I think he turns off the show after the first act.

Like @avclub-9cb9be7338a236adb160f2d3cf5f5f15:disqus  says below, the closing of these gates could really set up the rest of the series and, in that scenario, balance is key. You're also on to a key point, @avclub-2f2b7ca7553ba4230cad836ea1125578:disqus , about free will and the two 'sides' choosing which way to go,…

Yeah, breaking the 180 is a surefire sign of narrative incoherence, kinda like when John Ford did it in Stagecoach.

@avclub-2f2b7ca7553ba4230cad836ea1125578:disqus  - sorry for my delay here, but I re-read your comment about how closing the gates of Hell might have unforeseen negative consequences and it made me suddenly remember that episode where Dean is forced, by Death, to be a Reaper for 24 hours. The first guy he takes is…

Pretty sure that gun isn't particularly random - it had a vaguely WWII look about it and someone below mentions that it's a Ruger. So, anytime you associate Crowley with Nazi hardware, it feels meaningful, much like the show's original associate of the Winchesters with the classic American frontier gun, the Colt.

Your comment makes me wonder, @avclub-2f2b7ca7553ba4230cad836ea1125578:disqus , about the production of angels and demons. Demons are generated from the badness of humankind while it looks like angels are just there. I could totally be mis-interpreting the way this stuff works on the show. Archangels are fixed, like…

I know it's nothing new to show the uncomfortable parallel between the modus operandi of the demons and the angels but, now to find out that both are (and have been) engaged in mind-wipes and re-setting people's memories, we can infer that all that is really different about them is geographical habitats. Both sides…

Why the fargin' hell didn't Dean undress Sam before dunking him in the ice bath? Are these motherless men who live out of suitcases (which I have never seen but assume exist) unaware of what a pain in the ass it is to dry out a soaking wet pair of blue jeans? My pet theory is that the producers of the show, as much as…

@avclub-72ad8dd8124336c31c6cecc648370d98:disqus  and @avclub-15d496c747570c7e50bdcd422bee5576:disqus , you guys should fly those librarian flags with pride. I cannot tell you how many times librarians have saved my bacon in grad school. You folks are like magical wizards in a land of hostile stacks and databases.

Yeah, at that moment, Sam was behaving like a Watcher, er, Man of Letters and, if he was always destined for that role AND the trials are purifying his bad blood then his restoration must be mental as well as physical. Cool!

Good skin. Distractly white, even, perfect teeth. I just sit there thinking, "Wow, what did those cost?"

@avclub-2de68a7c5e3db6a836ab8f5f109416b8:disqus  (below) It might be like when Titanic his the iceberg and the stokers belowdecks had to run through rising water to get under the watertight doors in the bulkheads before they slammed shut. And, just for one more pop culture reference to prove I have no life, Crowley…

I enjoyed his technical flourishes. His lensing, angle, and movement on those shots when Sam was perceiving a different reality weren't a brand new idea here but they were effective and thematically appropriate, as was the subjective use of sound effects for Sam's alternate reality. I also liked the deliberately…

Agreed on Jared being really effective in this episode. All through the show, I felt increasingly bad about dissing his skills on these boards last week. I think what it is: he's better when the character is required to be loosened up, when he's unhinged a bit. When he's tightly wound or tense, he does a nostril flare…

The show does a great job poking at the big bloated belly of American fast food culture, ever since the Leviathan plotted to overfeed U.S. into a submissive stupor. The contemporary homogeneity of the classic Route 66 landscape (also signalled by the Winchesters' steady diet transported inside a long succession…

Flashback to The Fifth Element! During the manual belly retrieval scene, though, I kept wondering how much more of a beating Jimmie's poor human body can take.

It was awesome to see Kevin with his confidence back. I was worried about his angsty condition, thought he might be slipping his cogs, so I loved it when I realized that he had the figured out that he was dealing with faux-Winchesters and started running his own scam on Crowley.

You'll get my homemade Oscar statue when you pry it out of my cold dead hands!

You know us all too well, @avclub-4f18f486a356810b3ef8008243bcba7a:disqus .

She'd have to scaffold that color job. Raise it a tone or two at a time, dark brown, auburn, something green, and then a dark blonde.