Well actually, I'm sort of in the same place regarding completism and loyalty. I do find I'm much less invested in the show--as far as folding laundry or balancing the checkbook while it's on. I used to watch while it aired and record it to immediately rewatch. Now I always watch delayed, and several times I've forgotten it was on, and it was a day or two before I got around to watching the ep.

I guess I'm still watching for the pretty, because I'm certainly not invested in either the characters or the story. And yes, I resent that, and I miss it, even while I acknowlege you're correct that it's nearly impossible to reinvent storylines and adhere to previous canon.

I guess I need to work on divorcing S1-6 from following seasons as a different show.

Well, you don't need to! I'm just trying to save my emotional energy for other things, I guess. It's also been a really weird year for me -- I'm watching next to no TV because I don't have a chance to, and I'm not missing it as much as I imagined. I think I divorced myself from fandom, in a sense, without really meaning to, but it's not been a bad thing for me.

Murderous, vengeful, ass-kicking Dean is so hot. I'm not even ashamed.

If thinking MVA-K Dean is hot is wrong, I don't wanna be right.

I think so, Matt. I was quite taken aback that Dean was kicking Castiel's ass. Was Cas deliberately letting him? Even to the point of disarming him? I thought at any moment Cas would just say "Enough!" and fly Dean into a wall.

I know, right? I was wondering if I'd confused fan fiction and canon and Cas was human now.

It bothered me back when Cain did it too, but even without the Mark he's the second oldest demon ever, was made one directly by Lucifer, and Castiel was using stolen angelic energy at an unknown stage of decay.

Castiel was supposed to have been remade as one of the most powerful angels aside from the big four (he survived more than one confrontation with Raphael before gulping down all the monster souls, after all), and at full strength could do things like spontaneously destroy onlooking demons just by showing himself and yank Sam's body out of Lucifer's grasp in the Cage. Even with much of his own essence expended in that eviction spell Metatron performed he should still be more than a match for anything except another angel, *really* powerful gods like Kali, or Death.

Finale last night and nothing? Really?

Yeah, I have nothing either.

I don't know how many times I can watch them have the same argument over and over about sacrifice, greater good, letting or not letting each other die, and then, bam, Consequences/Cliffhanger. (Consequanger?)

I don't hate-watch the show. I just feel like I could spend that 42 minutes better elsewhere. If I accidentally fell way behind in episodes some season it might go on my list of shows that I would catch up on someday. (Hello ER, Medium and Prison Break.) But I'm still hanging on. What's the word for that kind of watching?

Masochism? IDEK.

I felt something tickling my face and reached up--tears? Oh, wow. The first time I had an emotional reaction, I think, all season. And it certainly wasn't down to the script. It was all the Js, and Dean's "Close your eyes, Sammy."

Yeah, I know, total manipulation. But in the moment, I went with it. And I'm somewhere between pleased and ashamed that it worked.

I hadn't seen the last three or four, but I watched the finale and just prior ep since they aired it. I was so bummed out in a meta way afterward. Like, wait, what -- this is all different and weird. I wasn't sure whether it was my break or what. It all seemed random.

I caught up in here and felt not unfounded in my reaction. I love the boys. I'll keep watching the boys. And I miss the boys. And they're not actually boys, of course.

Anyway. The Darkness, eh?

Any bets the Season 11 premiere episode will be titled, "Hello Darkness, my old friend"?

Maybe the Big Bad for the season will be This guy?

Given how they handled the primordial horrors that were the Big Bad of Season 7, it'll probably be these guys.

So worth watching.