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META: A Very Supernatural Christmas
Supernatural episode eights seem to be cursed in my 'verse. Season one ep 8 was Bugs, which I tend to skip when I watch the season because - despite some good moments - it's so very bad. Season two ep 8 was Crossroad Blues, which I still cannot watch in its entirety. It hurts too damn much and I always, always bail before the final act. I just can't go there. Season three ep 8 gave me A Very Supernatural Christmas which I'm never going to watch again because I'm bloody offended by what the writers chose to say about my religion. They could have told the same story without causing offence; they chose not to. So screw 'em.
But maybe I'll make myself an edited version of the episode because, actually, there was some stuff in there I really want to talk about.
Sam: Secrets, Lies and Loss of Innocence
As with so many SPN episodes, the little teaser scene which opens the episode encapsulates the themes of what we are about to see. A boy, all excited about Christmas, greets grandpa with eager chatter about gifts and Santa Claus. Later, grandpa puts on the Santa-suit to pile gifts under the tree, carefully jingling bells to let the boy know it's time to come and secretly spy on "Santa". The boy peers through the banisters with innocent fascination, with absolute belief in grandpa's lie. Until, moments later, the boy's innocence is shattered. Grandpa is slaughtered right in front of the boy: the child must face the reality of monsters at the same time as learning Grandpa lied to him all those Christmases.
From this we segue straight into the "normal" life of the Winchesters: the FBI-impersonation, the investigation of a family home where someone died horribly, the clues discovered and discussed. It's Christmas, but for these two, it's just another day on the job. Heroes don't get holidays.
Back in the motel room, the typical scene continues with Sam researching on the laptop, sharing a little banter with Dean while he works. But here, the first odd thing happens: Sam makes reference to a movie, and Dean (apparently) hasn't got a clue what he means. With all the TV and movie references in Supernatural, from Gumby and Pokey (referenced in The Kids Are Alright) to Dean's love of The Shining, I think this is the first time one of them has referenced a movie and the other doesn't get the reference.
Why is this significant? Because the movie in question is Mary Poppins, a saccharine musical about a couple of kids with a father who is frequently absent because he's obsessed with his job, enjoying a fantasy-land party with a nanny and a chimney sweep, and eventually ending with all the happy, loving family united. It's the perfect vision of the childhood Sam believes he should have had. Dean, who got four years of a "normal" childhood doesn't recognise the movie at all. Sam, who believes he was cheated of "normal", has this movie as a fond memory - you can tell from the way he references it, a joke about Dick Van Dyke, a smile, expecting Dean to laugh. It underscores that, in fact, it's Sam who had the "normal" childhood.
The next exchange brings home the family Christmas theme:
DEAN: There is no Santa.
SAM: Yeah, I know. You're the one who told me that in the first place.
It's actually fairly typical in families for the older sibling to be the one to spoil the Santa-fantasy for the younger. It's a mean thing to do, a betrayal. But for Sam, as the episode goes on to reveal, it means something very different: You told me the truth.
The Santa-village is itself a mirror of the episode themes: a children's fantasy-land on the surface, but the veneer is thin. The signs and coloured huts are old and in need of a lick of paint; Santa is an old drunk who walks with a limp (probably repetitive strain injury from all those kids bouncing on his knee) and two young men watching happy children playing are instantly assumed to have sinister motives. Here, Dean articulates his wish to celebrate Christmas for once. Sam, whose memories of childhood are tainted by resentment, is having none of it.
DEAN: We had some great Christmases!
SAM: Whose childhood are you talking about?
The exchange neatly reverses the earlier impression of their respective childhoods. Here, Dean has the normal childhood, with good memories of Christmas and all the things that go with that (except maybe Santa), and Sam is the one who doesn't get it.
This takes us neatly into the first flashback, where little Sammy is using an old magazine to wrap a Christmas gift for Dad. But Dad's not there. He was, we may assume, off killing some supernatural nasty just as his sons are doing at Christmas in the present day. Dean is left in loco parentis and young Sammy has a secret. But in this first flashback, we don't know that. Instead we witness what is probably a typical brotherly scene: Sammy's questions deflected with affectionate insults. Until Sam mentions Mom. Instantly, Dean flies off the handle: "Shut up! Don't you ever mention Mom!" and storms out of the room.
It seems an over-reaction. But is it? Mary died on November 2nd when Dean was four years old. It's the defining event of Dean's life: the thing that ripped his childhood away forever. From the semi-canon of John's Journal we know that the police officially declared the case closed right before Christmas that same year. Four-year-old Dean may not have known this, but it certainly affected his life in a huge way. From the same source we also know that John tried to give Dean a real Christmas that year, but I'll bet it was a horrible Christmas for little Dean. Trying to celebrate and be happy with his Mom dead and Dad broken up by grief. Not fun at all.
When Dean returns in the second flashback, he immediately assumes the role of parent: he's brought supper (albeit a chips-and-candy supper). But Sam takes up the original conversation, almost as if Dean never left. Though he obeys Dean's admonition not to mention Mom, he is more pushy this time. We learn Sam's secret: he's been reading John's journal and now he's determined to get answers.
The first thing in the Journal is the story of Mary's death. Those entries are raw grief and confusion, disjointed and incomplete. Imagine this eight year old boy reading that, discovering for the first time that something horrible happened to the Mom he can't remember. Imagine him reading on, finding all the bad things he imagines are in fact real. Imagine what courage it must have taken for him to demand the truth from Dean. From Dean, not from Dad.
Sam may not have gotten a clear picture of Mary's death from the journal, but he learned enough. Yet he confronts Dean bluntly, oblivious of his brother's pain. At eight, obliviousness is normal, but the scene is a mirror of the scene in Shadow where Dean finally tells Sam he doesn't want him to leave: Sam pushing painful buttons, apparently oblivious, until Dean is forced to reveal truths he doesn't want to share. (And I don't think that's a coincidence, or merely consistent characterisation, because Shadow is another episode where John is supposed to be there, but shows up a little after the main event. But that's a digression. I'm talking about Sammy bullying answers out of Dean...)
What's interesting to me is that when Sammy finally does get the answers he's after, what Dean says and what Sam hears are not the same thing. For example:
DEAN: We have the coolest Dad in the world. He's a superhero.
SAM: Dad said the monsters under my bed weren't real.
(Sam hears: Dad lied about the monsters under the bed.)
SAM: Is Santa real?
DEAN: No.
(Sam hears: Dad lies about the good things, too.)
Sam doesn't take on board that Dean has been lying to him, too. Dean supports John's lies, deflects Sam's questions, but it's Dad lying that Sam cares about.
[Here's where I have to digress into something personal, because I know exactly what Sam feels in that moment. My Dad died when I was six and my mother lied to me about exactly what happened and when. Thirty years later, I completely understand why she did it, and I have some idea what she must have been going through at the time. But when I discovered she'd lied, two years after Dad died, all I understood was that for a few hours that day I'd been playing and having fun when my Dad was dead. I never fully trusted my mother again.]
And that's very similar to Sammy's response to uncovering the lies. John didn't lie to be cruel; he lied to protect Sammy, to preserve his innocence for as long as possible. But because John succeeded, because Sammy is a normal kid, all he sees is that the father he trusted lied to him. Sam may have forgiven that eventually, but he never completely trusted John again. We see this most clearly in Dead Man's Blood, where almost everything Sam says to John is either a question or an objection, and again in In My Time of Dying, where Sam was convinced that John would put revenge above even Dean's life. All because of this one moment, when Sam first understands that Dad lied.
More importantly, Sam is scared. He's joined the dots from what he found in the journal to the reality of the life he's living. If monsters are real, and monsters killed Mom, and Dad fights monsters, then Dad could die, too. "They" could get Sam.
Notice, though, that the one thing little Sammy doesn't say is "They could get you." He says "us", "Mom" and "Dad" but never "you" (Dean). Little Sammy can't conceive of Dean's death as separate from his own. The irony is painful, the retrospective foreshadowing bitter.
In Woman In White, when Dean derides Sam's "normal, apple-pie life", Sam's response is "Not normal. Safe."
A few episodes later, in Phantom Traveller, came this exchange:
SAM: I just forgot, you know? This job - man, it gets to you.
DEAN: Well, you can't let it. You can't bring it home like that.
SAM: So, what? All this - it never keeps you up at night? Never? You're never afraid?
Fear. Fear was a constant in Sam's life. It was what he ran away from, the reason he didn't want to return to "the family business". He resented John for failing to protect him, not from the monsters but from his fear of them.
SAM: I was nine years old! He was supposed to say "Don't be afraid of the dark."
Fear. And this Christmas is when that fear was born for him. No wonder, in the present day, he doesn't want to celebrate, when all it's gonna do is remind him that his very worst fear is about to be realised.
More irony comes in the last flashback. Dean, who must be scared himself as he realises that Dad isn't going to make it in time, has done his best to give Sammy the "normal" Christmas he wants. He's stolen a tree, lights, even gifts. All things considered, he's done a bang-up job.
And he lies to Sammy, claiming Dad was there to deliver it all. But Sammy doesn't care that Dean's lying. He sees through that lie, understands that Dean is trying to be nice. He rejects Dad, explicitly so by giving the gift meant for him to Dean instead. It's a seismic shift in the family dynamic. It's Sam's moment of growing up. It's when he lost his innocence. But he had Dean to turn to.
And I think that's why, in the present, Sam gives Dean the Christmas he wants.
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