"Whatever stupid thing you're about to do, you're not doing it alone, and that's that."

Damn, this episode slayed me. Poor Dean! *hugs Dean* And poor Sam, as well, while we're at it. *hugs Sam, too*

This really has been Dean's season, with the focus on him an awful lot of the time. He's an extremely charismatic and versatile character played by a very strong actor, easily capable of carrying the show. But in a show with only two regular characters, it would be nice to see a bit more of Sam from time to time, too! Sam's emotional journey this season has been viewed almost entirely from the outside, whereas Dean's has been explored in detail from the inside. Surely focus on one doesn't have to exclude the other quite as much as it sometimes does. If nothing else, I don't want JA – or Dean – to burn out, or for JP/Sam to become stale.

Then.

"Dad wants us to pick up where he left off: saving people, hunting things – the family business."

Then revolves almost entirely around what the Winchester boys have lost: their family home, their parents, Jessica, law school – any chance either of them ever had of leading normal, happy lives.

Sam insists that he's not gonna just ditch the job, but Dean, in a rare moment of honesty, says to screw the job. "We don't get thanked, we don't get paid. The only thing we get's bad luck."

Now.

New plates on the Impala! CNK 80Q3. Damn, that hurts more than it should, and yet is also a huge relief, because it's about time those boys started taking their fugitive status seriously.

Dean drives alone through the night, answering his phone when it rings. It's Sam, calling from the motel of the week, in a state of anxiety.

Sam: "There's a cop car outside."
Dean: "You think it's for us?"
Sam: "I don't know."
Dean: "I don't see how, I mean, we ditched the plates, the credit cards…"

The police car drives away, and Sam heaves a sigh of relief that it was just a false alarm. And this was a nice little follow-on from last week's episode, Dean giving every impression of comfort and confidence, whether he actually feels that way or not, and Sam openly nervous as hell about being so very much on the run. Their legal predicament is worse now than it has ever been, and Sam is more deeply implicated in that now than he has ever been, and it isn't sitting well with him.

Sam: "Being fugitives, it's a freakin' dance party."
Dean: "Hey, man – chicks dig the danger vibe."

Here seems as good a place as any to say how nice it's been to have happy-go-lucky Dean back in recent episodes. It's like he bottomed out on how miserable he could get, and came back up for air. Whatever the reason, I like it. But I especially like catching glimpses of the deeper undercurrents beneath that insouciant surface he uses as a mask. Just lately those undercurrents have been manifesting mostly as recklessness – like deliberately getting sent to jail in order to hunt a ghost. He never would have suggested that a year ago, and possibly not even six months ago. Then again, they both have a lot less to lose now than they did then.

The brothers conversationally exposit that Dean is out scouting around the neighbourhood where all the recent victims of their latest hunt disappeared, while Sam researches what could be behind these disappearances.

"I've got diddly-squat," Dean sighs. "What about you?"

We catch a glimpse of the vast array of books Sam has got spread out before him, and my, that's a library and a half to be toting around the country in the back of the car. He has come to the conclusion that they are hunting a djinn.

Dean: "A freaking genie? You think that these suckers can really grant wishes?"
Sam: "I don't know. I guess they're powerful enough, but not exactly like Barbara Eden in harem pants. Djinn have been feeding off people for centuries."

Check out Sammy knowing a little bit about TV interpretations of the genie legend! His pop culture knowledge isn't so shabby after all, just limited. Dean is easily distracted by the thought of hot TV genies versus TV witches. Sam snippily draws his attention back to the job, explaining that his research indicates that djinn like to lair up in ruins. Dean remembers seeing a derelict building a couple of miles back, and decides to go check it out. Sam immediately tries to nix that idea, wanting Dean to come pick him up first rather than go in alone, but Dean insists it'll be fine, that he's just going to look around. Like I said: reckless. He hangs up, leaving Sam, concerned and frustrated, to huff his annoyance to the empty room.

And viewers by now are starting to twitch, because there has been no case establishing teaser, and the only time we ever start an episode straight off with the boys mid-job generally indicates that something is going to happen to one of them…

Derelict building. Dean pulls up, and heads inside to have a look around. Flashlight-fu ensues, and viewers get to catch glimpses of some kind of creature stealthily stalking Dean as he searches. Because Dean has very finely honed instincts, he quickly realises that he isn't alone, readies his blood-tipped knife, and spins…. Nothing there. The djinn is really stealthy. Plus, supernatural, which is generally an advantage.

Dean prowls around the corridors a little more, and then wham! The elaborately tattooed djinn slams him into the wall, knocks the knife from his hands, and presses a glowy blue hand to his head, just like that. Stealthy, fast and strong, not to mention the nifty special effects. Dean's eyes roll back into his head.



Titles.

TV. A late-night horror movie quietly plays out onscreen. Thunder crashes, and Dean wakes up in bed. He's topless – thank you, producers – and wearing a chain rather than his amulet, and has no idea where he is or how he got there. He's even more startled when he realises that he's in bed with an unknown brunette of the female variety. No derelict house, no djinn, no motel, no Sam….



Having quickly found and flung some clothes on, Dean cautiously explores his unexpected new surroundings. It's a house, utterly unremarkable in its normality. Ooh, and there's a guitar left lying around. That's a nice little detail.

Dean gets straight on the phone and calls Sam, who wonders what's going on. Dean hisses that he doesn't know, doesn't know where he is. "The djinn, it attacked me."

"You're drinking gin?" Sam seems deeply amused by the notion.

Still too freaked to have worked out yet what's going on, Dean hisses at him again about the scary creature that put its hand on him and then he woke up "next to some hot chick."

"Carmen?" says Sam. Dean is startled again, especially as Sam continues: "You're drunk, you're drunk dialling me."



Dean protests that he isn't drunk, but Sam brushes him off, pointing out that it's late and that he should get some sleep. Dean is frustrated as his brother hangs up on him, and, a long way away in California, Sam laughs to himself at his brother's apparently drunken antics and closes the book he'd been studying – a book on criminal law and procedure.

With Sam proving so spectacularly to be not only of no use whatsoever in helping him figure out what's going on, but also to be a part of the problem, Dean is left alone to fret. Spying some mail left lying around unopened, he rifles through it in the spirit of investigation. The first envelope is addressed to one Carmen Porter of 53 Barker Avenue, Lawrence, Kansas. Reading the name Lawrence sends a shiver down Dean's spine, for reasons I trust anyone reading this will be only too well aware, and he quickly looks at the next envelope – addressed to Dean Winchester, also of 53 Barker Avenue, Lawrence, Kansas.

Dean is still gaping in disbelief when that unknown brunette of the female variety he woke up in bed with, and who has subsequently been identified as Carmen by both Sam and the mail, wanders into the room to ask what he's doing out of bed. Flustered, Dean awkwardly bluffs his way through a conversation with her. And here is where I start to notice that fantasyland-Dean looks younger than regular-Dean – less worn down by a hard life. Nice, subtle makeup job.

Guessing that Dean can't sleep, Carmen's all, "why don't you come back to bed and we'll see if I can do anything to help," and Dean's face is a picture, because having a gorgeous woman inviting him to bed without any flirtatious effort on his part whatsoever is like his ideal scenario, and yet. He's not that much of a horndog that being so freaked out by whatever the hell is going on doesn't come first. Plus, although she seems to know him, he doesn't know her from Adam, and this is too alarmingly weird to ignore. So, he humours her, tells her to go ahead – and is a little taken aback when she kisses him goodnight, what with his regular flings never really getting to that stage – and she goes back to bed leaving him alone. He watches her go with a fabulous 'what the hell?' expression all over his face.



Once Carmen is out of sight, Dean stops pretending to be happy and fine, and gets right back to being freaked, with a side of bewilderment. JA absolutely nails it, his reactions simply perfect. Dean goes over to the bookshelf and examines the photographs on display – one very professional looking shot of Carmen relaxing on a beach someplace, and several more casual snaps of the two of them together, the picture of the happy couple.

Then his eyes fall on another photograph, and we don't get to see what it is, but he freezes for a moment before slowly walking over to take a closer look, hardly even daring to breathe, eyes wide with disbelief and dread and hope. He looks at the picture for a moment, and then drops it onto the floor, breaking the glass, as he bolts out of the house.

The Impala pulls up outside the old Winchester family home. Must be a relief to Dean that at least he still has his car, even if the rest of the world as he knows it has been turned upside down. He's still got that look of mingled disbelief and dread and hope as he gets out of the car and goes and bangs on the door.

The door opens, and Dean just about stops breathing on the spot. For it is the long-dead Mary Winchester herself on the other side of it. She barely seems to have aged at all, despite the fact that in this universe she's the mother of a guy who's pushing thirty. That's an interesting detail. She has been aged a bit, and it's a very subtle makeup job, but the Mary we're seeing here is drawn mostly from a toddler's memory of her.

"Mom?" Dean's got that little-boy-lost note in his voice now. We haven't heard that since his last conversation with John in In My Time Of Dying, and he's staring at her like…well, like she's been dead for more than 20 years and is suddenly alive and well and right in front of him.

Having been woken up in the middle of the night, Mary wonders what her firstborn is doing there. Dean almost flinches when she touches him. He's got no reaction prepared for this. Mary asks if something's wrong. Dean whispers that he doesn't know, and all Mary's maternal instincts come surging to the fore, so she ushers him inside, telling him that Carmen just called and told her that he'd taken off all of a sudden. Dean's all, "Carmen? Right." He'd forgotten all about her, can't take his eyes off his mother.

"Let me ask you a question." Hunterly instincts reassert themselves, telling him to check, that he needs to be sure. "When I was a kid, what did you always tell me when you put me to bed?"

Mary doesn't understand where all this is coming from, but Dean more forcefully now tells her to answer the question, so she does: she told him angels were watching over him. That, right there, is one of the few memories he has of his mother; he shared it with Sam in Houses of the Holy. Right here and right now, I'd say he could almost believe it again. Checking that she really is his mother, or checking that he's been remembering it right all these years. Maybe a little of both.

"I don't believe it." Dean sweeps the very bewildered Mary up into an enormous bearhug. Mary hugs him back, but is getting worried now, and wants to know what's going on.

"You don't think that wishes can really…?" Dean begins, but then tells her to forget it and gives her another enormous hug. He's got the best part of 24 years of motherlessness to hug out still. "I'm happy to see you, that's all," he massively understates by way of reassurance. "You're beautiful."



Pulling himself back together, Dean puts Mary back down and wanders over to a nearby bookshelf, asks her if there was ever a fire in the house when he was young. Still checking the lie of the land in this strange new world he's been so unexpectedly catapulted into, and needing clarification on the most salient points. Mary is bemused, because no, there was never a fire in the house. Dean murmurs that he'd thought there was, must've been wrong, now studying another set of photos – photos of all four Winchesters, John and Mary raising their boys together, the whole family united and complete.

Having his family all together and safe is all Dean has ever really wanted to have for himself, we've already been told that many times: it's the grandest ambition he's ever harboured, and these photographs right here in front of him are evidence of a lifelong dream come true. All he's lacking are the memories of that normal, safe life. Oh, and it just kills me that for the pictures we see in close up they've used actual photos of JA and JP when they were young. The glimpses we've had of old family photos before now have always used random child actors who may or may not have looked anything like the boys, but having the actors provide actual old photos of themselves adds so much realism and poignancy to this scene.



"Dad's on a softball team!" Dean disbelieves, picking up a picture of John, and then hastily corrects himself in an attempt to sound less surprised. "Dad's softball team, that's funny to me."
"He loved that stupid team," Mary softly remembers, and Dean looks up sharply at that past tense.
"Dad's dead?" he murmurs, getting it immediately – not such a perfect family life after all.

Even in his fantasy, it seems, Dean can't get past the fact of John's death, can't unmake that sacrifice. Or maybe there is just nothing in even the deepest recesses of his mind from which to construct a happy John unscarred by tragedy and obsession. The memory of John as he was is too powerful.

"And the thing that killed him was, uh…" Dean fishes for clues.
"A stroke," Mary reminds him, puzzled, because from her point of view he should know all this, having lived through it. "He died in his sleep, you know that."
"That's great," murmurs Dean, unable to help himself, given the circumstances of John's actual death.
"Excuse me?" There's a sharp note in Mary's voice now, and really, from her point of view who can blame her?
Dean hurriedly backtracks, but doesn't take back the sentiment. "That's great…that he went peacefully, I mean it sure beats the alternative…"

Oh, and the little hitch in his voice there as he remembers the alternative just kills me dead. He still can't think about John's sacrifice without pain, knowing that his dad is burning in hell for his sake, so the thought of John resting peacefully now…. JA's whole performance throughout this episode kills me dead: such a wide range of emotions and so many subtle nuances. I am a doornail, no need to ask me how.

"You've been drinking." Mary reaches the same conclusion that Sam came to after about five seconds of conversation earlier. Dean almost brokenly says that he hasn't, mind still on his Dad. Mary ignores that to tell him she's going to call Carmen to come pick him up, and that jerks him back into life and action, hurriedly stopping her before she can pick up the phone and telling her he wants to stay there. Wants to stay with his miraculously alive again mother rather than the live-in girlfriend he's never met before and therefore has no emotional connection to. Except that he doesn't say that last bit. Mary bemusedly wonders why he wants to stay over, and he doesn't really have an answer to give that would make sense, so lamely mumbles something about missing the place, which is true, and for her to go back to bed.

He sits himself down on the sofa, just drinking in the sheer fact of being there, in the old family home, with his Mom. Softening up once more from her puzzled bewilderment, Mary fondly strokes his face and asks again if he's all right. Regrouping, Dean says he thinks he is, so she gives him a kiss goodnight, which, again, he just soaks up like rain in the desert, starved of that affection for most of his life. Then Mary heads back off to bed, with a gentle suggestion that he get some rest and an "I love you," by way of goodnight.

"Me too," Dean tells her, as he is left alone surrounded by the evidence of their happy family life in this strange new world.

Morning. Dean wakes up on the sofa in the old family home, and the first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is a Christmas photograph of John and Mary with a very young Dean and Sam, both pre-teen, all four of them wearing matching sweaters. He's shocked all over again as the events of last night slowly sink back in, and his first instinct, again, is to call Sam. In the real world Sam is the only person in his life, all he has left of this life they might have had, and needing to talk this through with him, share this with him, is ingrained habit, bone-deep. But this time he just gets voicemail.

University. "I don't think I've seen you in my class before," puzzles the professor Dean has come to for research advice, in the absence of Sam. It's kinda like Scarecrow – we've seen before that Dean can and will do the research alone if he has to, but if he can call in outside expertise instead to point him in the right direction and save valuable time, he will. He bluffs his way through a pretence of attending and loving the man's classes, before getting right down to the salient point: what can the professor tell him about djinns?

Pulling out a few relevant texts, the professor begins to lecture on the subject of djinns in mythology, but Dean doesn't have the time or patience to listen to all that, not least because he already heard it all from Sam, so tells him to skip to the wish part. "Do you think they could really do it?"

The professor looks slightly worried about the mental state of this supposed student, as he carefully points out that these are just legends. Dean hastily assures him that he knows that, he meant in the context of the stories. "Say you had a wish, but you never even said it out loud. You know – like that a loved one never died, or that something awful never happened"

Still a little befuddled, the professor concedes that yes, in the stories the djinn were supposed to have godlike power. "They can alter reality however they want: past, present, future."

"Why would the djinn do it?" Dean wonders, because he's got a suspicious mind, and knows damn well that miracles never come free. "Self defence? Or maybe it's not really evil."

The professor eyes him guardedly, and wonders if he's been drinking. Dean sighs. "Everybody keeps asking me that, but, uh – no."

That everyone keeps asking Dean if he's been drinking suggests to me, not so much that Fantasy-Dean might have a drinking problem, but that drunkenness is the only explanation the people around him can come up with for the bizarre behaviour he's displaying right now and the odd questions he's asking, as he flounders in this world he's been plunged into and tries to find his balance. His subconscious mind knows how normal people react to the kinds of questions he and Sam have to ask when working a job, and is projecting that onto the people around him in this fantasy world. It also suggests that he also knows himself to be a guy who enjoys a drink, and that with an image like this that can be misinterpreted, even if he doesn't ever drink to excess, not that we've seen on the show. He expects people to think the worst of him.

Outside, Dean opens the trunk of the Impala and finds no hidden compartment and no weapons – just a lot of random clutter of the kind found in regular cars. "Who'd have thought, baby – we're civilians."

And he doesn't look unhappy about that, for all his careful research into what's going on and what the djinn might have done to him. He's prepared to believe that it might not be evil, that it might have simply given him this amazing gift – maybe wants to believe it.

Then he turns around and sees a pallid young girl standing staring at him across the street, dressed all in white – a sign of something ghostly in the offing, if ever there was one – and apparently unseen by anyone else around her. A civilian Dean might be in this life, but he's still got all the memories, training and instincts of a hunter of the supernatural, and all those instincts instantly fire up. He starts to walk toward the girl – only to almost get hit by a passing car, because of his attention being focused in the wrong direction. When he looks again, the girl is gone, as if she was never there.

Dean files that one under 'curious, keep eyes open', and heads back to the car.

Winchester Family Home. Dean is in absolute bliss, digging into a homemade BLT and effusive in his praise for it. "Best sandwich ever!" If only because it's the first sandwich his mother has made for him since he was four years old, not that she knows that. Plus, of course, Dean's love of food is epic under any circumstances. Dean casually mentions that he tried to get hold of Sam earlier, wonders where he is, and Mary assures him that Sam will be there soon. "Good," says Dean. "I'm dying to see him."

In the real world, Sam is the only person in his life, and has been for such a long time now that not having him around all of a sudden must feel a bit like having a limb cut off. And we can project a similar feeling back onto season one, when John so suddenly disappeared after the two of them had been one another's entire world while Sam was away, even if they did work separately on an increasingly regular basis.

"Sweetie…" Mary begins, coming over to sit with him. "Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled that you're hanging out here all of a sudden, but, uh – shouldn't you be at work?"
Dean's jaw all but drops open with shock. The notion that he might have an actual job to hold down in this life completely hadn't occurred to him, it not really being a part of his experience. "Work?" he parrots.
"At the garage," Mary dryly prompts.
"Right. The garage. That's where I work." Dean adjusts his worldview to accommodate this information, and then lies that he's got the day off. Not least because he presumably has no clue which garage he's supposed to work at, or where it might be. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if it was the same garage that John used to co-own in the real world, because a detail like that would fit right into this fantasy world.

And it just kills me all over again to be given this evidence of how little Dean needs to make him happy, that he really doesn't have any grand ambitions for himself. He could have wished for anything – it wasn't an informed or conscious choice, the djinn simply delved deep into his mind in search of his innermost heart's desire, and this is it. He doesn't imagine any wealth or fame or success for himself. Fantasy-Dean is a mechanic in the small town where he grew up, with no glittering career ahead of him, simply more of the same. The life he's given himself here is almost an afterthought.

Because what's important about this fantasy life isn't what he does for a living, or any plans he may or may not have for the future, but rather the simple fact that he grew up with his family around him, safe and well. His mother is still alive. Sam is safe and well. His father died peacefully in his sleep, un-tortured by any demons, no sacrifice, no condemnation to an eternity in hell. And that, apparently, is all the happiness Dean needs.

It is also very telling that Fantasy-Dean has a live-in girlfriend, apparently quite content to tie himself down in domestic bliss. Cassie wasn't a one-off, clearly, for all the tomcat routine. Rather, this kind of stable, loving relationship is what he truly desires, instead limiting himself strictly to casual flings due to the nature of his life and work, and through fear of rejection. It's a really fascinating insight into Dean's mind.

Anyway. Dean digs into his sandwich, and Mary regards her son quizzically, wondering what's on earth's up with him. Dean peers out of the window.

Dean: "Our lawn looks like it could use some mowing."
Mary: "You wanna mow the lawn?"
Dean: "Are you kidding me? I'd love to mow the lawn."
Mary: "Knock yourself out. Think you'd never mowed a lawn in your life."

And of course that he hasn't, but Mary doesn't know that. He's like a kid at Christmas, so heartbreakingly happy about the tiniest most mundane aspects of everyday life, because this is the life the YED stole from him when he was barely old enough to remember it, but was old enough to know what he'd lost. No wonder Mary is so bemused. She's probably thinking 'drugs'.

An awesome sequence follows, as Joey Ramone's version of What A Wonderful World plays on the soundtrack and Dean futzes around with the lawnmower, having a marvellous time playing at being a regular guy mowing the lawn, but without actually having the faintest idea what he's doing. He hasn't, for example, noticed that he hasn't got the blade down and that there isn't, therefore, any actual mowing of the lawn going on….

The neighbour across the way has no idea what to make of Dean waving cheerfully at him, so offers a hesitant wave back and disappears back inside quickly. Because real people leading normal lives are generally not quite as apple-pie as Dean might expect, since he has only the memories of a child and a distant view from the outside by which to judge. And also because the reality of social rejection in most community situations that he encounters has been such an ever-present fact of Dean's life, for almost his entire life, that it seeps through even into this fantasy. He might want to fit in, but doesn't know how, and fears he never will. Out in the real world, he rarely even tries, anticipating and pre-empting failure. Here, in this fantasy, he's giddy enough with excitement to make more of an effort.



It actually feels like the last two episodes were leading up to this. Both showed us Dean, who is usually such a loner, immersing himself in a defined social situation and, perhaps surprisingly, adapting to it with relative ease, quickly finding his own level, and proving that he can do normal and can fit in, if he tries and wants to and is given the opportunity.

Those last two episodes also demonstrated clearly that Dean can enjoy himself thoroughly and still be working the job at the same time, as we will continue to see here in this episode. That kinda demonstrates an impressive ability to multitask, given how easily he gets distracted!

Oh, and the cinematography of this fantasy world is so bright and sunny – gone are the desaturated colour filters normally used, replaced by this warm, rosy glow. It makes a really effective contrast to the dark drabness of the real world that Dean usually inhabits.

Gnomes in the garden and a white picket fence, and when he's done 'mowing', Dean sits on the front step with a bottle of beer, enormously satisfied with himself. And then we remember all the way back in Bugs how he reacted to a glimpse of exactly this life: "Growing up in a place like this'd freak me out. I'd blow my brains out." He's spent so much of his life rejecting 'normality' as something he could never have that by the time we met him in season one it wouldn't even have occurred to him that this kind of life could be in any way desirable. And it just kills me that all the things we're seeing him take such tremendous delight in here are the things he has spent the last two seasons, and probably most of his life, denying that he'd ever even want. Things he's never allowed himself to acknowledge even to himself that he'd want, because it would hurt too much, knowing that he can never have them. He seems to have those things now, and the defensive lie back then is revealed because he's loving it so much.

"I'd take our family over normal, any day," was how he finished up his discourse on the evils of normal life, back in Bugs. And that was the real reason he wanted nothing to do with 'normal', because he'd had it taken from him once already, and because for Dean it has always been an either/or, and what was left of his family came first, always. He chose to fiercely appreciate what he still had, rather than lusting after painful reminders of what had been lost. Right now though, apparently, he can have both, and his reaction tells its own story. You can see the weight falling off his shoulders. But miracles don't come free, no matter how much he'd like to kid himself that this one has.

Damn, this episode is cruel.

A car pulls up outside the house, rental, I presume. Dean whispers a stunned, "I don't believe it," as he leaps up to greet the occupants of said car, for it is Sam – and Jessica, who is a little startled at being swept up into an enormous bearhug.

Dean only met Jessica that one time, in real life, but he's been witness to Sam's grief for her ever since. Having her still alive in his fantasy world comes as a truly unexpected bonus, and is all about Dean's wishes for Sam, rather than for himself.

"Good to see you too, Dean," says Jessica, bemused, and a bit squished. "Can't breathe."

Releasing her, Dean turns to Sam, positively glowing with happiness. "Sammy! Look at you, you're with Jessica, I don't believe it. Where've you guys come from?"



Sam's all, 'duh, California', at which point Dean remembers Stanford and law school, and realises that this version of Sam is busily living his high-powered dream out there. Sam scoffs at his brother's bizarre reaction to life details he should already know perfectly well, and notes the beer bottle in his hand. "I see you started off Mom's birthday with a bang, as usual."

Yeah, Sam's version of events in Tall Tales painted Dean as a drinker, too. But in almost two full seasons, Sam is the only one of the two that we've ever seen get drunk. Dean drinks, and enjoys doing so, but we've never seen him lose control or become inebriated. The heaviest drinking session we've seen him indulge in was with Gordon in Bloodlust, and even then he remained clear headed enough to continue working the case the same night. But this fantasy is constructed both out of Dean's perceptions of himself and how he believes other people see him.

Dean is taken aback when he realises that today is Mary's birthday. Sam gently points out to him that that's why he and Jessica are there, with the air of one addressing a simpleton or small child. "Don't tell me you forgot."

Dean has no answer for him. Is it really Mary's birthday, out in the real world, I wonder at this point, or is this something his subconscious has spun out of a need to get all the family together? We'll find out more later.

Restaurant. The Winchester clan are assembled for Mary's birthday meal. "Wow, uh, that looks awesome," Dean dissembles as a plate of asparagus is placed before him, and the girlfolk giggle. Sam proposes a toast to Mary, and five glasses chink. Sam and Jessica share a loving kiss, and Dean watches them with a satisfied smile. This, right here and right now, is perfection.



Carmen leans close to admit to being really worried about him last night, but Dean smiles that he's good, it's all good. "Later we'll get you a cheeseburger," she covertly suggests with a teasing grin, and Dean is delighted, wondering aloud how he ever ended up with such a cool chick. Now that he's got his family where he can see them, he can start connecting to the apparent woman in his life, since he's supposed to be in love with her enough that they live together.

"I've just got low standards," Carmen chirpily tells him. Hee. She's perfect. Dean laughs and kisses her, completely willing to accept her as part of his life, even if he never met her before last night. His subconscious designed her for him to love and connect with.

Sam announces that he and Jessica have some news, another surprise for Mary's birthday. "You want to tell them?" he suggests to his girlfriend. Jessica coyly points out that they're his family, and then rather than either one of them actually telling anyone anything, they simply hold out Jessica's hand to display the engagement ring she's wearing.

If she'd had that on the whole time, Mary and Carmen would have spotted it long before now. It's a girl thing. She must've slipped it on under the table while they weren't looking.

Everyone is delighted, and exchange congratulations and hugs and kisses. "I'm really glad you're happy," Dean wholeheartedly tells Sam, who gives him another funny look, as if this is not the kind of sentiment he'd expect from his brother. Certainly not appreciating it in the spirit with which it is offered, which makes me want to smack him just a little. There is affection there, but it's a very distant kind of affection. Fantasy-Sam seems to be drawn as much from Dean's insecurities as from his hopes and wishes. Sam looks enormous again in this scene, towering over Dean. Damn, he's tall.

Dean freezes mid-conversation when he sees the Girl in White from earlier, looking greyer and deader than ever, standing in the middle of the room staring blankly into space. Family forgotten, Dean immediately strides toward her, having to check his pace a little when a waiter passes in front of him, and then when he looks again, she's gone, just like before. He turns back to see his family staring at him, wondering where all this aberrant behaviour is coming from.

Winchester Family Home. The camera pans up from a photograph of fisherman John proudly bearing his biggest catch of the day, as the family arrives back home, satisfied with their happy night out together. Sam tactfully asks Dean what that was all about back at the restaurant, and Dean bluffs that he'd thought he saw someone he knew. Mary thanks them all for a lovely birthday, and heads up to bed, and Jessica blows her a goodnight kiss, which is cute. Picture-perfect daughters-in-law, her and Carmen both. Sam suggests that he and Jessica follow suit, and they say their goodnights, but Dean protests that it isn't even nine o'clock yet, suggests that they go get a drink. He's so used to hanging out with Sam all the time, he just can't conceive of not doing so, of not being able to do so.

"Another time." Sam rather brusquely brushes him off.
"Come on, man, look at us," Dean wheedles. "We've both got beautiful women on our arms, you're engaged – let's go celebrate."

Sam gives him that funny look again, implying that the very idea of the two brothers spending any more time together than strictly called for by family duty is almost laughable, and asks the girls to give them a moment for a private chat.

Dean has no clue what's about to hit him, seeing this Sam quite simply as a happier version of the Sam he's spent the last two years travelling around the country with, the Sam he grew up with, alone together with John in their isolated little world, in which it was just the two of them, a lot of the time. The Sam who is, now that John is gone, quite literally the only person in his life. It's a mistake, because this is not that Sam. In this world the brothers grew up as part of a whole community, each with friends and a life outside of each other, separated by a vast gulf carved out of four years in age and vastly different interests and ambitions, or lack thereof.

"Okay," says Sam. "What's gotten into you?"

Dean has no idea what he means. He's been so wrapped up in enjoying the sheer bliss of having a happy family around him that it hadn't occurred to him any of them might see things differently, had maybe hoped that any behavioural oddities while he caught up to speed would be understood and overlooked. That they'd make allowances for him and love and trust him anyway, because this is meant to be his perfect fantasy life. He's spent so much of his life understanding, making allowances for, and forgiving the failings of the people he loves – we've seen him do it on numerous occasions, for both Sam and John – it makes sense that one of his subconscious wishes would be for them to do likewise for him.

"I mean this whole warm, fuzzy ecstasy trip thing," Sam elaborates.
"I'm just happy for you, Sammy," Dean tells him, and that hurts because he means it absolutely, but Sam, the Sam of this world, is unable to respond to that in kind.
"Yeah, right, that's another thing," says Sam, backing away. He does that all through the episode – Dean reaches out to him with affectionate pats on the arm or shoulder, and Sam backs away, not wanting that affection. This Sam is cold, toward his brother, at least, has no interest in connecting. "Since when do you call me 'Sammy'? Dean, come on, we don't talk outside of holidays."

Dean is taken aback. That he and Sam would not still be close in this world honestly hadn't occurred to him, he takes their relationship so much for granted these days. "We don't? Well, we should, I mean – you're my brother."

Sam lifts an eyebrow, unmoved. "'You're my brother'? Yeah, that's what you said when you snaked my ATM card, or when you bailed on my graduation, or when you hooked up with Rachel Nave…my prom date. On prom night."

Whatever universe he inhabits, Sam sure knows how to hold onto a grudge. Dean reflects for a moment, and then has to admit that does sound like him. He's always only too willing to believe the worst of himself, and that anything that goes wrong is his fault alone, and that says a lot about his sense of self-worth, or lack thereof. He readily apologises for all those things that he doesn't remember doing but is prepared to believe that he might have in this world, and takes another step toward Sam, only for Sam to immediately step away from him again.

"It's all right," says Sam, rather condescendingly. "I'm not asking you to change, I just – I don't know. I guess we just don't really have anything in common."



And the Sam of this world doesn't have any interest in trying to find common ground with his brother, that much is apparent, is quite prepared to go on dismissing him as someone he only sees on holidays, more out of duty and loyalty to their mother than out of love for Dean himself. Like I said, there is affection there, but it is very distant, and Sam shows no sign of desire for any more than that, bemused by any overtures on Dean's part.

It's really kind of fascinating to see what Dean's subconscious has come up with for Sam, because he's given his brother everything Sam has always seemed to crave, all the things the YED stole from him – their family, Stanford, Jessica – wanting him to be happy and to be able to achieve his lofty ambitions. But at the same time, his subconscious associates Stanford with Sam rejecting him, and that comes through loud and clear. No matter how many times Sam has told him this season that he's in for the long haul now, that they are in this together till the end, an abandonment complex as deeply rooted as Dean's doesn't go away so easily, it's too deeply embedded in his psyche. Even since leaving Stanford Sam has walked out on him more than once, his actions proving that the commitment he's expressed can't be relied on absolutely. Real world Sam is frequently dismissive of Dean's ideas and scornful of his level of education, scoffs at the things Dean finds pleasure in, and all those insecurities and feelings of inadequacy are feeding into this fantasy version of Sam.

People of the world, watch this episode and then try and tell me Dean doesn't have self esteem issues!

Sam starts to walk away from Dean again, and Dean promptly grabs at his arm, insisting that yes, they do have something in common – hunting. Not that Sam has any way of knowing what he's talking about, as this Sam does not have the memories of that other life that Dean has, but Dean is desperate to regain the connection that's been lost in this new life, the one part of the fantasy he can't reconcile with. Sam calmly tells him that he's never been hunting in his life. Dean flounders a little, but doesn't give in, suggesting that maybe they should try it sometime, together. "I think you'd be great at it."

And that's an 'aww, bless' moment there, his readiness to offer praise, trying so hard to make a connection. But this Sam is just not prepared to meet him halfway.

Sam just rolls his eyes, all 'whatever', to imply that going out hunting with his uncouth, poorly educated, blue-collar mechanic of a brother is just about the last thing he'd ever consider doing. He walks away, turning back only to gently suggest that Dean get some rest, because underneath that disdain he does care, even if he doesn't want to connect.

Get some rest. That suggestion is repeated over and over in Dean's fantasy life. At the end of Croatoan when his emotional burden got too heavy to carry anymore, he asked his brother to allow him to rest a little, but instead Sam was overwhelmed by his own issues and ran away, forcing Dean to pick himself back up once more and just keep on going. I said at the end of Hunted that that deep bone-weariness hadn't gone away. He just got better at hiding it, pretending to be okay because Sam wanted and needed him to be. His emotional armour has been rebuilt now, but the weariness is shining through the cracks here. His subconscious knows how badly he needs to be allowed to rest, if only for a little while – it's what that 'holiday' in Hollywood Babylon was all about, even if the execution of that episode unfortunately focused on the story instead of the characters.

So, Dean's perfect fantasy world isn't quite so perfect after all, constructed as it is from his innermost fears and doubts, as well as his hopes and dreams.

53 Barker Avenue – Chez Dean'n'Carmen. Dean sits morosely on the sofa, mulling over the events of the last day or so. Carmen brings him a beer, and he is touched. "My favourite. I guess you know me pretty well."

Carmen fondly admits that she does, and asks what's wrong.

Dean: "Sammy and I – we don't get along."
Carmen: "You don't spend a lot of time together. I mean I just think you don't know each other all that well. For the record, he doesn't know what he's missing."

I like this girl. I like that this is the kind of girl Dean's subconscious would like him to be with – she's got a sense of humour, she's down to earth, caring and independent, understands him, loves and accepts him for who he is, sees the hidden depths beneath the happy-go-lucky exterior, and is willing to be part of his family. And this is Dean's ideal woman. Plus, she's gorgeous, because: Dean.

"I can fix things with Sam," he declares. "I can make it up to him. To everyone."

Ooh, see that, right there – automatic assumption that whatever is wrong with this life and this fantasy family must be his fault, that any amends to be made are his alone, no blame attached to anyone else. He doesn't blame Sam for being a social snob and looking down on him, simply resolves to do better, willing to go the full distance himself rather than ask or expect anyone to meet him halfway. That's Dean in a nutshell.

Carmen wonders what's gotten into him lately, and she is not the only one – both Mary and Sam have asked the same thing, and with good reason, because he's not acting normally, by any standards, having been catapulted straight from the life he's always known into another that's pretty much its polar opposite. But how can he admit the truth?

"This isn't going to make a lick of sense to you," Dean tells her. "But I kind of feel like I've been given a second chance, and I don't want to waste it."

Carmen starts to tell him that he's right, that doesn't make any sense, but he quickly silences her with a kiss, because, hey – live-in girlfriend comes with perks attached, right?

"You know, I get it. Why you're the one," he tells her, completely willing to go along with the fantasy and let himself love her, or to play at loving her, even on such short acquaintance. She obviously loves him. And I'm so happy that they've finally found an actress who has good on-screen chemistry with him!



Carmen smiles. "Whatever's gotten into you, I like it."

Cue more snoggage, which looks promisingly set to lead onto a season two rendition of the Naked Dean Soft Porn Session we were treated to back in Route 666, but then Carmen groans and pulls away, because she has to get ready for work, she's got the night shift on Thursdays.

Check out Dean checking her out, and loving the hotness of what he sees, as she wanders to the closet in their bedroom and pulls out a nurse's uniform.

Dean: "I'm dating a nurse. That is so…respectable."

Hee. I love how much he digs the life that he and Carmen so clearly have together. He knows that things aren't completely right here – the Grey Girl haunting him is evidence enough of that, even if he didn't have all his memories of the djinn attacking him, and didn't already know that miracles don't come free. But just now he seems totally prepared to look past all that and to make a go of the new life he's been given, to live with Carmen and work at the garage, spend time with his Mom, fix things with Sam, live that safe, normal life he's always denied that he'd ever want….

Later. Dean sits at the TV, channel hopping, with a beer in his hand and his feet up on the coffee table, enjoying this respectable normal life he's suddenly got. But then…all good things must come to an end. His channel surfing finally lands on a news report of a memorial service to the 108 victims of Britannia flight 424, on the anniversary of the crash in which they lost their lives. Dean is appalled, remembering that he and Sam stopped that plane from crashing.

Interestingly, the report shows us an old newspaper report of the crash, dated December 5^th, 2005. We know that in the real world it is well into the spring of 2007, so Dean's fantasy has apparently taken him back in time in order for the family to celebrate Mary's birthday together, rather than coinciding with dates out in the real world.

Dean's dreams of a safe, normal life crumble as, horrified by the implications of this plane crash, he gets straight onto the laptop and starts researching all the hunts he and Sam have been on in the past two seasons. Headline after headline assault his eyes with the worst possible news – nine comatose children in Fitchburg, double homicide here, mutilated bodies there, the drowning of nine-year-old Tyler Thompson at the Pierpont Inn. The bubble is burst, the reality he left behind crashes back in, and Dean is devastated, shaking his head in mute disbelief and denial.

He looks up just in time to see a shadowy figure wandering into the bedroom, and quickly gives chase. The room is empty – bed unmade, which tells us something about everyday life for Fantasy-Dean and Carmen – but instinct draws Dean over to the closet. He pulls the door open, to be assailed by the sight of several desiccated corpses strung up inside. Dean is horrified, catches a glimpse of Grey Girl in White in the mirror, and spins to confront her. She's bleeding this time, her condition worse every time he sees her, and quickly flickers out of sight once more.

Badly shaken, Dean turns back to the closet to find its macabre contents have vanished, leaving only neat rails of clothing.

Cemetery. John's headstone reads: John E. Winchester, 1954-2006, loving husband & father, remembered forever.

Dean stands at John's grave, and as unhappy and depressed as he's been for a lot of this season, this is the absolute lowest he's ever been, because this is just cruel. This is fate handing him this amazing gift with one hand, everything he's never allowed himself to even think about wanting because the not having would be too painful, and then taking it away with the other.

Dean: "All of them. Every one that you saved, every one Sammy and I saved. They're all dead. There's this woman, haunting me. I don't know why, I don't know what the connection is, not yet, anyway. It's like my whole life is coming after me, or something, like – like it doesn't want me to be happy. Course, I know what you'd say. Well, not the you that played softball, but uh. You'd say 'go hunt the djinn. It put you here, it can put you back. Your happiness for all those peoples' lives, no contest.' Right? But why? Why is it my job to save these people? Why do I have to be some kind of hero? What about us, huh? What, Mom's not supposed to live her life? Sammy's not supposed to get married? Why do we have to sacrifice everything, Dad? It's –"



He stops himself before he can say it isn't fair, but damn, he's got me again, moving through this speech from dull, weary resignation at the beginning to raw grief and anger by the end, tears rolling down his cheeks in a way we've never seen before, not from Dean. He's never had a focal point like this to pour it all out before, always held everything inside. Real world John doesn't have a grave, and Dean doesn't think of Mary's headstone as her resting place, probably wouldn't feel able to offload to her in this way anyway, her memory holding a different place in his heart. But this, here, this is John, resting in peace. John has been the greatest influence on his life, all his life, and he's come here now to talk through what he already knows, deep down, he has to do.

Even in his perfect fantasy, Dean can't escape from the conscience and sense of duty that John spent more than 20 years drumming into him. He's admitted before, in unguarded moments, that he doesn't feel he has any choice about the life John raised him for. The choice was made for him and even now, with John long gone – maybe especially with John long gone – he is unable to walk away from that sense of responsibility his father ingrained in him. Duty comes ahead of personal happiness, every time, however unfair that might be.

With a little nod, decision already made long before he came here to rail against it, Dean wipes the tears from his face, turns, and wearily trudges away to do what has to be done. He's already done the research, knows where to look and what to do. It's now just a question of giving up everything he has here for the sake of the greater good, and seeing the job through, alone.

The show repeatedly shows us how competent Dean is when working alone, but also that he never does so by choice. Whenever we see Dean working alone, it's because he's been forced into it, either by the decisions someone else has made, or by circumstance, like here. He's a very social person by nature, despite the extreme isolation of his life, needs to have people around him to feel truly secure and grounded. But despite his enormous emotional dependence on his family, on Sam, when left alone like this he doesn't break stride, just sucks it up and gets on with what has to be done to resolve the case successfully. He's good at what he does, and capable of achieving results on his own. Sam, in contrast, we've only once seen working alone, and that was because he chose to do so, in a fit of pique. And as soon as he hit trouble, he called Dean for help, secure in the knowledge that his brother's support would not be withheld from him. When Dean works alone he never seems to have the option of calling for help, because the fact of his working alone means that support has either been withdrawn or is otherwise unavailable.

Winchester Family Home. Sam and Jessica lie asleep in bed, and the visual similarity to that scene back in the Pilot when Sam's old life caught up with him is fabulously done. Sam hears a noise and quietly creeps downstairs to investigate, baseball bat in hand, because this is a Sam who has not been trained in hand-to-hand combat. Scared, he presses himself against a wall to peer around the doorframe, where he sees a dark figure bent down to rifle through a low cupboard.

Sam takes a breath, steels his nerve, and launches himself at the intruder…whose reflexes are a lot sharper than his, instantly wheeling around to grab the bat before it can connect, and pinning him to the floor.

"That was so easy, I'm embarrassed for you," Dean cheerfully tells him.
"Dean? What the hell are you doing here?" Sam snips.

Dean pulls him back to his feet, and jokes that he was looking for a beer, obviously remembering the last time they did this, trying to deflect, because this is awkward and, unlike last time, he clearly didn't mean for Sam to find him here.

"In the china cabinet?" Sam snips again, completely brushing aside the attempt at jocularity, being focused as he is on the meaning of this mysterious, covert midnight visit. He turns the light on, sees what Dean has pulled out of the cabinet – a silver cutlery set – and is disgusted. "What, you broke into the house to steal Mom's silver?"

Dean's subconscious mind obviously expects the people around him to believe the worst of him every time, rather than give him the benefit of any doubt, expects to be misunderstood, to disappoint them. That's fairly telling, too. For all his love for and devotion to his family, they have never given back as much as he gives to them, and that fact is as deeply ingrained in his psyche as his conscience. The shapeshifter said it for him, way back in Skin: "I know I'm a freak, and sooner or later everyone's gonna leave me."

It has to be significant that the person he connects to most strongly in this fantasy, who seems to understand him best and see his inner value most clearly, is the girlfriend his fantasy created for him, rather than his mother or brother. Again, this fantasy stems from his darkest doubts and fears as much as from his hopes and dreams, the two being so closely intertwined.

Dean sighs and protests that it's not what it looks like. "I didn't have a choice."
"Why?" Sam demands. "What's so important that you've got to steal from your own mother?"

Dean hesitates, rapidly thinking through possible different ways to handle this, none of which, it seems safe to say, involve telling the truth. "You want the truth?" he asks. Sam, still looking at him like something you'd scrape off your shoe, agrees that yes, he does. Dean nods, and then lies as fluently as only Dean can, explaining that he owes money to a bookie. "I lost big on a game, I have to bring him the cash tonight."

"I can't believe we're even related," Sam sighs, a sentiment that's been written all over his face many times in the past, but never expressed aloud.

Dean looks at him, and there are just so many emotions flicking through his eyes, so many subtle nuances to this moment. He'd rather have Sam believe the absolute worst of him than burst the bubble of his safe, normal life, preserving his innocence for as long as possible without Sam even knowing what he's being protected from – not that Sam would believe the truth if he was told. Dean will give this up, for all of them, without sharing that burden with anyone, however heavily it weighs on his shoulders. Dean's always been one to carry it all alone.

"Sam, I'm sorry," he says, with a worrying air of finality, starting to sound a lot like John did when he made his farewell speeches to his sons without actually telling them it was goodbye. "I'm sorry that we don't get along. And I wish to hell that I could stay and fix it. But I gotta do this. Peoples' lives depend on it." He bends to pick up one single silver knife – hardly something that would pay off any supposed gambling debt.



Sam looks worried, realising that there's a lot more going on than he'd thought, and asks what he's talking about. Dean brushes it off. "Nothing, forget it, just, uh – tell Mom I love her."

Sam's getting scared now, but Dean has nothing more to say, and quietly heads for the front door. Sam calls him back, the 'are you sure you're all right?' unspoken but apparent. Dean smiles. "I'll see you, Sammy," said with enormous regret, and then he walks out of their family home forever, knowing that this hunt, if successful, will destroy all their lives all over again.

I think Dean calls Sam 'Sammy' more in this episode than just about any other.

Very worried, Sam turns to look at the tray of silver again, just that one silver knife missing.

Outside, a very melancholy Dean sits in the Impala, preparing himself to do what has to be done. He's taken by surprise when the passenger door opens and Sam slings himself in.

Dean: "Get out of the car!"
Sam: "I'm going with you."
Dean: "You're just gonna slow me down."
Sam: "Tough."
Dean: "This is dangerous and you could get hurt."
Sam: "Yeah, and so could you, Dean."

Ah, I've missed the stubborn bickering in this episode.

Sam: "Look. Whatever stupid thing you're about to do, you're not doing it alone, and that's that."

Oh, Sammy, I've missed you, too, in this episode. Whatever Dean's insecurities about Sam's opinion of him and long-term commitment, his subconscious mind also knows that he can always rely on his brother if he really needs him, and that shines through loud and clear here.

"I don't understand," says Dean, genuinely confused, because Fantasy-Sam hasn't exactly shown much evidence of caring about him in any meaningful sense. "Why are you doing this?"
Sam sighs and looks away, grumbles: "Because you're still my brother."

Dean is touched, and tosses an affectionate 'bitch' at him. Unfortunately, this doesn't go over too well, as the Dean and Sam in this fantasy world have not developed quite the same repartee. Sam blankly, and kinda prissily, wonders why his brother is calling him a bitch. Dean stumbles through an explanation that Sam is supposed to fire a 'jerk' back at him, then brushes it off, starts up the engine, and drives them away.

On the road. Fantasy-Impala has a Kansas registration, but not the original one. It is now RMD 5H2. So…the plates have still been changed in the fantasy, but changed to something different than in real life? O-kay.

Sam notices a paper bag alongside Dean, and wonders what's in it. Dean tells him its nothing, which is a sure way to set bratty kid brother senses onto full alert, so Sam promptly grabs the bag to find out for himself what's in it. Dean casually tells him he doesn't want to do that, as Sam pulls out…a jar of blood. And is shocked. "What the hell is this?" he splutters. Still casually, Dean cops to the blatantly obvious fact that it's blood. Sam's voice rises even higher as he snips that he can see that, what he really wants to know is why Dean is carrying a jar of blood around to do whatever it is he's going to do. I'm guessing he's realised by now that the whole gambling debt thing was a big fat fib.

Dean tells him he doesn't really want to know, but the very freaked Sam insists that he does really want to know, he really, really does.

"Oh, well, you're gonna find out sooner or later," Dean sighs. "I needed a silver knife dipped in lamb's blood." Heh, and he says it in such matter-of-fact fashion, too. All in a night's work, from his point of view. I'm guessing he went and conducted a little judicious B&E at the local butcher, then, before heading to his Mom's place to pilfer the family silver.

Sam is beyond incredulous. Gone is the 'I can't believe we're related', and in its place is 'oh my god, my brother is insane, and possibly dangerous, and I hope to hell its not genetic'. "And you needed a knife dipped in lamb's blood why?" he asks, with the air of one picking at a scab to find out just how much it'll hurt.

"'Cause there's this creature, a djinn, and I have to hunt it," Dean tells him.

Sam gapes, and then recollects his senses enough to ask him to stop the car. Dean says he knows how it sounds, but Sam just asks again for him to stop the car. Dean insists that what he's saying is true. "There are things out there in the dark, there are bad things, there are nightmare things. And people have to be saved, and if we don't save them then nobody will."

Damn, there it is again. Stark words and bitter acceptance of what he talked himself into at John's grave. He doesn't want to have to do this, but nobody else will, so he'll pick up the load alone and struggle on with it until it breaks him, for the sake of those innocent lives. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he didn't.

"I wanna help you," Sam tries. "I really, really do. But you're having some kind of psychotic breakdown, so…"
"I wish," Dean mutters. It would be so much easier if he could believe that were true, rather than knowing what he knows.

Sam pulls out his cellphone and starts dialling. Dean promptly rolls down the window, snatches it out of his hand, and tosses it. Sam is outraged.

"I'm not going to a rubber room, Sammy, and we've got work to do," Dean grunts. Sam yells that he was just trying to help, doesn't want him to get hurt. "What, you protect me?" Dean laughs. "Oh, that's hilarious. Why don't you just sit tight, and try not to get us both killed."

He turns the music on, loud, to end the conversation. Sam fumes silently.

Hours later. The Impala pulls up outside that same derelict building in which Dean encountered the djinn. Sam is fast asleep, so clearly not as worried about Dean's insanity as he seemed to be. Dean amuses himself by waking him up shining a flashlight right in his eyes. Sam wonders where they are.

"Well, we're not in Kansas any more," Dean drawls, peering speculatively over at the ruin. He chuckles at his own joke, then sighs because Sam never appreciates his humour. "Illinois."
"You think something's in there?" Sam asks, scepticism positively dripping from every word.
"I know it is," says Dean, resolute.

Inside the derelict building. Flashlight-fu ensues, but only on Dean's part as he makes his way inside. Sam – sans flashlight – follows close behind, worried. "See?" he says. "There's nothing here, Dean." Dean ignores him and keeps searching the place. Sam tries again. "Look. Carmen's got to be worried sick about you, Dean. Come on, let's just go."

Dean hushes him, and Sam's eyes go wide as he hears what his brother noticed first – the sound of someone weeping nearby. "What the hell is that?" Sam breathes.



Dean quietly commands his brother to stay behind him and keep his mouth shut, because this Sam is very much an untrained civilian with no clue what he's doing here. Perturbed, Sam follows as Dean searches for the source of the sound.

Dean gets a look of weary resignation about him as he enters the djinn's lair, because he's seen a lot of death, while Sam looks absolutely appalled at what they find inside: bodies, several of them – desiccated corpses strung up by their wrists, just like those Dean saw in his closet. Empty bloodbags hang from drip stands beside each one, and as soon as he lays eyes on them, Dean starts seeing flashes of…well, more of the same, really, but in desaturated colours, as the show is usually shot. Reality and fantasy starting to blur.

"What the hell…?" Sam gasps, as Dean notices Grey Girl in White hanging in similar fashion a few feet away, and heads over toward her. She's bloody, just like the last time she appeared to him, and has her eyes open, whimpers as they come close, but doesn't seem aware of their presence. A disbelieving Sam wants to know what's going on – never in his wildest dreams did he imagine that his brother's insane ravings might actually be true.

Dean promptly hushes him again, for the djinn is on its way back into the room. By the time it rounds the corner to approach Grey Girl there is no sign of Dean or Sam. "Where's my Dad?" Grey Girl whimpers. The djinn strokes her face, fingers blazing blue fire again, and croons for her to sleep. She does, and he caresses and hugs her, and it is deeply creepy. Then he pulls a tube out of the bag currently collecting the lifeblood he's draining from her, and starts to drink.

Hidden over in a corner, Sam can no longer contain himself and gasps in horror. The djinn whirls around and hurries to investigate – simply dropping the IV, which seems a waste of good blood to me – but there is no one there that he can see. Boys are good at the stealthy hiding. The djinn trudges away upstairs, not noticing Dean and Sam crouching beneath the steps.

"This is real?" Sam is freaking out big time. "You're not crazy?"
Dean ignores him, because he's in hunter mode now, figuring out the case. "She didn't know where she was," he murmurs. "She thought she was with her father." They walk back over to the girl – her eyes are still open, but there's no one home.

"What if that's what the djinn does?" Dean's beginning to get alarmed now, as he works his way closer to the truth. "It doesn't grant your wish, it just makes you think it has."

Sam tugs at his jacket, tries to persuade him to get out of there before the djinn comes back, but Dean continues to ignore him, because he's figuring out what happened to him, and it is not good at all. On the other side of the room dangles an empty rope beside an unused drip stand – vacant slot for another victim. Dean moves to take a closer look, and Sam waves his hands in a frustrated 'am I invisible or what?' gesture.

As Dean stares up at it, the lightbulb above those dangling ropes gutters, and again fantasy and reality start to flicker in and out of focus in rapid flashes: himself hanging from those ropes, limp and comatose, blood draining….



So…the djinn has to keep dosing its victims up with mojo, or the spell wears off enough for reality to intrude, then. I love that they've done it like this, made it all about Dean and the hopes and fears that lie buried in his head, rather than giving the djinn the power to actually bend reality and change the whole world. It means that this really is all about Dean, rather than a counterbalance of the value of lives.

Shocked and shaken, again, Dean takes a deep breath, tries to focus, and behind him Sam continues to plead for them to go, now.

"What if I'm like her?" Dean says it out loud at last. "What if I'm tied up in here someplace? What if all this is in my head?"

That changes everything. Because, for one thing, if, as Dean has just realised, all this is in his head, then by destroying the fantasy he is destroying no one's life and happiness but his own. In one sense that makes it easier to leave, because he no longer has Mary and Jessica's lives or Sam's glittering career on his conscience, to be sacrificed for the sake of the greater good. But in another sense that makes it harder to leave, because it is no longer about destroying the fantasy in order to save innocent lives – out in the real world, which remains unchanged, all the people he saved are still saved – it's about destroying the fantasy in order to save himself and return to his own deeply screwed up life. Why would anyone in their right mind choose that kind of danger and uncertainty, fear and unhappiness over the kind of blissfully happy life his fantasy has given him? Even if they know which is real and which fake?

But Dean has got a finely honed sense of what's right and what's wrong, especially where meddling with the supernatural is concerned. And he has a lifetime's experience of putting other people first, Sam in particular; conditioned from childhood to set his own wants and needs aside in the interests of others.

Dean returns to the side of Grey Girl in White to mull his theory over a little more. "Maybe it gives us some kind of supernatural acid, and then feeds on us, slow."

Sam protests that that doesn't make sense, which isn't true, because it makes perfect sense, in the context. Dean still ignores him, pondering that maybe that's why Grey Girl keeps appearing to him. "She's not a spirit, it's more and more I'm catching flashes of reality. You know, like, I'm in here somewhere, and I'm catatonic, and I'm taking all this stuff in, but I can't snap out of it."

Sam keeps trying to get him to leave. "You know what, you're right and I was wrong, you're not crazy, but we need to get out of here, fast…" He tries to propel his brother to the exit, and is shocked when Dean roughly pulls away from him.

"I don't think you're real," says Dean. He's good at putting the pieces together to form a complete picture, and Sam has been part of the puzzle ever since he answered the phone and thought Dean was talking about gin.

Sam's frustration simmers over, grabbing his brother by the arms and giving him a shake. He's not backing off from physical contact now, at the crunch. "Dean, you feel that? Feel this? This is not an acid trip. I'm real, and that thing is going to come down here and kill us, for real, now please…"

"There's one way to be sure," Dean decides, still ignoring Sam's pleading in a way he never has before, because this isn't the real Sam. The real Sam is out there in the real world still, and would be the only person in the world to be affected if Dean can't manage to save himself from this, and that's reason enough to try.

Dean pulls out his pilfered, lamb's blood coated silver knife, and Sam is alarmed, wondering what the hell he's doing. "Old wives tale," Dean explains. "If you're about to die in a dream, you wake up."

Panicking big time now, Sam skitters straight into 'talk the suicidal idiot down from the ledge' mode, telling him that's crazy. But then again, this is a Sam who has no actual clue what's genuinely crazy and what's real, so his words don't hold much weight, and Dean is used to trusting his own instincts.

And that, really, is the paradox of Dean, because he knows how good he is at what he does. He just never seems convinced that he's good enough, not where his family is concerned at least. Always feels he has to do more, try harder, be better, to get to where they want him to be.

Sam: "You're going to kill yourself!"
Dean: "Or I'm going to wake up, one or the other."
Worryingly, he doesn't actually seem all that bothered, either way.
Sam: "This isn't a dream. I'm here, with you, now. And you are about to kill yourself, Dean."
And he's panicked enough and frightened enough that he could be the real Sam. Dean regards him levelly.
Dean: "No, I'm pretty sure." Then the tiniest flicker of doubt because Sam looks so scared. "Like…ninety percent sure. But I'm sure enough."

He turns the knife, points it inward at his own chest. Sam bellows at him to wait…and Mary appears, and she's young again – not that they actually really aged her all that much – and she's wearing the white nightdress she died in, and the fantasy is breaking down completely now, because her presence here, now, like this, proves that none of this is real, that it's all in Dean's head. But her presence is also enough to shake his resolve.

"Why'd you have to keep digging?" Fake-Sam plaintively asks, as Carmen and Jessica also walk into shot. "Why couldn't you have left well enough alone? You were happy."
"Put the knife down, honey," Mary gently implores, all maternally stern and affectionate.
Dean looks at her. "You're not real. None of it is."
Mary actually looks a little hurt when he says that. "It doesn't matter," she tells him. "It's still better than anything you had."
"What?" Dean is genuinely startled at the suggestion that he should actively choose to stay here now that he knows the truth. Choosing to remain in the fantasy means choosing death.
"It's everything you ever wanted," Mary tells him. "We're a family again. Let's go home."
"I'll die," Dean points out. "The djinn'll drain the life out of me in a couple of days."

He seems to have forgotten that the real Sam is out there still, and will have noticed that he's missing by now. He sees himself fighting this battle very much alone.

"But in here, with us, it'll feel like years. Like a lifetime," Mary wheedles. It isn't that far removed from the offer the Crossroads Demon tempted him with. He was strong enough to turn that one down. "I promise," she continues. "No more pain, no more fear. Just love, and comfort, and safety."

Now that really is tempting for Dean, who has spent most of this season frightened and in pain of one variety or another. His subconscious, powered by the djinn's mojo, is doing a really good job of trying to talk him into laying his burdens down and giving in. It's a really effective spell, it has to be said – even when the victim wises up and realises the truth, the fantasy twists around on itself to keep that person trapped within.

"Dean, stay with us. Get some rest," Mary implores. Again with the need to rest. It's something he really craves, knows that he needs, but isn't able to have. Surcease versus soldiering on has been a recurring theme for Dean since In My Time Of Dying.

"You don't need to worry about Sam any more." Jessica adds her voice now. "You get to watch him live a whole life."

Carmen weighs into the debate with a loving kiss. "We could have a future together," she offers. "Have our own family. I love you, Dean. Please."



And then, finally, Sam: with the biggest and most telling argument of all. "Why is it our job to save everyone? Haven't we done enough? I'm begging you: give me the knife."

Rest. Sam happy and living his life. A stable and loving relationship of his own: a family, a future. An end to the relentless and overwhelming burden of responsibility. Those four things, represented by these four people – these are the secret hopes, dreams and wishes Dean keeps tucked safely away where no one can see them, including himself. If he doesn't admit them even to himself, they can't hurt him, but here the djinn has dragged them out of his subconscious and into the open as bait for the hook.

Thinking about it, a lot of this episode reminds me of the final episode of Life on Mars, with the push-me-pull-you tug of fantasy versus reality. I like the resolution of this one a lot better.

Dean's got tears in his eyes again, because he wants what they are offering, but he knows now, the fantasy has already broken down, and their very presence here only highlights that more and more, whatever the temptations they have to offer. He shuffles backward, away from them, and a flicker of alarm registers in Sam's eyes, because Dean has spent the whole episode moving toward him, not away, never away.

"I'm sorry," Dean whispers, and plunges the knife into his own chest.



"Dean!" Sam bellows, and he's filmed in desaturated colours once again, for all of a sudden we are back in the real world, and Real-Sam has just discovered his brother's comatose and worryingly pallid body hanging by the wrists in that derelict building. Eyes open, but unseeing, just like Grey Girl. Nice work tracking him down. Sam is horrified, and starts shaking Dean, trying to get him to wake up, his relief profound when he registers the return of consciousness.

"Auntie Em," Dean grunts, which deserves lots of LOLs under the circumstances. "There's no place like home."
Sam has no idea what he's talking about, and doesn't really care. "I thought I lost you for a second," he sighs his relief, carefully pulling the IV needle out of Dean's neck before he can lose any more blood.
"You almost did." Dean grates out the admission, wincing in pain as Sam starts to saw through the ropes holding him up.

A pair of glowing blue eyes appears alongside the two of them, and Dean just barely has time to yell a warning before the djinn attacks. Sam swipes at it, but the djinn slams him into a wall and knocks the knife from his hand. This is almost the exact same fight that Dean lost earlier, and it goes pretty much the same way, because supernatural versus human is never a fair fight. Watching helplessly, Dean strains frantically against the bonds that Sam didn't finish cutting, managing somehow, despite his weakened condition, to break free. Fear and adrenaline can provide marvellous reserves of strength, but they tend to charge a high price for it.

Sam continues to struggle against the djinn as it pins him down, its hand lighting up with a blaze of blue fire that Sam grapples against, desperate not to let it touch him. It's a losing battle – the hand moves lower and lower toward his face…but then the djinn falls back, arching its back in agony as Dean plunges the lamb's blood soaked knife into it. Finally the blue light goes out of the djinn's eyes, and it falls to the ground, dead.

Freed in the nick of time, Sam gasps for breath, eyes glued to his brother's very pale face, for there is a haunted look in Dean's eyes after everything he just went through.

Cautionary tale: this is why you should never go into a derelict building alone. Always take backup – most battles are better fought as a team. The Winchesters are strongest as a family, united.

Pulling himself back together, Dean heads over to Grey Girl, dismayed at first because she looks pretty dead, and he thinks he's too late. He checks her pulse, though, and it turns out she's still got one. Also, a tear rolls down her cheek, so clearly these fantasies that the djinn traps its victims in are never all that perfect, as they play out and take on a life of their own. It's like that old saying – be careful what you wish for, in case it comes true. Maybe everyone's innermost dreams are always closely entwined with their deepest doubts and fears. Anyway, Dean is relieved to realise that Grey Girl is still alive and calls Sam to help cut her down, cradling her body as the ropes are cut and whispering promises to get her out of there. This is why he came back – it's about saving lives and hunting evil. He reminds us of that at the start of almost every episode, a responsibility he can't walk away from no matter how much he might want to.

Sam observes, thoughtful and concerned, no doubt wondering what exactly happened to his brother in dreamland to leave him so uncharacteristically open and raw.

Motel. Dean sits flicking through a magazine, and stops when he comes to an advert for El Sol, that favourite beer that Carmen brought him in his fantasy. For there, advertising the beer, is that professional shot of Carmen lying on a beach – not just a random girl drawn out of nowhere, then, but an image he'd seen and lusted after, that the djinn's spell pulled out of his memory and gave life to.

Sam, meanwhile, is on the phone getting an update on Grey Girl, and is pleased to be able to report that she has been stabilised and that it looks like she will pull through. Dean nods and says that's good, but doesn't look up, lost in wistful thoughts. Sam, sitting on the bed next to him, doesn't take his eyes off his brother. He's clearly worried, and asks how Dean is doing.

Still not looking at him, Dean gruffly insists that he's fine, which is predictable, but then starts talking about his experience, which isn't so much. "You should've seen it, Sam. Our lives. You were such a wussy."
Sam laughs. "So, we didn't get along, then, huh." He actually looks apologetic for that, and I can forgive Fake-Sam for being a bit of a narrow-minded social snob, because Real-Sam is the genuine article, sees more than what's on the surface, and appreciates Dean for who he is. Even when he's irritating as hell.

"I thought it was supposed to be this perfect fantasy," Sam remarks, and I find myself wondering just how much Dean has told him about his sojourn in fantasyland. He clearly knows the bare bones of it, but I can't see Dean going into too much detail. Too painful and raw for them both to be reminded of what they've lost out on.

"It wasn't," Dean tells him, very quickly. Maybe a little too quickly. "It was just a wish. I wished for Mom to live. Mom never died. We never went hunting. And you and me just never, uh… You know."
"Yeah. Well I'm glad we do," Sam tells him, and means it. And that, right there, is the reason Sam gets hugs for this episode as well. "And I'm glad you dug yourself out, Dean," he adds. "Most people wouldn't have had the strength, they would have just stayed."
Dean looks away again with a wry smile, full of regret. "Yeah, lucky me. I got to tell you, though, man. You had Jess. Mom was gonna have grandkids…"

So, Sam, bless him, is trying to build Dean up, admiring his inner strength and more than a little awed at what it must have taken to break through the djinn's spell. But Dean still can't see it, can't see past what they've lost. Not right now, anyway, having had it all stirred up like that. And notice how he's still talking about everyone but himself.

"Yeah, but Dean, it wasn't real." Sam's looking worried again.
"I know. But I wanted to stay," Dean admits, and he looks so, so tired and despondent. "I wanted to stay so bad. I mean, ever since Dad… All I can think about is how much this job's cost us. We've lost so much. We've sacrificed so much…"

This is how close the brothers have become this season – a year, even six months ago, Dean would not have opened up to Sam about any of this. They've both learned the value of sharing, rather than bottling everything up till it explodes. These days they share just about everything, as it happens. Their lives depend on being able to depend on one another.

"But people are alive because of you," says Sam, sharply, because he's worried.

Sam has saved a lot of people, too, although Dean has got several years of solo hunting on him, but he's focusing on Dean right now, trying to build his confidence and motivation back up in the aftermath of what has been a pretty heavy emotional blow. And you've got to love Sam, because he can be so tremendously self-absorbed at times, but when Dean's really hurting he always comes through for him and tries hard to give him what he needs. Except for that time in Hunted when he ran away instead. But usually.

"It's worth it, Dean," Sam continues the pep talk. "It is. It's not fair, and, you know, it hurts like hell, but it's worth it."

Damn, but Sam has come a hell of a long way since the beginning of season one, when the roles were reversed and it was Dean giving the pep talk to Sam.

But Dean still looks bleak and unconvinced, and just so damn tired as the episode fades to black. Dean has spent most of his life setting his own needs and desires aside for the sake of others – both for John and Sam, and for the wider world of random people in need of salvation – we've been told that on numerous occasions. Sooner or later, probably sooner, he's going to hit the point where the sacrifice demanded of him is just too much to give. And the breaking point will be Sam, that much is pretty obvious.

The two-part season finale comes next, and this is the emotional condition that our boys are taking into it: ragged and exhausted. I can't wait.


May 2007

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