And they don't leave town - because that's where they were living ten years later.

I keep trying to figure out how Mary and John deal with her dad's body; how does she explain her now stabbed-to-death father? Do they call the cops?

And (for me) how John dealt with the fact that his oldest son looks exactly like that weirdass stranger from back in '73.

But then my brain starts going ieeeeeeee again, and it gets lost in the flail.

I keep trying to figure out how Mary and John deal with her dad's body; how does she explain her now stabbed-to-death father? Do they call the cops?

I'm guessing Samuel was blamed for murder-suicide and nobody pushed Mary too hard with questions because it upset her too much.

I've only watched once so far (I know, bad fan -- no cookie!), and I woke up today wondering: what happened to the Colt? Does anyone else remember? Dean picked it up at the Campbell's house on his way out to rescue Mary, because he had it when he found Mary cradling John and kissing Azazel (in her father's body, which is just icky beyond the telling of it), didn't he? But then Castiel flapped his wings or whatever and Dean reappeared in the present (with the journal again one assumes) but also I'm assuming without the Colt since we know it had to be back at Elkins' cabin for the guys to have acquired it a year and a half or so ago. Dean had told Elkins it would be in Lawrence with the Campbell family, but by the time Elkins would have arrived the only member left would be Mary, by now a Winchester... are we supposing she picked up the Colt and held onto it until Elkins arrived to retrieve it? So Mary had the Colt for a while?

I'm guessing Samuel was blamed for murder-suicide and nobody pushed Mary too hard with questions because it upset her too much.

This sounds very plausible to me. I keep wondering what Liddy remembered of her evening with the YED, and whether she ever said anything about it, or brought up the mysterious stranger who helped Mary and her dad fight the YED off.

And I think that John just saw his baby boy--by the time Dean had matured enough to resemble the stranger John met in the diner, he just saw Dean. And he'd been through so much since that brief meeting he probably didn't remember what the guy looked like.

Yeah, comparatively John dealt with him very little.

As for the Colt, I assume that since Dean said he would only need it for "a few days," that's how long it would take to have Elkins show up to reclaim it. Asking for the Campbells would still get him Mary at that point, I would think.

And (for me) how John dealt with the fact that his oldest son looks exactly like that weirdass stranger from back in '73.

Maybe dying came with a little convenient amnesia.

My visual memory isn't strong enough to remember some guy from 30+ years ago--he didn't spend much time with him either. Mary might remember, though.

Part of me does wish that after all Castiel's talk about Destiny being unchangeable, they'd returned at the end of the episode to find Mary now alive and leading the family on its hunts against the occult, with John having gotten up in her place to investigate the noise in Sam's room in 1983.

I'm sure there's a fic writer somewhere who's working on it, Matt...