A lot of people, including myself, were really disturbed by the treatment of the MotW in this week's episode. Most specifically by the reenactment of his horrific death as if it was exciting and clever rather than what it was; a tragic and unjust means to a last-ditch effort at saving Dean.

I actually think that a lot of this episode was setting up hints into Sam's current emotional state, or rather, the lack thereof.

What I mean is: his decidedly less than frantic approach to the idea that Dean only had hours to live; the thoughtless, little brother comment calling Dean a dick when he was already emotionally unbalanced, when Sam should know that it would be the kind of thing Dean would worry at and about; the brusque and distinctly unemotional call to Dean when Sam had no idea if the plan would work and if it would be the last time he ever spoke to Dean; and, last but not least, the coldly professional way he took the idea of road-hauling what was, essentially, a ghost who, while now dangerous, was the victim of the entire situation. That is something I would expect Sam to at least voice a token objection/regret about.

We know from Mystery Spot that Sam very likely suffered some kind of emotional breakdown post-Dean's death, and it's really interesting to me to see how Sam is acting subtly different and not knowing if it's due to that, to the use of his powers, or, harking back to the S2 finale, that he was brought back not quite right, or a mixture or permutation of those.


As for the rest of the episode, if you take out the two or three really over-the-top comedic moments, namely, Dean running from the dog with a bow, Dean's shriek at the mill, and "That's just NUTTY!", the episode is actually very dark, and a lot of the complaints, I think, are perhaps because the episode, considering the subject matter and plot should have dark, but wasn't.

Don't get me wrong, I loved the episode, and squee'd and laughed and adored the funny because, let's face it, our two leads are awesome comedic actors, Jensen in particular, and the whole hour kept me brilliantly entertained and left me with even more fascination for and dark thinky thoughts on the mytharc, and, really, that's all I'm asking for.


And damn if yellow-eyed Sam wasn't the coolest, most hard-core sexy human-demon-hypothetically-evil-hybrid EVER.

Here, have a picture: