Holy crap. Does anybody besides me on this forum watch this show? It's such an underrated gem on CW, aka the teen slut network. It belongs somewhere else. Anywhere else. Very rarely can a show change its game plan in its fourth season for the better. This was it. I didn't think Eric Kripke would have the guts to introduce and old testament style angel like Castiel, and he cast Alexis Drazen from 24 as Castiel. The fangirly girls are going to shit a brick about the serious lying going on between the two brothers, but Sam's really going down the darker path now that he can exorcise demons on his own. Who knows what else he's learned how to do since Dean has been away? Instead of nothing but reunion joy, we got serious tension. So an old testament angel needs Dean to do his work. I love it. Grade A for mixing up the formula.
Well to be fair, Dean hasn't lied about anything to Sammy. Sammy's keeping major secrets from Dean. I dislike neo-Ruby pretty intensely. The question is why the Old Testament angel needs Dean. (and why he was so shitty that he left Dean buried alive rather than bringing him above ground and why save Dean but not John or any number of others). My best guess: the big boys above aren't just worried about what Hell might be cooking up, but also about Sammy taking a full-on trip to the Dark Side. And they know Dean's the only one who can stop that.
I love it. The CW literally didn't give Supernatural shit for advance promotion for the fall premiere episode, and it still managed to beat Gossip Girl and 90210 in the final ratings for this week, which CW pimped the shit out of ad nauseum. Warner Brothers, the studio that makes SPN, sent out press promo packets on its own; the premiere got such a good buzz it earned a million more viewers than last season's finale. The CW not waiting until a month after all the other shows premiered also seems to have helped.
