Freak Blog

It's also the way Sam and Dean are so perfectly in sync. They say the same exact things while in different rooms apart from each other. They can make plans without ever being able to talk to each other because Sam already knows what Dean will do and vice versa.

Plus, it's how much Sam doesn't give a fuck anymore. He doesn't even try to look normal and polite and civilian like he used to. He wants to make it extremely clear that he's exactly as much of a fucked up freak as Dean. The second they propose getting Sam off the hook by testifying against Dean, Sam is wildly against it. He doesn't even pretend to play along just to make things easier. He can't. Everyone must know that Dean is the only person in the world he cares about, and if they go down, they're going down together.

At least for me, this is the episode that made it clear that Stanford Sam, who could participate in society and have a relationship with a woman, is dead. It isn't exactly the point of no return for Sam—I'd say he never actually had a chance at a normal life, Season 2 is just where he stops wanting it—but it's the point where we as an audience realize that there's no going back. He doesn't just want to keep hunting for a while because that's what he claims John would want. He's fully a hunter now. He belongs to that reckless, feral life. And more importantly, he belongs to Dean.

God I love this episode.

jensen: dstiel not real don’t be spreading any of that gay shit around me I’m interested in HARDCORE MANLY THINGS like dean. come here jared let me put my tongue in your mouth you talk too much. also guys do you know what would be really cool and good is if we did a spinoff where dean reinstates chuck as god just so he can kill him on his own and then suck his god-juice out and become the ultimate supreme bigdick awesome guy in charge. and also he does a little musical number and there are girls (and sam) falling at his feet. the original ending didn’t do dean justice we need this one for the good of society I think. jared bend over for me sweetheart.

jared: remember sam? pretty great character :D

also probably the closest thing to a jealous shitfit he pulled involved one (1) time Sam ditched a hunt to be there for his then-girlfriend's Important Life Event, and it'd be like 40% loudly-expressed "he should be putting his FAMILY first" and 60% ferociously-suppressed "we don't get to just DO that! if i've accepted only ever being able to date super casually for a few weeks at a time before we blow town then where the fuck does he get off thinking he can just PRIORITIZE this COMMITTED RELATIONSHIP BEHAVIOR bullshit. that i tooootally don't want or care about anyway. because it's for SISSY NORMIE LOSERS, not a tight-knit clan of ULTRA-COOL SECRET MONSTER HUNTERS like us"

like i think Dean did accept much more readily, long before he could even realize the ramifications of what he was accepting, that the way they lived meant the Winchesters' only long-term relationship option was "rampant emotional incest that we don't have to acknowledge as long as we all only bang girls," but he also canonically had all kinds of festering resentment about missing out, and was aware on some level that their lives required the sacrifice of a lot of things he secretly longed for (and made a lot of noise about devaluing in favor of What's More Important)

and the toxic cocktail of that + envy of Sam's ability to just go "nah fuck expectations i want something else" + boundary-challenged investment/enabling/policing of each other's heterosexual exploits as a bulwark between their family dynamics and The Unspeakable + freakout over the early warning signs of a difference in values on family loyalty + inchoate terror of losing him to the outside world one day + unthinking idolization and projection along the lines of "well of course this girlfriend would take him away from us and wrap her entire life around his if she could, i mean, have you met him? who wouldn't want that? this is WHY we have to keep it casual and not get girls' expectations up"...

...the entire dynamic of Dean being Sam's number one hookup cheerleader but also perceiving signs of romance/commitment as a threat... s1 Dean trying to have a hand in pushing him towards actual romantic prospects anyway, because he's worried about Sam grief-spiraling and has reluctantly accepted that the rupture in the family is about things Sam genuinely wants, even as Sam's grief is already driving him to the conclusion that they aren't worth the cost and meanwhile the brothers have spent all season bonding even closer and more claustrophobically as adults...