From MadCap's Couch - "Supernatural: What Is and What Should Never Be"

Yeah, that's not Photoshopped at all.

Something something something I Dream of Jeannie joke.

. . .look, if Dean doesn't have to put in any effort, why do I?

What Is and What Should Never Be begins with some scenes going all the way back to the Pilot. When we escape the recap, it appears that Sam and Dean are hunting a djinn of all things. Sam theorizes that, if djinn are powerful enough, they can grant wishes although he doesn't really know if that part of the lore is true. When Sam tells Dean to pick him up, Dean insists that he has this and cowboys up to go do it himself.

Needless to say, he gets whammied almost immediately.

Whomp whomp!

Dean then suddenly wakes up in bed with a black and white monster movie (From Hell It Came) on the television and a naked hot chick in bed with him. He calls Sam, who doesn't seem to understand Dean's references to the hunt and accuses him of being drunk. We also get the name of the woman in bed with Dean - Carmen - and we get a shot of Sam closing a book titled "Criminal Law & Procedure".

Hmm. . .

Dean checks through some mail, some addressed to a Carmen Porter and some addressed to a Dean Winchester, and all of them addressed to a place in Lawrence, Kansas. Carmen pops up, attempting to seduce him back to bed, but he resolves to stay up. He looks over pictures, seeing several of himself and Carmen and then seeing one that shocks him so much that he drops it on the ground - the glass shattering.

. . .I mean, it's probably a good sandwich.

Dean pulls up to a familiar house, one we haven't seen since mid Season 1 - the original home of the Winchester clan. When he knocks on the door, a very much alive Mary Winchester answers to Dean's shock. Dean asks Mary to tell him what she always told him when she put him to bed at night- "angels are watching over you". Believing its her, he embraces her for the first time in years in what is possibly one of the most heartbreaking moments of. . .well, ever.

He asks about the fire when he was younger, but Mary informs him that there was no fire. Several pictures detail a life of him and Sam growing up normal. . .and we get the reveal that John has died, having passed away in his sleep from a stroke the previous year. Dean angles himself into staying there overnight, clearly in awe over the situation.

The next morning, Dean wakes up and finds that it isn't a dream. After starting to call Sam, he changes his mind and goes to a mythology professor to learn more about djinn. Satisfied that, maybe, his deepest wish has been granted, Dean leaves to find the Impala without its weapon loadout. . .and sees a woman in a white dress looking at him mournfully from across the street. When he tries to approach her, nearly getting hit by a passing car in the process, she's gone.

Dean partakes in a sandwich, mows the lawn set to a cover of "What A Wonderful World", and seems to be settling into this new existence. Sam arrives and has with him. . .Jessica, apparently alive and well! We have more awkward things Dean should know in this new reality moments before the group heads to dinner at a fancy restaurant for Mary's birthday.

Dean and Carmen are hitting it off well, Sam and Jessica announce their engagement, and all seems merry and bright. . .until the ghost girl shows up again, getting Dean's attention. When he passes by the others to find her, though, she's gone again. . .and everyone looks very confused. Back at Mary's, when Dean suggests the two couples make a night of it after Mary turns in for the night, we get a gut crushing moment where we find out Sam and Dean aren't close like they are in the former reality. Dean was, for lack of a better term, an asshole. . .and doesn't call Sam "Sammy", which is kind of terrifying to contemplate.

Also, he snaked Sam's ATM card. . .bailed on his graduation. . .or stole his prom date on prom night.

Dean tries to bring up hunting, but Sam doesn't have any idea what he's talking about.

With his perfect world suddenly not so perfect, Dean at least can take some solace in Carmen, who consoles him. Dean wants to make things right with Sam and feels like he's been given a second chance. He and Carmen start making out, though Carmen has to leave for her job - a nurse at the local hospital. Sitting back with a brew, flipping through some infomericals and old cartoons, Dean finds a news story about a candlelight vigil being held for the victims of United Britannia Flight 424, a crash Dean finds very familiar.

"Talk to the hand!"

He goes into research mode, looking back and finding that every hunt that he and Sam ever went on. . .were never done. All those terrible things happened because Sam and Dean weren't there to stop them, all of those people that they have saved are dead.

Spying the ghost girl out of the corner of his eye, Dean follows her and finds two bodies strung up in his closet, dripping with blood. When he turns back to her, she vanishes and so do the bodies. At a graveyard, Dean talks to John's gravestone - telling him about the situation and having a one-sided conversation, where Dean asks him why Mary doesn't get to live her life. . .why Sam doesn't get to get married to Jess. . .why he isn't allowed to be happy. He knows what John would tell him to do - trade his happiness for the lives of all those people, no contest - but Dean is not at peace with the idea, openly struggling with the values John instilled in him for the first time since Dead Man's Blood.

Nevertheless, it seems that Dean has made his decision and leaves the graveyard.

We get a callback to the Pilot where someone is breaking into Mary's house and Sam gets jumped by Dean. Sam turns on the lights to find that Dean has broken into Mary's silver. Dean tries to give Sam a story about owing a bookie money, but eventually gives it up and apologizes to Sam about how bad their relationship is and how he wishes he could stay and fix it. He tells Sam to tell Mary that he loves her before leaving. . .and Sam ends up tagging along, sensing something is very wrong.

It's an interesting bit of symmetry from the beginning of the episode, where Dean didn't go get Sam before the hunt started. We get an averted "jerk/bitch" moment and they drive off. Sam finds the lamb's blood that Dean is intending to put on the silver knife to kill a djinn. Sam tries to talk reason to his brother, but Dean is determined and even goes so far as throwing Sam's phone out of the window to keep him from calling for help.

The two come up to Illinois, the place where Dean was originally. We get some repeated shots from earlier in the episode, now with Sam with Dean as they head into the lair of the djinn. They hear and follow the pained whimpers of a woman, finding the bodies hanging from the ceiling with some in awful, desiccated states - including the woman in white that Dean has been seeing. The djinn makes an appearance, apparently drinking the blood of people under their hypnotic influence.

Sam insists they need to get out of there, until Dean seems mesmerized by a lightbulb and we get flashes of Dean having been strung up. Dean begins to realize that the djinn hasn't granted his wish, just created a well-crafted illusion and Dean just keeps getting flashes of reality. Sam implores him to leave, and Dean pulls out his knife and cites the old wives' tale that you wake up if you die in a dream. Just as he's about to, Mary appears as do Carmen and Jess. His family attempts to talk him down.

Sam asks Dean why he had to dig, Mary implores him to put the knife down and tells him this is everything he's ever wanted. She promises him what will feel like years of love, comfort, and safety. Carmen twists the knife, promising him a future together, their own family. . .and Dean seems to be teetering on that edge, Sam asking Dean if they haven't already done enough. He implores Dean to give him the knife. . .and Dean, despite everything, refuses and thrusts it into his stomach.

Back in the real world, Dean is alive. . .and looking much worse for wear. Sam has come to his rescue, cutting him down from the djinn's ropes. When the djinn pins down Sam and it looks like he's going to have his own It's A Wonderful Life, Dean jumps and kills it. The two find the young woman in white, Dean finding that she's still alive. They cut her down and get her out of that hellhole.

Are you for real? It's so hard to tell from just a magazine.
Yeah, you just smile and the picture sells.
Look what that does to me!

Later, at the motel, Dean looks over a magazine and finds a familiar picture. . .Carmen, on a beer ad, apparently having been taken from his memories. Sam tells Dean that the captured girl is going to pull through, which he is happy about. Dean tells Sam about the alternate life he saw, how it was better and how it was worse. It wasn't a perfect world, just a wish. . .and ultimately, for Dean, it had more bad than good.

Even then, Dean tells Sam that he wanted to stay more than anything. They've lost so much, sacrificed so much and it's been wearing down on him. Sam tells him that their sacrifices, the good that they've done to help others, it's worth it. People are alive and happy because of them, and that makes it worth it. Dean, however, doesn't look convinced.

And that's What Is and What Should Never Be. A lot of episodes this season have been Dean-centric, but this is by far the best of them. I'm a stickler for the storytelling engine of the alternate universe (I bet you couldn't tell from my blog), so this one was right up my alley. Jensen Ackles does a fantastic job in this episode as Dean struggling between his desires and his morality, which kind of touches on what we discussed back in Bloodlust, albeit from a different angle. Here, instead of discussing whether or not all monsters should be killed (although Dean very briefly touches on that idea when speaking with the mythology professor), Dean has to weigh his sense of duty to protect others from the supernatural against his own desire for happiness.

Ultimately, even if it is the hardest choice he's ever made, he chooses the lives of others over his own happiness. Oddly enough, he does this in spite of Sam, not because of him as we saw back in Bloodlust, where Sam served as Dean's conscience. Through his connection to his father, which has its own immensely problematic elements that I won't go into here, Dean finds the resolve he needs to keep going in spite of it all. I like to think that Dean's flashes of reality, such as seeing the woman in white, were also his conscience eating at it him.

I do like that the world that the djinn created for Dean isn't perfect. While Dean does have things like his mother being alive and a loving girlfriend who he is totally in sync with, his relationship with Sam is in smoldering shambles and John is still dead, albeit for a different reason than in the original timeline. It shows off the monkey's paw quality of the wish well, although I'd think the djinn would try to tailor the experience specifically to keep the person docile until they can finish draining them of all their blood.

Also, taking yourself out of their fantasy world would probably be a good idea as well.

Also also, given what we know about the nature of Supernatural in later seasons, I'm given to wonder if this universe does actually exist within the multiverse. . .although events that follow render that question moot. More on that much later.

A little less later, specifically next week, it's finale time. The Yellow Eyed Demon's plans are coming to fruition. Sam goes missing and Dean has to find him and Sam. . .Sam is in a great of trouble. Because next time. . . All Hell Breaks Loose. . .Part 1.

Be. There!