#nightshifter

Every Episode of Supernatural: 34/327

Supernatural Rewatch | Faceless

i am so utterly, completely undone at dean's overwhelming fondness for ronald! for his enthusiasm and effort in tracking and trying to identify what's been doing the robberies and murders. for his relief and excitement when it's proven he's not crazy. for the fact that even without tools or training, he knows something's wrong and wants to stop it!

and... this episode is when sam loses me. the first time i watched supernatural, i had such a soft spot in my heart for both of them - especially solidified by 1.02 where dean just acts as bait and sam puts his body between the kids and the monster. beautiful, i thought, what they are willing to give to strangers. i was all in.

but this. sam's distain for ronald and his gaslighting of ronald's effort and research just because he wasn't a "real" hunter (whatever that means) or that his theory about what was behind the attack sounded stupid. it took me aback and unsettled me. i don't like the layers underneath it that carry on through the show. i don't like sam's harshness at societies' human outcasts. i don't like sam's pattern of withholding the truth about monsters from the people around him- even when it poses a direct threat to them - justified by a benevolent kind of paternalism. this is hands down the harshest reaction either of them have ever had to a "civilian's" interest in the supernatural. and i just don't understand why. (i know there's this fanon belief that they are always lying to protect people from the knowledge of the supernatural but it's really not true. and in fact i have too many examples of them straight up telling people the truth to list them all.)

it's interesting to note that dean's reaction to the cops at the open of the episode:

DEAN: Friggin' cops. SAM: They're just doing their job, Dean. DEAN: No, they're doing our job, only they don't know it, so they suck at it. 

is mirrored in sam's assessment of ronald:

DEAN: Nah, I just think it's a little creepy how good of a Fed you are. I mean, come on, we could have at least thrown the guy a bone. He did some pretty good legwork here. SAM: Mandroid? DEAN: Except for the Mandroid part. I liked him. He's not that different from you or me. People think we're crazy. SAM: Yeah, except he's not a hunter, Dean. He's just a guy who stumbled onto something real.

except that dean's right. the cops aren't helping; and ronald is!

and i'm not being dramatic when i say that sam is pretty directly responsible for ronald's death. his response to ronald's (correct) pattern identification is to tell him what all the cops have been telling him - that he's crazy and wrong. so what does ronald do, all alone with only the puzzle pieces and no allies? he tries to stop the monster in the only way he knows how. imagine what could have happened if he had allies from jump?

dean's face when ronald dies is gut wrenching...

his little speech....

DEAN: Sorry, Ron. You did a real good job tracking this thing, you really did.

he's known him for maybe like 24 hours and he's already nicknaming...

dean's care for ronald is so genuine and so sweet. it's interesting in an episode where dean has maybe the most "flirtatious" (for lack of a better word) moments with separate women out of the whole show that his most emotional connection is with ronald. though he flirts with franny who is clearly interested in him, and though he hypes up checking out a woman's butt on the security cam for sam, and though sherry is very taken with him at the beginning, none of them get dean making faces full of awed delight like this.

"he's not that different from you and me." i think dean and ronald should get to watch star trek, get high, and make out. i think dean should get to run his hand through ronald's hair!

anyway shoutout to one of the top two telling sam to shut up moments in all of spn...