Now that I think about it, one thing I don't get is how easily demons like Crowley (at least prior to the power boost taking over gave him) and his minions are traveling back and forth between Hell and earth. Didn't Meg and Ruby both state that it was really difficult for demons to get out on their own, hence the reason for the big devil's gate at the end of Season 2?

Did we know that Crowley was going back to Hell inbetween appearances?

But Crowley was a cross roads demon. I think that they are supposed to be able to travel more easily. They were like Lucifer's salesmen.

Right, because cross roads demons would have to be able to cross over every time they were summoned.

I had assumed that Crowley was living in the house we saw him in (he wasn't on the run from Luci yet, was he?) and that crossroads demons were apparating in from somewhere else on earth.

Crowley mentioned that he now has "the mojo." Whether that's because he's "king of hell" or there's another angle I suppose we'll find out. Or not.

I had assumed that Crowley was living in the house

I thought they'd burned down his house and ate his tailor. IIRC.

Chorus to Amy's verse: We've been marathoning Dark Angel (H had never seen it and has recently become an anime fan. Seemed like a logical step). Alec has a lot of boyish tics and mannerisms, but every now and then, especially in a two-scene, or in the scene with Joshua and Max, he hits that perfect emotional chord with merely a facial expression, or posture.

Gathering and honing his craft, if he stays in front of the camera, he'll have a damn bouquet of Oscars and Emmys by the time he hits 50.

And to give him his due, I give JP props for his torqued-down emotionless Sam this season. Gotta be hard not to go for the bitchface or the puppy eyes on cue, to be recognizably Sam, but so utterly empty at the same time.

I thought they'd burned down his house and ate his tailor. IIRC.

At that point he was probably not going back to hell even if he could, because he was on Hell's shitlist. Before that, though, I just figured he lived topside.

Blissfully tortured myself by rereading Blindspot (the one where Dean gets captured by Meg and BAD SHIT happens) and wishing for pdragon to take a stab at season 5 and wondering how the dragon would change things, what would be removed, what would be streamlined, what would be highlighted. How the Sam issues s/he'd already dealt with/introduced would flow into that. The only concrete thing I could think of was that Cas wouldn't explode once nor twice, and his reunion and reparation with Dean would not take place over the phone.

Then random thought attacked: perhaps the meta reason Boys were made the OTVessels for Lucifer and Michael was so that there was a built-in reason for them not to be DED at any point during the season. And then it struck me: I'm surprised I haven't read a fic where one or both of them end up on the brink of death and choose to chance winding up resurrected in Zach's hands or some scenario where, oh, say, Dean, is on death's door, partlyfallen!Cas can't heal him, and kills him to end his suffering with the promise to, along with Sam, come rescue him from Zach's clutches.

Someone, make this happen!

Bev's post makes me happy. Because i heart Jensen as Alec.