Oh, Winchesters. Tragic like the Atreides.

That's really all I have. I really liked this episode, but it was so sad.

It was sad up and down sad. Except for the great about John bits. Which then made me sad he is dead. But it would be nice if they could go back in time and visit him, tell him the truth, and then wipe his memory.

By nice I mean unutterably cruel, but in a way that I like.

I am putting "Men of Letters" on my to be continued list for this season. They have to investigate a possible source of information like this (especially as Legacies) which seems to transcend anything the hunters are putting together for themselves.

I wonder if Garth would get pulled into that--since he seems to be placing himself as a Hunter Hub, would he either be better at being a Man of Letters, or would he be one of the chosen few that they communicate with? Maybe they'd also like a prophet? Maybe they could keep him safe, if they've been hiding all this time?

Also, if the MoL are as stuffy as Henry, Dean's going to have a good old time shelving his Busty Asian Babes along with their spells.

Come on Carver--give me something. This has to be an addition to the show's mythology, not a throwaway one off.

That's code for not liking it, Matt?

Yeah. More of the waste-of-my-time variety than actively hating it though.

I'm pretty sure they just laid groundwork, as well as having done some (apparently needed) heavy lifting in rehabilitating John. Carver's done two mythology additions in the first 12 episodes--a set of Metatron scribed tablets on different topics (as opposed to the one we thought at the end of last season) and an entire secret society founded on supplying hunters with information.

Whether or not you care about John's image, I think the latter is going to recur sometime.

I'm curious about Abaddon and what Henry said--if he could go back in time he could do something to prevent an apocalypse starting? What does that MEAN? Why does he think he can change time by travelling, whereas his sons are pretty sure that the only reason it's been possible recently is because they broke shit?

I think he probably feels that the apocalypse happened because the watchers were killed. If the watchers hadn't been killed and this group remained, they might have been able to prevent the course of things with the yellow-eyed demon, etc.

I am betting money on the Men of Letters being Carver's big addition to the 'verse (Leviathans being Gamble's). So I hadn't thought all of them were dead, just his chapter.

Hmm.

If they're not dead, what have they been doing?

I need to ponder that. I hadn't thought of it. Maybe they've been stopping the non-Judeo Christian apocalypses?

I think they are all dead.

I got the impression that the Men of Letters as a group was gone, but I'm still not sure how far-reaching they were in the first place. Were they a kind of Watcher's Council, worldwide? Or one specific group that was more like a fraternity chapter, with no actual overseeing fraternity?

I think its a great addition to the canon, and I'd love to see more of it. Or see Sam and Dean resurrecting it. But I think (and could obviously be wrong) that if they toss that key away the way they're supposed to, all the links back to the Men of Letters and their work will be gone.

Well, I hope at least tossing away the key is an episode (as opposed to asking Cas to fly it there next time he shows up--and did Abaddon actually take that piece of paper off Sam? Would it be a place she knew about anyway? Did he have a chance to memorise it? How handy of the blind guy to convey it that way...)

I'm voting on more Letters, even if they have to resurrect it. Going to hide/destroy Dawnthe Key and being stopped for some reason could also lead to...stuff. I will double down on trying to stay unspoiled now, because I like guessing.

And, since hunters (or Hunters) came over from England, I'm going to also ponder the idea of Men of Letters (maybe that's their problem--bringing a Woman of Letters ruined their fun) being at least Anglo-international.

Oh, the pictures I'm spinning in my head...

True -- a Campbell was on the Mayflower! But it's still a chicken-and-egg question -- did some academic type learn of hunters and think they should have a sort of library of knowledge at their disposal, or were academics compiling this stuff and some of them (or related people) went off and tried to take care of some of the nastier threats?