Gah! Thanks. I loved that show.

Pure testosterone porn. Yum.

Upthread, someone mentioned how irritated (they) were with Dean talking to the powers that be in his jokey/sarcastic way.

Upon rewatch, it seems clear to me that Dean, when talking to Raphael, that he was pretty scared of being in his presence (particularly after the stomach cancer crap) and he was only talking that way to get Raphael to move into the circle.

After Raphael moves into the circle, I think he was legitimately angry about the angels' treatment of him and Dean and confronting Raphael from that perspective. I didn't see anything particularly out of hand. There didn't seem to be any reason for Dean to show respect. I also think he was working out some daddy issues in that exchange as well.

Okay, and it also is clear to me that whoever pulled the brothers out of the chapel when Lucifer rose was not Lucifer or the angels. So does this narrow things down to God?

Or is there yet a 3rd faction that Cass doesn't know about?

We've seen that the Trickster has some pretty hefty powers when it comes to altering reality.

hmm. so you think it was Lucifer? I just ruled him out based on his comment to Sam that he was supposed to be his vessel since he was in the chapel.

But maybe I'm wrong-thinking it.

I like that idea, Anne. The Trickster is kind of sideways to the whole God-Lucifer dichotomy.

I hope that the angels thinking God is dead parallels the demons thinking Lucifer was a fairy-tale, though. That they are wrong. It would be hard to pull off, but more interesting, I think.

If it was Lucifer who moved the boys to the plane, I can't imagine his motivation.

If it was Lucifer who moved the boys to the plane, I can't imagine his motivation.

This. I mean, if Sam has always been his intended vessel, he was right there, and vulnerable as hell.

I will say, though, that the consent issue with angels (including Lucifer, apparently) bugs me. Demons don't need it. I can angels not wanting to intrude, but Lucifer? Unless his angel roots still apply in full, it seems odd.

Unless his angel roots still apply in full, it seems odd.

They apply to the hiding spell that Castiel placed on the boys, so maybe he still is all angel.

Demons were people once, canon tells us, and thus are not bound by angelic rules requiring consent for possession of a body. Lucifer, though fallen, was created an angel, and is bound by angelic rules.

Anna, stripped of her grace, was human, though she retained some memory of being an angel. Unless some residue of angeltude prevented it, I'm pretty sure her graceless body could have been possessed by a demon, had one been shopping for a meatsuit in her vicinity. But that's just conjecture.

Anna suggests another possibility for the intervention that saved Sam & Dean. Also, she reappeared in a replica of the human body she'd occupied before, much the same as Castiel did. Perhaps the "friend in high places" she mentioned as responsible for that is another archangel that's not following the same agenda Zachariah and Raphael are pushing?

Last season Anna said that only four angels have had direct communication with God. Presumably Michael and Raphael are two of them. Perhaps Gabriel and whoever the producers have decided the fourth archangel is in place of Uriel, or Metatron, are the others?