or that Good Omens ripoff kid that I'd fervently hoped we'd never see or hear from again.

I liked that kid. Not totally fitting in this world, but I liked him a bunch.

Who was watching the house (RoboSam?)?

I am thinking "real" Sam watching a dream or nervous breakdown Sam. It's the only thing that explains the annoying filter. Okay, and some of the story. But that filter bugs me.

I did think it was weird he said the car was John's, but I guess they had to save the lost brother reveal for the very end.

It is John's car to me. And also Dean's car over strength of miles logged and the time travel to encourage John to buy it. But for their whole lives, it was John's car. Dean inherited it before John died but it was an heirloom, a hand-me-down. Something Dean owns now that was Dad's. That Impala is fucking complicated.

okay i’m just going to enter the sea of wank for a second but i have literally never seen a fandom so phobic about having more than two characters present.

It's absolutely against this person's statement but I would watch the Sam and Dean show forever. I don't hate that characters are added or that *gasp* wimmens might be included. I tend to like them. But I am in it for the Sam and Dean Dysfunction Show. I'm a twisted person for it, but its factual.

I'm just catching up from last week and I'm confused about the Amelia storyline. It seems like a lot of time spent on flashbacks just to show that Sam had a relationship that ended when her husband came back - there has to be more, right? If the purpose is to show that Sam chose "normal" this time that he lost Dean(as opposed to what he became in Mystery Spot), it seems that could have been made clear in a flashback or two in the first few episodes. Are there clues that the relationship is not what it seemed than I've missed?

I am sceptical that John ever displayed the level of attachment to the Impala that Dean does. No doubt he took great care of her (Dead Man's Blood), but I doubt he named her and big-ell loved her and threatened to kill people over her and spoke lovingly to her. Or, you know, referred to the car as a her, okay--maybe that one.

Fanon has Dean getting her at 17 or 18, but it's been about ten years at least (I'm counting the two extra almost years, even though the writers might not), and that's a large portion of Sam's alert life.

However, the conversation he was having with Mr. Pond had specific points to mention John and to mention Dean, so from a meta POV, it makes sense.

I am sceptical that John ever displayed the level of attachment to the Impala that Dean does. No doubt he took great care of her

Oh, I don't think he loved her like she was a living-ish part of their lives. That was pretty much all Dean. In my head canon.

Fanon has Dean getting her at 17 or 18, but it's been about ten years at least

I think fanon is wrong. Dean's been 23 (right?) and still explaining hunting on his own and he's using the car but we don't know a strict anything.

I still want the Impala to be happy and at home.

Dean's been 23 (right?) and still explaining hunting on his own and he's using the car but we don't know a strict anything.

Since the car wasn't one of the things he had to explain (unlike the hunting, salt shells, etc), my conclusion was that it was in the same hands as when Sam had left. Getting Dad's Impala seems, within the context of all we've seen of these characters, to be absolutely worth commenting on.

But even if not, the series has spanned ~10 years. Even if Dean hadn't gotten iPod-ripping out and car-apologising in the meanwhile, it would seem reasonable for a decade to transfer ownership.

There's a knife in my parents' kitchen that is always referred to as Uncle Walter's knife. Uncle Walter was old when I was a kid, he gave the knife to my dad before I was born, my niece and nephew never met him and probably have very little idea who he was, but that will always be Uncle Walter's knife.

I can see the Impala being Dean's Baby, but John's car.

This ep had a lot of John referencing, even from Castiel, who was reading his journal. And I could also imagine that, even though we see the car as Dean's, that they still view it as their dad's, and whether that's true or not, I kind of liked that this ep embraced pieces of the past as par for the course (unless it really is foreshadowing the return of Sir - "hey, remember that guy, from seasons 1 and 2? That dude who was really important to the boys?").

If it's been John's car all this time, 10 years later is really late to mention it for the first time, don't you think? It's been referred to as Dean's car plenty of times in the interim.

The best I can do with that is call it a late reveal.

that they still view it as their dad's

Then wouldn't Dean have not called it his car this whole time? Or Sam would have called it John's before?

I mean, I get why John was talked about then, but I do think "Oh, this whole time they've called it Dean's car they were thinking of it as John's" is more wanky than "Hey, they needed to bring up John again in the conversation right here." That makes sense.

It's also a vintage car. It might seem a little more understandable to someone asking to point out that it had been in the family for most of its life. At that point, it also might have been easier for Sam to be thinking of it as Dad's car if thinking about Dean was too painful.

it also might have been easier for Sam to be thinking of it as Dad's car if thinking about Dean was too painful

That's about the only thing that makes sense to me. For a while there, I was thinking he wasn't going to mention Dean at all, and that was going to be the tip that something was wrong with the scenario. Especially when the topic of loss was on the table, and he didn't say "Look, asshole, she's not the only who suffered the death of a loved one, so let us both fumble this out best we can, giving some small peace to each other, huh?"

However, the thing which he finally triggered on--I'm assuming that Mr. Amelia was using his knife? And that's how Dean had opened the bottles at the start of the episode? Because "Hey, my brother used to open my beer for me" isn't much of a segue, but up to that point I had not thought of Dean as having a particular way of doing that now that the ring is history.

I could go back and look, but that would mean me watching every drinking scene, and you might never hear from me again.