Aithne

They're doing the SXSW panel for The Boys today in Austin (new trailer for S3!), which both of them are a part of. Cute to see them in front of the Impala. ♥️

Well said! Really looking forward to having JA back on my TV, and I hope the Winchesters pilot gets made too, so I can even have Dean back on my screen, if only a little. He is such an iconic, memorable character, and to come out of this little WB/CW show. There are other characters that are sort of like him, archetype-wise, but he undermines the stereotypes at every turn. Your devil-may-care character is often selfish or cynical. Dean's a true believer in the mission of helping others, because of what he went through. Your drifter, love-em-and-leave-em bad boy is typically macho and doesn't really care about the gals he's with. Dean has a varied sex life that doesn't in any way indicate a need for control, he's sweet with his casual hookups but also outdid almost-engaged Sam when it came to intimacy in that he told Cassie what he did for a living, and he was by Lisa's assessment a decent partner and guardian to her son even while in the midst of terrible grief. Your incorruptible hero is typically serious and straight-laced, but Dean is down to earth and full of joie de vivre. And on the flip side, your class clown character isn't often the oldest child with an overdeveloped sense of responsibility, haunted by his perceived failures, compromising his own needs to protect his family. He just puts this really unique spin on so many different stereotypes, yet it all fits together seamlessly because of how JA played him - it just all felt totally organic. I don't know that there's ever been another character quite like him.

Berlanti, eh? Interesting! JA sure is keeping busy. Looking forward to hearing what comes out of The Boys panel, too!

Sort of! It basically is Dean between 5.19 and 5.20 - he and Sam are researching the truth of their parents and he's writing all of this down to set the record straight. He mentions that a journal was kept for every hunt, and they've been gathering every one they could find to piece together the story (or something to that effect). My possibly totally wrong take on this is that perhaps, in the aftermath of Chuck, they're realizing that what they were told by the Cupid / "saw" in the past / etc. might not have been 100% accurate - maybe this was manipulated by Chuck to better tell his story. These journals may provide proof that the truth of what happened was somehow different.

I read the first act of the leaked script, and I would say Mary's actress will make or break it. The character's understandably not interested in bringing this random dude along on her search, but the actress can probably choose to play that cool and dismissive, or with more of a tone of concern for a civilian who should stay out of it for his own safety. Presumably he's going to grow on her rather quickly and prove to be tough in his own right, but I'd definitely like to see the actress play it warmer rather than cooler in the beginning, more like Gumenick's Mary. (And hopefully that's what will be given to her for background research into who the character already is.)

I mean, I had a raging headache and only read the first act and the last scene (meant to sleep and read the rest when I got up and it was already gone), but I liked it a lot. Reminded me of early SPN - small interactions between people (John and his mom, John and Lata, Mary and Samuel) that told a lot about them, personal and small-scale goals (John finding out more about his dad, Mary searching for hers). If that's the real script, I'll be watching for sure. And what a pleasant surprise that we would actually see Dean on screen again!

I kind of like the idea that Dean was working on this in the months before his death, rather than from Heaven - I thought it was definitely going to be from Heaven previously, but it actually doesn't make a lot of sense that he'd be narrating, if that were the case. Why wouldn't John or Mary be telling the story instead? This as a journey of the brothers to uncover the truth after Chuck's meddling in their lives has ended is a rather bittersweet concept, especially knowing how quickly Dean's life is going to end after - and I like that he's the one putting it to paper, so to speak, because it's slightly subversive (you'd peg the college boy as the one who would be putting it all together), but also suitable (because Dean was the one, growing up, who put their family first).

I think of Mary Sue or Gary Stus as characters who are great at everything, always right, loved by everybody and shoehorned into everything, even when it doesn't make sense. A person who was trained from a young age in a particular skillset being more competent with that skillset than a person without the same training isn't a Mary Sue, to me. Otherwise, Dean and Sam would be Sues/Stus. We know John eventually catches up with time, just as Sam was eventually considered Dean's equal even though Dean had many more years of experience to start than Sam did. PAForrest, that's kind of where I am too, re: canon. What is canon, in the context of Chuck writing this story? Was any of the backstory of Mary and John actually legit, or was it part of the tale being spun for the boys about their special destiny? How could we ever know for sure? The alleged script has Dean narrating this post-5.19, and talking about setting the record straight - is this a discovery of how it all *really* happened, and not just the archangel vessel narrative that they were sold by Chuck and his minions? Because frankly, I never liked the idea that Mary and John were brainwashed into being a breeding pair to produce the boys, and I don't mind at all if that was just mindgames being played by Heaven against the brothers.

If anyone hasn't yet tried Peacemaker, I highly recommend it in general. But also, Christopher Heyerdahl shows up in a bit part halfway through and is still an incredibly entertaining sociopath even when he's not a demonic torture master. I was so excited to see him, but couldn't share with my husband because he hasn't watched SPN. So I'm here to share with you. Peacemaker. It's great, and CH is hilarious.

This might be kind of silly, but I have 2 little kids and we watched Encanto for the first time the other day. One of the characters is a teenage girl gifted with super strength, and she spends a lot of time doing work for others. She gets satisfaction out of being needed, but also feels weighed down under the immense, seemingly unending expectations that others put on her. Anyway, it's a musical and so there's a song about it, and there was so much in there that reminded me of Dean's relationship with his family and the expectations placed on him. From the reversal of "I glow 'cause I know what my worth is" to "I'm pretty sure I'm worthless if I can't be of service" to the recurring "Give it to your sister ... give her all the heavy things we can't shoulder" and "who am I if I can't carry it all?" Anyway, it's a good listen/watch, and while they're generally very different characters (Luisa is a lot more openly emotional than Dean - she's younger with good, loving parents and a much less traumatizing life), it definitely hit on similar themes of overburdening your most capable, helpful kid and what that ends up doing to their perceptions of themselves and their place in the family.

I think all three of those - Rufus/Bobby, MoL, and this one - would basically bring the same thing, which is MotW hunts in a different time period. I expect this to be Mary's hunting life in the early 70s, balanced with the disruptive effect of John's entry into her life. But generally, I'd expect this to be MotW-focused, just like I'd expect with a young!Rufus/Bobby spinoff or a MoL series. So I don't really think any of them would be measurably different in terms of what they'd bring to the table.

He has really pretty hair. Kind of a shame Dean always had to keep it short.

Aw, this is good to know, thanks for sharing! It's funny because you'd think there would always be somebody who could help steer an actor in his position (new to the show, playing an established character, etc) in the right direction, but with Dabb and Loflin writing, and a one-off director, it was the perfect storm for some OOC moments if the guest actor didn't get a lot of prep in.

ASS really drove home, if there was any remaining doubt after Yellow Fever's trivialization of his Hell experience as "being a dick", what Dabb and Loflin thought about Dean as a character. (Down to the parallel of Sam's bully being a wonderful caregiver at home but a despised and despicable brute in public.) Such a bummer that that guy ended up being showrunner for a quarter of the series.

They didn't seem to know what to do with her. Her level of villainy fluctuated with every ep, they didn't introduce her tragic backstory until her time on the show was already over, they seemed to want a flirtation with Dean in Red Sky at Morning but had her shoot Sam in her first ep, guaranteeing he'd never go for it. The idea of someone profiting off knowledge of the supernatural wasn't a bad one, but they should've had a clear idea who they wanted her to be and stuck with it.

It's endearing to me how much JA loves Dean, because I love Dean a lot too. It's sweet to know that so much care went into creating this character, and that he still is fond enough of him to mark his birthday long after the show ended. ♥️

Yeah, definitely believe that he loved them. I can't believe that anyone thinks otherwise. I think the love is just sort of thorny. Like, John's love for Sam is more of a straightforward thing where they're very alike personality-wise and butt heads because Sam is growing up and doesn't want to follow in Dad's footsteps. Classic tale. And John is worried about his safety if he leaves, so there's that conflict. John and Dean is so complicated, though, with the parentification and Dean taking on some of John's responsibilities re: caring for and providing protection for Sam, being trained up so early to help in a violent, dangerous profession, and according to John, taking care of him as well without complaint. I think John ended up feeling a bit of obligation, and remorse for not showing his love in a more visible/tangible way. Azazel had reached right in and pointed out something that had probably gone unsaid for Dean's whole life (that John rarely voiced concern or interest in him beyond how he could be useful to the family), and I think John was determined to come through for Dean, to prove that that loyalty ran both ways. I think it's all very complicated, but love is at the root of it.

One of the great things about taking a decade-long break from this show is coming back and feeling a great, renewed enthusiasm for all the things I loved so much back then. To wit - Dean and John and their totally screwed up relationship. I was just rewatching the Dean vs Dean scene and, although I think they laid the self-esteem stuff on a bit thick (does Dean actually hate himself or did he hate feeling like he'd failed his family? Maybe at this point those things were inseparable), I forgot just how blunt Dean's dream-self got with the condemnation of John as using Dean vs doting on Sam. And how Dean, when he explodes, is most angry about John's various failures - failing to protect his family, shoving his responsibilities onto Dean. So interesting. Not entirely fair across the board - dream!self claimed John didn't care if Dean died, when we know that he at least cared in 50% of the episodes in which Dean was dying, and Dean said John let Mary die, which, come on. There was nothing he could've done about that. But there were definitely some interesting nuggets in there regarding how Dean believes John saw him, and it's a little bleaker than my general headcanon about them. JDM's portrayal always seemed to me like a guy who had a temper and could get mean in an argument or petty after (like the jab about the car in DMB), but could also be decently affectionate if everything was going all right. Which is not to say he was very open (Dean's concern when John starts being sweet to him in IMToD tells that tale, as does his recognition that John's possessed in DT because John doesn't berate him over the bullet), but this scene seems to suggest that the relationship between them was maybe a little harder-edged than I typically think of it.

That is awfully strange, now that you mention it. Do podcasts often have writers?

This should be interesting! Will definitely enjoy revisiting the early seasons at least, and it's a nice way to keep interest in the show going while waiting for the prequel or some future sequel type thing.

Oh, The Winchesters is a hot prospect, is it? Nice! Didn't JA say in that Rosenbaum interview that they'd recently gotten the first script for it and he was really excited? I know there's a lot of skepticism about the premise, but I'm still interested to see what they're gonna make here. Hope it comes to fruition!

Like Aeryn13 said, I'm surprised they even picked this up. He's always been open about the issues on the Dark Angel set, so it's old news, and I think the majority of the world has probably forgotten the show even existed by now. I'm honestly surprised, though, at how frank he's always been about things like this. He's as open with the good things as with the bad, but I don't think I'd ever feel comfortable being that honest if I knew my words were going to be available worldwide.

Lovely, thank you!! So many layers to this because of all that that car represents - Dad, family, himself, the job. His whole life has been about protecting, and now one of his family members died for him and he may have to kill the other, so what was the point of any of it? Just a killer scene.

His dreams have good instincts. That gave me shivers - the long and lonesome road, giving up the family car because he no longer has the family, and driving off into an uncertain future. That would've been an iconic ending.

It's funny, because I kind of always thought that too. Maybe it's that he was the one who was most connected to the family and the quickest to sacrifice - that it would be the greater emotional impact to see Dean, of all of them, be the last one left. Maybe it's just the Frodo/Sam thing where I expect the one with the dark destiny to be taken away and the one who observes their journey / protects them to linger on to tell the story. But that's not really who they were anymore after S5, so I can see where it wouldn't have made sense in the end.