Dean did ask for details on how Sam reappeared, didn't he? Sam told him he didn't know.

My big fears about Dean falling into twu love after a bendy weekend are mostly assuaged. It seems a tender caring relationship, and I'm okay with that. I think it's unhealthy of Lisa to be be plugging a father figure for Ben so firmly into her life like that, but Dean's kinda of a good choice (and kind of AWFUL), so I think it's plausible. If I hear either of them say they love each other (as opposed to can work well together) I will reconsider my happiness.

Dean did ask for details on how Sam reappeared, didn't he? Sam told him he didn't know.

Yes, but he didn't ask about Samuel, at least not on screen.

If I hear either of them say they love each other (as opposed to can work well together) I will reconsider my happiness.

I'm willing to let them earn it this season or not. I'm easy. Just keep her interesting and alive.

Speaking of, the actor playing Ben is at that awkward self-conscious age. I wonder if that's why we haven't had much interaction with him. It's a little odd given how full of personality he was in the Kids are Alright.

Didn't they just up and explain (not) Samuel after Dean expressed his confusion? Or do you mean he should have been tested too?

Must rewatch.

Okay, I was wrong. Dean did ask.

Samuel: A lot of resurrections in your face today. It's alright, take a minute.

Dean: It's gonna take a little more than a minute. I mean what the Hell. How did this happen?

Samuel: We're guessing whatever pulled Sam up pulled me down.

Sam: So whatever this is, we're both a part of it.

I thought I remembered something like that.

This, by glorious spoon, is the first story that I've read incorporating premiere canon (read, Sid), and weirdly, it has Dean giving up drinking. Which just serves to preoccupy me with why he'd have started again on the hard stuff by the time the year rolled around. Because that's extra depressing, instead of thinking that he'd reached some sort of equilibrium.

Also...the tests. Um. Sam cut HIMSELF with his own knife, poured something that was white into water and gargled with it. There's nothing I've see with my own eyes that anyone HAS tested him. Did he do his own self-tests for Bobby?

OMG yes. This made no sense at all. We've never seen any of them (Dean, Sam or Bobby) be this careless about verifying the identity of anyone before.

Was the YED a hallucination, or a djinn projecting a false image? Because Sam injected the white stuff into him, not Dean, right?

Also, a big fat YES to the wtfery of the tests and subsequent lack-thereof.

Did I miss a scene between Dean dying on the floor alone, and walking through the house, fine, with Sam?

Sure, I get that being Lucifer's holding cell in hell would cause a little trauma, but c'mon. Dean was down there 40 years. Sam was (if we can trust him) there for...what, a day? A week?

I wish the writers would clarify this. In the meantime, something to consider... you're assuming that all levels of hell are progressing along the same timelines, in the same realities. It's possible that wherever Lucifer would be held would not be in the same area that Alistair and his minions would be running amuck, and perhaps time would move differently in these areas. Also, I've seen people insist that nothing bad could have happened since Sam/Lucifer was in a cage. However while the cage would have kept Sam/Lucifer from getting out, it wouldn't necessarily have kept other things from getting in to him/them.

I'm sure Lucifer, for however long he had, would be fucking up Sam's shit for being the means to his reimprisonment.

I just had a horrible thought that probably Michael and Adam weren't to happy with him either, and might have joined in on the action.

I can still believe Bobby would go along with not telling Dean because Dean got out and has a family.

I don't trust Samuel. Even before the taking of the djinn and "don't tell the boys" I don't trust him. Sam and Samuel are both assuming (or at least both saying) that they were brought back by the same force, but what if they weren't?

I'm pretty sure YED was just a hallucination.