My interpretation was that he yanked the door open labelled Trauma without looking inside. It's pretty vague, but he had his familiar to kill and his friend to frame for it--he was swamped. In my watch, anyway.

Did Cas get memories of Hell? I know he had a little Lucifer, but again, in the variability of how people process things, I thought he took the stink of Lucifer himself off, not the events. That's the magic of calling it "the problem", I guess. They can pretend they meant anything, since their metaphysics is holey to the core already.

I might not be as open-minded as I should be but ewww. I don't know that I am okay with sexytimes with Familiars. I guess human form does the consent part?

Christian Campbell's eyes show so little white, every time the camera pans to him I think momentarily that he's possessed.

He looked like a possessed Ryan Reynolds the whole time to me. I mean, not in a bad way.

Did Cas get memories of Hell? I know he had a little Lucifer, but again, in the variability of how people process things, I thought he took the stink of Lucifer himself off, not the events. That's the magic of calling it "the problem", I guess. They can pretend they meant anything, since their metaphysics is holey to the core already.

I don't think they've said explicitly, but as most of the PTSD effects could be offset by putting up a block around Sam's memories and it was portrayed as the later recollection of those memories that was killing him, I assume they had to go as a package deal with the resultant trauma for Sam to get better.

But they had the whole bit where he was re-integrating his different selves, at which point they were really indistinct about what was killing him, since Hallucifer was very much in the here and now of his brain, and they didn't show him having flashbacks that were driving him nuts.

I'm not saying that my interpretation is solid--just that for one reason or another they've been so vague it's hard for me to know if they're contradicting themselves.

for one reason or another they've been so vague it's hard for me to know if they're contradicting themselves

I was reading a blog about writing this morning, and the author was talking about reading and writing with your humanist brain as opposed to your critical brain, and I very much watch this show with my humanist brain.

Because there are so many holes -- if Dean's body was dead and still present when he went to hell, how come Sam and Adam's bodies disappeared? They clearly didn't need to be in the cage to be tortured, since physical!Sam was topside for a year while his soul was being hate-banged.

That's just one. If I think too hard about the memories or demons' ever evolving powers or even Azazel's plan (which was no plan at all, imo), I get angry and then I have stop and go to my happy place.

So I just don't think too hard about those parts. But I get that other people do, and have to.

Actually, the body thing doesn't bother me at all--Sam and Adam weren't dead. Dean was killed by the hellhounds, leaving a corpse for burial. Sam and Adam travelled bodily to Hell the same way Cas and Dean travelled to Purgatory. But Dean died and his soul travelled to Hell alone the same way only their souls went to Heaven when Roy and Walt killed them.

When Cas grabbed Sam, he pulled the body out, but the soul didn't make it through the bars. I'm assuming Adam is still down their both body and soul.

I do agree that Azazel's plan has no substance, and demonic resurrection powers are bad for the story, not good. They (even if it's only crossroads demons) can do too much, and the lines are too blurry.

Is it canon that all witches get their powers from selling their souls? Or do some witches just learn spells? I mean Bobby knew an assload of spells and Sam and Dean certainly know a goodly number. It does seem a better deal than you get with a crossroads demon - no ten years and you are out. But still trading an eternity in hell for something finite.

Just to be clear, I know the boys are not witches. Just trying to figure out if trading your soul is the only way to become a witch.

If Jimmy had sold his soul, I'd think they would have mentioned it like they mentioned last week. It has been stated that power comes from demons, but I don't recall the soul thing.

If Dean is being hypocritical about this, it would approximately the nth time (where n is an integer greater than zero) he's been two-faced about what extent is pardonable for others, and what's okay for him to save family bacon, etc.

AND JESUS WHY NAME SOMEONE ELSE JAMES????

IF THIS SEASON IS A DREAM, I WILL CUT A BITCH.