I thoroughly enjoyed this thread.

I agree with much that has been said here, especially that Cas loves Dean so very, very much. He totes wasn't being sarcastic about Dean's problems coming first! Duh.

I find the whole "soulless Sam" story to be kind of...yawn. That's because I really don't care about Sam anymore. And I laughed my ass off when my sister finally watched last week's episode and then called me to say, "Hell yeah, Sam got his FACE pounded but GOOD!!" :D