Brotherly Love by Winchesters: 2x04
I'm surprised by how emotional I got re-watching the last scene of this episode even now, years after "what's dead should stay dead" has effectively lost its potency on this show. Revisiting these episodes where it was a central theme has completely reinvigorated my love of this show, and I can't really even pinpoint why.
Brotherly Love by Winchesters
SEASON 1
1x01, 1x02, 1x03, 1x04, 1x05, 1x06, 1x07, 1x08, 1x09, 1x10, 1x11
1x12, 1x13, 1x14, 1x15, 1x16, 1x17, 1x18, 1x19, 1x20, 1x21, 1x22
SEASON 2
2x01, 2x02, 2x03
CHAPTER 2x04
"Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things"
There's hardly any contact in this episode. For 95% of it, they barely connect with words, let alone other familiar gestures like hugging, herding and Worst Aid. This episode is all about the eyes. Sam's eyes. Sam's Thinky eyes.
Dean doesn't reach out towards Sam once during this episode. He doesn't reach out at all except for the half-hearted, transparent stumble in the beginning ("Right. S-stuck with those people, making awkward small talk 'til you show up.")--when Sam smiles faintly because he knows where they've been but not where they're headed...
...and the quiet, much more deliberate conversation at the end--when Sam isn't smiling at all because he knows where they've been but not where they're headed.
Sam spends all episode in a desperately grabby place [ 1]. He's going through earnest motions to make peace with his own grief, still trying his damnedest to return what history has taught him of Dean to what present is doing to Dean and still lurching unevenly between assumptions and insight. In the end, the contact comes--like the sweeter moments between them almost always do--when they both take a breather from their pent-up fear against the comfort of each other's shoulders, not only because familiarity breeds comfort but because history breeds kindness as well as pain.
{ Sam's thinky eyes; take 1 }
I'd like to take a moment here, because Dean stumbling across the case is filmed beautifully. You know. Even for Jensen. I apologize in advance for objectifying him.
Okay, enough of that:
They talk about Dean's case, and Sam's listening without effort because Dean is in denial but at this point in the episode, the crazy looks cute compared to Bloodlust and this isn't an actual case obviously, so what's the harm?
Sam jumps a little ahead of himself, though, maybe going with the spirit of their last heart-to-heart and trusting a little too much to the unguarded nature of that moment. His aim is definitely off.
When Dean faces Sam square-on over the hood of the car, you can see Sam very deliberately check himself. I love his series of expressions here, how thinky his eyes are. This is Sam biting his tongue. This is not Sam of S1. This is beautiful character development, something that hooks into him and never leaves him throughout all they will go through.
It's not a wounded glance, and unlike the last time, it's not angered, either. It's resigned, and it's frustrated. It's still the same basic need to nurture that he's showed since Everybody Loves A Clown, less urgent than in that episode and less unwieldy with anger than in Bloodlust. It's a little more frustrated but a little gentler, too. He's not counting to ten in his head; he's probably reached 10 billion earlier that morning. He's worked himself through this part already; he's gonna steer this ship towards Faith, not Asylum, and he's gonna bring Dean along with him if it kills them.
Dean is as he is. For all that he's short of speech in this episode, he's honest to a fault, the kind of honest that feels like bravado until you realize it's here and it's knocked your teeth out and, dude, there's your ass on the floor let me hand it to you. It's really too bad the fight with Gordon was as brief as it was, given how Dean's body language hasn't yet stopped screaming "chatty" since he took a crowbar to his baby's ass [ 2]. He's often a liar but he's not a bullshitter, certainly not when people put the issue to him direct.
What's remarkable to me is that this mildness is a developing trait of Sam's; it's not as he was introduced. To be more precise: it's the character as introduced but not the Winchester as introduced. It's all in the context. In S1, when he had any matter of certainty on his mind-that is, pertaining family relationships, something not private to himself but also relevant to brother (and/or father)--he would let it out wholesale. He never checked himself if he felt something needed to be said, and his honesty was sometimes to his detriment, sometimes to the benefit of his loved ones. The closest he's ever come to this level of reserve was in Shadow, when he caught what his brother longed for and reiterated his answer to it, but gently, making sure nothing was lost in translation, and in Salvation, when he slammed his brother against the wall and what broke loose wasn't anything alien at all, but too familiar. Now he's seeing that familiarity everywhere he looks, like he's trying his best to apply the tourniquet now here, now there, and all the while Dean just keeps bleeding and not listening to him and not telling him as precisely as possible where the damn wound is.
Give Sam credit: he doesn't veer off course when he makes a plan. He's like a cat owner who has resolved himself to give his cat a bath, no matter how vigorous the hissing and spitting gets, but is compelled by love to make it as gentle an experience as possible, "Just calm down, it's okay, I've got you," and doesn't take it personally when his arms get scratched up. The cat's out of its depth and terrified. What are you gonna do? Declaw it? He's not that cruel.
~
"Just take the bath, Dean."
"Dude, but rats…! Don't you hear them?!"
~
{ Sam's thinky eyes; take 2 }
Even before the scene with the father has time to breathe, Sam's already watchful of Dean, careful and caring.
Once inside, Sam can barely keep himself from watching Dean. He's almost as disinterested (though much kinder about it) in the father as Dean is.
It's a big little thing, a little thing that comes up from somewhere big and survives through hell and heartache big, but it's really just a little thing in itself, how watchful Sam is of Dean. It's meaningful here, because we're watching Dean through Sam's eyes for much of this first arc in S1 and we're in his position to learn of John's secret later, not now. But it's a constant thing, a growing thing that didn't begin just now but before, clear as a bell in Faith but even way back before that, really, in the space between lines that Jared filled during the pilot in what was the very first of their very many Impala-side conversations. Being watchful came first, always. With that later came awareness, and half unexpected and half deliberate, with that came the choice he made before the truck smashed their world to white.
~
Dean does this thing that cats do when they shake their ass, getting ready to pounce.
"It's gotta be hard, losing someone like that."
Sam gets all excited that Dean's claws are letting go of the edge of the sink...
...but no, it's only because Dean has mistaken the drain plug for a rat's tail.
"This is perfectly normal," Sam assures the drain plug in lieu of strangling Dean.
But dude, whatever.
Dean does this thing that cats do when they abruptly groom,
as if you're the crazy one and they are checking themselves right out of it.
Sam realizes he and the drain plug are the only ones getting wet.
This bath is so not happening at all.
~
{ Sam's thinky eyes; take 3 }
I love this scene so much. It is a study in patience. Both brothers, not only Sam.
They're both on ragged edge. Dean keeps trying his damnedest to shrug off how rough Sam's language continues to get despite Sam's best intentions to censor himself, and Sam keeps trying his damnedest to shrug off Dean's anger despite Dean's best intentions to censor himself.
Sam's working around this little confrontation gently enough but eventually, his Dr. Phil urge catches up to him, then sets him back squarely on his ass. This time, the look is slightly wearier, slightly more wounded. Dean's look is the same, essentially, but with less patience for bullshit. In case Sam missed the part where this bath is not happening at all.
~
"You want to take another swing? Go ahead, if it will make you feel better."
You're a sweetheart, really, but this is so not the point, Sam. The cat doesn't claw at your face because your face is available and awesome, like a new scratching post for Christmas. It claws at your face because you're hovering too close trying to press it down into the water and your face is just the closest path between drowning and safe.
~
Sam backs down, and again later, he backs down without a fuss. He's not taking the bait.
The thing is, of course, they're both right about where the other's wrong, but there's no uncharged communication yet. Everything's too jacked up with baggage. They're handling it, and each other, the best they can. I know some people can't forgive Sam this word, or Dean that punch, and so on, but grief makes dicks of us all. How can it not? I prefer this so much more to people yelling for one episode and then comforting each other with just the right words, as in some shows, or going straight to sappy feel good interludes with Very Special Episodes. Sometimes this show drives me crazy, and while I have intense frustration about Sam's own grief arc (or lack thereof, after this opening S2 arc [ 3]), I thought the show handled Dean's grief over the course of S2 as well as any show I've watched has handled a major loss. For the most part, it was unpolished and real and emotionally consistent, and I've said it before but it bears repeating: for all this show flops and fails on certain fronts, when this show gets family right, it gets it right. Beautiful work.
~
ADORABLE INTERLUDE
in which:
Sam watches porn,
Dean catches him... ~awkwardly,
and Sam continues to make the most earnest ~thinky eyes~ at his brother
while trying to less-than-surreptitiously count his marbles for him,
which adds to Dean's general grumpfest,
but nonetheless concludes on a diary and a smile.
~
{ Sam's thinky eyes; take 4 }
This one's just cute, following the "there's not gonna be bones" conversation. Dean's acting all business as usual, "yeah, and? this is our lives," and Sam's stuck on more recent events, thinking, "but surely the stabby stage has passed?" (He just doesn't get it, does he, Gordon?)
~
When the cat brings to Sam's feet its limp and ragged gift (a dead rat, of course),
there is an "Eww" that grows between the initial "Aww" and the slow-dawning "Oh."
Worst of all is that these are the times the cat is wants to play fetch. Cheerfully.
Oh, this cannot be their lives. Seriously?
Dean will take that bath when this is over. No more tricks.
~
It's also a nice visual touch that so much of the routine hunting in this episode frames Sam behind and/or around Dean, like a perpetual hug. Even if it's a disgruntled hug.
We lead into the first of only two actual touches in the episode with a scene that has me scratching my head a little.
Disclaimer: I realize, short of tying him up, how was he really going to stop him? But that said, why does Sam let Dean near the father in his current mood, after he already saw him acting edgy in his presence earlier? Sam even lets him take charge, standing centered in front of the door, being the one to knock, etc. It reminds me of his silence during the vampire's beheading in Bloodlust. Leaning a little heavily on the belief, perhaps, that not only is there some legitimate hunt here but, more importantly, that Dean needs to get this out of his system. Dean, meanwhile, is going off half-cocked like a total asshole, and it's believable and real but still ugly. It's hard to watch the father being terrorized like that. His story never got closure, either, which makes it worse.
(1)
Type of Contact: Mortified Bulldozer
Point of Contact: Sam's grabby hands
Deliberate: Yes
Chick Flick: No
This sequence (including the sidewalk scene) is the only time they touch in the entire episode. Naturally, it's Sam reaching out, and naturally, Dean shrugs it off. Dean doesn't take to Sam's hand at all. Surprisingly or unsurprisingly, given his mood, logic works better at getting through to Dean than an ill-planned muzzle maneuver. I think Sam just forgot in the moment: Dean needs to be already moving in the same direction or Sam just needs to pull out the big guns and directly reposition him. They both work, but this was a botched attempt at a middle ground. You can't surprise!herd a Border Collie, especially when he's currently imitating a spitting mad cat on the prowl.
On the sidewalk, Sam's Thinky is on overdrive in his eyes, in his hands, his whole body lurching towards Dean.
It naturally doesn't work so well when Sam tries to count Dean's marbles for him aloud and in so many words, because it comes across as "Blah blah Dean BLAH but today is Tuesday, too blah BLAH!" nonsensical hysteria, and big brothers learn how to listen to little brothers who sound like this.
Dean's already stopping--because he is over this bullshit--by the time Sam puts his hand against his chest, so the maneuver works smoothly. This is how to do it. The trick is getting the signal right, getting it quiet and subtle and just there, and let all the attention go to the words being said not the thinky hands. Works like a charm.
Sam's speech brings to mind Dean's speeches in Salvation and Shadow, his promise in Nightmare, Sam's speech in Scarecrow and his promise in In My Time of Dying. These are the broken pieces that make up their lives. This is the glue that holds it all together.
This speech works better than the marble-counting that came before, although Sam won't realize that Dean heard him until the very end.
~
"Yes, fine, bath, but first the rat…?"
And oh, god, Sam had almost forgotten the rat.
It's hard not to wonder, sometimes, how much of their world is made of rats
because they spend their lives looking for them, not because they're there.
"Our lives are weird, man."
"Sammy, you with me? Rats. Very srs bsns."
"Yes, okay. Rats first. Bath after."
And it goes just like that: everything clicks into place so smoothly like it's always done, and
sometimes, just for a second, they can't even remember why they've been fighting at all.
Until they remember again.
~
{ Sam's blanket maneuvers }
First, take a look at this deceptive picture in which Sam looks meekly unarmed and Dean looks nonchalant. This is Cat on the hunt. Cat has a gun. Cat is always armed. This is Moose on the hunt. Moose has guns. Moose is always armed. They've come to hug.
But even more awesome is this: look at how Sam glues himself to Dean's every step.
Unfortunately, that last is the door frame Sam's touching, not Dean. However! If this isn't that hunting-in-tandem thing we fans love so much, it's at the very least stalking-in-tandem. With bonus Thinky! Sam eyes and giant blanket-ness. It's fucking adorable. Meanwhile Dean's making like Ripley stalking the Queen, and it's fucking hot. Unf and aww, boys.
{ Sam's thinky eyes; take 5 }
After the tragic/victorious zombie ganking, we're finally able to come to some emotional resolution for the boys. Unfortunately for this particular scene, I'm forever distracted by the fact that Jared hurt his arm during it, and I keep wishing he'd let the shovel down and rest.
More to the point: It's expected since the plot has brought them back to this place, but I'm always grateful that Tucker's script recognizes that the characters have come back to this place, too. It's the littlest of all of the big little moments in the episode, condensing everything sharply and then going out with a whimper. It's a moment I will recall months of their lives later on the eve of all hell breaking loose, when a dream episode has condensed the season sharply and ends its hour on a whimper.
"You want to stay for a while?"
Jensen's "No" is always a little quieter than I expect, edged closer to dull than to pained. God, he's good. It's perfect.
What's dead should stay dead.
(2)
Type of Contact: Comfort Zone
Point of Contact: Sam's Thinky Hands & Shoulders
Deliberate: I don't know.
Chick Flick: Big Damn Yes
There is so much emotional build up in this scene alone before Dean even starts to truly open up.
I love so much how this moment is played: when Sam realizes what Dean is talking about, how he decides to step around the car to Dean's side, how he settles himself down on the hood of the car. You see his whole Thinky self sort of clench and then ease down on whatever impulse he had to say something, to do something, to make another big damn statement like he's been doing since Shadow, really, if you go back and watch for it, only he recognizes that this is Dean finally answering him direct, just as he's addressed Dean direct over the last two episodes, and he relaxes this big urgent need to help so that he can hear. They can't get to the honest moment past the bullshit on both sides without working through all that bullshit first. And it's not just anger that brings out honesty; Dean's "I'm sorry" is as real as his punch.
How Jared performs this is so sweet. You can almost see it when the impulse comes to him, "I'm too far away," even though they're both too burnt to hug. Worst Aid or not, comfort is his instinct, too. [ 4] Sam is watchful of Dean's body language as he approaches, how his hands are in his pockets, facing straight away. Sam visibly takes notice of that (god, I love this moment) and settle himself where he does, close but not direct. Sam sets himself down so carefully, just barely brushing shoulders with Dean's personal space.
He's still so Thinky, his hands trying to find the right placement, his eyes so concerned with all of Dean's signs, until he finally forces himself to come to rest, to take the pressure off and let Dean set the pace. He's been pushing so hard, with all that fear and loss, and now he lets it ease. This isn't just Dean taking a moment to breathe; it's Sam taking a moment, too.
~
When it's finally stopped fighting, and it's letting you close because you're Family and you're Home,
the bath doesn't seem so important anymore. Their dark spots, after all, are… pretty dark.
"As long as I'm around, nothing bad is gonna happen to you."
"Guess I might have to stick around to be a pain in the ass, then."
Some things do come before everything.
~
I love it in all the ways it happens. Sometimes Sam has his say, then maybe much later Dean has his say, or Dean first and then much later Sam responds. Sometimes they say it together. Sam thinks he's being brushed off throughout this arc, but he isn't at all; it just takes more than a few moments and some spent anger for Dean to gather the words to answer him. Dean thinks his feelings can't possibly be understood, but Sam's hearing him and holding it close; it just takes Dean some time to realize that he hasn't been speaking in a vacuum, not since we've met them. It takes Sam some time to convince him that what has felt like a vacuum isn't, really. He's been trying to show him since Shadow. The problem is, that understanding goes hand-in-hand with, "You don't have to take care of yourself; you're the only one who thinks you should have to," and that one's so bone deep that Dean still hasn't learned it, seven seasons in, and I honestly don't think he ever will. Where falls the line between the form itself and the damage that forms it?
~
"I don't know how to help you."
"But I'll keep trying, all right? As long as you keep fighting."
~
Sometimes it seems like Sam's the only one who knows that Dean isn't screaming in a vacuum. It comes out in these moments, like how Jared plays the little moment when Dean says, "I was dead, and I should have stayed dead," like all the moments Sam has absorbed into himself are on the tip of his tongue and you see Sam's expression shift minutely before the shot switches back to Dean.
It's in the space of this scene, I think, that Sam recognizes that all that he knows of Dean can't help Dean, that understanding is not healing. Sam, who's had all these answers for the past three episodes, answers he hoped would comfort, answers he felt were solid. He'll never stop trying to nurture, he'll never stop trying to understand, but I think this is the point where he stops desperately trying to force the two together. There's nothing to say that could possibly make this all right. He gets that now.
He's stopped somewhere, waiting for Dean.
Sometimes he loses him in the darkness. Sometimes he finds him there again.
~
"Dean?"
"Can you hear me?"
~
FOOTNOTES:
1. Jared kept so much of this brother bond present during this first arc of S2. With Jensen having to play a very guarded Dean what with the Secret (an object Dean to Sam's subject, which is extremely rare, all things considered), Jared had to carry the bulk of the brother connection through this initial grief stage. It's really so sweet and so perfect what he does, and it doesn't naturally attract a lot of attention like in flashier stories: evil!Sam and AU!Dean. But really. His performance is the foundation on which so much of the narrative for S2 relies, on which S3 builds and S4 erupts. Jared and Jensen both kick it in the ass in S2. See, I was trying to find a better balance as I was writing this, trying to find "their" story in equal parts, trying to construct more of Dean's perspective, but I realized I was fighting the story being told. So much of these metas are tied up in Sam's POV because he's the one telling this chapter. He's still holding the reins; he hasn't let go of them since Devil's Trap, not yet (he's about to), and when I realized what I was watching, I relaxed the meta and let him sing it. God, I love Sam.
2. In the context of Sam.
3. It's a point of contention throughout the years that Sam is object and Dean is subject and what that means for either brother's value or status in the overall narrative. I just wanted to bask in this here on re-watch, that while Jared carries this thread through a lot of hell and darkness in his character's future (times where the script is silent from his emotional point of view on the brother bond, or where his plate is just too damn full of Lucifer and darkness and what if he actually did come back wrong this time?), there are these times early on--and I think I'll find more in the later years--that the scripts balanced the subject and object in both brothers and allowed the relationship to breathe more fluidly in less restrictive patterns.
4. See: Wendigo, Skin, Home, Shadow, Something Wicked... or if you want to pull out the big guns: Faith, Devil's Trap and In My Time of Dying. See this Shadow/Something Wicked post for a non-strictly-physical example. It's not only the big episodes in which he's caring and comforting. He gets so little love in that regard, I swear. Aww, Sam. <3
You know, I thought I was finished, and then I realized I wasn't, and then in-between work, school and catching up on fandom and fic, this post got away from me. Sorry! :( I hope it's kinda worth the wait, eep. Also, I apologize for any grammatical errors, as my brain is quite dead at the moment.
Brotherly Love by Winchesters
SEASON 1
1x01, 1x02, 1x03, 1x04, 1x05, 1x06, 1x07, 1x08, 1x09, 1x10, 1x11
1x12, 1x13, 1x14, 1x15, 1x16, 1x17, 1x18, 1x19, 1x20, 1x21, 1x22
SEASON 2
2x01, 2x02, 2x03
CHAPTER 2x04
"Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things"
There's hardly any contact in this episode. For 95% of it, they barely connect with words, let alone other familiar gestures like hugging, herding and Worst Aid. This episode is all about the eyes. Sam's eyes. Sam's Thinky eyes.
Dean doesn't reach out towards Sam once during this episode. He doesn't reach out at all except for the half-hearted, transparent stumble in the beginning ("Right. S-stuck with those people, making awkward small talk 'til you show up.")--when Sam smiles faintly because he knows where they've been but not where they're headed...
...and the quiet, much more deliberate conversation at the end--when Sam isn't smiling at all because he knows where they've been but not where they're headed.
Sam spends all episode in a desperately grabby place [ 1]. He's going through earnest motions to make peace with his own grief, still trying his damnedest to return what history has taught him of Dean to what present is doing to Dean and still lurching unevenly between assumptions and insight. In the end, the contact comes--like the sweeter moments between them almost always do--when they both take a breather from their pent-up fear against the comfort of each other's shoulders, not only because familiarity breeds comfort but because history breeds kindness as well as pain.
{ Sam's thinky eyes; take 1 }
I'd like to take a moment here, because Dean stumbling across the case is filmed beautifully. You know. Even for Jensen. I apologize in advance for objectifying him.
Okay, enough of that:
They talk about Dean's case, and Sam's listening without effort because Dean is in denial but at this point in the episode, the crazy looks cute compared to Bloodlust and this isn't an actual case obviously, so what's the harm?
Sam jumps a little ahead of himself, though, maybe going with the spirit of their last heart-to-heart and trusting a little too much to the unguarded nature of that moment. His aim is definitely off.
When Dean faces Sam square-on over the hood of the car, you can see Sam very deliberately check himself. I love his series of expressions here, how thinky his eyes are. This is Sam biting his tongue. This is not Sam of S1. This is beautiful character development, something that hooks into him and never leaves him throughout all they will go through.
It's not a wounded glance, and unlike the last time, it's not angered, either. It's resigned, and it's frustrated. It's still the same basic need to nurture that he's showed since Everybody Loves A Clown, less urgent than in that episode and less unwieldy with anger than in Bloodlust. It's a little more frustrated but a little gentler, too. He's not counting to ten in his head; he's probably reached 10 billion earlier that morning. He's worked himself through this part already; he's gonna steer this ship towards Faith, not Asylum, and he's gonna bring Dean along with him if it kills them.
Dean is as he is. For all that he's short of speech in this episode, he's honest to a fault, the kind of honest that feels like bravado until you realize it's here and it's knocked your teeth out and, dude, there's your ass on the floor let me hand it to you. It's really too bad the fight with Gordon was as brief as it was, given how Dean's body language hasn't yet stopped screaming "chatty" since he took a crowbar to his baby's ass [ 2]. He's often a liar but he's not a bullshitter, certainly not when people put the issue to him direct.
What's remarkable to me is that this mildness is a developing trait of Sam's; it's not as he was introduced. To be more precise: it's the character as introduced but not the Winchester as introduced. It's all in the context. In S1, when he had any matter of certainty on his mind-that is, pertaining family relationships, something not private to himself but also relevant to brother (and/or father)--he would let it out wholesale. He never checked himself if he felt something needed to be said, and his honesty was sometimes to his detriment, sometimes to the benefit of his loved ones. The closest he's ever come to this level of reserve was in Shadow, when he caught what his brother longed for and reiterated his answer to it, but gently, making sure nothing was lost in translation, and in Salvation, when he slammed his brother against the wall and what broke loose wasn't anything alien at all, but too familiar. Now he's seeing that familiarity everywhere he looks, like he's trying his best to apply the tourniquet now here, now there, and all the while Dean just keeps bleeding and not listening to him and not telling him as precisely as possible where the damn wound is.
Give Sam credit: he doesn't veer off course when he makes a plan. He's like a cat owner who has resolved himself to give his cat a bath, no matter how vigorous the hissing and spitting gets, but is compelled by love to make it as gentle an experience as possible, "Just calm down, it's okay, I've got you," and doesn't take it personally when his arms get scratched up. The cat's out of its depth and terrified. What are you gonna do? Declaw it? He's not that cruel.
~
"Just take the bath, Dean."
"Dude, but rats…! Don't you hear them?!"
~
{ Sam's thinky eyes; take 2 }
Even before the scene with the father has time to breathe, Sam's already watchful of Dean, careful and caring.
Once inside, Sam can barely keep himself from watching Dean. He's almost as disinterested (though much kinder about it) in the father as Dean is.
It's a big little thing, a little thing that comes up from somewhere big and survives through hell and heartache big, but it's really just a little thing in itself, how watchful Sam is of Dean. It's meaningful here, because we're watching Dean through Sam's eyes for much of this first arc in S1 and we're in his position to learn of John's secret later, not now. But it's a constant thing, a growing thing that didn't begin just now but before, clear as a bell in Faith but even way back before that, really, in the space between lines that Jared filled during the pilot in what was the very first of their very many Impala-side conversations. Being watchful came first, always. With that later came awareness, and half unexpected and half deliberate, with that came the choice he made before the truck smashed their world to white.
~
Dean does this thing that cats do when they shake their ass, getting ready to pounce.
"It's gotta be hard, losing someone like that."
Sam gets all excited that Dean's claws are letting go of the edge of the sink...
...but no, it's only because Dean has mistaken the drain plug for a rat's tail.
"This is perfectly normal," Sam assures the drain plug in lieu of strangling Dean.
But dude, whatever.
Dean does this thing that cats do when they abruptly groom,
as if you're the crazy one and they are checking themselves right out of it.
Sam realizes he and the drain plug are the only ones getting wet.
This bath is so not happening at all.
~
{ Sam's thinky eyes; take 3 }
I love this scene so much. It is a study in patience. Both brothers, not only Sam.
They're both on ragged edge. Dean keeps trying his damnedest to shrug off how rough Sam's language continues to get despite Sam's best intentions to censor himself, and Sam keeps trying his damnedest to shrug off Dean's anger despite Dean's best intentions to censor himself.
Sam's working around this little confrontation gently enough but eventually, his Dr. Phil urge catches up to him, then sets him back squarely on his ass. This time, the look is slightly wearier, slightly more wounded. Dean's look is the same, essentially, but with less patience for bullshit. In case Sam missed the part where this bath is not happening at all.
~
"You want to take another swing? Go ahead, if it will make you feel better."
You're a sweetheart, really, but this is so not the point, Sam. The cat doesn't claw at your face because your face is available and awesome, like a new scratching post for Christmas. It claws at your face because you're hovering too close trying to press it down into the water and your face is just the closest path between drowning and safe.
~
Sam backs down, and again later, he backs down without a fuss. He's not taking the bait.
The thing is, of course, they're both right about where the other's wrong, but there's no uncharged communication yet. Everything's too jacked up with baggage. They're handling it, and each other, the best they can. I know some people can't forgive Sam this word, or Dean that punch, and so on, but grief makes dicks of us all. How can it not? I prefer this so much more to people yelling for one episode and then comforting each other with just the right words, as in some shows, or going straight to sappy feel good interludes with Very Special Episodes. Sometimes this show drives me crazy, and while I have intense frustration about Sam's own grief arc (or lack thereof, after this opening S2 arc [ 3]), I thought the show handled Dean's grief over the course of S2 as well as any show I've watched has handled a major loss. For the most part, it was unpolished and real and emotionally consistent, and I've said it before but it bears repeating: for all this show flops and fails on certain fronts, when this show gets family right, it gets it right. Beautiful work.
~
ADORABLE INTERLUDE
in which:
Sam watches porn,
Dean catches him... ~awkwardly,
and Sam continues to make the most earnest ~thinky eyes~ at his brother
while trying to less-than-surreptitiously count his marbles for him,
which adds to Dean's general grumpfest,
but nonetheless concludes on a diary and a smile.
~
{ Sam's thinky eyes; take 4 }
This one's just cute, following the "there's not gonna be bones" conversation. Dean's acting all business as usual, "yeah, and? this is our lives," and Sam's stuck on more recent events, thinking, "but surely the stabby stage has passed?" (He just doesn't get it, does he, Gordon?)
~
When the cat brings to Sam's feet its limp and ragged gift (a dead rat, of course),
there is an "Eww" that grows between the initial "Aww" and the slow-dawning "Oh."
Worst of all is that these are the times the cat is wants to play fetch. Cheerfully.
Oh, this cannot be their lives. Seriously?
Dean will take that bath when this is over. No more tricks.
~
It's also a nice visual touch that so much of the routine hunting in this episode frames Sam behind and/or around Dean, like a perpetual hug. Even if it's a disgruntled hug.
We lead into the first of only two actual touches in the episode with a scene that has me scratching my head a little.
Disclaimer: I realize, short of tying him up, how was he really going to stop him? But that said, why does Sam let Dean near the father in his current mood, after he already saw him acting edgy in his presence earlier? Sam even lets him take charge, standing centered in front of the door, being the one to knock, etc. It reminds me of his silence during the vampire's beheading in Bloodlust. Leaning a little heavily on the belief, perhaps, that not only is there some legitimate hunt here but, more importantly, that Dean needs to get this out of his system. Dean, meanwhile, is going off half-cocked like a total asshole, and it's believable and real but still ugly. It's hard to watch the father being terrorized like that. His story never got closure, either, which makes it worse.
(1)
Type of Contact: Mortified Bulldozer
Point of Contact: Sam's grabby hands
Deliberate: Yes
Chick Flick: No
This sequence (including the sidewalk scene) is the only time they touch in the entire episode. Naturally, it's Sam reaching out, and naturally, Dean shrugs it off. Dean doesn't take to Sam's hand at all. Surprisingly or unsurprisingly, given his mood, logic works better at getting through to Dean than an ill-planned muzzle maneuver. I think Sam just forgot in the moment: Dean needs to be already moving in the same direction or Sam just needs to pull out the big guns and directly reposition him. They both work, but this was a botched attempt at a middle ground. You can't surprise!herd a Border Collie, especially when he's currently imitating a spitting mad cat on the prowl.
On the sidewalk, Sam's Thinky is on overdrive in his eyes, in his hands, his whole body lurching towards Dean.
It naturally doesn't work so well when Sam tries to count Dean's marbles for him aloud and in so many words, because it comes across as "Blah blah Dean BLAH but today is Tuesday, too blah BLAH!" nonsensical hysteria, and big brothers learn how to listen to little brothers who sound like this.
Dean's already stopping--because he is over this bullshit--by the time Sam puts his hand against his chest, so the maneuver works smoothly. This is how to do it. The trick is getting the signal right, getting it quiet and subtle and just there, and let all the attention go to the words being said not the thinky hands. Works like a charm.
Sam's speech brings to mind Dean's speeches in Salvation and Shadow, his promise in Nightmare, Sam's speech in Scarecrow and his promise in In My Time of Dying. These are the broken pieces that make up their lives. This is the glue that holds it all together.
This speech works better than the marble-counting that came before, although Sam won't realize that Dean heard him until the very end.
~
"Yes, fine, bath, but first the rat…?"
And oh, god, Sam had almost forgotten the rat.
It's hard not to wonder, sometimes, how much of their world is made of rats
because they spend their lives looking for them, not because they're there.
"Our lives are weird, man."
"Sammy, you with me? Rats. Very srs bsns."
"Yes, okay. Rats first. Bath after."
And it goes just like that: everything clicks into place so smoothly like it's always done, and
sometimes, just for a second, they can't even remember why they've been fighting at all.
Until they remember again.
~
{ Sam's blanket maneuvers }
First, take a look at this deceptive picture in which Sam looks meekly unarmed and Dean looks nonchalant. This is Cat on the hunt. Cat has a gun. Cat is always armed. This is Moose on the hunt. Moose has guns. Moose is always armed. They've come to hug.
But even more awesome is this: look at how Sam glues himself to Dean's every step.
Unfortunately, that last is the door frame Sam's touching, not Dean. However! If this isn't that hunting-in-tandem thing we fans love so much, it's at the very least stalking-in-tandem. With bonus Thinky! Sam eyes and giant blanket-ness. It's fucking adorable. Meanwhile Dean's making like Ripley stalking the Queen, and it's fucking hot. Unf and aww, boys.
{ Sam's thinky eyes; take 5 }
After the tragic/victorious zombie ganking, we're finally able to come to some emotional resolution for the boys. Unfortunately for this particular scene, I'm forever distracted by the fact that Jared hurt his arm during it, and I keep wishing he'd let the shovel down and rest.
More to the point: It's expected since the plot has brought them back to this place, but I'm always grateful that Tucker's script recognizes that the characters have come back to this place, too. It's the littlest of all of the big little moments in the episode, condensing everything sharply and then going out with a whimper. It's a moment I will recall months of their lives later on the eve of all hell breaking loose, when a dream episode has condensed the season sharply and ends its hour on a whimper.
"You want to stay for a while?"
Jensen's "No" is always a little quieter than I expect, edged closer to dull than to pained. God, he's good. It's perfect.
What's dead should stay dead.
(2)
Type of Contact: Comfort Zone
Point of Contact: Sam's Thinky Hands & Shoulders
Deliberate: I don't know.
Chick Flick: Big Damn Yes
There is so much emotional build up in this scene alone before Dean even starts to truly open up.
I love so much how this moment is played: when Sam realizes what Dean is talking about, how he decides to step around the car to Dean's side, how he settles himself down on the hood of the car. You see his whole Thinky self sort of clench and then ease down on whatever impulse he had to say something, to do something, to make another big damn statement like he's been doing since Shadow, really, if you go back and watch for it, only he recognizes that this is Dean finally answering him direct, just as he's addressed Dean direct over the last two episodes, and he relaxes this big urgent need to help so that he can hear. They can't get to the honest moment past the bullshit on both sides without working through all that bullshit first. And it's not just anger that brings out honesty; Dean's "I'm sorry" is as real as his punch.
How Jared performs this is so sweet. You can almost see it when the impulse comes to him, "I'm too far away," even though they're both too burnt to hug. Worst Aid or not, comfort is his instinct, too. [ 4] Sam is watchful of Dean's body language as he approaches, how his hands are in his pockets, facing straight away. Sam visibly takes notice of that (god, I love this moment) and settle himself where he does, close but not direct. Sam sets himself down so carefully, just barely brushing shoulders with Dean's personal space.
He's still so Thinky, his hands trying to find the right placement, his eyes so concerned with all of Dean's signs, until he finally forces himself to come to rest, to take the pressure off and let Dean set the pace. He's been pushing so hard, with all that fear and loss, and now he lets it ease. This isn't just Dean taking a moment to breathe; it's Sam taking a moment, too.
~
When it's finally stopped fighting, and it's letting you close because you're Family and you're Home,
the bath doesn't seem so important anymore. Their dark spots, after all, are… pretty dark.
"As long as I'm around, nothing bad is gonna happen to you."
"Guess I might have to stick around to be a pain in the ass, then."
Some things do come before everything.
~
I love it in all the ways it happens. Sometimes Sam has his say, then maybe much later Dean has his say, or Dean first and then much later Sam responds. Sometimes they say it together. Sam thinks he's being brushed off throughout this arc, but he isn't at all; it just takes more than a few moments and some spent anger for Dean to gather the words to answer him. Dean thinks his feelings can't possibly be understood, but Sam's hearing him and holding it close; it just takes Dean some time to realize that he hasn't been speaking in a vacuum, not since we've met them. It takes Sam some time to convince him that what has felt like a vacuum isn't, really. He's been trying to show him since Shadow. The problem is, that understanding goes hand-in-hand with, "You don't have to take care of yourself; you're the only one who thinks you should have to," and that one's so bone deep that Dean still hasn't learned it, seven seasons in, and I honestly don't think he ever will. Where falls the line between the form itself and the damage that forms it?
~
"I don't know how to help you."
"But I'll keep trying, all right? As long as you keep fighting."
~
Sometimes it seems like Sam's the only one who knows that Dean isn't screaming in a vacuum. It comes out in these moments, like how Jared plays the little moment when Dean says, "I was dead, and I should have stayed dead," like all the moments Sam has absorbed into himself are on the tip of his tongue and you see Sam's expression shift minutely before the shot switches back to Dean.
It's in the space of this scene, I think, that Sam recognizes that all that he knows of Dean can't help Dean, that understanding is not healing. Sam, who's had all these answers for the past three episodes, answers he hoped would comfort, answers he felt were solid. He'll never stop trying to nurture, he'll never stop trying to understand, but I think this is the point where he stops desperately trying to force the two together. There's nothing to say that could possibly make this all right. He gets that now.
He's stopped somewhere, waiting for Dean.
Sometimes he loses him in the darkness. Sometimes he finds him there again.
~
"Dean?"
"Can you hear me?"
~
FOOTNOTES:
1. Jared kept so much of this brother bond present during this first arc of S2. With Jensen having to play a very guarded Dean what with the Secret (an object Dean to Sam's subject, which is extremely rare, all things considered), Jared had to carry the bulk of the brother connection through this initial grief stage. It's really so sweet and so perfect what he does, and it doesn't naturally attract a lot of attention like in flashier stories: evil!Sam and AU!Dean. But really. His performance is the foundation on which so much of the narrative for S2 relies, on which S3 builds and S4 erupts. Jared and Jensen both kick it in the ass in S2. See, I was trying to find a better balance as I was writing this, trying to find "their" story in equal parts, trying to construct more of Dean's perspective, but I realized I was fighting the story being told. So much of these metas are tied up in Sam's POV because he's the one telling this chapter. He's still holding the reins; he hasn't let go of them since Devil's Trap, not yet (he's about to), and when I realized what I was watching, I relaxed the meta and let him sing it. God, I love Sam.
2. In the context of Sam.
3. It's a point of contention throughout the years that Sam is object and Dean is subject and what that means for either brother's value or status in the overall narrative. I just wanted to bask in this here on re-watch, that while Jared carries this thread through a lot of hell and darkness in his character's future (times where the script is silent from his emotional point of view on the brother bond, or where his plate is just too damn full of Lucifer and darkness and what if he actually did come back wrong this time?), there are these times early on--and I think I'll find more in the later years--that the scripts balanced the subject and object in both brothers and allowed the relationship to breathe more fluidly in less restrictive patterns.
4. See: Wendigo, Skin, Home, Shadow, Something Wicked... or if you want to pull out the big guns: Faith, Devil's Trap and In My Time of Dying. See this Shadow/Something Wicked post for a non-strictly-physical example. It's not only the big episodes in which he's caring and comforting. He gets so little love in that regard, I swear. Aww, Sam. <3
You know, I thought I was finished, and then I realized I wasn't, and then in-between work, school and catching up on fandom and fic, this post got away from me. Sorry! :( I hope it's kinda worth the wait, eep. Also, I apologize for any grammatical errors, as my brain is quite dead at the moment.