SPN Reaction, Commentary and Meta

[chasingtides]

So there's a whole lot of gay going on in this episode. This one of the first times my mother has commented on it, but, um, yeah. Gay.

I do love that Dean, apparently, doesn't have a safeword - or, at least, doesn't want to share it with the Chief. I kind of want to see a missing scene Dean/Chief or Dean-and-Chief one shot. Please, fandom?

Anyway, I made a post ages ago about how incest is the Chekov's gun of this season. No matter where we go - back in time, to Las Vegas, to the middle of nowhere - incest rears its ugly head. This is like Chekov's diamond encrusted show cannon on display in the middle of the stage. I have no idea what's going on and am so confused.

I say this because the parallels between the old men and the Winchesters were so obvious as to be gag inducing and even my definitively heteronormative homophobic mother thought that the old dudes were pretty gay for each other. (I know it means nothing when I think they're gay.) The men - or two of them anyway - couldn't imagine living without each other, would kill to keep each other alive and immortal, wanted to be together forever - which was Sam's song this episode, too. IDK, but growing old and gray together (being like Bobby together) is definitely a romantic notion in my mind.

That said, I think Sam is totally going darkside so that he can grow old with Dean. Which is a really awkward thing. I mean, I'm kind of planning that in my incestuous Big Bang fic, but... that's my incestuous Big Bang fic. I'm not sure what to do with this in my canon, you know?

Maybe I'm reading too much into things. This is totally possible. But the parallels feel too glaringly obvious. They're too devoted (we know this, the Trickster told us this). They love each other too much. They're too close. Their world is too claustrophobic. They turn to what they know - each other, hunting things, saving people, losing themselves - when they can't save the world. Their world is shrinking and they've got each other and don't seem to know who to trust - except Ruby? She's a baffling card here.

Ruby's scene bothered me. I feel like it's poor writing - dancing around the subject and making it sound overly sexual when I really don't think that it is. They can do better than that. In any case, the thing that Sam wasn't willing to do, but now is - I am torn: is it murder or torture? Or BOTH?

I think that the Winchesters are going to be going darkside this season. I mean, to an extent, Dean already is and I think Sam is heading that way to save Dean. I wonder if by the finale they will be the murders and sociopaths that Hendricksen claimed they were.

Thoughts?

Comments

[notyourstarx0.livejournal.com]

If they DO go "darkside," Kripke and the rest of the writers are going to have to play it VERY carefully. I think they've struck some sensitive nerves with Dean revealing more of what happened to him while he was in Hell and the fandom relationship to the Sam-Ruby thing is incredibly tempestuous. I even think that's been a poorly handled point in the show.

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

Yes. I have my issues with how they've handled Dean - a lot of issues - but I also - I'm having trouble seeing another direction for this to go. Maybe I'm blind and maybe the next episode with Castiel will be more revealing, but they both seem pretty dark at the moment. I'm feeling pretty cautious.

[notyourstarx0.livejournal.com]

It's been awhile since Dean woke up to find Castiel sitting on his bed and staring at him...

[breakinporcelan.livejournal.com]

I think Sam is totally going darkside so that he can grow old with Dean.

That's an accurate summation of what I'm thinking right now. It's like a very EXTREME case of being cruel to be kind. Since I first started watching I've never expected the Winchesters to grow old together, but this view is giving me hope that it could be possible.

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

I am actually kind of disturbed. S4 Sam seems to be of a really one track mind (save DEAN, protect DEAN, DEANDEANDEANDEAN) and the idea that this is his new goal, to grow old and gray with Dean, could be potentially kind of creepy, especially as Dean hasn't showed any desire for this.

That said, I would love to see them growing old on a farmhouse in Montana.

[breakinporcelan.livejournal.com]

...I hadn't thought about it like that. When you put it that way, it does seem to be creepy and disturbing. O_o But it's keeping me interested as hell, I'll give them that much.

Yes, a farmhouse, with a pond and lots of open land. And maybe some friendly cows in the neighboring pasture, IDK. Something idyllic.

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

They totally deserve their Montana farmhouse. It needs to be idyllic and farmlike, but with woodlands for Dean to hunt animals and books and stuff for Sam to be all learned.

[theoret.livejournal.com]

the idea that this is his new goal, to grow old and gray with Dean, could be potentially kind of creepy, especially as Dean hasn't showed any desire for this.
That is the kind of creepy that makes me JIZZ IN MY PANTS from the sheer awesome of it. SDFGHFJK DO WANT. I want Sam to go darkside because that is the only way he knows how to express his EPIC LOVE OF DEAN anymore, and then Dean will freak the fuck out about it, but stay by his side anyway, and then Sam will use his EEEEEEEVIL powers to kill the fuck out of Lilith/Lucifer/whatever, and then Dean's EPIC LOVE OF SAM will some how lead to DEAN BEING SAM'S REDEMPTION and then Sam and Dean can grow old and grey together in a non-creepy way, because it won't be Sam forcing his ideals on Dean, it will just somehow happen while they aren't paying attention, like Dean will wake up one morning and realise that somewhere along the line he lost the last of his brown hair, but whatever, he and Sam are still together and in love and total badasses AND THAT IS WHAT MATTERS.

...YOU KNOW YOU LOVE MY RUN ON SENTENCES OF EPIC WINCESTY LOVE, SHUSH.

On a slightly less crazy-fangirl note: This episode didn't really hit my SHOOT THE DAMN GUN ALREADY buttons, because I didn't think the incest was intentional in this one. The Sam-Dean Jay-Charlie parallel was obvious, but I think the gay of the Jay-Charlie relationship was unintentional. I kind of maybe have a meta brewing somewhere in my head which kinda relates to this, but basically I think that the SPN writers have this tendency to write relationships that are meant to be read as platonic, but end up reading as romantic to a lot of people. And they get away with it with Sam/Dean, because most people will read interactions between brothers as fraternal which they might read as romantic with unrelated characters (because of the assumption of non-incestuousness people tend to have with familial relationships), but when they write Sam/Dean parallels with unrelated characters people notice SPN's general blurriness between platonic and romantic much more. But I think it's just how the SPN writers tend to write relationships, rather than intentional romantic subtext.

[hotfuzz85.livejournal.com]

This should be a LOL episode, amirite?

BRB DOWNLOADING.

[rugbybaby.livejournal.com]

I hadn't really thought of it until you mentioned it, the idea of them both going darkside. I think it's something I have to see to properly understand. This episode reminded me heavily of... dammit now I have to find the title of the episode. Season 3, Time is On My Side, where Dean won't let Sam go though the doctor's records to keep him alive. And the whole idea of using innocent people to prolong life, but Sam really disturbed me in that episode because he was so willing to do whatever it took and was seriously considering the formulas. This episode also heavily reminded me of Season 1's Faith, since again Dean's life is threatened and he feels like absolute trash knowing that someone else's life ended to save his own, even though he didn't know.

Maybe it's just me, but I can't really see Dean going darkside. Maybe I'm not taking in the signs. I can definitely see Sam doing it. And I agree that the scene with Ruby was really tossed in there somewhat haphazardly, probably only so Sam could go back to her at the end. I am kind of eh regarding what's been going on with both boys. That might only be because now I'm paying more attention.