I read your recap, ita ! Very nice and I completely agree about Crowley.

WRT Crowley and Naomi, Crowley has been known to sex up relationships - Sam and his "demon-lover" Brady, Castiel and Dean. I'm not convinced there was anything between Naomi and Crowley, but the Mesopotamia thing was a really boneheaded lapse of canon.

As flawed as this season has been, it's still leaps and bounds better than Season 7.

Anyhoo... I wonder if one of the last two trials has to do with the Angel tablet. Nice cliffy, maybe?

Thanks, Marcia!

I can't imagine what retcons they can make to Crowley (I dig that Castiel didn't kill him, but raising his son was bullshit too? I just figured Crowley didn't burn his bones, not that the whole process was a lie) that wouldn't make me grumpy.

I had been assuming the trials were a stipulation of the demon tablet, and that they wouldn't have anything to do with the Leviathan or the angel one. Which is why I'm wondering if they will both be resolved this season, or some will extend to nine.

I'm afraid most of my takeaway form this episode is: Castiel = Duncan Idaho

And I wish they would stick to some sort of reasonable angel naming convention, but that is old news.

I'm not very good at leitmotifs--can someone who's familiar with the soundtrack tell me if what this fan calls Dean's Family Dedication Theme is on it?

Does anyone know what this commenter's point is: [link] ?

My sister is appreciating some of what I consider strengths:

I wasn't sure if he'd signal [emotional position of character]. And in fact that his expression is a little hard to read. The writing has meant that I can never be sure of anything. I know that they let difficult things happen to their characters so I can never rest assured that A will lead to B cos that would be a tidy resolution.

Yup, that's one of the reasons I'm still here.

It doesn't seem like the music in that video is on the soundtrack, no. But it's definitely used in the show.

And I have no idea what the commenter who's never watched the show means. If you've never watched the show, why are you reading a recap in the first place? And commenting on it?

And not just commenting, but arguing about something that you would have to watch the show to give a fuck about--even to know. It's not a surface fact, like "that coat doesn't fit right". It's totally boggling.

And with the new software, you can essentially *like posts, and he liked that one of mine. I'm going to chalk that up to not getting how the board works.

Talking to someone when they've only seen the first five or so minutes of Abandon All Hope...is dangerous. She ended up crying when Ellen and Jo died anyway. But since she'd noticed the Kim Manners easter eggs and hadn't realised he'd died I felt that her dislike of behind the scenes information would not exclude "Kick it in the ass"

That reminds me of one of the TWoP posters on the Brothers & Sisters thread who apparently watched only one episode and proceeded to argue about character relationships from a position of complete ignorance about how developments transpired on the show. Or about how human interactions happen in general, actually.

Not that I haven't read this a hundred times over (including aesc's, mentioned), but I've never seen a fake trailer for it before:

‘The Profound Bond’ - A new romantic comedy starring Jensen Ackles and Misha Collins. When Federal Agent Dean Winchester gets paired with an angel as part of the Bureau’s new Human-Angel Cooperation Initiative, the partnership seems less than ideal. Castiel is arrogant, painfully inept in the ways of normal human interaction, and less than stellar at routine questioning. But as time passes, the human and angel begin to find themselves growing less at odds and more endeared to each other. Loosely inspired by aesc’s Below Skyscrapers.

[link]

Totally adorable.