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Author: Barbara Sirois Doyle
Website: http://www.sweatpantsandcoffee.com/
True confession: I was a hardcore Dean Girl until Season Eight, when Jared Padalecki completely converted me. I even made a t-shirt to prove it.
When I met Jared Padalecki at the Salute to Supernatural Burbank Convention last November, I wore that shirt. Jared seemed truly pleased. He high-fived me and commented about how great it was, thanking me and, I’d like to think, giving me an extra huge hug. (To be fair, that last part may just be my wishful thinking. Everyone says that Jared is an embracer extraordinaire.) During the morning Gold Panel, I was fortunate enough to be the last person chosen by Jared to ask a question. Before I asked about how hard he teased Misha about his recent shirtless scene, I got an incredible opportunity: I was able to tell him how in Seasons Eight and Nine he was doing the best work he’d ever done and how it was a thrill to watch. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m glad I picked you!” he added with a laugh. In case it isn’t clear, I’m deeply glad I picked him, too.
In the interest of making everything, as I said, clear, I need to qualify this. Jensen Ackles is a hugely gifted and skilled actor, a kind and thoughtful person, and, of course, one of the handsomest human beings on planet earth. I recap the show weekly, and I marvel over his breathtaking performances. My conversion is in response to what Jared has gained over the years–it is not one bit about anything Jensen lacks. At BurCon, when I went to get Jensen’s autograph, he saw the shirt and stopped me to ask, “I want to know. What happened?” I told him everything I wanted to say. That his portrayal of Dean touched me deeply, because I was a little sister who had been adored by a big sister/mother figure until her death in 1997. That watching him play Dean was cathartic and beautiful, and the release I needed for all of those feelings I still feel for Maria that I can give to no one. I told him his incredible talent had done that for me, and I was grateful for it. He seemed touched. Thanked me and told me I was sweet. And immediately followed up with, “So seriously–what was it?”
I wish I’d had a better answer prepared. I nervously fumbled through how Sam had been such a puppy in the early seasons. That, as a woman in her early 40s, it had felt wrong to think of him in any way other than maternal at that point. I lamely told him that Sam, and Jared, had grown up well. “Oh, you THINK he grew up!” Jensen teased me. I laughed, thanked him and walked away, hearing him tell the next fan in line, “Don’t worry. We’ll get her back in Season Nine.”
Well, Season Nine is in full swing, and it’s been a rough week to be a Sam Girl. “The Purge” just aired, with its great (and by “great” I mean “devastating”) final scene, where Sam shows how deeply upset he is that Dean didn’t let him make his own choice to let go. Sam tells him bluntly that Dean’s need to keep him alive has made a total mess of things. That he feels Dean only saved his life because he’s terrified to be alone. Most painfully, he admits that he wouldn’t save Dean. That, under the same circumstances, he would have let Dean go. It was crushing to watch, and accordingly, the fandom was upset–even enraged. If the writers had a goal to rile us up? They amply succeeded. I have seen Sam called selfish and a tool, heard about his dick move and how he takes Dean for granted. I have also heard, albeit in much smaller numbers, a defense of Sam and his choice and his anger, too, but mostly, those arguments have been drowned out by those who wonder: what happened to the Sam of seasons past? The one who found a faith healer when Dean was dying, who wept over an injured, comatose and dying big brother. The one who was broken when he couldn’t even make a crossroads deal to save the person he couldn’t live without, who dove into the pit willingly, and who took on the trials, in part anyway, to spare Dean the sacrifice because he truly saw a future for him. Where did that Sam go?
I know what happened. Sam didn’t go anywhere. Sam grew up. Jared did too. The writers have continued to skillfully write a character we feel deeply passionate about, and Jared has continued to evolve and bring him beautifully to life. Now, more than ever.
In Season Eight, Jared Padalecki matured into his talent. We’ve had many glimpses of it before, sure. Moments that he has conveyed pain and joy and devastation and fear with finesse such that it made all of us laugh and cry and even frustrated us to the point where we weren’t sure whether to punch him in the schnoz or hold him tight and tell him it was all going to be okay. But what I’d never seen in past seasons was Sam’s independence–the man he was determined to be. So much of Sam was driven by what someone else thought or did or wanted or guided him to. He was largely reactionary. In Season Eight we saw what Sam wanted most, and what he would sacrifice anything to get, and in the end, it wasn’t a life with Amelia. Sam wanted to forge his own path. To be his own man. He wanted to walk the road to salvation, and he wanted to walk it alone. Thank God, Jared Padalecki was able to not only carry off those scenes with the heartbreak and gravitas they deserved, he was able to portray them with such passion and beauty that we could all see, at last, what he was truly capable of as a performer. Jensen Ackles, in my humble fangirl opinion, has been screwed, time and time again, out of the Emmy he has so richly deserved. In Season Eight and thus far in Season Nine? I say that about Jared Padalecki.
I can’t imagine how difficult these scenes are for Jared and Jensen to play. For the writers to write. I know how complicated and painful they feel. I lived them. The hardest thing I have ever done in my life was letting my beloved sister go. The most difficult thing I ever had to accept was that she was ill–in pain–and moving on would bring her the peace she yearned for. I wanted nothing more than to keep her for the rest of my life. She was my soulmate, and I couldn’t imagine carrying on without her. She was my Dean. I was her Sam. I think that’s why I used to identify so much as a Dean Girl. He gave me, as I said, that gift of seeing a devoted sibling that loves to the point of exhilaration and despair. I loved Dean passionately. I still do.
I think, as I write this, I finally realize why I converted, and why I am so grateful for the Sam that Jared Padalecki has made come to life. As I’ve learned to let go of my Maria, as I’ve become a wife and a mother and a woman nearing the second half of her life and figuring out who I am and what I want, I see so much of myself in the Sam of late, and the Sam I should have been–wished I could have been–for her. I see myself existing, as I have to but never wanted to, without her. Half of a whole, and somehow still alive. Haunted eyes. A broken heart. Yet weirdly, too, at peace with the fact that she is gone. That life goes on. She is no longer here to complete me. For all the depth of his love for Dean, Sam has realized he is enough, and he deserves a life of his own, even if means he might have to let it go or live it without the person he loves most in the world. Dean is still stuck in the past because he knows and wants no other way. Sam and me? We’re moving on. We’re desperately trying to define the future. Ultimately? We’re hurt and weary, but we’ll survive. We’re okay. I’m okay.
Maybe I’ve grown up too.