#13.04

[lower-the-volume]

13.04 The Big Empty

[deancasforcutie]

the Pacific Northwest jumped out

[ardentpoop]

[sam-loml]

<3

[soft-pine]

the mia vallens scene is so fucked up for all the reasons everyone is saying. and also because sam literally is mad at dean for the fact that dean had a relationship with mary - something we see dean put time, energy, thought, and care into. like

SAM: Right, because this is so easy for you, uh? DEAN: No, it’s not easy. SAM: Yeah, but at least you had a relationship with Mom. I mean, who would she always call? Who did she look to for everything? DEAN: Okay. SAM: You had something with her I never had! And now I’m just supposed to accept that I never will have it? // DEAN: Problem? MIA: You just upset your brother so much, he had to leave the room.

HOW IS ANY OF THIS DEAN'S FAULT? like i'm genuinely at a loss? DID HE upset sam? ?? or was sam just upset because he's grieving the relationship he wishes he had with mary? but like please, mia, fucking point me to what dean allegedly said or did that upset sam?

s13 opens with dean repeatedly saying his emotional landscape is deep, unrelenting grief for cas' and mary's deaths and sam consistently pushes back against that because - as we find out here - sam is not ready to face the fact that mary could be dead because he's too sad about that loss.

so like um who isn't being honest about where they're at and how they're feeling and um who is lashing out and taking out their feelings on someone else even though it's not that person's fault? like idk? maybe some of you should watch supernatural.

[mpreglukeskywalker]

starting? babydoll, he has always been like this

[scoobydoodean]

omg i never considered jack attaching himself to dean because he was trying to grieve his mom and cas just like dean was.

I think it might be one of the things going on in 13.01-13.04, though it's not just that. It's also that Dean is honest, while Sam hides ulterior motives for why he was being nice. Jack's dislike of lies is a throughline all the way to "Moriah" where he makes it impossible for people to lie to each other. And I'd wager Dean specifically lying to Jack about the mal'ak box wounds Soulless Jack the most, because the truth is something he depends on Dean to give him the most, in situations where Cas or Sam might handle him with kid gloves he doesn't want. I also think Jack and Dean just have innately a similar sense of right and wrong and both care in a way that makes Jack gravitate toward Dean.

But yeah. Dean serves as a model for feeling your feelings, whereas we don't see Sam's numb exterior crack until 13.04 when he shouts at Dean over Mary. Not only that—Jack specifically overhears Sam minimize the significance of Cas's death in 13.03, which Dean fiercely rebuffs. Jack makes it very clear in 13.01 that he considers Cas to be his father, and Sam has become so emotionally detached that he convinces himself Cas death doesn't even matter. Dean fucking cares about Jack's dad, and trying to grow close to Dean is also probably a way Jack thinks he can feel closer to Cas! Dean's emotional outburst at Sam's dismissive language in 13.03—among other things—makes it clear that it's okay to miss Cas, and in that very moment, Jack calls out for his father and wakes him up.

[rowenagirl]

Dean taking out a flask in church and offering Sam a swig in Houses of the Holy and Dean pulling out a flask in therapy in The Big Empty are kind of holding hands to me bc they both arise from the same instinct of humiliation of being in an institution that believes it can make you clean. he feels condescended to and he wants to prove that nothing is sacred. and it's also partially for Sam's benefit bc Dean knows that Sam does have faith in these institutions and part of him wants to ruin that for Sam but I think a larger part of him is very sentimental about Sammy keeping faith in institutions Dean feels exiled from so he can kinda outsource his faith via Sam. Also the institution of psychology = Christianity = confess your sins and we will heal you = important to Sam bc he wants desperately to apologize for being alive