8.12 As Time Goes By: As Long As We're Alive, There's Always Hope

[bardicvoice]

8.12 As Time Goes By: As Long As We're Alive, There's Always Hope

What if your whole past
Isn't what you always thought?
What's your legacy?

Commentary and Meta Analysis

While this episode was beautifully shot and had some powerful emotional beats, I had real problems with it because it seemed to radically change things we thought we knew and add

Comments

[tabaqui]

Interesting thoughts. I don't have an issue with John's emotions over his dad. He would only need to have mentioned it once for Dean to have latched onto it, and possibly even embroidered it bigger in his mind. To Dean, abandoning family is the worst possible thing you can do - so John mentioning his own dad 'ditching' him/he and his mom, and any negative words/emotions with that would have given Dean a bone to chew

[bardicvoice]

Good points, especially the bit about Dean possibly having embroidered anything John said with the added emotion of his own issues. I don't think we'll ever hear "the truth" about the past - I think the writers made their point and moved on - but your explanations could work. :)

And you're dead-on in observing Sam wouldn't have had a "normal" life if Henry had lived to raise John as a Man of Letters - Sam would have had that tradition to live up to!

I do love the sense of Sam going to university in the library of the MOL. He may finally have discovered a way to unite his mind-hunger with his role as a world-saver.

Thanks for sharing!

[ali888]

Since John's mother wasn't mentioned at all, I wonder if she had died before Henry disappeared. John might have been brought up, adopted perhaps, by a paternal relative. That could explain both his fondness for his 'father' who he might have known and loved prior to Henry's disappearance and his not changing surnames. He might therefore have resented Henry but also had a happy childhood.

[bardicvoice]

Good points! Thanks for sharing them; I may come to feel better about John's past. :)