#also i'm def rewatching from season 1 immediately after

[i-will-sing-no-requiem]

after almost 10 months i have only one episode left in my lost rewatch with my friend

should i post my collection of the best quotes my friend and i texted each other while watching? is that something people want to see?

[angelsdean]

home always feels like an episode they should have waited a season or two to do to me, when the mythology and characters were a little more lived it. I don't know if this makes sense, but i think in any other season, or even this season in the backhalf, this set up would have lent itself to a classic Dean Studies episode, and it feels weird that once we're actually in the house, we're actually seeing Mary, we totally pull back on Dean. Honestly, outside of the phone call to John, he's very sidelined despite this being an easy set up to explore backstory for him as the only character there who has a memory of the fire. And even Sam as the POV character falls flat not because there isn't interesting tension there, it could have worked! but because it's so heavy unfolding the psychic plot point and it's clear that that's more important to the episode than the family mythology. It just feels like you could take the bones of the episode, drop into season 3, and get something that looks completely different. (You said this much more eloquently re: the narrative, but I'm on s2 of my own rewatch and i keep thinking about this, haha).

hii sorry i didn't answer this sooner, but yea that's def how i felt rewatching it like, it just feels like it comes too soon for it to really *do* anything. we haven't yet really felt the haunting absence of mary. their main plot focuses rn are 1.) finding john (and in conjunction w/ that, finding and killing azazel) and 2.) literally just starting in this ep, sam's psychic visions. the whole concept of going back home and being confronted w/ their mother's literal ghost who recognizes and can talk to them is a HUGE thing that deserved to be the main focus, not a footnote in an ep trying to introduce a major plot element, sam's visions.

literally like you said, there's IS tension from sam's POV but they just don't go anywhere with it, since the focus is more on his psychic visions. like the scene w/ sam and mary could've been so much more. and if this came later in the season, or even a few seasons later, mary's "i'm sorry" to sam would've held more weight and packed a punch bc she feels responsible for what's happened to sam !!! for the deal w/ azazel and causing sam to be infected w/ demon blood. but sitting in the 9th episode of s1 where we still barely know anything it just falls flat and feels like she's just apologizing for what? dying? of course we have the gift of knowing everything to come later, but i'm trying to put myself in the shoes of the 2005 audience. what would they have thought she was apologizing for? like up until s4 that audience doesn't even know about mary being a hunter or her deal. so like, for those early years, it would just seem like she was apologizing for i guess not getting to sam fast enough to stop azazel and for dying ??

but yea anyways i feel like dean should've been the central character for an episode like this and we already know mary's death was traumatic for him. he tells lucas in 1x03 how he stopped talking after mary died. he tells lucas he's scared all the time but tries his best to be brave bc he thinks it's what his mom would've wanted. mary is such a central figure in dean's life and memories and is thee anchor to the myth of the "perfect family" that never was that dean is constantly yearning for and why family is so important to him. also comments like dean saying he always wanted to be a firefighter when he was a kid reveal a lot abt how much the fire affected him and fueled his desire to save people. and then in 1x09 Home itself, we see dean go in to save the blonde mom while he tells sam to save the kids which is interesting bc in 1x03 dean immediately goes for the kid and lets sam save the mom. so, it feels like subconsciously there's something there with dean and his desire to save mary. and this would've been a great episode to explore that trauma and guilt he has for not being able to save her (and god it's so irrational and he must know it, he was literally 4 yrs old what could he have done !!!) but still.

anyways this is getting long but yea i think at the very least, home should've come later in the season and not have to share the plot w/ introducing sam's psychic powers. there's just SO much they could've done with the whole concept of going back home and seeing mary's ghost. i wanted them to feel haunted !!!! haunted by home and the myth of mary !!!!!