OK, I'm going to stop serial squeeing and go to bed. This was excellent, folks. Definitely worth staying up for.

Both their faces when they see their mom.

Dean pulling the lamp cord off Sam's neck and grabbing him up before his noggin hits the floor.

The DVD W&P is a bit late for my schedule, but I enjoy following along the next morning. I've been catching up on S1, and thanks to those who recommended watching Home and Asylum back to back. Home just about undid me, especially the scene where Dean snuck off to make the phone call to Dad.

See, all the unanswered phone calls to Dad, and the increasing frustration and anxiety and fear on the part of the boys just keep adding to my certainty that Papa Winchester just both sucks and blows at being a dad. Yes, Jeffrey Dean Morgan is hot. Yes, Dad Winchester taught them to shoot guns and throw knives and lay salt lines and be paranoid. But for me personally, I really dislike the character. Dean, the obedient son and perfect soldier calls in tears begging for help, and Dad ignores him? Sam calls to tell him Dean is dying and Dad ignores him? Can't even be bothered to return a phone call? Well, fuck you too, Dad. I have to say I sided with Sam on all those bitch-fits about blindly following orders he was throwing at the end of season one. Not to mention John abandoning them as children on a regular basis. That's a whole 'nother rant. I wasn't really sorry when John died, other than for the effect on Dean and Sam.

Dean pulling the lamp cord off Sam's neck and grabbing him up before his noggin hits the floor.

Next week's episode has a really nice moment after (it's a repeat, so I'm not spoiling anything here) Sam clocks Gordon and unties Dean. Dean, who has been knocked around some himself, gets to his feet and examines Sam, cupping his face and then swearing furiously as he turns, intending to kill Gordon for hurting Sam. I like protective big brothers. Probably comes from being an only child.

Probably from a parent's perspective, I like John quite a lot. I think he did the best he could under difficult circumstances. He was there in Lawrence in Home, I believe he sent Joshua the information to pass on to Sam about the healer in Faith. I think he felt he was a lightning rod for the YED, and he wanted to stay away from his family to protect them, but I do believe he was keeping tabs on and sending them information to help as well as he could.

I know this is a bone of contention within the fandom not unlike Ray wars, and I don't want to escalate a disagreement here. But I do disagree with an assessment of John, hot or not, as an uncaring parent who sadistically abused his children.

I ache for John, who wanted so much to be the parent he could have, should have been, had things been different. I don't think he ever expected it would take the rest of his life, that the war wouldn't end on his watch.

What was it Dean said in Faith? He'd seen what evil does to good people? I think that applies to John. Mary's death and everything that followed, everything he learned, turned him into someone who couldn't set aside the mission, because if he turned his back or fell asleep for a moment (in his view), he'd lose what little he had left to the evils lurking out there.

John's highly flawed, but I love the character to bits.

a bone of contention within the fandom not unlike Ray wars

What are the Ray wars?

I believe he sent Joshua the information to pass on to Sam about the healer in Faith

I haven't watched Faith recently. Is there anything to support that conclusion? (Seriously, other than wishful thinking to somehow include John in the rescue of Dean?)

I don't want to escalate a disagreement here

I wasn't intending to start any sort of flame war. And it would be foolish to expect everyone to have to same opinion about every issue -- surely (stop calling me Shirley!) we can all be adult enough to have opinions and discuss them without resorting to the name-calling and hairpulling I've seen other places? The ability of everyone to remain mostly civil, and the fairly consistent good spelling have been the things I value most about this board. (Really. There are places out there where people are totally incapable of forming complete sentences and have apparently never learned how to spell or use spell-check.)

What are the Ray wars?

Due South. Two Rays (both with their own appeal), one replacing the other. Wank ensues.

Is there anything to support that conclusion?

We watched it last night, and I don't think there's anything directly shown to connect John to the situation.

I agree that John is very much flawed. He's an interesting mix of Sam and Dean... or, I guess, Sam and Dean are an interesting dichotomy of him? Anyway. Dean picked up his single-minded attitude and a bit of the martyr complex (I mean, John didn't really HAVE to hunt everything in sight trying to get the demon...), and Sam I think picked up the cold calculation (which John has about everything but his boys) and the flaring temper. The man that set out to avenge Mary might have been a soldier, but he became a hunter. (And to be honest, I've read so much fic that I'm having a hard time pulling up an accurate canonic picture of the boys' childhood in my head. Fanon ranges from "single-minded about hunting" to "leaving the boys alone for a few days" to "hiding in the bottom of a bottle" to "abandoning them for weeks.")

Huh. Had more to say than I thought.

I probablyalmost certainly come down on the side of cutting John more than less slack as a parent. I've done that, and I know how scary and hard it can be when the demons are AIDS and lesser STDs, unplanned pregnancies, alcohol and drugs, and any and all subsequent emotional disturbances, not, well, demons. I know what it can do to your head, how it can turn you from a rational person who has a rapport with your child into a screaming, scare-tactic using, militantly grounding over-reacting loser with no perspective at all.

Demons? Actual demons, after my children? I completely understand John's MO. Not that I agree with it, nor that I can't see what it did to his boys. The fact remains that both boys are still alive, still able to function, at least at some point relative to normal. I think John wins.

I didn't mean to suggest anyone here would be less than polite. It's also possible I have some John issues.