It's possible that nothing but another angel (or Death) can actually kill an angel

Or Dean.

I love how much one-on-one brother time we got last night. And also how easy it is to see the little brother inside Sam -- the one who hoots when his brother gets blown off by a pretty girl, and the one who worships his older brother ("Just ... don't get killed.").

There is also nothing better than Dean getting pushed around in bed. Totally a secret sub.

Watching Dean have sex with someone stronger than himself was a decided treat. It hasn't happened since Anna.

Now, Sam's had sex with someone stronger than him, but like the sex with Anna, you couldn't tell the power disparity.

I love how Dean threaded his fingers through hers. He's such a....yeah, I'm sure they do always take his number.

Dean/Castiel has made it to the next round of voting. Now there's a rumour that E! Online will interview the winning couple. That should get people good and stoked. Deb/Dexter's still in the running, and Peter/Elizabeth got beaten.

I saw a decent amount of bitching about the episode before and after on Tumblr last night, but I can't seem to find SPN/D/C outlets there that share my general level of pleasure with the show. It's very much the syndrome of the creator having created something more special than themselves that they can no longer be trusted to maintain, which...I rarely get that.

To be fair, it's really more like Marti Noxon Syndrome where the creator has somewhat disengaged from the creation and people are dissatisfied with how the new management is handling things.

Though I personally am enjoying Season 7 more on average than I did Season 6. It hasn't given me a peak like "Mommy Dearest" yet, but I'm generally enjoying the monster-of-the-week episodes rather than wondering why Mitch Pileggi is being wasted on pointless filler episodes.

people are dissatisfied with how the new management is handling things.

Maybe the bitching you're seeing. The bitching I'm seeing is pretty consistent since before S6 started.

I'm not talking about the contingency of people that are convinced that Sera and Sera alone fired a weeping Misha, and that she should be punished for it. They're a different kind of crazy.

I'm talking about the people that think that Kripke doesn't understand the Winchesters, and ruined them as soon as he tanked the special kids storyline.

I'm not sure how to point out to them that for good or ill, those are the Winchesters, and that is what happened to them, and it's up to us to understand or like. Not to dictate the one true storyline.

I have tried. It generated quite a shitstorm.

The special kids would have been a whole other show. Plus, if they stopped to look at the details, the special kids were never meant to be an army -- they were the people Azazel was throwing at the wall to see which would stick if Sam didn't work out.

I love how Dean threaded his fingers through hers.

He also looked unbelievably beautiful in that scene. I don't if it was the lighting or they had him more closely shaved or what, but he looked like a much younger Dean, much less grizzled and angsty.

He was ungodly lovely that whole episode. But, with eye crinkles. Best of both worlds.

I think they must have given him new lip gloss, or something. I couldn't keep my eyes off his mouth, with a whole new level of prurience.

His bottom lip especially...

Maybe it's just a matter of presentation, but Kripke's interviews give the impression that he was more about "wow, dumping that bucket of blood over everything would be KEWL!" fanboyish thrill-seeking rather than a thoughtful and considered approach to Winchester family relationships. I assume that the deeper level planning had to be there somewhere as it's unlikely that someone could accidentally stumble into good writing and characterization over the course of several seasons, but I can definitely see how people could walk away feeling he lucked into it.

The other thing is, a lot of writers aren't great at speaking. Not that Kripke wasn't thrilled by the chance to have monsters and blood and car crashes, but I think there was more to his vision of the Winchesters than that, even if he doesn't/didn't express it very well in interviews.

Whether he lucked into it or not, or farted it out after an especially ripe dinner, it's still his (now Gamble's). We take what we can from it, but it's *his*. The people I read bitch like they own the Winchesters, and Kripke is some sort of cockblock in the relationship, as opposed to the person who facilitated the fuel for our fervent imaginings. It's not perfect, but it's also not ours.

I can definitely see how people could walk away feeling he lucked into it.

I'd like to see someone who's run a show say that, though. Backseat quarterbacking is easy (I do it to ficwriters all the time, and I can't write for shit), but come on. This is a whole different level of "it's not that simple" and "how many of us could do something comparable?" Voting with your tumblr doesn't count. Your feet is what you have.

I'm not saying a show, this show, any show is above criticism. It's just about apparent expectations.