Sickness struck, it felt like, between one breath and the next at about 3:30 p.m. Thursday. I spent yesterday at home feeling kinda miserable and catching up on The Daily Show.

I also watched SPN 505, and ended up with these sort of babbly thoughts about everything leading up to now:


This is a very simple take on it all, of course, but with the muzzy head happening, I needed to line things up visually for myself.

S1 Dean and Sam joined up, jostled against each other, and finally settled together into a pretty sturdy unit, which stood even when John re-entered the picture. The only real secret they had between them didn't last past mid-season. They aren't without their issues, by any means, but they ended on near-equal footing. (In a crushed Impala that I will NEVER forgive Kripke for, sorry, had to say that.)

S2 started with them wrong, Dean holding a secret that was based on an element of not being equal with Sam: the original heightened big-sibling sense of "look out for him" layered with a new directive to "watch out for what he may be" and the kicker of "stop what he may become." That's not buddies. Or partners. That secret also only lasted until mid-season, but the situation it created didn't die with the revelation. And they ended with ultimate expression of not being equal -- trading their lives (hello, John Dean!) -- which really wasn't affected by Sam's insistence that it's his job to look out for Dean as much as it's Dean's to look out for him.

S3 keeps up that imbalance, Dean sometimes going so far as to demand that Sam stop trying to save him/look out for him. Ruby wasn't helping matters, but at the core of it all is Dean essentially saying, "I'm allowed to die for you. You're not allowed to die for me." i.e., "This is what I've decided, and you will follow."

S4 went off the rails. Sam had functioned long enough without Dean that Dean picking back up with the dynamic he knew was going to rub things wrong even if Ruby wasn't being the biggest wrench to ever wrench. Welcome back to where they were in Asylum...with, again, the help of a supernatural kick along with a little human revenge, a little human ego, and a little human idealism (hello, John Sam!), fester for 30 mins or until done, and welcome to the clusterfuck of the Winchesters in S4.

So, I am doing cartwheels that S5 needs them to become true partners. It doesn't need them to forgive, forget and play nice; it needs them to be honest about everything. I am thrilled that is now out there. I expect plenty of bumps and bruises along the way -- because wow, do they ever have conditioning to break -- but \o/.


Looking back, I miss doing the picspams.

Anyway. This morning, I suddenly needed to watch Nightshifter. I don't know. But pulling out my S2 DVDs, I realized I couldn't not watch In My Time of Dying, and who could turn down Sammy's issues with clowns, and then there's Dean's contempt for cops, and never ever count out the power of a running slide, and my plan for the day turned into watching a lot of Winchesters. (Not-so-random observation: they lit Dean well in S2. Not that they don't now, but, yeah.)