SPN 10x04 & 10x05
Paper Moon
SAM, baby. He’s walking on eggshells throughout the episode, constantly walking back any references to his own experience: “what we’ve been through - what you’ve been through.” Like. Sam, acknowledge that an attempt on his life affected him in any way? HEAVENS FORFEND. But he wouldn’t need to do that if either of them really bought the it-wasn’t-you story. And having the character trip over his words like this, more than once, underscores the unfairness of Dean apparently being everyone’s priority.
I worry, as ever, about the issue becoming about what Dean did as a demon, but at the same time, the episode was so conscientious about his awfulness? Dean notes Sam’s arm when it’s just a chance to give him a hard time, but when it’s about “should you be in the field” he goes on the offensive morally rather than giving a shit about the injury. He acknowledges he owes Sam a thank you, in a way that leads Sam to save him the trouble. (Like, that was basically the equivalent of getting dinner with someone and saying “so I guess I’ll get the check??” and then trailing off and staring at their wallet.) He lets Sam narrow down the scope of his transgressions until it’s about him as a demon and it’s one that soothes his insecurities - oh, Sammy, gosh, it sucks for you that I crushed your soul with my absence! Have some magnanimous sympathy but no actual apology!
As much as he was as horrible as ever, though, and it still had about 400x the effect on Sam that I would like, he’s not quite at 100% anymore, which is promising.
I liked that Kate and Tasha were more….commonalities than parallels? IDK, fandom kinda leaped to Tasha:Kate::Sam:Dean because people are so used to convincing themselves that Sam deserves to die , but I don’t know that Dean being ostensibly cured but walking around with the MoC, over which his control is uncertain, is any different than Tasha being a werewolf even though she doesn’t seem willing or able to control it? Like - as much as I think hunter ethics that prioritize humans over monsters provide acceptable heuristics - in an absolute moral sense, how is Tasha’s drive to kill different than Dean’s? I think what was important was that they shared uncomfortable identification with both girls, but handled it really differently - Sam’s empathy led him to kind of judge-not place, while Dean’s empathy led him to want to distance from them as decisively as possible.
Fan Fiction
This was absolutely delightful!
I will just go ahead and be a broken record: the fact that the episode was lovely does not mean the characters are in a good place. While the interactions between SamnDean were slightly less hostile than usual, the power dynamics were tragically consistent.
Sam thinks the ship names are cute, so Dean yells at him to “shut the hell up, forever,” which actually might’ve been a cute exchange if it didn’t come just after Sam thinking the play is sweet and Dean glaring at him until he didn’t think it was sweet anymore. Sam doesn’t want to take the case, Dean wants to take the case, they take the case. Like, I think Sam is pushing to chill because Sam needs it. Dean has been on spring break for months while Sam was running himself into the ground. And on top of being exhausted, Sam has good reason not to want to be stuck in the car alone with Dean right now. But Sam assumes that his needs are only legitimate if there is no plausible counterargument, and so he is unprepared to fight back against Dean’s certainty that what Dean wants to do is of course right for everyone, and ultimately Sam ~sees the light and decides taking cases is a good idea on principle.
In short, I have no reason not to believe that this was ultimately quite a conventional honeymoon phase, with Dean backing off slightly coming across as enough of a change of pace to throw Sam for a loop. Dean hanging the little replacement amulet between them…may be better than the active aggression he is convinced is his prerogative, but it is still peace on his terms only, and Sam will sit there and feel grateful for being ~met halfway, as if Dean had the right to expect him to give an inch. Dean being moderately less unpleasant when Sam not only does everything Dean wants, but is amenable to Dean censuring what he says and thinks? This is not a positive development. It doesn’t preclude a positive development - it can’t be the end of things, as long as the Mark is still in play - but let’s not mistake it for true progress.
Which doesn’t actually mean I don’t think things will ever be dealt with: aside from being overbearing and nasty to Sam, Dean was dishonest and uncharitable even by his standards. In his retelling of what happened, “Sam hit a dog” was important to mention, but Gadreel wasn’t; Dean brags about having been a Knight of Hell, but doesn’t mention the Mark of Cain. When Marie admires Sam, Dean sucks a lemon.
Meanwhile, Dean hogs the stage and takes a bow while three Sams save the day by taking down a god. TELL ME AGAIN HOW THE RITURRZZZ DON’T GET IT.
They get Sam and Dean, but also, they get us, which is cool but kind of scary. They actually got fan argot right, for one? The blocking is “for reasons.” Calliope “can’t even.” And on top of that, it really got what makes fandom work. It’s transformative. There are different perspectives, and you can learn from them even if you don’t think they’re right. Even if they’re the opposite of what ends up having happened, if “and then Dean becomes a woman” rather than “and then Dean lost his humanity to his own toxic masculinity,” they have worth. As much as I have issues with Chuck, I did honestly find his appearance a sweet, tasteful little acknowledgement of the weird but special fan/show interplay.
It also hit me as a very good faith attempt to be fair to young women, and accept them as subjects in their own right, which sounds like a low bar, but honestly it’s something that doesn’t often happen outside of teen shows (and even then, far from always). I was struck by Marie’s statement that she’d seen the scarecrow take her friend and “a bunch of adults just told me I have an overactive imagination.” That’s what being a girl that age is about: you see threats to your safety as plain as the nose on your face, and people try to gaslight you out of worrying your pretty head, you’d think we’d all know if something so scary and dangerous was just around all the time! #notallmonsters
IN CONCLUSION
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I KNOW, RIGHT?!?
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