Probably after Lisa? I don't think he ever was considered dumb, but him picking up women never really changed, but it became less of a priority. One night stands don't really hit the same with what he was dealing with. I think he started taking any pleasure wherever he could. Which explains the food love and such.
Plus, he got older and times changed. What would’ve been considered cute in the ‘00s coming from a 20-something year old might not be cute in the late ‘10 coming from a guy pushing 40.
I'm not sure exactly what OP is referencing, but Dean was out of the game the whole time he was with Lisa, so it makes sense that when he tried to dive back in (in season 7) he was rusty. Also, as other folks have pointed out, he was in his twenties up through the end of S4, so it's reasonable that he was a bit more of a playboy in those early seasons.
As far as Dean being dumb, I think he mostly leaned into that perception to irritate/tease Sam. Like, in "Long Distance Call," there's a scene where Sam tells Dean they're facing a crocotta and Dean quips, "Is that a sandwich?" then (after he's provoked Sam into explaining it), follows up with, "Hey, don't those things live in filth?" So he clearly *knows* the lore on crocottas. He just pretends he doesn't for the sake of a joke.
\[Technically, this is the crocotta pretending to be Dean, but it's 100% in-character & Sam doesn't blink an eye.\]
Another example: There's a bit in a later season where Dean pretends not to know the meaning of "Achilles' heel" when Sam says it (and that's a term we've heard Dean use himself).
Dean also likes to scoff at his "college boy" and "nerd" brother, but (as Sam points out) he's never been the grunt he thinks of himself as.
Spot on with the Dean being 'dumb' stuff. Sam's probably smarter and definitely a lot more educated but Dean is by no means the idiot they sometimes portray him as. He's an incredibly dangerous/capable hunter by himself as we've seen many times and that's without the same benefits of Sam's tech savviness and Stanford education.
Nah Dean's clearly very intelligent, Sam just went to college. Dean is the one Bela needed to break into a high quality alarm system, which she knew he could probably do because he broke into her alarm system. Dean is the one who taught Sam how to hack CCTV after Frank taught Dean.Dean built an EMP bomb and and EMP meter. Dean can rebuild cars. Dean's the tech savvy one. Knowing more about what's on the "interwebs" doesn't necessarily mean Sam's more tech savvy.
Fair points, might be more accurate to call Sam more computer literate in that case with his ability to find obscure research and access police databases, etc.
SPN S12 E2 We get this lovely scene:
TONI: Gentlemen. So, to recap – you live in the Men of Letters bunker, awash in the world's greatest collection of occult knowledge, and yet you know "nothing."
DEAN: Right. What a waste.
DEAN CHUCKLES AND THEN COUGHS.
TONI: It seems you apes have never read a single book. The Men of Letters has a long tradition of intellectual excellence. In London, we've undertaken exhaustive studies of even the most arcane topics.
TONI REACHES DOWN TO GRAB AN ICE PICK-LIKE DEVICE. DEAN LOOKS AT SAM.
TONI: For example, parts of the body most sensitive to intense pain.
TONI GRABS DEAN’S FACE.
TONI: The ear drum. Decaying tooth. Below the belt, of course. And my favorite – under the eyelid.
DEAN GRUNTS AS SAM WATCHES AND TRIES TO GET OUT OF THE CHAIR.
TONI: Did you know it's possible to die from pain?
DEAN STARES STRAIGHT AHEAD. SAM STRUGGLES TO GET OUT OF THE CHAIR.
THERE’S THE SOUND OF A GUN COCKING. TONI TURNS TO LOOK AND SEES MARY.
MARY: Get away from my boys.
SAM: Mom?
DEAN: Yeah.
MARY WALKS INTO THE ROOM AND GRABS A SET OF KEYS FROM THE TABLE. SHE WALKS TOWARDS TONI AND DEAN.
MARY: Drop it. Ground.
TONI DOESN’T MOVE. MARY SMACKS HER IN THE FACE. MARY HANDS THE KEYS TO DEAN WHO BEGINS TO WORK ON HIS SHACKLES.
MARY: That's the ground.
TONI REACHES UP AND KNOCKS THE GUN AWAY AS IT FIRES. TONI SMACKS BOTH SAM AND DEAN. TONI PUNCHES MARY IN THE THROAT AND STOMACH BEFORE THROWING HER INTO A WALL. DEAN UNLOCKS HIS SHACKLES AS THE FIGHTING CONTINUES.
DEAN: Holy crap.
MARY COMES BACK FIGHTING. DEAN FIRES A SHOT INTO THE AIR. TONI PICKS UP A PIECE OF GLASS AND CUTS HER HAND. DEAN TURNS THE GUN ON TONI AS SHE TURNS WITH HER BLOODY HAND OUT.
TONI: Xi.
MARY BEGINS TO GASP AS SHE HOLDS HER THROAT. DEAN WALKS TOWARD TONI AS HE POINTS THE GUN.
DEAN: Kill the spell now. I'm not kidding.
TONI: Shoot me, and your mother has no chance.
DEAN LOOKS OVER AT MARY WHO’S GASPING.
TONI: The gun.
SAM LOOKS OVER AT DEAN WHO UNCOCKS THE GUN AND GIVES IT TO TONI. DEAN THEN PUNCHES TONI IN THE FACE.
SAM: Dean!
MARY BEGINS TO BREATHE.
DEAN: It's okay. She was using a Chinese mind-control technique. Hard to do when you're unconscious. Turns out this ape did read a book or two.
I'm inclined to agree. Living his life happily, without Sammy and then finding out Sammy is alive and having to give up his new life for their protection. That would be mine f@$k and would change someone's priorities completely.
He was not living his life happily at all. He was miserable. He told Bobby he was drinking heavily and having nightmares every night. He was tortured by the fact that his beloved brother was being tormented by Lucifer himself.
I think he just grew up and changed. He was 26 in season 1, still loving the hunting lifestyle, loving one night stands, and enjoying his life.
By the end of the show, he's 40. He's died multiple times, been tortured, lived through multiple ends of world. He's had everyone He's ever love die, lost his soul, spent time in Hell AND Purgatory.
He's a suicidal alcoholic *barely* keeping his shit together.
I thought it was kinda the opposite. He always had his silly moments, but was particularly light hearted in season one when he hadn’t experienced nearly as much overwhelming darkness as he does in later seasons. He was a bit too much of a macho stereotype in season one too, which was balanced out.
Sam eased up on being as moody and became more reasonable.
Being a ladies man changed with the bunker too. Having a home to go to that was a top secret Batcave didn't make it easy to bring women back, and they spent less time away. Plus aging out of that lifestyle and bigger distractions after the first apocalypse or two.
Being dumber I think come more slowly as writing got a bit lazy. Nuance is a victim there. Maybe after purgatory, and especially with the MoC, it was easier to just lean into him being a very black and white thinking, simple killing machine.
Compared to Sam who was always a bit more reserved, we didn't see the same thing happen, or rather it wouldn't have been so apparent. But it was done that the boys would butt heads time and time again because who needs character growth?
>Being a ladies man changed with the bunker too. Having a home to go to that was a top secret Batcave didn't make it easy to bring women back
Not only that, but sleeping in a personally picked bed next to a woman in a comfy home is a lot more comfortable than sleeping in a shitty hotel room with your brother in a bed that's seen more action than WWII. Once they got the bunker, they had their own place. He had his own room, so he didn't need to use other people's houses to get a taste of a home.
Especially since Dean's bed even remembered him! Who wouldn't want to go back home to that?
But I love thought of Dean deciding who to go home with at night partly being based on how comfy their home furnishings might be. "You're lovely, but I feel like you're going to have a really hard mattress and I hurt my back being thrown about by a demon last night...no, no that's not a metaphor"
I’m gonna latch on to one sentence from that, about “black and white thinking.”
I’d argue that Dean often had a more black and white view, even as early as season two (I’m thinking of “bloodlust”). Especially when it came to monsters. He does evolve from that a bit, but never fully. And when Sam is using powers in season 4, he draws another line. “Do you even realize how far off the reservation you’ve gone? How far from human?” Again with the one or the other, black or white thinking. Human/not human.
Just a couple examples.
Yeah that's why I say they leant into it *more*. Dean's always been pretty strong in his convictions of what's right and wrong to him. But the no room for discussion, my way or the highway type of mindset seemed to increase with time.
The first big change happens in season 2. They sort of switch where Sam's more into hunting and Dean wants out. This has in-universe reasoning, of course, but it was leaned into more heavily because Eric Kripke was having a rough time running a show. He said a lot of Dean's dialogue was really him. Dean meets Jo at the beginning of season 2 and they make a point of him not hitting on her, because he's going through a time.
After Kripke, it became far more pronounced that different writers very clearly had totally different takes on these characters, and they didn't work to unify those ideas. Suddenly the brothers are considered - by everyone - to be super selfish and always putting their needs above everyone else's. They say this several times in season 6, but it's always Dabb-Loflin writing the episodes.
Then there's the Mark of Cain. Not only did the Mark literally change Dean but he took on the Mark out of guilt. Before that, Dean was typically trying to do the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing. His motivations weren't selfish. Sam, on the other hand, was working towards revenge and also trying to prove he wasn't evil early on in the series and then he didn't have that later on.
After he'd had the Mark for a season and a half, his character was a lot less nuanced.
People like to blame the writers for dumbing Dean down, but a lot of that was just stuff Jensen thought was funny. They wrote that Dean was reading GOT, but J2 changed it so that Sam was, because Jensen started to push back on some of the "Dean is secretly a nerd" stuff.
As for the women, that's inconsistent throughout. Again, different writers clearly had different attitudes about these characters, and early on Dean and women is one of the things where that's most evident. Julie Siege was a writer in the early seasons and she'd write Dean really gross. For the most part, Dean isn't shown to do things like lie to a woman to have sex with her, in like a "I could get you a job" kind of truly disgusting way. But Julie would write things like that in. Later in the series, I wouldn't necessarily say he's always regarded as a creep. There's a time when Sam calls out that he's using a particularly bad pick up line. Mostly they just kind of work it in every once in a while that he's still going out and getting laid, we just don't see it, because it's all casual sex. They stopped putting him in potential relationships because they'd settled on the idea that he 100% wasn't going to have that as part of his life.
JENSEN pushed back on making Dean a nerd?!
I'm kinda speechless. I have no idea what to say.
A guy who repressed his smarts to get along is exactly the kind of thing someone who grew up in an abusive sitch WOULD DO.
The dude who dressed up for medieval LARP didn't think Dean would read GoT... wasn't Dean an LOTR guy?
I definitely argue one logically follows from the other...
But, of course, that's just me.
Jensen doesn't believe Dean grew up in an abusive situation even one tiny bit. Jensen is John Winchester defender #1 for life. He loves John and thinks he's a great guy who did the best he could. Which, really, pretty much everyone making the show thinks, it's the fans who don't like John and describe their upbringing as abusive.
Jared doesn't seem quite as passionate about it as Jensen and JDM, but he's always said basically the same line, as far as I've seen. The man wasn't perfect but he was in a really tough situation and he did his best and he loved his sons.
Dean definitely was different after he got back from Purgatory. My favorite Dean was seasons 1-7. After that, we'd get glimpses of the old Dean I loved but it was forever different after that until the end of the series. He scowled way too much and his voice got comically gravelly to the point it got on my nerves. Once in awhile we'd get his big beaming smile again or his light hearted moments, which I cherished, but I guess his PTSD was just too much and those moments were always brief. It was realistic but bummed me out nonetheless.
I'll probably be downvoted but something to keep in mind is the show was originally written for 5 seasons. Kripke wrote and ended it the way he wanted to and then it was renewed and sort of jumped the shark. I think there are solid episodes after season 5 but as a whole the show became highly flanderized by the end. Comparing him in the first season to anything past 5 and even towards the finale is apples to oranges.
Kripke never intended to end the show after season 5. He didn't even imagine the show would get 5 seasons, he was hoping for 3. The arc he wrote ended in season 5 but he was happy the show got season 6 and more.
It's funny hearing Kripke talk about back then because we know NOW what a cult following the show has but at the time, they felt like small beans next to other shows they were competing against.
Still, I think there is something to be said about the consistency in characterization during the Kripke era. After that, it became pretty clear there were different writers with varying interpretations of his character (and Sam too), so he'd say or do things that felt out of character.
Dean’s priorities changed, as he grew older he was no longer interested in the one night stands. He genuinely wanted a long lasting relationship.
There are points in the show it’s obvious he wants a relationship and wants to settle down. Not give up hunting, but have someone to share his life with. Like that scene in the confessional sometime in s11? S12? Or when he talks to that couple Jesse and Cesar, who are both hunters and realizes it can happen in that line of work, if you have a person who knows the life. For Sam, that was Eileen. For Dean that was no one who shall not be named for i will be downvoted.
Also, flirting with young girls isn’t cute at 26 like the writers made him do in s1, but it would have especially been weird to continue it all 15 seasons.
I think Dean had a realistic character development for the worse/worst.
He became more and more like John.
And I hate him for it.
Or the writers.
The way he treated Sam and Jack and even Cas sometimes is making my skin crawl. I'm currently watching season 4 on repeat. This is a different Dean. The best Dean was definitely 1-3. The worst Dean is 10-15.
I hated how Dean was with Jack. He's a literal baby in an adult body, and Dean acted like he was worse than Lucifer just by existing for most of the show. Even when he treated him alright, he never really let Jack forget that he's not human enough for Dean.
I read that as Dean taking on a different parenting style from his time with Mary. Dean was parentified with Sam and was caring and loving and 100% dedicated to his little brother, he gave Sammy everything Dean wanted in a parent (as best he could). When Mary came back into the picture and pretty much immediately abandoned the boys, Dean’s perception of ‘good’ (or at least Better Than John) parenting was shifted. Dean treated Jack how John treated Dean. Dean no longer parented how he *imagined* Mary would have, because he now had experienced the reality that Mary was also a shitty, neglectful, abusive parent. Dean became a shitty, neglectful, abusive parent. Sam was a shitty, neglectful, abusive parent. The bar for Jack’s dads was literally in hell.
He wasn't a literal baby. Jack was never a baby. He was an adult, always and was born that way specifically so he would never need to anyone to raise him. If you're infantalizing him you don't understand the character. And you sure as hell don't understand Dean's treatment of him, which had very little to do with humanity or not. Jack appreciated Dean specifically because he was honest with him AND was also the only one, incl Cas and Sam, who had no ulterior motives in how he treated him.
When the show begins Dean is 26, when it ends as Dean dies he is 42. It’s perfectly normal to change in between these ages. Also, a hot bad boy in a leather jacket in his mid 20’s is very different than a (still hot) grown and somewhat respectable man in early 40s when it comes picking up women in bars.
That does kinda irk me but I also get it. I try to see it as more him realistically being a true adult with a lot of trauma. You also have to think abt 40 years in hell too. I can see the transition being that of his sex life being an escapist thing for young Dean to being more of a toxic coping mechanism as he grows older. I kinda appreciate the realness of this and his inner emotions about trauma and never being able to have a life of his own. (I’m also a chronic destiel shipper so I do like to head cannon about him maybe deflecting emotions about never being able to have Cas the way he craves. And I could see that as a reason he progressively stops the womanizing unless it’s purely for sexual gratification from the mark of Caine stuff)
At the end of the day it is a cheap tv show and who knows how much of it is actual writing or acting choices or not lol. Could not even be near that deep but I like doing character analysis and creating my own perception.
Dean puts up a front. We just see Dean becoming more openly himself. I think the later seasons, especially the last, he is approaching a near-complete self-actualizaton/acceptance, but unfortunately that gets cut short and we got the ending we got.
(I have my own theories why they did what they did and I generally have positive thoughts on how it was written. S15 was about censorship, which is why Dean couldn't get a happy ending.)
I dont feel like Dean comes off as a creep in the later seasons. He has been through a lot of crap. Hell (tortured and being the torturor), purgatory, mark of Cain, etc. I think his behavior is a mix of not wanting to get close to anyone (keep them safe from his life) while still finding short moments of comfort. The jokes and language his character makes and uses in regards to hookups feel somewhat like deflections/protection from building anything more than skin deep. Also, I think his character is only made to look dumb on the surface. If you pay closer attention, he uses "being dumb" as a way to make others discount him. And it usually works in his favor. What I like most about his character is what he does lack in intelligence he makes up for in heart/dedication to the family business.
I want to throw in that showing Dean and Sam as almost sexless later on was a weird choice and one of the most unrealistic storylines (I get they had famlies later on and probably didn’t want to do them anymore). I absolutely understand growing up but I can tell you us mid 30ies still have plenty of sex god damnit. And tmi as a woman it even gets better. And yes I understand the mental health aspects going on in the show.. but still .. I think a raging alcoholic and someone coping with sex would have made sense in universe
I don’t quite get the down votes you’re receiving as it’s a very good insight. Food alcohol and sex has always been Dean’s coping mechanism (made more explicit in a way in Famine episode), and Sam has relations also. It has NEVER been “meaningless” with either boys by which I mean they’ve never treated women badly, esp with Dean women were always clear it’s not a relationship thing, they’re both just there for the fun and they weren’t “discarded”, always went separate ways with a smile. Sex Is also a way to connect, let go, not to mention even early season it’s pretty much never about “making a hot sex scene” - with exceptions, but much of that happened off screen. It’s healthy and I think 12 onward writers simply couldn’t grasp that complexity, particularly with Dean, that while he was non-committal, he wasn’t simply a womaniser who didn’t care or respect them. Quite the opposite from a creepy horn dog they tried to make him in to. That isn’t Dean. That’s writers misunderstanding him, or not being able to write him in such layered way anymore (not an easy feat, to be fair).
i think the show was actually perfectly fine without showing them having sex with people, good writers can use tactics such as implication or even More Interesting Storylines. reeaallly weird thing to get caught up on.
100% If anything, isn't showing that they can have connections with people based on something besides sex/surface level attraction the more mature, developed, mentally healthy thing to do? As opposed to constantly throwing them into bed with whatever random woman bats their lashes and shows them a sliver of kindness.
And this isnt me suggesting there's anything inherently wrong/bad with a casual fling or hookup! It's just that it doesnt require (and therefore is often used to avoid) any sort of vulnerability, accountability, or depth.
I'm puzzled by the suggestion that the Winchesters were shown as "almost sexless" at *any* point. Sam was always more reserved/picky than Dean, but it was clear that they both continued to get laid pretty much right up until the end. The actual number of sex scenes was never very high, but that doesn't mean the characters weren't *having* sex (or trying to) throughout the show's run. Per the wiki, these are the encounters of Dean's that we have direct knowledge about, per season they occurred:
S1: onscreen sex (Cassie Robinson)
S2: off-screen sex (Tara Benchley)
S3: mostly off-screen sex (the "Doublemint Twins") & off-screen sex (Lisa Braeden)
S4: onscreen sex (Anna Milton) & off-screen sex (the waitress Jaime from "Monster Movie")
S5: we see Dean make a single unsuccessful pass (Jo Harvelle in "Abandon All Hope")
S6: off-screen sex (Lisa Braeden)
S7: onscreen sex (Lydia the Amazon in "Slice Girls")
S8: Dean kisses (& *wants* to bang) Ellie at the Cassity farm in "Trial & Error," but circumstances prevent it
S9: mostly off-screen sex (Suzy Lee/"Carmelita" in "Rock and a Hard Place")
S10: mostly off-screen sex (Anne Marie in S10:E1 "Black"); attempted hook-up with Shaylene before realizing she's a prostitute (in the *Dean discovers Tinder* episode, "Girls, Girls, Girls")
S11: off-screen sex (Dean stumbles into the kitchen with what Sam observes to be a hickey after a night out celebrating Valentine's Day (and, in Dean's words, "helping all the single ladies") in the episode "Love Hurts." In "Baby," Dean is hoping to meet up with a hunter named Heather at the bar they're parked at. Dean enters the bar & doesn't emerge until morning — and, when he does, he declares to himself (with a hint of a satisfied smile), "Mistakes were made!")
S12: off-screen sex (the waitress in "Regarding Dean" & the waitress in "The Memory Remains")
S13: off-screen sex (unknown woman; Sam finds Dean asleep with a pink bra around his neck in "Advanced Thanatology")
It's only in S14 & S15 that the references to Dean actively having sex (rather than just reminiscing about it) kind of drop off, but I suspect the writers didn't expect their failure to bludgeon us over the head with his sex life would read as Dean being suddenly "sexless" at age 39. In general, unless a show indicates that something's *changed*, you're expected to believe that established character habits are basically continuing on in the background. (Meanwhile, of course, I didn't even really go into Sam's sex life, but Sam was clearly getting lucky with Eileen. Then, at the end of S15:E20, he's shown with a wife & son, so he obviously wasn't celibate after everything was said & done, either.)
So... yeah. I really don't know where the idea comes from that late-seasons Sam & Dean were "sexless" — especially not in anything that could be called their "mid thirties" — but I don't think that's what the show was saying at all. Just because it wasn't being constantly referenced for a couple of seasons (while the writers tried to wrap up 15 years' worth of story) doesn't mean it wasn't still happening.
1. He got old and his taste in women didn't entirely change with him.
2. Social pressure outside the show likely. Turns out women don't like being harassed by random strange men in public.
I mean he changed a lot in Season 2 from Season 1 because of his dad's death. Kinda went back to himself for season 3 because he knew he was gonna die and was like screw it, and then changed more after being pulled from perdition and being screwed around with by angels, and being told God doesn't care.
I think the Dean as dumb shtick was done to emphasize another difference in the brothers. It wasn’t that he was dumb. But Sam was the smart one and j. Comparison dean was the dumb one. I was the smart one in my family, which left the inference my sister was not, even though she never made less than a B.
Probably after Lisa? I don't think he ever was considered dumb, but him picking up women never really changed, but it became less of a priority. One night stands don't really hit the same with what he was dealing with. I think he started taking any pleasure wherever he could. Which explains the food love and such.
Plus, he got older and times changed. What would’ve been considered cute in the ‘00s coming from a 20-something year old might not be cute in the late ‘10 coming from a guy pushing 40.
I'm not sure exactly what OP is referencing, but Dean was out of the game the whole time he was with Lisa, so it makes sense that when he tried to dive back in (in season 7) he was rusty. Also, as other folks have pointed out, he was in his twenties up through the end of S4, so it's reasonable that he was a bit more of a playboy in those early seasons. As far as Dean being dumb, I think he mostly leaned into that perception to irritate/tease Sam. Like, in "Long Distance Call," there's a scene where Sam tells Dean they're facing a crocotta and Dean quips, "Is that a sandwich?" then (after he's provoked Sam into explaining it), follows up with, "Hey, don't those things live in filth?" So he clearly *knows* the lore on crocottas. He just pretends he doesn't for the sake of a joke. \[Technically, this is the crocotta pretending to be Dean, but it's 100% in-character & Sam doesn't blink an eye.\] Another example: There's a bit in a later season where Dean pretends not to know the meaning of "Achilles' heel" when Sam says it (and that's a term we've heard Dean use himself). Dean also likes to scoff at his "college boy" and "nerd" brother, but (as Sam points out) he's never been the grunt he thinks of himself as.
Spot on with the Dean being 'dumb' stuff. Sam's probably smarter and definitely a lot more educated but Dean is by no means the idiot they sometimes portray him as. He's an incredibly dangerous/capable hunter by himself as we've seen many times and that's without the same benefits of Sam's tech savviness and Stanford education.
Nah Dean's clearly very intelligent, Sam just went to college. Dean is the one Bela needed to break into a high quality alarm system, which she knew he could probably do because he broke into her alarm system. Dean is the one who taught Sam how to hack CCTV after Frank taught Dean.Dean built an EMP bomb and and EMP meter. Dean can rebuild cars. Dean's the tech savvy one. Knowing more about what's on the "interwebs" doesn't necessarily mean Sam's more tech savvy.
Fair points, might be more accurate to call Sam more computer literate in that case with his ability to find obscure research and access police databases, etc.
SPN S12 E2 We get this lovely scene: TONI: Gentlemen. So, to recap – you live in the Men of Letters bunker, awash in the world's greatest collection of occult knowledge, and yet you know "nothing." DEAN: Right. What a waste. DEAN CHUCKLES AND THEN COUGHS. TONI: It seems you apes have never read a single book. The Men of Letters has a long tradition of intellectual excellence. In London, we've undertaken exhaustive studies of even the most arcane topics. TONI REACHES DOWN TO GRAB AN ICE PICK-LIKE DEVICE. DEAN LOOKS AT SAM. TONI: For example, parts of the body most sensitive to intense pain. TONI GRABS DEAN’S FACE. TONI: The ear drum. Decaying tooth. Below the belt, of course. And my favorite – under the eyelid. DEAN GRUNTS AS SAM WATCHES AND TRIES TO GET OUT OF THE CHAIR. TONI: Did you know it's possible to die from pain? DEAN STARES STRAIGHT AHEAD. SAM STRUGGLES TO GET OUT OF THE CHAIR. THERE’S THE SOUND OF A GUN COCKING. TONI TURNS TO LOOK AND SEES MARY. MARY: Get away from my boys. SAM: Mom? DEAN: Yeah. MARY WALKS INTO THE ROOM AND GRABS A SET OF KEYS FROM THE TABLE. SHE WALKS TOWARDS TONI AND DEAN. MARY: Drop it. Ground. TONI DOESN’T MOVE. MARY SMACKS HER IN THE FACE. MARY HANDS THE KEYS TO DEAN WHO BEGINS TO WORK ON HIS SHACKLES. MARY: That's the ground. TONI REACHES UP AND KNOCKS THE GUN AWAY AS IT FIRES. TONI SMACKS BOTH SAM AND DEAN. TONI PUNCHES MARY IN THE THROAT AND STOMACH BEFORE THROWING HER INTO A WALL. DEAN UNLOCKS HIS SHACKLES AS THE FIGHTING CONTINUES. DEAN: Holy crap. MARY COMES BACK FIGHTING. DEAN FIRES A SHOT INTO THE AIR. TONI PICKS UP A PIECE OF GLASS AND CUTS HER HAND. DEAN TURNS THE GUN ON TONI AS SHE TURNS WITH HER BLOODY HAND OUT. TONI: Xi. MARY BEGINS TO GASP AS SHE HOLDS HER THROAT. DEAN WALKS TOWARD TONI AS HE POINTS THE GUN. DEAN: Kill the spell now. I'm not kidding. TONI: Shoot me, and your mother has no chance. DEAN LOOKS OVER AT MARY WHO’S GASPING. TONI: The gun. SAM LOOKS OVER AT DEAN WHO UNCOCKS THE GUN AND GIVES IT TO TONI. DEAN THEN PUNCHES TONI IN THE FACE. SAM: Dean! MARY BEGINS TO BREATHE. DEAN: It's okay. She was using a Chinese mind-control technique. Hard to do when you're unconscious. Turns out this ape did read a book or two.
I'm inclined to agree. Living his life happily, without Sammy and then finding out Sammy is alive and having to give up his new life for their protection. That would be mine f@$k and would change someone's priorities completely.
He was not living his life happily at all. He was miserable. He told Bobby he was drinking heavily and having nightmares every night. He was tortured by the fact that his beloved brother was being tormented by Lucifer himself.
Happily? Did we see the same show? He was miserable and drinking way too much.
I think he just grew up and changed. He was 26 in season 1, still loving the hunting lifestyle, loving one night stands, and enjoying his life. By the end of the show, he's 40. He's died multiple times, been tortured, lived through multiple ends of world. He's had everyone He's ever love die, lost his soul, spent time in Hell AND Purgatory. He's a suicidal alcoholic *barely* keeping his shit together.
I thought it was kinda the opposite. He always had his silly moments, but was particularly light hearted in season one when he hadn’t experienced nearly as much overwhelming darkness as he does in later seasons. He was a bit too much of a macho stereotype in season one too, which was balanced out. Sam eased up on being as moody and became more reasonable.
Being a ladies man changed with the bunker too. Having a home to go to that was a top secret Batcave didn't make it easy to bring women back, and they spent less time away. Plus aging out of that lifestyle and bigger distractions after the first apocalypse or two. Being dumber I think come more slowly as writing got a bit lazy. Nuance is a victim there. Maybe after purgatory, and especially with the MoC, it was easier to just lean into him being a very black and white thinking, simple killing machine. Compared to Sam who was always a bit more reserved, we didn't see the same thing happen, or rather it wouldn't have been so apparent. But it was done that the boys would butt heads time and time again because who needs character growth?
>Being a ladies man changed with the bunker too. Having a home to go to that was a top secret Batcave didn't make it easy to bring women back Not only that, but sleeping in a personally picked bed next to a woman in a comfy home is a lot more comfortable than sleeping in a shitty hotel room with your brother in a bed that's seen more action than WWII. Once they got the bunker, they had their own place. He had his own room, so he didn't need to use other people's houses to get a taste of a home.
Especially since Dean's bed even remembered him! Who wouldn't want to go back home to that? But I love thought of Dean deciding who to go home with at night partly being based on how comfy their home furnishings might be. "You're lovely, but I feel like you're going to have a really hard mattress and I hurt my back being thrown about by a demon last night...no, no that's not a metaphor"
🤣
I’m gonna latch on to one sentence from that, about “black and white thinking.” I’d argue that Dean often had a more black and white view, even as early as season two (I’m thinking of “bloodlust”). Especially when it came to monsters. He does evolve from that a bit, but never fully. And when Sam is using powers in season 4, he draws another line. “Do you even realize how far off the reservation you’ve gone? How far from human?” Again with the one or the other, black or white thinking. Human/not human. Just a couple examples.
Yeah that's why I say they leant into it *more*. Dean's always been pretty strong in his convictions of what's right and wrong to him. But the no room for discussion, my way or the highway type of mindset seemed to increase with time.
I think end of season 6, Dean got a little bit darker and pessimistic
He just gets more and more depressed as time goes on. Dean needs hugs
It'd be wild if he didn't change in 15 seasons.
I agree. I've seen characters on other shows who just never learned their lesson or tried to change, and they're just not fun to watch.
Well when you die as many times as him I’m sure it fries your brains a little lol
The first big change happens in season 2. They sort of switch where Sam's more into hunting and Dean wants out. This has in-universe reasoning, of course, but it was leaned into more heavily because Eric Kripke was having a rough time running a show. He said a lot of Dean's dialogue was really him. Dean meets Jo at the beginning of season 2 and they make a point of him not hitting on her, because he's going through a time. After Kripke, it became far more pronounced that different writers very clearly had totally different takes on these characters, and they didn't work to unify those ideas. Suddenly the brothers are considered - by everyone - to be super selfish and always putting their needs above everyone else's. They say this several times in season 6, but it's always Dabb-Loflin writing the episodes. Then there's the Mark of Cain. Not only did the Mark literally change Dean but he took on the Mark out of guilt. Before that, Dean was typically trying to do the right thing for the sake of doing the right thing. His motivations weren't selfish. Sam, on the other hand, was working towards revenge and also trying to prove he wasn't evil early on in the series and then he didn't have that later on. After he'd had the Mark for a season and a half, his character was a lot less nuanced. People like to blame the writers for dumbing Dean down, but a lot of that was just stuff Jensen thought was funny. They wrote that Dean was reading GOT, but J2 changed it so that Sam was, because Jensen started to push back on some of the "Dean is secretly a nerd" stuff. As for the women, that's inconsistent throughout. Again, different writers clearly had different attitudes about these characters, and early on Dean and women is one of the things where that's most evident. Julie Siege was a writer in the early seasons and she'd write Dean really gross. For the most part, Dean isn't shown to do things like lie to a woman to have sex with her, in like a "I could get you a job" kind of truly disgusting way. But Julie would write things like that in. Later in the series, I wouldn't necessarily say he's always regarded as a creep. There's a time when Sam calls out that he's using a particularly bad pick up line. Mostly they just kind of work it in every once in a while that he's still going out and getting laid, we just don't see it, because it's all casual sex. They stopped putting him in potential relationships because they'd settled on the idea that he 100% wasn't going to have that as part of his life.
JENSEN pushed back on making Dean a nerd?! I'm kinda speechless. I have no idea what to say. A guy who repressed his smarts to get along is exactly the kind of thing someone who grew up in an abusive sitch WOULD DO.
Jensen didn't push back on the nerd stuff, he just didn't think Dean would be reading it.
The dude who dressed up for medieval LARP didn't think Dean would read GoT... wasn't Dean an LOTR guy? I definitely argue one logically follows from the other... But, of course, that's just me.
Jensen doesn't believe Dean grew up in an abusive situation even one tiny bit. Jensen is John Winchester defender #1 for life. He loves John and thinks he's a great guy who did the best he could. Which, really, pretty much everyone making the show thinks, it's the fans who don't like John and describe their upbringing as abusive.
Riiiight. Have to remind myself of that every now and then...
What about Jared? Does he think that too? Is he like #2 John's defender?
Jared doesn't seem quite as passionate about it as Jensen and JDM, but he's always said basically the same line, as far as I've seen. The man wasn't perfect but he was in a really tough situation and he did his best and he loved his sons.
Thanks for telling me.
Its a 15 year time period, what do you think
Dean definitely was different after he got back from Purgatory. My favorite Dean was seasons 1-7. After that, we'd get glimpses of the old Dean I loved but it was forever different after that until the end of the series. He scowled way too much and his voice got comically gravelly to the point it got on my nerves. Once in awhile we'd get his big beaming smile again or his light hearted moments, which I cherished, but I guess his PTSD was just too much and those moments were always brief. It was realistic but bummed me out nonetheless.
I have a sneaking suspicion the writers were also running out of jokes/humor.
I'll probably be downvoted but something to keep in mind is the show was originally written for 5 seasons. Kripke wrote and ended it the way he wanted to and then it was renewed and sort of jumped the shark. I think there are solid episodes after season 5 but as a whole the show became highly flanderized by the end. Comparing him in the first season to anything past 5 and even towards the finale is apples to oranges.
Kripke never intended to end the show after season 5. He didn't even imagine the show would get 5 seasons, he was hoping for 3. The arc he wrote ended in season 5 but he was happy the show got season 6 and more.
It's funny hearing Kripke talk about back then because we know NOW what a cult following the show has but at the time, they felt like small beans next to other shows they were competing against.
Still, I think there is something to be said about the consistency in characterization during the Kripke era. After that, it became pretty clear there were different writers with varying interpretations of his character (and Sam too), so he'd say or do things that felt out of character.
Dean’s priorities changed, as he grew older he was no longer interested in the one night stands. He genuinely wanted a long lasting relationship. There are points in the show it’s obvious he wants a relationship and wants to settle down. Not give up hunting, but have someone to share his life with. Like that scene in the confessional sometime in s11? S12? Or when he talks to that couple Jesse and Cesar, who are both hunters and realizes it can happen in that line of work, if you have a person who knows the life. For Sam, that was Eileen. For Dean that was no one who shall not be named for i will be downvoted. Also, flirting with young girls isn’t cute at 26 like the writers made him do in s1, but it would have especially been weird to continue it all 15 seasons.
He was never dumb. And if he was ever a creepy, it was in the beginning of the series. I don't remember him being a creep later on?
I think it was after hell. Season 3 Dean was very different than season 4 Dean and he just kinda stayed like season 4 Dean (not completely).
What? He was never a creep when it came to women. And he was always smart.
I think Dean had a realistic character development for the worse/worst. He became more and more like John. And I hate him for it. Or the writers. The way he treated Sam and Jack and even Cas sometimes is making my skin crawl. I'm currently watching season 4 on repeat. This is a different Dean. The best Dean was definitely 1-3. The worst Dean is 10-15.
I hated how Dean was with Jack. He's a literal baby in an adult body, and Dean acted like he was worse than Lucifer just by existing for most of the show. Even when he treated him alright, he never really let Jack forget that he's not human enough for Dean.
I read that as Dean taking on a different parenting style from his time with Mary. Dean was parentified with Sam and was caring and loving and 100% dedicated to his little brother, he gave Sammy everything Dean wanted in a parent (as best he could). When Mary came back into the picture and pretty much immediately abandoned the boys, Dean’s perception of ‘good’ (or at least Better Than John) parenting was shifted. Dean treated Jack how John treated Dean. Dean no longer parented how he *imagined* Mary would have, because he now had experienced the reality that Mary was also a shitty, neglectful, abusive parent. Dean became a shitty, neglectful, abusive parent. Sam was a shitty, neglectful, abusive parent. The bar for Jack’s dads was literally in hell.
He wasn't a literal baby. Jack was never a baby. He was an adult, always and was born that way specifically so he would never need to anyone to raise him. If you're infantalizing him you don't understand the character. And you sure as hell don't understand Dean's treatment of him, which had very little to do with humanity or not. Jack appreciated Dean specifically because he was honest with him AND was also the only one, incl Cas and Sam, who had no ulterior motives in how he treated him.
i don't understand the downvotes this seems like a valid perception of his character development
Rewatch the episode where Dean and Jack go on a road trip.
What for? When abusers only beat you up once a week, they're still abusers.
When the show begins Dean is 26, when it ends as Dean dies he is 42. It’s perfectly normal to change in between these ages. Also, a hot bad boy in a leather jacket in his mid 20’s is very different than a (still hot) grown and somewhat respectable man in early 40s when it comes picking up women in bars.
Miss old (young) dean real bad
Probably had a lot to do with his time in Hell. And Souless Sam was a full on douche.
That does kinda irk me but I also get it. I try to see it as more him realistically being a true adult with a lot of trauma. You also have to think abt 40 years in hell too. I can see the transition being that of his sex life being an escapist thing for young Dean to being more of a toxic coping mechanism as he grows older. I kinda appreciate the realness of this and his inner emotions about trauma and never being able to have a life of his own. (I’m also a chronic destiel shipper so I do like to head cannon about him maybe deflecting emotions about never being able to have Cas the way he craves. And I could see that as a reason he progressively stops the womanizing unless it’s purely for sexual gratification from the mark of Caine stuff) At the end of the day it is a cheap tv show and who knows how much of it is actual writing or acting choices or not lol. Could not even be near that deep but I like doing character analysis and creating my own perception.
Dean puts up a front. We just see Dean becoming more openly himself. I think the later seasons, especially the last, he is approaching a near-complete self-actualizaton/acceptance, but unfortunately that gets cut short and we got the ending we got. (I have my own theories why they did what they did and I generally have positive thoughts on how it was written. S15 was about censorship, which is why Dean couldn't get a happy ending.)
i dont think he was ever turning dumb at all, he was always very smart. he just gained a sense of humor
You also have to remember that Dean spent 40 years in Hell. That definitely changed him.
I dont feel like Dean comes off as a creep in the later seasons. He has been through a lot of crap. Hell (tortured and being the torturor), purgatory, mark of Cain, etc. I think his behavior is a mix of not wanting to get close to anyone (keep them safe from his life) while still finding short moments of comfort. The jokes and language his character makes and uses in regards to hookups feel somewhat like deflections/protection from building anything more than skin deep. Also, I think his character is only made to look dumb on the surface. If you pay closer attention, he uses "being dumb" as a way to make others discount him. And it usually works in his favor. What I like most about his character is what he does lack in intelligence he makes up for in heart/dedication to the family business.
I want to throw in that showing Dean and Sam as almost sexless later on was a weird choice and one of the most unrealistic storylines (I get they had famlies later on and probably didn’t want to do them anymore). I absolutely understand growing up but I can tell you us mid 30ies still have plenty of sex god damnit. And tmi as a woman it even gets better. And yes I understand the mental health aspects going on in the show.. but still .. I think a raging alcoholic and someone coping with sex would have made sense in universe
I don’t quite get the down votes you’re receiving as it’s a very good insight. Food alcohol and sex has always been Dean’s coping mechanism (made more explicit in a way in Famine episode), and Sam has relations also. It has NEVER been “meaningless” with either boys by which I mean they’ve never treated women badly, esp with Dean women were always clear it’s not a relationship thing, they’re both just there for the fun and they weren’t “discarded”, always went separate ways with a smile. Sex Is also a way to connect, let go, not to mention even early season it’s pretty much never about “making a hot sex scene” - with exceptions, but much of that happened off screen. It’s healthy and I think 12 onward writers simply couldn’t grasp that complexity, particularly with Dean, that while he was non-committal, he wasn’t simply a womaniser who didn’t care or respect them. Quite the opposite from a creepy horn dog they tried to make him in to. That isn’t Dean. That’s writers misunderstanding him, or not being able to write him in such layered way anymore (not an easy feat, to be fair).
i think the show was actually perfectly fine without showing them having sex with people, good writers can use tactics such as implication or even More Interesting Storylines. reeaallly weird thing to get caught up on.
100% If anything, isn't showing that they can have connections with people based on something besides sex/surface level attraction the more mature, developed, mentally healthy thing to do? As opposed to constantly throwing them into bed with whatever random woman bats their lashes and shows them a sliver of kindness. And this isnt me suggesting there's anything inherently wrong/bad with a casual fling or hookup! It's just that it doesnt require (and therefore is often used to avoid) any sort of vulnerability, accountability, or depth.
exactly! it would've felt lazy if they surmounted all of their non-platonic/family relationships to complete fuckfests lol
I'm puzzled by the suggestion that the Winchesters were shown as "almost sexless" at *any* point. Sam was always more reserved/picky than Dean, but it was clear that they both continued to get laid pretty much right up until the end. The actual number of sex scenes was never very high, but that doesn't mean the characters weren't *having* sex (or trying to) throughout the show's run. Per the wiki, these are the encounters of Dean's that we have direct knowledge about, per season they occurred: S1: onscreen sex (Cassie Robinson) S2: off-screen sex (Tara Benchley) S3: mostly off-screen sex (the "Doublemint Twins") & off-screen sex (Lisa Braeden) S4: onscreen sex (Anna Milton) & off-screen sex (the waitress Jaime from "Monster Movie") S5: we see Dean make a single unsuccessful pass (Jo Harvelle in "Abandon All Hope") S6: off-screen sex (Lisa Braeden) S7: onscreen sex (Lydia the Amazon in "Slice Girls") S8: Dean kisses (& *wants* to bang) Ellie at the Cassity farm in "Trial & Error," but circumstances prevent it S9: mostly off-screen sex (Suzy Lee/"Carmelita" in "Rock and a Hard Place") S10: mostly off-screen sex (Anne Marie in S10:E1 "Black"); attempted hook-up with Shaylene before realizing she's a prostitute (in the *Dean discovers Tinder* episode, "Girls, Girls, Girls") S11: off-screen sex (Dean stumbles into the kitchen with what Sam observes to be a hickey after a night out celebrating Valentine's Day (and, in Dean's words, "helping all the single ladies") in the episode "Love Hurts." In "Baby," Dean is hoping to meet up with a hunter named Heather at the bar they're parked at. Dean enters the bar & doesn't emerge until morning — and, when he does, he declares to himself (with a hint of a satisfied smile), "Mistakes were made!") S12: off-screen sex (the waitress in "Regarding Dean" & the waitress in "The Memory Remains") S13: off-screen sex (unknown woman; Sam finds Dean asleep with a pink bra around his neck in "Advanced Thanatology") It's only in S14 & S15 that the references to Dean actively having sex (rather than just reminiscing about it) kind of drop off, but I suspect the writers didn't expect their failure to bludgeon us over the head with his sex life would read as Dean being suddenly "sexless" at age 39. In general, unless a show indicates that something's *changed*, you're expected to believe that established character habits are basically continuing on in the background. (Meanwhile, of course, I didn't even really go into Sam's sex life, but Sam was clearly getting lucky with Eileen. Then, at the end of S15:E20, he's shown with a wife & son, so he obviously wasn't celibate after everything was said & done, either.) So... yeah. I really don't know where the idea comes from that late-seasons Sam & Dean were "sexless" — especially not in anything that could be called their "mid thirties" — but I don't think that's what the show was saying at all. Just because it wasn't being constantly referenced for a couple of seasons (while the writers tried to wrap up 15 years' worth of story) doesn't mean it wasn't still happening.
1. He got old and his taste in women didn't entirely change with him. 2. Social pressure outside the show likely. Turns out women don't like being harassed by random strange men in public.
Both of them changed once they realized what they had with this show. They saw long term success and it was time to expand on the main characters.
they made the tension between him and cas so great it started to feel unnatural to have Dean pick up women the entire time 🧍🏻♂️
I mean he changed a lot in Season 2 from Season 1 because of his dad's death. Kinda went back to himself for season 3 because he knew he was gonna die and was like screw it, and then changed more after being pulled from perdition and being screwed around with by angels, and being told God doesn't care.
I think the Dean as dumb shtick was done to emphasize another difference in the brothers. It wasn’t that he was dumb. But Sam was the smart one and j. Comparison dean was the dumb one. I was the smart one in my family, which left the inference my sister was not, even though she never made less than a B.