I'm hoping for some clarification later, but yes, that would have been good to have up front.

Exactly. I'm probably being too meta about this, but..."There must be a good reason--I know Sam, and he's perfectly capable of making good decisions when his brother shuffles off this mortal coil" is really not cutting it for me.

If they were aiming for the tension of an inevitable reveal, they missed my mark, that's for sure. If both brothers wander too far off the path, and there's no one left to be on the path--I'm futless. I don't think those are good audience feels. If it was a 2 hour premiere, mayhap. But it was never going to be--it's not even an "continued next week..."

I'm thinking of a Tabula Rasa-esque episode, where I'm left thinking "I don't know these people. Can someone call me when my people show up? Or someone goes shirtless?"

As for how they both ended up ag the cabin at the same time--good god. If it's a case of the "No Significant Conversations Off Camera" rule, meaning that revelatory communication doesn't happen if there's no room for a Steadicam--I will barf.

Any clue that Dean could lay to get Sam out there either tips Sam off that it's Dean, or gets ignored because Sam's out of the family business.

And, the Family Business I watch for means "If you're in the family, it's your business." That's the Winchester/Campbell/Singer shit I like.

Basically, Sam should have taken his Sasquatch ass over to Sheriff Mills, screwed her brains out--and then they fight crime.

And now I'm trying to work out what Ameilia knows that Sam can waltz out in the middle of the night and be gone without apparently a call or a text for however long this is going to be. So far, Benny+Dean seems a more viable ship, and just typing that makes me throw up a little in my mouth.

Basically, Sam should have taken his Sasquatch ass over to Sheriff Mills, screwed her brains out--and then they fight crime.

I was just thinking that they should have gone that way.

I am not that unhappy with the present state of the Winchesters, actually, but Sheriff Mills would have made so much sense.

Speaking of Benny, that final phone call bugged me. It felt so much of "I canna have you, we mustest part, but I want you, so I shall call thee and protest our connection, alas". So, other than shipping the heck out of those two (I feel kinda bad that platonic brothers-in-arms no longer exists in my brain. If there's bro-yay, there's Ho!yay. Yo. And that's why I ship Winters and Dixon) I don't get the motivation behind the call. I'm sure that eventually we'll see their connection, but that was an exceedingly needy call IMHO for even foe!yay!.

Honestly, one of the things that bothers me most is how the hell anyone (or thing) is killed in purgatory. According the alpha vamp, way back in S6, it's where the souls of dead evil things go. So ... they shouldn't really have bodies, first of all, but also ... they're already dead. So when Dean kills them, what happens then?

Castiel said it's where the souls of monsters prey on each other eternally. Maybe once they get over the shock and realize they're not more dead than they were prior to beheading, they pull themselves back together? Or are reincarnated elsewhere in Purgatory?

I was actually a bit disappointed that the monsters we saw seemed so in possession of themselves: speaking, wielding weapons, wearing clean (if dated) clothes, etc. They could just as easily have been rolling Dean in a an alley in any crime-ridden city. I'd like to have seen something more like when Angel vamped out in Pylea - really primal and animalistic.

Basically, Sam should have taken his Sasquatch ass over to Sheriff Mills, screwed her brains out--and then they fight crime.

Totally in favor of this.

I'm happy with platonic but that's just not how that Benny and Dean call was played. It was like, you know what we had was good and all but no one can know here. Very down low. Oh, shippers can call them Bean.

Oh, shippers can call them Bean.

Hush, you.

Oh, shippers can call them Bean.

Throw in Cas, and there's a Jim Beam joke in there somewhere.

From a meta standpoint . . . I know we've had convos about how hard it is to be a television writer, and that they don't have the luxury to think things through like dedicated fans do (especially with our luxurious 20/20). But, there's this hiatus between seasons. Surely there's mulling and plotting and thinking, so that at least the starting point and general outline are somewhat thought-through? I just can't concieve that something this thoughtless and smushed came out of the gate. Like, I could see Carver and Edlund saying "these are our plot points and thematic notes, hit them" and then some newbie writers with no investment in the characters setting forth into uncharted territories, hitting those notes, but mashing things about to make them fit because they just don't know the characters or the history.

But for these particular dudes to be so wildly off-base is just baffling.

Just to go back to vet-lady: what was supposed to be the takeaway? Were we supposed to hate her? Was she just a nothing in service of getting Sam to be a dog owner? Were we supposed to find her sassy and hard-hitting and, like, Sam's soul-mate? Because 1) yes, that happened, hateses. 2) coulda been done better and simpler without the need for eye-gouging, and 3) nope, nuh-uh, fail, do not pass go.

You know, I thought I'd be mostly torn up about how this ep seems to imply that Cas is dead, and that he didn't go out in a good way, and that this season would just be teasing us with flashbacks to an already dead character who was beloved but meets an inevitable but ingnominious death and that it would be a whimper of a send-off. That was my fear after seeing the sneak peak (and why I said "mean!").

While this season opener in it's entirety doesn't lessen that fear, it sure as f*** overshadows it.

And I do like Benny. He's sexy as hell. But I'm sad as all get-out that Dean has a rebound boyfriend already.

But for these particular dudes to be so wildly off-base is just baffling.

You have to remember that not everyone felt that way.

You have to remember that not everyone felt that way.

Natch. I'd think that's half the point of the discussion. I don't get it, someone disagrees, and my best hope is that the ones who get what I didn't might eventually explain their viewpoint in terms that I finally understand, and I either change my stance, or just accept to disagree. Right now, I'm still baffled.