Are they going to split up now? Actually I wasn't sure why they didn't do that last season, since they didn't seem to be all the effective as a unit any more.

Last season that would have played out very differently. Sam was carrying so much anger that I could have really seen a split - and they kind of went there anyway.

That speech was really hurty because it wasn't the Winchester Ultimatum, and it wasn't about What You Did. It was Sam's choice to throw in his lot with the other side - any other side, I think, I don't see it just being about Dean was the right side and Ruby the wrong. That bedrock trust is gone - how could it not be - and that has to change things.

Which is not to say that Dean is all shiny and bright here. But that scene read very real to me.

"if he was serious about ending this series and its story in five seasons, I think it makes a lot of sense."

Yep

But that scene read very real to me.

It did for me, too. And I don't think Kripke is trying to show that Dean is *right* so much as showing that for Dean, that bedrock is FAMILY. And Sam didn't choose that.

I think Dean also feels like he's lost more than Sam, maybe. His dad, his image of his dad, his image of *himself*, and his brother. Who he's always been afraid of losing, and did for a while. And this is more proof that a) he couldn't save him, and b) that Sam won't always choose family.

Yeah. Sam chose something other than Dean AGAIN.

But he looks so sad about it afterward. I mean, sure Sam did an unforgivable thing, but couldn't Dean just give him a little hug to erase some of that hurt in those eyes?

The ending was ouchy.

He wrote this.

The end was totally ouchy.

I also thought Sam (well, Jared) looked YEARS younger, little boy young and vulnerable again, when demon!Bobby was telling him to lose his number.

He wrote this.

Ah. Can you explain what you meant, though? How is Kripke trying to prove that?

God, that look when Dean said the trust wasn't there anymore - he was shocked.

Sam's been practically begging Dean to attack him, to lay the blame for the apocalypse at his door. And Dean wouldn't play along. And he finally runs him to ground, and what he gets isn't "you ended the world" but "you broke us." Even after everything, after the bullshit "if you walk out that door don't come back", he didn't expect that. Ouch ouch ouch.

They weren't in sync last season, not at all. But this is new. I so hope the arc of this season is them figuring it out again.

That's what I think it is, brenda. And yeah, Sam was STUNNED.