so skin is an episode about being hurt by your loved ones. the allegory is told through the literal torture and murder of girlfriends by a shapeshifter wearing the face of their boyfriends. the psychological aspect is just as important as the physical aspect for this shifter—it's a betrayal, something that will destroy both parties involved and ruin their relationship (if the victim makes it out alive of course).
the shapeshifter takes dean's face: he becomes the boyfriend-murderer, and sam is therefore the girlfriend-victim. it's the first time an episode has itself had an incestuous lining on a thematic level since the pilot (interesting too that the episodes that focus on sam have placed sam and dean in the position of lovers, whereas the dean-focused episodes until now have been more platonic in nature).
throughout the episode, the emotional B story depicts both sam and dean hurting (betraying) the people who trust them. sam, for one, is trying to maintain a relationship with his college friends, but he's lying to them. it also seems like he's not being very communicative with them in the first place, since most of his recent messages are people asking where the hell he even is:
(side note, i love that sam is apparently friends with two people named john and mary. feels weirdly psychosexual)
he hurts rebecca, and zach by proxy, later in the episode by lying to her and contaminating the crime scene. his lying, through the lens of the allegory, is framed as a betrayal of trust—metaphorical abuse and torture.
the shapeshifter also brings up another betrayal: sam leaving for stanford, betraying his brother and stealing his life away by forcing dean into a difficult position where he has to abandon his own dreams so that sam can pursue his.
this is victim blaming. the shifter is hurting people because he thinks they deserve it, because he's the true victim here, because he was shunned from society and treated as a freak. this episode portrays the monster as imprinting on dean, rather than sam or dean imprinting on another character. it's the second time a parallel has been drawn between the monster and one of the brothers, the first being pilot.
the shifter speaks for dean: dean is jealous because sam has friends, a life—and dean is just a freak. the B story of the episode starts with dean telling sam that it's for the best if he cuts his ties with people, and up until this point in the episode dean is portrayed as being unilaterally correct, because sam keeps hurting people as a result of his lying.
but now it's given a different framing. even if what dean has said isn't incorrect, we can see it through a lens of selfishness and jealousy. does dean want sam to give up his life because it's truly for the best? or is it because dean wants what sam has, and he'd rather neither of them have it than watch miserably as sam achieves what he's given up on?
dean apologizes for what he said at the start of the episode at the end of it, but the shapeshifter dug dean's memories and feelings out from somewhere. because the shifter is imprinting on dean, it's likely that his own experiences are intensifying the secondhand feelings he's receiving from dean, but even if that is the case, there's still something there—it's possible that right now, dean still isn't fully aware of it himself. it's possible that he is and is just trying to bury it.
regardless, we're still getting a rare glimpse into dean's true feelings here, however biased they may be. as dean's fear of abandonment unravels, dean himself is slowly coming undone, and this begins to take on a more prominent part of each episode. the ending scene of phantom traveler, too, is revisited in this same conversation:
if episodes 1-3 are introductory to sam, dean, and john respectively, then episodes 4-6 make an interesting trilogy about dean's fear of abandonment. phantom traveler introduces dean's fears and then reveal a scene at the end where dean perceives john as betraying him. bloody mary, too, includes a scene where dean perceives sam as betraying him by not being open and honest with him about his secret. these events are synthesized in this episode and elaborated on, and the fears that have been underscored through the past two episodes are finally given voice.
anyway, tangent aside, all of this culminates in the blurring of lines between the shapeshifter wearing dean's face and dean himself: there's very little difference between sam's big brother and the monster they're fighting. it helps that they share the same sentiments and anguish toward the world, the same jealousies, the same fears. where does the shifter end and dean begin? how much does the shifter speak for himself, and how much is extrapolated from dean's secondhand feelings?
is dean the real monster in this story?
skin is an episode about being hurt by your loved ones. the shifter takes on the likeness of various women's boyfriends/husbands. there's also an implication toward the episode that the shapeshifter uses this setup to have sex with women he finds attractive:
there is, of course, no real point for the shifter to undergo what appears to be the rather painful process of transforming back into dean after shedding rebecca's skin once he captures sam. except that this episode is about betrayal. the psychological torture is just as important as the physical torture for this shapeshifter. and the shifter finds girls he likes and uses their lovers' faces to destroy them.
dean is the lover. sam is the girl. the lines are clearly drawn here, made stronger by the sheer amount of overlap shared by dean and the shapeshifter. it's important to the shifter that dean is the one who is going to hurt sam, because the connection between sam and dean makes the violence that much more painful.
he says that sam should "appreciate" dean more than he does. it adds to the idea that dean feels "all alone" and that he wants someone to love him. dean's core desire is for family: dean wants his family to love him. he thinks sam doesn't love him, but sam should love him. again sam is blamed for a perceived betrayal, dragging up more and more of the minute details across the last several episodes that point to the emotional distance between them. dean wants those gaps closed, and sam is trying to keep them apart. skin is an episode about being hurt by your loved ones.
just like in the pilot, sam and dean are thrust into overtly romantic positions via the allegorical A story. a monster who has victimized girlfriends is assuming the role of dean and victimizing sam. like in the pilot, the character onto which sam and/or dean imprint is the antagonist, the monster. two lines are crossed in both of these episodes: the boundary between hero and villain, and the boundary between family and incest. doubt is cast on the roles they occupy, and that doubt breeds the gothic anxiety which allows for the nature of sam and dean's relationship, both to each other and to the world, to be questioned.
perhaps then it's only natural that shortly after this episode is where the integral running gag begins and sam and dean start getting mistaken for gay lovers. they stand within the liminal space that separates the acceptable from the taboo, and in doing so they become both, neither, everything all at once: brothers, lovers, boyfriends, girlfriends, tempting and unfaithful and desiring of something they can't have.
sam wants to go home. dean wants someone to love him. in the end, all they have is each other.
(fascinating, i think, how this is the episode where the idea that they're "freaks" is introduced, not only once but twice. very peculiar language)
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