Random, possibly WRONG thoughts about SN
I think the most amazing thing about what Supernatural has done is carefully, almost casually, erode Dean's faith in his father. That anguished fist we only saw hitting the wall in promos of Home when he's begging his father for help. That to me was central to everything. The guy in the Pilot was tethered to his father and despite time's passage, the tether seemed to only grow longer but no less secure. He could do anything because he knew his father was working on something and while he couldn't come and help them, he was, at least...out there, alive, working. It was regular in their Winchester-style of regular. The phone call started the cycle, that sense that maybe Dad doesn't give a fuck...or if not so intense a reaction, a kind of hazy stretch of that tether. A sense of real isolation, which of course, Dean in his Deanly way represses and ignores.
And when Asylum (though the show definitely hasn't given the events of that episode their due) rolls around, he's incredibly eager to pick up the trail and play out his role. I, in no way mean to demean that role or say that he should be more like Sam...or more like anyone besides his enigmatic self, but Asylum also has Sam clearly and aggressively questioning his choices. I'm sure that at no point in their childhood did Sam ever have the verbal advantage where he could demand information his brother or father weren't willing to give...but I think, after Sam's "You're so pathetic..." speech, the gears worked in Dean's head, spinning and repressing...another iceberg below the surface of which we only see the beautiful...tip.
Then, we get Scarecrow and there's more subtle erosion. Yeah, Dean did insist on doing the job their dad told them about, but he also confides that he's okay with Sam taking a different path. That seems to be a seminal point in his development. Where he's willing to at least allow Sam the freedom away from their life if not himself...and in an odd twist, this is when Sam recommits himself to the cause. He knows his dad's alive and that seems to stabilize Sam where it only seems to amp up the pressure on Dean. Faith comes along and he seems to have no interest in explaining what happened to his father, or having his dad watch him die...and yet Sam is willing to turn to his father(although with little "faith" and even moreso to the information in the journal) ...And then Route 666 shows evidence of a time that Dean was rebellious in direct conflict with what Sam knows his father taught them. Another stretch of the tether that seemed to bind him to his dad. And now, in Nightmare, Dean points himself out as a reason Sam's sane...happy that he's understanding more of what their dad's role in their growing up years really was...but he doesn't lord this over Sam. He's more like, Oh, you're finally taking the blinders off...meanwhile, he's putting another on with regard to Sam's abilities....I'm so excited for what's coming, the pressure...the angst. What secret he seems to be hiding, if indeed he is.
So perhaps, end of the season, that tether's one of the things we're gonna see go snap.
I just wanted to put down some thoughts about where I felt Dean was going. It isn't the same story at the same time as Sam's, but that is okay. He's always okay, he's Alec. Erh...Dean. :)