Good question - I think I've divided the demons into "first circle, like Crowley and Lilith" and "road kill".

 

Kinda irrelevant though.

Vampires and all the other creatures could also be called thugs to some degree. None of them lost their powers. For the majority of the series we've been lead to believe that being a particular creatures means having certain powers and skills. Vampires have the fangs and the -also non-existent super-strength- demons have immortality when they're not within five feet of a Winchester, an angel or a bigger demon, as well as the ability to ignore most pain and telekinesis. These have been an inherent qualities of pretty much every demon right until it became inconvenient.

That latter power is just gone for no reason. They could be the dumbest thugs in the world, but the fights should not be playing out as they are this consistently.

I know it's partly a production thing but it's pretty blatant.

 

Mark Sheppard upped to Regular in Season 10

 

Isn't it just kinda the way of it with Supernatural though? It's how they make whoever the new bad guys are look like badasses, by nerfing the holy fuck out of all of the rank and file versions of the old bad guys. Demons were practically unstoppable juggernauts in the beginning and then angels came along and the demons became little more than speed bumps. They smited the shit out of pretty much every demon/other monster so hard just them being around was considered game over and then the Leviathans showed up and angels got nerfed to shit. Now angels die left, right and center and even humans can kill them.

 

That's a logical progression. It makes perfect sense that angel>demon given what we know of demons and angels in this universe.It makes perfect sense that arch-angel>angel. Their interactions more or less work.

What happened to the demons in general makes no sense. You know what was a sensible nerfing? Them no longer being immortal, them being vulnerable to knives. Them becoming mooks who have no powers makes no sense.

I think it's just a result of what S4 started with the angel blades and the constant fights between those powers without a case + special weapon necessary to kill someone. But you can handwave it with angels, not so much with the vanilla hunters.

Also; for the finale:

Spoiler

Is Dean going to be addicted to human blood now?

 

I doubt it, for the simple reason that we don't see Cain acting like an addict and my personal opinion of Dean is that he wouldn't even use it in the first place, after seeing how messed up Crowley got on it.

Also, since Dean is supposed to be dead, I'm kind of curious as to what's gonna happen in the next season. Since Mark Sheppard got bumped up to regular, I could see him and Dean bromancing it up because demons, but then they'd also have to show Sam and Cas doing things, since Misha Collins also got bumped up to regular.

 

Cain has no reason to want to feel human. Why would he drink the blood? Dean does.

Honestly we might as well get rid of Cas. Either something happens to him which forces him to go to Heaven (to fuck it up again), Purgatory or just story hell where he's depowered yet again (which would bore me) or we get more angel stuff which would... likely bore me. Demon!Dean is the most interesting thing that has happened to this show in a while, I don't need a regular Cas taking time from it.

 

It is dumb, insulting and aggravating but it is something that was prevalent throughout the series. Ever since season 1, Dean and Sam survived skirmishes against beings that should be able to one shot them with ease, simply because every entity that fights them just knocks them out if they do get the drop on them and then tie the Winchesters up to monologue, while the Winchester or ally they didn't catch backstabs the monster.

Really, we had this discussion before, with how Dean and Sam can just casually shank gods with branches and whatnot, and how angels, demons and even to a degree leviathans have become fodder. Not to mention every other type of monster.

It's just, before season 6, we kinda tolerated it, because it had managed to build a certain atmosphere and story that allowed us to not really pay attention to these details. But by now, that illusion has been shattered and it is just obvious how bad nearly every action and fight scene in the whole series is. Dean and Sam almost always win fights not because they are good fighters, really intelligent, ruthless or well-prepared but rather because the writers say that Dean and Sam should win and then they do.

I understand that they have budget limitations and a certain expectation to drive the story forward since they kinda have to win the fights to progress the story, but I wish they had done a better job of it.

As to the season finale, meh. As if it wasn't clear that Dean was going to come back. It was hard to take Sam's grief seriously, since Dean died and was brought back more often than Goku at this point.

So, do the angels have their wings again? With the connection severed, was the power of the angels and heaven restored or is that still a mess?

I don't get why Demon Dean is going to be interesting though. Tbh, the blade didn't influence him that much, to me, the changes felt miniscule. Dean has been evil/aggressive for a few seasons now, and honestly, doubt that Demon Dean is going to behave all that differently.

Only question is if he and Crowley are going to work together/be allies while Dean tries to restore his humanity, which is the route I expect them to to take, or if Dean tries his hand at becoming the next king of hell, with demons flocking to him because of how dangerous (contrived though as the reason for that was) he was as a human and how he would be even more so as a demon.Could even have the series end on the note that Cas leads heaven, Dean leads hell and Sam deals with the humans. A bit cheesy, yeah, but, honestly, are we expecting for this show to end on a good note?

 

Also, Gabriel.
After Hammer of the Gods, I went back over all his actions. They made a lot more sense in retrospect. The way he behaved in Changing Channels reminds me of 2014!Cas - all broken and bitter. Lucifer not having managed to actually kill him was really in-character. I can't be the only one who felt that "death scene" was way too simple.

 

(Yes I know that I'm double-posting, but I wanted to get this out there)

1) Demons are created by Human souls being tortured to the point that the positive aspects of them are completely destroyed. We know that the transition takes time, because Dean was only partially corrupted when he got off the rack. So. Did they ever say what happens to a human soul that is tortured by heaven? Is that how heaven's torturers form? Perhaps heaven would send these as smart missiles to do the angels' work on earth. I can see some of our nastier charismatic leaders being extremely damaged (brain washed) souls sent back to be reborn.

2) I just thought that 2014!Dean might be a hint of demon!Dean. Cold, ruthless, a user. Nice coincidence on the timeline, too.

Also, I'm on Nyquil and Red Bull, so if this doesn't make sense, be gentle, eh?

 

Well, episode one and as expected, I don't really see a difference between sorta?Demon Dean and human Dean.

The angels are still useless, their powers still broken.

Crowley just pissing around with Dean was an amusing thought but seeing it play out was just meh.

So, another person is gunning for a Winchester and I honestly don't understand why anyone would want to at this point. It's like a video game, like Uncharted or Tomb Raider, where you have moved through dozens, if not hundreds of enemies with just rudimentary weapons, and they still run towards you, thinking they will succeed where the 1000 other people before them failed. "Yeah, she killed 500 people with bow and arrow, surely I can take her."

Same here, Dean and Sam pretty much killed every foe they ever had, a combination of all sorts of monsters, gods, angels, demons and whatever, with the one exception being Crowley , who is also the one who avoids confrontation whenever he can. (Well, and Death)

So, yeah, sure this guy can obviously take them because he does situps and benchpresses. That's what the DEVIL was lacking.

 

It doesn't matter if the odds aren't in your favor if the reason is strong enough. People die for causes all the time, and it isn't because they think there is a high probability of survival. Sure, if this guy has shitty reasons I agree with you, but if Dean is the cause of a death of a loved one, then no. People risk their lives all the time for less reasons.

Demon Dean will be equivalent to Soulless Sam I feel. Demon Dean won't be quite as vicious as the other demons because he didn't go through the whole demon process of torture upon years of torture. He's still a demon though. The ending with Dean pretty much saying that he told Sam to stay away, and he doesn't give two shits if Sam does get killed says a lot about how little Dean cares about anything at the moment.

As for my thoughts on the episode. Sam centric scenes are kind of boring, and they went over the top on Dean karaoke, but I thought it was an okay episode. Supernatural has never been good at season premiere's.

 

Not going to lie, I fucking loved every second of Episode 5 of Season Ten. Laughed a lot, loved all the nods, mockery and appreciation towards the fandom. Supernatural may be crap in a lot of ways but I'll be damned if they don't make great meta episodes. Too bad they are trying to tell a shitty story the rest of the time.

They made fun of themselves, of the fans, the guest appearance at the end was brilliant and they even mentioned Adam, which I thought they would never do, makes me wonder if the brothers are actually going to do something about their half brother trapped in a cage with Lucifer for what is now around five years, if time works the same in the cage, that is.

I may talk a lot of shit about Supernatural, but there is a reason why I am still watching it and it's for reasons such as this episode, where they aren't taking everything so seriously, where they can have just fun.

 

I thought it was pretty great, which I was not expecting at all from a musical episode. It felt almost like it could have served as a decent season finale.

 

That. Was. Amazing.

'Single Man Tear' going to be stuck in my head for hours.

 

So. I came across an idea that I think has lots of possibilities. The framework story is slash, so I'm not going to rec it here, but what happened is that Dean touched a magic mirror and was transported to various different universes.

One of the short ones is pretty fascinating.
Early S4. Dean wasn't the Righteous Man. Castiel raised Gregory Trent, married with a child, from hell. Sam was never born, and when John was murdered by demons, Mary took Dean on the Hunt. Mary is dead: Dean hunts alone. Canon!Dean called Castiel to them, and introduced the angel to local Dean. Then he stepped back into the mirror, and we never saw what happened next.

I keep thinking about a universe in which Dean is completely unknown to Heaven and Hell. He could be the ace up Castiel's sleeve when it comes to defending Trent and Trent's family, he could be a personal agent for Castiel when trying to separate Lucifer's Vessel from Ruby. He could get other Hunters involved in protecting Seals, he could simply be a friend to the Righteous Man.

I've read a few Reverse Big Bangs in which Dean is the Angel and Castiel is the Righteous Man, and I remember a story in which John was the Righteous Man with Sam as Lucifer's vessel and Dean hopelessly trying to save both his father and his brother (I never could find that one again. I always wondered how it ended.)

I don't remember an OC Righteous Man, with no Sam to drive Dean into the Deal.

In many ways, this is a very different Dean. He's quieter, more bitter, and the "loyalty unto (well beyond) death" characteristic is far less developed. Mary trained him, and I don't know how that would change his habits and attitudes from the way Marine John trained his sons. Does he have any contact with the Campbells? Mary isn't such a fool to refuse to turn to family when John is kidnapped by demons. If Sam was never born, how does that affect the results of Mary's Deal when Azazel murdered John in "In The Beginning?"

Obviously, I find the whole premise new and exciting and different.

I remember asking one time for any recs about a Sam who didn't go to Stanford, who backed down when John ordered him to stay with the family. Has anyone any suggestions?

 

The only reason I'm still watching is because I"ve spent 10 years watching this show, I might as well stick with it.

The main story is boring. I don't care about the Mark of Cain and all of the drama that brings, I don't care about Rowena and turning Crowley into a sap, I don't care for these poorly written MOTW week episodes, I don't care for Dean's manpain, and I don't care for them sidelining Sam.

The last episode was just painful. Dean just got through explaining they must destroy everything with wi-fi.... then when he realized there was still one phone, he didn't destroy it and get rid of the ghost. Instead he tried to fight it.

Also, the "young people suck" vibe I got from the writers was too over the top.

They made Sam and Dean extremely dumb to not realize the ghost was using tech to get around. Especially after they made a big deal out of the truck's on-board navigation. It seemed like they completely forgot about it after giving it product placement.

 

Around the time I realized I was more interested in playing Minesweeper than I was in watching the show, I quit. Maybe E5? Dunno. It was one episode after they "cured" him or whatever.