I don't understand why he didn't just take the little girl after the first death that was off schedule. Why didn't he immediately claim the little girl?

He would have ended up in the car taking the ring off anyway and losing the bet, assuming he'd rushed. He wanted to stop more deaths by stopping the drunk driving accident first, and then come back and kill the girl later.

I'm pissed Bobby went downstairs too. I'm going to have to assume he had worked out just what Sam had done, and was confirming it, not that he seriously thought Sam was still down there, because he would have been toast so much sooner that way.

I also buy Sam taking Bobby out in his own place. Once you get past the traps, this is RoboSam. He doesn't stay tied up, he doesn't stay knocked out, he doesn't stop. He was gonna win, unless Bobby locked himself up. And even then.

I'm glad the soul went back in before hiatus, and I'm glad it went back in non-con with chances of barrier fail. That way we don't have to deal with unhandlable PTSD right away, but there's immediate angst, as well as hovering threat. So I'm good with that.

I like that RoboSam brought up the fact that he's an entity, and that he's not the Sam Dean cares about. They could have done more with that.

Loved having Death and Tessa back both.

why Death made a point of saying it was nice to take off the ring from time to time, after it had been off since last season.

I think he meant a) it had been nice for him to have it off for this period (for him, it's a second or two) and b) wasn't it nice, Dean, to take it off?

I can see that, but the rest still makes no sense. There hasn't been any indication before that Death was needed for the reapers to do their job, and if it was necessary, what was happening while Dean had the ring?

Perhaps Death was just feeling particularly bitchy. He wasn't always needed, but he made sure Dean was needed in this scenario because he wanted Dean to go through the steps to learn that particular lesson.

I assumed that Dean couldn't kill people without the ring, but maybe Death didn't need it for Death to happen. Maybe he wasn't killing people, but it's not like the world is free of disease because they cut of Pestilence's finger and got his ring either.

Unlike the other Horsemen, I get the impression that the ring is more a symbol of office for Death. Not having it doesn't seem to diminish him in any way. For that matter, I would assume he was going on and handling all the other thousands of people who died on earth during the hours that Dean was struggling with his handful of allotted souls to take.

It may be that he just wanted to comisserate with someone who'd gained some sympathy for what his responsibilities are like.

Mo Ryan almost picks Supernatural (amongst others) for her top 10.

Petite Madame makes a mistake. She horizontally flipped her reference pic, and didn't adjust for the asymmetry. It's totally bugging the shit out of me. On the other hand, long-haired Dean.

So I really like the notion of Death being the one to get Sam's soul back. I think it is a clever idea - so I liked the beginning of the episode and the end. It's just the middle I didn't care for.

It's like the writers had this bang-up idea that they just couldn't knock out of the park.

Yeah, he never occurred to me as a possibility until I saw the actor was making another appearance, and then it immediately all made perfect sense. Who better to get Sam's soul out of the cage than the old-as-creation abstract entity who taught them how to use it in the first place, and whose very nature involves migrating souls from one state of being to another?

I'm still tickled we got Robert Englund. That was fun.

Unspoiled speculation follows:

Death says to Dean that he has to pay attention to what souls mean, after giving him the lowdown on how sturdy and unbreakable souls are. So even though Sam is already resouled, I think the second half of the season will maybe explore that, and the reason why could be tied into purgatory.

If purgatory is where souls are way-stationed before moving up and down, access or control of purgatory would give someone a whole lot of souls. Like Lucifer maybe.

I don't think they're going to drop that thread, even with Crowley dead, because they talked it up too much, and left it too unfinished. And if the above is true, it could be a really powerful weapon, too.