I can't remember how I got spoiled, but I don't think I knew who it would be... but there were only so many choices, really. Then once the ep started, well, it was obvious.

Kate - re: LoM series finale: I made up my own interpretation for the end of LoM, (and, I think, in the process, dumbfounded Jon B with the extent of my la-la-la-la I can't hear you, living out here on the Nile - so pretty here!)

I agree that, narratively, it would have been hard to sell his ending up back in 2006 permanently, and I was happy that he ended up with his 70s peeps, too .

Did anyone else wonder where the doves were for Carson's big finish? I broke out laughing when I saw that patented power-walk-against-blooming-explosion background.

Hee, JenP! I saw your posts about your take on the finale, and, you know, I could totally buy that. Especially with that look that Dr. Morgan gives Sam as he's walking out of his room -- that's a very knowing look!

Exactly!

LoM:

Kate write about what I wrote, "But would the ending have been satisfying, from a narrative perspective, if it showed Sam waking up in 2006, recovering from his injuries, getting some therapy, having a few brief interactions with characters we've never seen before, and deciding to stay there -- all in the span of about 10 minutes?"

That's a bit of a straw man argument, Kate. Those are hardly the only two options. If they were going to go that route the writers could have taken a lot more time with it. Also, I want to reiterate that I did think the ending was satifying from a narrative PoV. But it was also fucked up.

Ailleann, thanks for the link! That was indeed the essay I was thinking of--not only that, it was the one that linked the Winchesters and the YED in a circular pattern of fatal flaw. I'd been trying to find that one--and had forgotten they are the same essay.

That essay is completely brilliant.

Also, did everyone see that Fire in the Hole got an update? (We were flailing about Big_Pink in here, right? Or was that FF?)

I think that was in FF.

Hey, guess who just watched all the Jo bits in SPN?

That'd be me! Okay, I skipped ELAC, on account of having just watched it and all. But I watched all the rest!

In conclusion, Jo and Dean have better chemistry than assumed on first airing, and Alona Tal really, really looks like a young waifish blonde version of Jilli.

That's a bit of a straw man argument, Kate. Those are hardly the only two options.

Of course -- and I also said that I could have bought the staying-in-2006 decision if we'd had more time with Sam there. What I meant -- and articulated poorly -- was that, by the point in the episode when Sam wakes up (around the 48 minute mark), there was no time left to convince me that he should stay in 2006, and I only wanted to see him return to 1973. They certainly could have brought Sam back earlier and spent more time on his re-integration into his old life, but I don't think that's the kind of story they were interested in telling, nor the one they had been telling up until that point. To me, Sam's story turned out to be much less about *how* he got to 1973, and more about how he lived there and was changed by his time there.

I tried to read that Dodger-Winslow essay, and like much of her fic, MEGO and I started tilting sideways.

Also, she's wrong about John. His boys come first. But I have the advantage of hindsight, as that essay was written a year ago.