Sam: There’s another way.

Adam: Great. What is it?

Dean: Well, we’re working on the power of love.

Dean is in smart-ass mode here, but I think this is EXACTLY what we’ve been watching over the past couple of seasons.

It’s nearly unmistakable if (like me) you look at the cases of the week as lessons for/about the boys.

Season four was filled with example after example of monsters who acted with the goal of being loved. At first, it’s a bit plastic. Think of the lonely 4.05 Monster Movie shapeshifter Dracula and 4.08 Wishful Thinking’s original coin tosser. Watch how the theme evolves in the second half of season four.  We get the further perversion of demanding proof of love embodied by the siren of 4.14 Sex and Violence. We get 4.20 The Rapture requiring incredible sacrifices for loved ones.

Season five hasn’t dropped the idea. Indeed, the stories are now hitting closer to home. The boys were unable to save John and Mary – made in heaven but not perfect. They lost Ellen and Jo – who faced their end together. Loved ones are brought back from the dead – Bobby’s wife (doomed) and the boys’ brother (apparently NOT a zombie). The idea of love is more realistic now. It’s wrapped in family and presented as complex and messy.

And powerful. The faith in Dean that Sam offered against Bobby and Castiel’s inclinations paid off in Dean staying himself. He still has a choice.

There’s been more than one version of immortality offered to loved ones in the stories. In 3.15 Time Is on my Side, Dr. Benton’s “just science” immortality required becoming a monster, and Sam was desperate enough to consider it as an option. The unnatural offer wasn’t tempting enough for the magician Jay in  4.12 Criss Angel is a Douchebag. The witch’s assistant in 5.07′s Curious Case of Dean Winchester changed her mind after having accepted the offer.

We had the Winchesters described as “dangerously codependent” in 5.11 Sam, Interrupted by the facility’s lead doctor. They were designated as “soulmates” in 5.16 Dark Side of the Moon. In this latest episode, Zachariah labels them “psychotically, irrationally, erotically codependent.”

I’m excited that the show seems to be building to explaining those kinds of allusions. Last season when I thought we were getting the creepiest incestuous references in eps like 4.11 Family Remains and canonizing fanfiction Sam/Dean in 4.18 The Monster at the End of This Book, I decided to read it as a symptom rather than the fact of what was really going on (or heaven forbid as a joke anyone would find funny). If the boys have been operating on a spirit plane – maybe dreamwalking in each others’ psyches? – without being aware of it, that unavoidable intimacy and  breach of privacy might be interpreted as the wrongness of incest?

How do you describe the bond between the young girl spirit and her much older, younger sister at the end of 2.11 Playthings? Are they still skipping jumprope? How about the ghost brothers’ resolution to the story of 4.06 Red Sky at Morning? What happened after they merged in that splashing crash? That’s a dark thought to dwell on, but I’m afraid I prefer that kind of explanation to ones that leave the boys separated.

Okay, I’m posting just for the record of my thoughts. I know this view is the furthest away it could be from a literal reading of the story as presented.

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