#then 8.05 can still proceed mostly the same bc this time it's dean doing a favor for benny (but sam is more scandalized finding out

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the problem with the post-purgatory arc of season 8 is that they show too much purgatory. Like they imply it to be really brutal but then what they show of it is actually pretty mundane. if i wanted to suggest that dean’s experience there had “changed” him and maybe even “awakened” something in him i would not have so many flashbacks, i would conceal instead and just heavily imply. early early in the season after a few episodes of him acting weird--uncomfortable in fast food restaurants and social situations, failing epically at pretending to be a fed, getting violent very eagerly in hunting situations--we would have a motw where he and sam need intel on a vampire colony out in the middle of nowhere. It’s a huge, infamous colony in like deep back country alaska or something really far out, and they’re known to only drink animal blood--except lately hikers have been going missing. so, Dean goes undercover pretending to be one of the vampires… and he blends in perfectly.

There is just one moment of doubt when he’s sitting around a campfire with a bunch of vampires and the one suspicious guy makes him drink some blood, and dean, making direct eye contact with him, does it. and it doesn’t have any effect on him bc it’s just deer blood, but for a minute the viewer is tricked into thinking it was vampire blood. and that the reason it didn’t have any effect was that he’s already turned. But it’s not--he’s fine, still just a human. And then, who’s that watching from the other side of the campfire? it’s Benny--the vampire we briefly saw at the beginning of 8x01! surprise reunion! will he give dean up? (of course not.) NOW we get some flashbacks (brief!!!) to their time in purgatory together.

this nest isn’t benny’s community either and he’s there for his own ulterior motives, but they fall through so he helps dean find the one vampire who’s been feeding on humans and they kill the guy. there’s way too many in the colony to kill all of them, and anyway they aren’t hurting any humans, they just drink deer and fight bears and live loose and large in the wilderness. So they head out, and as they’re about to leave, benny’s like you made yourself fit in pretty well here brother and dean’s like, well i learned from the best. and benny’s like, in his half-teasing serious way, we could even stay. and dean’s like yep. we could. and then they go. and when sam stops to pick dean up, dean pretends benny is just a human he saved from the vampires, and they drop him at the nearest town and keep on driving.