I really gotta get away from the spoilers.

[feliciakw]

PLEASE NOTE: I'm disabling comments because I'm very allergic to spoilers, and I know that a lot of my readers thrive on spoilers. And when you breathe spoilers and treat them as common knowledge, it's very easy to accidentally mention a spoiler, thinking it's common knowledge, when it's not.

I've really gotta stop reading threads that have random spoilers pop up in conversation.

So in order to read minimal spoilers on my own terms, I checked TVGuide.com for the most general of synoptic spoilers coming up.

As it turns out, there's a series of three trials that someone must pass in order to close the gates of Hell (yeah, like that's really gonna work out, right?). One of them is to kill a hellhound. And it occurs to me . . .has Dean killed a hellhound before? (I was thinking of "Abandon All Hope," but I don't think he ever has.) Can anyone else (who's not a demon) even see hellhounds besides Dean? I've always been of the opinion that since his return from Hell, Dean can see hellhounds when they're brought to earth. No one else can, that I can tell. We haven't had hellhounds since Sam's return from the Cage, so I'm unsure how that works, but Dean was able to see them when they came for him, and has been able to see them since. So it seems to me that Dean would be the logical choice for this task.

I'm stumbling upon interpretations of an interview (I don't read producer/writer/director interviews because what they say and what shows up on the screen are often not the same thing), that suggest that Sam will again be the "chosen one" to undergo these trials. But . . . that doesn't seem feasible. And if he is, he can't do it without Dean, who would have to talk him through actually finding and targeting the hound. It sounds like it's going to have to be a joint effort. Perhaps with one brother succeeding in one task, one brother carrying out a second task, and both needed for the final task. Or, if we're going with the cerebral and the physical, Sam being the cerebral aspect of the trial, and Dean being the physical aspect. Though that approach seems very limiting to both characters, particularly since both brothers have both strengths, both the thinky and the do-y.

This is, of course, just my own speculation, based on one-word spoilers that I've come across. I know nothing beyond "chosen one," "trials," and "guardian" (Dean is so totally a guardian of everyone around him), and I think I'm the only one who reads Jensen's performances as Dean being actually able to see hellhounds.

But there ya go. Don't want to speculate too far beyond what we already know, because I think I'll enjoy watching it unfold. So who knows where this will go.

I just wanted to get that out of my brain so I can go back to enjoying this past episode without the speculation of as-of-yet unrevealed plot points getting in the way.