I was hoping God was one of the things it couldn't kill. But the Horsemen made sense. I wanted to see Peter Wingfield arise.

Maybe God doesn't count as a mere being?

Excellent episode. Touching and riveting. I just love when Castiel told Lucifer, "You are not taking Sam Winchester. I won't allow it."

Ellen was a great character; I'll miss her. As far as I'm concerned, they really did right by Ellen and Jo. As others have said, they died heroically. Two strong, ass-kicking women.

Condo meeting update: clusterf***

I cried, but I found it unforgiveable. Jo and Ellen died for nothing. That's not agency. That's the storyteller fucking with them.

All the women are dead. Okay, not Meg, but Castiel threw her into the fire.

I loved Jo and Ellen, and this isn't a heroic death for me, it's pretty meaningless.

Everyone goes out of their way to help the Winchesters, and what they get is dead. Except for Bobby, Bobby gets to live. But Jo and Ellen and Pamela and Bela and Ruby and Jess and Mary and Madison? They're all dead.

I'm sorry if I'm peeing in anyone's cheetos, but man, I'm so upset. And angry.

I don't think they died just for the Winchesters though. I think Ellen died for Jo, and Jo died because she was a hunter and wasn't going to run away from the fight.

I despair that anyone other than Sam and Dean survive.

I'm not even that sure that both of them will.

eta: Purely hypothetically, if one of them does die, which one do you think it will be. (I am so unspoiled I didn't know the Harvelles were going to be in this ep.)

I think if it gets as far as vesselhood, and that looks inevitable at this point, both of the brothers will be burnt out from the inside, nothing left of either host's awareness or personality even if the body survives, no matter the outcome of the final fight.

And I don't believe either of them wants to survive without the other, so that ends rather tidily.

I'm completely unspoiled and I'm avoiding spec and meta, this is just where I think things are headed.

But Jo and Ellen and Pamela and Bela and Ruby and Jess and Mary and Madison? They're all dead.

Okay, I get that you're listing out all the female characters that have been ganked around the Winchesters males. And that you're pissed about it. But you can't really blame all their deaths specifically on the guys. Bela made her deal with the Dark Side when she was a little girl; way before she ran across the Winchesters. Ruby as the human host was dying as Ruby the demon took her body, and the W's had nothing to do with that, and then Ruby the demon was, well, a demon. And evil. And needed to be killed.

Madison was an unfortunate victim of circumstance - she was a werewolf victim. Personally I would have held out for more of the month to see if a cure could be found rather than asking for death after the first night, or at least had wild monkey sex with Sam for the next 27 nights or so, but maybe that's just me. Anyway, again not their fault.

And Mary? Well, I am kind of ambivalent about Mary. I hate the effect her death had on the lives of the boys. But she made a deal with a demon. A deal that set her husband off on a lifelong vengeance quest, damned her son and has caused him no end of agony and by the way has now led to the apocalypse, so I'm running low on empathy for her at the moment.

But yeah, it would be nice to see at least one female character make it through to the end. They'd better damned well stay away from Missouri Mosely until after it's all over.

I wanted to see Peter Wingfield arise.

Heh. I gave a passing thought to that eventuality myself.

Samuel Campbell, Bill Harvelle, Jim Murphy, Caleb, Steve Wandell, the male hunters who died in the Roadhouse fire, Ash as well, (you forgot Olivia) the male hunters killed by the witnesses, Ronald, Victor, Gordon. The list of male hunters we've lost, along with male characters who've fought with the Winchesters is as long as the list of females. It's not just women who die. And not all of them helped or even worked with Sam and Dean. Fighting evil is risky.

It's not just women who die. And not all of them helped or even worked with Sam and Dean. Fighting evil is risky.

While this is true, there's no getting away from the fact that Show has given us women - key female characters - being killed in grotesquely and gleefully sexualised fashion (why no, I'm still not over the Season 4 finale, in which Porno!Lilith more or less orgasmed to death, and zealous little Ruby got put down in a manner discomfitingly akin to gang rape), along with far too few characters like Officer Kathleen or Missouri.

That's the problem. It's not just the deathcount (which is pretty damn high for both men and women who encounter the brothers Winchester, true) - it's the context. I'm actually not troubled by the gendered insults, and I don't think that the brothers come across as sexist, particularly. But the writers have made me wince a time or two, and, yeah, I'm pretty gutted to hear about the Harvelle women. I've not seen it, so I'm not making any statements about how it's done - but, yeah. Damn.