#complex mary

First, I read somewhere (I think it was @queermania) that 14x13 Lebanon as an episode is too ambitious. The idea of Lebanon-the-town being its own character deserved a separate episode, and the idea of John returning needs its own episode. And I agree completely. Really, the episode doesn't have time for satisfying confrontations.

///

==It's not revenge porn, and that's a little disappointing==

Overall, think the fandom balks at John's return because at worst, what we want is reciprocal revenge to be inflicted on John. At best, we crave a verbal sparring where he's taken to task for his past crimes.

Lebanon is neither of these.

So, it's easier to wrap up John's "best behavior" as ghostly wish fulfillment, and that certainly works for me. It's satisfying. (I also subscribe to the theory that Dean wishes for John in order for Mary to be happy.)

But for me, the long and the short of it is that I think it's more interesting and very telling that John's on his best behavior here. That implies...interesting things.

Mary's presence grounds him, and even then, he's still subtly passive-aggressive in ways I adore. I think their interactions have built-in conflict, and I think it works as is! I even think him catapulting back into his own time has a dark implication (below).

///

==Mary & John==

Mary does not batter John; she greets him with relieved kisses. I think that makes sense for Mary given what we know about her. Her anger manifests as cold and controlled. She does not tend to fly off the handle.

The past haunts her. Mary last saw John on a regular night at home. They had dinner together, kissed their kids goodnight, and went to bed with baby monitors and all. She misses that guy. She loves the man he was, his best self. Not his worst self. She read his journal, but that's something she knows in her head, not her heart. It'll take a while to square that man with this man. And even then, she might just try to love him through it. I think Mary is the kind of flawed, frustrating woman who might make excuses for John.

She rationalizes. She views herself as having made a lot of mistakes with the boys, too. John had "drunken rages and neglect," sure, but in season 12, she almost got Cas killed, lied to the boys, and then she became Mary!natural-born killer and almost shot them. She's going to rationalize.

Team hunting dynamics. I suspect that so long as they're not in a Particularly Dangerous Mission Mode, the dynamic is going to be Mary bossing John, not the other way around. She might square the past by expecting him to do penance to the boys as a family protector and attack dog. I actually think Mary might mistreat him! And she'd definitely put the things on him that she can't take. My thesis is that I think she'd wind up treating John a lot like how she treated Cas, mid-season 12 in First Blood. If they hunt together, they'd have to get to know each other as hunters, which would lead to a frustrating tug-of-war. (John cries a lot, even in the original run, and Mary goes stone-cold. She's gonna hurt his feelings and wound his pride. It's going to be tumultuous.) I think Mary would become the control freak, because she's the one who is now tied to the current life, the one with a hunting network, and the one with superior knowledge, etc.

EXAMPLES from cut scripts & aired transcripts

Mary & Cas in 12x01 Keep Calm and Carry On & 12x02 Mamma Mia:

Here, I think Mary instinctually moves to put familial duty & responsibility on Cas. I think she intuitively recognizes him as Dean's spouse, and so, his strength & support are available by-proxy to her.

I know this is mostly indirect evidence, but I suspect this is exactly how she'd treat John within the world of hunting.

///

Mary & Cas in 12x09 First Blood:

MARY: You left them. CASTIEL: No, I… Dean told me to go. The woman-- MARY: The one you lost? CASTIEL: I didn’t. I… I thought that she-- MARY: Stop making excuses. [Cas looks down, and Mary sighs heavily]

///

Back to John

I can imagine Mary making digs about him not knowing critical hunting fundamentals, and he'd make digs that he wasn't raised with as many resources as she was (a petulant shot at her lies). I find it more likely that he would sull up and eventually explode at her. Mary lied to him. That still hurts.

The critical blowup would happen when John finds out that Mary was even hunting while the boys were small. "I thought you were cheating. This is worse!" Mary didn't even give him a chance to fight for himself or to access the tools and knowledge to help defend his family. (She didn't trust him!) He never had the chance to even try! Etc etc. Messy!

I think Mary would get cold and judgy. Like Dean, she could even fall into idealizing/romanticizing her other hunting partnerships to make digs at John's shortcomings ("AU Bobby/AU hunters/the boys/Cas don't make mistakes like this. They've never let me down," etc etc.) Regardless of John's past crimes, I think she'd fall into expecting too much of John...I'm 99% certain of that. It's so juicy and crunchy!

AU Bobby? Sadly, I think with John back, she would drop AU Bobby like a hot potato. Sorry. Sucks for AU Bobby, but it seems like they were already broken up/going their separate ways in 14x11 Damaged Goods. (Lebanon is 14x13.) The hardened AU Bobby, unlike OG Bobby, would probably like John, which would be a horrible feeling for the boys.

///

==Sam & John==

Sam skirts around John's past misbehavior. It's uncomfortable. Two seconds later, John tries to get a rise out of Sam.

Sam puts it aside and chooses to love John anyway, to try to start fresh where they're at. I think that makes sense for Sam, because Sam likes to cut away and compartmentalize the parts of life he doesn't like. Sam dissociates. Sam doesn't want to talk about it. But I also think that, over time, John would keep digging until he found a pressure point to try and get Sam to explode at him. John is prodding at Sam to talk in a similar way that Sam prods Dean to talk.

By the way, I think John's apology is right in line with the tearful crybaby John we saw on our screens in seasons 1 and 2, too. John was volatile, but he wasn't always unemotional. (Remember when Pastor Jim died?) That's why he always felt so unpredictable as a caretaker.

SAM: Yeah, Dean and I tried to make that once. JOHN: I, um… I remember. I screwed up with you a lot, didn’t I? SAM: No, that’s okay. JOHN: No, it’s not. Sammy, tell me the truth. SAM: I don’t want to talk about that. JOHN: You didn’t have a problem talking about it before you left. SAM: Dad… for me? That fight… that was a lifetime ago. I don’t even remember what I said, and – I mean… yeah. You know what? You did some messed-up things. But I don’t… I mean, when I think about you… [voice breaks] and I think about you a lot… I don’t think about our – our fights. I think about you… I think about you on the floor of that hospital. And I think about how I never got to say goodbye. [JOHN puts his hand on SAM’s shoulder.] JOHN: Sam. Son. I am so sorry. SAM: I’m sorry, too. But you did your best, dad. You – you fought for us, and you loved us, and… that’s enough. [JOHN tearfully smiles at SAM and pats his shoulder.]

Team hunting dynamics. I think John would at times reach to undermine Sam's leadership, especially with the AU hunters. I think this could manifest in him being contrary to Sam's ideas. It'd be kinda like how AU Bobby balked at Sam's leadership skills, but to the power of ten.

If Mary's present, all bets are off. John submits to her. But if Mary's not there, he probably jumps right into questioning and nitpicking Sam's decisions. When that doesn't work, he approaches Sam through cold, hard logic, and that could potentially get Sam on his side. Sam is very swayed by moral relativism, and John would appeal to that. "We've all done things we regret." And once John digs up enough of Sam's mistakes, I think Sam would be swayed to give John another chance in order to avoid being faced with the dreaded hypocrisy.

Tension points: I don't think John would like Rowena at all, and that would be a point of tension between them. He'd make so many snide digs about her, mark my words. Rowena would hate John, too though, and that's where 90% percent of the fun would actually come from.

///

==Dean & John==

Dean is wary around John. There's no better word for it. John's presence makes Dean's home at the bunker feel insecure, like the ground is crumbling beneath his feet. The bunker is Dean's house, and he's already feeling shaky by having AU hunters there. At the point of Lebanon, Dean's got Michael locked in his head, pounding away at a locked door.

Lebanon happens right after Prophet & Loss, where Sam resorted to battering Dean with his fists to try to get him to care about himself. Dean's feeling extra, extra vulnerable. He'd be like a cornered animal with John in the house.

///

In Lebanon, Dean is upfront with John about their living situation:

JOHN: Then it’s all true. God, the devil, you boys smack in the middle. Now you live in a secret bunker with an angel and Lucifer’s kid. DEAN: Yeah.

Later, John is passive-aggressive with Dean, too, but it takes on a completely different dimension than it does with Sam. Sam and Dean both live with, "an angel and Lucifer's kid," but Dean is the one John "suspects something of," and so, like a gossiping church lady, he pokes. About relationships.

He's trying to figure out if Dean is...attached.

DEAN: Dad, we pulled you here. JOHN: No, son. My fight. It was supposed to end with me, with Yellow Eyes. But now you – you are a grown man, and I am incredibly proud of you. I guess that I had hoped, eventually, you would… get yourself a normal life, a peaceful life, a family. [DEAN nods. He smiles.] DEAN: I have a family. [JOHN smiles.] JOHN: Yeah. Alright. What’s next? DEAN: We eat. [DEAN leaves for the kitchen.]

Do I think John accepted that Dean has a family? Yeah, I actually kinda do. I think this conversation is just John confirming suspicions he already had. And Dean is patient with him about it. I suspect Dean's patience would turn into holding him at arm's length, and John would be spun by that.

I don't think John would act a homophobe. John liked Lee. Competence wins out for John. I favor John not being cartoonishly homophobic on a personal level so much as a societal one. I can see him rationalizing the thing with the nuns as him being scared of Dean enduring a difficult lifestyle re: the time periods they respectively grew up within.

But now? With all this acceptance? There's less reason to do that.

Household dynamics: I think that, right out of the gate, John does some boundary crossing. It's implied in the finale script that when John was with Mary, John was the cook. (He cooks pot roast!)

Seeing this human, empathetic side of John would be devastating. John tends to take over the kitchen, and Dean feels pushed out. John is funny, just as Mary said he was. It'd be like entering an upside-down world. (And if John is like this now, why weren't Sam and Dean enough for him to even try?)

///

John & Cas & Jack

Because John is doing public "penance," and because Dean is sort-of icing him out, John would "work on" those closest to Dean: Cas and Jack. I can see John trying to suck up to Cas and Jack with a surprising degree of success!

Cas

With Cas, it'd be a rocky start. Maybe it starts when John outright demands that he wants Cas's truck when he sees it in the garage. Then, he's aggressive towards Cas and suspicious of his angelicity.

But ultimately, Cas's competence and gray-rock method of communicating win John over, and when he wins John over, he wins him over in a big way. John even seems to trust Cas more than Sam and Dean, and that gets ugly.

Oddly enough, I think he'd take to Cas way more readily than he'd take to someone like Rowena. Cas is a soldier. When John learns that, he tries to awkwardly soldier-bond with Cas, using marine lingo and making crass male-bonding jokes at Dean's expense. (Super weird, super disrespectful, and super awkward!)

There's also some stuff in Cas that reminds John of Henry Winchester, which makes it even more complicated. Like Mary, he senses Cas's spousal dynamic with Dean, and because of Cas's angelic strength, he also expects too much of Cas. (Poor Cas!)

I think the result would be Dean and Cas having big emotions about it, because Dean needs to get out of the bunker a lot, and he'd cling extra hard to Cas as a reflex to John's pushy "trying to steal my best friend," stuff.

Jack

I think John'd spoil Jack, kind of like he did with Adam. Jack represents a clean slate, a new chance to bond with a son. John wouldn't spoil him in a lovey-dovey way, either.

I think he'd key into what Jack is missing, and provide the, "You did good today/that was nice work/I'm proud of you," stuff. Jack values blunt honesty and tough love, so long as it's paired with a sliver of respect. John could worm his way in so fast if he really wanted to!

Dean would probably hit his limit with John trying to get close to Jack and step in. But Jack would painfully point out that when Cas came back, Dean changed, too.

"You said it yourself Dean. 'We're gonna make mistakes. Nobody's perfect. Right?' You said, 'We can get better. Every day, we can get better.' Why can't he?"

(This, of course, comes back to bite Jack in the ass.)

Due to where Lebanon occurs in the timeline, Jack is human-ish, but when John discovers the AU Michael situation and what Jack's Nephilim capabilities were, John gets pragmatic at Jack's expense. Perhaps, they decide to rescue Adam together, to secure the OG Michael to fight the AU Michael? I can come up with all sorts of terrible things John and Jack might get up to together "for the greater good."

///

On the whole, John is intel-gathering. Under the guise of bonding, he's collecting a list of Dean's, Sam's, Cas's, and Mary's worst mistakes to use as ammo and rationalization...if he ever needs it.

And the thing is, John's bonding is simultaneously genuine. He's defensive and damaged, but some of his better intentions are so ugly because of that.

///

==John goes back to the past, though. What are those pesky implications you mentioned?==

Well, like I said in the beginning, in the actual episode, John wakes up in the past. That softly implies it was "real." He tells a worried past!Dean that he, "had a good dream."

But the implication is that John is now even more certain that his revenge is the righteous path. Look how safe and strong Sam & Dean turned out! He's convinced now: even though he hurt them, his methods were the right ones.

///

That got long was WAY more than you asked for, but I'm not sorry. Thank you for the ask! It allowed me to brainstorm about some things I've been kicking around in my head for a good while.