They could drive around the country in a cool muscle car hunting demons. . .

Holy cow, that's really compelling evidence, I must say. I think the dimples really do it.

You think that's freaky? Observe the family resemblance!

Oh yeah, that's kind of freaky. Someone had stills of JDM from a movie very early in his career in his early twenties, full-length shots. He had the same rail-thin, miles-long legs and torso and broad shoulders build as Padalecki, and a similar jut of jaw and glower from beneath the brows.

And then I've seen laughing shots of Samantha Smith with the same big eyes, full lips, eye crinkles and jaw shape as Ackles. Casting people can be scary accurate sometimes.

And I've always thought this pic (click for larger version) is a really good match to that one of JDM.

I have thoughts about the episode order, but I'm going to have to come back to them

But you never did!

I read in someone else's LJ today that, although the ep order was shuffled due to the strike, the writers are leaving the airing order as canon. Which will change some things, as Sam's hesitation and giving real thought to sacrificing the virgin, can be attributed now to how his long hunt without Dean changed and hardened him.

It gives the writers a shortcut they would not have taken, with more episodes to illustrate Sam's fall, or his change, whatever it turns out to be. I think I'd rather see the process go into S4, and show the process, one step after another, give us a chance to absorb and observe, rather than ringing some fast changes on us. I feel a little shortchanged, both in story and in seeing how JP would have handled Sam's slow slide into...ambiguity, if not outright evil.

Pragmatism, perhaps? As opposed to evil. Something needed to be accomplished, and he was looking at the most expedient way to get it done. (I'm not saying I necessarily agree with that viewpoint, you understand.) After all, looking at it from a purely cold-blooded perspective, if your goal is to save as many human lives as possible, and the loss of only one human can save all the rest (particularly if that sacrificial victim is willing to give her life to save her friends), that doesn't sound as bad as full-on warfare that can lead to an unknown number of deaths.

I have thoughts about the episode order, but I'm going to have to come back to them

But you never did!

Ooops.

I can't imagine the original episode order working, for me. For one, if Jus in Bello had aired first, Dean's remarks in Mystery Spot about looking for Bela would have seemed even milder than they did this way.

Second, Sam does let himself be persuaded not to let Nancy sacrifice herself in JiB, which works for me because I think he realized how far he'd gone in MS, how hardened he'd become. (Although it is true that you could work it the other way easily, if MS had come second, and rationalize that letting himself second-guess his instincts was too soft.)

Um. I didn't say they were deep thoughts, really. As grim as MS was in the second half, Sam got Dean back in the end. And I think the comedy of the first half would have been jarring coming off the siege and Hendrickson's death (sob) and the further news of Lilith.

Hendrickson's death (sob)

Not in fanon, baybee. I'm reading some good escape scenarios, and what comes after. The writers should maybe take notes--not that they ever would.

I'm feeling the need for some S1 fun. Hell House W&P, this Thursday at 9? Anybody?

That sounds like fun!