...The Dead Sam we've all got on our hands at the moment, and I swear to God, I have not seen a corpse this photogenic since the deathless Barbara O'Neil lay in artfully lit repose at Tara all those many years ago. Or, you know, the last time TNT ran that movie as counterprogramming on Super Bowl Sunday. Your pick. Dean sits shiva above his ridiculously lengthy dead brother, and I don't know if I can make it through the monologue Dean delivers to the corpse. Not because it's horribly written -- it's not that bad, really -- and not because Jensen Ackles fails to sell the crap out of it -- he does, and this scene explains perfectly why he submitted this episode to the Emmy nominating committee, despite the fact that we'll all be playing ice hockey in Hell long before he ever receives a nomination for this show -- but because of all The Goddamned ANGST That Is Going To Kill The Recapper And His Ever-Faithful Yet Severely Deluded Lizardly Companion. "You rememb...HEY!" "You know when we were little?" Dean begins, and already I must fight the urge to scream, "No, he doesn't, because he's dead, MORON!" at the television set. I really am not to be trusted with The ANGST. Then again, whatever happened to that "no chick-flick moments" vow from the series premiere? Huh? I was promised no chick-flick moments, and now El Deano's having a nervous breakdown over Sam's frigging ginormous corpse like he's Sally Field in Steel Magnolias going, "Open your eyes, Shelby! Ope-ope-open your eyes!" Wimp. In any event, a grieving and likely heavily drunk El Deano continues, "You just started asking questions -- how come we didn't have a mom, why did we always have to move around, where'd [Our Worthless Bastard Of A So-Called Father] go when he'd take off for days at a time? I remember I'd beg you, 'Quit asking, Sammy! Man, you don't wanna know.' I just wanted you to be a kid, just for a little while longer." Nice little callback to "Something Wicked," that, but now I'm getting a Shirley MacLaine in Terms Of Endearment vibe, and that's never a good thing. Oh, Dean. Oblivious to me and my mocking ways, Dean allows himself a fond, wistful smile at the memory and keeps at it with, "I was trying to protect you -- keep you safe. [Our Worthless Bastard Of A So-Called Father] didn't even have to tell me. It was just always my responsibility, you know?" Sam does not know, because as I believe I noted earlier, SAM IS DEAD. "It's like I had one job -- that one job," Dean emphasizes right before his voice cracks a bit, and the tremendous pussy allows a sob to escape as he realizes, "and I screwed it up! I blew it, and for that, I'm sorry." A single, perfect tear escapes his right eye at this moment and drops directly into the blackness beneath the lower edge of the frame before two more appear to trickle down his face. Dean wipes these away almost immediately, and with a grim bitterness settling into his tone, he supposes aloud, "I guess that's what I do! I let down the people I love." "I let [Our Worthless Bastard Of A So-Called Father] down," he falsely recalls, "and now I guess I'm just supposed to let you down, too." "How can I?" he suddenly wonders to himself, just as The Emo Oboe Of The ANGST That Is Going To Kill The Recapper And His Ever-Faithful Yet Severely Deluded Lizardly Companion unexpectedly gives way to a set of low, tense strings. "How am I supposed to live with that?" he demands of the entirely unresponsive corpse, giving in to the tears for a moment. "What am I supposed to do, Sammy? What am I supposed to do?" Sam hasn't an answer, of course, because SAM IS DEAD, DEAN. GOD! Dean bellows his last question once more at the sky, or wherever, and the next thing we know...