Also, concur on the excessive heavy-handedness of the music. If you are going to be heavy-handed on this show, you must use Journey! Or Foreigner! None of this violin crap!

I concur! The music was very silly and did Not Belong there.

I don't want Joss anywhere near any episodes of the show. He'd give them all weird sexual hang ups. Plus, he's not heart-on-sleeve earnest enough for it.

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I concur on the music too!

I also concur on Joss. Love him, but this is not that show, or his Verse.

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askye is me. And sail, apparently.

Okay, so no Joss... is there a ME alum (other than Edlund) people would like to see pen an ep of SPN? Tim? Jane? Ultimate Drew?

This week's Heroes was the first time I wanted to watch the episode again. Immediately.

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I am totally going to have to rewatch to pick apart Dean's constructed reality.

Noted in the LJ, but I'll cross post here, because most of the flist's asleep by now: Dad's still dead. Same year, even. A grave by the water instead of a pyre. Dean can't see himself as doing anything but following in Dad's footsteps, though this time, it's radiators and wheel wells instead of rifles and rock salt. His relationship with Sam is strained--no hunt to keep them together, and again, you have the education difference. (Sam in his fantasy is actually acting out of character by coming with him on the djinn hunt, which is the real start of players in the wish/fantasy breaking the fourth wall, as it were.) Interestingly, Dean *does* seem to see himself as a highly flawed person, one who'd snag his brother's ATM card, or screw his brother's prom date. (Which perhaps says Dean views himself as responsible for Sam losing his potential economic place in the world, and any chance he had at a normal future.)

(Copied and pasted directly, I fear.)

Not c&p'd: when lost, he seeks out Dad. Who, of course, isn't there, but it's still interesting to me that he goes to discuss his dilemma with his (absent) authority figure, perhaps seeking absolution here? He knows what he has to do, but doesn't want to do. (And, relatedly, large portions of this season have been about what Dean may have to do, but doesn't want to do, and also relatedly, what they failed to stop last season, they failed to stop in large part *because* Dean was unwilling to see his family sacrificed.)

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I thought a shortened version of that, Plei-- from my LJ:

So in Dean's dream world, he was a dick to Sam growing up, seems to be a little bit of a lush, he and Sam aren't that close, and John is still dead (though he did have a peaceful death)? Interesting.

t snip

Ah ha. Not a dream, just the results of a wish. I wonder if either of them really believe that?

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We now have 3 Deans: Real!Dean that we see, the Dean that he imagines himself to be in the hallucination, and the Dean he would have been in reality if the hallucination had been real.

The imagined Dean is the one he himself constructs, and is by far the least appealing of the three: he's a fuckup who steals his brother's ATM, has little sense of family loyalty (I think), and isn't particularly close with his family. Also, no higher education. But he's still charming enough to win a nice girl.

It's an interesting image he has of himself, and really reinforces the Dean-as-mother trope. He's utterly invested his self-worth in what he can give to others--family and/or strangers. If he's not giving, saving, hunting, he's not really of any value to anyone, that he can see.

It's actually really sad. Thankfully most of the time Dean doesn't spend much time dwelling on it. But when he does, we get the Manly tears of doom, which I much Prefer to the Emo Single Tear.

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I haven't rewatched the episode yet, so help me out here... what was Dean's wish, supposedly? For his mom to be alive? I don't think it could have been just a generic "let me be happy" wish, because I really don't think he was all that happy in that AU. Nothing meaningful to do with his life, Dad's still dead, Sam not only doesn't speak to him, but actively doesn't like him, and he seems to be sort of possibly a petty crook (stealing Sam's ATM card)/borderline alcoholic. I know once Dean came back to reality he said he was tempted to stay there, but I'm not entirely sure why.

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I know once Dean came back to reality he said he was tempted to stay there, but I'm not entirely sure why.

Well Mom was alive, Dad was dead but peacefully, and Sam didn't like him so much but he was happy in his way and with an alive Jess...

Even with Dean not being happy, I think he was tempted because everyone else kinda was. And Dean pushes the immediate gratification button a lot in life but I don't see him expecting long-term, real happiness for himself.

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I think Dean's fondest wish was Mary not having died. Without that, John never begins hunting, and all else proceeds as we saw.

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Oh definitely.

I am just trying to think about why he was tempted to stay once he knew it wasn't real. And it was the Not Real that I think made him go back. But the temptation, to me, was that while Dean wasn't happy, the people he would kill or die for were happy.

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