#Theres probably so much more I could say but its almsot 2 and I'm starting to forget words and slip into a simpler vocabulary. So I'm gonna

[future-dregs]

Okay I gotta gush a little bit. Skin is one of my favorite episodes, I love almost everything about it, and I'll try to put things in a way that makes sense, but it might get incoherent.

Okay.

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The opening is incredible. In a Gadda da vida? Perfect choice.

And the first time I watched they ABSOLUTELY got me with the Dean fake out. I had no idea what was happening. Was the girl a monster? But even so why would he torture her? How on earth was he going to get away from the police???

Jensen does a really good job as the shifter. Even when he's "full" Dean, the way he holds his body, the way he says certain words, how he phrases things, its Dean, but oh so slightly to the left and its really good.

When it goes back to Sam and Dean, and Sam's checking his emails, trying to keep in touch, you can tell Dean's still hurting from the secrets issue with Mary. He doesn't want Sam to keep talking to and about these people, having a familiarity with them that he himself never had with anyone other than Sam, and that he isnt allowed into now because it's part of Sam's other life, a life that does not include him.

So he needles Sam about how honest he is or is not with his friends, gives a few pointed phrases, gets all het up about the concept of lying all of a sudden, and is generally waiting for Sam to pick up the phone and get the message. Why is he keeping things from Dean?

But then, of course, all Sam has to do is look at him, and he's whipping the Impala around and driving 400 miles (FOUR HUNDRED MILES) to go support Sam and his "other family". (Quotation marks mine).

This is a darker toned episode as well. They only skirt around it of course, but the premise is that a being is taking the form of a loved one. A lover or a spouse, and tying up women and torturing them to death. And nobody finds out differently. The victim dies in horrified confusion thinking that their intimate partner is the one doing this to them. The families on both sides now have to live with this horrifying thing, wondering how on earth it was possible that something this awful could happen. And an innocent person is left to jail or death and with all of their friends and family's trust absolutely busted. The shifter destroys them threefold. Family after family. Its horrifying.

Also its heavily implied that there is sexual violence done to them. Whether the shifter actually rapes them and they just couldn't come out and say that, or if he's getting his jollies off with the torture alone, psychosexually, the intent is there. The shifter wants to be "loved", after all.

This also makes the shifters choice to take Dean's form, and go after Sam while in it, even going through the (painful) effort of doing back to back shifts just to be able to keep hurting Sam as his brother, well that's interesting, isnt it?

Dean's feelings about himself, albeit through the shifters filter, so perhaps not entirely credible, brought to light as well. The big one being, his fear and absolute certainty of his eventually abandonment. No wonder he keeps vying for Sam's attention, trying to make him laugh, doing what he wants, trying to get Sam to stop talking with old friends and do things the way he does, Sam has already left him once! His worst fears have come true and the possibility is still there that it might happen again.

Dean doesn't feel loved. He doesn't feel wanted. And he doesn't feel secure in his place in his family. And doesn't have very much self worth. He would never, EVER leave them, but he has been left. Twice. So theres gotta be a reason and it must lie with him. (This is why him reclaiming the Samulet is such a big deal. He's snatching his place and his purpose back. His love guarantee.)

The shifting scene is still has hot as I remember. All of it. The teeth, the blood, the way his muscles looked as the skin stripped off, the static way he ripped off his ear. Not only is the effects work beautiful, which it is, but it also turned me on! ^_^

The shifter belts Sam across the face, and it seems like he wants to kiss him instead. Whenever the shifter wants touch, wants affection, the only way he knows how to deal with that desire is by metting out violence.

He wants a kiss, he hits. He wants sex, he cuts and stabs, he wants someone to hold him, so he shoves them around and climbs on top of them and ties them up.

And he doesn't get to do it, but he wants to hurt Sam very badly.

At the end, Dean makes a crack about he and Sam being freaks (led there by Sam saying he never fit in at college. This is another "doorway moment". Sam overheard something about Dean that gave him insight into his brother as his own person, and now he's trying to make a connection with him over it. He will do this many times.) But Dean doesn't know that the shifter already told Sam that Dean felt he was a freak, too much of an outcast to have a place anywhere or be accepted, so what's meant to be a light joke stings a little more than it should've.

But Sam accepts his brother, their earlier conflict is absolved and forgotten, and as the song says-

Baby, it's alright now