#spnwin

And then 9 years later the same robbie thompson and jensen ackles executive produced an episode in the prequel they developed that repeated thee same speech almost line for line but this time with mary and john instead of dean and cas

And then the next episode involved mary and john getting trapped in a room and they were both gonna die and this was the absolute last chance they have to confess their feelings for each other so they smooched, directed by richard speight jr who very coincidentally directed a rather similar scene like a year and a half earlier but with dean and cas

THE WINCHESTERS AS DEAN’S STORY: An untraditional video essay showing Dean’s physical and emotional state after the Supernatural finale.

Whether you’ve never seen The Winchesters, haven’t thought about it much in years, or know it inside and out, this should be watchable and understandable to you!

(This project is on AO3 here, as part of my Chuck Won meta series.)

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The Winchesters, as a prequel-sequel show, acts as a thematically consistent commentary on Supernatural. It explicitly brought SPN’s depths to the surface by spotlighting themes like found family being vital, cycles of intergenerational trauma needing healing, and real love triumphing over predetermined fate.

From episode one, Dean is framed as the show’s narrator and he has a voiceover in every episode. This means that The Winchesters is a story being told from his point of view. The show is Dean’s story in the sense that he’s telling it to the audience; but also, metatextually, it’s Dean's story in the sense that it’s all about him through mirroring and parallels.

I tend to fondly refer to The Winchesters as “The Dean Hall of Mirrors show” because that’s exactly what it is. While watching the adventures of John, Mary, Carlos, Lata and Ada—and the struggles they face—we can recognize they provide a secondary purpose of being commentary on Dean’s life. Through parallels, we learn more about the struggles Dean’s been facing since episode 15x20 of Supernatural. The Winchesters is a deliberate, repetitive condemnation of the false veneer of Dean’s “happy ending” in Heaven that some audiences took at face value. It tells us that he’s trapped. And the fact that the show’s plot lines culminate in Jack arriving to subtly threaten Dean back into “peace” is no accident.

Consider this a video essay, but in an untraditional format. Clips from the shows are interspersed to showcase their parallels and construct a full story, with no additional narration from me. Everything that I need to explain and everything that you need to understand is conveyed solely through dialogue and visuals from the shows themselves—demonstrating just how clear and cohesive the full picture is.

This video constructs an argument to show you (rather than tell you) this:

Chuck was not entirely defeated. Jack’s not okay. Dean and his family are trapped and fractured. And true freedom can only be achieved for all of them through speaking truths, trusting in real love, healing trauma, and breaking cycles of violence together.

Aside from a short opening and ending, this video has 5 chapters:

DESTIEL

JACK + DEAN

CHUCK WON

THE TRAP

THE PATH TO FREEDOM

The sections are designed to build upon each other.

As a (very optional) primer before you watch, a short breakdown of that is below.

BONUS:

"You scared the HELL outta me."