Dean's Not Fine

I give Season 13 a very hard time. I need to watch the whole thing through a few more times... All I know is it starts off savagely violent, and the relentless brutality of it continues throughout the season. I'm not sure what it was all meant to do. The fact that it culminates in heartbreak for me, the worst thing I could imagine -- Dean saying "yes" to Michael -- doesn't help. But there are moments that I did love. And this one made me literally jump out of my seat and cheer. “This is me, learning from my mistakes.” I love Castiel. I love him in all of his forms. Seeing him struggle with what can only be called depression starting in Season 11 had been very difficult for me. Watching him reclaim his faith, his mission, as protector of Jack was an important step on his road back. Just as that mission was about to be fulfilled, he died by Lucifer's hand. Then, Castiel's encounter with the Empty... well, that was just another puzzling, brutal mo...

I did a lot of thinking about Season 12 when I wrote my two #Saileen fics -- Safe Harbor and Distress Call . (If you would have liked to have seen more of that couple, these stories might be for you! But they are canon-adjacent, so no happy ending there. Fair warning. They are not floof.) Season 12 is about identity... finding it, losing it, reclaiming it.  The British Men of Letters are introduced to show us something. Here's an entire agency, well-funded, with the highest technology and the brightest minds. And look: They want the same thing that American hunters do. To rid the world of monsters!  If that's so, then why do they stink so badly?   Throughout earlier seasons of the show, the Winchesters have grappled with "the ends justifying the means." Now here's an entire organization based on that, in the extreme. They do real evil in the name of their good. Their mission. They let nothing stand in their way. So Season 12 is a chance fo...

My most #UnpopularOpinion? Take away the introduction of the British Men of Letters, and Season 11 would have been an excellent way for Supernatural to end. IKR? People don't like to talk about Supernatural ending. But the Chuck and Amara storyline is so satisfying to me, and it brings the show absolutely full circle. Those who know me well have heard me wax philosophical about that... how the loss of Mary robbed John and the boys of the divine influence of the feminine, the maternal, and threw their lives irreparably out of balance. Years later comes the revelation that all of creation has been suffering under this split from the beginning... that the universe has a yin and a yang, a masculine and a feminine. Amara, the Darkness, is the Big Bad through the season, but really she's just an angry woman who has been silenced, who is screaming to be heard. I mean... we can relate, right? So the show-long theme of two halves being made whole comes to a brilliant end a...

Did I get all the way to Season 10 without honoring Charlie Bradbury? Yikes. Well, we can rectify that rather quickly and talk about Robbie Thompson's beautiful "There's No Place Like Home," the culmination of the Oz storyline he began in "Slumber Party." While Dean is fighting the effects of the Mark of Cain, the brothers catch wind that Charlie is back... but she's not whole. The relationship between Dean and Charlie is so important... Before this episode, she is seen as sort of a healing force for Dean, a cleansing light in his life, a perfect good that he is drawn to. And she is drawn to him, because she sees his glowing core of goodness -- she can see past all his pain. Seeing her split in two slaps Dean in the face with the battle he's fighting within himself: Become the rabid killer that the Mark demands? Or hold on to his humanity, to the hero that Charlie loves, the big brother who loves her back? The scene in the bar after Charl...

I was thinking the other day about how much Dylan Everett has helped us shape our image of the young Dean Winchester. It's not just the stories that Jensen-as-Dean has told us. It's the experiences we've seen through Dylan's performances -- some very pivotal, very formative moments that made Dean who he is. The young actor obviously made a commitment to the very complicated Dean Winchester... the kind of commitment that we know even Jensen himself appreciated.  Every moment of "Bad Boys" -- flashbacks and present day -- lies at the core of who Dean is. I mean, the very first thing Sonny does is feed Dean. And he's only there because he stole food for Sammy. You can just take it from there... What a heartbreak it is that Dean actually finds a home at Sonny's... freedom, identity... the things he'd been denied since he was 4 years old. But he never loses his sense of duty. When John and Sammy roll up to the farm, even when Sonny says he...

When does Sam Winchester take a Dean girl's breath away? Shivering, staggering. In a hotel hallway. In Colorado. When he talks about his boyhood. When he talks about feeling unclean. I always loved Sam, but I never really saw things from his perspective... because I identify so strongly with Dean. But this... Jared's acting, always more subtle than Jensen's, absolutely floored me in this episode. And the sheer physicality of the performance... his suffering is so loudly telegraphed. I was struck dumb, heartbroken. On its own, it still ranks No. 1 as my favorite Sam moment of the entire series. "I remember looking at this picture of Sir Galahad, and, and, and he was kneeling, and— and light streaming over his face, and— I remember... thinking, uh, I could never go on a quest like that. Because I'm not clean." What are your favorite moments from Season 8? Let us know in the comments below.

How much do you love Bobby Singer? Speaking for this idjit, it's a whole damn lot. Thinking about the nature of fatherhood throughout the show, and facing Bobby's last (well, "last" for Supernatural is never last) chapter, how fitting it is that Season 7's "Death's Door" all comes back to the relationships between fathers and sons. In the most stunning and moving way possible, as Dick Roman's bullet eats away at Bobby's brain, we find out the story of Bobby's own father -- how that experience shaped his entire future, and what it meant as he watched the Winchesters grow up. "As fate would have it, I adopted two boys. And they grew up great. They grew up heroes."  To me, it's a "masterpiece" episode... one of my very favorites that I've honored with that designation, as was "The Man Who Would Be King" in my Season 6 post . What are your favorite moments from Season 7? Let us know in the ...

"Hey, dumbass! There are other characters besides Dean in Supernatural... You know that, right?" There are?!? *shocked face* Yes, yes, I know and love all the characters of Supernatural. I even love all the seasons of Supernatural. Including the much-maligned Season 6. In fact, I love everything about Season 6 -- most importantly of all: The treachery.  You could probably search Twitter for @DeanIsntFine and "treachery" and come up with a dozen examples of me squeeing about it. It's positively Greek, this season. Shakespearean. "I believe it's what you would call a -- tragedy, from the human perspective." And I will never fail to be captivated by it. Most captivating of all would be this scene in "The Man Who Would Be King," where Dean is at last faced with Cas' betrayal. Everything about this scene resonates with me, and to me, it's the very epitome of drama. The pain on their faces. The bad choices. The misse...

"This is the night you ditched us for Stanford, isn’t it? This is your idea of heaven? Wow. This was one of the worst nights of my life." Ahh, heaven. Apparently, it's not all it's cracked up to be. But as the Winchesters get tangled up in the angels' push toward Armageddon in Season 5, it seems like they ought to at least get a look at the place. Luckily, fellow hunters Roy and Walt are more than happy to send them there. This is a very important episode to me, and I'm convinced that before Supernatural is over, it's one that'll be revisited in detail. Don't be surprised to see Team Free Will, Chuck and Dr. Badass himself team up to give us the heaven we deserve. Your heaven may vary... Is this the afterlife that Chuck intended? Everyone sealed in their own little jar, as Memorex replays their greatest hits? And how much of this slice of heaven -- Sam's fleeting moments of freedom, Dean's even-more-fleeting moments of purpose an...

Don't get me started on Season 4! Top to bottom, it's the finest season of television I've ever seen. In my opinion, it perfectly ties together everything that came before it with everything that the show grew to be. And of course, it gave us the righteous man. He's not just the brash bad boy who loves classic rock and ragging on his younger brother. He's literally been to hell and back, and we're about to find out that he's bearing the weight of the whole world. Good thing he's had all that practice already. "But then I couldn't do it anymore, Sammy. I couldn't. And I got off that rack. God help me, I got right off it, and I started ripping them apart."  For those of us who were already in love with Dean, the depth of that love only grew in Season 4, along with all the pain we were about to feel. This season forged the bond... and for most of us, it's unbreakable. What are your favorite moments from Season 4? Let u...

"I know how dead you are inside. How worthless you feel. I know how you look into a mirror... and hate what you see." Another of the foundational moments for this Dean Girl! This whole scene is pure magic, pure gold, pure pain. And pure Jensen. Daddy's blunt little instrument. There's not much more I can say except: Watch it. What are your favorite moments from Season 3? There are a ton of great ones. Let us know in the comments below.

"It's worth it, Dean. It is. It's not fair, and... you know, it hurts like hell, but... it's worth it." Sammy, I hate to argue with you, man... but he doesn't look like it's worth it. What is more heartbreaking than the djinn episode of Season 2? I'll be exploring more about what Dean's heart desires in my Thinky Thoughts piece on "Lebanon." But "What Is and What Shall Never Be" gives us that first look at what Dean longs for, and it shattered me. The one-sided conversation that Dean has at John's grave echoes my Season 1 moment... He's desperately calling out for direction from his father. "Why is it my job to save these people? Why do I have to be some kind of hero? ... Why do we have to sacrifice everything, Dad?"  Again, John isn't there to answer. But his father's words are so ingrained in Dean that he comes to the painful conclusion all on his own. When Dean finally breaks the djinn...

Everyone was trotting out truly epic threads on Twitter to celebrate the 300th episode of Supernatural! I waited too long to get started, but I couldn't let the milestone pass without honoring the achievement somehow. I decided it would be a good idea to mark one moment from each season that had a lasting impact on me. I thought it would be impossible to choose, but I just went with it, and picked the ones that leapt out at me. It was surprisingly easy. So, these posts will detail some of my favorite moments from the show that changed my life. I picked one from each season, but this doesn't even begin to cover all the times the show has made me weep, left me breathless, made me stand up and cheer. Will we ever be able to quantify, to break down and sum up all this show has meant to us? Thank you, Supernatural. I'm proud of us. (All screencaps courtesy of Home of the Nutty , and quotes from SuperWiki's collection of transcripts. Thank you to everyone who put t...