Well, I didn't dislike this episode as much as I thought I would from the preview.

I like Hannah's story, now that it is presumably complete. I like the angels in general fine when they are alien and weird and trying to do the right thing.

they refer to "the drought" twice

Ooh. I hope that comes to something.

Horror vs urban fantasy is too fine a distinction for me to assess.

I hope that comes to something.

It's called The Palmer Drought on a web page Sam is looking at in the first episode, and then in the last episode they dismiss cattle deaths as being drought-related. Not something I would have caught without being a tad obsessive.

I've already seen one fic where Dean is communicating with "a trucker from Canada named Bruce" and happy endings all round, apparently. I didn't actually read it.

Horror vs urban fantasy is too fine a distinction for me to assess.

I think of urban fantasy as a blanket term for modern day supernatural stories, usually with a minority knowing the truth. Horror can be sci fi, anything, and depends on a visceral reaction of chills for the audience. Supernatural has never delivered that to me three episodes in a row, maybe not even two.

Lots of emotions I really like, but not all nausea and shuddering. AHS season 3 was definitely both urban fantasy and horror, by my evaluation, for instance.

It feels like pretty few people (authors) remember the boys had never encountered vampires or done an exorcism until after the series starts. It makes sense for monsters to repeat because it gives boundaries to the universe, and gives us worldbuilding that helps with familiarity and immersion into the ongoing story (for me). Granted, I'm motherfucking tired of Crowley and irritated with their version of Hell, but the balance of recurring monsters is fine with me, and same with recurring characters.

We've had them in jeopardy from a Greek muse and a vengeful human (on the same quest as John and the boys, but wrong) and a new kind of witch, as well as clarification on how they work (I like the idea that she's evil, even if she's not demon-bound--we shall have to see how it plays out, though).

Oh, and hotly, I liked that Sam not just reads exorcisms (backwards and forwards), but he clearly understands enough Latin to translate on the fly. I'm assuming (no slight intended) Dean can't do that. But Sam seems to have forgotten his S3 car maintenance classes. Or he should stick to jacking the classics like Dean and Cas.

To be honest, I don't really like horror per se. I consume a fair amount because I get all intrigued by questions the genre tends to pose about the nature of evil, vengeance vs justice, etc., but I don't really enjoy the visceral shudders.

I like it very sparingly. I don't like continuous tension and jump scares and unease that lingers past the credits all that often.

I have a question. Is Lester gone to Heaven? The unfaithful murder-ordering husband is going upstairs and not to Hell? If he is going to Hell, doesn't Crowley get his soul anyway? Or are those not identical conditions?

I've reached S9. I'll be able to participate here before too long.

Maybe only people who make deals can be converted into demons? I don't know, it seems to me that being willing to sell your soul to a demon in return for it killing your wife would be first class passage on the downbound train, whether or not the deal was actually completed.

Of course thanks to Nepotism Duo, it's now canon that Crowley can just take anyone's soul he wants regardless of whether or not they're supposed to go to Hell.

I don't think it's fair to blame the writers when it can't happen without showrunner/executive approval. I think it was extremely shortsighted on the part of the whole room. That whole episode was cheap corner-cutting, but the writers are responsible for how it's done. I blame everyone for what is done.

Also, since Sam got resurrected by a demon, we already knew they could get their hands on the good guys.

Unrelatedly, I think Show should swap out "The road so far" for "So that happened".

If they won't give up "Peace when you are done," I doubt they'll give up "road so far," even if the stories are all set in the bunker and baby's retired to the garage.

It was the only funny line in the episode. I wanna keep it.