It has been pointed out a few times how Sam’s freak abilities thing was queer-coded in the first season, and Sam’s queer-coding (”It gets better”, “Don’t ask, don’t tell”, “Don’t look at me like that”) and Dean’s queer subtext run in parallel.
Sam thinks he’s a freak and mentions it to Dean a few times, but Dean also thinks he’s a freak (although we only find this out when the shapeshifter downloads his memories, because Dean lies and deflects). Sam feels like a freak because of his paranormal abilities, but Dean feeling like a freak (since in their family, he’s not the “blonde chick in The Munsters”) has to do with his sexuality. I think the moment in Skin, when the shapeshifter, upon commenting on how fucked up Dean Winchester’s mind is, hears “a boy… or a girl” among the three examples of Dean’s subconscious mind, is actually skirting very close to main text on this. Dean feels like a freak because of his sexuality, is the subtext.
There are many people who deny that John Winchester was an abusive parent. This is also in the subtext of the first season. I didn’t actually fully appreciate it during the initial viewing. It’s not easy to spot when you’re watching the episodes weeks apart, and you don’t have the context of the other episodes at hand. But upon review, it’s extremely strong. Dean’s micro-expressions when ever his father is mentioned tell a story. Dean lying to Sam about their father, sanitizing the truth for his little brother, tell a story.
But Nightmare pretty well confirms the subtext.
I never really paid attention to it, but the episode begins with Bob Seger’s 2+2=?, which is a song about the Vietnam war, playing in the background of the scene of Max killing his father. And when Sam and Dean come to Max’s uncle’s building, the word ‘Nam’ is visible on the glass door. Both hint at Max’s father and his uncle, who beat Max, being Vietnam veterans. Both Sam and Dean are paralleled with Max – Sam in the maintext, and Dean in the subtext of the episode.
Note that Dean mentions “normal, every day naked in class nightmares“, indicating he has those frequently. Nightmares about public nudity and school are often experienced by individuals that suffer from self-image issues and low self-esteem. Being naked in public may relate to fear of being judged by other people, of being exposed and ashamed.
At the end of the episode, Sam and Dean have an exchange by the car in which Sam expresses gratitude for not having had Max’s childhood, and Dean casts his eyes down at this (the previous time we saw him cast his eyes down in the same way was at the mention of mass rape in Bugs). You’ve seen the gifs. Sam didn’t have Max’s childhood. The thing that isn’t often pointed out is that Dean missed the part of the conversation between Sam and Max where Max revealed that the beatings didn’t just happen in his childhood, they were still going two weeks ago. Dean never heard that. It was the child Max, whose father had broken his arm two times, who Dean seemed to feel kinship with.
We come close to the maintext at the end. Sam compares himself with Max.
Sam: Aren’t you worried I could turn into Max or something? Dean: Nope. No way. You know why? Sam: No. Why?
Dean: Cause you got one advantage Max didn’t have.
Sam: Dad? Because Dad’s not here, Dean. Dean: No. Me. As long as I’m around, nothing bad is gonna happen to you.
It wasn’t John Winchester that kept Sam from turning into Max, it was Dean. Which means that Sam had been in danger of having Max’s childhood. The only reason he didn’t, was Dean. Dean was the one advantage Sam had to Max. Because John Winchester didn’t blame Sam for “everything. For his job, for his life, for [their] mom’s death”. He didn’t blame Sam for those things. But Dean didn’t have that one advantage.
It was Dean Winchester who had Max’s childhood. And he thinks it happened because he’s a ‘freak’. Because he’s queer.
Bugs and Nightmare break my heart every single time I watch them, and there’s another two episodes that do exactly the same: 1×20 Dead Man’s Blood and 5×16 Dark Side of the Moon.
The moment in 1×20 when Sam confronts John on the side of the road and Dean is standing by looking probably the closest to panic we’ve ever seen him. To me, that is the look of someone who desperately wants to protect his little brother but is terrified of the wrath that doing so will incur, mixed with shame for being afraid, because at the age of 26 Dean is paralysed with fear but thinks it ridiculous to be scared of a human when he faces ghosts, demons, wendigos etc every day and he can’t reconcile that within himself.
Or if you want something that takes a little less analysis, just the look of pure terror on Dean’s face in 5×16 when he says “And when dad came home…” He can’t even complete the sentence because the memory is that traumatic.
I could probably sit here and come up with at least a dozen more examples of this kind of thing, but it’ll just be more of the same.
Tl;dr John Winchester is an abusive asshole and Dean spent his entire childhood protecting Sam from that, which is probably the greatest tragedy of all in this show.
Another really chilling moment was in The Things They Left Behind, where Dean answers Castiel’s question of whether he loved his father with a pained “With everything I had“. Not “Of course“, not “Yeah“, not “Sure“, not with any kind of affirmation. He loved his father to the best of his ability, and that’s chilling for a child.
That last line always confused me, when Dean says, “With everything I had”. I realize now that what I was interpreting that as was “With my whole heart” or “With my everything”, and not what the line actually states. Loving someone with your everything and loving someone with everything you can manage are two very different things, and it’s heartbreaking that Dean has to make this distinction.
I always thought that’s what makes the line so clever, because that would be the usual, expected response. And it’s easy to dismiss, especially by people that don’t take the time to look at Dean’s background, to look deeper.
I’ve spoken about this before, but this is why I trust Andrew Dabb: he knows Dean very, very well.
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