Erin, I think you've got it there... it's all about balance. Dean balances Sam, so maybe the angels (who are probably clueless about what Sam can do, or will do) think that having Dean back will help rebalance the scale. They probably don't care much about his well-being beyond that.

The SPN verse, so far, is a good/bad kind of verse. Good v. evil, and the classic, I guess, quantam religious physics is that there must exist a balance of power. There's a constant strugle for dominance, but in general, it stabilizes (kind of) into a type of balance. Therefore, most deals with evil must be honored, I think.

This is something that we are seeing for the first time this season though and I think we are all struggling with if there is Good v evil, or has been mentioned evil v evil playing Dean like a fiddle. If Castiel is genuinely a messenger of God, then there is the balance to the evil we have seen over the past three years. If he is not, then SPN goes back to being a dimension where demons and other beasties run around and the only good in the world are the rag tag band of hunters that try and protect people. John was able to escape Hell through an open door and there wasn't any consequence to this action. At that point, there wasn't any precedent of balance.

IMHO, I don't think there is anything more special about Dean than he is the one person in the world that would stand a chance giving the yellow crayon speech and stopping Sam. If there is a Good side in this, I think they just went in a back door and smuggled him out of hell. Evil couldn't do anything besides stomp their cloven hoof and say, "damnit."

I think YED was pushing right up to the absolute edge of the rules when he bled into the kids with their parents rather than their own consent. So good is pushing the rules a bit too - not breaking them, but stepping a lot closer to the line than usual.

I think YED was pushing right up to the absolute edge of the rules when he bled into the kids with their parents rather than their own consent.

It's like the situation in Reaper, where Sam's parents sold his soul to the Devil. And Sam's friend Ben points out, quite rightly in my opinion, that they couldn't -- that a soul can only be given up by the person to whom it belongs. Sam would have to make that deal, not his parents.

So SPN Sam, and the other psychic kids, were tainted by demon blood through no volition of their own. Their parents made them the sacrifice. So sure, burn Mary or the other parents, but it's Just. Not. Fair. to blame the kids for something that was done to them when they were 6 months old. Of course, in the SPN-verse, as in the Bible, things are seldom fair.

Also, I'd accept the argument that while the source of the power is negative, the kids can't be held liable for anything until they actually do something evil with it. (Like Andy -- was he doing bad, or was he just annoying and amusing? And Eva was trying to be helpful by warning Sam about the visions. It wasn't until the YED got to her that she turned evil. As far as we know Jake didn't do anything bad with his superstrength - he saved someone's life, that's all we know - until the YED arrived. Lily is more problemmatical. But she didn't electrocute people deliberately.) So Sam has powers that may come from a dark place. But he resisted the YED's efforts to make him turn to the Dark Side of the Force.

The question is, is what Sam's doing now evil? Or enough to put him at risk of turning evil? And if so why, because I honestly still don't see it. (To recap: exorcising demons, good. Leaving hosts alive, good. The angels don't like the methods? I don't suppose they'd enjoy the irony of turning evil against itself.)

Perhaps Castiel and Co. don't trust Ruby?

It's not that what Sam is doing is inherently evil - they are interesting in figuring out Ruby's ultimate plan.

Are there still plans for a watch and post tonight?

I was just going to ask the same thing. i'd almost forgotten!

Same here!

Yup. Six p.m. board time, nine eastern. Home first. And then a quick break, I think? Before we watch the next one?

I'll definitely need at least a short break, because I'll be watching Home on the TV and ItB on the computer, and I need to switch rooms.