Of course, if Crowley has had the djinn for months, and still hasn't gotten her to talk, it could mean he's not all that when it comes to the torture.

I'm more bummed than I should be that Crowley is gone. This is like when Hannibal was my favorite character in Silence of the Lambs, I think.

I need to rewatch to catch everything. My head is still spinning. And it keeps getting stuck on stuff like "We're not supposed to talk about it" and "I learned it from the pizza man" and Cas ADMITTING he'd sometimes rather be on earth with the boys.

Maybe they're leaving it vague because the writer's have no clue either (Sampa's reasoning wrt Mary). I have a vague recollection of my mother having Dr. Laura on the radio and there being a big discussion of something like "in a fire, who would you save, your spouse or your child." There were lots of interesting call-ins for both sides of the equation. But I don't think the writer have anything so well-thought out or nuanced.

Why am I having flashbacks of black oil and supersoldiers?

I wonder (hope) if the Purgatory search is over and done with in the absence of Crowley.

Saving a small helpless child from a fire is a lot different than bringing bac your grown daughter from death, to me.

So does this mean Meg is Queen of Hell now?

Saving a small helpless child from a fire is a lot different than bringing back your grown daughter from death, to me.

Though I could make an argument Samuel never had a period of mourning before he had the opportunity to bring her back so perhaps to him it's the same difference?

Part of me wants Mary to come back and be all "You picked me over my own SONS?!!!"

Has the observation already been made that the Meg actress was on Terriers?

I love this show and haven't really been down on it all (well maybe a little in season 3). Until now other than occasional annoyance related to the humor and treatment of women, I haven't reacted the way I did to any previous episodes, some I liked less than others, but this one may rank at the top of my dislike list.

That said, there was significant enough plot advancement to the arc story that I can't pretend it never happened. And I agree with everyone who has said Jared is knocking not!Sam out of the park. I'm loving his character and arc this season.

If felt to me like Dean's dialog this episode could have literally been edited out of any one of the 100+ episodes they've already filmed. Jensen's performance remains wonderful.

I felt no glee for the Cas boner jokes, just discomfort. In fact, much of this episode was watch from the hall for me.

Maybe it's kind of reverse, not who you save from death, but who you bring back to life? And Sam's halfway there, and Sampa doesn't actually care --but it's not even a matter of choosing between two, really. It's not Mary or ___, and it's not like Mary is in Hell (and I don't see how Crowley had the power to pull Sampa out of Heaven, and I'd think he was lying, but Sampa doesn't seem to have memories of Hell, but hey, maybe...

Meg would be an awesome Queen of Hell. I've loved that actress since I saw her in Life.

As for Cas and his sexuality, this Cas seems to not be on par with the Cas and the den of iniquity. Something isn't jiving. Not that I liked nervous panicky virginal Cas then, AT ALL.

I can buy Cas' reaction to the sexual situations. He had to make it from the brothel all the way to The End so there had to be some progress. Because The End is not their present course of timeline, I don't see any reason that Cas wouldn't still develop in his sexuality. If he is learning sexuality from porn and Dean, then this seemed right as a starting place. I wasn't embarrassed until he was watching in front of Sampa. But like I said, as soon as Cas made a funny, I was back in from the hall.

I buy this sexuality of Cas. He has lady's man in him and he is in a bit more stable place with respect to powers. And he still has no idea what is appropriate. So he's going to bump into experience. I really like that he didn't stop just because Dean told him to. The remark to Sampa was love for that reason. Dean is my compass, but only so far.

Thanks, Perkins. I thought she was more than a throw-away, but a call back to the jinn story line makes sense.

I think a lot of Samuel's reasoning is fueled by guilt. Though it was really no fault of his, he remembers Azazel using him to make Mary's deal to bring John back and thus was the instrument of her death. That by that same reasoning he was the instrument of Sam's downfall, John's life of vengeance and his grandsons' blighted childhoods he hasn't appeared to consider as immediate to his own guilt.

Sam listened to Castiel's and Crowley's descriptions of the probable state of his soul, and has enough intellectual imagination to realize the implications for him if such a tattered thing were to be forced on him. Bad enough to have a sloppy, emotional, guilt-laden soul hampering your hunts, anyway. One that severely damaged? A frightening prospect, even on an intellectual level. And that Dean, who purports to "love" Sam, would insist on forcing that on him? I think inasfar as he's capable at the moment, Sam is both frightened of the prospect and disappointed and bitter at Dean for wanting Sam to be burdened that way.