It gets worse: the character arc looked like it was shaping up to be not Dean and Sam realizing that slavery is bad, m'kay, but oh, slavery is fine if they're born into it. But the HORROR of free American citizens being sold into slavery, how UNJUST!

Watching reruns, and it's the baby shapeshifter episode. Yeah, still irked over the treatment of Dean and babies and completely ignoring what a four/five year old Dean had to do to possibly take care of baby Sammy. On one hand, yeah, we don't know at what point John kinda gave up as a dad and focused on being a hunter, and what point Dean had to become a mom. Maybe it was post-diapers phase, or maybe he was so young that he doesn't remember the diaper changing. And yet, it seems too important too have him forget.

Giving Dean Sammy to carry out of the burning house was an emergency thing, though. No one is asking a four-year-old, or even a five-year-old, to change an infant's diapers. They're not going to have the fine motor control, or the self-discipline. We know Dean did a lot for Sam when they were both children, but I can't believe it went that far.

Which makes me wonder, what is a feasible timeline for Dean to have started taking over care of Sammy? I don't know kids, so this is like venturing into the rules of D&D for me. I know for some of you info like this is a given and taken for granted, but I have not a clue what is realistic.

Yeah, the point at which 5 year old Dean is a deft diaper-changer is the point at which I'm mad at John for fucking over his kids way too much. I can imagine a five year old Dean being an expert Sam-soother, but he was a few years away from babysitting and feeding, etc. I'm sure Sam was potty trained before Dean had sole responsibility for him for any length of time.

Actually, a five-year-old could give a baby a bottle, but that's just sitting still, and Sam would have been burping on his own by then. Otherwise, what ita said. In the shtriga episode (which I can never remember the name of), Sam is fourish, making Dean eight-almost-nine, and that fits.

I would never leave a preschooler with an eight-year-old, even a mature one, and certainly not with a loaded rifle in the house, but they did a good job of showing that Dean to be world-weary enough and indoctrinated well enough to do it ... almost. A kid that age who isn't afraid of being on his own is definitely going to get bored and itchy, so it's sort of a double-edged sword.

Sorry--feeding in my head involved preparing the meal. I've seen 18 month old babies bottle-feed other babies.

Here and I was thinking that my problems with this ep were that it was the first one I've seen with ads and on the crappy CW app. I still think that's some of it for me. I don't like where the ep left me, but I still have faith at this point that the writers will make it ok over the season, and hopefully give more clues soon.

SNEAK PEEK!!!

Oh, DEAN. That's so reassuringly Dean-like of you.