Great post! Nicely thought out, with lots to ponder.
About Mary's gravestone: as I remember the episode, Dean said, "Mom's uncle" paid for the stone. Possibly the parent of one or more of the Campbell cousins?
Hunters Keep Secrets
anonymous
February 1 2013, 02:28:13 UTC
A well thought out look at the episode. Let's not forget, too, that given the "business" Sam and Dean and Dad and Mom and both Grandpa's were apparently in, keeping secrets about the nature of the real world are essential to keep from being locked up in the loony bin (look how quick they got locked up when they tried), and bad things want to hurt them and the ones they love (has everyone forgotten about Ben and Lisa?), so the guys are almost never going to be more forthcoming about family in a casual way than they have to. Heck, when the guys were kids, they had to regularly lie about where their dad was just not to get put in foster care. Fortunately for the writers, this leaves things to be revealed as they are needed. Sure, a sentence about Dad having a step-dad would have avoided this debate, but let me say it loud and strong: "My wife is right." Donald J. Bingle, author of Gentlemanly Horrors of Mine Alone and many other stories and books. www.donaldjbingle.com
Re: Hunters Keep Secrets
anonymous
February 2 2013, 17:05:09 UTC
I love your commentary on this! Well said! I have nothing to add or protest or argue with, since I totally loved this episode. However, I find it highly amusing that your husband wrote under 'anonymous' and then gave us his name at the end of his comment. :)
shocking murders of her parents and was still able to remain in her community of Lawrence, KS without raising too many eyebrows
Actually...this isn't too hard to believe in Lawrence. We're rather live and let live here, we don't know your story until you tell us, we don't know why your parents died, so sure, come have a cuppa and chat awhile. ;)
I don't disagree with any of your points. I think what threw me about this new information, though, is the very fact that it didn't come up. In this episode it seemed so raw for Dean, so up-front and in his face when he realized who Henry it seemed it would have been something that young!John might've mentioned or JDM's John could have alluded to
( ... )
Oh, don't get me wrong, this new information threw me, too... but after I absorbed it and its impact I was fine with it. (I mean, you'd think we'd have had an inkling that Mary was from a long line of Hunters before "In The Beginning", right? Ooops, never came up.) Kind of helps explain John's prickly parenting style and how he devolved after Mary's death into the drill sergeant, barking orders, leaving his kids alone for days at a time (even my first time through Show I got that Dean and Sam had a lonely childhood).... those kinds of things don't spring from a vacuum, they don't come from *just* grief over a spouse's death, they had to be in there somewhere, waiting to be triggered.
It doesn't make it wrong or retconning (what a strange word, that)...
Dunno where that word came from (retroactive conversation?) and I hope I'm not misusing it. But yeah, I like your wording: "just not something I'd previously understood to be true.I notice you carefully didn't say "not something I knew". I think a LOT of what we previously
( ... )
Still feel slightly head-spinny from the episode (or maybe from working till 10 pm 4 of the last 5 nights because our office getting audited next week) but figure it gives new life to the mytharc so I'm chill with it...
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About Mary's gravestone: as I remember the episode, Dean said, "Mom's uncle" paid for the stone. Possibly the parent of one or more of the Campbell cousins?
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And thanks for commenting!
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Sam: You think it would have made a difference?
Dean: What?
Sam: Dad, if he had had his own father around.
Not "his father" or "a father," but "his own father." You know, instead of a step-father.
The defense rests.
Donald J. Bingle, coincidentally, the author of the award-winning, short memoir, "Father's Day."
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Actually...this isn't too hard to believe in Lawrence. We're rather live and let live here, we don't know your story until you tell us, we don't know why your parents died, so sure, come have a cuppa and chat awhile. ;)
I don't disagree with any of your points. I think what threw me about this new information, though, is the very fact that it didn't come up. In this episode it seemed so raw for Dean, so up-front and in his face when he realized who Henry it seemed it would have been something that young!John might've mentioned or JDM's John could have alluded to ( ... )
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It doesn't make it wrong or retconning (what a strange word, that)...
Dunno where that word came from (retroactive conversation?) and I hope I'm not misusing it. But yeah, I like your wording: "just not something I'd previously understood to be true.I notice you carefully didn't say "not something I knew". I think a LOT of what we previously ( ... )
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Still feel slightly head-spinny from the episode (or maybe from working till 10 pm 4 of the last 5 nights because our office getting audited next week) but figure it gives new life to the mytharc so I'm chill with it...
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