I just can't get into his pain and angst while I'm being shallow thinking that it's not flattering for Jared.

Is Jared that bad an actor you can't buy his pain unless he's pretty?

He's doing a good job for me, and I buy it, and his appearance is an afterthought.

I couldn't find any good time signals in their looks. Was Dean wearing the Samulet? It was sloppily cued.

I couldn't find any good time signals in their looks. Was Dean wearing the Samulet? It was sloppily cued.

Other than it saying "4 years earlier." I couldn't really tell the difference. (Visually, that is. From the storytelling, I noticed that the earlier timepoint came when Dean still cared about keeping host bodies alive. That fell by the wayside as the Apocalypse became more intense and they were running out of time.)

Dean torturing at that time rose my eyebrows too. Is this after On The Head Of A Pin?

(I don't like how sloppy their set and makeup seems to be being. No handprint, no amulet--for all I know they're *definitely* in clothes they wore 4 years ago, but it's the subtlest of cues. Sam's hair didn't look markedly different. Fuck with Jared's sideburns. It's not about him.)

I missed the "4 years earlier" tag and got confused when Lilith was mentioned. Instead of backing up and rewatching the beginning, I was just looking for visual clues to explain why Lilith was a topic again. Shoot, for a moment I thought I was watching a rerun and somehow didn't remember the opening. It really wasn't until the "Now" (or whatever it said) tag was displayed that I understood.

Dean torturing at that time rose my eyebrows too.

They did that scene really well -- for me, it really came off from Jeffrey's point of view, and the pain and terror of these two huge guys attacking him was really clear.

One of my favorite little things from the episode was Dean's outgoing message: "Leave your name, number, and nightmare at the tone."

"Leave your name, number, and nightmare at the tone."

That, the forked tongue, and "Oh, don't bother," were some of my favorites from last night.

I really love Mark P's take on Lucifer. Kinda of ranks up there with Harvey from Farscape.

That was what got me last night -- he was so devilishly funny (hah!) ad snarky, but the end of the episode was such a gut punch. SAM. Oh, SAM.

They did that scene really well -- for me, it really came off from Jeffrey's point of view, and the pain and terror of these two huge guys attacking him was really clear.

I think for Jeffrey it was absolutely terrible. I was willing to give him his "revenge" against Sam and Dean without him having been a serial killer in training. At that point in the story, I thought they (and the impact of the demon, but a lot of it was in their hands) had turned him into this monster who was separating Sam and Dean to get revenge for the torture and damaged they'd done that had driven him to alcoholism and the insane asylum.

It's a different sort of creepy to think he was already guilty before they showed up--not sure which I prefer.

But, when Castiel tries to make Dean torture in On The Head Of A Pin, it pretty much has to be the first he's tortured since hell, or some of the pain from that episode goes away. If it's after, then some of the pain from The End goes away, but this is still the Dean that Sam thinks isn't strong enough to end Lilith? That's kind of weird.

I thought they might be drawing a distinction between torture and Torture. For one, Sam was helping. Two, he was beaten up and required stitches, but Dean wasn't carving him up the way I assumed he was going to do with Alistair. Splitting hairs, possibly, but I'm going with what they did to Jeffrey was a really brutal beating, and not torture of the "strap them to the table and remove organs" sort.