#i’m a mary winchester apologist through and through

[fallenangelblade]

mary winchester’s s12 arc is like: i didn’t come back wrong. you just reduced me to a perfect idol, a name on a headstone, a sepia-toned childhood memory, and got upset when you realized that i might be more complex than that. i existed to you as a smiling face in a faded photograph, and when i became real, you could not fathom my personhood. i came back exactly right, and your expectations were too high.

[you-cant-spell-subtext-without]

Before we start, I'd like to say that the below combination....speaks to me, on a personal level.  

WHEW. 

12x02: Mamma Mia

This episode *eyeroll* - there were like...five? good things about it. 

(Mary Winchester as the OG John Winchester Apologist not being one of them.)

wrong.

Anyway, here is the only good stuff from 12x02.

1.

INTERIOR: SAM AND TONI ARE IN BED RELAXING AND HOLDING GLASSES OF WINE.

For the life of me this is the ONLY DECENT THING I CAN FIND FOR this scene and I do not understand how that’s possible.  You can’t even see her face.  Damn.

There are so many good shots in this!!!! Someone make me a better .gif.  Maybe cut Sam out of it?

Update: semi-acceptable follow-up image:

Sexual escapades are actually a continuing theme in the torture:

TONI 

Good morning, Sam. Let's start again, shall we? Take our time. I've cleared my calendar. I would like names and locations of every Hunter... the passcodes to each and every Men of Letters database held in the bunker, and then – oh, yes – let's do discuss your relationship with the demon Ruby.

** Can’t find the actual reaction to this, so hey let’s play Sam reacts but wrong episodes ONLY**

SEXUAL ESCAPADE THEME RECURS HERE:

[INTERIOR: THE CELLAR, TONI LOOKS OVER HER TORTURE TOOLS AND PICKS UP BRASS KNUCKLES. SHE WALKS OVER AND SLUGS DEAN.]

TONI: Passcodes, Sam. Not yet?

[TONI LOOKS OVER AT DEAN WHO’S CHAINED WITH HIS HANDS OVER HIS HEAD.]

TONI: Anything to add?

DEAN: No. No, I just came by for some tea and a beating.

[TONI: PUTS DOWN THE BRASS KNUCKLES AND PICKS UP A CUP OF TEA.]

TONI: Really? See, I thought you might be on for a little chat about your mate, Benjamin Lafitte. I'm sorry. You called him Benny. You know, the vampire whom you released from Purgatory and...befriended. 

***she sips her fucking tea after she says “befriended” suggestively.  SHE. SIPS. HER. TEA.  This is not a drill***

I see. Well... the English are nothing if not patient.

BONUS - actual footage of Lady Motherfucking Antonia Bevell deciphering the past 11 seasons of subtext in respect to Dean’s sexuality:

Bi!Dean confirmed.  

QUEEN DID NOT COME TO PLAY.

2. 

Dean’s spiral at the bunker 

CASTIEL: Okay, I understand. I'll call you in the morning.

[WHILE TALKING, DEAN RISES AND STARTS PACING.]

DEAN: Cass, hey. So, here's the thing. It's been kind of weird here with, you know, Mom being back. It's like we don't know how to act around each other, so we just kind of make this small talk and act normal, but it's – it's so not normal.

CASTIEL: Um, I'm – I'm not sure. What – what has she said to you?

DEAN: Well, nothing. That – that – that's the whole point.

CASTIEL: Okay, what have you said to her?

CASTIEL HANGS UP.

DEAN: Yeah. Great. That's helpful. Thanks.

***Dean is so OPEN with Cas on this call.  You can tell this is a deeper, different dynamic and it really shows how close they’ve gotten after that heart wrenching Season 11 finale. these NEWLYWEDS. they are in a RELATIONSHIP.  And Cas’s terrible attempt at helping also shows how new and fresh it is, how they’re working through how to “be” this new way together, Dean still working on how to express feelings without spiraling, Cas clumsily trying to support him.  I AM GOOOOOOO.  

This is a fucking warm blanket.

Also confirmed by the subsequent scene, because otherwise WHY EVEN HAVE THIS DIALOGUE in the follow-up call:

DEAN

Hey, Cass, what do you got?

[EXTERIOR: DAY, CASTIEL IS STANDING SLIGHTLY BEHIND A VERY LEAFY TREE.]

CASTIEL

I think I may have found Sam's location. It's a farm. It appears empty, but it was rented two weeks ago to a woman with an English accent.

[DURING THE CONVERSATION THE SCENE SWITCHES BETWEEN THE BUNKER AND THE EXTERIOR OF THE FARMHOUSE.]

DEAN

Did you have a look inside?

CASTIEL

No No, it's – it's powerfully warded.

***Cas asks because he’s not sure if Dean is trying to talk about his feelings again or if it’s still about the case, because this is THAT NEW (and he probably had an ENTIRE headcase moment about his prior horrific attempt to “help” so he’s worked up all sorts of tidbits of advice for next time) *** <- can someone ficlet this little plot hole? I need it in my life.

THAT IS THE ONLY REASON TO HAVE THIS HERE.  THERE IS NO OTHER REASON.

BONUS:

Remember Castiel’s pimp mobile?

That new husband energy:

HES SO DAPPER HERE.  All the heart eyes.

3.

Helpful husband moment

[EXTERIOR: DAY, OUTSIDE THE FARMHOUSE. THE IMPALA PULLS UP. CASTIEL IS LEANING AGAINST THE TRUCK. DEAN AND MARY EXIT THE IMPALA AND WALK UP TO CASTIEL.]

DEAN

Where's all this warding you mentioned?

CASTIEL

It's cloaked. It's very powerful. You brought your mother?

MARY

Hello, Castiel. Yes, he did.

DEAN

You sure there's anyone inside?

CASTIEL

No. The agent said the lease was handled long distance, but someone warded the house.

DEAN

I'm gonna go have a closer look.

[MARY STARTS TO FOLLOW DEAN.]

DEAN: Mom, I got this.

[DEAN SHAKES HIS HEAD IN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT THEN LOOKS TO CASTIEL FOR HELP.]

DEAN: Thanks.

[[DEAN LOOKS AT CASTIEL GRATEFULLY AND WALKS AWAY.]

***This entire scene deserves a thorough rewatch. Go watch it now.  Bathe in the serotonin.  I watched it probably 6 times. THE BODY LANGUAGE.  THE FACIAL EXPRESSIONS.  Cas saying “you brought your mother” because he KNOWS how worried and overprotective Dean is of her, already.  This is Destiel peak supportive husband and Mary is realizing it and its just all so fucking cute and happy. Bravo to all of your Acting Choices!  

4.

PIEEEEEEE

I will not go into my PhD dissertation about how pie is a metaphor for the true happiness and love Dean Winchester desires and DESERVES but feels like he cannot have because it will be snatched away from him.

I will not go into it at this time.  (It will also make me even ANGRIER about what they DID TO PIE in 15x20. I am still healing).

I repeat, I will not go in to it - unless -

5.

Kitchen confidential

Look where Dean is relaxing, with a beer or 3, and looking at old family pictures at the end.  It’s not his room.

It’s the kitchen.  He’s just hanging out in the kitchen, comfortably as if he does this often.

Remember when Lucifer was possessing Cas in 11x18 and we had this scene, where Cas is in his head but in the Winchesters’ kitchen and - I wondered -

If his happy place 

was

the Winchesters’ kitchen.  And why.

THIS SHOW.

I guess the good in this episode took up more space than expected.  I’m sorry for spamming you guys with this long, back to back Season 12 content, but I have a dossier.  

And I’m just getting started.

BONUS:

MICK

Here’s my number.

Also, picturing this, but in Casifer, said TO Rick Springfield.

[deansmultitudes]

thanks for being against this and being mad at Jensen. the delusion at the idea that it's not going to romanticize and whitewash his abusive parents and their terrible actions is enraging. dean girls - DEAN GIRLS - are really okay with this when it stomps even more on his life and will force him to be an apologist and will give dean cr/tical fandom even more reason to hate him? absolutely not. who the hell CARES when we know how this story ends and it's with their sons dead/suffering for NOTHING

Know what, Nonny, I drafted this response before going to be at 7am as not to post something I’d regret, woke up quickly with a thought, why be mad at a real person for a fictional story. And then it hit me again that jensen will make dean whitewash his abuser and tell his love story. And I’m fucking mad again, so here we go, under the cut because it got long:

Let me preface this by saying that this isn't meant as hate on jensen. I'm angry at him for this specific thing, I'm disappinted that he's doing dean this fucking dirty and i'm fucking tired.

I also don't want this to be an attack on dean girls, we've all been through too much and we're all trying to deal with the crap we've been handed, in our own ways

But if any dean girls want to explain to me how exactly is this supposed to be good or at least not insulting, I'd love to discuss

Frankly, it feels like, at least among the dean/jensen girls, jp*d accidentaly did jensen a favor, because when you're protective of him there's just this snap in your head and you're all ready to defend him against jp*d fans lmao. Trust me, I felt it too

For real though, the things moved pretty quickly from the anger to lolz at the twitter drama and now that that's over we're gonna be left to stew in it so we'll see how that's gonna go. (actually I really hate that the drama derailed the anger)

But yeah, agreed, I don't see how there's anything to defend here. firstly J*hn and M*ry simply shouldn't get to have their story told especially since we already know the story! what the fuck is there left to say that isn't seven retcons wrapped in a burrito or whatever else crap that'll be showing how awesome they were? Some new freaking mythology shoehorned just for the sake of keeping milking it, that doesn't make any sense in the universe? Oh well, guess that's spn's middle name.

But no matter what they do, here's the thing:

Abusers don't fucking deserve to have their story told, I don't give a flying fuck how fucking wonderful he used to be. Oh yeah he was nice and lovely and believed in good even after war, and he loved mary and was so cute, basically a puppy yadda yadda. I don't care. He lost that fucking right when he started turning his sons into soldiers, leaving them alone in crappy motel rooms, using them as fucking bait for monsters (just to mention a few)

And they especially don’t deserve to have it told by the child they abused when said child can’t even fucking say a bad word about them because this isn’t about him.

And there’s a big difference between the complicated emotions Dean might have for Dean, both hating him and loving him because he’s his dad, and the entire freaking show about the good guy young j*hn winchester.

And as amazing as Dean is, he’s not gonna be the narrator this story would deserve bc he’s not gonna serve us takes like “aw how cute my dad is making PB&J. when I was 14 16 he said I can rot in jail for stealing peanut butter to feed sammy.”

We ALREADY fucking saw Dean forgiving john without john doing anything to deserve it because he's d*bbs fave or some shit. was saw dean drink his fucking crappy beer and smiling and we narrowly missed dean and j*hn hugging it out at the roadhouse. i don't fucking wanna hear dean say it was a tragedy that changed him and its not j*hns fault :(((((( or whatever else fucking apologia we're gonna hear from him like none of this fucking mattered. dean's already been tossed to trash by the finale, what's the difference i guess, might as well move the whole bin into the trash compactor

(actually now that I think about it john ended up having a redemption arc that was entirely dean’s emotional labor over 15 years, while john was dead lmao. just because dean made peace with his life doesn’t excuse john one fucking bit)

or well, since it's a spin off about j&m is there even gonna be so much as a mention of how fucking awful they will be in the future? will the people who tune in just for TW (oh lmao nice acronym. TW on the CW, cool) without watching spn even realize they're watching a show about a future child abuser or are they just  gonna fall in love with a cute matt c*hen look-alike, this sweet guy who loves mary so much OTP OTP OTP #relationshipgoals???

And as for Mary, what she used to be like before dean was born doesn't change anything of what she did to dean, the way she never tried to get to know him and took every possible chance to put as many miles between her and her sons as possible. Thanks to amara's little test, that ship has sailed

Like I'm really trying to look at this having put away the hurt and disappointment I feel now that the hope of jensen giving Dean his life back is gone. Because sure I'd feel it whatever other story jensen would decide to tell. But any other story wouldn't be a deadseaful of salt on that wound.

Or hey maybe it is some sort of a cruel twisted chance at closure if in the last 2 days I went from "let him live again one day" to "please, just let him rest in peace. Leave him out of this if you have to do this crap, please." This is so fucking insulting to dean and it just makes his death so much worse. I don't fucking want a constant reminder that he's eating lasagna with that fucker like it's a picture perfect family in a tv commercial. While still being dead. I don't want him to be telling a love story if he never got to and never will live through one*

*I'm not counting cassie bc it was so short it was barely a story and according to jensen lisa doesn't count either

But to the point. I think there is a solid line between not shitting on jensen and being able to criticize this project. You don't have to praise it just because jensen is making it. dean and jensen girls would not be trying to excuse it if it was jp*ds or d*bbs or whoever the fuck else's. why should it get a pass just because it's jensen's?

I for one am so fucking disappointed that jensen would throw Dean under the bus like this, and for what? Because I'm really not seeing any love here. I don't know, maybe he's lived with dean's death for so much longer that he's desensitized. he's moved on to better things, dean's not that important, he's just a tool to tell this story that will allow jensen to be in it

Funny, I always thought jensen was one of those who recognized j*hn was awful and that he fucked dean up. for fuck's sake he was the one who headcanoned that dean turned tricks in his youth because j*hn left them without money for food. But what do I know, I never really kept track of what the cast said except for these last year and a half, maybe he’s always thought the guy was awesome and misunderstood.

but hey, he's a rich guy with the rights to the universe and the means to do whatever he likes with them and this is what he chose to do with them, which makes things very clear. From his perspective things are mighty different than from where we're standing.

By the way I really hope they actually expected the backlash. Otherwise, if jensen and danneel thought the show's fans were gonna be happy about it meant they had to be living under some fucking rock at the bottom of the marianas trench or never cared about how the fandom feels. I don't see any other option here. well besides the obvious one.

Or maybe they're just really filled with so much hubris they think they can actually make a show about two most hated characters from the og show a hit. or that a slapped on voiceover by a beloved and still grieved character will be enough for that the way jp*d is enough to have his fans keep w*lker afloat. Or hey maybe they'll just gonna market it to the riverdale and legacies audience who won't even fucking know this shouldn't be a cutesy teenage love affair with some monsters

I know it was so, so easy to fall for “my first love”, “my best imaginary friend” and “he’s not going anywhere, I got him”. I mean, how could we not? We love Dean so much we wanted to believe jensen feels the same way. But in the end, for jensen, dean is a character he played on tv, and that’s all, he couldn’t possibly feel about him the same way we do. And we gotta remind ourselves that he loved the finale, said that it was an awesome way to end the show and that snuffing dean was the right thing to do. He and j*red practically rewrote that entire deathbed dialogue and added the ak/f crap. He said Dean’s ending was satisfying. Why would he ever try to destroy an ending that great?

I just wish he never teased us with the possibility of dean getting his life back on that panel

However we thought jensen feels about dean or his parents or any of it is just our projecting, so i guess the fault is just mine that I'm disappointed. damn I really screwed up that no parasocializing part didn't I?

Sorry this got so off-topic. I’m furious and no amount of rambling about it will help.

Fuck, I still can’t believe he and danneel are fucking doing this

“who the hell CARES when we know how this story ends and it's with their sons dead/suffering for NOTHING”

amen

[tiktaalic]

I've seen every episode of Supernatural and I still think Lebanon is one of the worst episodes of the series in that it's a total waste of time, mainly because they didn't want to offend JDM who's a John apologist and took a giant paycut to come back as a gesture of goodwill. They constructed an episode that's inherently free of consequences because of the reboot at the very end that erases everything and instead of doing anything interesting with that, they chose to do nothing. Dynamics that might be interesting to explore (like for instance, John having to confront the fact that Mary was a hunter before she knew him) are ignored, any complicated emotions that would arise are ignored (the "I have a family" is the only pushback and it's a single line) and the entire episode is obvious in execution what it cynically was made to be-an anniversary episode that was specifically marketed to general audiences/audiences that don't watch the show regularly, because all four Winchesters would be in it, with zero substance and thought beyond that. There's not a single second of that episode that reads as a genuine attempt at good or thoughtful storytelling.

i think it's great! there are easily much MUCH worse episodes of supernatural that are blatantly offensive or boring and most of the times both. lebanon doesnt have any vengeful dead indians or pet play so like. has easily cleared a bar that many many supernatural episodes fail. to LIKE lebanon you have to be aware that you're watching supernatural and expect it to be supernatural. you could make the same criticisms about s12 as a whole! (mary + john reckonings going completely untouched) but again, they don't make s12 the worst season of supernatural by far. I think it was enjoyable as an episode in isolation. like i had fun watching it. Sam was steve jobs! dean's good with who he is! and i think it's a FASCINATING lens to look at dean through. when i;m watching lebanon i'm watching lebanon but i'm also watching what is and what should never be and i'm also watching my father was an obsessed bastard! i didn't deserve what he put on me and i don't deserve to go to hell! and lebanon adds SO much to the john throughline for me. sourcing my own post like an asshole again but this is my interpretation of lebanon

[archivistsammy]

Thinking about John Winchester is such a discordant experience, because the show really doesn’t give us that unified a vision of him beyond: difficult. Of course, this vision is vague and complicated by many different pieces of the John Winchester puzzle provided to us through multiple episodes and characters, leaving us to try and parse together the kind of man he was all on our own and decide for ourselves what we ultimately take away from John’s role in the show over the course of 15 seasons. I have daddy issues, so I feel particularly compelled to jigsaw this bitch together. 

I’m starting with the pilot because it’s the first of our corner pieces--a touchstone image of John from which all other pieces must begin to fit. In the pilot, of course, John’s hardly here, but we get some details anyway. The first few minutes establishes a couple of things for us: 

John’s a Marine

He loves his family

We get John in his USMC shirt saying goodnight to Dean and Sam. This photo of John in his uniform with Mary (although this photo still is post-immolation, the picture now in Sam’s possession in Stanford). Really hitting home the nuclear family, conventional ideas of America and its men, etc. Everyone seems happy, including John. It’s all very domestic and doomed. 

When we fast-forward 22 years to Dean breaking into Sam’s home to recruit him in the search for John, we get a couple of other tidbits.  When Dean says John’s not been home in a few days, Sam responds with, “So he’s working overtime on a ‘Miller time’ shift. He’ll stumble back in sooner or later.” 

Anyone who’s seen the show past these early seasons knows alcohol is a prime feature in the Winchester Coping Skills toolbox, but right off the bat the show suggests John’s an alcoholic. It could, I suppose, be a cover that Sam’s established with Jess: Dad’s erratic, likes to say crazy shit. It’s the drink, of course! But I think Dean had to learn to drink himself to death somewhere, and watching John model liver-poisoning is as good a place as any. I’ve seen the pilot 4 or 5 times now, but somehow this line has always zipped over my head. Catching it this time was a bit of a punch to the gut, to be honest. 

From this moment on, it’s really just one strike after another against John, with Sam pointing out all the ways John’s ruined their lives over the years (leaving to hunt for long stretches of time, teaching he and Dean to be afraid of the dark as kids, John’s obsession with revenge, going against what he assumes Mary would want for her kids, raising two kids like “warriors”, exiling Sam for going to college) and Dean left to defend him (Dean chose to stay with John, after all--attacks on John are adjacent to attacks on him). 

But things soften for John again, particularly with Sam, about 30 minutes into the episode. After discovering John’s motel room, Sam and Dean start rooting through it to gather clues about the case they’re working, and where John could be. After Dean steps out, something catches Sam’s eye.

There’s two ways to look at this moment. The first is to take Sam’s reaction into consideration. The tender expression he wears. The pleasant surprise. This is important, as Sam’s relationship with John is paramount to the series (as it is with Dean, though I’d say in these earlier days the show’s more preoccupied with Sam). But I’m a little more interested in this moment for what it suggests about John. 

The photo is old, bent at the corners. It was clearly taken after Mary’s death when times would have been harder. It begs a number of questions, including: how often did John smile back then? How many happy memories do Sam or Dean have of this time with their father? What was happening to prompt the picture? How many motel room mirrors has it found itself stuffed into?

Questions aside, what this picture does tell us is that John loved his boys still. I mean, we basically know this already, but this is a sweeter piece of proof for it. That he carried them with him, that it meant something to be able to see them easily. John isn’t going to make things easy for himself, his boys, or us as viewers. And if it sounds like I’m a John Winchester apologist, I really don’t mean to be. But I do think this show has done an...interesting...job of building up the Winchester patriarch, and whether that was on purpose or on accident (I lean towards accident; it’s hard to be intentional about 15 years of continuity) I think it’s worth cataloguing and fitting together all the puzzle pieces we can, even we aren’t sure of the final image.

[prairiedust]

John versus Mary

Smash-up knock-down fight of the century!!!

Just kidding. Sort of.

This might end up as part of a larger post about the storybook themes that Ross-Leming hit in Prophet and Loss, but I wanted to toss a couple of thoughts about John and Mary out to the metafest because I know a lot of people are going to be talking about John in the next week.

Isolation, and it’s adjacent fear abandonment, is a huge theme in last night’s episode and sets up a very intense situation that an “alternate version”(?) John Winchester might be walking into.

“Dad would send me away,” Dean says to Sam in the car on the way to his doooooom. John would subject Dean to isolation as a punishment for whatever adolescent activity had gotten on John’s nerves. Lots of us are probably familiar with parents getting frustrated or angry and yelling, “Go to your room!” as a punishment or a way to get us out of their hair. But Dean didn’t have a room to go to. Where did he end up, exactly, when John threw him out? How confusing must it have been for Dean growing up that when his father didn’t want him around he would send him away, but we know from the CBGB story that he was not allowed to just leave on his own. The one time in his life when John let Dean off the tether, Dean panicked, grabbed his brother from college, and went after him.

Contrast John’s punishments with Mary’s welcoming, “You came!” and enormous hug when Dean comes to visit her. Mary’s absence is not abandonment, she has always left Dean with Sam, Castiel, Jack, and with the other hunters. I am not a Mary apologist but I will (until Show tells me otherwise) contend that Mary needing space is not a bad thing. What many people who raise children of the post-Silent generation are learning is that when the airplane cabin depressurizes, you have to put your own mask on first. Mary taking care of herself after the trauma of the BMoL and living in Apocalypse Land is fine. And it makes her a complex character, which we need after she had been romanticized after so many years. But now Bobby has left her for a while— and she’s coping by shooting up gourds. Like Snow White, she may be finding her way through the woods, too. But at any rate, the times she has left the bunker have been for her own personal reasons, not to punish the boys. As much as I say that Mary can be as aloof as she wants to be, we know from the way that Dean was able to break the BMoL mind-control that she would never use withholding her affection or presence as a punishment.

This sets up a lot for John’s return in the next episode. Ross-Leming and Perez worked together to reopen those patriarchal wounds from the early seasons so we can remember that John has been romanticized over the years too, and his return will be fraught. Will it heal these old wounds, or set up something else in the second half of the season? I wasn’t excited about John’s return until I saw the last two episodes and especially the little moment last night where Dean apologized to Sam for not always being around. Now I’m pretty psyched. Anyone else?

Thanks to the mods at @metafest for having me as a guest!!!