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We don't really know the whole story, but it does appear he was disgruntled and did move on to other things because he had to. He was pretty vocal about not returning to the show this summer and I don't think Mark will probably change his mind on that, but one never knows. The right offer, from the right person with the right guarantees could change things substantially. He has mentioned his disgruntlement was with TPTB, not the cast or crew who he has nothing but nice things to say.

I believe they knew or at least had a fairly good idea it was going to happen during the writing of Dream a Little Dream of Me. I remember seeing an interview with Gamble where she was explaining why she and Cathryn Humphries both had credits on Dream a Little Dream of Me. She said, it had been her episode originally and she'd started the writing of it, but Kripke suddenly popped into her office one day saying he was sorry because he knew she really wanted to do this dream idea, but he needed her to pass that off to Cathryn so she could start writing Jus In Bello--which was the last episode written before the strike. Interesting sidenote, though, that even though the episode was written, no one could comment on it as a writer while it was being shot because the strike had already started by the time it was in production. This is a somewhat interesting read about the Writer's Strike and how it affected Supernatural: http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/index.php?title=Writers_Guild_of_America_Strike

I would guess they won't pair them together. As someone else pointed out, historically they usually don't pair their motherships with their spinoffs. I think it has more to do with setting the two shows apart and allowing them to each live and breath on their own. Wayward sprung from Supernatural, but it's not Supernatural, so pairing them together might actually be more of a problem than a help. I haven't seen it yet because I'm an idiot and keep forgetting about it, but of all the promos I saw this fall, this was the only show I felt was promising. TBH, I've had a really hard time this season because nothing new has struck my fancy, so I keep re-watching old gems. But, thanks for the reminder on Black Lightning! Maybe it'll be my new favorite. ;) Yeah, that was my first thought too. I think they'll be looking for those viewers who don't watch Sunday Night Football instead of trying to directly compete for them. I actually kinda expect Supernatural to stay on Thursdays. I'd prefer it to move back to the later slot, but it seems to be doing okay at the earlier. And, I wonder if Arrow would actually fair better in the earlier slot? I get why they did it the way they did, but can't help but wonder sometimes... .

Actually, Houses of the Holy was S2 and, as I understand it, they were very hesitant to do it. Kripke has said many times that he never intended angels to be part of Supernatural and he would tell the writers no angel stories until they needed something to get Dean out of Hell. As I recall, Kripke told the network he thought he could get five years of story out of the show, but the actual plan changed many, many times. I think the idea was always that Mary had been a hunter and started it all, but I don't think they had thought of vessels until after they introduced the angels in S4. And, I expect that Sam was originally supposed to be possessed by the Devil, but they hadn't actually worked out the Dean side of it until they opened up the mythology with the angels in S4. Then they started working backwards to make all the tumblers fit, IMO. But I have no doubt that if you'd asked Kripke in S1 if his endgame was Sam and Dean being vessels for Heaven and Hell, his answer would be "NO!!". I don't think he is a true vessel, but he is as good as Lucifer's original true vessel was, if not better, at this point.

Sorry something got sniped from my previous post--IMO, the show was never building to Sam and Dean being vessels for Micheal and Lucifer until S5. The show spent five years building to an apocalypse in which Sam and Dean would avert in some way, which is what they did. Angels weren't even considered to be a part of the mythology until S4 and the vessel thing grew out of the angels being brought into the mythology. If they had not sent Dean to Hell, I highly doubt we would've ended up with a Micheal at all.

Right, and they are their true vessels still. Doesn't mean someone else can't create another "true" vessel, though. Which, IMO, is what Crowley did with Nick.

Apparently. Or that's my take one it. The reason Sam and Dean were desirable vessels was because they were bred from two different archangel vessel lines, which made their vessels strong enough to contain an archangel. There was nothing else about them the angels wanted as far as I know. In what way? The premise of the show is about free will and being able to choose your fate instead of it being chosen for you. Just because they were chosen solely for their bodies makes no difference to the premise, IMO.

Wasn't this posted around Christmas time? Wonder if it was a Holiday Party or something like that?

Which is exactly what made Sam a stronger vessel; he could contain Lucifer without degrading. So, IMO, Nick is just as strong--if not stronger since he doesn't have to drink the demon blood--than Sam as a vessel at this point and has the added advantage of no pain in the ass Sam to pester him. Those runes and spellwork were based off the spellwork and runes on the cage and I don't think anyone can reverse them except maybe Rowena--Or Chuck. I don't think that's likely though given Rowena's fear and loathing of Lucifer right now. I think the only way that happens is if she thinks she can kill him.

Sorry, I must have edited out "I agree" when rearranging. I wasn't disagreeing with you that Lucifer has no reason to want to vacate Sam, just that I don't think he actually can vacate Nick at this point, even if he did I think that was the point of Crowley saying he made Nick stronger; at this point, the vessel he's in is just as strong as his "one true vessel". IMO, the show has no interest in having either Dean or Sam possessed again and this was their attempt to say that they were going to continue to play with Lucifer, but it's not the same story they did before.

I'm not so sure he could get out of it. Crowley's control over Lucifer was independent of what he did to both improve and lock Lucifer in the Nick suit. Crowley said they studied the cage and used whatever kept him imprisoned there on the vessel so that he would be forever locked inside Nick. I think it was done so that they could make the true vessel ideas of S5 irrelevant; Why would he even try to vacate Nick, even if he could? At this point, possessing Sam again is probably more hassle than it's worth and he has a perfectly good vessel and no one fighting him for control of it. Seems like there would be no advantage to Lucifer wanting to possess Sam at this point. Now Micheal/Dean, that's a different story. And, that's why I believe we will never see our universe Micheal again. Unless Crowley--or someone else--also found a Micheal vessel, enhanced it and forced Micheal into it so that it would be pointless for him to want to possess Dean again, I expect he will stay useless in the cage. Plus, I don't think they want to deal with the Adam issue either. But, that's a separate problem from the vessel issue.

Didn't Crowley make it so Lucifer is now permanently stuck inside his Nick suit?

It doesn't really make sense since God clearly didn't know that Gabriel was alive, but maybe Lucifer just couldn't bring himself to kill his little brother and instead just put on a good show for the Winchesters and the pagan gods, but imprisoned Gabriel in Hell. Could be Asmodeus just happened to find him there? It's kinda along the same level of stupid of Crowley having Lucifer's meatsuit on ice for years. That could be a motive for Gabriel agreeing to kill Lucifer?

Is that perhaps Gabriel's porn shirt he's wearing?

Of course there is always the possibilities of subterfuge on this show, but my read of it was Cass is just kind of sick of having this same discussion with Dean every year, Something always happens to sideline Cass and they come back together to discuss whether everyone is okay. It's like he was just bored of the conversation and thought it a waste of time. Which I found amusing, myself.

I don't think he ever finished it or even got very far. He seemed to have a very hard time reading it for some reason. At one point he tried to translate it to a doodle language and then translate the doodle language to something he could read, but, like I said, it didn't seem like he'd gotten very far before Gadreel killed him and stole it. But, yeah, what he had translated should be in the bunker, I think. Maybe Donatello was using Kevin's notes in his own translation.

I think, Cass stabbed Lucifer, which weakened him. Lucifer took a swipe at Cass. And they both stumbled off weakened. So no, I don't think Lucifer recovered and stole Cass's grace. He retreated before Lucifer could do it. And Lucifer was too weakened to follow Cass and finish him off. It's like two wild animals who gave as good as they got and limped off to lick their wounds, IMO. I'm not saying they did it well, I'm just saying that was my understanding of the sequence. ETA: I guess I just look at it as, of all the things that made no sense in this episode, this worked well enough for me I could just go with it.

Well, maybe it's the difference between being stabbed and being cut? Perhaps the angel blade wasn't in contact long enough or the cut was deep enough to bleed angel grace? Maybe they forgot to add the effect? I don't know. All I know is Cass was injured, he retreated, passed out and that's how he ended up in the woods to be poked at by a couple of kids. It's not the first time he's been injured and needed time to recover from said injury, so I just went with it.

As I recall, Cass had a flashback as he was limping through the woods; Lucifer did indeed injure him. He cut him across the stomach so Cass retreated and then passed out. He must have healed while he was out, because when he woke up the cut was gone. I think the collapsing-in-the-woods (as opposed to a field as Dabb said) was probably supposed to be the end of the last episode. That would line up with Dabb's comments of "The last time we saw Castiel he collapsed in a field."--or something to that effect. I think they added the flashback to this episode as a way of explaining why he was collapsed in the woods because, for whatever reason, they cut it from the previous episode.

No, that's incorrect. Most the writers worked their way up to Producers in the early years. In fact, I think the only writers who were Producers in S1 were Kripke and John Shiban. Gamble, Raelle Tucker and Cathryn Humphris were not credited as producers in S1. Raelle Tucker left the show in S2 and Gamble was elevated to Producer in S3. But, Cathryn Humphris was never given a producer credit on the show in four seasons. Of some of the writers that joined later: Robbie Thompson was just hired as a writer in S7 and given a co-producer credit in S8. And, Jenny Klein worked on the show from S3 to S8 and never once had a Producer credit--I think she was credited as a writer's assistant if it wasn't an episode she wrote. And, funny enough, both Lofflin and Dabb were hired in S4, but were not elevated to Producers until S7. It seems to me the elevation of writers to Producers may have happened either in S7--I firmly believe they thought it would be the last season and probably were trying to help out their writer's resumes--or with Carver taking over in S8. Since then, all the writers except Jenny Klein have had some sort of Producer credit.

Depends on the show. All the main episode writers on this show generally are given producer credits, but back in the day that wasn't the case. Gamble started out as a story editor and was elevated to Producer in, I think S3, and Executive Producer in S4. I only think it's weird because they all three had co-producer credits from the get go and none of them had much experience in the industry previously. Meredith Glynn had short stints on two previous shows as a story editor and had "written by" credits for a total of five television episodes previous to her being hired by Supernatural. Steve Yockey wrote a couple episodes for Scream and one episode for Awkward. Davy Perez was a staff writer for American Crime before Supernatural. TBH, I couldn't tell you which episodes any of them wrote. None of them have stood out to me as any different than any other writer on the show other than the Horrible Duo and Berens. Nothing about their scripts seem to have a spark that's uniquely theirs, and, if I'm honest, I haven't been impressed with any of them overall--although, I'm sure they all have their moments.

IMO, showrunning and writing are two distinctly different skills. There's so much more to showrunning than simply writing a couple episodes per season. IMO, none of the current staff outside of Berens--which I'm not convinced he has the skill set to keep all the balls in the air either--are too green--not just on the show, but in the business in general--or Buckner/Leming-Ross. And, heaven help us all if they become showrunners. ETA: I personally don't think you can adequately judge a showrunner by the scripts he writes. Generally, those are edited and modified and the finished product may bare little resemblance to what the writer intended. And, showrunning is more about management than writing, IMO. It's been a long while since I've felt like they had a writer on staff who can do the management part of the job. As much as I loved Edlund as a writer, I was strongly against him being showrunner. I really couldn't see him managing a staff of folks very well.

Except he wasn't actively doing that anymore. Sure, Hell was continuing the practice as a way to power Hell, but Lucifer only turned a few souls himself. He did it to make a point to God and God failed to see his point and I think he got bored of it if God wasn't going to pay attention. IMO, humans are insignificant to Lucifer. He just doesn't see the appeal, but I don't think he's actively trying to destroy them as much as he's still trying to get God's attention by messing with them.

I'm talking S5. I don't recall him trying to turn all of humanity into demons in S5--although he did have them possessed by demons sometimes--but he did want demons wiped out once they had won the war for him. I'm just going by his constant monologuing in S5 where would drone on and on about how God couldn't see humanity for what it was, flawed and imperfect. It wasn't so much that he wanted humanity dead and gone, IMO, he just didn't want God to love humanity more than him, IMO. That's why he started twisting human souls into demons in the first place, to show God that his creation was flawed.

See, I don't think he wanted humanity dead, per se--not that he was opposed to a bunch of them dying--but just wanted to prove to God that his most beloved creation was broken. I think he was willing to sacrifice every demon, but I actually think he didn't want to destroy humanity as much as humiliate humanity.