Rammfan

Adam was burned up. Michael could, and did, restore his body to be his vessel, but he had no reason to restore *Adam*. When Adam's body burned up and he died, Adam's soul went to heaven. The only thing that is down there in Luci's cage is the vessel that looks like Adam and contains only Michael, like Cas' vessel looks like Jimmy but now contains only Cas. That's my interpretation and I'm sticking to it :D

Oh, no. I think it's pretty clear that Dean's super compromised by the mark. But in regards to *this* kid from *this* family? Yeah, pretty much.

Pretty sure that once again the Winchesters are supposed to be dead, "their" decapitated bodies in the police station and the sheriff and his daughter lying about them for them. Pretty sure about that. Also, *really* sure that Cas is very weak, what with only having a sliver of his grace back and his wings showing as all ragged and torn up. Also, *really* sure that Metatron was being super-powered by the Angel tablet until Cas broke it after Metatron wiped the floor with Dean.

You. I like you. Yeah, ITA with this post, and you gave me another reason to chill about Dean's harshness with Sam.

He was a teenage (college age) boy from a centuries-old bad, bad witchy murderous corrupting family who had just butchered another kid. He was going to go bad and it was good that Dean put him down. However, it's not all Dean there. How much of Dean is left is up for debate, but it still isn't entirely Dean. Now, will Dean get a redemption arc like Sam did after he killed a nurse, a victimized entirely innocent human being, and drank all of her blood and it was never mentioned again? I don't know. I'm not sure he needs one. He doesn't need one for me to still keep loving him and rooting for him. Abaddon had to die and Dean had to take on the mark to do it and he's been paying ever since. The consequences of that act have never stopped, you're right. How much havoc would Abaddon have wreaked on them and the world if she had lived? I wonder if it was worth it, but since we can't ever know...

I agree with almost everything, except the bit about Cas. This was the most gripping episode of the year. I LOVE LOVE LOVE bad-ass mother-fucker Dean. OMG, I thought I was in love all this time but apparently I wasn't because now...holy crap! Hot, deadly, competent...oh, be still my heart! As for the Styne kid -- they've been in this situation before. Remember the rugaru? Travis left the baby alive and wham! Travis ended up being killed by him when he grew up. Remember the shifter girl? Bobby had her locked in an attic instead of killing her and wham! she ends up killing a bunch of people. Remember Kate? S&D left her alive and she turned her sister and her sister killed a bunch of people. They made a mistake letting her go again instead of putting her down. So when Dean was holding the gun on the kid, I said, "Kill him, Dean. You know you have to," and when he pulled the gun up, I was "Damn, do it!" and then he finally did the smart/right thing and killed him. Don't leave him alive to try to get revenge someday when he changes his mind about how much he hates his family. There's only one thing that Dean did in the episode that bothered me: How harsh he was with Sam. I understand why he was, why he said what he did, it was the only way to even try to get through to Sam how serious he was about Sam giving up on trying to cure him and it still didn't work. What Dean said to Cas, about the cure being paid for with blood, coming with a price that Dean doesn't want to pay, is absolutely right. As for why Dean can beat up Cas? Well, we know that angels can beat demons, but so could Cain. Cain could beat even entire houses full of demons. Dean has Cain's power, he's that powerful. Remember when Cas got the small amount of his own grace back, when he spread his wings they were tattered and ragged. This means that he's not at full strength. Cas is weak (which is probably why they didn't ask him to bring Charlie back), he doesn't want to hurt Dean, and Dean is super-charged with the strength of the Mark. Therefore, he was able to beat Cas. I gasped when Dean stabbed at Cas, remembering what Cain had said, and was relieved that he stabbed a book instead. And Crowley was scary again! OMG, so thrilling! I was genuinely afraid for Sam, there. Just an incredibly fantastic episode from start to finish. And Ackles, my god...unbelievable, stunning talent. I was in awe.

And remember that that wasn't really Rowena, that was Sam jacking off his own arm ;)

As Cas once said about hamburgers, "This makes me very happy." There wasn't one wrong note in the entire episode. I was totally caught up and by the end, I was wriggling with joy and I can't wait until next week. Cas was *awesome*! Dean was *awesome* and gorgeous and badass and happy -- he looked happy for entire minutes! I know he's doing his best to repress, but still...he appeared happy. Metatron and Charlie were both watchable, though I still want to kill Metatron in many horribly painful ways. Sam, oh sweet, sweet Sammy. The brotherly feels were off the charts in this episode and I completely understand why he's done what he's done...and whatever he's going to do. I would do anything for my husband, I couldn't live without him, I wouldn't *let* him die even if he wanted me to let him go -- I would go with him. I don't care if whatever Sam comes up with is "stupid" because I understand the desperation. And, yeah, those two OOC moments like Amelia and the Purge speech should be brought up because they weren't right and they weren't Sam and Sam and everyone else knows it. They were worse than Season 4, IMHO, and I see the reminders as promises that that kind of crap will never happen again. Tonight was proof that the real Sam is back. I'm still so excited about the episode, the direction the story is going, and I'm sure I'll be in tears by the finale. God this show is kick-ass.

I love Rowena now. I think that her line about not dissing her for being a career woman is what sealed it. I laughed so loud and long I had to back up and play again because I missed so much. Of course Rowena is playing Crowley and of course Crowley is playing Rowena, they are as alike as two peas in a pod, which only makes sense. If the show is setting up a witch deal and the MoL "treasures" getting loose (like the loose nukes from Heaven), I think that will be a ton of fun. They could make anything do literally anything - An amulet that forces people who wear it to .... whatever, the sky's the limit. As for Dean, just because he's had some self-refection in the past that doesn't mean he can't have some more, especially if he didn't really do anything about it the first time. Not all life lessons are learned in one go or learned correctly the first time. I think there are things Dean wants to do differently, but he knows he doesn't really have time to do it. Part of that speech wasn't so much a confession of self-reflection to me as a kind of wistful acknowledgement that no matter what he hoped to do about his "people, feelings" he wasn't going to have time to in any case because he was going to die, and of course he doesn't want to. There was a lot that was good in this episode, but I just wish that TPTB would realize that we *don't care* about the backstories of one-offs, ghosts or not. A line or two of motivation, even speculated motivation is enough. They seemed to know that in the past and didn't waste screen time on people we are never going to see again. Remember the pilot? We didn't see the Woman in White's flashback of her husband cheating on her, we didn't see her drowning her children in flashback. The story was told appropriately via Sam's interview with the husband, snatches of research, and two wet kids at the top of the stairs. THAT'S Supernatural, not Renaissance Soap Operas. Also, the actress who played Sister Mathias could not have been a *worse* actress. I've seen high-school plays with better acting. I kept thinking while she was ...moving her lips... that Jensen must have the patience of a saint.

Here's some really unpopular opinions that seem to run counter to everywhere I've been in the fandom: I love Supernatural I love Sam and Dean and I don't get upset when one seems to have a story arc and the other one doesn't because they are a team and I know it will all even out in the end and I want the show to be story/character driven and not a constant tally and even-up and catch up and who's turn, etc. I look forward to the show and can't wait to watch a new episode, but I also enjoy *all* the previous seasons I have a few (count on one hand) episodes I truly don't like, but in pretty much every episode there's at least one scene (usually involving Sam and Dean) that I *love* and will watch a not-so-favorite episode just to see it I love reading about and blogging and searching for pics and stories and convention appearances and videos and tweets and all those parts of the fandom and ignoring other parts of the fandom that really shouldn't exist if it's, you know, a fandom I love the lead actors, both of them, equally, and I thoroughly enjoy their on-screen and off-screen relationship. I enjoy the other actors and their characters and I don't count or compare minutes on-screen or boycott episodes because certain people aren't in it or wonder where certain characters are and why they aren't being shoe-horned into episodes, etc. Nor am I interested in attacking one or another of the actors for something they did or did not tweet or may or may not have said or said in a less than perfect way and so on. Yeah, I know, this is all particularly weird and out there, but I can't help it I realize that these opinions are really, super, MASSIVELY unpopular, but this is the thread for that, right? Says so right in the thread title. It feels good to get it all off my chest. Thanks!

Well, thank you for that. I appreciate it, but it wasn't Rue who said it, it was me, Rammfan :D

This is *exactly* what I feel happened and everything fits in with this whole interpretation, IMO. There are no character puzzles and why did he do/say that or seeming incidences of character assassination if you see it this way. I always go back to "Dark Side of the Moon" when I think of this: The scene where Sam says "I didn't get the crusts cut off my PB&J. I just don't see family the way you do." And Dean, so anguished/angry/upset, retorts, "But *I'm* your family! It's supposed to be you and me against the world!" And Sam says "It is!" because to him he hasn't said anything to the contrary. And Dean says "Is it?" because to Dean, he most certainly has. To me, that conversation just crystalizes the whole *talking past each other*/*fundamental misunderstanding* thing they have going on. Dean sees what Sam is saying as not loving and supporting him and having his back, but that's not what Sam thinks he's saying, and he is unable to say it properly the way he wants to, so he gives up and falls back into Dean's version and messes it up every time, *lets him down,* because he can't do it Dean's way and can't show Dean in his own way without Dean mis-interpreting it. And that's without demon-blood, run-over dogs, or anything else from the outside *also* messing them up. What Dean equates with love, his "code words," so to speak, aren't the same as Sam's, but that doesn't mean that Sam feels any less love for Dean, he's just not using the right code. "Family" in particular is Dean-speak for love, but "family" means over-bearing and over-protective and disrespectful for Sam. For Sam, "love" is love and it doesn't need "family" to define it. When Sam rejects "family" that doesn't mean he is rejecting Dean's love, but that's how Dean hears it. To me, this is where a lot of the tragedy comes from, because the usual way to solve misunderstandings, "why don't they just talk to each other," won't really work with Dean and Sam because they aren't speaking the same language. Sam is going a long way this season to get Dean to understand him in a non-verbal way, he hasn't already given up trying or found something to be resentful for (which is a sign of his maturity), and that's a very encouraging sign to me. That is how they are going to resolve it, if Sam gets time enough to break through, if the MoC and other outside forces give him that time.

I loved, loved, LOVED this episode, even though I figured out the vampire situation immediately. Dean and Donna have chemistry, I mean, how could he not like a woman who fed him powdered doughnuts and sliced off a vamp's head. But I don't ship it. I think a mentoring thing would be great, maybe mentoring by proxy through Jodi. Anything to keep these two awesome ladies around except as love interests. The hippie-dippy girl was OTT, but then she was actually an original hippie so that kind of worked. Don was most excessively a dick, but I'm glad neither Dean nor Sam did anything about it, and Jodi shouldn't have either. Donna needs to do it so she can finally put his lame ass behind her. I thought the pacing and directing was good, but the vamp barn monologue could have been tightened up just a bit. However, it did give them time to realistically work through their ropes, so... I like that Sam is skeptical about what Dean's telling him about the MoC. He should be skeptical, but he isn't being angry or confrontational about it, at least, not yet, which is a good thing. I see Sam really appreciating being around Dean now, after coming so close to losing him. He really learned his lesson, it seems, and that does my heart good. I don't foresee anymore run-over dogs in his future. Next week looks awesome. I'm just disappointed we'll have to wait a long time until new eps come back. Oh well, I have all the Blu-rays and if I don't feel like changing out a disk, I'll just fire up Netflix. It's what I've been doing since June and I haven't tired of it yet.

I love the meta episodes ("The French Mistake" is my favorite; funniest thing - not just of the show - I've ever seen), and I was kind of scared of this one because of the musical aspect, but I ended up absolutely loving it. I'm going to have to watch it again, because I'm sure I missed a lot of things, as I do on the first watch. It's kind of amazing how much the show and the fandom is intertwined. I love that they know how some of us feel about the Samulet and how they responded to that feeling, both ways (Dean saying he doesn't need the amulet to remind him how he feels about his brother and then later putting the prop amulet on Baby's rear-view mirror), was really touching. I'm still squeeing a bit over the whole thing -- 200th episode, complete loss of the fourth wall, their response to us, our response to them -- it's pretty special and I wonder how many people truly realize that. To me, the show isn't just a show, to be picked up and put down depending on how I feel about it. It's like a family member, whom you love no matter what and your life would be less without.

I think I should have been more specific. I was thinking about basically innocent people, like Cindy, whose only "crime" was being possessed by a demon. Thanks for reminding me of those other humans, the ones who did deserve to be killed but were still, technically, people.