I was a bit worried about that "worst part of hell" line because it sounds like an attempt to take what happened to Dean and that was actually a coherent emotional arc that Jensen played and just say "Sam had it worse." Probably without ever showing it. It's just an excuse to try to make Sam more of exactly what he was before without him going through actual trauma about it. I keep hearing "He has no ability to feel those emotions anymore." Which conveniently leads to not having to write the emotion or to act those emotions.

When Sam said the thing about not ever going after those people in this ep I didn't even think it was supposed to be going against Bobby's speech, because I thought Sam was basically saying he was coldly logical. Like, if course he was as brave as Dean but he saw those people were already dead so he wouldn't waste his time going after them. And I think that's the type of lovey dovey he always was if he was going to--he just was the one to bring up ethical questions like "But what about the monsters?" or whatever. Dean always seemed to one that was the marshmallow inside. He just limited it to people he considered family or innocents.