Well part of the reason Sam hated the family was that the father was controlling maybe to the point of being abusive. The whole "plan" thing. I mean borderline, maybe not abusive, but if not getting there. I really got an "evil Dad from dead poets society" vibe. Heck, I even think the speech pattern was similar.

I don't think the father was anywhere near abusive. Controlling, sure, but not near a borderline. I could accept that the guy triggered Sam's own father issues, but he was a pussycat compared to John. Being righteously pissed your scholarship-seeking 17 year old was out drinking on a weeknight no less doesn't seem extreme to me.

It wasn't being pissed. No not John. But I bet it echoed. And part if it may have just been the speech patterns. Maybe it was the just the pattern of a continued unrelenting cloud of anger. In my family if I did something wrong there would be shouting, and some clear definite punishment finished if possible, or assigned. And then it was over, with any continuing punishment carried out without malice, in a "you did wrong, and the consequences will take a while to work through" fashion. The unrelenting cloud of disapproval looks to me like something very hard to live with.

I didn't see him there long enough to be labouring under an unrelenting cloud. We saw two, maybe three conversations with his parents, one mad because he came home "drunk" and disoriented, one at breakfast where he was still acting weird and not taking them seriously or treating them respectfully.

Let's just say my father and mother wouldn't have let up on me in that 12 hour span, and they totally don't count as an unrelenting cloud of disapproval or borderline abuse.

The first conversation with the parents, I could hand wave.

one at breakfast where he was still acting weird and not taking them seriously or treating them respectfully.

This? Dude, Sam, you realize you are in the wrong body. Man up and fake it through breakfast. I can see him being pissed that he can't get a hold of Dean and at Gary for the whole body swap, but how does acting like this help him fix things? I kinda expect more from Sam.

He definitely knows better than that. He could have played the part and gotten the information he wanted less confrontationally. He's faked it before. Give the dad a little rope, take a little info.

Or just go straight to the sister and ask her those questions and skip out on breakfast entirely and move on with your big plan. Assuming you knew Gary had a sister before breakfast.

I think that's a show of change in Sam, though. He doesn't really care much anymore about BSing, or covers. He wanted info, and he was going to get it, and he didn't really care much if the parents thought their kid had gone crazy.

Sam doesn't care much about nicey-nice anymore.

I agree. Sam has come a long way from the polite, sensitive soul he was in S1. I thought he did at least have the grace to look a little ashamed of himself after he blurted out that he didn't give a shit about the plan, either.

That change started during the year he was trying to figure out a way to break Dean's crossroads deal. He became more coldly pragmatic the more frantic he felt. He was focused on his goal and had less patience for the fuzzy issues around the edges... Dean's the one who soothes victims' families now during interviews, for example. That used to be Sam's role.

I'm wondering why Dean didn't notice his damn phone was MIA. And why Sam didn't call Bobby for help, or at the very least, moral support.