Also, car porn and was that knife that Sam was holding the knife he had in the Pilot that we NEVER SAW AGAIN?

OWI reminds me of tales of the CIA during the Cold War. Plenty of morally questionable things were done in the name of freedom and national security. The greater good was served, but the victory is tainted.

I think the assumption here is that much of stuff done had much to do with the cold war. A lot of them used the cold war as an excuse to stop poor countries from doing stuff that pissed off the rich and powerful in the U.S. I don't believe for moment that anyone really thought democracy in Guatemala or Nicaragua or El Salvador. People in poor nations on the same continent as the U.S. had elected people that wanted to do things that would cost large U.S. corporations profits - and this could not be tolerated. (I'm not saying people in government did not convince themselves that this was what was going on. But it was what happened in practice.)

I would give the CIA and western military policy in general very little credit for the collapse of the Soviet Union. I think an unworkable economic system, combined with an elite that decided they could get richer and more powerful in a capitalist semi-democracy than dysfunctional dictatorship explained more. Note that China decided to skip the whole democracy part and just go straight to a capitalists system combined with a dictatorship. Russia may yet end up there, though at the moment is still has strong democratic elements.

Once you decide there is nothing you won't do to advance a goal, the goal recedes behind the things you do.

Yeah, I can't quite see Papa Winchester selling his soul to save Dean's life. If crossroads demon can cure Hudson's wife of terminal cancer and let him live for another 10 years on top of it before collecting, I would think Daddy Winchester's immediate death, plus the Colt would be more than enough of a bargain for Dean's life.

See, though, I don't think it would be enough for Yellow Eyed Demon to just get a death and the Colt out of it. Because he's got those dead kids of his own to think of, and he's more twisted than Crossroads Demon, and all that. It's personal for him, not just business.

Although I do think it's a bit cheap for the XF team to be scavenging their own oeuvre for plots at this early date...

(Looks back over the last 30 episodes.)

They've been stealing since practically day one, but you know, it fits with the whole retellings of urban legends thing, so I'm okay with that.

OMG, I just discovered that the guy who played "Poor Bitch" in Wonderfalls is the son of Michael Hogan from BSG.

Yeah, I can't quite see Papa Winchester selling his soul to save Dean's life.

Well, and this is my hangup: what the hell do we know about souls, in this universe? Is it possible to sell your soul at all? Sell your life, sure -- but if there's an actuall Hell to which you can consign yourself, then there's a Heaven too, right? So, how come we never hear about it?

There's some serious deep-think that either hasn't been performed, or hasn't been revealed yet, on that account.

Sell your life, sure -- but if there's an actuall Hell to which you can consign yourself, then there's a Heaven too, right?

Why is that necessary? Why can't demons just be, like, otherworldly creatures with a hellish realm called...Hell?

Because, if there's a hellish realm, even if it's called Shrimplessness, it kind of has to be balanced out by an opposite, don't you think?

Or else somebody needs to tell me, explicitly, that this is a Viking universe, where everybody is more or less doomed. (And that's not what I've been led to expect up to this point, so no points for "well you could infer that.")

I think, based on what Tessa the Reaper said, that there's stuff we've not yet been told, things that our POV characters don't know.

Because, if there's a hellish realm, even if it's called Shrimplessness, it kind of has to be balanced out by an opposite, don't you think?

Well...no. I mean, I love duality as much as anyone, but you could have a hellish realm that took bad souls and let everyone else just sort of disappear into nothingness. What about the wronged spirits? We don't really know what happens to them when they're taken care of. They could just as well...dissipate.

I think I've heard the "If there's a hell, there must be a heaven" argument in a movie recently too, and I bought it then, but I never stopped to think about it until now.

Ancient Babylonian mythology was basically that that there is a hell and everybody goes there - you eat dust, drink mud, and you have wings that just kind drag on the ground. Oh except for the Noah predecessor and family. [Forgot the name - begins with L.] They were granted bodily immortality and live forever in a beautiful garden somewhere on earth. But everyone else goes to hell.