I don't really have any strong feelings about this episode one way or the other, though I distinctly remember it making me feel extraordinarily anxious when watching it, and when I rewatched it the other week for hoodie_time purposes, I felt the exact same thing all over again. I don't know what they did, but whatever it was, they managed to pull of that aspect of the narrative crazy well. But I felt like Sam in this episode was like, the funniest thing in the world. XDD I realize he wasn't the main point but I CAN'T THOUGH. HIS FACES. The whole time he was just like "what even. what." Awwww.
(Dean) fandom is divided and fervent about this episode because on one hand, people thought it was really funny, and Eye of the Tiger, and H/C, etc. But then other people found it really upsetting because it was making light of the trauma Dean experienced in Hell by pairing it with something to silly and offering him zero sympathy from Sam and Bobby. (Sam and Bobby don't know at that point, no, but I guess it was more that fans took issue with the writers for not having them give something, I guess. I don't have any issues with that, though.) Or really with Dean's trauma not being addressed, or being treated flippantly--I guess this is similar to me in terms of Sam fandom and Sam's clown phobia in 7x18. I honesty think a lot of what happens to the Winchesters is a bigger deal to fandom than it is to them--or I guess, a different deal, processed very differently than fandom seems to assume it must. I'm not sure if anyone else had an issue with the treatment of the ghost!
But personally, I didn't see a whole lot of difference between 4x06 and the way the Winchesters deal with most of their cases--even ghost cases. Gay love may have saved the day in 3x13, but even from the pilot I think a pretty large proportion of their ghost handlings have tended toward the more gruesome side. Sure, the Woman in White was actively going around killing people and the ghos tin 4x06 wasn't actually doing anything but propagate a virus, but when it comes to vengeful spirits, I feel like questions of agency really aren't on the table any more--not having any control over what they're doing is the definition of a vengeful sprit, right? So Constance Welch's ghost wasn't any more evil than the man in 4x06 was. I mean, in the end it comes down to exigency, and that's played out ugly for the Winchesters probably more often than not--especially if there's a definite time limit they need to play against. Their track record with these things is disturbing to say the least--I mean, in the first handful of episode alone they terrorized a ghost by forcing her to face her grief and guilt in the form of the ghosts of her drowned children, burned to death something that used to be a scared, hungry, desperate human, eliminated an evil spirit by letting it exact revenge on a dude, and terrorized yet another ghost by forcing her to face herself in the mirror.
Not that I don't think there are different nuances to these things--7x03/7x07/7x13 harp on this pretty sharply (...finally, XD) but for me I didn't really feel like it was off their norm. Not that that absolves what happened, I mean. But I do think that the way SPN handles these things has made me a lot more conscious of the higher moral accountability of lots of other "crime" fighters in other shows, aha. Which is sometimes lovely and refreshing and other times just feels far too manicured to be likely. There's definitely an ambivalence to contend with, absolutely.
Re: Also, Yellow Fever
(Dean) fandom is divided and fervent about this episode because on one hand, people thought it was really funny, and Eye of the Tiger, and H/C, etc. But then other people found it really upsetting because it was making light of the trauma Dean experienced in Hell by pairing it with something to silly and offering him zero sympathy from Sam and Bobby. (Sam and Bobby don't know at that point, no, but I guess it was more that fans took issue with the writers for not having them give something, I guess. I don't have any issues with that, though.) Or really with Dean's trauma not being addressed, or being treated flippantly--I guess this is similar to me in terms of Sam fandom and Sam's clown phobia in 7x18. I honesty think a lot of what happens to the Winchesters is a bigger deal to fandom than it is to them--or I guess, a different deal, processed very differently than fandom seems to assume it must. I'm not sure if anyone else had an issue with the treatment of the ghost!
But personally, I didn't see a whole lot of difference between 4x06 and the way the Winchesters deal with most of their cases--even ghost cases. Gay love may have saved the day in 3x13, but even from the pilot I think a pretty large proportion of their ghost handlings have tended toward the more gruesome side. Sure, the Woman in White was actively going around killing people and the ghos tin 4x06 wasn't actually doing anything but propagate a virus, but when it comes to vengeful spirits, I feel like questions of agency really aren't on the table any more--not having any control over what they're doing is the definition of a vengeful sprit, right? So Constance Welch's ghost wasn't any more evil than the man in 4x06 was. I mean, in the end it comes down to exigency, and that's played out ugly for the Winchesters probably more often than not--especially if there's a definite time limit they need to play against. Their track record with these things is disturbing to say the least--I mean, in the first handful of episode alone they terrorized a ghost by forcing her to face her grief and guilt in the form of the ghosts of her drowned children, burned to death something that used to be a scared, hungry, desperate human, eliminated an evil spirit by letting it exact revenge on a dude, and terrorized yet another ghost by forcing her to face herself in the mirror.
Not that I don't think there are different nuances to these things--7x03/7x07/7x13 harp on this pretty sharply (...finally, XD) but for me I didn't really feel like it was off their norm. Not that that absolves what happened, I mean. But I do think that the way SPN handles these things has made me a lot more conscious of the higher moral accountability of lots of other "crime" fighters in other shows, aha. Which is sometimes lovely and refreshing and other times just feels far too manicured to be likely. There's definitely an ambivalence to contend with, absolutely.