think ...before you grow a beard.
yes well someone's let himself go over hiatus! I think this falls into the "homeless or hipster?" category of beards.
So Bob Singer was quoted as saying when S8 starts... "The brothers are reunited on screen quickly, but much time will have passed" which I took to mean Dean will get out of Purgatory quickly. But what if it means Sam GOES to purgatory - and maybe it takes him a while to find Dean? And then we could have a couple of eps of them both there, fighting things, before idk Cas gets them out?
And it would give both Sam and Dean a reason to have beards!