I don't think I'm surprised that they're pulling their punches since it's Bobby. But they keep talking and talking about what to do with him, and not doing anything. And I get it. It's Bobby. They keep letting each other be bad cop that the good cop gets to talk down from doing something drastic (or the other way around, depending on how you feel about the Bobby situation). On one hand it's modus operandi with how they deal with family and flaunting their own rules. On the other, they have lived through the consequences of flaunting their own rules, have seen what comes of making deals and dabbling in the grey when it comes to loved ones.

To me it feels a bit like using a sticky trap to get rid of a mouse. Hey, it doesn't kill the mouse, so I don't have to feel bad. Except that now the mouse has twisted its little paws around, ripped off its tail and whiskers, and is dying slowly of pain, dehydration, and starvation. And suffocation --if you put it in the garbage bag. Instead of manning up to what you are doing (killing a mouse) and snapping it's little neck with a proper mouse trap.

But, I'm sure that their procrastination will end up revealing something new and special about the supernatural that they didn't know before, and they'll end up being right in letting Bobby "live".

Narratively, I want to lay money down on Bobby passing over and never coming back, even if it's not this Friday. However, I suspect the show is sentimental enough that I'm still scared we'll see Gabriel again, so there's that...

Given that at least two of the current dramatis personae are fully capable of restoring Bobby to life, it's possible that another solution besides going out in a blaze of glory will present itself.

Are you counting Crowley in that number? For some reason, I feel like that window has past. Tho, he's been surprising before, what with the legs.

I will be disappointed if either boy asks for it, especially Dean.

That's another question for the end of the season--what will Meg and Crowley's relative status be?

Another unsubstantiated "feeling" is that Cas will reach some sort of balance (if not full S4 brand sanity) and still have powers.

Can't wait to find out, except for the whole bit with the no more new episodes for yonks.

Are you counting Crowley in that number? For some reason, I feel like that window has past. Tho, he's been surprising before, what with the legs.

Yep. He brought Grampa Campbell back without anyone needing a deal to set it in motion, so theoretically he's capable of doing the same for Bobby if he has motivation to.

I consider that resurrection of Samuel to be grossly ill handled. You have a demon raising someone to make a deal to raise someone--that's dirty pool. And crossroads demons shouldn't need to cheat.

What is Sampa's real motivation here? What has changed for/happened to him that he'll kill his daughter's children to get his daughter back? Where has he been for the past 37 years that he wants to pluck her from presumable heaven to live on earth and *deny* her the children she barely got to know? Where does he think she's been this whole time?

I seriously want to know what how that conversation went.

(I figure he, who never really liked John, must have *hated* him thinking he'd raised Robo!Sam--but he must have a very different view of John than he had previously held)

That shit is way too complicated.

As much as I dislike it, the only explanation that seems to make sense is an unhealthy fixation upon Mary to the exclusion of all else, including the welfare of his own wife and their extended family. Which, if that was the case, might also explain how an apparently upstanding family man who spent his whole life saving victims from evil supernatural creatures ends up going Downstairs in the first place.

Oh, that's the other big unanswered question: WHERE WAS HE? It doesn't make sense for Crowley to have dominion of him unless he went to hell, but the Samuel we saw didn't seem to be clearly headed down that path. Where was Mary? Hell too? Was that why Crowley could raise her?

(I'm assuming for now Crowley plays by the rules, but he also gets to make many of the rules and is under no compulsion to point out the fine print--then again, Bobby's soul doesn't clearly support that.)

And if it does take being sent to Hell for a demon to raise you, what does that mean about Sam the first time he died?

eta: and by "big" I guess I meant "many small"

Hmmm. All Winchester go to Hell? (Unless, given a special one-time only pardon.)

Doesn't explain why Pops Campbell ended up there though.

Hey, maybe Bobby is delaying crossing over because he really doesn't want to see John again. He's all "Shit, I don't want to tell him what his kids..the soul...the torture...gay interspecies sex..."

Yeah, that makes sense.