My feelings are...complicated about this episode. It's pretty clearly meant to advance the plot, and it does, and it gives us a really fascinating look into worldbuilding of the Supernatural universe and into the Winchester-Campbell history, but they...there are a lot of things that bother me on a consistency level, and this article with Robert Singer just makes me want to break things with the power of my still only vaguely coherent rage (an article on this will be forthcoming in the next couple of days, don't worry).
Spoilers and frank discussion of abuse, absence and neglect on the parts of fathers lay under the cut, so proceed with caution.
Okay, so. As is distressingly regular, this week's baddie is woman-shaped and presumably woman-identifying. Once again, monsterizing the female characters, and it really does make me wonder if they couldn't have, y'know, had Grandma Winchester be the important one for a change?
But beyond that, there's a lot of really uncool stuff going on with the Dad thing.
This show has never been particularly good at identifying the areas where John Winchester seriously fucked up his sons -- especially Dean. At least when Bobby was around, we had an outside opinion to turn to, and Bobby never really was a card-carrying member of the John Winchester fanclub. Hell, in Season 4, his response to Dean acting like his father would in a given situation is to say that Dean shouldn't, because he's a better man than his daddy ever was.
Of course, Bobby's dead now.
This means we only have the points of view of the abused -- because yes, maybe John did "the best he could," but that doesn't suddenly absolve him of his acoholism, his reciprocal abandonment of Sam when Sam decided to go to college, his single-minded resolve to avenge Mary, or the fact that the way Dean knew he was possessed by Azazel way back in Season 1 was that "John" said he was proud of Dean for using one of the Colt's bullets to save him, all of which are very telling as symptoms of being an abuser. Of these points of view, Sam's seems to be the most healthy regarding the whole grandfather Henry situation, while Dean consistently defends John and tries, at least at first, to blame it on Henry.
Considering Dean said himself that Dad was never there for Sam, but Dean was, and considering John forced Dean to play both mother and father to Sam while expecting that Dean be his instrument and his image -- the image of the con artist, the skirt-chaser, the brawn to Sammy's brains -- it's really fucking unsettling to see Dean defending him now.
Beyond this, I saw a lot of Michael in Henry Winchester, which was really awesome (though, considering the flagrant lack of continuity this episode otherwise presents, I doubt it's intentional). It was in the way he clung to his purpose -- another thing that Dean shares -- until he discovers what this will do to his family. Henry tries to fix his mistake, tries to save his son from becoming what he became without a father in his life, and Dean has to stop him. This is the kind of man Michael should have been for his brothers, and there are aspects to the way he moves and to his naïveté about the present day that is very evocative of angels (making me once again ache for dear lost Samandriel and broken Castiel).
I really did love Henry Winchester. I really did, and part of me wishes that he could have survived, and part of me wonders what would have happened in a world where Abbadon never came for the Men of Letters and John grew up with a wonderful man like Henry for a father. I wonder about the legacy the boys would have borne, how it would have changed the love story of John and Mary Winchester if John had been in the loop all along.
Speaking of Abbadon, can I just say that the lore introduced in this episode promises me many good things? Because it does. Abbadon is a demon from lore, like Azazel, so part of me was hoping and praying that she would share his yellow eyes, but what we got of her was really cool nonetheless. It makes me wonder about the rest of the Knights of Hell, and if it had only been her and Azazel left -- because Azazel was clearly in control in Hell in the early seasons, implying that he was at least her equal.
So, here's to hoping that future episodes will delve more into this new lore here, and that next time when John comes up, he isn't given a free pass for his abuse and neglect, however much it was that he "did the best he could."
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