Reaction Post

[chasingtides]

First of all, I identified way too much with Dean this episode. I try not to identify with fictional characters too much, but um, yes. I was the person who - well, I had a reputation for slutting it up in high school (including the awkward moments when the girls shrieked at me about hooking up with guys across the school). There was one point where I was happily seeing three guys at the same time (I made sure they all had the same name) and... okay. Yeah. You get the picture. I didn't really have friends, but I did have guys. (Also, Dean's reaction of, "I'm going to rip out his lungs!" is totally my reaction when people hurt people I care about.)

So, I'm kind of biased. I relate to Dean. I totally did that and it definitely covered my - real or imagined - social deficiencies. And pansexuality/queerness. But we won't talk about any of that.

I don't like young!Dean. He has a weird accent and looks about 10 or 12 years older than Colin Ford. My fellow viewers were vocal in objecting to the vast age difference in the actors.

Oh, Sam, this is why I had trouble liking you in season one. (I'm sorry. I have really Dean-identifying issues.) a) Dean makes sure you have everything you need for school, b) Dean clearly takes care of you, c) Dean tries to protect you in the only way he knows how - but only your English teacher takes an interest in you. WTF? I can see thinking that at 14 (everyone's an ass at 14), but he's 26 now - plenty of time for introspection.

I feel like... Sam doesn't quite understand what Dean does for him, that Dean's life is and always has been Sam. I thought that Sam had figured that out since, you know, Dean sold his soul for him. Apparently not. This makes me unhappy, mostly because it makes my Big Bang seriously, seriously AU.

Dirk = Dean. Yes. Dirk is totally Dean. I think it's symbolic that Sam destroyed Dirk's life. That's kind of what Sam did when he went to Stanford and wrecked the Dean-John-Sam trinity to all hell. (Then he came back and we have the show.) Is this saying something about Sam being careless or not thinking before he acts? I think so.

In other news, I don't think we needed the anvil about Dean's self esteem issues. Or that's Sam's the people person in this dynamic duo.

I'm also not sure who it is - writer, wardrobe, director - but someone really, really likes dressing Jensen up in some interesting costumes this season. I'm just saying.

I'm not sure. This felt a lot like a season one episode, both in the MotW style, but also in where the brothers are emotionally - haven't they matured in four years?

Comments

[zed-pm.livejournal.com]

I feel like... Sam doesn't quite understand what Dean does for him, that Dean's life is and always has been Sam. I thought that Sam had figured that out since, you know, Dean sold his soul for him. Apparently not.
This has upset me for quite sometime. And, it often inhibits my Sam love.

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

I loved Sam last season and this season - partially because I thought that was behind us. How can he not understand that Dean does everything he can for him?

I want to love Sam, but it feels like I can't.

[zed-pm.livejournal.com]

I don't understand him either. And, the fact that he keeps up and leaving Dean to go do WHATEVER with Ruby, just makes things worse.

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

I feel so bad for Dean! The only person he cares about keeps treating him like crap. Or... at least, ignoring that he's there.

(If only Sam would stop it, I could really love him.)

[zed-pm.livejournal.com]

YES. Ever since Sam left Dean in "Lazarus Rising" I've been slightly pissed at him. He just got his brother back FROM HELL, where he went because he SAVED THE LIFE of his brother. I just don't get it.

[larienelengasse.livejournal.com]

Oh, Sam, this is why I had trouble liking you in season one. (I'm sorry. I have really Dean-identifying issues.) a) Dean makes sure you have everything you need for school, b) Dean clearly takes care of you, c) Dean tries to protect you in the only way he knows how - but only your English teacher takes an interest in you. WTF? I can see thinking that at 14 (everyone's an ass at 14), but he's 26 now - plenty of time for introspection.

I feel like... Sam doesn't quite understand what Dean does for him, that Dean's life is and always has been Sam. I thought that Sam had figured that out since, you know, Dean sold his soul for him. Apparently not. This makes me unhappy, mostly because it makes my Big Bang seriously, seriously AU.

I didn't interpret it that way at all. I don't think that Sam doubts for one second the lengths to which Dean will go to protect him. But Dean never has, and still doesn't, understand Sam. Of course, Sam doesn't understand Dean either, but then Dean does his level best to stay locked down until he needs to go into protect mode.

Maybe it's because in some ways I'm a lot more like Sam than I am Dean that I interpret it this way. Also, Dean did what he did because that's what HE needed to do. Sam was right when he protested and said that he didn't want Dean to do it. It was as much for Dean as it was for Sam, at least that's how I see it. Of course, I'm a firm believer in the whole "there's no totally selfless act" theory too.

I think that Sam has always felt on the outside, like he didn't belong - even with Dean and John - and all he ever wanted was a place where he felt like he fit. Does this make him selfish? Perhaps, but it also makes him human. Does it make Dean and John selfish for expecting him to give up his life to do something that was never his choice? I think that is also. I think there's a lot of unintentional selfishness going around in that family.

Just offering an additional interpretation...

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm like Dean too much. I've never much felt like I belonged - but as long as I have a little group of my people, I'm fine and will defend them to the death. (I learned the hard way in junior high that it's not okay for a guy's sister to haul off and punch the guy who beat up her brother.)

I'm not someone who sits around a talks about her feelings (I'll write here more about my feelings than I think I've ever talked about them in my life) and my reaction, when someone hurts some I love, is to haul off and hit them. (This reaction is often mitigated by being small and female - it's adorable or, at worst, mildly irritating. And, yes, the last fist fight I was in was in high school, so a fair few years ago, but, yes.) That's how I express caring - I don't say something, but I'll do something, especially to help you, protect you. I'll feed you, keep you warm, beat up your enemies, but if you want me to talk about it? I will probably do my best to keep both of our mouths filled with food so we don't have to.

I do think that Dean needs other people in his life, but I think this episode also makes it clear why that's not true. He had no ability to put down roots - and no reason to want to - and he is not naturally a people person. (I think it was clear in this episode that he's learned a little too much from movies and not enough from real life.)

Is it selfish? Sure. But he also doesn't have anything else in his life. To lose everything? I wouldn't be surprised if Dean had some kind of break down when Sam went to college.

Sam leaving? Is normal. But is he normal? Is his situation normal? I suspect - judging by how he interacts with John and Dean - that he might have been able to attack going to college better than he likely did. John, despite all, appears to love his sons - I have trouble imagining him telling Sam not to come back if Sam approached the situation as, "Well, I'd really like to go to college and here's why it's a good idea for both of us..."

[monicawoe.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, I identified with young Sam heavily in this episode. I got myself into trouble quite a few times in school by trying to help kids that were being picked on. Sadly I did not know martial arts at that age ; )
I think Sam is and was fully aware of Dean's love for him. What he probably meant by the whole "taken an interest in me" speech is that no one had until that point asked him what he wanted to do. This is true for a lot of kids, but his childhood (and Dean's) was particularly void of choice.

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

I guess for me, "Taking an interest in," means caring about, making sure he's safe, making sure he's fed, making sure that... he's at school, that he's not being beat up by bullies, making sure he can protect himself, too. Sure, you can ask what you want to do with your life... but...

Lot's of people asked me what I wanted to be as a kid (Queen of the World, if you want to know), but no one meant it seriously until my junior high English teacher asked me if I'd thought about writing (after a Lord of the Rings fanfic). So I can sympathise there. But plenty of people had taken an interest in my life - they just didn't care what a ten year old (crippled and fairly socially dysfunctional) kid thought she was going to do with her life (which is valid, in my opinion).

[mselfie.livejournal.com]

On another perspective of Sam's speach to the teacher, one of the things I think they've been trying to drive home this season is how much Sam and Dean are two halves. Light and dark, good and evil, and in this case, the student and the rebel. Sam said he didn't have anyone else take an interest in him, but I got the impression that he knew Dean did but because Dean is always there, and is always his other half, it wasn't as monumental as it could've been.

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

True. And I totally agree that this is a valid thing for 14 year old Sam to feel. (God knows I often felt this way about my family at 14.) However, I feel that at 26, Sam should have more perspective than that, especially after the time away from Dean at Stanford and while Dean was in Hell - especially after Dean was in Hell.

[samidha.livejournal.com]

Okay, but this is Show, and he wants to have something to say to the guy, you know? Sure it could have been more elegent, but neither brother is exactly elegent, and I think you're really pulling apart what Sam said in order to see it in a negative light. :(

I mean, you're totally entitled and I had my visceral "No, SAM!" moments this ep. But... if you go to see a teacher you haven't seen in that amount of time and never will again you're going to say something goofy-cheesy like "ZOMG you were such this amazing influence to me!" Otherwise, why bother?

[breakinporcelan.livejournal.com]

I feel like... Sam doesn't quite understand what Dean does for him, that Dean's life is and always has been Sam. I thought that Sam had figured that out since, you know, Dean sold his soul for him. Apparently not.

I know what you mean, and now I'm concerned that it'll take something even BIGGER than Dean selling his soul and dying to get through to Sam. I'm not sure what that'll be, but it can't be anything good.

[samidha.livejournal.com]

I think it's possible for Sam to not quite understand, while still understanding to a degree. I mean, he's not like "Wow Dean, I hate you, you've never looked out for me in my life! EVER! And your deal meant nothing to me!" All he did was tell the teacher that he did mean something to Sam.

I had a visceral reaction against it too, but really? How's Sam supposed to win here? Go to the teacher and tell him "Hi! Actually you were a cockface, only my brother really cared about me!" ?

ICON LOVE BTW.

[breakinporcelan.livejournal.com]

I think it's possible for Sam to not quite understand, while still understanding to a degree.

I'm sure that he does understand to some degree overall, but in this episode it didn't seem that way (to me at least). Sam made it sound like the teacher was the ONLY one who took an interest in him (I believe he said those exact words - will need to re-watch) but since he didn't qualify that with 'the only teacher', it came off like no one else, including Dean, was interested in Sam. Just poor wording in my opinion - it leaves too much open to interpretation, and I interpreted it in that way.

I'm not sure the issue has been so directly examined anywhere else in this specific season, so it just seemed to me that Sam still hasn't figured it out yet. Your mileage may vary, of course.

AND THANK YOU! It's one of my favorites :D

[rugbybaby.livejournal.com]

You know, I hadn't actually given that sort of thing a lot of consideration until you pointed it out. I should probably scroll down to make sure I'm not repeating everything.

Okay well larienelengasse wrote a bunch of it. I totally agree with you that they really don't understand one another. It seems like Sam really shifts a lot. He went from being very academically oriented to deciding he had to be more like Dean when Dean's clock was ticking, to... idek what is he now? Now he's talking about wanting a future, and that future will apparently not include hunting. In the face of the Apocalypse it just seems odd to me. Which is another surprising issue with me. Apocalypse is still going on, and we're doing little errands. Don't get me wrong: I loved this episode and I love errands. But to be doing that while the clock is ticking, and now suddenly Sam wants a future again that does not include hunting, but he was hunting while Dean was dead... and there goes my mind. On the wall, five pieces.

Anyway, I agree. I do think it's weird that present!Sam doesn't seem to have changed in his appreciation since he was a kid. AKA when he talks to his teacher. I suppose it shows that, though I do think he knows Dean has and will continue to make sacrifices for him, he has more recognition for people who support and foster the parts of his life that he ranks highly. Maybe it's just a really hard habit to break. He's spent a lot of the series pissed off at Dean for not getting him, but I agree with you when you say that Sam doesn't really get Dean either.