SPN 4.19 - "Jump the Shark"

[ella_menno]

I'll be honest: up until about a half hour ago, i hated last night's episode. i've laways been a huge - no,really, a HUGE - John/Mary OTP kind of girl. really, i've had long discussions with folks about how in my head, I'm perfectly okay with the supposition that after Mary's death, John remained celibate for the rest of his life. Not a particularly popular view, but one I could see being true.

When I was arguing the side that no man could remain celibate from 1983 until 2006 (and if my dates are wrong, please correct me, my decided opinion was that John was more of a visit-a-hooker, wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am, sorry-i-didn't-get-your-name-but-i-sure-liked-that-thing-you-did-with-your-tongue kinda guy.

So last night's revelation that John Winchester had a son - another son, a seekrit baby, as it were - I was, in a word, pissed. What the hell, thought I. This totally screws John's character, thought I; all these years I'd imagined as filled with angst and sorrow and grief and vengeance and, oh yeah, the unrelenting shaping of his sons into warriors - instead they were only mostly like that, but interrupted with the occasional long weekend in the 'burbs with his replacement blonde POA and their bastard.

No, I have absolutely no tendency towards bitterness. Why do you ask?

Cut to this afternoon. School's out, it's 86 degrees (in April. In Wisconsin. But I digress.), and i'm outside listening to my iPod and watering my lawn. [shut up. sometimes i find it relaxing.]

Of course I'm reflecting on last night's episode, generally grousing over the fact that Kripke's gone and well and truly fucked over Who John Was, and with all my talking about "I trust Kripke and crew, it's their show and what they do with it and the direction they take it is all good, I trust that they know what they're doing and that it'll all make sense" was a pile of crap after all, because they went and wrote that crap story, and *John wouldn't do that.*

To which the little voice in my head said, "What wouldn't John have done?"

"Had a relationship," I told myself. "Left Dean and Sam to go (however periodically) shack up with some chick and play Good Daddy."

"That's true," I told myself. "How awful of John, to leave those two little boys all alone for days (if not weeks!) at a time to go off to baseball games and to the zoo and to teach the little tot how to catch a baseball and...wait a second...."

"Hey," I interrupted myself. "Didn't the dialogue establish that John didn't even come into this kid's life until he was 12?"

"Yeah," I said to myself. "So?"

"Well, um," I hedged. "Going with what we know of the boys' ages, when Adam was 12, Dean was 23 and Sam was 19 - which means Sam was off at Stanford and Dean was doing solo hunts more often than not. Right?"

"Hmph," I said to myself, which I interpreted as reluctant agreement.

"So it's not like John was abandoning wee!Sam and wee!Dean to go hang with Adam," says I.

"I suppose not," I grudgingly admitted.

Once I'd got myself to that point, it was pretty easy to let go of the bitterness and try to think about it more logically, with more of a 'what purpose does this serve for the story/mytharc?' type of thinking.

Well, for one, at the time John found out about Adam, John was done with actively parenting his and Mary's boys. Not to say he was "done" being the dad, but the rasing of the children was effectively over with.

Part of being a parent is looking at your kids as they get older. You reflect on what you did with them, how they turned out, mistakes you made and things you wish you'd done differently.

And what is john's opinion of himself as a father at that point in his life? He looks at his boys and sees Dean: a hunter (and a damn good one) - but does that make John happy? we know that's not what he wanted for his kids (not to mention not what Mary wanted, but that's another discussion.)

So Dean - his oldest, his heir, his firstborn - lives on the edges of society, "earns" a living by running scams, and apparently has neither a clue how to nor the ability to have a healthy romantic/sexual emotional relationship.

Then there's Sammy, John's baby; the one who left. No, not just that: the one he himself told to get out and stay gone. I have to think John spent plenty of hours at a bar, looking into a beer and wondering how much of Sam's leaving was John's driving him away and how much of it was Sam rejecting him.

Now. Do you really think John's patting himself on the back about all that? "Good job, Winchester. Back when I held those boys in my arms on the day each of them was born, the life I gave them, the way I raised them - that's exactly what I dreamed of for them."

Because if you do, then I'm pretty sure you and I aren't watching the same show.

Sam's 19 and gone. Dean is 23 and on his own. Then John gets a call, a call he has no way of expecting: "Hi, my name's Adam, and I'm your kid." Holy shit, John thinks.

Holy shit, he thinks, I have a chance to do this right - or better, at the very least.

I failed Mary's boys in so many ways, cheated them out of normal lives, homes and friends and normality. But here's this other kid - my other kid - who doesn't have to live that way, who can have all those things I wasn't able to do and be and give Sam and Dean.

Adam wanted to know John. he made the effort to contact him. once john got his mind wrapped around the fact that it was for real, that this kid was his kid (and you'd better believe the John Winchester we knew would've made damn sure it was all on the up and up), doesn't it make sense that John would do what he could to be a father? A Dad?

John knew he couldn't make it up to Dean and Sam; that ship (those ships?) had sailed. But I think it's entirely plausible that he'd at least have wanted to try to be a normal father, even if only for the occasional long weekend.