what knowledge is and what it is for, is totally intertwined with his Christian faith. I’ve only read a little bit of what he wrote in any depth – much as I love it, it’s very dense and esoteric and you have to be in the mood. But once you come across him, he sticks with you.
I need to check him out – where should I start? If I’ve already asked you that, sorry.
Yeah that’s what made me think of it, that you participate in your own “trauma”. I mean there are so much worse experiences than mine though, and I can’t imagine to have been in something like that for years, or grown up in it. Thanks, I should have posted it under the cult stuff.
Supernatural and Zeppelin would be such a perfect fit! The epic themes and lyrics. Someone needs to re-edit some scenes with Zeppelin and put it on youtube. I guess if they’ll use one in the finale it’s probably gonna be Ramble On or Travelin’ Riverside Blues though since they’re Deans favorites. Ten Years Gone would also be fitting sometime in the next season. I think they will actually go on after that too. The ratings are high compared to earlier years, and the boss on CW Mark Pedowitz said that if everyone was on board they would keep going. JP has also said that both he and JA would keep going if they could. So yay!
I love how dedicated these two guys are to the show. It’s a rare thing. Loyalty like that – despite the fact that no one’s getting nominated for the big awards.
JA said something like – “whatever I play in the future, I just hope he has the depth of Dean Winchester …”
He’s no dummy. He knows he’s hit the mother lode. I really respect that. So many actors fly the coop, even when they have a good thing, because they are looking for the better thing. (Phone call for David Caruso.)
Maybe Dean and Sam could be flown into an alternate universe where they’re roadies for Led Zeppelin or something. Come on. The show has certainly been stupider than that before!
//The most interesting part of Alexis Annie was that Dean absolutely had no awareness that she was HIM, that she lived his adolescence – that they were the same, in many ways. He didn’t even experience it as a reflection.//
Absolutely. And neither does Sam, who like Annie/Alexis managed to get away, even if only temporarily. They both just sail right past it.
I did read it as a Mark of Cain symptom, that this happens. That Dean’s sensitivity and empathy has been destroyed, and he’s back to black and white (mainly black) again. I tend to read MOC as a promissory suicide note, a form of fatal self-harming. But what you say about not acknowledging trauma makes perfect sense. He’s always been cut off from that part of himself and his past.
Helena –
// And neither does Sam, who like Annie/Alexis managed to get away, even if only temporarily. They both just sail right past it. //
Right?
They’re staring right at it and they can’t see it. Which, of course, is perfect.
I see what you’re saying about the Mark of Cain. The “promissory suicide note” is an excellent point – as well as what it does to him and his emotional fluidity, always one of his best qualities.
It is hard to imagine him being so hard on the young girl in, say, Season 3 or 4 – especially Season 4, when he was dealing with the aftermath of Hell and all that. But now? No. Fuck her. I had to deal with it, she can too. It’s pretty brutal, but makes perfect sense.
And as much as it would be fabulous if the show got explicit about this whole level that we’re talking about – the sexual bait stuff and the pimping stuff and all that – I actually kind of like that it’s left unsaid. This huge swirl of unspoken stuff that CLEARLY we ALL are picking up on, and CLEARLY the actors are playing, without any words.
It makes it, somehow, even more powerful.
About the creepiness. I didn’t catch it all the first time I watched it either. At least not that dad is pimping Dean out. That seems so weird now when it’s the thing that stands out most when you watch it. There was a whole lot of stuff that completely went over my head before I came here. Seriously Sheila this is such a great recap. JDM’s acting is something that has grown on me, as so many things do with this show. I didn’t get him at all at first or what he was doing. It actually took me a good long while before I got Sam too. I think he was so great in season 6 that it became undeniable to me that JP was really great and nuanced as well. I was definitely all about Dean at first and thought it was unbelieveable how good of an actor this guy was and it had been on for years and I knew nothing about it!
// I didn’t catch it all the first time I watched it either. At least not that dad is pimping Dean out. That seems so weird now when it’s the thing that stands out most when you watch it. //
Max – I know. And now it’s all I can see. The whole episode just deftly skips around the implications of what it is actually showing – and the fact that nobody blinks an eye, Sam, Dean or Dad – that this is not seen as a “drastic” measure or anything like that – that it’s totally run-of-the-mill operations for them …
I love that. It’s chilling. And the more I watch Dead Man’s Blood the more I see in it.
The next two episodes, as well – in both brothers. Things get pretty interesting.
Natalie —
RE: John. Yeah, there are some big holes in my theory (like, why Sam is so like John, without being “marked”). But I was really disturbed by the cupid-induced-marriage when I first saw that episode. There is a very rapey vibe to it. (And Dean didn’t react well to it, which I thought was more in line with the violation idea, than a childish impulse of wanting your parents love to be true. But, that could just be me).
I’m sure without it, in “real life”, John could/would still follow the same path. I’m certain he was affected by Vietnam, even if he didn’t show it. Hell, Mary’s remark could have been clouded by cupid-vision. I am basing my theory more on the show’s seeming desire to portray John as a “good guy” before Mary died—that it was her death specifically that drove him over the edge.
So… it’s basically fanwank :P
Helena, Max…if Led Zeppelin can lend their music to car commercials, they can let SPN use it, dammit!
Hey is Dean’s soul gone now that he’s a demon? It wasn’t adressed with Cain was it? Where would it have gone? Is curing a demon like reversing it back to a soul? So many questions!
and will Castiel’s lost grace somehow be connected to Dean’s soul? I fear that that Castiel-grace arc is going to take up too much screen time. hahaha
I like Castiel, don’t get me wrong, but as a sidekick, not a lead.
//Is curing a demon like reversing it back to a soul? So many questions!//
I think that is the case. I always thought that a demon was a corrupted human soul (through being tortured in Hell for centuries, etc). So curing it would be undoing the damage?
If this is the case, then Dean could possibly be a different form of demon.
How on earth will we bear the suspense?
Cannot. Wait.
Sheila, Jump the Shark was one whack episode.
It starts with Dean being over the top angry about Adam. Sam appears much much MUCH more understanding/friendly, he’s helping Adam learn to protect himself, he’s talking about Dad.
Dean storms out. “Godzilla’s not real.” Sam and Adam bond some more.
Dean comes back and shoots the attacker from the sewer (and I noticed that Adam had parked his vehicle OVER the sewer on rewatch). They rush back to Adam’s house.
THEN the truth comes out. Sam wants to use Adam for bait, Dean wants to take Adam to Bobby’s for protection. AND DEAN FINDS OUT that Sam is just shining on Adam, to get him into the life that Dad had tried to protect Adam from. SAM was the one who was jealous of Adam, Dean had been pissed about a secret Dad kept and was trying to protect Adam from all the ramifications of a hunters’ life.
That last line, you’re more like Dad than I’ll ever be. THANKS. “Thanks,” oh Sam join Marmaduke in crazytown.
It actually made me look at Season 1, when Sam is doing all these puppy-dog eyes interviews and THEN walks away with Dean, “Are we babysitters now? How is this helping us get to DAD?” and I realized that ALL that empathetic stuff was just a con on Sam’s part. Dean could not fake his empathy but FELT it and Sam could fake empathy not NOT FEEL it. THAT was a change in mindset for me. Sam was like the little kid in an immigrant family who does all the talking to the landlord/utility man/grocery clerk because Dad did not speak English that well but Dad and “mom” weren’t ignorant just didn’t know the lingo. THAT was a real attitude change on my part: Sam was actually the most adept liar in the bunch.
MAX: I recently read an article on Salon.com by a therapist saying that actually AA and NA have like 10% success rates. The argument about recidivism (you have to keep going and going and going until it takes) is JUST for this therapy.
It blew my mind. They have a good rep, insurance I believe pays for them (at least once) but the author argued that the therapy is NOT that good. REALLY.
Can’t remember the author or the title, but it WAS on Salon.com
I am positive that Thunderstruck by AC/DC was the premiere for Season 5 so at one point in time they DID pony up the money for AC/DC.
Anybody got any ideas for Season 10’s premiere montage song?
I absolutely LOVED Who Do You Love? for Season 9.
Still no luck on figuring out the comment threading issue.
We did figure out that the reason I am able to “reply” to specific comments is that I am logged in as an admin – but we all used to be able to reply to each other, and no one had to be “logged in” – so we don’t know what’s changed. It’s a big puzzle and no one can figure it out yet.
Sorry, again! I’ll keep digging around.
Max — Thank you for sharing your story! I have no first hand experience with AA/NA (not that I haven’t known addicts), but I could see how it could be problematic for some people. Even in the best circumstances it can come across to outsiders (like myself) as dogmatic…and I’m wary of dogma in any form.
RE: AA/NA, grief, etc. What drives me nuts about a lot of these things is cookie cutter, one-size-fits-all approaches. Individuals are not averages—what works for most people won’t work for everyone, or in the same way. Penicillin works great for most people…unless you are allergic. If we can accept that some people react differently to medications (or foods and other allergens), why can’t we accept that people deal with grief or addiction differently?
Bah, I say. BAH!
(I tried to post this earlier, but apparently it was lost to technical difficulties—a freeze up on my end).
//Still no luck on figuring out the comment threading issue.//
As long as we quote or mention each other, I think we can get by just fine. In some ways it is easier—we can just scroll to the bottom of the page to see the newest comments!
Max, thanks so much for sharing your experiences with 12-step programs. I had to attend a couple 12-step meetings for my substance abuse class, and while I was pleasantly surprised, especially in the AA meeting I went to, by the genuine support and camaraderie in the room, I think the whole premise of 12-step programs is largely flawed and very cult-like. The main reason that the 12-step programs persist is that they are widely available and free of charge. There is very little, if any, empirical evidence that AA works any better than no treatment at all, but they have that all neatly tied up with the whole “the program works if you work the program” thing. AA does not fail, YOU fail. Not to mention that your entire person is reduced to this one label: “I’m an alcoholic/addict.” It completely strips the individual of any semblance of self-efficacy (the first step is admitting you’re powerless) which is antithetical to any other mental health therapy approach – all of which stress increasing self-efficacy as a major goal of therapy. It all makes me deeply uncomfortable, as does the religious aspect of it. I roughly consider myself a Recovering Catholic Secular Humanist Agnostic, and the serenity prayer is one thing, but having to hold hands and recite the Our Father was excruciating (especially for a program that claims not to be a religious organization). I also read the salon.com article that evave2 mentioned, and I’m going to link to it because it’s a great article and worth reading, but I wanted to throw in this quote because it sums up most of my problems with the AA machine: “For an organization that has expressly denied religious standing and publicly claims a secular—even scientific—approach, it is curious that AA retains these explicit references to a spiritual power whose care might help light the way toward recovery. Even for addicts who opt to interpret this step secularly, the problem persists: why can’t this ultimate power lie within the addict?” Here’s the link to the article: http://www.salon.com/2014/03/23/the_pseudo_science_of_alcoholics_anonymous_theres_a_better_way_to_treat_addiction/
(I’m sorry that I have no idea how to do the html linking thing.)
I also love that line from Dean about AA giving him the jeebs, but I kind of hate that there’s no additional commentary about it, because it can be interpreted as just a comment on Dean being in denial about his alcohol abuse. (I guess alcohol use disorder is a diagnosis that I probably would give Dean, now that I’m thinking about it.) But Dean’s reservations about AA are totally valid!
I kind of love that Dean is a functioning alcoholic and the show acknowledges it, at the same time that it pokes fun of treatment programs.
It’s sick, a little bit, and kind of pushes back against the expected “redemption” narrative or “intervention” narrative. That whole season where he drank almost the whole time – via Bobby’s flask – I just loved how they handled it (and DIDN’T handle it). Sam: “Can you even GET drunk now?” Or Dean, blearily, drunk, “I’ve missed these talks.” (Guffaw. Neither of them has even SAID anything.)
It’s strangely and refreshingly old-fashioned – albeit totally effed up and dysfunctional.
It sort of sets him so far outside the mainstream narrative – the self-help narrative, 12-step narrative – all that stuff. I’m not saying it’s admirable of him or that I don’t think he drinks too much – he clearly drinks all the time, but as a character thing I really like it.
The whole thing about vampire episodes being a reflection of the Winchester family was a nuance that I never picked up on until this recap, and I am loving the commentary and insights on that.
//I kind of love that Dean is a functioning alcoholic and the show acknowledges it, at the same time that it pokes fun of treatment programs.//
I love it. I love it in the same way I love that the boys rely on credit card fraud to pay for stuff. SPN has been fairly consistent in not idealizing the life that hunters lead. There is a reason Sam and Dean are always warning people away from “the life”—it sucks. You just become more and more damaged by it, until it kills you.
I prefer my fiction to ultimately be hopeful, in the end. But I admire SPN for showing how hunting slowly (or quickly) destroys the people involved.
//It’s sick, a little bit, and kind of pushes back against the expected “redemption” narrative or “intervention” narrative.//
Agreed, for sure. And Dean’s drinking (and Bobby’s, and John’s, and many of the other hunters) – it’s a very real response to the stresses of that kind of life. (Incidentally, I also love that Garth is such a lightweight. It’s so fitting with HIS character.)
It’s also a response that I can relate to. I will say that I was drinking at much higher levels during my CPS years than I have at any other time in my life. Not alcoholic levels (although I had a handful of functional alcoholic coworkers), but enough that my mom would make intervention-y comments when I would say something about needing to stop to buy more beer on my way home. (Which was kind of funny, honestly, because it was like, “I’m going through one or two six packs a week, not a 12-pack a night, Mom. A beer or two a day does not make an alcoholic.”)
Also that the show treats as totally normal things that are not at all normal! The two guys warming their cold hands over the burning body of a dead Nazi necromancer and all that. Beyond the pale. Drinking too much is the LEAST of Dean’s problems. hahaha
Alcohol was definitely good for me to “take the edge off”. I can’t drink anymore because of my diagnosis. Or, I shouldn’t, let’s say that. So I don’t. I do miss it sometimes. Doc says I could have a glass of wine with friends or with Man Friend if I felt like it. But I don’t feel ready yet.
Also, how hot was Sam hitting the booze after Dean died?
It was just classic Wild West stuff.
//I love it in the same way I love that the boys rely on credit card fraud to pay for stuff. SPN has been fairly consistent in not idealizing the life that hunters lead. There is a reason Sam and Dean are always warning people away from “the life”—it sucks.//
Excellent point.
Regarding Sir Thomas Browne, Tony Kushner wrote a play, Hydriotaphia, with the same title as one of Browne’s famous works. I recall an interview from several years ago where Kushner talked about what he was going for – basically he was fascinated by Browne and wanted to write a play about the guy – but I can’t seem to find a link to it anywhere. I don’t think the play is performed frequently.
It would be cool if Browne hunted the Undead, especially since Hydriotaphia was about burial urns. Maybe Tony could do a re-write.
Hmmm. Well, you know that he and I have the same agent. I need to get on that. Somehow.
“Uhm. Tony. Hey. Same agent. Hi. Do you watch Supernatural??”
I haven’t read Hydriotaphia. Sounds like I should.
Oliver Cromwell died the same year Hydriotaphia was published. Maybe Tony could have Sir Tom make sure Oliver stayed dead.
I picture the undead Cromwell making a speech like Roddy McDowall’s from one of the Planet of the Apes movies about “the inevitable downfall of mankind who doesn’t worship the way I do….”
I’ll try to stop being silly now.
Never stop being silly!
But if Oliver Cromwell comes back from the dead, I’m gonna get the Mark of Cain myself and hunt him down on behalf of my ancestors whom he slaughtered.
And it will feel good!
(Oh, and I forget that you haven’t even gotten to Season 9 yet so all this Mark of Cain commentary may be totally confusing.)
RE: Alcohol & “taking the edge off”
Alcohol is the Number 1 coping mechanism for quite a few members of my family. I’ve avoided it entirely as a result. Food and fiction are how I deal with stress!
hahahahahahaha that clip. They go insane!!
Yes, confused by the Mark of Cain stuff. I’ll get there.
I can’t really stop being silly. My motto is “Riffito, ergo sum.”
As a Woman of Letters I’m sure you know that means, “I riff, therefore I am.”
I’m pretty sure there are O’Malley ancestors who viewed Cromwell as the Anti-Christ. Can’t blame them.
Horrible human.
There was some plaque in the middle of a field in Ireland about some slaughter that had gone down there – I can’t remember where – but it was in the West, O’Malley Country – and my sister and I stood there looking at the plaque – it was November and the entire place was empty. It was just us. and some cows. and she shook her fist at the empty fields, and shouted, “OLIVER CROMWELL.” Like he was right there in front of her. She was PISSED.
Then we went and had a pint.
May –
Even hobbits act that way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmFnv-TZzRs
//Then we went and had a pint.//
Way to bring it full-circle.
Mutecypher, here’s my response to your comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlccLP7narY
hahahahaha “Rudy Hobbit always gets a pass.”
I mentioned Super 8 in the Angelina Jolie/Gena Rolands/Maleficent thread. Now there’s The Roadie, Hobbit from Natalie.
We need to play six degrees of Ron Eldard.
Gotta clean my ears. I heard “Roadie Hobbit.” “Rudy” makes more Dean-sense.
and I gotta clean my ears, because for a second I thought you said L.Ron Hubbard as opposed to Ron Eldard.
Sam (from LOTR) is always carrying Frodo’s stuff, and within the context of the Sam/Dean “I’ll carry you” conversation, I thought it was an entertaining comment.
Excuse me while I kiss this guy.
While I pick myself up from the floor laughing at the thought of Thomas Browne, Vampire Hunter (it would probably have been Witch Hunter as he testified at a couple of trials, iirc) and FUCK YOU OLIVER CROMWELL!!! and laugh at how much mutecypher’s comment about Hydriotaphia not getting performed much reminds me of Sam’s comment in the French Mistake – ‘apparently not a lot of people watch it’
By the way, it’s well known that Cromwell’s skull was ‘detached’ from its body and did the rounds as museum exhibit, but Browne’s skull also become detached from his body for while after workmen opened his tomb. But it was finally reunited with his remains. (He wasn’t dug up and burned by a hunter, if that’s any reassurance, Sheila.)
The whole not mentioning thing re marcy may annie alexis …
//They’re staring right at it and they can’t see it. Which, of course, is perfect. //
It’s a masterstroke really. That ‘not seeing’ thing is the abyss in operation, and the writers know the value of it. Leave a cavernous, unnameable space and let everyone project their worst fears into it. If the writers had been explicit and had Dean or Sam saying ‘This is just like us – we were sexually/emotionally abused’, whatever, it would have immediately lost its dramatic power – it would been diagnosed neatly, therapy would have been offered, and it would have become dead as a doornail. But they have always skirted around the edges, left it to subtext, the power of suggestion, and of course, the actors themselves to make choices about how to project certain things. John’s blank eyed stare is more powerful than words, as are Dean’s mysterious lapses into silence when he talks about his childhood experiences, Sam just ‘not noticing’ what’s going on right in front of him … these leave gaps to be filled in with the audience’s fears and desires. And boy, do we fill it.
// If the writers had been explicit and had Dean or Sam saying ‘This is just like us – we were sexually/emotionally abused’, whatever, it would have immediately lost its dramatic power //
Helena, I totally agree. Hadn’t been able to quite put it into words. But that’s it exactly.
The show leaves a lot of room for projection – that’s why it feels very old-school to me, and why I reference old movies a lot when I write about it. Because old movies (after the Code came down in 1932) couldn’t be explicit. So they had to find ways to tell their stories without actually showing the sex, the abuse, the danger … and in many ways some of those films in the 1930s and 1940s are more disturbing than anything done today that is more explicit. The sex (that you never see) feels hotter. The abuse (that you also don’t see) is dark as hell, especially because no one can mention it. It leaves this vast space for the imagination – a dreamspace for the audience to work in. It’s one of the reasons why those old films don’t really “date” as much as some of the more recent films will. I mean, Double Indemnity. Or Postman Doesn’t Ring Twice. Those are psycho-sexual clusterfucks – involving abuse, impotence, sexual coercion, violence, horrible sexual behavior – and they STILL throb with that passion, even if you never see naked bodies writhing about. You don’t need to. The relationship between John Garfield and Lana Turner is one of the hottest things ever put on screen.
Supernatural, at least on the level we’re talking about today – works on that level. And you’re right – the behavior tells us more than the words. Often I find myself leaning forward at the screen trying to dissect what I’m seeing in a glance, a gesture … it’s so rich, behaviorally.
And so block by block they set it up – and they clearly know what they’re doing – I don’t think anyone here is “reading into this” in a way that is over-reaching.
That which is unspoken is often the loudest thing of all.
I almost felt like Sam’s whole journey through the middle part of Season 9 – when Dean was on the rack in episode after episode for the whole Gadreel debacle (pre Mark of Cain) – even though Sam was pissed and all that – the conversation stopped being specifically about Gadreel pretty quick. and it became about their relationship. and Sam separating himself out from it. over and over again they had to talk about it. Because Dean was NOT “getting it.” And he still doesn’t. How could he? I felt like Sam was being as clear as he possibly could be … and wasn’t being unduly harsh about it – but: “You need to look at why you do this. This is YOU, Dean, not me, separate it out – you have to.”
Very difficult – but I loved that the show had done its work to such a degree that it could tolerate, what, 4 conversations along those same lines? Almost the same thing, over and over again – because Dean still wasn’t getting it.
And still! After all that talk – still! a stalemate.
THAT’S the level of damage here.
Pretty amazing.
//That which is unspoken is often the loudest thing of all.//
Yes, because it is your voice you end up hearing. This idea of projection that you and Helena are talking about is exactly why I started devouring SPN this year. It is like my odd ink blot test. I started watching it like it MEANT something. This has been a tough year and honestly, this show an the recaps and comments, have helped me parse through some of it. So thanks to all.
My ‘in’ to the show was relating to Dean specifically in his existential issues. His view of himself as being of instrumental value is something I have come to realize I share. Some similar things happening in childhood (if I remove the monsters and violence), but the parentification stuff, the sibling stuff, blah blah. This really isn’t a poor me thing, because I believe I am strong and capable and sometimes even adorable :). So this doesn’t feel like self-pity, but rather it creates a specific kind of focus. I am helpful and it feels good to be helpful – but it feels AWFUL when I can’t be helpful. I am good when I can do (makes me a great employee, if one sometimes on the smokey edge of burnout). And when I can’t do something to be of value, the guilt seems irrefutable.
When I watch the show, and this episode particularly, the ‘pimping’ makes me squirm. Not because I relate to that specifically (whew) but because I see how stoked Dean would be to be helpful. I know that feeling, even when it isn’t for something good, but the happiness and pride that goes with “hey, I can do it, I got this”. And it wouldn’t be until later maybe that it would be questioned, if at all. Particularly if it was something that only he could do, or do well- and he can do bait really well. For me, I hate to see this side of him manipulated. And the development of the MOC, turning him into someTHING, feels tragic.
Also: The Spongebob clips are awesome.
Heather –
// This has been a tough year and honestly, this show an the recaps and comments, have helped me parse through some of it. So thanks to all. //
I am sorry to hear it has been a tough year and so glad you have found these posts and that they’ve helped in some way. It’s good to find like-minded people to talk about things you love in an in-depth way. I know I get a lot out of it too.
// So this doesn’t feel like self-pity, but rather it creates a specific kind of focus. I am helpful and it feels good to be helpful – but it feels AWFUL when I can’t be helpful. I am good when I can do (makes me a great employee, if one sometimes on the smokey edge of burnout). And when I can’t do something to be of value, the guilt seems irrefutable.//
That doesn’t sound like self-pity. It sounds like self-knowledge. And it’s a wonderful “way in” to Dean. I think seeing him in that light adds those shadings we’re all sensing. Much of my “in” to him has to do with his sexuality (obviously) – for my own reasons – and how it operates, how it survives, in spite of the fact that he’s been treated so poorly and basically not allowed to have boundaries. I won’t go into that much further, but it really rings true for me, and there’s a lot of darkness behind it – a ton of pain – but still he has managed to turn it into something he enjoys. I mean, not really anymore – but you know, in those early seasons. When I first started watching I was like, “Is he really doing what I think he’s doing with this part?” I kept thinking of, oh, Marilyn Monroe, and I thought, “this is insane. The character is a gun-slinging commando … why am I getting Marilyn from him?? What is he DOING with this part?” And it’s not in the language at all. It seems to be a whole other plot-line dancing above the actual story. It’s totally bizarre, but there was so much there for me to latch onto. It’s something I relate to, certainly – and it’s something SPN has done so well – created these characters that people project stuff onto, like we were just talking about with Helena. They’re specific, but not TOO specific. So much of it is inference.
// Particularly if it was something that only he could do, or do well- and he can do bait really well. For me, I hate to see this side of him manipulated. And the development of the MOC, turning him into someTHING, feels tragic. //
Totally. Guy never got a break, really.
And in those final episodes of Season 9 – when he was angry all the time – yes, it was the Mark – but I also just felt, “The guy has finally HAD it. He has fucking HAD IT.”
// because I see how stoked Dean would be to be helpful. //
Yes! So sad. Part of why Dead Man’s Blood is so deceptively simple (for me anyway) is that the bait thing is not set up in language – we don’t know thats what’s happening – All we get is a smiling “You know what to do” and then there we are, with Dean at the car.
And we’ve spent a whole season with the guy at this point – and he seems (and is) so capable, and so brave, and all that – but then suddenly he is ALSO submissive and eagerly obedient in a really sick situation. It was just a fascinating (and yes, awful) shading to the character.
Speaking of heads and corpses (SPN, right?)
I love Dante so much, and carry his grudges, so I love the story of him being buried in Ravenna in 1321, then in 1519 Michelangelo getting Pope Leo X to order Dante’s remains transferred back to the slimy, dishonorable city of Florence, and the monks sending an empty coffin to Florence instead, and then in 1810 the monks in Ravenna hiding Dante’s body behind a portico to keep it from the douchy Napoleon, and then Dante’s body getting re-discovered in 1865 when the building was undergoing reconstruction.
Dante avoiding the city that exiled him.
Michelangelo looking like a good guy.
Monks defying a Pope.
Napoleon not getting what he wanted.
I am a sucker for a happy ending. Especially one involving dead bodies.
Why do I not know this story. This is utterly fantastic.
Heather, wish I could say something more than “hang in there.” Beer drinking chicks who put away bad guys and help kids are way beyond just adorable. Do you wear a cape?
Heather — sorry this has been a tough year! I know the feeling.
//Some similar things happening in childhood (if I remove the monsters and violence), but the parentification stuff, the sibling stuff, blah blah. This really isn’t a poor me thing, because I believe I am strong and capable and sometimes even adorable :). So this doesn’t feel like self-pity, but rather it creates a specific kind of focus.//
I don’t see that as self pity. I agree with Sheila, it sounds like self-knowledge.
And you really aren’t alone. I over-identify with Dean. My childhood wasn’t the easiest and I’ve experienced some “parentification” and the sibling stuff, as well. I had my Sam moments in my teen years—continually butting heads with my father—and I left home as soon as I could. But I didn’t go far. I stuck around to be a support system for my younger siblings. And all of it has definitely shaped the person I am now.
It can be hard to talk about these things without worrying about how it appears to others: no one wants look like they are fishing for sympathy (which I don’t think anyone here is doing). But I’ve now known enough people who have had difficult childhoods/problematic parents, to know that it is more common than many people think. And it is nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed of.
And now we all have a patron saint in Dean Winchester :P
May – I think that is one of SPN’s real aces-in-the-hole, how it taps into these different family dynamics – we all can see ourselves in different fluctuating ways in the storyline. And the story is loose enough, un-specific enough, that there is all that room for projection – like we talked about earlier.
That’s how myths work, and legends, and fairy tales. I talked about it a little bit when I wrote about Maleficent a couple posts ago. Jolie’s performance is both specific and universal – at the same time.
I get that from JA and JP too – it’s very old-school, old movie star stuff – Bogart, Cary Grant, John Wayne. These guys were masters – at creating character but also tapping into some universal yearning in their audiences. A weird thing, and totally not the style of acting today – which prioritizes ONLY the specific. Or, not ONLY, but MOSTLY.
mutecypher, hahaha, you are mixing me up with Natalie. Give her the cape and I will take your well wishes. And I will also take your remarkable story regarding Dante’s dead body. Who knew!
Thanks May and Sheila, your openheartedness is lovely and caring. May, your siblings were lucky to have you. And yes, my perspective does come from a place of self-knowledge, or at least I think so. And really, it isn’t all down side at all- I rationally believe it is great to want to be helpful. It is just that it is great until you can’t be helpful and then you are fucked. So ultimately, it is great to want to be helpful, not great to need to be helpful. That ( in my inner kingdom of thoughts) is very weak and weakness is anathema from this instrumental perspective. What good is a weak tool? So this is probably where my personal work will need to happen. You know… later. But this does remind me of the scene where Sam is saying how the demon blood makes him strong, and Dean looks at him and says something like “Strong? This is about as far away from strong as you can get.” So interesting the way things that make us feel strong are so often our Achilles heel.
//Is he really doing what I think he’s doing with this part?” I kept thinking of, oh, Marilyn Monroe, and I thought, “this is insane. The character is a gun-slinging commando … why am I getting Marilyn from him?? What is he DOING with this part?”//
I know exactly what you mean! These moments when he does something that makes him seem like a cat, or child, or Brigitte Bardot or Marilyn on the beach, and it is hard to believe what he is doing. His character is as badass as any of the guys from The Expendables, and so much more. JA is like “ha ha, you can’t pin this guy down. Watch this,” wink wink, nuzzle, stab in the eye, curse the Devil to his face, bake a pie. And I always get this sense that JP loves working off of that.
Heather –
// JA is like “ha ha, you can’t pin this guy down. Watch this,” wink wink, nuzzle, stab in the eye, curse the Devil to his face, bake a pie. //
Totally. It’s a dazzling high-wire act. And it’s all him.
// So interesting the way things that make us feel strong are so often our Achilles heel. //
I know, right? Or the things that worked when we were kids – our survival techniques – end up isolating us, or becoming “the problem” when we’re grownup. I think we all can relate to that.
Or feeling helpless and wanting to do ANYTHING to stop feeling helpless. The demon blood, for sure. And then Dean with the first blade. These poor guys. But it makes total sense.
Heather –
Like Dean, I mean well. Thanks for taking it that way.
Sheila:
I felt like Sam was being as clear as he possibly could be … and wasn’t being unduly harsh about it – but: “You need to look at why you do this. This is YOU, Dean, not me, separate it out – you have to.”
Sorry to jump into the conversation like this, but this really caught my interest, because if anything really bothered me in season 9, if there was anything I felt was handled really badly, if there was something really OOC, then it was those “talks” between Sam and Dean.
I get what Sam was trying to tell Dean, but he wasn’t saying it. Or maybe I’m just as dense as Dean is and I just wasn’t hearing it. Sam started off okay, with the “You lied to me… again” speech at the end of 9×10.
But then in 9×12 he starts being weird – blaming Dean for talking him out of closing Hell, as if it was somethng that Dean forced him to do. And everything that’s gone wrong between them is because they’re family? Well, how about beating the devil thanks to the memories of your life with Dean in the Impala, Sam?
And then there’s the end of 9×13, which I still find frustrating and painful today. Because instead of explaining all the stuff Dean obviously still isn’t getting, Sam talks about how there’s no upside to him being alive and then tops it with “I was ready to die. I should have died.” I mean, how does he expect Dean to get what the problem is when he says something like that? How does he expect Dean to hear anything else than “I had a death wish and you were wrong not to let me die”? I just can’t help feeling that he was doing a TERRIBLE job of trying to explain things to Dean.
I’m not trying to be a bitter Dean girl here, but I just felt those scenes were really… weirdly written, to say the least. Sam didn’t make any sense to me with what he was saying, and I desperately want him to make sense, so – grasping at straws here – if you could elaborate on how Sam was being clear on the topic, I’d be eternally grateful to you.
Basically: anyone who feels like clearing things up for slow-witted old me – feel free to do so :D
Hunenka –
I’m not sure. I think those brother-scenes in Season 9 (the mid-way point) were deliberately written in a repetitive and almost obtuse way – it was the same argument/speech over and over again, with new shadings, and a reiterating of Sam’s point.
What I saw is that Sam had removed himself from the locked-together paradigm that was the Winchester brother dynamic – and it was THAT that Dean could never ever understand. Sam was saying, “We are separate people, Dean. We are not the same. This is not working for us. I would not die for you – it doesn’t mean I don’t love you – but this situation is not working for us anymore. You have GOT to let me go. This is on YOU. This is about YOU not being able to be alone.”
I would imagine that if you were Dean-identified these speeches would seem cruel or unclear or not fair. And I think Sam had to work up to it over the course of those mid-season episodes. Dean is difficult to talk to, especially at that moment when he was all guilt-ridden and everything. But as those episodes went on – you know, The Purge, and the werewolf one – the couple others – Sam grew in confidence and kept driving the point home.
Breaking free of a codependent relationship – or “changing the dance step” as I like to call it – will NEVER be welcome to the person from whom you are breaking away. They will be completely uncomprehending at what you are saying. I have broken up with guys who are so connected to me that they literally do not understand what I am saying. These are the codependent guys. It is incomprehensible to them … that you are asserting your separate-ness – as an individual – and sometimes it takes repeat speeches to get your point across. But at a certain point, you just have to walk away.
The Winchester brother relationship is unhealthy. Sam has sensed it for a while. Dean sees no other way. It is a classic stalemate. Something has GOT to change. That was what I felt throughout Season 9. this dynamic has GOT to change – and at that point, it’s on Dean.
Not as a blame thing. But as a healthy-moving-on thing.
I’m not identified with either character – although there are parts of Dean I relate to – and parts of Sam.
I see it in the context of story/narrative. Dean’s actions removed Sam’s sense of agency. It’s happened before. What they were talking about in those mid-season 9 episodes – was not, eventually, about Gadreel or the trials. It was about how their relationship operated, how it had been set up – how neither of them questioned it – but now Sam WAS.
It is no longer working for him. ANY of it. And he’s allowed to say that.
And each of those episodes – with the big brother conversation at the end of it – would end with a big gigantic closeup of Dean – hurt and truly lost (the best one being at the end of The Purge).
In my view, Dean SHOULD feel hurt and lost. He IS over-identified with his role as protector. It is going to kill him. Well, it just did. Sam was right to see that writing on the wall.
And over the course of those confrontations – Sam’s rage started to dissipate – and he was able to more clearly state the essential problem. He stopped feeling betrayed – or at least that wasn’t at the forefront – and it became a real relationship moment. “This is how we operate. It is no longer working for me. And it is up to YOU to figure out how to change it.”
Relationships do go through this. It’s not always collaborative. As a matter of fact, the collaborative aspect of the family dynamic is one of the huge problems (as I mentioned in the re-cap). Being an individual means you get to have a say about the kind of life you want to have. And it honestly doesn’t MATTER what Dean thinks.
And if Dean could actually GET that – he might, actually, be able to have a better life. Seriously. And I think Sam was starting to get that, understand that.
That’s what I got out of it.
My growing feeling over Season 9 was, “Yes, yes, YES, THIS is what they have been putting off – THIS is the real McCoy, the heart of the matter … no more putting it off … ”
Time for Dean to look in the mirror, and not at Sam. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that there were many “Dean looking in the mirror” moments throughout Season 9.
So. In a nutshell. That’s where I’m coming from.
I would be interested to hear other people’s reactions.
// I mean, how does he expect Dean to get what the problem is when he says something like that? How does he expect Dean to hear anything else than “I had a death wish and you were wrong not to let me die”? //
I agree – However: that’s a codependent attitude. (No judgment! I think SPN really encourages us identifying with them as a tied-together team. But then it also implicates us in what we want, and shows us how unhealthy it actually is.)
Sam can no longer worry how Dean “takes it” – worrying about how Dean takes things is part of the problem. Sam has separated himself. He asserts his separateness and that is healthy. And of course Dean won’t “get it”. But Sam has to say it anyway. And he is devoted to saying it again and again – and as those confrontations went on, it became an act of love. If he had tried to prop up Dean, or say it in a way Dean could hear it – that would be just “same ol same ol” all over again. Dean is a tough motherfucker and is not going to “take in” this information well. Dean understands strength. Sam’s strength in those scenes was such that Dean was forced to actually engage. And as he engaged – Sam heard the depth of the problem once Dean actually said it aloud. “You and me … fighting the good fight!” Really, Dean? That again? (Again, that scene at the end of The Purge – super super important).
“No, Dean. I wouldn’t.” Sam says in response to Dean’s age-old “you’d do the same for me.”
It may be brutal, but it’s also healthy.
The situation is such that Sam HAD to be that brutal. But he wasn’t shouting or foaming at the mouth. He kept his cool. He listened. He responded. It wasn’t what Dean wanted to hear, but it’s what needed to be said. Unfortunately, and predictably, Dean just experienced it as abandonment, and we all know the rest.
To me, it felt extremely realistic. This is how these things often go – in “sick” systems, and I consider their relationship to be a sick system. So much potential, so much comfort, but ultimately sick.
So Sam speaking his truth, no holds barred, was a very courageous act. At a certain point, in relationships, you have to be willing to walk away if your needs are not only not met but brutalized. Sam is ready to walk away. And sure, Dean won’t get that, but that’s not Sam’s problem. He’s “breaking up” with Dean, essentially. It’s a relationship issue that must be handled, and it can’t be negotiated. No more brushing things under the carpet, no more propping themselves up with words about loyalty and all that. “This is NOT WORKING.” That’s all that needs to be said, after a certain point.
A key moment for me was when Sheriff Mills said to Sam, “You’re lucky what you have your brother.”
And Sam’s expression on his face! It is so … it’s almost distasteful, what she’s said. She means well, but she has stated the problem (without knowing it). She is talking about a sibling relationship as though it is a Love relationship – as though they are romantic partners, and you both are “lucky” to have “found” each other. Sam almost visibly recoils from her well-meaning comment.
My God, am I going to be 60 years old, and still tied to my brother? Are we … married or something? Our needs are supposed to be met only by each other? This isn’t right. It’s not right how we’re set up. This has got to change.
Small moment, but extremely illuminating.
Sheila, I thought you broke down the relationship crisis really well. Hunenka, your confusion I think is a testament to the show, that we feel those fights not just process them. I just want to add to what Sheila was saying regarding how this might be confusing to Dean. When Sam is trying to assert his own individual self, it is quite possible that Dean gets this. ‘Yes, of course Sam is his own self that I have seen grow and change, be strong/weak, good/bad, happy/not happy…etc. He is his a full human and even an adult one at that.’ But what Dean maybe doesn’t get, that Sam needs him to, his that Dean is his own person, a fully developed, individual self. Because Dean doesn’t see himself this way, but he also doesn’t understand that he is missing the point because it is so contrary to his actual view. He might think he sees himself the same as he sees Sam or other people, but in reality he sees himself as ‘the job’, ‘the big brother’, ‘the whatever-needs-to-be-done guy’ and these are roles not a human being. Dean can’t just be- he needs to do. He might think Sam can just be, and that is good enough, but not himself. To Dean, what is the point of him if he isn’t doing, helping, saving? And I think this is why he can’t ‘hear’ what Sam is saying- it goes against a fundamental belief he has about himself. Anyhow, that is how I read it.
Damn, got to go to work. Cheers.
// He might think he sees himself the same as he sees Sam or other people, but in reality he sees himself as ‘the job’, ‘the big brother’, ‘the whatever-needs-to-be-done guy’ and these are roles not a human being. Dean can’t just be- he needs to do. //
Heather – yes!
And it’s a beautiful quality in Dean, and also his Achilles heel, as we discussed upthread. And without that role, he would be lost. Interestingly enough, in the next episode in Season 1 – “Salvation” – there’s that great confrontation between the brothers when Sam pushes Dean against the wall and Dean finally almost cracks and says, ‘you and Dad are all I’ve got … I feel like I’m barely holding it together half the time.”
There it all is. And Season 9 is the fruition of that mindset. It’s not that Dean shouldn’t love his family. It’s that he needs them in a way that they don’t need him. And those who make themselves “of use” to such a degree are rarely thanked by their family members. They are taken for granted. I think Dean doesn’t mind that. It’s so automatic for him to care-take.
And Sam is trying to make him look at the dark side of that personality-trait, or way of being, or impulse or whatever. Sam is saying, “I don’t need that from you anymore. Okay?”
Dean is, of course, totally confused. Wait … what? Then … who am I without THAT?
His confusion basically proves Sam’s point.
I think it’s interesting that when Sam “gets out” of the life for a bit – he gets into a complicated messy relationship with an unmoored wreck of a woman (Amelia). (I like the Amelia story, and what it reveals about Sam.) And when Dean “gets out”, he does so because he made a promise to Sam. And he is lucky enough that Lisa took him in. And the Lisa situation was, in many ways, perfect for him – because there was a clear “role” there for him to fulfill, beyond “loving partner”. He got to be a dad. He got to devote himself to being a father. Lisa had her own good qualities – but it was the package-deal of Ben that made it perfect for Dean. It is impossible to picture him in a regular relationship (however messy it might be) with a woman like Amelia. Sam can tolerate the mess of it – because he somehow remains separate – which is grown-up and pretty healthy. “Look, you have decisions to make. They involve me. But we need to talk about this. I’m not willing to walk away. But you have some thinking to do yourself.”
You know. That’s pretty independent.
But Dean would be totally discombobbled – because … what would be needed of him in that scenario? Just … to be a good boyfriend? But … what else? The reality of Ben focused Dean … and focused him enough that I got the sense he honestly could have stayed forever, if given the chance.
These aren’t negative qualities. As a matter of fact, they could be his saving grace. But NOT with Sam. That ship has sailed.
Sheila, thank you so much for such a lengthy and thoughtful answer, I think (I hope) you helped me grasp the situation a little better.
You know, I never really had a problem with Sam saying “hurtful” things to Dean (well, it was painful to watch, but that’s understandable), because Dead DID need to hear them, and the whole “removing Sam’s sense of agency” and “too much co-dependency” thing is a real, ugly issue that has to be dealt with. That’s all true and Sam was absolutely right to want this to end. I just couldn’t understand why he kept glossing over these serious issues and instead kept on talking about 1. how he should have died or 2. how they’re not family anymore.
Maybe the reason why this is giving me so much trouble is that when I get angry or frustrated with someone, I always try to make them see why, make them understand what the problem is. But yeah, I’m not a Winchester :)
And I think you really helped me with this: …that’s a codependent attitude. He can no longer worry how Dean “takes it” – that’s part of the problem. He has separated himself. He asserts his separateness and that is healthy.
I hated being so confused over Sam’s actions because I love him just as much as I love Dean (I think you can’t love one without loving the other), I just think sometimes I don’t understand him as well. So this means a lot to me – thank you again!
I mean, Dean says the worst day of his life was when Sam went to college. That’s pretty insane. And that was seasons ago!
Those chickens are coming home to roost.
And how do you say to someone, “Please don’t love me so much. Please don’t need me so much.”
Thankfully, the show doesn’t always make Sam resistant to Dean – there are many many times when he is grateful for Dean looking out for him. But something is WAY out of balance.
The fact that Sam never looked for Dean while he was in Purgatory.
Wow. Pretty cold. I’m not sure I quite understand that – but it is interesting that even after THAT very revealing situation – when we get to Season 9, Dean is still saying to Sam, “You’d do the same thing for me. You’d save me. You’d look out for me.” Dude, he left you in Purgatory and didn’t even look. You are over-identified with your fantasy relationship with Sam. You need to get a self, get a life. But … how can Dean start doing that now? The whole “parentified” concept – mentioned by Natalie and Heather above …
It’s always been there – and there are moments when you can see Sam sense that … something’s “off” … but they can’t really name it. What they do is what they have always done.
The trials clearly changed Sam. As did his relationship with Amelia. He actually can live a life outside of his “role” in the Winchester family. At times he lorded that over Dean … but not in these mid-season 9 conversations. He’s patient with Dean, and truthful. He doesn’t prevaricate. He keeps driving the point home.
// Maybe the reason why this is giving me so much trouble is that when I get angry or frustrated with someone, I always try to make them see why, make them understand what the problem is. //
I think, though, that that is exactly what Sam is actually doing!! It’s not anything that Dean wants to hear, or can EVEN hear. But Sam is saying, “Forget Gadreel. THIS is the real problem.”
and that’s when Dean really goes off the rails.
As long as Sam was “mad” at him about Gadreel, Dean knew who he was in that context. But once Sam changed the dance step and started saying, “You can’t be alone. That is the problem. I would not do the same thing for you. I am separate from you Dean. I am separate. What we are doing, who we are to each other, is NOT WORKING” that Dean started the real tail-spin.
And, of course, once Castiel observed to Sam how much Dean had changed and that he was worried – Sam was able (because he is independent, again) – to sort of see what had happened to Dean, stop taking it personally, stop punishing Dean, and start trying to address the Mark of Cain and all that.
Because they are, after all, brothers. But it FELT different by that point – because of those mid-season 9 episodes.
Sorry, it’s me again… I just wanted to explain (see? I always want to explain things) why exactly those talks between Sam and Dean gave me so much trouble.
After 9×01, I was terrified of what would happen once Sam found out about the possession, about Dean once again taking the reins in his own hands. And I kept imagining how the scene where they finally talk about it would play out, what Sam would say to Dean. (Because I thought this would finally be the breaking point where the mess between them got so serious that they’d do the grown-up thing and really sit down and TALK things through.)
And I imagined Sam would say something like this: “Your life finally has to stop revolving about me, Dean.” And: “You can’t just decide that my fate is in your hands whenever you start thinking you know better than me.” And: “You can’t keep sacrificing everything for me. You know how difficult life is for me when I know that the moment something happens to me, you’re ready to throw away not just your own life, but basically everybody else’s too, just to make sure that I’m safe? You know what kind of horrible weight that puts on me?” (One of those gay cosplaying Winchester brothers in The Real Ghostbusters said “To have a brother who would die for you… Who wouldn’t want that?” But the thought is actually scary as Hell.)
So during Sam’s speech to Dean in 9×12, I was actually cheering him on, happy that he was finally saying the things that needed to be said. And then he confused me in the following episodes. I guess I just wanted him to spell everything out for Dean, which he didn’t do, so that’s where my disgruntlement was coming from.
But as Sheila pointed out, “This is NOT WORKING.” That’s all that needs to be said, after a certain point.
And Heather, thank you for your insight about Dean. It makes perfect sense to me. And makes my heart ache for him even more. Have you seen Dark Angel? I find it painfully ironic that Jensen’s character on DA, Alec, has more self-respect and self-awareness than Dean does, even though he was raised as a killing tool in a crazy pseudo-military secret facility where he didn’t even have a name, just a code number.
// (see? I always want to explain things) //
hahahaha Keep explaining! It’s good stuff!
I feel like Sam actually DID say all of those things, though – maybe not in so many words, but essentially. And Dean’s total incomprehension made Sam realize that the situation was far more dire than he suspected. Wow … so he’s really not getting this … He also appears to be growing a beard. And I am very concerned about that as well.
Here’s another thought: Sometimes writers make the mistake of making characters too articulate. A friend of mine who is an acting teacher tells her young students: “When you have to play a fight scene – remember that very few people know how to fight effectively. In real life, it’s messy. You backtrack. You back off. You don’t say what you mean. Try to get that into your acting.”
The writers of SPN are very very good at making the guys articulate – but also NOT. They don’t fight well. This is human. Too often writers have characters come out with neat thesis statements:
“here is why I am upset. And here is exactly how I feel. And you won’t interrupt me because I am making a speech that the writer worked really hard on.”
(As a matter of fact, the monsters in SPN are way too articulate for my taste sometimes. They stand around, in a moment of crisis, and explain why they do the things they do.)
But people in real life misunderstand, mis-hear, take things the wrong way, react badly. Dean is a master at that. He is IMPOSSIBLE. No matter what Sam says, Dean is not going to hear it. So Sam hunkers down, and just keeps saying the same thing. “Okay, round two. Here goes. Once again.”
Jessie joked (fondly) about some of the fanfic that comes out after each episode – where Sam and Dean are shown being beautifully articulate about their feelings and saying stuff like, “See, the way I’m feeling right now is this and this this” and the other says, “And see, that brings up in me some interesting issues …” The audience YEARNS for that kind of communication. And there’s nothing wrong with that! It’s one of the ways the audience is hooked in and invested. But the show refuses to provide us with exactly what we want.
So Sam is as clear as he can be. And Dean doesn’t get it. And reverts to his tired talking points (“you’d do the same thing for me”) and Sam basically says, “Not so fast.” And Dean, predictably, totally doesn’t get it – but what he DOES get is that Sam means what he’s saying, and that the situation is totally serious. Dean is limited. He’s beautifully fluid in many ways, but in other ways – he is limited – not at all practiced in that kind of independence. That’s why he looks so LOST at the end of the The Purge, one of my favorite shots of JA in the entire series. He doesn’t look hurt, he looks LOST.
Dean KNOWS that his role is the most important thing. Sam is denying him that role. It’s a death sentence, spiritual death.
Of course … it ISN’T, not really, and that’s what Sam is trying to get him to see. But to Dean it is a death sentence.
It’s almost like a mother who spends her entire life living for her family. And then completely goes off the rails when the kids go to college. She has no self outside of her role as Mom.
//One of those gay cosplaying Winchester brothers in The Real Ghostbusters said “To have a brother who would die for you… Who wouldn’t want that?” But the thought is actually scary as Hell//
Indeed. But it’s such a seductive, twisty, heroic dynamic that as a viewer I’ve totally bought it. I mean, God, that’s why I watch Supernatural. My feelings about those conversations between Sam and Dean in Season 9 veer between – ‘Sam, spot on, time to end all this shenanigans and grow up, so bring it on,’ and ‘Sam, NOOOO, you’re taking an axe to the entire show! You mean all that heroic self sacrifice, guilt and blah blah wasn’t cool, you mean it was actually a process of gradual self-immolation in which I’m complicit? Aagh, shut up, Sam!’
// you mean it was actually a process of gradual self-immolation in which I’m complicit? //
hahahahahaha Exactly!!
Yes, I’m totally hypocritical about it, jumping on the character of John Winchester for being a bastard yet quite happy for these characters to suffer endlessly for my sadistic entertainment. It’s like the Perils of Pauline.
Still pondering which of Thomas Browne’s works is good to read first. Will get back to you.
Thank you!!
He also appears to be growing a beard. And I am very concerned about that as well.
Yes, the beard of depression, one of the classic TV tropes that I absolutely love – it almost always makes the men look even hotter than they normally do. (And for me, JA is no exception.) Shouldn’t this also have a female equivalent? Like the unshaven legs of depression?
And you’re right – things do get weird when the characters get too articulate. It’s just that I get so emotionally invested in said characters that I desperately want them to talk/hug/fight/fuck it out and get better so my heart can stop aching for them. I mean I love to see them suffer (don’t we all?), but I also want them to get a break sometimes. But that’s not Supernatural.
In fact, right before the season 9 finale, when the writers and JA and everybody kept saying how the episode was a real surprise and how it was something they’ve never done before, I was joking that it meant the boys would actually WIN and retire and get a happy life. I mean – Dean becoming a demon? I did see that coming. But Dean finally getting his pie? Now that’s what I’d call a real shock!
// It’s just that I get so emotionally invested in said characters that I desperately want them to talk/hug/fight/fuck it out and get better so my heart can stop aching for them. I mean I love to see them suffer (don’t we all?), but I also want them to get a break sometimes. //
I know!! I honestly think that that tension you beautifully describe – what we WANT from them and how much the show REFUSES to give it to us (damn them) – is why we are now going into the 10th season. You know? It’s manipulative, sure, but it’s also effective storytelling. It makes people scream at the TV – “do better! say it better! hug it out!”
And resolving of those issues will mean a huge “hook” of the show will be lost. It’s like romantic tension in romantic couples. Cheers was wonderful when Sam and Diane were flirting around, and it was all “will they or won’t they” – and when they finally did hook up – it was satisfying for sure but then poof, a lot of the “air” was let out of the series. The tension was gone. At least that was true for me.
It’s agony for the audience, for sure! And now of course everything will be different with a demonic Dean.
Like May said somewhere else – I think it was May? – and Jessie too – I hope demonic Dean is a joyful and happy-go-lucky relaxed and sexy-sexy Id-driven Monster. Completely at ease with himself, completely content, totally doing whatever the hell HE wants, because it feels goooood, man. Now THAT would be fucked up. Because how long have we all been waiting for that? And now they give it to us … but he’s dead and a demon. hahahahaha.
I hope demonic Dean is a joyful and happy-go-lucky relaxed and sexy-sexy Id-driven Monster.
Yes, that’s exactly what I’d love to see too! And I think Jensen would deserve it, after having to go through such a hard time with Dean this season. Apparently it’s been really rough on him.
//He also appears to be growing a beard. And I am very concerned about that as well.//
I’m very concerned about my increasing attraction to men with beards. I was never like this before. Is it a sign of old age?
That’s one of the silliest things I’ve ever seen in my life. I can’t stop laughing.
There weren’t any library scenes in this episode, but if Sam and Dean go to Dublin in season 10, they need to go to this library.
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-library-that-put-readers-in-cages
I’ve been there!!
LOOK at that place. It’s absolutely gorgeous, you want to die from the pleasure of it – but you also do NOT want to be locked in there overnight, that’s for sure.
You’ve been there??!! Cool. So it really is as great as the pictures?
Demon Dean in a library, now that I think about it, maybe not a good idea.
My Dad took me there when I was a grumpy 14-year-old and I did not appreciate it. I have returned many times since. It really is as great as the pictures. And the skull! And the cages!!
The place is clearly haunted and I think Sam and Dean need to get on that. Pronto.
So clearly now you know that Dean has turned into a demon. Dammit, we are spoiling the whole thing for you. Hopefully it’ll still be fun for you to watch HOW he gets to that point. :)
Oh Sheila, you can’t protect me from the spoilers. As Sarah said, “That’s very sweet. And very archaic.”
Nothing is being spoiled for me. And why should everyone else hold back for a slow-poke?
If I ever go to Dublin, I’ll have to visit the Marsh library, after I take the Hamilton Quaternion walk (I’m a slightly different flavor of nerd).
http://ingeniousireland.ie/2011/11/hamilton-quaternion-walk-new-podcast-tour/
Wow!!
// Every year on the anniversary – October 16 – hundreds of people walk the canal from Dunsink to Broom Bridge, marking Quaternion Day, and this popular scientific pilgrimage attracts mathematicians, scientists and historians from around the world. //
My heart swells with emotion when I hear of nerd-gatherings such as this one.
//That’s one of the silliest things I’ve ever seen in my life. I can’t stop laughing.//
The best part, to me, is that was literally the first GIF I found. I typed “riker beard gif” into Google and there it was. Pure. Gold.
soooo funny.
Sheila, WHY did Sam not look for Dean when he was in Purgatory? Literally, that was just the most bush league thing he ever did. I can understand how he got together with Ruby more easily than that (he was messed up after Dean died, Ruby offered him help, he wanted to live, he wanted revenge on Lillith) . If Dean was dead, where was his body? He saw him disappear. And then he froze. That to me was not “mature” as Carver (?) said that was literally despicable. He lost all creditability to me.
THEN he tells Dean he confessed all the times he let Dean down in Sacrifice. That those were the sins in his life.
I see what you say about parentification. I see that Dean views Sam as the only child he’ll ever have. That is not healthy for Dean. But Sam never said the magic words that YOU are saying. He never said this is not about Gadreel. You were wrong but this is not about Gadreel. It is about HOW WE ARE. There is something wrong here. TELL me how we can make this better.
I understand that arguments are not articulate. But I really don’t think Sam talked to Dean in a way he could understand. He was venting and Dean while he was hurt blew Sam’s argument off. You’re right, he wasn’t listening.
BTW, Sam NEVER said he was wrong to leave Dean in the lurch. You’re right. I think Sam would’ve been happy if Dean had never come back.
I don’t think it was healthy for him to get together in his messy relationship with Amelia. I think he is always looking to bail.
And then his speech in Miracles, We’ll fix this, we’ll worry about that later (the same thing Dean has said numerous times in these occasions) and lastly “I lied.”
Dean specifically said, “It’s better this way, I’m turning into something I don’t want to be.” And Sam was doing what Dean would do!
I read your comments about Amelia. I could not stand her. I think Sam wanted a life apart from Dean. And here he was picking somebody else with a drinking problem! (I tried to like her; I examined whether it was just “hate the chick” but I found myself liking ramdon hunter girl from 9.02 better. Everything about Amelia bugged me. She was written to bug me. She argued with a man who brought in a dog. For all she knew he had a dog allergy or had a family with a dog allergy. She didn’t ASK anything, she DEMANDED and that was what I disliked so much about her.)
So was Sam not looking for Dean I think was attempt to get rid of the problem. Not a good thing to do.
When I examine those mid-9th season speeches I don’t find it healthy at all. It put everything on Dean. Because as soon as the same sort of thing DID show up, Sam was all for extraordinary measures. This is truly a two-way street and for all Sam’s bitching he is not “healthy” either.
I just don’t see things the way you do.
Actually I want Dean to separate himself from Sam and then see what Sam does do. I for one was shocked that Dean would not leave Ben and Lisa (and it WAS Ben and Lisa, wasn’t it?)
and it took Soulless Sam TWO episodes to get Dean back.
I just don’t see Sam as the healthier of the two.
evave2 – I honestly don’t know how much clearer Sam could have been. Draw him a picture? Dean’s an adult. If he’s not “getting it”, in the clear language Sam used (repeatedly), then that shows the depth of his problem. That’s the point. And that was why the writers kept returning to it. Highlighting the existential issue before descending into the Mark of Cain plot-line. This is what is REALLY happening underneath. Besides, if Dean “got it”, or if he “understood,” then we wouldn’t have a show, would we? :)
Drama comes from conflict, not resolution. The more conflict the better.
I have said before that I don’t “like” Amelia because I approve of her or think she’s a nice person or think she’s “good” for him or sweet or kind or anything like that. I don’t relate to fictional characters that way, in the main. I respond to them in terms of whether they are watchable or not, whether they ADD something to the story, whether they bring out interesting things in the plot and the subtext.
In an interview, Tommy Lee Jones was asked about playing killer Gary Gilmore, “Do you have to like whatever character you have to play?”
A lot of actors feel that “liking” the character is important – but Jones, bless him, said bluntly, “No. I think you have to want to WATCH that person.”
And that’s how I feel.
I “like” Amelia because of how she operates in the Story, and what it reveals about Sam – this is who he chose at this moment in his life. Yes, to all of your characteristics of her. So? I thought it was fascinating and complex and revealing, story-wise and character-wise. It said a LOT.
So yeah, we don’t see things the same way, I think in a lot of ways, including how we watch the show and how we respond to/deal with Story.
And that’s fine, obviously. Varying ways of reacting to different events on the show is awesome and means the writers have done their job!
People are still arguing about the final moment of The Sopranos. It’s great.
Sheila,
Dublin must be a special city, what with Quaternion Day and the rapidly approaching Bloomsday (ooh, 90th anniversary). Math and literature, *sigh*.
You’ve written about Bloomsday in New York several times – I forget, have you ever been in Dublin on Bloomsday?
I have never been in Dublin on Bloomsday – but my friend Odie (he wrote the Ruby Dee obit I posted – the second one) has. He reported back to me that it is insane. Like Mardi Gras.
I don’t think I can do an actual Bloomsday celebration this year – bummer.
Dublin is MADE for nerds. I guess any really really old city is. You can’t walk two steps without tripping over a plaque of some kind.
Speaking of plaques, that reminds me of a funny one I saw in Memphis – something along the lines of: “On March 3, 1802, nothing happened on this spot.”
Oops, 110th. I get so confused with borrowing and carrying.
//“On March 3, 1802, nothing happened on this spot.”//
Sometimes “nothing” is a real cool hand.
Seriously. The busy warring world breathes a sigh of relief. I love it when nothing happens!
I went to put Quaternion Day on my calendar and I noticed it’s also Oscar Wilde’s birthday, 11 years after Hamilton’s discovery – wow, Dublin!
I say “discovery” and not “invention” because I’m a Platonist when it comes to math, it’s the only place here Plato’s Forms are an accurate description of anything. Just so you know. In case there’s a Math War, you’ll know who’s side I’m on.
I wonder if James Joyce referenced Hamilton Quaternion, etc., in Ulysses. I’ll do a cross-reference check.
Well, I’m now down the rabbit hole. Apparently the only reference to a mathematician in Ulysses is to George Salmon (who was a provost at Trinity).
Again with my “I adore nerds” thing. That someone has already asked this question and THEN done the legwork.
And then I found this (which appears to be unrelated, but interesting nonetheless):
The phrase “Dunsink time” appears 5 times in Ulysses, which I actually do remember.
It’s because of this.
http://www.maths.tcd.ie/~dwmalone/time/dunsink.html
Just a quick word search in Ulysses gives “Hamilton Long’s” – and a quick google of that tells me it’s a pharmacy (or chemist’s, per the locals). And no hits for quaternion.
Jeeze, such holes those rabbits dig.
Love the Dunsink time info.
I hadn’t heard of George Salmon before, but I see from Wikipedia that he collaborated and communicated with Cayley and Hermite, who were definitely Persons Of Interest. There’s a famous essay by Freeman Dyson where he says that mathematicians come in two types: frogs and birds. Salmon sounds like a frog.
http://www.ams.org/notices/200902/rtx090200212p.pdf