Hils's journal

God sent the train for a reason - what I had to say would have been as devastating as hearing Castiel in his natural form speak. It would have exploded your brain...

That, and I really need to rewatch the episode, I've slept a few times since I watched it.

However, as a brief of what I would have said:

It seems cruel that Castiel would send Dean back - but it's training. Castiel couldn't really have explained what happened, Dean's being too much of a counter-authoritative dumbass, and finds it hard to accept Castiel. So, the lesson in this episode served several functions - it was to display Castiel's power, as an archangel (and if I'm right about which archangel, he is the recorder, so it's well with in his remit to give a playback (which means it wasn't really time travel)), thus proving himself to Dean, and subtly warning him of the power he's pissing off. It also forced Dean to accept that some things are just the way they are, no matter what he does, he can't live in the past - he has to make something of the future instead. Lastly, it showed him he could face anything, including trying to kill his own grandfather. Oh, and let us not forget the conversation with early Azaziel that hinted at the arc of this series.

Speaking of whic, programatically, this episode reintroduced one of the main drivers of the first two seasons (the Yellow Eyed Demon... god bless continuity!), and get them out of a problem that if you really think about it, what we thought was Azaziel's plan was really kind of lame, and not very forward thinking... now we know that it's something far deeper - but the question is, was Azaziel's plan to unleash Lucifer? Ezekiel was very much about power, and armies. He wanted control - and the chosen one, survivor extraordinaire, was that vehicle. Maybe, the plan wasn't so much to unleash Lucifer, but to destroy Lucifer, and take control of hell, earth, all demons, and all humans for himself. According to Milton, Azaziel was the standard bearer for rebellious demons after all.

Though I ponder something, Castiel as an angel couldn't be killed by the knife (and I'm presuming the colt would face a similar issue), now according to lore - Azaziel is a demon of the second order, which means he fought in the war against god, and was cast out - ergo he was once an angel. Could the colt really kill him? Or could it have just incapacitated him?

I'm thinking not all demons can be killed by the colt - the reason being, if mystical objects could actually hurt a high level demon, then Lucifer probably wouldn't be as much a problem as everyone considers him.

Who pulls Ruby's strings? Who has her oppose other demons, while simultaneously training Sam, I'm guessing pretty much just as Azaziel always wanted? With Lilith running round doing all the work of unleashing Lucifer herself - it means more time can be spent preparing Sam.

All in all, this really was an awesome episode.

Maybe later, I'll write my full thoughts, since this wwas just the 537 word brief... *whistles innocently as he presses edit comment*