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.

The alcoholic that Famine got was someone on the wagon. His victims were people who had been denying themselves something. He had been denying himself nothing that Famine could provide, which seemed to have the effect of tamping down on normal, and giving the Horseman nothing to work with.

Rewatching Home, my Missouri love is mighty. I so wish that she had more time with the boys.

Still holding out a wish that God turns out to be Missouri. They'll never go that way, but it would be AWESOME.

Apologizing before I begin for the serial posts:

Re: Sam -- I had mentioned I was “upset with what they've done with his character (or rather, with what they haven't done with his character) as the show's progressed that I have no faith in their treatment of him any longer.”

Where is it you want them to go with his character, Morgana?

I don’t know how coherent I can be tonight, I know I’m going to miss a lot, but I’ll do my best. I can say there’s a meta on lj by she_rockstar that between the meta and comments covers a lot of this material. But I’ll attempt a few thoughts of my own:

In the Pilot Sam was introduced as a young man who had been determined enough to get away from his itinerant, oppressive family that he found his own way to get to college against their very vocal and unforgiving opposition. It showed remarkable intelligence (he earned a full scholarship to Stanford that he maintained for 4 years, and was about to go to an interview for Law school) and strength of will to continue in the face of disapproval from his only family and especially from Dean, his primary source of emotional support his entire life.

I think all of this is indicative of someone amazing - someone that I'd like to know. Yet the show has not once, ever, shown this as being anything positive. Since it's written from Dean's point of view Sam's time at Stanford is always referred to as selfish, or as one of the times he “ran away.” This is one of the few shows on TV (at least that I watch) where someone who is strong and independent and intelligent is regularly regarded as being wrong for following that path. If he had stayed 'home' in the family business, that obviously would have been the correct thing to do. He would have been miserable, but John and Dean would have been happy, so it would have been right. (Interestingly it wouldn't have been 'selfish' on their part to force Sam to stay, it was just 'selfish' on Sam's part to leave.)

Remember when Sam had psychic dreams that told them about people who needed who needed their help? Did that ability just go away? What about the telekinesis that saved Dean’s life? We’ve never seen it again. Sam was being developed as a psychic power but they apparently just dropped that storyline.

In season 4 in particular too many of his actions were offscreen leaving us to try to interpret what the hell was going on, trying to make sense of his behavior. It went on long enough that by the time the writers got around to explaining things he had become unsympathetic to a large portion of fandom.

Then there was the whole Boy King thing. Azazel was grooming him. Lillith wanted to kill him, there were demons ready to follow him, the Seven Deadly Sins recognize him on sight, the Four Horsemen recognize him, all of which would indicate a certain level of potential incipient power for him, Sam, not just as Lucifer’s meatsuit, but that story’s dribbled away too.

More recently there have been things like Sam having been tarred by angels, demons and hunters alike as the sole being responsible for starting the Apocalypse. He gets to bear the guilt for that. There were 66 seals -- Dean himself broke the first one. Practically nobody else seems to know this. (We only find out Sam knows because of a throwaway line; it was a wasted dramatic opportunity). The demons and other hunters don't comment on it. Not to mention the other 64 freaking seals that had to fall before the Apocalypse could begin. But still, Sam gets all the blame.

A particularly huge issue is that once Dean has passed judgment upon something that’s the end of the discussion. Sam has never gotten the opportunity to explain that he didn’t “choose a demon over his brother,” and since this is such a tremendous stumbling block for them I really wish they’d get it out of the way. I know from Dean’s perspective Sam fucked Ruby and drank her blood and therefore betrayed him. From Sam’s perspective he was trying to get as strong as possible before the Lilith showdown and Ruby was a means to an end. Particularly once he had Dean back from hell – he wasn’t able to save Dean the first time; he was determined to be strong enough to save him this time. But we, and Dean, need to hear that from Sam.

An interesting point from the meta I linked:

Sam saying Yes or No is a big deal, especially when he’s capable of either. No matter how he swears he would never say yes, so far it seems he can be compelled by some very outstanding reasons. In Dean’s case, he can be seen as heroic either way: he says ‘yes’ to archangel Michael who will try saving mankind and destroying evil (who would be wearing Sam’s face, of course), or says ‘no’ and stays ‘true to himself,’ is still heroic for refusing to bend for beings he doesn’t trust and accuses of being “dicks with wings”.

me:Dean will struggle and suffer, I don’t doubt that, and I believe that whatever he does he will do with the best of intentions. But the deck is stacked; whatever he does, he’ll come out smelling like roses.

and

“It’s the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester” and “On the Head of a Pin” were two season 4 episodes where Sam technically saves the day, but isn’t regarded as a hero. Not even an anti-hero; he’s looked at as a man on a power trip, one who can’t get enough of his perceived superiority over humans and demons alike.

me:Whereas it’s going to be a whole lot harder for Sam to get to appear heroic.

And while I'm here, I call bullshit on the whole "all you ever do is run away" trope that Dean repeats so often that he actually has Sam believing and apologizing for it now. I looked over the episode list and tried to figure out how many times Sam actually ran away:

In 5.16 - Dark Side Of the Moon - we learned that at an undetermined age he had run away for 2 weeks - this incident is questionable, because it depends on his age at the time. If he was a child I'm inclined to forgive him because kids do dumb stuff; if he was a teenager it's more serious because he damn well should have considered the impact his leaving would have on Dean.

In 1.1 we find out he was in college - I refuse to consider this "running away." Dean, he went to college. He had a right to his own life. Millions of people do it. Grow up and get over your issues already.

1.11 - Scarecrow - Sam stopped the car after a nasty fight and insisted that he wanted to continue looking for Dad and the demon that killed Jess while Dean continued to follow orders. Went walking off down the road. Definitely counts as running away. Although, when there are only 2 of you in a car and you disagree on which direction to go, the only way it's going to end is with you going in opposite directions. Or with one of you in the trunk.

1.15 - The Benders - Sam was kidnapped. Doesn't count.

2.10 - Hunted - Sam was totally freaked out after Dean told him John thought maybe he'd go evil and that John had assigned Dean (who never turned down an order from Dad) the job of killing him if it happened. He took off to do some research on his dee-monic powers. Counts as running away.

2.14 - Born Under a Bad Sign - Sam was possessed by Meg. Doesn't count.

4.21 - When the Levee Breaks - Sam was strung out after the visions and enforced detox when Castiel opened the door. He was also convinced he had to stop Lillith to stop the Apocalypse and therefore, oh yeah, save the world. Counts.

5.2 - Good God, Y'All - Sam and Dean calmly discussed the situation and they agreed to separate because Sam shouldn't be hunting. Does not count as running away.

So unless I'm missing a lot of references, what I'm left with is: possibly the incident referred to in heaven, after the fight in Scarecrow, in Hunted, and in When the Levee Breaks. Three, or maybe four times over what?27 years? Yet Dean throws this at him as though it occurs every other week.