Bardic’s Descant: 6:14 – I Had To Deal With My Past Year, You Gotta Deal With Yours
Commentary and Meta Analysis
While the monster-of-the-week story left me distinctly unimpressed, the relationship pieces between Sam and Dean and among Dean, Lisa, and Ben were positively stellar. In this discussion, I look at the foundation and development of Dean’s family relationship with Lisa and Ben, and ruminate about the restoration of the brother dynamic between Dean and Sam.
I Know What I Want, But I Can’t Have It
I’ve loved Dean’s involvement with Lisa and Ben right from the beginning, and never found it forced or unreal. I also hope this isn’t the last we see of them, because they offer something Dean sorely needs: a different view of himself and his role in the world. He sees himself as something broken, damaged, tainted, and dangerous; they see the beauty of his heart and the purity of his need to help others. He needs their mirror, because he’s unable to see those things in himself.
To start this off, let me explain why I accept Lisa and Ben so fully. One major criticism I’ve heard of the Dean/Lisa/Ben storyline was that Dean had never wanted that suburban normal life and hadn’t been in love with Lisa. I know a number of fans argued that Dean’s fixation on Lisa and Ben came out of the blue, that Dean had never expressed any desire for the life he wound up living with them, and particularly that his going to Lisa in 99 Problems seemed totally random.
There’s some logic to that position. After all, who could forget Dean’s dismissive comment in the pilot, asking Sam if he was going to live some normal, apple-pie life, or Dean saying in Bugs, Growing up in a place like this would freak me out. Manicured lawns, “how was your day, honey?”, I’d blow my brains out. … I’d take our family over normal any day. Dean’s horndog, woman-in-every-port nature was also often on display, and we learned as early as Route 666 in season one that he was known famously for one night stands, not for commitment of any kind, and had only tried for commitment once, totally backing away after Cassie shut him down. And when Dean first brought up Lisa at the beginning of The Kids Are Alright, it was only as a particularly memorable sexual adventure, not a love relationship. I don’t question any of that.
I would submit, however, that while his nature prompted Dean always to make the best of his situation, including finding satisfaction in hunting and taking perverse delight in his rootless, footloose existence (remember him extolling the benefits of motel living and absent parents in After School Special?), Dean also always exhibited some ambivalence about his life. It came out only in odd moments when desires he’d shoved down as unattainable or unrealistic emerged, but it was there. For example, remember the shapeshifter in Skin taunting Sam with assertions that Dean resented him because he’d had dreams of his own he’d given up because of John and Sam; Dean telling Sam offhandedly in Devil’s Trap that he’d wanted to be a firefighter; Dean in No Exit, telling Jo, No one in their right mind chooses this life. My Dad started me in this when I was so young … I wishI could do something else.; or Dean confronting himself at the climax of Dream A Little Dream Of Me and lashing out at the life that had made him what he was.
What else Dean might have wanted first showed up most openly, I think, in What Is And What Should Never Be. In his djinn dream of a world where Mary hadn’t died and John had never become a hunter consumed with revenge, Dean was an auto mechanic in a steady, committed relationship with Carmen, an idealized figment of his imagination who tempted him to stay in the dream with the lure of having children and building a family of his own in a world where Sam was happy and safe. And while that dream was far from perfect Dean would never have chosen to be estranged from Sam the elements that tempted him to remain all came from his core.
I don’t think anyone would argue against the point that family is at Dean’s very heart. For most of his life, “family” had a very simple definition: it was Sam and John being together with Dean, augmented with memories of Mary. He had no other real-life experience of family and his heart yearned to keep what little he had, so that was the dream he frankly admitted in Shadow. Still, at least after John died, if not before, Dean’s notion of family had clearly expanded to include Bobby, and later also encompassed Ellen and Jo, among others.
I think the truest expansion of his concept of family came in season three, and I believe it came about precisely because he was confronting his own imminent mortality when he came face-to-face with the road not taken and all the dreams he’d given up. Returning to Lisa in The Kids Are Alright in the simple hope of scoring yet another mind-blowing sexual experience before he died and went to Hell, he instead discovered Ben, a kid who might very well have been his son. As he’d done before with other children in Dead In The Water and Something Wicked, Dean forged an immediate bond with Ben, seeing in the boy an echo of himself as well as a shadow of the younger brother he’d basically raised. The changeling threat to Ben and Lisa prompted an instant protective response in Dean, and Dean saving Ben’s life and Lisa’s brought him a surprising and unexpectedly satisfying emotional response from them he had never expected. Looking at Ben, he ruefully admitted to Lisa regretting the boy wasn’t his. Your life, this house, a kid it’s not my life, never will be. Some stuff happened to me recently, and I uh, anyway, a guy in my situation, you start to think, you know, I’m gonna be gone one day, and what am I leaving behind besides a car? … You know, just for the record, you’ve got a great kid. I would have been proud to be his dad. When Lisa invited him to stay, at least for a while, the temptation was clearly there, but not the opportunity: I can’t. I got a lot of work to do, and it’s not my life. He already knew his life was coming to an untimely end, and there wasn’t room in it for a woman and child.
But that didn’t mean he didn’t dream wistfully of a different fate, and of having more family to share it with than just Sam and Bobby. And that’s what I think we saw in Dream A Little Dream Of Me, when Dean’s subconscious threw up the image of Lisa inviting him to a romantic tryst before picking Ben up from baseball practice. He denied to Sam ever having had that dream before, but that was obviously a lie. At the same time, I don’t think Dean having that dream suggested Lisa was the love of his life. Instead, I believe it presented an impossible but seductive idealized version of something he hadn’t let himself consciously acknowledge he desired: life with a family of his own, a woman and child who loved and welcomed him. I think the lure of that dream was all the stronger precisely because it incorporated details and people he knew were real into a beautiful but heartbreakingly unattainable picture of family perfection. He knew he’d never have it; he knew he’d be dead in weeks or months at most. But it was something he demonstrably could have had, if things had gone differently, and Lisa and Ben were the only such concrete example in his whole life. He didn’t truly know them as real individuals then, but under the circumstances, it would have been a wonder if they hadn’t made an impression and come to represent all the things he’d fought all his life to save, even if he himself couldn’t have them.
So it wasn’t a stretch to me that the next time he faced the end of his life planning to surrender to Michael and fully expecting he wouldn’t survive, at least not as himself he made Lisa and Ben the final stop on his farewell tour at the end of 99 Problems. I believe they were his stand-ins for all the nameless, faceless people for whom he was gearing up to sacrifice himself, and also the stand-ins for Sam and Bobby, the family to whom he truly wanted to say goodbye but couldn’t, because they would have tried and been able to stop him. I think Lisa and Ben were the idealized images of the people he planned to save; they were the family he might have had. They, and Sam, and Bobby, were why he was ultimately willing to die.
When Sam in Swan Song forced Dean to promise to go to them if Sam succeeded in the plan to trap Lucifer again in his cage in Hell, Sam did a wise and compassionate thing. Without someone and something else to live for, I think it’s a safe bet Dean would have died in short order after seeing Sam’s fall, overcome by loss and despair. His promise to Sam sustained him until living with Lisa and Ben began to have its own direct impact, bringing the moments of peace and happiness we saw in his flashback visions and in photographs around the house. He clearly never forgot or surrendered the past witness his continued drinking, his confessed paranoia, and the empty sadness we saw in his eyes as he lay awake before the alarm in Exile On Main Street but his new role as father and lover gave him purpose, direction, and more than a little satisfaction. It didn’t make up for losing Sam, and working construction clearly didn’t content him or satisfy his adrenaline addiction the way hunting had, but having Lisa and Ben as his family was obviously balm for his slowly healing heart. For her part, I think Lisa welcomed him back for multiple reasons, including her deep compassion for someone so broken, gratitude for him saving her life and Ben’s, and most of all, the recognition of the instant bond that had formed between Ben and Dean during the changeling case and what that meant for her son’s happiness. I don’t think Lisa truly loved Dean in the beginning, but I’m positive love didn’t take long to grow and is still there. She acknowledged in Exile On Main Street that she’d known what she was letting herself in for when she took him in, and was very up-front about the year spent with Dean being a father figure to Ben having been the best year of her life.
When Sam returned, Dean was clearly torn between the warring desires to hunt with his brother, becoming again the person he was accustomed to being, and somehow to keep the love, trust, and happiness he’d found in living with Lisa and Ben. The absolute truth of that latter desire was established when Dean was compelled to tell the truth in You Can’t Handle The Truth. Cursed by Veritas to be unable to lie or dissemble, he admitted he’d told himself he’d wanted out, wanted a family. When Veritas assumed he’d simply been lying to himself, however, he flat-out told her no: he had wanted it. That was the inescapable truth. With resignation, however, he went on to say he’d realized that what he was good at was slicing throats; he confessed to being a hunter, and in his own mind, that made him unsuitable to be a father. Given his own family history, and especially admitting seeing in himself during Two And A Half Men frighteningly unwelcome echoes of the unstable, driven man John had become, Dean assumed his dream of family was forlorn, something he couldn’t and didn’t deserve to achieve. While it certainly sped things along, I think staking the family relationship may not even have required his ill-advised attempt to say goodbye when he’d been turned into a vampire and believed death was his only option. Even if he hadn’t made that visit, I think he’d eventually have sabotaged his own dream simply by believing himself unworthy. What cemented it as things fell out was Dean not being willing, after the call in which Lisa told him she and Ben couldn’t be part of his life, to find out whether her six later calls possibly held out the hope that she’d changed her mind.
Hearing Lisa say she’d tried to call Dean six times and having Sam know, as soon as Dean declined a call, that it had been from Lisa, caught me by surprise. Unless I’m much mistaken, until this episode, we hadn’t seen Lisa’s number turn up on an incoming call or heard any hint that she’d ever called or left a message since their last disastrous phone conversation in Truth. We’ve seen Dean staring at his phone several times in episodes including All Dogs Go To Heaven and Like A Virgin, obviously contemplating and then deciding against calling her, and soulless Sam even remarked on all the times he’d almost called her in Clap Your Hands If You Believe, but we were never told she had called him again.
I wish we had known, because hearing that she had tried to call changed my understanding of what’s been going on between them dramatically. I thought she hadn’t called him again, sticking by her decision, and that Dean’s own reluctance to initiate a call wasn’t due just to his own feelings of being dangerous and unworthy, but was also rooted largely in his belief he had no right to intrude after she had shut the door, magnified by his conviction she would have slammed it on him again if he’d tried to open it. Knowing now that she had called and he had simply refused to answer changed that dynamic. It told me Dean wasn’t avoiding her because he was afraid he’d be rebuffed and hurt again, but was instead afraid precisely because he thought she might have welcomed him back, when he didn’t believe he deserved to be with them.
Even during their farewell call in Truth, Lisa was clearly taken aback by how harshly she’d characterized his relationship with Sam. She immediately apologized for the brutal way she’d expressed some of the things Veritas’s curse had compelled from her. I find it easy to believe that in the aftermath of that call, she’d reconsidered her conclusion as well and wanted to reopen the door to seeing whether they could make the arrangement they’d agreed on at the end of Two And A Half Men work. Judging from the happy tenor of their call early on in Live Free Or Twi-Hard and Lisa’s expressed impatience then to see him again, the system had been working while they stayed in close touch; I think Lisa’s fear of a call meaning Dean’s death didn’t begin to grow until the calls between them stopped entirely after Dean’s inexplicably frightening nighttime visit, and then stayed silent after she’d told him off in Truth.
It’s true that cops, soldiers, and firemen have some of the highest divorce rates in the nation, with one driver being spouses learning they couldn’t deal with the constant fear of a husband or wife leaving for work in the morning and being reported dead in the afternoon. But I think the ones who learn to deal with it are the ones who keep their lines of communication open, who share their feelings and their moments, and realize sudden death is an option for everyone, not just those who walk deliberately in harm’s way.
So I think, if Dean hadn’t gone totally silent, Lisa’s fear wouldn’t have reached its current proportions and become another rationale for her to decide she needed to get over him and move on with her life. Because the love is still there on both sides, however, fed and supported by Ben, I don’t think Lisa’s fear is insurmountable. I think there could still be hope if they found the will to try, but the real stumbling block is Dean’s own fear of becoming John and screwing up Ben’s and Lisa’s lives in the process. I’m not sure he’ll ever be able to get over that, but I’d like to hope he could. He needs to see in himself what they see in him, because his own inner view is skewed.
For What It’s Worth, I’ve Got Your Back
I loved all the interactions between the brothers in this episode. Dean’s desperation and terror in the beginning brought back instant memories of Sam dying in Dean’s arms at the end of All Hell Breaks Loose Part 1. Sam telling the truth about how bad he felt while simultaneously trying to play down how serious the situation was while Dean refused to let him minimize the danger was perfection, especially with Dean both recognizing and espousing his own coping mechanisms: repression, denial, booze, painkillers, and cathartic violence. They’ve rarely been this frank with each other, and it felt so good.
Sam instantly recognizing Dean’s issues in ducking Lisa’s phone calls and pushing him into answering the phone and dealing with the situation demonstrated a lovely piece of the new balance between the brothers. They traded off on pushing each other to do needful things, displaying an equality in their partnership rather than an echo of their old big brother/little brother dynamic. That’s such a healthy development, it warmed me right up. The two of them staying in touch on the case by phone was another welcome piece of that partnership they were exchanging ideas and sparking off each other the way they used to, even while apart.
And the last scene just nailed it. Throughout the first three seasons, when one of them was down, the other always tried to bring him up. Sam feared being overwhelmed by his powers and his fate, and Dean promised to stand right there with him and make things right; Dean felt crushed by failure or futility, and Sam promised he was making a difference and it mattered. They know each others’ tropes so well; when they’re on the same wavelength, each provides exactly what the other needs at the very moment he needs it. Neither one could fully carry the other in those extreme moments, but when they’re in tune, each could at least shore the other up enough to keep him on his feet until he could walk on his own again.
That’s what was so painfully missing throughout most of seasons four and five, not to mention the first soulless half of this season. As they each became fixed on their own separate views of their respective missions, they lost touch with being a team, with anticipating and supporting each others’ moves, and it cost them dearly. Knowing they have each other to lean on if they need the support makes each of them stronger, not weaker, because it adds to their confidence in their ability to handle the situation and do the job. Knowing someone has your back makes you better able to concentrate on the challenges ahead and to the sides, and makes it less likely you’ll be distracted or blindsided. For the benefit to be there, though, trust has to be there first, and trust was the first casualty in their relationship. With the return of Sam’s soul and the new honesty and balance between the brothers, the trust is back.
And it’s worth a lot.
Great recap. I’m one of those who also liked Lisa and Ben. They were important,as you said they made Dean see the side of himself he didn’t know existed.
“Knowing they have each other to lean on if they need the support makes each of them stronger, not weaker” getting back to the “We are Stronger as a Family”
Thanks, Laura! We are family … 🙂
I’m with you on the MOTW. While I liked the anatomical dummy, especially w/the creepy smile. The white dummies didn’t scare me at all. It would have been better it if the security guard had been stabbed multiple times by the dummy with the scissors and then have had the scissors found in the dummies hand at least IMO. I would have loved seeing the cops trying to figure that one out.
And a sex doll, seriously? Forgive my naiveté but I didn’t get that right away until it was mentioned later on. I just thought it was odd that he had a really ugly looking mannequin in his bed. Silly me.
The one scene I really had a problem with was the car chase scene. It seemed too humorous considering what happened only moments after wards. An THATS how they choose to get rid of the ghost? The sister with the ghost kidney dies so the ghost sister disappears? And the expression on her face…I couldn’t tell if she was sad or what. It just didn’t seem like an expression some one would have had, having just accidentally killed the one person you so obviously loved or you wouldn’t have donated your kidney to, would have had. I blame it on direction of the scene.
I know the director has scores of experience directing TV shows in the past but he has never directed an episode of SN before and I think it showed. Combined with the fact that the writers had only written one other episode before, made it a rather medium episode in my book. Definitely filler. Enjoyable for the most part, one I will probably watch again, but filler.
For the record, I love the idea of Lisa and Ben. I think Dean needs them almost as much as he needs his brother. To me they keep a little light lit in the darkness of his life. I think they help keep his “monsters” at bay. While the reality of his life means he has to give them up he still got to live that life with them even if it was for a short time. It might just be enough to get him through the times when he thinks he’s not gonna make it, emotionally, mentally, or whatever.
One the the other things I loved was that they started right where they left off with Sam in the middle of his seizure and Dean freaking out. It totally appealled to the angst junky in me. Bad I know, but I’m in recovery. Its a 22 step program. One episode at a time.
I also liked that casting once again chose regular looking actors to play the smaller roles. Very realistic.
Of course I loved the Dean/Ben and the Dean/Lisa scenes, but lastly I loved that the brothers are back together again. Its about time.
Thanks, sn_chills! I’m right with you in being DELIGHTED they began this episode precisely where the last one ended; I really needed to see Dean distraught and Sam waking up. Loved that!
I would put most of the episode’s problems at the writers’ door; I thought Szwarc did a nice job with the direction overall. When you’re given a “funny Impala chase scene” you srt of hve to roll with it … didn’t do it for me either, obviously, for the same reasons it rubbed you the wrong way. Oh, well – other moments were GREAT, including the brothers being back on the same wavelength!
This was a great recap and I agree with you. I liked Lisa and Ben, too. I hope this is not the last that we see of them. I think it would be fascinating to see this family work. I believe that it can. Jo and Ellen gave us a peek at a successful hunter family that they shared with Bill. Also, when we were first introduced to Mary Campbell’s family, Samuel and Deanna seemed to have a warm family relationship with their daughter and themselves. The whole family was in on the hunt. So, I believe it’s possible.
Thanks! I do think there could still be hope for a hunter family: with you, I saw that promise in the pre-demon Campbells. I hope Dean and Sam could find that for themselves … 🙂
It is interesting how people view Deans needs to Sams. And how the show presented so differently the boys individual desire for normal.Sam was done negatively with selfish being used commonly in both word and how scenes were presented Dark side of the Moon being a prime example but Deans presented has he deserves it and needs it.
Lisa seem to resent Sam and I dont believe she would of welcomed him so if Dean went with Lisa? how much do you think Mary that Sam would be part of Deans new life ?. I dont have a issue with Dean wanting normal or him and Lisa if that is what he truly desired but where would that leave Sam? who would he have? Bobby nope I dont believe in the Sam / Bobby relationship. Dean? how often . Dean would naturally put his new family first and if Lisa was receptive towards Sam then that closes the door.Sam pretty much as it stands is in a no win situation anyway which sums up most of his life but Dean has avenues that Sam simply doesnt have. Would I lie to see the writers give Sam a friendship he can forge outside of Dean ? that doesnt leave him alone if something ever happened to Dean or Dean does decide to see if he and Lisa can have a life ?I would love it . Sadly I dont think they will .
If Dean did go back to Lisa and Ben I would wish him good luck because I agree he derserves it but I would also feel sorry and sad for Sam because out of the two he really is the one trapped .
Totally agree. I don’t begrudge Dean his happiness, if he wants to quit hunting and go play happy families then so be it. There is nothing and no one stopping Dean from doing so other than Dean himself IMO. He uses Sam as an excuse when he doesn’t want to admit the truth to himself.
I highly doubt Sam would ever stop Dean from going to do his own thing, he knows Dean and I think he’s fully aware that Dean wants out and if Dean had called and told Sam he was staying with Lisa/Ben I think Sam would have been happy for him. Shame he never got treated the same when he wanted something other than the hunting life?!
I highly doubt the show will ever bother giving Sam someone in his life outside of Dean/away from Dean who isn’t evil/going to betray him/die. I never realised how truly alone Sam is until this season.If anything were to happen to Dean or Dean left hunting to peruse his own happiness where would that leave Sam? I imagine Sam has long since resigned/accepted his life as a hunter, he either doesn’t want normal any more, knows/thinks he cant have it or doesn’t think he deserves it. I get the impression that he feels he fells like he needs to redeem himself (still/again) and he equates that to hunting things and saving as many people as he can. Either way all it leaves him with is hunting, most likely alone and most likely till he dies a bloody death.
Gladiator, I disagree with you in one respect: I don’t believe Dean is using Sam as an excuse not to admit to himself that he wants to quit hunting. I think we saw Dean’s truth in [i]You Can’t Handle The Truth[/i], and it’s that he wants [b]both[/b]: he wants to save people by hunting with his beloved brother at his side, and he also wants to have a woman and child who love and welcome him. I can’t fault him for that.
Sam is as screwed up as Dean by thinking he doesn’t [i]deserve[/i] a normal life any more. I hope Sam’s ongoing story might become one of finally learning to accept that the things others did to him – Azazel feeding him demon blood, Ruby deceiving him into breaking the last seal releasing the apocalypse – didn’t render him either non-human or irredeemable, and that the sacrifice he made at the end of season five really did amount to redemption for his errors. And I hope Sam’s story will include Sam finding more to life than hunting, including love.
I have faith.
You know, Ellie, I think how we saw things in the show always depended very much on whose eyes we were seeing them through. I never Sam as selfish; every time we were given that impression, it came when we saw things from Dean’s perspective. Dean’s focus was always family, and understandably so, I think: the formative event in his life was losing both his mother and the loving warmth of his father when he was just a child. Sam’s focus was different, because he’d never known Mary and had always known John only as a driven, uncompromising, demanding man. Dean, I think, was always very aware of what he’d lost; Sam, on the other hand, was always aware of what more there could be, what more they could have. And when we saw things through Dean’s eyes, we saw him giving up uncertain things in order to cling to what little he had, while Sam – to Dean, anyway – appeared to be abandoning what he had in order to pursue things meaningless to Dean.
I don’t think Dean would ever have chosen Lisa and Ben over Sam, and I think that is also what Lisa saw. She obviously knew from Dean that Sam had died; her shock at seeing him back started with knowing he’d been dead, and continued with knowing that, given the relationship between the brothers, Sam would always come first with Dean. I don’t think Lisa’s reaction was resentment of Sam nearly as much as it was simply knowing that this unnatural development would totally disrupt the balance she, Ben, and Dean had achieved through a year together.
Dean isn’t the only one who thinks himself unworthy to have a normal life; you’re dead right that Sam began suffering from the same problem all the way back in season one, when he began having visions that started with Jess’s death. Learning that he’d been fed demon blood as a baby and was the focus of demon plans really screwed him up, and his later demon blood addiction, seduction by Ruby, and unintentional triggering of the apocalypse just made it worse. He hasn’t managed yet to come to terms with that, or to properly weigh in the balance the selfless sacrifice he made at the end of season five to imprison Lucifer again. Right now, he’s still trying to make amends not only for what he did before, still seeing fault and responsibility in his own eyes, but for what his soulless self did while his soul was still in Hell. I don’t believe for a moment that he deserves all the blame he’s putting on himself, but until he learns to forgive himself for not having been at the controls, he’s still going to be as screwed up for outside relationships as Dean is.
I think they BOTH deserve more than just each other. But I also think we need to have patience, because it’s going to take a lot of time for them to come to the acceptance we’re already ready to grant them.
And that’s where I come down on this. 🙂
I meant if Lisa was not receptive to Sam it closes the door.
I agree with you that presently the one with no escape is Sam. And me too, I would like to see him find some friendship or love interest for himself.
But in a way it seems to me that he, despite what we see or learn about him in S1, in the end embraced hunter’s life with less regret than Dean. For Sam family never meant as much as for Dean, he was always more independent. When he walked away from his family to go to Stanford, or when we see him in that house in “Dark side…” it seems to me that he wasn’t dreaming a family of his own, i.e. loved and loving people around him, someone to care for and be cared by, but rather a more “normal” life, a “safer” life, like he said to Dean in the PIlot. Also, he tried to distance himself from his father and from the life he forced on his sons, a life that Sam refused, not only per se, but because it was forced. He hates to be forced, he always was and always will be.
Since the start we see Sam frightened to be “different”, the “freak”, the abnormal, both for his family and for the society. So I think that his attempt to find a normal life was not because he needed a “family life”, but because he was trying to be accepted at least in the society, since his father apparently didn’t accept him.
When he learned that he had demon’s blood in his veins, he convinced himself that he [u]really [/u]was a “freak”, so he had no escape. He was “cursed”. There could be no way out, no happy ending for him. So in a way he embraced the one life that’s was left to him: to be a hunter. He gave up any thought of a normal life and since then he never seemed to turn back to watch what he left behind. From which came his new womanizing attitude in S4 and (as soulless) S6, his new developed “hardness”, and his attempt to draw even Adam in the “life”, while Dean would let and secure their half-brother the chance of a normal life.
When Sam told Dean to go find Lisa and live with her the “apple pie life” that Dean dismissed so sarcastically in the Pilot, I think it was a sort of “transfer”: he transferred on Dean his old desires of a normal life, not only because he was going to die, but because that was a life he could never have (so he thought), no matter what.
Now, it seems to me that since S5 “redemption”, “righting the wrong done” (and in a way, so was in S4, but more in the meaning of “drawing the good from the evil”) has become the new main issue for Sam, instead of “being normal” (since he isn’t)or “living normal”, so he doesn’t seem too eager to find a love or a family for himself. While for Dean since S3, and mainly since his encouter with Lisa and Ben, this has become more and more an issue, or at least a wishful thinking, a secret regret.
Excellently put, Brynhild – I agree!!
Great recap. I agree with every word. I would just add that Dean was unable to stay with Lisa once he knew Sam was back. As soon as he realised Sam was alive, his life with Lisa – previously his only option other than suicide – turned into a choice between Sam/hunting and Lisa and Ben/domesticity/suburbia. At that point all his doubts, depression, drinking etc that he had been ignoring came to a head. If Dean has to choose he is always going to choose Sam. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t love Lisa/Ben, but Sam will always come first. Realising that was hard for Lisa I think, and even harder for Ben.
Now real Sam is back the choice is even tougher for Dean, because he genuinely has back the relationship he has been desperately missing.
I don’t think Dean is capable of living a domestic life while his brother is hunting on his own. If Dean is ever to make a life with Lisa and Ben while Sam is alive, I believe Sam will have to give up hunting too and move in down the street. Sam wouldn’t be in danger and would also be on hand to help Dean protect Lisa and Ben. If the real Sam had come back this is what he would have done to help Dean keep the life he had built, rather than the non-sensical decision not to tell him that soulless Sam made.
As you rightly say, Dean also needs to believe that he is worthy of Lisa and Ben’s love, and that he can be good for them. That is probably the toughest nut to crack.
Great analysis. Thanks.
Thanks, geordiegirl! I agree that Sam will always come first with Dean; Sam’s part of his hard wiring, but that doesn’t make his feelings for Lisa and Ben any less real or less important to him. Rock, meet hard place.
You know, I think there still might be a third possibility: that Sam and Dean could still hunt together, but eventually have home ports to which to return. That’s evidently what Bill Harvelle did, up until his death, and it appears to be what Samuel Campbell did after Deanna got pregnant and had Mary. Their ladies would have to be able to accept them as hunters, as Ellen and Deanna did, but given the right ladies, I don’t see that as insurmountable.
Then again, I am an incurable romantic, despite being in my 50’s with no significant other … *wry grin*
Hi Bardicvoice
I loved the Brotherly and Lisa/Ben moments in this episode.
I so agree with you about having the brothers talking and being honest with each other, finally seeing two grown men working as a team. This is what I had expected to see in the beginning of the season and I have to say I’m ecstatic that it has finally come.
I really do like Lisa and Ben and feel they are good for Dean. I just feel so sorry for Dean, wanting both worlds but not believing he can or deserves having both.
I think that Lisa and Dean do love and care for each other, but are not head over heels, madly IN LOVE with each other. I believe that during ‘The Kids are Alright’ a strong connection or bond was established not only between Dean and Ben but between Dean and Lisa as well and it’s something neither one will ever be able to shake off.
I do hope when this show does come to an end that they will have Dean reunite with Lisa and Ben. And I hope Sam some how reconnects with Sarah from Provenance or at least finds his own happiness.
With what both these two have endured they deserve some kind of happy ending or at least a peaceful life.
As for the motw, I was intrigued by the ghost inhabited mannequins and by the kidney angle but I really believe they tried to fit too much into this episode and that the final confrontation with Rose was rushed.
I had thought that maybe they should of saved the motw for another episode and just focused on the relationship side of things.
Instead of working on a case, they could have had the brothers go to Bobby’s. This would have been a great opportunity for Sam and Bobby to reconnect while Dean was at Lisa’s.
Or maybe that would have been too boring…:zzz
Oh well…thank you for your wonderful review.
Thank you, Karen – and WORD on everything you said about Sam and Dean and the brothers having enduring relationships with others!
Given the nature of television, I think they needed an adventure – but I do wish they’d done something more interesting with the MOTW. Said enought about that in the commentary, though, I think … *grin*
Awesome recap & analysis! I think Dean has always wanted that idealized family too, no matter how he tried to ignore those desires or rationalize the impossibility of them in the life he was living. The earlier season episodes you mentioned clearly suggested that IMO.
As many times as he was shown contemplating calling Lisa, I was surprised to learn that she had called him & disappointed initially that he had not returned her calls. It did change my perception of Lisa & actually made me like her even more, but it was classic Dean avoidance technique again at play. I really wanted to see his response to both Lisa & Ben & agree that those scenes were cut short. I think it does leave the door open for their continued part in Dean’s life, & hopefully one day when the show ends, that they can be together. (And yes, I think Sam would have to live close by with a family of his own too for Dean to ever be satisfied with at least partially settling down. Let’s have Uncle Bobby close by too…. ok, just my dream for a totally sappy happy ending to the show someday, but a girl can dream…)
I am thrilled to have the brotherly dynamic back! I loved how Sam sent Dean off to check on Lisa & Ben & worked the case himself, yet kept in touch with Dean. The trust & support of each other is back. I think it was also a nice touch that they were back at Bobby’s, back with the family that doesn’t end with blood, by the end of the episode.
We are on the same wavelength, BagginsDVM! Welcome to my couch for uncurable romantics … 🙂
Oh Mary, I loved your recap. You express my feelings so perfectly that I am unable to do nearly as well.
I just loved the Dean/Lisa/Ben scenes and that Sam had persuaded Dean to go to Lisa.
The scenes between Sam and Dean I have been waiting for 2 and a half years to see. I have been angsting for the understanding and love to return to these two guys it seems like forever! Please I hope they don’t get torn apart again!
As for the MOTW, that is a secondary concern to me as the relationships were what I was so very interested in. Mind you, dummies do creep me out, so not too disappointed in that area, but would have liked more time spent on the relationships.
Like others here, when the series ends, I would love to see Dean, Lisa and Ben happy ever after and Sammy down the street with Sarah, and Uncle Bobby visiting often to interact with the kids. I don’t care if its shmoopy and cheesey, it’s what would satisfy me at the very end. Don’t need any tragedies to end this saga! 😥
Thank you, Bevie!
I really would love to have the series end someday on the note of the brothers still having work to do, but also having families to come home to, with the suggestion that ther sons and daughters might become hunters less broken than their fathers were. Saving people, hunting things: the Winchester family business, incorporated.
I’d draw up those business papers!
Yume, I agree! Nicely put. 🙂 And rather more briefly than I managed …
Thanks for another great review. I also hope that we have not seen the last of Lisa and Ben and I hope that Dean and Lisa can work things out. I had missed the parallel between the sisters and the Winchesters but that probably was due to the MOTW being so uninteresting. I did like the scenes between Sam and Dean but I too felt cheated in the scenes between Dean and Lisa and Ben and Dean. The audience should have seen Dean’s response.
Thanks, Marlana! I hope that we – and others who loved the Dean/Lisa/Ben relationship – get the chance to see more of it!
Great analysis as usual, Mary. Overall I enjoyed this episode, mostly for the scenes between Dean and Sam and between Dean and Lisa/Ben.
The MOTW storyline was okay, right up until Jonny’s sex doll was revealed and my mouth literally dropped and I thought WTF?! That was so out of left field and from then on the story got quite bumpy, especially how the writers tied up the possessed kidney problem. Too easy, too contrived.
That said, I have to disagree with one point you made … “the ghost destroying herself out of regret for the unintended consequence of her actions were both empty and contrived” … I don’t think the ghost killed herself. Her bones had been salted and burned and now the last remaining piece of her was destroyed when her sister died so there was nothing left for her to hang onto in this world. And off she went to wherever it is that vengeful spirits end up!
I enjoyed reading everyone’s comments about where they hope Sam and Dean finally end up when the show ends and I for one am firmly in the camp of having a happy ending though with this show we’ll probably get a twist on that too!
Thanks again, Mary. Can’t wait to read your review on The French Mistake. That one ranks up there as one of my all time favourites!
Cheers!
Thanks, Rose! My review on The French Mistake is finally done and up; I hope you enjoy it!
My reason for believing the Rose-ghost destroyed herself was that her kidney was still physically in existence; while her sister died, her body was physically there, including Rose’s kidney, so technically, Rose wasn’t destroyed. But that’s a nitpicky detail I won’t insist on! *grin*
[i]What did work for me was the overall message that both the Dean/Lisa/Ben storyline and the MOTW storyline had:
We give all we have, and sometimes it´s not enough. And I like how this double-message is sandwiched by Dean being there for Sam at the start and Sam being there for Dean in the end.[/i]
WORD, especially for this! Thanks, Yume!
Heh: guys are guys. You’re definitely right there!