His lips do look chapped in many shots, though. I think that was a response to the visual (I am totally over the freckle near his nipple--that really never needed to be mentioned, and makes me have creepy feels).
I had a massive brain fart yesterday watching Show. My notes said we'd gotten up to After School Special, so I cued us up to the episode after A Very Supernatural Christmas.
Bon said she couldn't remember how far we'd gotten (May!), but she did work out that we were in the wrong season...dur.
However, watching S4 is still hard. I feel like mummy and daddy are fighting. And it really makes me still want to punch some fic writers in the face, because they didn't seem to give Sam his due benefit of the doubt when writing the rift between them. He wasn't actually a bad guy. He was an arrogant guy, trying to do good. It's the first time he really has to deal with growing up, growing out of the youngest son spot (Stanford wasn't growing--it was leaving) and he's dealing with both the loss of his brother and gaining some significant powers, the payoff for the confusion of earlier seasons.
And Dean thought he'd come back from Hell unfit for the task too--the difference was, I think, that he intended them both to fix it, whereas Sam (having gotten used to this world on his own, and with Ruby's influence) thought he'd fix it by himself.
And Ruby is really not in it as much as I remembered. Sex and Violence through The Monster At The End Of This Book are pretty light on her.
Give bon props--she got Smith and Wesson right off the bat, and I know I didn't put that together until the end of the episode at the earliest. And then realising that was a swap for Winchester took a little longer still.
She's well attuned for Wincest-generating moments, and it's funny where she's seeing them, and I'm only getting as far as bisexual Dean.
In terms of impact, I think TMATEOTB got the most in-episode reactions for her. Me, I was back in the nostalgia of the mindfuck that was at the time. Kripke, Kripke, Kripke.
And, interestingly enough, by the end of the episode she asked "Who's Carver?" I hadn't realised she was paying enough attention to the crew to have noticed Edlund, but then again, he has Buffyverse credits, so I guess he sticks. I forgot to tell her about Sera Siege.