There's also the question of whether any of their tests would work if it were Lucifer possessing Sam rather than a demon. Castiel has proven able to step over Devil's traps without incident, and was unaffected by Ruby's knife. The only thing we've seen able to affect archangels (other than direct attacks from another such) is burning sanctified oil from Jerusalem, and I'm pretty sure that would send Sam on a one-way trip to Freddy Kreuger Land whether or not something else was inside him.

I do think something is definitely going on with Samuel though. I would not expect someone to be all sneaky and sinister after spending a quarter century in Heaven.

And there's the thought that we know Alistair was Dean's chief tormentor while he was there, and Sam was trapped with the guy who created Alistair.

That was kind of a disappointment to me, that Lucifer was shown to be so evil and willing to torture and use horrifying things as his tools throughout Season 5. In "Lucifer Rising" they implied that his fury was righteous from his point of view, and he made a point of not lying to Nick. I wish they'd continued on that track.

I'm with you, Juliebird. I suspect Alistair's antics had nothing on what Lucifer and/or Michael was capable of.

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.

That is one of the things that kind of threw me out of the episode, to be honest. Dean just accepting that was Sam after Sam "tested" himself, okay. Dean has a blind spot when it comes to Sam, and I get that. But Bobby? In my head, there was a scene where Bobby offered Lisa and Ben cold glasses of lemonaide spiked with holy water.

(I did like the line "Don't touch the decor. Assume it's loaded".)

But beyond the peepee contest of who's pain was worse, is the contrast of Dean's post-hell "don't wanna talk" and Sam pushing (and I can't recall how gently or roughly) for honesty, and Sam' post-hell cold shut-down and dismissal.

I can see that if he does remember, that he might not be in the headspace to realize that there is someone who has an inkling of what he went through, but I tend to be more sympathetic to reactions like "I hurt and can't share, and I'm trying to protect myself by being glib" than reactions of "I shall revert to coldness and meanness and anger and make you feel bad about it".

Mostly, I'm intrigued by the differences and the similarities and the hypocrisy of their mutual post-Hell traumas.

What I think is interesting is that Sam is doing what Dean tried to do - leave the past behind and move on to the here and now - and is apparently being successful at it when Dean wasn't. Even before Hell, Sam was much better compartmentalizing his emotions, which I think is his basic nature amplified by the months spent after Mystery Spot. I like how the show keeps reminding us that, despite what the boys both claimed in Season 1, Sam is John's son and Dean is Mary's.

Eps finally up on iTunes, so I was able to watch the YED scene, and Sam stabs the needle through the hallucination into Dean's chest.

Also, man, that's a heavy barn coat he's wearing.

bacon and eggs: Sam is absolutely fascinating to watch. All these strange undefineable minute expressions and reactions. He's still scary and mean, but also intriguing.

Sam' post-hell cold shut-down and dismissal.

That I'll grant you, that Sam obviously didn't want to talk about his experience any more than Dean had wanted to talk about what he had gone through.

I tend to be more sympathetic to reactions like "I hurt and can't share, and I'm trying to protect myself by being glib" than reactions of "I shall revert to coldness and meanness and anger and make you feel bad about it".

But I didn't really see Sam being mean or angry or trying to make Dean feel bad. He just said he didn't want to talk about it because he was back now. It was a really short interchange because they went running off to the neighbors' house before it could go any further.

edit - But I do remember being struck by the irony of it being Dean who was asking for the "let's talk about our feelings/let's have a care-and-share conversation," seeing as how he always avoided them in the past.