I am unspoiled for anything not yet aired in the USA. This should be obvious given the ways I’ve found to play with – or be played by? – the show. I have a lot more thinking to do along these lines, but wanted to post before tonight’s new episode. (yay! a new ep!)

My latest thought? I’m noticing how well so much of the episode fit with my speculations. We got the boys in a state other than reality. We had them presuming they were dreaming and then being conscious of interacting with each others’ dream. This time the dreams turned out to be memories.

I’m thinking about how very much “heaven” resembles the dreams we saw in 2.20 What Is and What Should Never Be (Mary feeding Dean) and 3.10 Dream a Little Dream of Me (running through woods). What if by explicitly naming tunnels and rivers along with Dean’s Road, we are supposed to recall the many examples of these motifs we’ve already been given? I’ve spent the better part of the week wondering if “heaven” isn’t another name for getting into the boys’ heads as they struggle to find their way out of a state other than the one we saw them in during season one and two?

But, what if I’ve got it backward?  What if it really was a heaven-ish Afterlife in Dark Side of the Moon? What if that has been the journey from the start? Castiel described the axis mundi as a tunnel or river or road. Haven’t we seen all three from the earliest days of the series?

Both boys, but Dean especially, have found themselves in some interesting hallways. Think of the fantastic halls of 3.14 Mystery Spot or 3.10 Dream a Little Dream of Me.

I’m detouring here now, I know. But, I can’t resist sticking in the great Sam + door image I came across. Remember the boys trying to get to each other at the end of the 2.02 Everybody Loves a Clown case?

Back to my main idea…. the recent mental hospital in 5.11 Sam, Interrupted had Dean standing watch at a crossroads of hallways. That’s enough to remind one of the symbolic hallway of 3.05 Bedtime Stories.

Think of the sewer tunnels of Skin and the wall passages of 2.06 No Exit and 4.11 Family Remains.


For awhile the spaces Dean found himself passing through got tighter and tighter. 4.19 Jump the Shark particularly had him in both ductwork and breaking open a secret passage into a crypt.

Think of the pivotal scenes set at riversides. 2.11 Hunted and 4.o4 Metamorphosis come to mind immediately.

And of course, the entire series is built on the boys traveling that two lane asphalt Castiel tells Dean is his path to Heaven’s Garden. In particular, think back to the Pilot. We had the road  – complete with covered bridge (tunnel) – crossing a river. The episode’s mantra is “Take me home. I can never go home.”

1.01 Pilot Bridge

YIKES!! How crazy is this?! What if the Pilot’s opening scene of Dean going to find Sam at Stanford was another – the first? – instance of the aftermath of Dean having been killed and his spirit haunting (for lack of a better term) his brother? Just like in 5.16 Dark Side, the first order of business is to find Sam.

The question would then become whether Sam has been more spirit or human throughout the series? A point has been made about Sam’s rage. There’ve been a few show explanations for anger in general. Sam expositions to the unaware spirit Molly in S2′s Roadkill. Tessa warns Dean about spirits who don’t go with their reaper. What if baby Sam died in that fire, but four-year-old Dean kept his spirit with him somehow?

I’ve wondered before if Dean’s line, in 3.06 Red Sky at Morning, “That’s as close as you came to being a boy” was put so awkwardly in order to make sense later. Sam has been portrayed as longing for independence and normal from the start. Perhaps that’s because those were states forbidden to him – not by his family so much as by his nature? What if Sam’s lifelong sensitivity to being called “freak” and “monster” is more understandable than we ever knew?

And I thought we were talking “dangerously codependent” before this speculation? Instead of seeing the boys as fighting to remain human and avoid becoming spirits, I’m thinking of them struggling to become human and leave spirit-hood? The delicious part is not knowing how having the boys regain a firm grasp on an earthly human life would best be accomplished. I suppose one step will be separating if they are feeding off of each other in some way — and that will have to hurt.

Even if none of this plays out, I still hope the show was trying to get someone to consider possibilities like these. It seems to me that one of the worst hells would be being made to question yourself and those you hold dearest. And, didn’t Dark Side of the Moon accomplish that is spades?

Oh, and yes, I still care very little about the crap apocalypse and the fate of the world. Dean and Sam are the only ones who matter to me.

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