#spn1.21

[incesthemes]

i write these notes like this show is a horror story. i mean yeah it is but i make it sound so much worse than it seems when you're just watching it. the metaphorical body horror is a nice touch tho

[incesthemes]

there's a somewhat subtle but notable development i've noticed in sam between seasons 1 and 2, in that he becomes much more willing to lie to the people he's trying to help—he starts finding lies a practical necessity and the truth about the supernatural as something to avoid in polite society.

in bugs, sam urges matt to tell his father about the curse, make him understand the severity, while dean instructs him to lie his ass off so his father will get the hell out of the house. this episode favors dean here: larry obviously doesn't buy the curse story, and it's proven to sam that the truth can in fact be more harmful than a lie.

then by salvation, sam seems to have integrated into himself that lying is necessary: when he proposes that they tell monica and her husband the truth, that a demon is coming for their baby, it's a joke. dean registers this joke with a sardonic grin and sam instantly agrees this is a Bad Idea. he's learned from his mistakes.

the development across season 1 is, here, that lying is necessary for them to do their job. people don't believe in supernatural phenomena, at least not insofar as it pertains to themselves, and they'd sooner get arrested than do any actual saving of the day.

case in point.

all this to say i think roadkill is an interesting episode. much of the conflict between sam and dean centers around what information to disseminate to molly, what she should know and what she shouldn't. they go back and forth trying to figure this out, often unprepared for her questions and hiding the truth in obfuscations and white lies. neither of them are so cruel as to tell her anything blatantly false, but neither of them are willing to tell her the full, unadorned truth.

sam has learned his lesson: he keeps everything he tells her in the realm of plausible deniability, refracted through layers of half-truths that don't actually tell molly anything about her situation. even though he is the one who outright proposes that they tell her the truth, he is the one who, surprisingly, ends up telling her the least.

instead dean is the one who offers up the most blatant truths throughout most of the episode. in this sequence, sam even resists the truth, still convinced that obfuscation is what will further their goals most. the truth will make people think they're crazy, it'll get in the way of doing their job. he's not wrong, either:

and until the end of the episode, he continues to bury the full truth and speaks in roundabout ways to keep it from her.

many such examples.

anyway, what i also find interesting about this is that while sam commits to this lesson he learned in season 1, dean is rather forthcoming about the truth. clearly he doesn't like the idea of telling molly what's going on, but he's still quite often the one to offer up a plain, truthful explanation over sam's much nicer obfuscations. which is a little strange, considering he is the one who typically pressures sam into lying and constantly reminds him of the value in lies. not that dean has never cut the crap and offered up the truth—there are plenty of episodes where he does just that—but since a major conflict of this episode centers around this point of contention and since dean has already expressed his unwillingness to tell molly the truth, i can't help but raise an eyebrow.

what this episode also does, however, is parallel molly and sam. similar to maggie in playthings, molly is a monster by circumstance, lonely and afraid. she functions as an allegory for sam as his destiny develops and his fears about his impending doom heighten, and when sam speaks to her he is also speaking to himself, about himself.

ultimately, i think this indicates a development on dean's part, as well. after croatoan and hunted, dean has no more secrets to keep from sam, and he's chosen him as his codependent life partner. more or less, he's "taking responsibility for himself" by abandoning his duty and devoting himself entirely to sam. and sam values the truth: he's resistant to lying to civilians about the supernatural and only reluctantly gives up after a full season of grappling with it, and when it comes to his brother one of the first demands he makes of dean in season 2 is that they no longer keep secrets from each other (it's their major point of conflict between 2x02 and 2x04, after all). it's easily deduced that this stems from his life of exclusion, and it's understandable that sam wouldn't want dean to keep secrets from him now that they've evolved their relationship into codependency. and now that dean has abandoned his duty for sam, dean can eschew the life of secrets and exclusion he's been both knowingly and unknowingly implicit in up until now.

so if molly is sam, then dean telling molly the truth seems to indicate an olive branch of sorts. it's an indication that even if he doesn't want to, dean will tell sam the truth—he's fully committed to the relationship, especially after born under a bad sign where he reasserts his commitment to sam above all else. i think it's a nice symbolic gesture to indicate his character growth. the honeymoon phase that takes place between hunted and what is and what should never be do a lot to explore how their relationship can grow in weirdly positive ways that we really don't see again until like—god, like season 10, and their only barrier to bliss for this stretch of time is sam's all-encompassing existential angst trying to pull them apart (unsuccessfully so, until all hell breaks loose).

but all that said, i think the way truths and lies are explored in roadkill are indicators not only of their own personal developments, but also their developments with each other. molly functions as the conduit through which sam is explored—both dean's relationship to sam and sam's relationship to himself. she reveals what sam fears and what sam values, and she showcases how time has passed for sam and dean and what that time has done for them. sam has learned the necessity of a lie, but he keeps his lies as close to the truth as possible, laced in obfuscation and omission. dean has learned the value of the truth, at least when it comes to his brother, and even if he knows it's dangerous and stupid to tell the truth he will put himself out there anyway, for sam's sake.

i don't know. i think it's interesting.