I think it's partially blinding to have John portrayed by someone as charming as JDM.

This is probably very true, especially for me.

I have my irrational spots, I admit. I'm way too willing to see his love for them with a wink in one episode, but objectively I know what happened in ... Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things? The one with the shtriga. Leaving a four-year-old (five? unclear) with a nine-year-old with hardly any food and expecting the nine-year-old to stay in that room and act as a guard, more or less, *is* insane. And wrong. And that's just one example out of many, even only implied. A Very SPN Christmas breaks my heart.

I just have to step back and think about it, because my initial reaction to John was colored by Dean's loyalty, and then bearded, older JDM showed up in Home and it was all over for me.

I'm sort of with Cass. I understand his reasons, and I'm not sure he wasn't actually correct in the way he raised them, because they actually did make it to adulthood so they could be warped and bitter about their terrible childhoods. I think leaving them with ordinary people might have put them in danger from the things that came after them later. So I'm not ready to say John was a bad father to these kids under those circumstances.

Sure, by ordinary standards he was a wackaloon, to quote the Terminator shrink. But none of them were dealing with ordinary circumstances, and if John had done what the scolds would have had him do, odds are the boys would have had happy, normal, short childhoods.

Bugs was the ep. One of the few redeeming facets of that ep. That and the fanny slap and the steam shower.

It's a sickness, I tell you. I tracked the vidder from YT to LJ and found the dl for What About Everything. It's here, if anyone besides me wants to add it to their library.

Thanks ita and Marcia. I was thinking that was the case but I didn't trust my memory.

Cass I agree with what you are saying in that if any of us saw this going on with a neighbor, we couldn't be silent, but in this particular verse, I think he did about as well as anyone could.

and he didn't know that Sammy was YED's pet kid until later, did he?

Again, I'm not trusting my memory, but I thought he didn't find out about what exactly killed Mary until later. There was some discussion when the boys talked to the owner of the gas station that had worked with John about early child care and Social Services being called. Seems like he tried to make a go of it there in Lawrence for awhile, until maybe he realized the magnitude of the lifestyle. Everything is bleeding together in my mind tonight.

eta: and what Bev said.

eta2: The striga episode is what makes me think there wasn't physical violence. Dean was devastated by John's reaction to not guarding Sam. This is how I picture him getting upset.

if John had done what the scolds would have had him do, odds are the boys would have had happy, normal, short childhoods

Why? What ongoing danger were they in? The YED didn't resurface in Sam's life until after he left for university, and until then, all the jeopardy we heard about was hunting-related, if any.

I keep reading people saying that Dean swore fealty to heaven in S4, but he didn't--they just had the audio in that S4 trailer (thanks for that DL link for the other vid, Bev), he swore to God and his angels. It may never come back, but he certainly wasn't talking about Zachariah or Michael in honest truth. Which he wasn't to know, but God would, right?

Arguably the lifestyle kept the boys under the radar of Azazel, or random supernatural ills and evils. They were certainly educated in possibilities of what could go bump, and they were trained in how to protect themselves and others. I can't see 16 year old Sam blasting away at video games in his adopted parents' basement lasting two minutes against Meg. "C'mere, little man, let me lick you." (shrug)"'kay." Chomp.

Dean might have turned out all right if he'd lucked out with parents who were willing to work with a silent, traumatised child who'd lost his mom, then had his baby brother taken from him and been abandoned by his dad. Four is old enough to remember a lot, and to be influenced for life by things you don't consciously remember. Adoptive parents willing to work with a difficult child aren't that thick on the ground, and the ones who are may not have the skills or the knowledge to help.

ETA and ITA about the S4 fealty-swearing. To God and HIS angels, not the rats with wings in Zachariah's dovecote.

Arguably the lifestyle kept the boys under the radar of Azazel

Demons never had a difficulty finding them, like, ever, though. I just figured that Azazel came for them when he was ready.

I love Dean like whoah, but did he turn out all right? He's a commitment-phobe alcoholic with no self-esteem who's only alive right now because his brother took one hell of a world-jeopardising risk on him.

I'm sure he'll be more okay by the end of the series, but right now, other than being a hero (and because, probably, he's a hero) he's not that okay at all. He's hanging on by a thread, a thread named Sam.

Sam who would have bought it or ushered in a demon overlord or happily become a meatsuit, that is true (Meg wouldn't have hurt him--it wasn't her mission). But I can't give John the benefit of that hindsight. He didn't even want the boy to take a free ride to college, he was so caught up in mission and protectiveness with no explicit evidence Sam was more at risk than anyone else.

because my initial reaction to John was colored by Dean's loyalty, and then bearded, older JDM showed up in Home and it was all over for me.

It's equal parts writing and casting (and acting and directing and a million other things, yes) because think of who John might have been with different casting. Hell, he might have been Cassie - the really interesting idea that crashed and burned badly.

I admit, JDM has been excellent in the role. Not just the pilot, but when he reappears in Home, you just want to feed him whiskey soup and give him a cuddle.

I keep reading people saying that Dean swore fealty to heaven in S4, but he didn't--they just had the audio in that S4 trailer (thanks for that DL link for the other vid, Bev), he swore to God and his angels. It may never come back, but he certainly wasn't talking about Zachariah or Michael in honest truth. Which he wasn't to know, but God would, right?

Okay, so he could be skating on a technicality. I can accept that because otherwise I couldn't figure out how they were sidestepping. Clearly I wasn't paying total attention.

but did he turn out all right?

A commitment-phobe alcoholic with no self-esteem who's only alive right now because his brother took one hell of a world-jeopardising risk on him that is PRETTY WHEN HE CRIES.

Yeah, Dean is broken. I hope he's slightly fixed or dead by the end, honestly. Giving the Dean we have in recent years another fifty years is too much torture.

And, yes, I want him fixed but I am more okay with series ending in death than others. Except Wesley. He didn't die. And Gunn survived too. ... I might be less okay with it than I think. New theory - Dean lives. Sam lives. Bobby lives (Shush, Jilli). And Missouri lives. Who else is still alive? Half-bro is a zombie, he deserves a moment of beautiful closure and then eternal rest where he can see his mom. Castiel is an angel of the lord.

I think Show just hurt my brain trying to think.

protectiveness with no explicit evidence Sam was more at risk than anyone else.

I have been searching this whole time for that gas station conversation. Clearly I need help.

In Home, the boys talk to the man that John co-owned the garage with and it's hard to keep straight what is in the scene and what is in the extended deleted scene. In the scene as in the aired episode, the man said that John doted on the kids. Sam clarifies this is before the fire. The man said John wasn't making sense saying that something killed Mary and went to see a palm reader. Then they discover Missouri is the psychic and John had written in his journal that Missouri told him the truth.

I would take from those pieces that John really believed that his family might still be in danger.

In the extended deleted scene on the dvd, the garage guy goes on to say that while they were in Lawrence things continued to get bad after the fire, the man called child services, John sold his half of the garage to buy guns and said his family was in danger, then disappeared.

I wish they had kept all that in the episode. It doesn't really change anything, but now I'm not going crazy trying to remember that conversation. Whew, sleep for the obsessed.

I'm with ita on John.

As for Flagstaff, we don't know how old Dean was there, but if he was over 15/16, I'd fully expect there was some shoving and pushing, if not John taking a swing at him.

I thought one weird moment in PoNR was when Dean wanted a beer and had to ask Sam to get out of the way of the fridge to get one. Sam doesn't actually say anything, but after the number of shots of him in the hotel room drinking while he writing the letter, it seemed pointed. In other words, I think Sam and probably Bobby would agree that Dean is a functioning alcoholic at this point, too.

Though Famine didn't see him as one, which I thought was interesting (as with the promos, I was totally expecting that to be the case). Either way, he's certainly a self-medicating untreated sufferer of major depression.