The button is the final, um, button on the episode, the end note. Jensen's final scene was an excellent button from an actor's or director's point of view.

I'm...patient, I guess. I realize my affection for Kevin rises largely out of my much greater affection for Osric and how gleefully he has taken a leaf from Misha's book and embraced and engaged fandom. I honestly think Kevin's story has been done for a while, and they kept him around because Osric has been so awesome. So, I'm sorry but not surprised to see Kevin go.

I'm gratified that Cas has his angel mojo back and will (please god) stop being Forest Gump, now, but I'm curious how another random angel's grace feels rattling around inside him. Is it like wearing a suit made for someone with vastly different measurements? Or is angel grace a fluid commodity that contracts or expands as needed to fill an angelic vessel. Is angel grace tied to the personality of its own angel? Or is it merely an energy or force, anonymous, that takes on the aura, flavor, whathaveyou, of whoever is containing it at the time?

While I'm enjoying Curtis Armstrong's take on Metatron, the angel warfare storyline continues to bore me. And while I think Jared's doing an awesome job portraying Sam's successive short-term tenants, I am really really bored and annoyed at the continued lack of agency for Sam himself, and at Dean's continued deployment as caregiver and satellite, with no storyline of his own other than as instrument of Sam's need. Dean needs to be made the center of an arc, and Sam needs to claim some agency instead of always being acted upon. And his actions should revolve around Dean's storyline for a change.

Otherwise the characters show little actual growth, learn so very little from the mistakes and events they've been through, and change only in the depths of hopelessness and misery they accrue as seasons pass.

Exactly, Bev.

I can't remember now why Sam decided he had to do the trials instead of Dean, but think how different this season would be if Dean had done them. And Sam had burst in and interrupted him.

Then Sam could have wrestled with saving Dean with an angel's help, and Dean could be the one with a passenger right now. It would change the whole dynamic, having Sam make the decisions Dean has, and give him a real look at the other side. Dean, too, of course.

And that's just one way it could have gone.

Did you guys see that Orlando Jones was live tweeting (east coast and west coast!) this week's Show (complete with fan art)?

I find the idea of Dean really and truly all alone interesting, assuming it is relatively short-lived. But I like that trope a lot, in general (signed: one of the few people who likes the camping in the woods bits of HP7)

I like that Cas getting...his?...grace back means that we're not directly set-up for 2014, which, in the first half of this ep, I was really worried about (oh, look, an angel with a complicated relationship to humanity who is not eager to give up the Sam suit. Shit.). The way Cas was written seemed like halfway to 2014!Cas, which, do not want.

I am totally projecting, but I like to imagine that the Js meeting was about how, Jared or not, if there's no Sam in the story, then it's not Supernatural.

I am past ready to be done with the war in/for/other-preposition heaven, but I don't see a good (non-deus ex machina. Because, frankly, deus ex machina would fix it real fast, and be reasonably supported by the text) way to extricate the plot from it.

I find the idea of Dean really and truly all alone interesting, assuming it is relatively short-lived. But I like that trope a lot, in general.

I was one of the few who liked the idea of Sam alone, but I don't think they really took advantage of it the way they could have. Amelia was such a poorly written character. You don't have to write someone with parallel heartache for Sam -- it would have been more interesting to give him someone who completely challenged the way he was looking at life, and the possibility of love. For me, anyway.

I hate how disappointed I am by this season. Which doesn't mean I'll stop watching, because I won't. But I can't help feeling like the Js and the writers and everyone involved has been talking up the season so much (on Twitter, etc.) because they want to distract us from how crappy it is.

Not disappointed cause I never thought they could sustain it. My expectation was that the show would be past its prime but still fun. I would have been happy for them to exceed expectations, and if they are renewed will be happy for that to happen next season.

Y'all saw this: [link]

Seriously, I came by to see what everyone had to say...always fun to see such happy news at Christmas.

Miss you guys and show...

I wonder if they planned the home birth, or if it just happened so quickly? Regardless, I'm glad for them that all is well. A Christmas Padababy!!

Yay! What excellent news!

In other news, I just posted a fic with illustration for the SPN Xmas exchange. It's a crossover with The Losers, and while it's gen, it's intended as pre-slash (Dean/Cougar). [link]

Poor little guy's gonna hate having a birthday so close to Christmas when he gets older, though.

And I *love* the Dean/Coug, Anne, both words and picture!