I thought this was a pretty fun episode. I am ashamed to say both I and my girlfriend were thinking we somehow missed when Ellen was brought back, but it was really bugging us because we didn't recall her at all in recent episodes (in our defense, there have been a number of resurrections on the show). My girlfriend kept saying something about the license plate being different but for some reason neither of us, despite both noting in our heads the car now had stripes, thought much of it.
I think our Supernatural fan club cards are in the process of being revoked.
Anyway, while I did enjoy this and have generally enjoyed this season (even if I do think it's weaker than previous years), there is a surprising lack of attention paid to what I assume is supposed to be the "big bad" - Mother. Do you suppose the plan was to always have that be a story that took place in just a couple of episodes at the end of the year or have they had two plans - one if they get renewed that stretched out the Mother storyline? I'm more interested in the war in Heaven thing and that got some slight mention in this episode, and I don't really care about the Mother thing right now. What confuses me is this season is pretty loosely structured for a show that had no real reason to expect another season after this one (unless I missed an early announcement).