Favorite episodes, continued.

S3:

Kids Are All Right: Dean facing potential fatherhood was just a game-changer for me.

A Very Supernatural Christmas: Oh, BOYS. There is nothing about this episode I don't like.

Mystery Spot: Such a gut punch, from roaring funny to dead grim. SAM.

Jus In Bello: So good to see Hendricksen again, and to see him understand what these boys have been doing all along.

Time Is On My Side: This episode had a lot of meat for me. Dean facing his doom, Sam clinging to desperately to any hope (and Dean unwilling to cross lines, even to live). The ending is so grim, too, and such a horrible foreshadowing of what's coming for Dean.

S4:

In the Beginning: Blew me away. Mary was raised a hunter! I love this like Dean loves pie, even if the end is more hopeless than I wanted.
After School Special: Wee!Chesters can't be beat for me, and Sam's discussions with his teacher just killed me.

Sex and Violence: So telling, and so painful.
It's a Terrible Life: Funny but sharply so, very pointed. And a fantastic look at what Zachariah is capable of.

When the Levee Breaks: This episode breaks me. Broken Sam is so … broken. And the confrontation with all its echoes of past arguments is so painful.

S5:

The End: Ugh. 2014!Dean is frightening, and so is Cas. All kinds of heartbreak here, mostly now!Dean's, and man it hurts good.
Abandon All Hope: This is Team Free Will for me, too. Made me cry like no other episode.

The Song Remains the Same: Young John is so innocent, and Sam's conversation with him was such a change from early!Sam, it just … hurt. It hurt to know that nothing would happen differently, in the end.

Dark Side of the Moon: Brotherly angst for the motherfucking win. And more glimpses of wee!Chesters.
Swan Song: No words. Impala as home. BOYS, brothers, family.

I officially hate this game now. Gah.

Attagirl, Amy.

I checked against my list, and we overlap by three episodes each season, pretty much. I think you're wronger than a wrong thing where you differ from me, but it's not like I don't like the episodes you picked. Just, you know, that I'm right.

It strikes me that the EndVerse made a bigger impact on fic than the TerribleLifeVerse. Is that a fair estimate? Is that because it's just so much more awful? And I swear D/C is fanon past or present in just about every fic I read in that verse.

Just, you know, that I'm right.

You keep telling yourself that, lady.

::runs off to look at ita's list::

It strikes me that the EndVerse made a bigger impact on fic than the TerribleLifeVerse.

Possibly true unless you count Wincest, where there are Smith/Wesson fics every time you turn around.

where there are Smith/Wesson fics every time you turn around.

I'd wondered about that, since it's a perfect quasi-out (doesn't work for me, though), and I usually do read the the summaries, but they never seem to register. Someone should ask missyjack to make a piechart.

God, if this turns into me fiddle faddling through delicious.com...again...well, worse things have happened.

Some of your episodes were ones I wanted to choose, I'll give you that. I can't seem to make myself pick funny when there's good pain, though -- I wanted Monster Movie for S4 in the worst way, and Changing Channels for S5.

I think, like Bev, it would be easier to make a list of eps I don't really care to rewatch.

Changing Channels worked for me not just because of the funny, but I also thought it was highly well executed.

And I probably think Mystery Spot is a lot less funny than you did--the bit where they speak in unison is about it, and only half of that. I find it a miserable gutwrenching episode.

Sam's frustration and bewilderment worked for laughs pretty well for me, and Dean's ridiculous cartoon deaths. I mean, by the time Sam figured out it was the trickster, his situation was getting upsetting, yes, but I think I took the early deaths the way Gabriel probably intended them, since you know he was off somewhere chortling.

And Changing Channels wasn't just funny for me, either, especially in the end, but like I said -- painful! Painful choices!

I don't think I ever felt for Sam as hard as I did during Mystery Spot. Certainly not up until that point. JP had me in his pocket the whole way through. I was just flabbergasted. And then, when Dean died on the Wednesday? Oy. It was all over. DeadInside!Sam just killed me daid. Justified his behaviour in S4 almost entirely. It was wrong, but emotionally? I totally got it. He was willing to maybe kill Bobby. What's a little demon blood?

So, yeah, Sam/Gabriel is firmly crack for me, until maybe when I snap and read Black Swans.

Yeah, Sam/Gabriel is not a pairing I understand no matter what changed later on, like in Hammer of the Gods. I don't think Sam's forgiving him for Mystery Spot, well, ever.

I happened across "Changing Channels" (which should also known as "The One Where Dean Goes from Kinsey Zero to Kinsey One, or maybe Two") while looking for "It's a Terrible Life" tonight. Dean's still holding a murderous grudge against the Trickster, and it's Sam who's pushing for teaming up with him and letting bygones be bygones.