#compare that to now when just the thought of rewatching s2 makes me shudder

[kalicocal]

guess who still hasn't rewatched season two yet 😃

[elizabethrobertajones]

I've seen people compare and contrast Dean's pearl wish with his djinn dream in s2, but what are your thoughts on Amara giving him what he wants most and the pearl his heart's desire? Given one is his mom and the other his dad. And one needing to be reversed.

Dean’s heart… an enigma for the ages :’D We should throw in from the pile of other smaller instances, the largest plain text one, which is 4x14 and the siren telling Dean that he wanted a brother-figure most in another episode which dealt with manifesting desires… Though that one’s been argued to shreds and has terrible context even taking a straightforward read of it as what it says on the tin, because it’s to force discord between Sam and Dean in the run up to their worst falling out, and so it’s a replacement in a very sinister way rather than the cleanest comparison you make of Amara giving Mary - actual Mary - back and the pearl granting John - actual John - back, compared to every other instance of wish fulfilment along the way. 

Anyway I think it is clear Amara had the better instinct… I feel like we all know about Dean and his issues with John, and I think it’s very much that the pearl picked up on a desire to resolve these things, and especially maybe exactly what the episode ended up being for them with John - just the chance to see the family unit together, and in a way see off the dream of what was missing there. That Mary being back begged a question of why not John as well - why hadn’t Amara restored BOTH parents, and why wasn’t Dean’s desire that SHE read in him to have this completed family with John AND Mary. 

I think the episode dealt with it really interestingly because I keep laughing in disbelief that what I never thought would happen even subtextually but totally had been joking to myself would, was Dean “coming out” to John in some way that set up normative family values against family don’t end in blood aka the weird ass family that he’s collected for himself through the years. 

Even as far back as that quote’s original use in 3x16, Bobby’s supplanted John and steps in as father and a strong subplot of season 3 is Bobby taking on that role, with 3x10 having a lot of this between him and Dean specifically… The show then goes on to not only build this up over the years to the point that Bobby’s the better dad, but in 7x10 goes so far as to suggest that he had been historically, retconning their history just one shade further from the way in 1x22 Bobby comes across almost like a vaguely known family friend to the one who wanted to play catch with Dean and defended their right to be kids with John over the phone, almost to the implication that the reason in 1x22 they’re worried about going to Bobby because last time they saw him he threatened to shoot John… was over their parenting of the boys. 

Like, John not only missed out and has some serious trauma with his boys, but in the family unit the show holds up as better than blood family, Bobby has historically and firmly supplanted John over a long arc through most of the core part of the show and final iconic death episode, so even though Bobby is also dead, we have AUBobby back if we WANT to step-dad him back into the family via Mary, and regardless, it’s clear that from childhood to way beyond John’s life, Bobby set down a challenge and the motto of the show and WON, and John doesn’t actually have a place in Dean’s family unit; he has the place in the NORMATIVE blood family, the white picket fence nuclear family from 1x01 that we see for all of a few seconds before it’s destroyed. But the family that means the most to Dean by all accounts of the show from season 3 onwards is not one that actually includes John and the more people Dean adopts, the less John factors into this, until by season 13 and 14 he’s shuddering out of the last of it by getting to raise a son of his own from tentative horror about inflicting a childhood on him like what John did to them, to actually bonding with Jack and being a better father than John was - thankfully with much lower stakes and 2 other dads to pick up the slack for the hard stuff when he’s emotionally incapable of reaching out at first.

And then we have how in season 1, the entire arc is about finding John, and in 1x16 we get that conversation between Sam and Dean which shatters my heart every time I go through: 

DEAN: Yes, that, but it’s more than that, man. (He returns to the dresser and is silent again, then once more turns to Sam.) You and me and Dad—I mean, I want us….I want us to be together again. I want us to be a family again.

SAM: Dean, we are a family. I’d do anything for you. But things will never be the way they were before. (DEAN looks heartbroken.)

DEAN: (sadly) Could be.

SAM: I don’t want them to be. I’m not gonna live this life forever. Dean, when this is all over, you’re gonna have to let me go my own way. (He and DEAN share a look.)

And then in 1x20:

SAM (Grumpily) That’s probably what Dad’s thinking. Course it would be nice if he just told us what he thinks.

DEAN So it is starting.

SAM What?

DEAN Sam, we’ve been looking for Dad all year. Now we’re not with him for more than a couple of hours and there’s static already?

There’s obviously like, a whole season of material on this but these moments stand out to me about what they want and how compatible the Sam Dean John team really is (without factoring in Mary being alive so there’s some more happiness to it all in what we saw).

In 1x16 Sam has John’s 14x13 idea of a happy end - of getting out of the life and being able to do normal human things and settle down and all that jazz, and John’s really sad that Dean never found it, and just sees a lack in Dean’s life. And then there’s the issue of having John around where obviously there’s a lot of reasons in the 14x13 set up that if it had been permanent it would have been better, but still what we saw was the very rosy honeymoon period of having John back. Like, they weren’t working a case together so we got no leadership conflict, but while Sam and John had the most heartbreaking chat to resolve everything between them, they also had one of those in the iconic “spent it on ammo” scene, which was, you know, wonderful and all, but then somehow John still ends up dying within the week after his last 3 conversations with Sam were all blow out arguments. And John in this episode was snatched from technically the middle of his falling out with Sam about Stanford, when he was coming from whiplash of disowning to wow damn the kid got big and competent and, er, hunter-y. Nullifying that argument from John’s POV just as Sam has lived just too much life to be mad about it when faced with a John of that era. Conveniently for their development in the episode, ya know. John was very cannily picked out of time for the perfect balance of emotions. Multiple time periods of John could be used for what he and Dean went through, but only Standford-era John could be chill and easy for Sam to handle like that.

So. We’ve got John nullified from being part of the core family and we’ve got him being potentially dangerous to keep around for a long time, even if we can assume the cheerful period would be longer. We still had, like, AUBobby. And whatever would have happened getting John up to speed on their lives and putting him to work. Sam is HUNTER BOSS now. Chief. King of Hell by default because the demons are all too scared of him to elect a new one. How’s John going to fit into a dynamic where even AUBobby’s acknowledged Sam’s the alpha? Sam’s issues in season 1 were largely being the kid still, helpless with being only 22 and relatively inexperienced at least compared to John and Dean even though he’s NEVER portrayed as incapable, he’s just struggling with being young and not being the natural leader his personality has always been and he’s always had trouble with. (the 1x10 fury about the kids thinking Dean is his boss is the best microcosm :P The actual argument of 1x10-11 in full explains it all though if you rewatch those 2 with this in mind.) 

And then why does Mary get to stay? First of all, just because they don’t have ANY experience of her, not as hunter!mom, barely as mom, and she’s a sainted concept with no personality so they don’t have a CLUE about who Mary actually IS and all the ways she can be flawed and weird and messy and like them and unlike them. In some ways a problem with John was always too MUCH John became a thing very quickly, while they’ve been thirsty sponges for anything about Mary. Dean remembers the tiniest specs of info about her and Sam is arguably in a worst place of not knowing at ALL. 

She also never got to fuck them up with trauma and getting a chance to fuck up and upset them as adults is wonderful because they get to go through Dramas and Struggles about having mom around and her doing crap things like sleeping with Ketch or whatever and like… that’s still delightful filling in gaps compared to them carrying enormous burdens from how John raised them… Even knowing Mary was a hunter and made the deal etc is a retroactive pain they only carry from season 4, so all their formative years she was a blank slate and John was causing all the damage. Even if we break John and Mary down to how they address Sam and Dean’s trauma, John shows up to make up for/free them from what already happened to them, while Mary arrives to fill in blank spaces and give them an experience they never had before. 12x22′s speech addresses all this in one way or another, about both the history retcon Dean’s had time to absorb since season 4, but also that the trauma came from John, and even the very setting of the childhood kitchen and Mary’s inability to see past her tiny children mirroring their inability to see past Mother Mary at times giving us how much they’re building their emotional landscape over this frozen-in-time leap of 33 years. 

Amara gave Dean forward development he needed most in a way that was ongoing development of a relationship over time, while the pearl resolves something that can be done in an afternoon, and free Dean to move on to a world beyond John and to embracing and understanding his own family values without the spectre of what John wanted for him… Better for them to all get a resolution about John, a good final memory, but then to accept that he came from the past, and to put him back there. While Mary is a scrappy disaster person just like them, and very much a living person with her own crap… John emerged like a ghost, and ~moved on~ like a ghost. But the unfinished business was on the living winchesters, rather than on him. 

… It was fantastically well done, I probably don’t need to say about how I feel on it :’) 

[mackenzie-lukasiaks]

audc rewatch: “dancing through the decades” (s1, e6)

skill: improvisation

theme: journey through the decades

I have to focus on something besides baseball and work or else I’m gonna kermit

oh it's her mother who insists on crimping her hair......kelly. please.

"we've been here too long" lmao come on maria, you are literally just asking for the producers to kick you off at this point.

abby with the color-coordinated headband, shirt, chunky bracelets, and oversized rings. and she's matching kevin's undershirt too!

^^the things we do for Fashion^^

it's improv and they still tried to pull one over on the kids by saying they were going to introduce a choreographer.....

asia does the eyebrow thing too

"what are you looking for? what are you looking at?" questions for the ages. but she's looking at asia because she's cute and energetic.

hey, it's the music used in s2 for the pirate dance

coreen is complaining about the go-go box but like. it's not like it's a tiny box, so why the hell does it matter?

watching these other choreographers just makes it all the more obvious how bad of a choreographer abby is. like maybe that's part of why we've never gotten another season of this show, because it made all of abby's flaws stand out all the more.

mayelin protecc. mayelin attacc.

actually maybe mayelin is like the one mom who would've actually been nice about picking the routines. but kelly and coreen have no room to talk about how they are above yvette cause I'm p sure they would've done the same thing.

"I could be at home with my son and my husband but I'm here with you" my son, my husband......her brother, her dad?? phrase it like that maybe?? instead of phrasing it like she's not even part of your family and it's a drag to be here with her, your literal daughter?

yvette with all her damn hallmark card catchphrases

20s flapper solo (brianna): such a cute solo and such a pretty costume. but her mom's lipstick in the interviews is really wigging me out lol.

like what was going on fashion-wise this episode.......

50s swing duet (hadley, amanda): this is also a very cute dance with cute costuming. 

abby being like "I love period pieces." if only you could choreograph one competently.

oh richy was laurieanne gibson's assistant to lady gaga before he got promoted......interesting. I was looking him up to see if I could #confirm that he was gay, but instead I discovered this fact.

"hadley, amanda is just a better dancer than you." wow thanks. that got to yvette more than the roadkill comment lol.

"asia's really really cute" and your own daughter.....is not?

80s pop duet (lexine, asia): and this duet had the same music as "i want it now" from s2, which was a chloe-led number, which primes abby to hate it. if I were on this show and I got a song that chloe had used, I would be like "oh, so I'm being set up to fail huh."

poor lexine. I don’t think I would’ve sent her home but it’s obvious that they weren’t going to send asia home even if her technique wasn’t up to par because of the drama that her presence created. and even though lexine’s mom was nutty, it was obvious she was aggravated by the entire experience. she was like one of those girls on ‘top model’ that get sent home, not because she’s not a good model, but because she’s pigeonholed as “boring” and “invisible” in comparison to girls who make for better reality tv.

they did the other dances in chronological order but put the 80s duet before the 60s solo?? don't like that consistency. don't like that consistency at all.

60s go-go solo (madison): shut uppppp coreen, it’s a big box. get over it.

90s hip-hop solo (jordyn): I shudder to think what twitter would say about this solo since jordyn already got made into a meme for that tiktok hiphop dance she did. but I thought this dance was cute. and compared to the hiphoping done by some of the other girls in the competition, and by the girls on ‘dance moms’, it’s definitely lightyears ahead. 

also the other judges being like “stfu abby, you don’t know dick about hiphop.”

richy finger wag count: two finger wags!!

they blew their load doing the dance-off last week instead of this week, when the skill was improv

”I do not want to announce it” because I know this is one of the more pointless eliminations. what’s crazy too is that hadley got sent home a week later for a solo that honestly was not bad. but you have so many weird eliminations because between obviously technically superior dancers (madison, amanda, brianna) and girls with dramatic mothers (asia, hadley), it’s hard to whittle that down so that the tv remains “exciting” but the dancing also still looks good.

also is it just me or were there less dancers in this season compared to the next?

top dancer(s): none

safe: madison, jordyn, amanda, brianna, asia

bottom dancer(s): lexine, hadley

eliminated: lexine