Maybe Sam's body and mind came back sans soul? Though you'd think that would have been obvious to Castiel at first glance.

ETA: Bingo! I hope they have a good explanation for why Cas didn't pick up on that the first time they were in the same room together, though. Even when his angelic powers were flickering out his perceptions were still shown to extend into spiritual dimensions and he was able to do things like recognize that he was speaking to a Dean from another time.

Well, the preview for next week took care of that unsatisfying in-show explanation. Fuckwads.

Was that another angel in the promo?

I saw the vampire Alpha.

I did too.

I've seen almost nothing of Season 1 and my Season 2 viewing was spotty. Has there ever been any indication that a person can live and function without their soul on SPN before?

Matt, I'm trying to come up with someone but so far I'm coming up blank. On the other hand seeing as how the Winchesters make a habit of rising from the dead on a fairly regular basis, they're not run-of-the-mill people either.

Matt, I'm thinking the difference might be where the soul is, and if it still exists. Bobby lived more than a year without his and didn't change, but it was still extent -- Crowley just had it.

If it turns out Sam's soul was destroyed, that might be what makes it different?

That was the most broken I've ever seen the two of them. Always before, they were working toward the same thing, on the same page, so to speak, even if they were coming at it from different angles. (Like when Sam believed Ruby, he at least had good intentions in his favor.)

But here ... even Sam knows something's wrong with him, and yet he can't even really care, because that's the whole problem. And Dean is wrecked, completely alone, and now thoroughly angry. I kept waiting for him to say, "Do you feel this?" when he was beating the shit out of Sam.

BOYS.

"Do you feel this?"

That was brutal in so many ways.

"I'm not a dad, I'm a killer."

::cries and cries and cries::

It's just.... looking over the list of episode titles, Season 4 was one long endless slog of the storyline providing more and more reason to hate Sam ("Stop your brother," blood drinking, fucking Ruby, the Siren-influenced argument, releasing Lucifer). Season 5 gave us even more (especially oh my God the trip to heaven, even though everyone ought to realize that it was all manipulated by Zachariah) before Sam was allowed a chance at redemption by throwing himself into the Pit at the end of 5.22.

And here we are right back at OMGWTFEVULSAMMUH! again. Is this the character now, and this is just what he will always be, and those of us who have been hoping that he would have a chance to return to something closer to where he began will never see that happen? Or do the writers truly believe that they are creating some sort of character development? In which case they never studied any of the same texts I did, because it doesn't count as development if nothing actually changes.