rusty_halo

Caveat: I’m a little drunk and a lot overstimulated (just got back from seeing Alice in Chains at Madison Square Garden) so fair warning. Lots of rambling and capslock.

- Dean's actually faithful to Lisa! I figured he would be--loyalty is one of his strengths--but it makes me happy to see it illustrated. My least favorite character trait in Dean is his casual misogyny; I do not miss that at all. (It doesn't bother me inherently that Dean sleeps around, but it puts a bad taste in my mouth because we've seen several times that he manipulates and lies to women he sleeps with. I'm very pleased to see him treating Lisa with respect.)

- Lisa has a personality! And an opinion! She's caring and she cuts Dean some slack but also calls him on his bullshit. She even has a reasonable and compassionate explanation for why she took Dean in (and I like that the show acknowledges--and has Dean acknowledge--how nutty that was).

- Although the whole "happiest year of my life" thing was overkill. This woman had, what, thirty-something years of life that did not involve Dean Winchester? Please.

- I don't know if you guys saw the Fandom Wank post about pre-premiere SPN fandom nonsense--I only read a bit of it, but apparently there's this huge complaint that Sera Gamble hates Dean and that Dean is being sidelined by the narrative.

So um... are those people smoking crack? Because Dean is clearly the emotional core of the show and has been since at least season four. I know that in this episode, part of the reason for Dean's prominence is that they're keeping Sam's issues in reserve for plot reasons, and part is that they're mirroring the series premiere (which was structured with Sam as the viewpoint character) but it's also, y'know, that the show is generally more focused on what's going on with Dean than anything else.

I approve totally. It's awesome when a show focuses on the character I'm most interested in.

- I found myself yelling at the screen a few times. First when Sam told Dean he'd been back for a year, I was like, "DEAN, HIT HIM! Don't just give him the emo face! HIT HIM!" (Even though I actually understand and mostly agree with Sam's reasons for not telling Dean--Dean deserved happiness with Lisa and Ben and not knowing about Sam's return is the only way he could've gotten it. Plus a part of Sam has been wanting to strike out on his own for a while now, both for mature reasons [wanting to function as an adult without the little-brother role that being with Dean automatically forces him into] and for less mature reasons [he's had something of a contemptuous superiority complex toward Dean "holding him back" for a while now].)

And then at the end I was all "AAAAH DEAN THAT IS SAM YOU SOLD YOUR SOUL FOR HIM GO AFTER HIM!!" (Even though I actually think Dean should stay with Lisa. It's like how all through season one I thought Sam should go back to Stanford, but emotionally my investment was in him staying with Dean.)

- (I think one of the core things that keeps me watching this show is that my emotional and intellectual reactions are so at odds. It means my reaction is complex and that the show gives me a lot to think about.)

- So, I like that Dean has changed, and grown up a lot, and developed a more mature and less psychotically codependent relationship with his brother, and adapted to a life where he is safe and comfortable, but... this is Dean Winchester, you guys. DEAN IS MADE OF ~ISSUES~. I'm not complaining yet, because I expect to see the ~issues~ coming out in subsequent episodes, and there were already hints here of how disconnected/not-quite-right Dean is in suburbia.

The show is brave for allowing its main characters to change so much, and the growth is organic to the characters and necessary to keep the story interesting, but... I don't buy Dean being this capable of functioning responsibly in the real world. I expect to see more exploration of his problems adjusting to the "normal" world, interacting socially with regular people, all that, and, y'know, just that fact that one of his primary character traits is that he's kind of ridiculous and weird.

- I'm really dreading whatever's going to drag him back into hunting. I dislike "you can't escape your past" (what a horrible, fatalistic viewpoint for a show that was all "team free will!" last season) and the idea of something terrible happening to Lisa and/or Ben is 1) predictable, 2) bad writing (fridging women/killing kids is never a good plan, and "Dean wants to stay but leaves out of guilt" doesn't do anything for his character growth). Then there is "Dean realizes he's just not cut out for suburbia" (meh, that's an awful reason to abandon a kid) and "Dean desperately misses the excitement of the hunting life" (also a terrible reason to abandon a kid, and anyway, we've seen over the past few seasons that living in constant danger is not a sustainable long-term existence no matter how "fun" the adrenaline rush may occasionally be). And there's the whole "my presence puts you in danger"/"there are people to be saved and I'm the only one who can do it!" but I already saw the Spiderman movie and this show is better than those cliches.

The only reason I can get behind Dean choosing to go back is that he realizes that ~SAM NEEDS HIM~. It's not so much going backwards as recognizing how essential their relationship is to both of them, how much they love and need each other and are the only ones who can totally understand and support each other. I'm sure there'll be some plot/character reasons--Sam'll be all emotionally messed up and/or he'll be in danger somehow and Dean will realize that he is the only one who can be there for Sammy and HE'S STILL DEAN so of course he'll go to Sam. Which would also ameliorate the OWWW PAINFUL distance that we saw between Sam and Dean at the end of the premiere episode. There was a huge amount of emotion brewing beneath that final scene, and it set up the season so that the whole reason to keep watching is to see how the boys get back together.

- "Beautiful Loser"? This show is so good at song choices.

- I liked Samuel comparing Dean to Mary. Well, just in general I love when Dean gets compared to his mother, because his whole ridiculous hypermasculine persona needs to be challenged as frequently as possible. (Have I mentioned how much I love that he was named after his grandmother?) And also, wow, Dean is so S1 Sam in this episode--apparently it's now accepted as a given that Dean is the one who wants the normal life. See, I like the role reversal, and I think it's been building organically for several seasons, but Sam-as-Dean doesn't work as well as Dean-as-Sam. Because part of what made Dean compelling in his first appearance was his sense of humor, which is still totally lacking in Sam, and is now largely lacking in Dean. Hmm. Yeah. Show needs moar snark.

- Could the whole thing (episode? season?) be a djinn dream? That's probably veering off into batshit conspiracy theory mode, but it was odd how unclear the editing was when Dean first started hallucinating and Sam appeared (which is the thing Dean would want most), and then later when the two djinns gave him a supposedly killing dose and we never saw how he woke up from it.

- I was spoiled that Azazel was coming back; otherwise I'd be squeeing about it. See, kids, this is why you shouldn't read spoilers.

I love the continuity of such a long-running character coming back; it packs quite an emotional punch. (This is also why Mitch Pileggi doesn't ring quite so powerfully to me. His emotional resonance feels a bit pastede on yay. I read some people suggesting that they should've brought Ellen back instead--YES PLEASE.)

- OH MY GOD, YOU GUYS, DEAN IS SO PRETTY. Was he prettier than usual in this episode or is it just that I was so excited to have new canon? Maybe it was the brighter lighting or that he was more cleaned up for suburbia? Or maybe it's just that DEAN IS SO PRETTY. ♥♥♥

- YAY I HAVE A SHOW AGAIN. And this episode was actually good. And even if it gets terrible (I expect several terrible episodes soon, as the first half of a Supernatural season is always weaker than the second), it will always be entertaining because Dean is always pretty.

ETA: And a few more thoughts here.

Originally published at rusty-halo.com. You can comment here or there.