I read that essay, and loved it.

I think Crowley's line about doing "extraordinary things with triplets" and "treasuring their Flickr albums" was his funniest.

I expected the "jerk/bitch" to bother me more, but it didn't, really.

The Flickr album line had me howling.

"Does the tin man have a steel willy" was pretty good, too.

I like Carver, and I love how much he loves the show, but I think season openers are too much pressure for him -- his are always a little muddy for me. Like in this one, I was happy to see Castiel, but the scenes with him and Hannah (aside from Cas's heartbreaking words about chaos and "human things") were sort of boring.

Although, that could also just be the angel storyline. I'm really bored with it. Cas becoming more human, on the other hand (although preferably not dying), would be a lot more interesting to me.

Finally watching. So far: Dean's hair is fantastic, will never ever be a fan of karaoke, even for laughs, and, Why is Castiel the only angel that they need to track down those two rogues? Especially as obviously sick as he is?

Lastly: Pat Benatar, rock on!

So...Dean's basic personality seems intact, with extra added callousness and violence. He's crueler, more stripped away, but he doesn't seem completely 100% EVIL to me.

I rewatched, and I think from the argument Dean and Crowley had after Dean realized Crowley had been tossing lower-level demons his way just so Dean could kill a few every now and then, that Dean actually isn't a demon yet. Which confuses me, because I though that's what the black eyes meant.

Crowley: If it wasn't for me throwing demons your way, what do you think would happen? The Mark needs to be sated. Otherwise...

Dean: Otherwise I turn into a demon. Yeah, yeah, I sort of got that six weeks ago.

I took that to mean -- the "I sort of got that six weeks ago" -- to mean he is a demon, he did turn into one.

I thought it was very confusing in the episode, and I read an interview with Carver -- I can't remember where now -- that said this is Crowley's way to keep the demon sort of under control? That if he doesn't have things to kill regularly, he would go more feral, I guess? It seemed unclear even in the interview, but I think since we've seen black eyes twice, he is a demon now.

I think. ;-)

Well I'd always assumed that the black eyes indicated "hey, demon!" So that bit just struck me as a question mark. I was sort of hoping to see Dean actually evince something more demonic -- like teleportation, or setting things on fire. Maybe we'll get some of that once the writers are done having him pickling his liver.

Yeah, I think the writers need to clarify that -- it's all kind of nebulous -- Dean IS a demon, but he IS Dean, and not some ages-old demon wearing a Dean meat-suit. I think they're doing some handwavium Mark of Cain stuff right now, and they're going to have to clear that up pretty quickly.

Because it's not very clear right now.

The handwavium is thick on the ground, I think.

I do not know what the hell is going on.