Yep, that was exactly the main purpose or functionality of the ep. Very much like "The French Mistake," (which I've grown to enjoy quite a lot, and wish I could have loved it the first time I saw it). They're going to start weaving all these lose ends together (supposedly), so we need to know what's going on with Cas.

And I was very pleased that they haven't forgotten about the "souls" storyline. My first thought was, Oh, good. They haven't forgotten about the mystery Dean is supposed to solve.