All in all, if Sam truly thought that Dean was dead, there was simply no reason for him to even try and look for his brother. After all, Sam knows for a fact that when Dean dies, he goes to heaven (Dark Side of the Moon). All he could do was to pick up the pieces of his life and try to move on.
I agree that this is probably what the writers were going for. But ... well, I still think it's shoddy and uninteresting. In Supernatural, saying someone is dead isn't very enlightening. They might be in heaven, hell or purgatory. Their souls might have been obliterated entirely. They might be a ghost. Given that there are other gods still extant, it's even possible that there are other places a soul might go.
And that's the thing. Yes, Dean went to heaven in Dark Side of the Moon, when it was advantageous for Yahweh and the angels (for different reasons) to send him there. He also went to hell when the terms of his deal demanded it. He came perilously close to becoming a ghost in In My Time of Dying. You could reasonably argue that Sam was right and Dean did spend the year dead (for a given value of 'dead') - only this time he went to purgatory, because apparently that's what happens when you stand too close to an exploding leviathan. There was always a reason why he went to a certain place. I don't understand why 'dead' is suddenly an answer.
And even if Dean did go heaven, why would that be a reason not to look? The other thing that happened in Dark Side of the Moon was that he and Sam were mercilessly pursued and tortured by Zachariah. He's dead, but Sam and Dean made a lot of enemies up there - and you'd think plenty of angels would hate them for their connection to Castiel. Heaven isn't safe. Except now, suddenly, it is.
It bothers me because Carver and his writers want it both ways. They want the rich complexity the previous seven seasons built up - where heaven is a morally grey place, where people like Naomi engage in torture and mind control to stay in power, and where the king of hell can buy himself an angel. But they also want heaven to be the good, fluffy bunny, he's-in-a-better-place-now afterlife so they don't have to engage with what the world they've created means for their characters.
However, I think it is possible to argue that the brothers had an unspoken understanding not to bring each other back from the dead, so I choose to re-interpret Sam and Dean's 'agreement' along those lines. Let's pretend it is just poorly phrased.
I'd say that piece of rationalisation was badly garbled, but this is a generous but reasonable interpretation of what they meant. I agree that they made some attempt to show that Sam imploded. It's just that by reducing it to 'Dean is dead and Sam is sad' they fail to do anything with it. As you say, we can draw on old episodes to work out Sam's behaviour ... but there's nothing new there. There were different contexts to stories like Faith and Mystery Spot that shaped Sam's actions.
I thought Dean's behaviour in season six was interesting because it provided new developments - Dean walking a careful line between honouring his promise to Sam and betraying it because the situation had changed. But here - they don't say Sam knows Dean is in purgatory and has to decide what to do about it. They don't say Sam doesn't know where Dean is and has to decide what to do about that. They just treat 'dead' as a simple category, and Sam's 'failure' is in not realising Dean isn't dead (even though he kind of was).
It just seems to me to be missing the point of any unspoken agreement they may have had ('don't break the universe' would sum it up for me) and sidestepping all the interesting aspects of the situation. I'm not angry at Sam for not looking - I agree that the story frames it as an understandable decision, and he was certainly miserable without Dean. I'm just frustrated because the logic they're using here doesn't seem to have anything to do with the logic they've used previously. I suppose I just have to accept that Carver isn't interested in any of the things I'm interested in.
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All in all, if Sam truly thought that Dean was dead, there was simply no reason for him to even try and look for his brother. After all, Sam knows for a fact that when Dean dies, he goes to heaven (Dark Side of the Moon). All he could do was to pick up the pieces of his life and try to move on.
I agree that this is probably what the writers were going for. But ... well, I still think it's shoddy and uninteresting. In Supernatural, saying someone is dead isn't very enlightening. They might be in heaven, hell or purgatory. Their souls might have been obliterated entirely. They might be a ghost. Given that there are other gods still extant, it's even possible that there are other places a soul might go.
And that's the thing. Yes, Dean went to heaven in Dark Side of the Moon, when it was advantageous for Yahweh and the angels (for different reasons) to send him there. He also went to hell when the terms of his deal demanded it. He came perilously close to becoming a ghost in In My Time of Dying. You could reasonably argue that Sam was right and Dean did spend the year dead (for a given value of 'dead') - only this time he went to purgatory, because apparently that's what happens when you stand too close to an exploding leviathan. There was always a reason why he went to a certain place. I don't understand why 'dead' is suddenly an answer.
And even if Dean did go heaven, why would that be a reason not to look? The other thing that happened in Dark Side of the Moon was that he and Sam were mercilessly pursued and tortured by Zachariah. He's dead, but Sam and Dean made a lot of enemies up there - and you'd think plenty of angels would hate them for their connection to Castiel. Heaven isn't safe. Except now, suddenly, it is.
It bothers me because Carver and his writers want it both ways. They want the rich complexity the previous seven seasons built up - where heaven is a morally grey place, where people like Naomi engage in torture and mind control to stay in power, and where the king of hell can buy himself an angel. But they also want heaven to be the good, fluffy bunny, he's-in-a-better-place-now afterlife so they don't have to engage with what the world they've created means for their characters.
However, I think it is possible to argue that the brothers had an unspoken understanding not to bring each other back from the dead, so I choose to re-interpret Sam and Dean's 'agreement' along those lines. Let's pretend it is just poorly phrased.
I'd say that piece of rationalisation was badly garbled, but this is a generous but reasonable interpretation of what they meant. I agree that they made some attempt to show that Sam imploded. It's just that by reducing it to 'Dean is dead and Sam is sad' they fail to do anything with it. As you say, we can draw on old episodes to work out Sam's behaviour ... but there's nothing new there. There were different contexts to stories like Faith and Mystery Spot that shaped Sam's actions.
I thought Dean's behaviour in season six was interesting because it provided new developments - Dean walking a careful line between honouring his promise to Sam and betraying it because the situation had changed. But here - they don't say Sam knows Dean is in purgatory and has to decide what to do about it. They don't say Sam doesn't know where Dean is and has to decide what to do about that. They just treat 'dead' as a simple category, and Sam's 'failure' is in not realising Dean isn't dead (even though he kind of was).
It just seems to me to be missing the point of any unspoken agreement they may have had ('don't break the universe' would sum it up for me) and sidestepping all the interesting aspects of the situation. I'm not angry at Sam for not looking - I agree that the story frames it as an understandable decision, and he was certainly miserable without Dean. I'm just frustrated because the logic they're using here doesn't seem to have anything to do with the logic they've used previously. I suppose I just have to accept that Carver isn't interested in any of the things I'm interested in.
But I am ranting again. Sorry. :)