#all i know is that the ghost of the original pilot lives on in 2x20

[bloodfreak-boyking]

NEVER FORGET WHAT THEY TOOK FROM US

[nerdylittleshit]

So what are you gonna do? You're just gonna live some normal, apple pie life? Is that it?

Themes of family & home aka “The Apple Pie Life” in Supernatural season openers Or The Great Meta Scavenger Hunt, Round 2

Here it is finally. As always I blame Lizzy that this got so long (and my inabelity to write proper short crack meta)

There we go again. The task is this: “Rank either all the season openers OR season finales 1 to 12 (or 1 to 11). Pick a certain metric to rank them by, e.g. by character (Sam, Dean, Baby, Cas, Bobby, Mary or John, idk, Sheriff Jody Mills) or by typical meta themes, motifs, symbols etc, or by relationship (for example crowlatron, or destiel), or an analytical lens such as feminist or queer reading, etc. “ (x)

And as much as I was tempted to write the Crowlatron one, I decided for another theme. A theme, some might say, I’m a wee bit obssesed with (shhh, I just want them to be happy). Where season finales are usually about deconstructions, season openers tend to be more happier episodes, with the Winchesters finally able to enjoy some domestic bliss (no, not really, this is still Supernatural).

So let’s have a closer look:

1x01 Pilot

This episode is actually full with themes of home, families and the domestic/normal life vs the hunter life. After all this is where the show has its origins, and to establish the hunter life, we need to contrast it to the apple pie life.

We start right with the opening scene, where we see the picture perfect American family, the Winchesters, as we later learn. Fans of the genre of course already know that peacefull scenes like these aren’t made to last, and soon enough an evil force destroys the perfect image. 

As others noted before, the scene where John passes baby Sam to Dean also marks the moment Dean became metaphorically Sam’s parent.

Speaking of Sam: the very next scene shows us Sam as an young adult, a student at Stanford and his loving and caring girlfriend Jessica. The most important event in his life is his job interview on monday. Nothing out of the ordinary.

For a moment we are meant to believe that the little baby from the teaser lived a normal life after all, despite the horror his family went through. Until we meet Dean, and learn that for Sam the ordinary is the strange.

SAM: The weapon training, and melting the silver into bullets? Man, Dean, we were raised like warriors.

DEAN: So what are you gonna do? You're just gonna live some normal, apple pie life? Is that it?

SAM: No. Not normal. Safe.

DEAN: And that's why you ran away.

SAM: I was just going to college. It was Dad who said if I was gonna go I should stay gone. And that's what I'm doing.

The brothers haven’t even been on their first hunt together when the show establish something very important: that there are two worlds, the world of the normal and the world of the hunters, and that those two don’t mix well. You can just live one of these lives; you are either in or you are out. And if you are a Winchesters you hardly ever have a choice in it.

It is also this episode that marks Mary, their mother, as a symbol for the normal life they have lost. Sam asks Dean if he thinks their mother would have wanted this life for their sons. Up until 4x03 and later 5x13 Mary is portrayed as the innocent victim, and as the life that could have been/the normal life, most heartbreakingly of course in 2x20. And even after the reveal that Mary was a hunter herself and had made a deal with Azazel, one thing remained true: that Mary never wanted her sons to grow up as hunters. This makes her the first Winchester who tried to escape the hunting life.

Part of the domestic life (at least for the Winchesters) seems to be also a long term romantic relationship. The two times Sam has left behind the hunter life (in season 1 and 8) he had been in a relationship (first Jessica, later Amelia), and so was Dean in season 6 (with Lisa). The difference of course, as Sam tells Dean in this episode, is that Jess never knew Sam was a hunter, and neither did Amelia later. In contrast to Lisa, who was fully aware of Dean’s past, when she started a relationship with him. And where Sam left the hunter life in its entirety behind him, Dean was never fully able to do so (but we get more in detail to this in 6x01 and 8x01).

Furthermore the motw also fits thematically to both the aspects of home and family. The woman in white, Constance, tells her victims that she can never go home, yet she urges them to drive her to her old home, before she kills them. Her family seemed happy on the surface, the way the Winchesters did in the opener. But both families had dark secrets to hide. Constance’s husband cheated on her, which resulted in Constance killing first her children and later herself, the children’s death reported as an accident.

Mary never told her husband the truth about her past as a hunter and the deal she made (though the show is a bit unclear whether or not she remembered said deal). The Winchester’s perfect marriage only became perfect after Mary’s death, as Dean later reveals in 5x16.

The three homes we see in the episode (the Winchester’s home in Lawrence, Sam & Jess’s home, Constance’s home) became places of pain, despair and death. The women who stay at home (a very traditional feminine role) or in Constance’s case return home, end up dead (the ghost of Constance is “killed” again by her dead children). All three women are women in white, dressed in white nightgowns. Two of them were wifes and mothers (Mary & Constance), one of them a girlfriend (Jess). All three relationships were based on lies (Mary never told John she was a hunter, and neither did Sam tell Jess; Constance’s husband cheated on her).

1x01 separetes the world of the hunters from the world of the normal, and yet shows us that evil takes place where we feel the most safe: in our homes and in our families. Relationships and families that appear perfect on the surface are destroyed by the secrets that lie underneath. You can’t outrun your past. And just as Constance neither Sam or Dean can go home again. 

2x01 In My Time of Dying

Even though this episode is full of fun Winchesters family traditions, such as cheating death & making deals, it hardly contains themes of home & family. What it gives is a little more inside on how John’s absence forced Dean to become Sam’s parent, but furthermore, to take care of his father as well, even though the roles should have reversed.

JOHN: You know, when you were a kid, I'd come home from a hunt, and after what I'd seen, I'd be, I'd be wrecked. And you, you'd come up to me and you, you'd put your hand on my shoulder and you'd look me in the eye and you'd... You'd say "It's okay, Dad”. Dean, I'm sorry.

DEAN: What?

JOHN: You shouldn't have had to say that to me, I should have been saying that to you. You know, I put, I put too much on your shoulders, I made you grow up too fast.  You took care of Sammy, you took care of me. You did that, and you didn't complain, not once.  I just want you to know that I am so proud of you.

DEAN: This really you talking?

JOHN: Yeah. Yeah, it's really me.

Dean’s childhood stopped the moment his mother died. Instead of his father he became the one who took care of his family, and tried to keep everything together. It of course also resulted in the unhealthy codepency between the brothers, and the reason why they are only able to have long term romantic relationships as long as the other brother isn’t around (for a more detailled meta go read @k-vichan exellent love-triangel-metas).

Speaking of homes, we have to mention the Impala. Just as Dean his car is on the brink of death, and as Bobby points out, at a point beyond repair. It is Sam who insits to keep the car, the same way he reminds Dean to keep fighting. Of course everyone’s favourite “The Impala represents Dean’s soul”-reading applies here. But furthermore the car also represents the brothers only home, up until they move into the bunker (where Bobby’s house and later Rufus’ cabin serve as homes as well, they never in fact trully belong to the Winchesters).

3x01 The Magnificent Seven

Ahhh, season three. Dean has only one year left to live, and in this episode he shows us he wants to live his last year to the fulliest. From having a threesome with the Doublemint twins, a bacon cheeseburger for breakfast, to Envy even calling him “ a walking billboard of gluttony and lust. “ Dean is as far away from the apple pie life as he could be. And yet it only takes episode two and Lisa Braeden, who turns from Gumby Girl to the potential mother of his child, to make his attitude crumble, ultimately resulting in the reveal of Dean dreaming of a domestic life with her in 3x10.

This episode also marks the first time a married hunter couple appears, Tamara and Isaac. So far all the hunters we met (John, Bobby, Ellen) had lost their husband/wife, all of them to supernatural caused deaths, or have never been married in the first place. Of course this marriage ends tragic as well, as Isaac later dies (isn’t it interesting that the only hunter couple who surived on Supernatural are Jesse & Cesar, the only non-straight couple?). And it is revealved that they only became hunters after a monster killed their daughter.

POSSESED ISAAC: Like that night those things came to our house... came ... for our daughter!

This marks another home that got destroyed, another seemingly happy family, whose lives ended in tragedy.

Next to that the first victims they found were a family as well, who died in their own home.

4x01 Lazarus Rising

Not much to see here, I’m afraid. This marks the first time Dean calls Bobby a father (figure).

DEAN: You're about the closest thing I have to a father.

This of course is a direct recall to 3x16 and Bobby’s line “Family doesn’t end with blood”, one of the shows biggest themes. It is also worth noticing that it is Bobby who Dean calls, after he is unable to reach Sam, Bobby he goes to, and later Bobby who he takes with him to summon Castiel.

Speaking of, this episode of course is the beginning of Destiel, and if this doesn’t give you romantic/domestic vibes, than what will (after all, nothing says “I love you” as stabbing someone in the heart).

5x01 Sympathy for the Devil

And we stay with Cas. Even though it isn’t until 5x13 that Cas becomes part of the team (team free will, that is), and not until 6x20 that he officially becomes part of the family, we already see a change in Dean’s relationship to Cas in this episode, compared to season 4. Whereas before Dean struggeled to fully trust Cas, Cas is now on top of the list of Dean’s priorities. And he seems genuinely heartbroken after Chuck told him Cas is dead (spoiler alert: he is not). Because it confirms just something Dean has long been afraid of: that people close to him, people he cares about, end up dead. And it’s all because of him.

Also, another time Bobby is called Dean’s father, this time by Meg, who calls Bobby Dean’s “surrogate daddy”. Interesting enough though that the father-son-dynamic takes mostly place between Dean and Bobby, and not Sam and Bobby. Probably because after John’s death Dean was more in a need for a father figure than Sam.

The most interesting character though is Nick. Another time a family has been destroyed. Another home that no longer feels like a home because the family in it has been ripped apart.

LUCIFER:After all, how could God stand idly by while that man broke into your home and butchered your family in their beds?

Nick is a broken man, his life a tragedy. He lost both his wife and his child (and his wife is yet another woman in white). This is the very reason Lucifer chooses him as a vessel. Because he knows Nick would help him in his crusade against God, Micheal and heaven, after learning there are beings powerfull enough they could have prevented what happened to him and his family, and yet they did nothing.

6x01 Exile on Main Street

Just the opening montage alone gives us all the domestic Dean feels. We see him living a very normal life in the suburbs, living together with his beautiful girlfriend and her son, to whom he acts like a dad, having a normal (blue collar) job, barbeques with the neighbors etc. But what we also see are the flashbacks to his old life, blending in with his new life, and even though Dean gave up hunting, he didn’t stop being a hunter, as the devil’s trap under the rug and the holy water and gun under his bed prove. And even though Dean truly belongs in this life, even though he fits in, there is a big hole in the shape of his brother through it all. It is a grief that, even though Lisa is aware of the circumstances of Sam’s death, nobody can fully understand. It is perhaps most similar to that of losing a child. It’s the big sacrifice for the greater good, and the price Dean had to pay for it. And even though I would say Dean does feel at home, the fact remains that going to Lisa in the first place is something he did because he had promised his dying brother to do so.

One part of the apple pie life in Supernatural is being in a long term romantic relationship. It’s not just about having a home, a stable life, a normal job (as opposed to hunting, which is not only a job but a way of living), but to have a significant other. And here we see Dean as the perfect boyfriend/husband/surrogate father, who doesn’t even so much as react when a waitress in a bar flirts with him. It’s the opposite of Dean being  “a walking billboard of gluttony and lust”. And it confirms that the Dean we saw in previous seasons - the Dean who flirts at every chance he gets, who has a long history of one night stands, and who admitted in 5x11 that he never had a relationship that lasted longer than two months - was just a persona he putted on. The real Dean though longs for a committed relationship, and it has only been through the circumstances of the hunter life that he thought he would never have a chance of getting one.

The moment though Dean thinks there might be something unusual, he starts to investigate. Not because he misses his life as a hunter that much (it is his brother that he misses), but because he wants to keep his new family safe. And furthermore because he believes that he can’t really outrun his past. The saddest reason though that Dean still sees himself as a hunter, is that he truly believes he doesn’t deserve this new life.

DEAN:I should've known. I should've known that if I stayed with you that something would come, because something always  does. But I was stupid and reckless and...You can't outrun your past.

LISA:You're saying goodbye.

DEAN:I'm saying I'm sorry... For everything. Everything.

LISA:You're an idiot. I mean, I know it wasn't greeting-card perfect, but we were in it together.

DEAN:I was a wreck half the time.

LISA:Yeah, well, the guy that basically just saved the world shows up at your door, you  expect  him to have a couple of issues. And you're always so amazing with Ben. You know what I wanted, more than anything was a guy that Ben could look up to like a dad. So, you're saying it's all bad, Dean? 'Cause it was the best year of my life.

Of course everything changes the moment Sam comes back. He has been the reason Dean went to Lisa in the first place, he is the reason he stopped hunting. And Dean’s commitment to his new life is based on the solid belief that his brother was gone for good, and wouldn’t come back (seriously Dean, what show have you been watching?).

And not only Sam returns, but with him grandfather Samuel, a bunch of Campell hunters and a case. And all of sudden Dean’s new life and his old life are in conflict with each other, and it seems inevitable that he has to make a choice for one or the other. Because that is the lesson that Supernatural teached us since 1x01: you can’t have both lives. You are either in or out of hunting. And while Sam stopped being a hunter completely both times when he was with Jessica and later Amelia, Dean tries for a time to have both (with the difference of course that Lisa was fully aware of Dean’s past). But eventually Dean had to choose as well. And as he was never able to stop being a hunter, and as he trully believes he doesn’t belong into the world of the normal, he naturally returns to the hunting life.

The big twist in Sam’s return of course is that he has been back for year, almost immediately after his death. The choice Dean is forced to make in the first half of season six, is a choice that has been taken away from him for a whole year. As I wrote before Dean’s choice to stay with Lisa wasn’t so much as a choice, as the alternative (the hunting life) had no longer an appeal to him without his brother.

Both Sam and Bobby then argue that their decision not to tell Dean that Sam was alive was for Dean’s good. They decided for Dean that what he truly wanted was this new life with a real home and a family.

SAM: You finally had what you wanted, Dean.

DEAN: I wanted my brother, alive!

SAM: You wanted a family. You have for a long time, maybe the whole time. I know you. You only gave it up because of the way we lived. But you had something, and you were building  something. Had I shown up, Dean, you would have just run off. I'm sorry. But it felt like after everything, you deserve some regular life.

The argument of course isn’t wheter Dean prefers this new life over his old life, but that both Sam and Bobby made the choice for him, believing to know better.

BOBBY: Because you got out, Dean! You walked away from the life. And I was so  damn grateful, you got no idea.

DEAN: Do you have any clue what walking away meant for me?

BOBBY: Yeah -- a woman and a kid and not getting your guts ripped out at age 30. That's  what it meant.

DEAN: That woman and that kid -- I went to them because you asked me to.

BOBBY: Good.

DEAN: Good for who? I showed up on their doorstep half out of my head with grief. God knows why they even let me in. I drank too much. I had nightmares. I looked  everywhere.  I collected hundreds of books, trying to find anything to bust you out.

SAM: You promised you'd leave it alone.

DEAN: Of  course I didn't leave it alone!  Sue me! A damn year? You couldn't put me out of my misery?

BOBBY: Look, I  get it wasn't easy. But that's life! And it's as close to happiness as I've ever seen a hunter get. It ain't like I wanted to lie to you, son. But you were out, Dean.

In contrast to Dean’s apple pie life we get Samuel and the other Campell hunters. All through the episode they treat Dean like an outsider, after he spent a year living a normal life. When they return to Lisa’s place, they make fun of him and the life he had build with his new family. It is very similar to the Dean we saw in season one, who openly dismissed everything normal, as opposite to Sam, who had longed for this life. This time of course it is Sam who is a full time hunter (which of course is caused mostly by his missing soul, though we don’t know this yet).

The most interesting among this new characters of course is Samuel. Samuel, who even though he is actually blood, never becomes part of of Dean’s family (as far as I recall Dean never calls him grandfather, as opposed to Bobby who he of course has called a father - and speaking of names and titles, Dean calls Lisa’s house his home and Gwen calls Lisa Dean’s wife).

Samuel then tells Dean that he does remind him of his daughter, Mary, who wanted out of the life as well. Of course Dean was more or less forced out of the hunting life, whereas it was Sam who deliberately left the hunting life behind (twice). And as we know now Mary didn’t stopped being a hunter in her new domestic life the way Dean never stopped either.

It is Samuel then who tells Dean to return to the hunting life - after all it is in his blood. They way he tells it is that hunting is Dean’s destiny (quite similar to the way Zachariah said it in 4x17), and well you can’t outrun your destiny, right? Enter Dean Winchester, the poster boy for free will & choice.

This episode of course again has the theme of what I would call “suburbian horror”. This time Sid (Dean’s neighbor and friend) and his wife get killed in their home. The parallel here is clear: they are no longer random victims, but stand in for Lisa and Dean.

Dean’s Djinn poison nightmare then puts him in the same position as John (before he became a hunter and lived a normal life): he sees his wife (Lisa) burning on the ceiling and his son (Ben) drinking demon blood.

The episode then ends with Dean making a choice. But instead of chosing option A (the apple pie life) or option B (the hunting life) he chooses option C (living both lives). This might mark the first time Dean doesn’t choose his brother, but instead chooses the happiness and family he has found apart from his brother (even though he still doesn’t think he deserves his new life, but rather thinks he needs to protect Lisa and Ben). Even though this choice has been taken away from him for a long time, Dean makes a decision neither Sam or Bobby thought was possible. Instead of returning to the hunting life the moment Sam returns, he makes a choice based on the new responsibilities he has for his new family. Dean subverts then the lesson 1x01 tried to teach us: you can live both lives (even though it sadly doesn’t last).

7x01 Meet the New Boss

After all of the domestic feels 6x01 has been given us, we hardly get to see something in 7x01. If we concentrate very hard we can see Dean fixing the Impala (their home), while listening to the news and what Godstiel is doing in his free time. Cas of course by then has becoming a family member, but one that to Dean by now is a lost cause.

Season seven of course is the season of loss: Sam and Dean lose their remaining family members (Cas, Bobby) and both of their homes (the Impala and Bobby’s house). But 7x01 feels more like a continuation of 6x22 as that we get to see much of the season’s themes here.

8x01 We Need to Talk About Kevin

Or: Sam & the apple pie life, part II. Though we don’t get to see much of his actual life with Amelia yet, we do learn that Sam left behind the hunting life completely. This of course will be the main source of conflict between the brothers for the rest of the season. Because whereas Sam wished for Dean to leave him dead and find a new normal life at the end of 5x22, Dean feels betrayed after Sam did exactly this after the events of 7x23. Whereas Sam wanted his brother to find something new, Dean feels abandoned and replaced by a woman.

(On a side note, they first meet in Rufus’s cabin, the place that was closest to a home to them after Bobby’s house burned down.)

SAM:Look, I did what we promised we'd do. I moved on. I lived my life.

DEAN: Yeah, no, I'm getting that.                                                                  

SAM: Look, it wasn't like I was... just oblivious. I mean, I read the paper every day. I saw the weird stories…the kind of stuff we used to chase.

DEAN:And you said what? "Not my problem"?

SAM:Yes. And you know what? The world went on.

DEAN: People died, Sam.

SAM: People will always die, Dean. Or maybe another hunter took care of it. I don't know, but the point is, for the first time, I realized that it wasn't only up to me to stop it.

DEAN: Hmm. So what was it, hmm? What could possibly make you stop just like that? A girl? Was there a girl?

SAM: The girl had nothing to do with it.

DEAN: There was a girl.

The year they spent apart is represented for Sam through Amelia (the apple pie life) and for Dean through Benny (purgatory) and on a wider scale through Cas. Both eventually leave those last reminders of their time apart behind (in the same episode (8x10), with only Cas remaining), returning to their brotherhood of solitude and co-depency, and the lesson that they can’t have relationships outside their little family (at least not while the other brother is around). This of course isn’t news - Jess died the same episode Dean returned and Lisa later admitted she knew things were over the moment Sam returned (6x06).

The biggest parallel for Sam in this episode is Kevin. A young man who wants to life a normal life (and had already outplanned his life), until he became a part of the world of the supernatural and had to leave his old life behind. He turned to Sam for help, not knowing Sam had left his old life behind (and that’s another aspect of the hunting life: the responsibilities that come with it and the very reason so few hunters ever stop hunting).

He briefly returns to one of the old reminders of his old life, his highschool girlfriend Channing, even though he doesn’t interact with her, probably to protect her. Of course in a sadistic twist of irony Channing is killed by the end of the episode by Crowley. Throughout the season Kevin turns to the only other person left from his old life, his mother, who Crowley later kills as well or rather makes Kevin believe so. Kevin therefore loses everything he hold dear in his old life, and learns a brutal lesson of the hunting life: you can’t have attachments.

Another part of the episode is the reveal of the demon tablets and the prospects of closing the gates of hell (who Sam and Dean opened in the first place, just saying). This marks a major game changer. Even though there would be plenty of monsters left, the world as a whole would become a safer place. And it’s the reason why Dean decides for Kevin that he has to be part of this mission, taking away his choice.

DEAN: And now he's in it... whether he likes it or not.

SAM: So...free will, that's only for you?

DEAN: I can't believe what I'm hearing. Sam, we have an opportunity to wipe the slate clean. We take Kevin to the tablet, he tells us the spell, we send every demon back to hell – forever. Every single bastard that destroyed our lives, killed our mother, killed Jess. And you're not sure?

The irony of course is that it is Dean of all people who wants to take away this choice from Kevin. But it seems that if he had learned one thing in his life, it is that you never really get out, once the supernatural becomes part of your life.

DEAN: All right, listen to me. I'm sorry about your girlfriend, okay? I am. But the sooner you get this, the better. You're in it now, whether you like it or not. That means you do what you got to do. I'm hitting the head. 

Both Sam and Kevin struggle with the hunting life, both feel as though they have no choice in the matter. Dean on the other side, marked by his experiences in purgatory, has long given up his dream of a normal life.

9x01 I Think I’m Gonna Like It Here

In 9x01 we have parallel to the Winchester’s story, the story of the angels losing their home, and with that a new meaning of home.

The angels were forced out of their home by the one angel (Metatron) they once had force to leave his home as well (Metatron would call it ironic justice).

We learn that for the angels their home, heaven, means a place of safety, of belonging, but also of order.

HAEL: But Heaven – there was order. There was purpose.

In contrast to that leaving said home (even if it wasn’t on free terms) could mean freedom and making your own choices.

CASTIEL : There's opportunity for you, the others who have fallen, to do finally do what you would like to do – not just what you've been told.

This reading is very different from what the word “home” represented so far on the show. It is perhaps most similiar to a young adult moving out of his family home to a place of their own, an opportunity full of freedom and making your own choices, but also leaving behind the safety and comfort of your old home.

The reason of course we never had this reading before, is that both Sam and Dean never had a real home to leave in the first place. They never had this feeling of safety and belonging, but instead were forced to make their own choices and to act like an adult at a very young age (Dean perhaps more than Sam).

This particular arc of course also starts Castiel’s long quest of finding out who he is (angel or man), who his family is (the angels or the Winchesters) and where his home is (heaven or eath/the bunker).

On the Winchesters side of the story we see Sam visiting two of his homes while beeing in a coma. First the Impala, and then a cabin, that though it isn’t named like this, I think stands for Rufus’s cabin. What we not see is the bunker, which perhaps already tells us Sam doesn’t see the bunker as his home (yet), which will be later discussed in 9x04. Furthermore we see two of Sam’s closest family members (his surrogate father and his brother) represent the sides of him that want to live and that want to die.

Metaphorically we could also argue that Sam’s body function as his home (at least the home of his soul), and that Dean by allowing an angel to use it as his vessel invades said home.

And at last, upon learning that Cas is human, Dean sends him to the bunker, showing us that unlike Sam he sees the bunker as their home (and Cas as his family). Tragically though as long as Cas is human he remains homeless (9x03, 9x06) and even now in season 12 still wonders whether he truly belongs in the bunker/to the Winchesters.

10x01 Black

Home is here perhaps pictured the most by the one that is missing from home: Dean. We see both Cas and Sam mourning his loss, and discussing whether or not Dean is still Dean. Because they both know that the Dean they know wouldn’t have left his home and his family behind. What is interesting though is that they both do it at seperate places; Sam in the bunker, Cas at a motel. Of course we know that Cas left because his condition got worse and he didn’t wanted Sam to let know. But we could also argue that the bunker without Dean is no longer a home to Cas.

Meanwhile Dean is celebrating the summer of love with Crowley. He is back to his “no strings attached”-persona from earlier seasons, drinking, gambling and having one night stands. And yet with Anne-Marie he chooses a woman who looks very similar to his mother, and even though he tells her not to get too attached later offers her to run away with her. Even though his longing for a home and a family and (romantic) love seems to be stripped away from Dean, we get this little glimpses that something from the old Dean, the real Dean, is still there. 

In 10x01 the angel-home-arc also continues (and with that Cas’s identity arc). After the angels can return to their home, Hannah informs Castiel about rogue angels, who don’t want to return, and asks for his help in convincing them otherwise. Once again leaving home, and living on earth, is associated with freedom and choice.

HANNAH: You are an angel, once and forever.

DANIEL: Dropped unwillingly...Unknowingly...Into a strange land, a land that, as it turns out, celebrates the free, the individual. For the first time in thousands of years, I have choices. And with each choice... I begin to discover who I really am.

Perhaps Cas was the wrong angel to convince Daniel and Adina to return home, because he like no other knows what it means to leave his home behind (both on free terms and because he was forced to), and the freedom it can bring with it. But those... are human things.

And because we have to mention him, there is also Cole, who leaves his home and family behind, to go on a revenge mission.

11x01 Out of the Darkness, Into the Fire

Once again we see the suburbian horror, and homes that get destroyed. Jenna’s hometown is destroyed (and people she kew for her whole life killed), just as Crowley destroys the home of his new vessel, Marnie, and kills her husband and friends.

Jenna in the end returns to another place she used to call home, her grandmother’s house, where she feels she and baby Amara are the safest.

Speaking of the Amara, metaphorically speaking, with the body as a home, we could argue that Dean has been Amara’s home for some time, and that because of that she feels such a close connection to him.

And of course again we continue Castiel’s identity arc. Cursed with Rowena’s attack dog spell, Cas leaves his new home/new family, the Winchesters, behind, in order to protect them and turns for help to his old home/family (heaven and the angels). Unfortunately they no longer see him as one of their own/part of their family/part of their home.

12x01 Keep Calm and Carry On

And the last one (if anyone is still reading this, here have a cookie). With Mary’s return of course we come full circle to the pilot. And just as her sons Mary has eventually to make a choice, if she wants to live her life as a hunter or drop out again to live a normal life.

But before we get there Dean returns her to his home, the bunker, just to see that this place has been invaded as well. His brother is missing, and there is blood on the floor, so we have another example of a home destroyed. 

Next to Mary we have another mother in the episode, Lady Toni, who reveals her soft side when she calls her son and tells him she will be home soon.

At the end of the episode we get another reminder that Mary dropped out of the hunting life, and that she never wanted her sons to grew up the way she did. Dean though tells her that even though he understands her choice back then, he made his peace with the life he and Sam had, and that the greater goal justifies to give up their own hopes and wishes for a normal life.

MARY: No. I'm sorry. I just... I spent my life running from this, from hunting. And I got out. I never wanted this for you and Sam.

DEAN: Mom, I-I get it. I do. If I had kids, I wouldn't want them in this. But Sam and me... saving people and hunting things, this is our life. I think we make the world a better place. I know that we do.

Tl, dr (and who could blame you):Supernatural very often subverts the image of the apple pie life (a real home, a family, long term relationships, a stable job). If you live such a picture perfect life chances are you won’t survive long enough to enjoy it. Family homes become the places of horror and despair, and every family got a dark secret that wants to be revealved. And yet, in contrast to that, we see both brothers again and again longing for such a normal life, for the safety it brings. And even though the show tells us again and again that you can’t have both, and that especially as a hunter it is near impossible to ever fully leave the hunting life behind, I think the show might one day end on a more positive note, showing us that just because you are the one thing (a hunter) you don’t need to give up on the other things (a home, a family, romantic love).

And finally, my ranking:

1. 1x01 & 6x01

2. 8x01

3. 12x01 & 10x01

4. 9x01

5. 3x01 & 5x01

6. 2x01, 4x01, 7x01, 11x01