8x06 Southern Comfort aka Ode to Dean (and Bobby)

[seeing_ghosts]

Wow, that was a good episode. 

Anyway, below be scary spoilers and frightening speculation and wannabe meta. Access at your own risk! 


I'll start with Bobby (and by proxy, Garth). I've seen a lot of people get upset over Garth being the new Bobby - but that is such an over-simplified view on things that I don't even know how to handle it. 

The writers aren't setting Garth up as the new Bobby - the way Dean and Sam themselves are so against it should have made that obvious. What Garth is here, actually, is 'a Bobby' - in this context a researcher, a go-to man (remember when in 6x04 Weekend at Bobby's the demons had their own Bobby Singer?) because the hunter community apparently needs 'a Bobby.' (I love the idea, by the way, of the whole community falling into disarray after Bobby's death and the Winchesters disappearing. That is an amazing thought and it is duly noted for future ficcing resources.) 

So please, fandom, stop thinking of Garth as Bobby's substitute; he is, in a way, but not to the boys and not to us - only to the hunting community. He isn't any more Bobby Singer than Frank Devereaux was Bobby Singer (Frank was only there to show how much he wasn't, in my honest opinion.)

I also have to admit that this was the first episode I liked Garth in. For the first time they wrote him as a human, believable character instead of an obnoxious comic relief.



Now, let's talk about Dean. Because I've seen a lot of hate for Dean after this episode - that he has no right to hold grudges against Sam (and Cas), that he is immature because he is unable to let them go, that he puts people on a pedestal and expects too much from them. All of this is true, in a way - Dean and Sam's issues from years ago should be behind them if they want to work with each other; holding grudges is mostly childish behavior; Dean does put people on a pedestal. 

But at the same time, Dean has never been allowed to deal with his issues; they had an Apocalypse to stop, they had a soul to find, they had Leviathans to fights. Dean's been burying his hurt inside himself for years, and contrary to popular belief, he actually has every reason to be upset - with both Sam and Cas. They have both hurt Dean in ways Dean never hurt them. Being upset about your brother choosing a girl (in this case, a demon) over you is very plausible reason to be upset, actually. And Dean wasn't in no way required to forgive Sam - even though he still did. He just never forgot.

And that's another thing people seem to not realize - Dean wasn't exactly himself when he said all those things and attacked Sam. Of course, they stemmed from things Dean was feeling, but never would have vocalized in the first place; not because he was keeping them inside, letting them rot and poison him, but because he cannot choose how he feels - but he can choose if it affects the people around him. So yes, Dean might have been feeling that pain and betrayal but chose not to hold it against Sam because they were past it (and him treating Sam the way he does since 8x01 because he left him in Purgatory without ever looking for him, turned off his phone and ran away is, again, very much understandable - just as much as Sam's desire to get away from the family business that killed his family). 

And for fuck's sake, the spectre made a woman kill her beloved husband because he cheated on her thirty years ago! 



All in all, I loved the episode - Adam Glass, kudos to you! I knew it's been in you all along.