hii! hope you are doing well this eve :] i was wondering if you had any thoughts or Themes you wanted to talk about in 2.20 what is and what should never be? it’s a very dean episode which is of course hook line and sinker for me but also its been microwaving in my brain since the gf and i watched it.. sniles
omg heyyyyyyy 🔥 i went to look over my notes for something to write about for this and with every bullet point i read i could feel my sanity slipping further and further away from me. this episode is completely nuts. i was going to just pick one little bit to talk about but instead i think i'm going to bite the bullet and write my definitive analysis of supernatural season 2 episode 20 what is and what should never be.
this is going to get long. sorry.
Supernatural Season 2, Episode 20: What Is and What Should Never Be—A Full Analysis
the thing that must always be said about supernatural seasons 1-5 is that it is ultimately a dialogue between independence and community, and sam and dean experience this push and pull through each other: will they choose to do what's best for them by reclaiming power for themselves (independence), or will they sacrifice power and personhood in exchange for the love of the brother (community)? season 2 is the second part of the "community" arc, where sam and dean move from estranged brothers into a codependent togetherness (which begins to fracture in 2x22 and continues through season 4). in 2x20, then, we as an audience expect to see the closest purity we can find of this community between sam and dean (at least, until the season 5 finale). it's through this lens that we can determine metaphors and parallel themes as dean engages with his dream world.
from the outset, i want to posit dream!sam as a representation of dean's individuality and independence, and john as a representation of dean's sense of duty to a collective. dream!sam is a creation of dean's psyche, and while normally him choosing sam would be a choice for community, here it is choosing himself, as dream!sam both is an extension of himself and attempts throughout the episode to persuade dean to choose a selfish, apple-pie life. john, though absent from the episode, is a daunting spectral presence: his premature death even in this dream world is a constant reminder to dean of the life he has been conditioned to accept as his duty. without a dream!john to counter these ideas, dean can only rely on his memory of his father to fill in the gaps. in a season where john has become an allegory for dean's very fate (and thus his duty), this is just a natural continuation of it, and won't be resolved until 3x10.
at the start of the episode, sam wants dean to pick him up so they can look at the ruins of the djinn's hideout together; dean turns him down, and sam is pretty dejected about this. at this point in the show, sam actively wants to be involved in hunting, but right now he's being pushed to the sidelines and into a research position. this recalls 1x04, which begins to elaborate the roles that sam and dean instinctively play when hunting: dean goes out and does the dirty work, while sam stays back and feeds him information. the roles, however, begin to shift slightly in 1x15, immediately after sam meets max in 1x14: he comes to view hunting as something virtuous, or rather something that can grant him virtue and save him from his fate as a monster. if he can save people through hunting, he won't turn out like max. from 1x15, then, we see sam take a proactive role in hunting, seeking out cases and pursuing them even to his own detriment. by 2x02, sam has all but abandoned his desire for a normal life and claims he wants to keep hunting. and now, in 2x20, sam is still trying to insert himself into the hunt. he no longer wants to be sidelined or even safe (recall 1x01: "you're just gonna live some normal, apple-pie life? is that it?" "no. not normal, safe"); sam wants to be in the thick of things, and here in this moment, dean rejects him.
dean rejecting sam can then represent him choosing the individual over the collective. he chooses to literally be alone while checking out the ruins, and he chooses to metaphorically distance himself from sam. therefore, as the final episode of sam and dean's honeymoon era (2x11-2x20), the conflict of this episode involves dean moving from an individual mindset to a collective mindset. he will over the course of the episode move from choosing himself to choosing sam.
this is cohesive with the rest of the season: there are several points throughout season 2 where dean expresses doubt or distaste toward the lifestyle, or an unwillingness to continue hunting (2x01, 2x03, 2x06, 2x09, and 2x10). his desire to quit hunting is at odds with sam's desire to continue hunting, and thus they aren't quite on the same page, and this remains an undercurrent of the season that presents in their conflicts.
as the climax of this subplot, this episode becomes to dean what 1x11 is to sam: dean must choose sam not as an innocent to protect but a partner to work alongside (see, too, the ongoing conflict of dean's fate: he must either kill sam or save him). within the ideal collective they are trying to carve out for themselves, they must be equals,and therefore, dean can neither kill sam nor save him, but forge a secret third option independent of john's (fate's) influence—see 5x22.
Dream!Sam Is Still Weird about His Brother
the first scene we see of dean's dream world involves him calling sam and bantering a bit with him. what's striking about this is dream!sam's reactions to dean.
these are not the expressions of someone who is still upset about his brother cucking him at prom. this initial introduction to dream!sam contradicts the very manifestation's later assertion that they are estranged. instead, it provides an initial suggestion that dream!sam is indeed harboring some unspoken feelings toward dean—that he wants to be closer than they allegedly are.
this becomes a running theme with dream!sam throughout the episode. while he is the one to shut down dean's advances, he is also the one who seems to yearn for a better relationship with his brother. when dean proposes they go "hunting" sometime, sam responds coldly, but he can't leave it there: he follows up with a much softer, kinder "get some rest."
later, when dean lies to dream!sam about his reason for rummaging through mary's silver, sam still follows his brother out of the house and climbs in the car and insists on going with him. this is shocking not only because it contradicts the fight they just had, but also because of the stakes involved: dean's lie to sam implies a certain level of physical danger, and yet he still goes along with it. dream!sam has no idea what he's walking into, and based on the goodbye dean gives him he has every reason to believe dean is going to die. therefore, in following along anyway, he is declaring a very strong, fatal devotion to dean. he has to face his own mortality and choose brotherhood anyway, in spite of their alleged estrangement.
and this is necessarily an act of devotion—dean only relents and allows dream!sam to come with him because dream!sam has devoted himself to his brother. his opinion about keeping sam safe, keeping sam innocent, flips the moment sam pulls the brother line out. dean, like (the real) sam, is moved by acts of devotion, and when they declare their loyalty and devotion to each other in unambiguous terms, it is always accompanied with a shift toward brotherhood (community) and away from their individuality (independence). and this is the moment where dean resolves the conflict set up at the start of the episode: real!sam wanted to go hunting with dean, and dean wouldn't let him. but through dream!sam's act of devotion, dean recognizes sam as an equal, not as someone to protect, and allows dream!sam to come hunting with him. it's a resolution of the honeymoon era, as dean reckons with the final residual threads of fate still binding him.
if independence is the path of fate and community is the path against it, then as sam and dean struggle against their destinies they must necessarily choose each other. dean, then, comes the closest he possibly can to completely defying his fate in this episode by finally coming to terms with sam's place in his life not as a duty and obligation but as his true equal and enmeshed life partner. this is a conflict that began with 1x18 and has finally resolved itself (only to promptly be undone two episodes later), and therefore sits very pretty at the tail end of the honeymoon era, like the topper on a wedding cake.
Dean Is Also Weird about His Brother
the halfway point in the episode is the scene wherein dream!sam reveals that he and dean are not emotionally close and that they don't talk to each other. until this turning point, dean had been hopeful about remaining in this fantasy world, but sam's rejection shakes him.
dean can't reconcile with this rejection, and as a result it fundamentally alters his perception of the dream world. it's from hereon that dean's doubts and struggle between independence and community (duty, here) come to the forefront of the episode.
at this point in the show, dean's fear of abandonment have become centered solely around sam. he has no other permanent relationship in his life, and so the only person who can abandon him now is sam. therefore, when dream!sam rejects him, dean's world begins to unravel. the rules of their codependent relationship (established in 1x22) demand that their relationship must be reciprocal, and the lack of reciprocity here leaves dean insecure and wanting. at first, this manifests as him trying to fix things with dream!sam so that he can remain in the dream world while also maintaining codependency with his brother—the best of both worlds. what dean wants is to have both individuality (a life free of hunting) and community (enmeshment with sam), but the show takes the position that these two things are fundamentally incompatible. dean's relationship with sam cannot improve in this world, and so he can only have one or the other.
this brings us to the graveyard.
as soon as sam rejects dean, the fantasy falls apart. dean is very soon shown all of the deaths and tragedies that had not been averted due to dean and sam's intervention. this is important because dean equates hunting with heroism (dean, until sam begins to echo him in 1x15, had been the only character in the show who verbally equated "hunting" with "saving people"), and so he simultaneously has to grapple with the loss of an identity he has used to cope with the traumas of hunting. if he isn't hunting, he's letting people die, and therefore he is no hero. he's just normal.
he does this grappling before his father's grave.
he speaks for john, proposing that john would want him to go kill the djinn and put everything right again. "your happiness for all those people's lives, no contest. right?" he asks: why does he have to be a hero? why do they have to sacrifice everything?
in dean's eyes, john is the ultimate representation of his duty. and because dean's duty is to a collective (whether it be his family or the society he protects through hunting), john therefore comes to represent the collective itself. regardless of whether dean's understanding of john is true to life, we come to understand his relationship to his father and the values dean has as a direct result of his parenting: saving people and hunting things is more important than individual happiness.
here we come to understand how this episodes functions as the dean equivalent of 1x11: dean, like sam in 1x11, is given the opportunity for freedom and independence, to pursue his own apple-pie life (interesting, though a topic for another day, is how the manifestation of dean's independence is a life free from hunting while the manifestation of sam's independence is a life entrenched in it). it's only through a clear act of brotherly devotion that dean returns to the collective, and an equivalent act occurs in 1x11 as well, taking sam away from his revenge and back into dean's arms.
dean then must make his ultimate choice between independence—staying in his dream world—and community—killing the djinn and returning to reality. in this same conversation, he chooses the collective. the sequence of scenes here is important: first, dean discovers he is estranged from his brother. second, dean discovers that all of his efforts have been undone. he lost his two identities in a very short period of time, and as a result there is nothing left in this world for him.
and so he takes a moment to grieve his lost individuality—as if burying it in the graveyard alongside his father—and he gears up to kill the djinn, and in the process destroy himself.
Fate VS Family
the thing is that dream!sam hasn't given up on trying to keep dean here in this dream world. this serves a practical purpose (the djinn wants to eat) and an emotional one, because sam, as dean's codependent life partner, has the unique capability of overturning all of dean's rationale and trumping all of his other relationships. so when dream!sam confronts dean in the djinn's hideout, he actually has the potential to sway dean away from his resolve. this results in a last-ditch effort to appeal to dean's desires:
because of sam's sway over dean, he is chosen as the spokesperson for his id. this is especially clever because this is also one of the only episodes in the series where doing what sam wants is equal to choosing independence, and therefore turning away from their relationship. it flips expectations and uses context to suggest that being selfish, remaining in this fantasy, can be a good thing.
unfortunately for dream!sam, dean has already chosen the collective. to wake himself up from the dream, he chooses to kill himself. the suicide can represent the destruction of himself (his independence, his individuality, his personhood, his desires, his dreams) in favor of the collective (his duty, his perceived heroism, his brother). he returns to reality with a new resolve and a diminished sense of self. most importantly, he returns to reality with a reaffirmed devotion.
his relationship with sam has transformed through this episode. once dean realizes that the fantasy world is only a dream, that the world outside of this still exists, he understands that he can't leave his real brother out there alone. nothing dream!sam says can deter him. ironically, this is perhaps due to the act of devotion dream!sam performed for dean, which solidified his own devotion to sam (the real sam) and thus had the opposite effect. it's ultimately because of sam (through the midpoint fantasy erosion, through the act of devotion, and through the realization that his real brother is still out there somewhere) that dean comes to thoroughly reject his own personhood. he chooses sam, and thereby chooses hunting, and through his own self-destruction he embraces a collective enmeshment with his brother in a life enslaved to their father's duty.
hunting is treated differently for sam and dean between seasons 1 and 2. sam's hunting is driven and purposeful, focused on an ultimate revenge that keeps pushing him forward. it's self-serving and violent, and it represents a strength and power that will ultimately corrupt him. dean's hunting, by stark contrast, is rather purposeless. he fights because he must, and because he has no other prospects. as such, one could even speculate that his relative dedication to specifically saving people is a value he invented for himself to justify a life he was forced into. like i said before, no other character really focuses on the heroism of hunting (until sam after 1x15, which is the next step in sam's season 1 journey to embrace The Family Business). dean is the one who focuses on the heroism of hunting; by contrast, the show itself positions hunting as its own form of monstrosity. even john, despite dean's insistence on his father's heroism, shows little intent toward saving people, focusing instead on hunting things and leaving sam and dean to do the saving (from what little we see of him and his hunting style in 1x20 and 1x21). dean is therefore at odds with the show's message, which again lends credence to the idea that dean's fantasy of heroism is simply his own. he is a character without intrinsic motivation because his desires lie outside of the world he exists in—he pines for an apple-pie life that he can never have, and he has no desire to hunt, himself.
because of this, dean's return to hunting is the destruction of this desire, and therefore his selfhood. he adheres to the collective and a fantasy of heroism. sam plays into this fantasy, too, at the end of this episode:
he has come to believe in dean's view of the world since 1x14, as he tends to adopt dean's worldview when he becomes insecure with his own (see also 1x22 and 2x13, for example). to them, then, there is the justification of heroism through hunting, and it allows them to cope with both their own traumas and their spiral into monstrosity.
this is also a direct contradiction to dream!sam's plea to get dean to stay with him: the real sam advocates for dean to abandon his independence, and in doing so return to him completely. both of them want to possess each other and belong to each other, and so dream!sam is an imperfect doppelganger at best. the real sam yearns for enmeshment, a perfect joining of two into one and the complete erasure of boundaries between them.
the episode ends with another act of devotion:
sam tells dean that he values their codependent relationship, which both assuages the insecurities introduced by the midpoint scene with dream!sam and reaffirms the devotion dream!sam displayed by coming along to hunt the djinn. they have achieved an equal partnership through an acceptance of each other.
this quote may be meaningful for sam, as well: when sam says he's glad dean "dug himself out," he might be (correctly) taking dean's return to reality as an act of devotion to him, which could also be why he's so comfortable giving voice to his own feelings (whereas typically to this point, he has waited for dean to make the first move, such as in 2x03, or his extremely awkward apology in 2x15).
through this episode they have both displayed their devotion to each other and their relationship and thus gained equal footing with each other. as such, they have achieved the climax of their honeymoon era and resolved their extant conflicts with each other by putting aside their individuality and independence to instead conform into each other, becoming their own two-person collective as opposed to just two brothers. it's the culmination of everything they've been working toward throughout season 2, ever since sam let azazel live in 1x22. naturally, this doesn't last for long, and the fissure that occurs between them in 2x22 sends them spiraling into wretched individuality that they can't recover from until the season 5 finale. but for a brief moment, sam and dean escaped their destinies through each other. they crawled under each other's skin and made a home there. they destroyed themselves in favor of the brother. and i think that's beautiful.
this moment in 2x20 is striking to me because at this point, sam and dean have effectively come to the mutual agreement that there will be no more secrets or lies between them. they've been very open and honest with each other for the past ten episodes, and all things considered, their relationship hasn't been better. so why lie here?
of course the sam dean is talking to is an alternate reality version of sam and their relationship is different in this dream world, but still. the development stands. so what this recalls to me is 1x18:
because here in this fantasy world, sam has that innocence, sam has a normal life, and sam can continue living on here without the burden of The Big Secret. real world sam wants this innocence; at least, he said as much to dean. dean understands sam as someone who doesn't want to be here and who wants to live a normal life and who is only hunting out of obligation.
and here sam is given the opportunity to live the life he supposedly does want. and dean is in the position to give it to him, to maintain that innocence and let him be happy in his ignorance. to me that's what he's doing here. he had the choice between a lie that makes sam happy and a truth that destroys him, and he chose the lie, even despite the relationship they've developed and the honesty they've achieved.
it says a lot about dean's values and how he prioritizes his duty to sam, and this informs a lot of his behaviors going forward as well. sam's happiness is key, and sam himself said that his happiness would lie in ignorance. dean chooses to honor this over honesty; it's an interesting follow-up to the conflict left hanging in the air, and it reveals much about both dean in the moment and sam in the aftermath (a perfect bridge, i think, between 1x18 and 3x08, where we learn that sam is the one who pushed dean to tell him about monsters in the first place).
so anyway, yeah—the lies that had been discarded for so long come out once more, and i love how this episode jumps straight into ahbl, juxtaposing the good-faith lie with the selfish lie, as if to say even a lie made in attempt to honor sam's wishes will erode the relationship and lead to ruin. impossible choices all around, truly.
