#not me jumping from giffing s1 to s12 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mittensmorgul · 7 years

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1.10 and 1.11 vs s12

I’m not even going to bother pointing out all the internal parallels to s1 (pretty much the only thing in my tag for this episode is the rewatch notes from 2015... which is a shame because there’s a lot of interesting family dynamics stuff in this episode. I’ll just quote the two relevant passages from my notes here to spare you having to read them, unless you want to see the gif of Dean jumping the fence, which is worth seeing on its own, and it’s already in that post :P)

Strange how the ghost singles out SAM for his “treatment,” considering we later find out it had to do with anger, and triggering even more intense anger. It’s leading us to the assumption that for all of Dean’s bluster, and Sam’s apparent happy puppy face he shows the world, it was SAM who the doc chose for his “extreme rage therapy.” Dean might come across as the cranky bastard, but Sam’s the one with the real well of hidden rage. Interesting.

And he finds Dr. CreepyMummy in the cupboard. But the rage therapy doesn’t work on Dean, because he’s still able to fight through it and burn the corpse.

And that’s what’s worth mentioning from that ancient rewatch review. :P

On to the s12 relevant stuff, other than seeing Sam’s version of rage. It’s calm, calculating, and collected. He’s not off the rails monstrous. He’s quiet, and that’s far more terrifying.

This was the part of s1 that really began delving into Sam and Dean’s relationship with their father.

SAM: It doesn't matter what he wants. DEAN: See. That attitude? Right there? That is why I always get the extra cookie. SAM: Dad could be in trouble, we should be looking for him. We deserve some answers, Dean. I mean, this is our family we're talking about. DEAN: I understand that, Sam, but he's given us an order. SAM: So what, we gotta always follow Dad's orders? DEAN: Of course we do.

There’s the fact that Dean had always followed John’s orders, since he was 4 years old. He trusted John, and the few times he didn’t follow John’s orders (see 1.18 for a prime example), it nearly had disastrous consequences. To 9-year-old Dean, nearly costing Sam his life would be enough of an object lesson about the importance of following those orders. Sam, by contrast, was spared from that sort of experience, from the consequences of his rebellions, because again, Dean absorbed them by putting himself between Sam and John.

Sam trades information with the descendant of Dr. Ellicott for “honest” information about himself (which he don’t get to see him say, but we get a pretty good idea of what he told the psychiatrist from the sorts of things he yells at Dean once he’s been en-rage-ified by the ghost of Dr. Ellicott...

DEAN: We gotta burn Ellicott's bones and all this will be over, and you'll be back to normal. SAM: I am normal. I'm just telling the truth for the first time. I mean, why are we even here? ’Cause you're following Dad's orders like a good little solider? Because you always do what he says without question? Are you that desperate for his approval? DEAN: This isn't you talking, Sam. SAM: That's the difference between you and me. I have a mind of my own. I'm not pathetic, like you. DEAN: So what are you gunna do, huh? Are you gunna kill me? SAM: You know what, I am sick of doing what you tell me to do. We're no closer to finding Dad today than we were six months ago. DEAN: Well, then here. Let me make it easier for you. (He holds his Smith & Wesson toward SAM.) Come on. Take it. Real bullets are gonna work a hell of a lot better than rock salt. (SAM hesitates) Take it!!

Sam saw Dean as weak and pathetic because he refused to question John’s orders. Sam’s only goal, even six months after Jess’s death, was revenge. His goal was to get that revenge and the get out, go back to his “normal life.” He saw all the other hunts they went on as a sort of weird busy work to keep them distracted from what he saw as their real mission. To Dean, these cases are important, not busy work. People would’ve DIED if they just walked away and ran off willy-nilly to chase after John.

I also love this run of episodes because it shows us SO MANY INSTANCES of just how brilliant Dean is. You want Smart Dean, here you go:

John texted him coordinates for Rockford, Illinois, and just from that Dean figured out exactly why John wanted him to investigate there.

Dean goes to room 137 and finds a hidden panel concealing Dr. Ellicott’s notes and journal, that apparently NOBODY had ever found in the more than 30 years since the original incident at the asylum

He uses the info there to figure out how the ghost was affecting its victims

When he finds out that Sam went off to the basement alone, he suspects that Sam had been lured down there by the ghost (because HE didn’t call Sam) and that Sam had been affected

He doesn’t let on to SAM that he suspects Sam has been en-rage-ified, he just plays along until he can get the upper hand and knock Sam out

he does this by letting Sam shoot him with rock salt (won’t kill him, but hurts like a bitch)

AND THEN he hands Sam his gun-- but it’s EMPTY, so Sam is unable to kill him, but it gets him close enough to overpower Sam

He then finds Dr. Ellicott’s corpse and is able to burn it while being attacked by the ghost

And doesn’t that sound like SUCH a Dean ploy... he knows so much more about what’s going on than anyone else, but he plays along until he spots his advantage and then makes his move. We’ve seen him do this over and over again in s12, and it’s been incredibly obvious in 12.14 with Ketch and in 12.15 with Sam.

Okay. On to Scarecrow, which I watched while typing this up, but also contains a lot of the same themes (Sam vs Dean vs John, Dean being brilliant, lies and hidden family secrets), so I’m just sticking it on here.

It seems by the end of 1.11 that Sam has accepted that FAMILY is important enough to him to deal with all the crap that comes along with it (sound familiar? 12.11 anyone?). And to Sam, that “crap” is the hunting.

This was the first time Sam decided to run away from Dean since the pilot (when he got dragged back into hunting). John finally gave them a call, and gave them A TINY BIT OF INFO on the thing that killed Mary and Jess. It’s a demon. Rather than placating Sam, this info makes him want to drop everything and run out to help kill it (or banish it or deal with it... he has no idea what he’s gonna do with it, he just sees it as a potential lead on his revenge quest).

I find this SO FREAKING IRONIC, because this is the same play that Sam uses on people, just with the twist that John’s not trying to conceal the existence of the supernatural, just the identity of the specific thing he’s investigating. We always said that Sam was more like John and that’s why they clashed so strongly, and that Dean was more like Mary... but now that Mary is back, it seems she’s taken on this similar role to John in how she’s been relating to Sam and Dean.

And how did Sam react to John’s orders and that tiny scrap of information? Complete defiance. Just like the way Ronald Resnick reacted to Sam, just like the way Gwen in 12.15 reacted.

The case John sent them on in Indiana was also time-sensitive. One couple disappears every year during the same week. Yet Sam was arguing with Dean that they should take a week to just drive out to California because his revenge was more important to him than saving the lives of two people he’d never met before. That’s literally what the case came down to. Putting off that hunt to drive cross country in the hopes of finding John several days later... was worth the cost of two human lives to Sam. I mean, he may not have calculated that out in his own mind because he’s already redirected from everything else and focused entirely on his revenge mission, but when you step back and do the math... yeah. Two people he’d never met would 100% guaranteed DIE if he walked away from that hunt, on the off chance that tracking John would even get him any sort of result at all...

Cold, Sammy.

This also marks the first time we know of where Sam was tempted by a demon. Meg spends most of the episode whispering encouragement to Sam and bonding with him over the promise of freedom and living your own life on your own terms and abandoning your family. In the end, it’s worry for Dean’s safety that brings Sam running away from Meg, and running back to Dean. So maybe he’s not quite so cold as he’d made himself out to be. He just needed a shaking up to work past that drive for revenge and put things back in perspective.

Again, this episode is FILLED with Dean being a genius. We see his emotional intelligence, how well he reads people and earns their trust. Not to mention how he puts all the signs together, figures out it’s a god haunting the orchard, that it’s the fugly scarecrow taking people out. We also get this conversation:

DEAN: I’m not hinting anything. Actually, uh—I want you to know….I mean, don’t think…. SAM: Yeah. I’m sorry, too. DEAN: Sam. You were right. You gotta do your own thing. You gotta live your own life. SAM: Are you serious? DEAN: You’ve always known what you want. And you go after it. You stand up to Dad. And you always have. Hell, I wish I—anyway….I admire that about you. I’m proud of you, Sammy. SAM: I don’t even know what to say. DEAN: Say you’ll take care of yourself. SAM: I will. DEAN: Call me when you find Dad.

He was willing to let Sam go, and it was that acceptance that was the beginning of the train of logic that led Sam to come rushing back in time to save him.

DEAN: What made you change your mind? SAM: I didn’t. I still wanna find Dad. And you’re still a pain in the ass. (DEAN nods.) But, Jess and Mom—they’re both gone. Dad is God knows where. You and me. We’re all that’s left. So, if we’re gonna see this through, we’re gonna do it together. (DEAN pauses.) DEAN: Hold me, Sam. That was beautiful. (He puts his hand on SAM’s shoulder, who hits it away. They laugh.)

Now I’m waiting for Sam to “change his mind” about working with the MoL. What’s gonna make him change his mind this time?

ETA: Whoopsie I forgot two of the HUGE themes at work here that relate to s12: DOING HORRIBLE HORRIBLE THINGS IN THE NAME OF “THE GREATER GOOD.” I mean, sacrificing innocent people to their orchard god for the good of the town, and the horrible things it drove this entire town worth of people to do-- even offering their own niece up as a sacrifice to save themselves. THEY WERE DOING WHAT THEY HAD TO, in their minds. So there you go. The two most horrifying things anyone can say on Supernatural, and they got them both covered.

#spn 12.10 #spn 12.11 #winchester family dynamics #lies and damn lies #sanitized for sammy #spn 12.15 #spn s12

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