So I almost posted this earlier but deleted it, but since you all are talking about it.
Jared gives a Sam expression that looks (unintentionally I believe) like a smirk and often it leaves me befuddled as to what he's thinking and often feels inappropriate to the moment.
Regardless, Sam does not wear his feelings out in the open on his face like Dean and I think there's a lot of context we're missing right now (about Sam) and it's damn difficult to interpret what's going on with him.
The Campbells seem to be relatives from hell, and yes, I am including you old man.
I'd chose Lisa and Ben too.
We do only have Grandpa Campbell's word that he got pulled down to the world of the living simultaneously with Sam being pulled up, after all...
Similarly, we only have Grandpa Campbell and cousin's words that they are not among the resurrected. The explanation of why Dean and Sam never heard of them before seems a little facile.
It was interesting to me, and Ryan almost touched on it, that Dean is in the position that Adam was in when he was resurrected, to a large extent, in the "you may be blood, but you're not my family" attitude that Dean seems to be taking with the Campbells.
Noir as an ethos for the season is interesting to me, as is the tagline, of which I was not aware. It is, at the very least, a different spin on parents and children than we've been getting from Show. It's usually "John's boys." Apparently, nsm this year.
Dean is in the position that Adam was in when he was resurrected, to a large extent, in the "you may be blood, but you're not my family" attitude that Dean seems to be taking with the Campbells
I was struck by how alien it had to feel for him when Samuel expected him to self-identify as a Campbell ("that's what Campbells do") rather than as a Winchester.
Yeah, that must have been weird. I mean - Dean didn't have his mother for all that long and didn't grow up knowing his grandfather.
I also thought that the way the Campbells were going through the stuff at Dean's house and making fun of it was a bit OTT. And it makes sense if we aren't supposed to like them or think that Dean should trust them or Sam.
(That blond cousin is the young sharpshooter from Flashpoint.)
I don't think we're supposed to trust anyone at this point, except for Ben and Lisa... which makes sense if we're getting the story from Dean's point of view.
I also thought that the way the Campbells were going through the stuff at Dean's house and making fun of it was a bit OTT.
I saw that as another callback to how Dean used to be. He was less verbal about it though.
Re: Dean's drinking... I don't think we were supposed to see the hard liquor after the beer at the bar as a habit. I think it was supposed to indicate Dean being freaked out by the hallucinations that he thought were real.
