::gallops about screaming and gnawing furniture::
I'll try and summon something more than "omgsqueeeeee ::flailcollapse::", but it's going to be tough.



::scrabbles at desk with claws:: Ggrraawwrrrrr! I was so wound up waiting to watch this, by the time the 'the story so far' came on i was nearly at the point of chewing my own arm off with tension. And man, the episode didn't help! I was so shocked they *actually* killed Sam, that it felt like i spent the first five minutes hyperventilating. I just thought they were playing with us, with the ending of 21, and he'd wake up in hospital or something, or the YED would turn up and save him for some eeeevil plan.
But no, we got his dead body looking damn deaditty dead, and Dean looking like this was it, like this was the moment he cracked in two and his sanity fell off the face of the earth. And surely, it was, because he would have done that devil's deal even if he got no time at all, i know it.

For some reason i loved the fact that Dean has Sam's body lying there, set all peaceful, and yet he knew and we knew that if he tried to lift Sam's hand or something it'd be set with rigor mortis, and his skin would be deathly cold. His calm face, tipped to the side to look at Dean, was this terrible gentle deception, something Dean was clinging to desperately.

The other part i adored, was when the YED had Dean up against the gravestone, and was whispering to him about Sam not being quite Sam anymore. That view of Dean staring at Sam as poisonous things are fed to him, as the YED spreads fear and doubt between the brothers, to make them distrust and lose their strength. Wait, i might have to screencap, i love that moment so much...



And then, as the YED finishes his bit about Sammy not being 100% himself, Dean's mouth twitches as if he's trying to summon a joke, something snarky and rebellious, to show this bastard he's not scared, but it stutters across his face like a grimace, fails, and he says nothing at all.



Bobby was fantastic, also. I love: "are you that screwed up in the head?!", and how much he seems to love those boys and fear for Dean.
And overall i think the dynamics between Bobby&Dean and Sam&Dean were so satisfying, because Dean was in a such a state that for once they could see that vulnerability and were able to go softer on him, rather than just rage and rage and then leave. Dean makes it so easy for people to leave, because he blocks them out. But mostly in this episode his walls were failing, and Bobby and Sam (in the end scene for Sam) were getting glimpses of how fragile he was. How desperate he was, and how that led him to do the things that would otherwise make them so angry.

And perhaps the thing i found the saddest (and my god wasn't this episode just one concentrated helping of sad) was how terribly relieved Dean was at the end of the ep, as they gathered around the car. His smiles were geniune, he looked energised and happy, and ready to get stuck in to things again. Because whereas he can't deal with the idea that Sam could be at risk, or dead, or hurt, he can deal with his own suffering - to an extent that it helps him. To know he's the one in danger, he can cope with that. The peril he is now in means he is constantly paying the debt he feels he owes to his family. Every second he lives now is one less second of his year, and one second in the payment he is making for his brother. His purpose.

This coming season is going to be one *hell* of a lesson in characters, i can't wait to see where they go next! Now then, when the hell is the first episode airing...?