I've been thinking about Justin Smith and John-lives-Sam. At first I was laughing because I'm sure Jared had a blast playing these ridiculous dicks ^_^ But then I thought, what's the show saying about Sam? Pseudo Steve Jobs Sam was this incredibly repressed no-family pretentious prick, and J Smith, presumably a manifestation of Sam wanting a normal family to be happy, is a Stepford husband (also repressed). Two sides of the same coin, or of a 20-face die?
I’ve also been laughing since Lawboy Sam that “we keep each other human” doesn’t even have to be literal, it’s just like, without hunting with Dean, Sam is the Worst™
I definitely don’t think it’s casting shade on Sam because there’s obviously a LOT of trauma behind Lawboy, who was an extrapolation of Sam’s career path rejecting everything he’d grown up with. Including that he has a notorious serial killer brother. I think in the first draft of the pilot Sam literally did think Dean was a serial killer, or suspected it, and he’d never been in on the secret, so though that’s canon implausible I feel like that sort of emotional background was implied by where they ended up, that perhaps at least Lawboy was rejecting the violence he was raised in but in a really extreme way. And not even in a cool fighting for world peace lawyer friends with Tahani Al-Jamil thing, but just writing off family entirely. Which is a commentary on the absolute extremes of repression Sam can and will inflict on himself, since in 1x01 he was a fair bit of the way there, complaining about his family and throwing himself into his future career full denial ahead.
I do think though that as much as Sam is superficially the worst, most of Dean’s worst traits especially in season 1 were smoothed out by their story pretty quickly and obviously all the good development Dean’s made out of his own repression and trauma never would have happened in that world so miserable solitary hunter Dean would have been the absolute worst. Especially if he is careless enough to stay on the most wanted list and honestly he’s probably been running around with Gordon for 13 years still trying to impress him and make him think he’s cool without ever realising he is into dudes or that Gordon is the worst :P But that’s all left to speculation, as this season has had a greater focus on exploring Sam so he is actually getting the kind of attention to single him out to play multiple character variants in a short space of time so we even have data to compare, which feels like a total novelty.
(I’m in no way a bitter Sam girl or anything but Carver era just naturally leaned into Dean over Sam and Dabb era has corrected that lean and it sort of feels like suddenly we have tons of Sam exploration and Dabb era Sam is rapidly turning into one of my favourite characters ever based on a whole bunch of stuff that was completely absent since like season 7… Just don’t use this comment to validate bitter Sam stanning of the carver era even as I admit they had something of a point :P)
Anyways. Justin Smith was brilliant because he’s not technically a Sam variant because he was a conjured personality but at the same time it put Sam in that position and made it clear that Sam crumpled into it because it was easy and Cas could totally see how he ended up there, like, almost to the point of forgetting that Sam had succumbed because he was human and Cas hadn’t not done so because he was more emotionally aware after treading this storyline years earlier but rather the more obvious that Chip’s powers didn’t work on him because he’s an angel. It’s a complete have cake and eat it moment about saying this isn’t who Sam is but wow does it say something about Sam anyway.
I think the context that Lawboy lurks under Sam’s skin helps there because that version of Sam clearly still lost Jess one way or another, and we know that Sam can do stuff like run off with Amelia, which I think seems to be the more immediate emotional parallel - maybe making a point about the sort of denial of self that Sam put himself through by cutting off hunting and looking for Kevin… Whatever motives he had for it, and however justified his emotional breakdown at that point, they kept on bugging Sam for doing it by reminding him of the “hit a dog” comment for years until Robbie sat Dean down and made him apologise in 11x11. At which point Sam was moments from morphing into Dabb era Sam, who first appeared in 11x14 by my reckoning of “who is this guy because I love him!?!” I felt there.
Exploring that territory through the brainwashing and also showing us a Sam who was from the pilot but grown up and awful, and coupled with where Dean’s been at for a while but helpfully confirmed in 14x13 to John’s face, is that Sam needs to be hunting, and definitely seems to need a romantic endgame in a way that Dean ~weirdly~ does not (*cough because he already has it cough*) despite how season 13 for him had been 100% giving him Jack as a son in a main character arc way that neither Dean or Cas got as much focus on - like, even Cas. I’m bitter about Eileen forever, moved my hopes to Rowena, but Sam has still yet to have a girlfriend who is a hunter, and something about Justin Smith really firmly tells us that Sam can’t go back to wanting the white picket fence and ever accomplish it with any authenticity to himself. But also perhaps that he still struggles, even with finally calling the Bunker home, and having a family there of all the other parts except a wife, that either this is still his perception of what marriage and endgame should/has to be or that he can’t conceptualise marriage existing in his life in the Bunker, despite the example Dean n Cas are setting in front of his nose.
He also got to see Mary briefly have John around for that family dinner but then have to let him go, for perfectly valid other reasons, but comparing it to his dream in 13x21 of the family dinner, which included all 3 generations of their family, in their non traditional set up that Dean claimed to John was what he had instead of the white picket fence, we got a weird glimpse of the nuclear family unit that SPN spends the rest of its time rejecting in favour of family not ending in blood. That wasn’t particularly framed as for Sam’s eyes but it’s definitely another example of endgames and marriage in the hunting world that he got to glimpse and the surrealty of setting the library table for a fancy sit down meal for a nuclear family instead of them stuffing their faces with pizza at the war table, which had been Sam’s dream birthday party, definitely shows there’s still conflict going on there in how family is being presented. With Dean apparently fully chill and at peace with his family life, and these examples for Sam, it’s definitely all focused on him what he ends up wanting and what he can be happy with, and what ideas he has to let go.
(I’m not sure this is going to go anywhere this season but it’s definitely a necessary bit of psychoanalysis for Sam, who was pretty much legally dead in the wants and desires department between like 8x10 > Dabb era)
