Well, that chorus clearly ships Destiel. Just sayin'.

This is a cute comic: archiveofourown.org/works/643885/chapters/1168760?show_comments=true#comment_2144395

(IO9's non-recap is really irritating this week--I kinda wish they'd just break up with the show rather than short shrift it)

eta: I just read this opinion on the ep, and I may have to close my shutters more tightly so others don't leak in, because I get incredibly twitchy when a name I recognise says things I don't see them supporting (not that they need to explain themselves to random stranger me...)

This abominationish crap is the lowest of the low for Castiel.

So much of the episode was daft writing and messily tying up loose threads of plotlines that weren’t going anywhere and who-the-fuck-cares glossovers—but this moment iced the suck cake.

I ain’t even feelin’ sorry for wanting a happy ending at this point. It’s like why not?

Dean and Sam kill Naomi. Cas becomes human. Gabriel blazes in with a starship. Crowley takes a job at Hogwart’s. Heaven is open. Everybody rides off into the sunset. Benny opens an ice cream parlor. The end.

Am I correct in thinking they tied up 1 plotline? Amelia? Benny's Chekov's gun at this point, and we're in the middle of the tablet story and the Naomi story, which have just become the same story--what am I not thinking of?

Then again, people who resurrect Gabriel are probably people I'm going to be disagreeing with about something.

JUST SAYING.

That comic is adorable, although I'm not sure how I feel about Bobby being a dog.

I haven't even been looking for SPN recaps there, ita. Since the beginning of the season, she's hated pretty much everything, and it just spoils my happy place.

And they did tie up the Amelia plotline, and sort of tie up Naomi and the tablet, or at least clarified that they're related.

I'm not in total agreement with them but since I am feeling similar ways, I'm kinda feeling like it's better not to say much.

Dean had to break up his bromance with Benny (who I thought would be interesting to have around sparingly) to keep Sam. Sam had to not go back to his romance with Amelia (who I never got to know but would have liked to be an interesting character now that she stopped being filmed in those creepy remembery filters) to keep Dean. Neither of the Winchesters look at all happy about it, just maybe resigned. Cas doesn't have free will. Apparently all the real power plays are angels and demons now. Kevin seems worn down.

Where do we go from here?

The important difference is that you would disagree tactfully, Cass. It only bugs (me) when it's someone who's trash talking and needlessly snarky and condescending.

Where do we go from here?

I'm not sure what an angel tablet is for, either. Also, how dumb was Metatron or whoever to write down all the family secrets like that? It seems so unlikely. And if the angels (or at least one of them) knew how to shut the door to hell permanently, I don't understand why they didn't do it already.

I always assume there will be a new big bad every season (Thanks, Joss!), and that the boys will, one way or another, sooner or later, defeat it. Some are more interesting and convincing than others. For me the joy in the show is watching how Sam and Dean develop and change as they face every new challenge, and how they interact.

I think the framing of 8.10 as Wincesty is facile if your job is recapping. Which is entirely different from having an opinion, or even shipping.

It is no more Wincesty now than it was before--and it's clear that the show isn't going to get less codependent. If you don't like that in your Winchesters, I think it's fair to stop watching, but complaining without...eloquence...I don't actually read IO9 for the personalities. I do it for the insights and the sparks of conversation.

To me, this was the first time both Sam and Dean got to sit back and make the call on their long term direction. Sam, to me, seems less in it for the tablets--he was leaving without Amelia when that mission was done before--I don't think he's going anywhere anymore.

My *big* issue with Benny is that it was hamhanded having him call Dean "brother" all the time. Yes, it's a valid verbal tic, but it's an extra meaningful one here, and must be pointed. It makes it seem like there was ever just a decision to choose between either of them--but Dean showed up wanting Sam, and he really didn't ever stop wanting Sam. He was in it for life--the two of them and the car, for the long term.

And the other Benny issue was the lack of Lenore.

However, Dean should cut him off. Not stop being his friend, but he can't be on call across the nation every time Benny starts fiending. There isn't really a lifestyle Dean could have that supported what Benny was demanding from him.

But I do think he's willing to avoid anything that makes Sam mad now, because, like he said, he's tired. But he had a practical ultimatum, and not one posed by Sam, for which I'm very grateful.

As for Cas and his will, I'm not gonna lie. I like that 50% of his directives are exactly what he wants to do, and 50% break his heart. Someone has to be miserable at the halfway point, and I don't think the boys are miserable, unlike others--I think they are at peace, and I don't see any resentment or ill will in that sitting down with food scene--perhaps because I now think of them settling on the sofa to eat as Bobby's most cherished memory, and so it has plot-induced vaseline lens (that's how you do that, Carver--let the story speak for itself, instead of trying to make the lens do it). So you hark back to that, I get fuzzy boy feelings, and nothing in their presentation contradicts that--I'm good. I see path to boys who are both on a mission and making a call about their lives.

So, yeah, I sacrifice Castiel's happiness for that. Him bopping down to do what he wanted because she wants him to--watching him use the Winchesters in a way he did not in S6 and the proactiveness of grabbing Sam against Dean's wishes I attribute all to Cas trying to make this happy, and it's growth--there isn't really a point before now he'd have shown that level of independence while working with the Winchesters. And I loved it. But I also like Sam and Cas together a great deal.

I feel that Mrs Tran was absent for reasons other than the plot, and that rankled. Kevin putting her away was..enh. But watching Kevin take the sort of dedication he must have had for his schoolwork before and putting it towards this, trying to force himself into some sort of spiritual quantum leap--because there is no way to decode the tablet. He knows that. People can either read it, or not. So there's some test he has to pass (or get the other half of the tablet...I dig that) to be worthy, at least in his eyes, and even though I also think Osric cut his hair, not Kevin, the whole thing works for me in a way that I like better than Chuck's prophet, which was mostly for giggles.

I would be fine never seeing Garth again, but since the fic I read where Garth and Mrs Tran were...yeah. That's what was happening offscreen for me. But Garth has zero value to me. He doesn't represent or highlight or dramatise anything for me, because I don't respect him, and don't really feel he deserves it compared to just about every other hunter we've seen, even Walt and Roy. Has he ever killed anything?

So, yeah, I'm not a (continued...)

( continues...) flagwaving season gr8er, still not talking about Amelia, because I'm not sure how to not sound like one of those fangirls who thinks no one (but me) is good enough for the boys--but she was badly painted for the response Sam had to her. I guess I just have to pretend she was someone who could do that, as opposed to what I saw.

I always assume there will be a new big bad every season (Thanks, Joss!), and that the boys will, one way or another, sooner or later, defeat it.

Part of it (and I had the same issue with Joss and nearly every other showrunner) is that the next big bad has to be bigger and badder. Which meant that this last ep (and, yeah, for a while), we just go and kill demons like it's NBD. When at the beginning, it was the whole season freak out. Now we can take out a dozen and take on Crowley like it's Tuesday. So the Big Bad has to be bigger and badder and it makes shows less compelling to me. Because I care more about Winchesters and the people that get tangled up with them than I do about unexplained tablets and power plays in Heaven or Hell.

For me the joy in the show is watching how Sam and Dean develop and change as they face every new challenge, and how they interact.

Yes.

I think the framing of 8.10 as Wincesty is facile if your job is recapping. Which is entirely different from having an opinion, or even shipping.

Wincesty as actually thinking they are shagging or that their relationship with each other is way more important than any others? Because I don't actually think they're shagging. But they are clearly choosing each other over any other relationships, both platonic or romantic.

But while Dean and Benny were probably only buds and Benny is a vampire so I can see where Dean is supposed to choose Sam and fighting the evil that Benny presumably is by nature, Sam is supposed to be in love with Amelia. Like Jess levels of in love. And Sam who used to want white picket fence and "normal" family didn't choose her.

I think we're being shown they are really the Epic (platonic) Love Story of Sam and Dean.

--I think they are at peace, and I don't see any resentment or ill will in that sitting down with food scene--

Different reads. They both looked resigned to me. Not happy, not content. But this is where they had to be so they were. Different reads are what make the show interesting to talk about though.

Amelia was actually more off-putting to me the longer she was on, but I really think it's the actress, not the writing. There's something irritating about her, no matter what she's saying, for me.