this place isn’t haunted it is the ghost

lazarus rising is my favorite episode of all television period. every time i watch it it makes me feel this fond, nostalgic, awed, almost melancholy combination of emotions which are hard to put into words. except maybe as the feeling you might get on one of the last warm evenings at the end of summer.

i've mentioned before that what interests me most in spn is the down-to-earth, visceral, interpersonal, real aspects. and though, 4.01 contains one of the best episodic existential expansions of a universe, it opens so so tactily.

i can almost feel the dirt and the sweat and the sun on my own skin. i can almost smell the dry grass crackling. i think the gas station scene is one of the best uses of a set piece in the whole show. I can feel the dirt under dean's fingernails.

this is it for me. dean, in his whole body, moving through the world with all it's particularities. hot and thirsty and hungry and scared and alive.

there are a few other episodes which come close to this level of tactile, visceral enmeshment for me (baby and red meat come to mind). but nothing holds a candle to lazarus.

i am sorry that i am not enough of a cas girlie to be particularly verbose about his entrance. i love the barn scene. i love dean once again sitting on a table waiting for attack (a call back to 3.16) but this time, on his terms.

DEAN: Bobby, whatever this is, whatever it wants, it's after me. That much we know, right? I've got no place to hide. I can either get caught with my pants down again, or we can make our stand.

but mostly i am agog because lazarus rising gives us so much dean. it gives his triumphant little snap at opening the cash register. it gives us is raw, scratched "help!" it gives us his confused little, "september?" it gives us, "are you kidding me, what don't i know about that kid." which each play so often and so fondly in my head.

it gives us his perky nipples, and a dishcloth over his shoulder and his hands hanging out of the overlarge layers of bobby and sam's clothing.

it gives us "you're about the closest thing I have to a father."

it gives us dean's little pause before smashing the glass of the gas station door and his reluctance at cutting his arm to prove to bobby that it's really him. it gives us bobby and sam both attacking dean as their first reaction. it gives us dean clawing his way out of his own grave. 40 years of torture and resurrection still requires so much pain.

it gives us dean's closed eyes, clenched jaw, ferocious hugs with sam and bobby.

it gives us dean's instinctual, protective little grab at his own stomach when bobby says, "Your chest was ribbons, your insides were slop."

it gives us, "Whoa. Well, he didn't touch me there." which crushes me. dean is all flirtatious and receptive to pamela but as soon as she touches his upper thigh, he pulls back so fast he jostles the table. because... well, you know why...

it gives us the cornered, mistrustful, worn down, quiet, "not in my experience."

and throughout it all, dean looks like this.

look at him. i could tear down the heavens with love.

i've talked before about it's always made clear to dean that his resurrection and life is contingent on the work those in power over his life want him to accomplish. (1.12, 2.01, 4.01, 5.16, 6.11, 11.23, 13.05).

but lazarus rising doesn't really feel like a jumping off point for dean meta writing to me. there are so many other times and places for that. to me, lazarus is where i go to simply bask in my love for him.

Dean forms connections with everybody. He spends quality time with people while Sam is off doing something work-related. Dean even connects with their early antagonists more than Sam does. Bela. Victor. Gordon. The limit of Sam's interaction with Bela is him calling her a bitch and having a sex dream about her (3.10).

Dean is the one who initially thinks of and directs them to Bobby’s in 1.22 when they need help. He goes into Bobby's dreams and helps him escape a nightmare (while learning about his tragic backstory) while Sam is off looking for the episode's antagonist. He’s the one who calls Bobby his dad in 3.10 and again in 4.01 while Sam ghosts Bobby twice because Dean is dead and Sam's hot on the revenge trail, being pointedly paralleled with their loner dad (3.11, 4.01).

Dean and Jo spend an entire episode bonding together while Sam is offscreen doing case things (2.06).

Dean is the only one to meet Rufus initially and bonds with him over whiskey while Sam is hotly pursuing a Frankenstein’s monster to make him turn over the instructions on how to Frankenstein’s monster oneself so that he can Frankenstein’s monster himself and Dean and they’ll live for eternity together. Dean later pulls Rufus out of mind control.

Sam and Ellen do interact but mainly to discuss cases. Dean has several emotional moments with Ellen.

Sam and Cas… do I need to say anything?

Donna is Dean’s friend. Garth is Dean’s friend first before he and Sam ever really meet. Dean connects with Claire before Sam ever does. They play mini golf while Sam is—again—doing case things. Charlie and Dean spend two whole episodes bonding while Sam is off doing other case-related stuff. Dean becomes friends with the king of hell. They spent all summer together and Sam is really jealous about it. Dean was friends with a hot cajun vampire and Sam practically shit out his insides in envy.

Dean is the narrative heart. The hearth of the Winchester family house around whom all things and all people converge. His warmth attracts people like moths to an endlessly burning flame. He doesn't even have to try. He just has to be who he already is—loving, persevering, encouraging, fighting, seeking... he exudes endless wellsprings of love and charisma from every pore.

-Rob Benedict, Richard Speight Jr. Supernatural Then and Now