Also, since Dean is evidently carrying some stuff from car to car, I have no issue with that being part of the stuff.

I wish we'd had the line from the preview, though, because I can't imagine it didn't have something to do with the coat being right there.

Like I said, I don't mind Cas taking on the Lucifer hallucinations (although I do in that CAS! we just got you back, dude), because I understand the emotional point of it. I just think if you go all the way back to the wall and what it is and what Sam's seeing and why, it probably isn't the sturdiest plot structure ever built.

I'm rewatching Canyon Flowers (Life) for Rachel Miner. And a lot of her speech patterns are all hers, but she does play it up on Supernatural to the nth degree (who knows, maybe she was playing it down in that role). And on Life she played a quirky sadistic character, so there is that happy sadistic glint in her eyes.

The only thing that I found to be a stretch was Dean giving Cas the trenchcoat and Cas wearing it. As a symbol that Dean has had Cas in his thoughts, that his loss was a huge deal, cool. I can even see Dean showing it to Cas to prove that he holds no ill will towards him, that despite his wrongs, Dean has grieved for him. Cas actually putting it on was strange.

Cas actually putting it on was strange.

Dean gave it to him, saying "Here. Be Cas again. We need Cas." and so he took it, and accepted that he was Cas. What is he going to do with it, other than wear it? It seemed a straightforward symbol for him accepting the mantle and the forgiveness and everything that meant, returning to who he had been, even all the way back to S5.

For Cas to look at it and not do anything with it would have struck me as a waste of bringing it up again in this context. I'd rather just have known Dean had it on him, somehow. But if Dean pulls it out for Cas, putting it on is completing the symbology.

I wish we'd had the line from the preview

I too think they shouldn't have cut the line, but the coat did say the same thing.

I'd have preferred it if it were Jensen Ackles saying it rather than a prop. Were two different scenes with conveniently-located ghost victim giving Sam candy or granola bars really more important to the plot than the preview scene that got cut?

Went to a book club meeting and discovered one member's husband is a huge SPN fan (he wasn't there, she was telling me), complete with quoting Sam and Dean. I'm now dying to meet this guy, even though I find her sort of a blank space.

Cas actually putting it on was strange.

Oh, I don't think so. I don't think that's the kind of thing you can refuse, for one. And I think Cas was so stunned, actually putting that life/existence back on physically might have helped make it all a little realer in the moment.

Cas actually putting it on was strange.

Mostly I was thinking that with his fully returned angel mojo Castiel was capable of materializing his trenchcoat all by himself.

I was thinking that with his fully returned angel mojo Castiel was capable of materializing his trenchcoat all by himself.

But that coat doesn't have the impact. Even cleaning it up would dilute it. As it stood, it was a direct reminder of what he went through right before he walked into the reservoir, everything he suffered as he tried to atone the first time, which he didn't feel was enough.

Also, a newly materialized trenchcoat lacks the possibility of Dean having used it as a pillow at some point. IJS.

I rewatched last night. I wonder if being in the cage with Lucifer opened some kind of connection with Sam -- or Sam being his vessel. So when Cas took that damage into himself, he was taking that open phone line, too, so to speak.

Meaning, Lucifer is still in the cage, which we knew, but the hallucinations aren't as much hallucinations as Lucifer actually taunting Sam *from* the cage. That would explain why Lucifer could talk directly to Cas after the transfer (and makes me feel a little better about the logic of the thing).