Holy Hell ???

HOW DARE YOU » 4/∞ ⤷ 3.5 Bedtime Stories

While I've revisited eps to make gifs, I haven't done an attentive rewatch in many years. So, I rewatched the pilot. The boys look so young 👶😄. There's a ghost story, or maybe there are two ghost stories. One is the obvious, the woman in white. The other is Sam being haunted by his past, with Dean like a link to an older era. He pulls back the curtain to an American Gothic horror tale, with his vintage car, and vintage cassette tapes, and vintage persona. Sam is the modern young man, about to head to the future, but just when he thought he was out...

I wouldn't say Dean pulled him back in. That gentle tug wasn't enough to do it, in fact. Dean has bravado, but is surprisingly soft-spoken and tentative in the way he watches for Sam's reactions like a hawk. Even when he pushes Sam on the bridge, his eyes are wide and hurt, and his hushed, "Don't talk about her like that" is not so much angry as it is a plea.

Sam seems completely self assured. He's worldly, smart, decisive. I feel as viewers we're following him from the respectable suburban world to the bad place. With John leaving a vacuum behind him, literally the empty motel room, both boys seem to fill that space -- Sam immediately connecting with John's research, while Dean dons the mantle of John's protective coat. Pleasing metaphors of inheritance.

Speaking of inheritance, Jessica's death in the same manner that killed his mother is what pulls Sam back in. He's now on the same path as John. He's the one who commands the "we" in "We got work to do." Another pleasing story parallel.

Dean is the older brother, but I'm always struck that at this stage he's almost delicate. The eyelashes, the bracelets, the too big jacket. He's positioned in this trope as the bad boy, yet Jensen always has an inherent good guy quality. He's so funny, but it's like a vaudeville act. He's insanely charming and devil-may-care, but you get the sense he's also down on his luck. He's odd and fun and intriguing.

The desaturation and shadows of the cinematography never get old. J2 are beautiful and immediately as watchable as Mulder and Scully. There are some stunning women and recognizable character actors. Of course some of it seems dated, now even more retro than intended lol, yet the Americana parts are mythic and hold up as a motif. Bonus points for including a public library for research. They're searching for a shade of a father; they can't go home, there be ghosts; home is an empty husk of trauma. Still love this pilot.

They've been saying it all along. Some of you just weren't listening.

I think the question was about what could be done if SPN has less standards and practices.

Dean doing sex work, Dean starving etc is key to hellers background on hating John. They hate John so much that they forget that all that is not there in canon at all. And while canon says that Dean knows what it is to be hungry, and did steal food, if they regularly starved, do you think they would have the builds that they do?

Con tip - please don't ask Jensen stupid questions about Dean. As you can see he hates anything that goes against the canon representation of him. That kind of shit belongs in fanfiction.

And why TF would something like that even be in a reboot when it was never even on the show?

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