Maybe Sam wanted to remember it as perfect. . . you know as a way to torture himself.

I mean, the whole thing seems iffy (to me, the non-tech person), but also that Dean knew how to do it

He's been hacking into networks and using phone apps with hunting. Never mind just the general shifty nature of the gig--why not this guy? All the trick is described as is "swapping Amelia's phone out with a burner", so it's not even on the level of the forcing GPS tracking on, for instance, that we've seen before. It's just theft. (I also do figure the boys have some familiarity with cloning SIMs and phones, etc, just because they're juggling so many and counterfeiting so much--but this wasn't a technical thing--he either has her phone or her SIM card).

I was perfectly okay with the idea that Amelia had been created out of whole cloth and therefore Sam would do things like think of google stalking her. It doesn't have to be Lucifer's effort to be all-enveloping in a Supernatural world.

There being a real Amelia that he knows (clearly) makes the idea that any of that was false *way* creepier, because now he's the kind of guy you get a restraining order on. Lurking outside the window with a cocked gun isn't helping any.

I'm assuming Dean still believes Sam chose Amelia over him, so the idea that he'd drop everything and go back to this real life he described so wistfully--they haven't cleared that hurdle in their arguments yet (and won't if they keep arguing adjacent to the issues, but, hey--siblings and button pressing--one thing it's not is implausible, that's for sure), so I can see him making that assumption,

Why that's true? I'm not sure--but if Sam is recalling real memories and saccharine coating them like this, either the Supernatural writers don't know what love/romance looks like onscreen. or Sam's fucking nuts. Sam, thinking he gave Amelia the space to *really* decide she wants him--and now she reaches out to him? Hot damn. He hasn't loved anyone since Jess. She did "save" him from rescuing Dean, which seemed to be a link he needed breaking. And he's been zoning out on her for weeks.

wait...i thought he just switched the number in Sam's phone to the burner's phone number.

That makes even more sense--I was watching the ep when I wrote "phone" so I'm pretty sure that was the quote, though.

Yeah, the idea of Dean going to Amelia in Texas at some point to steal her phone, I honestly find creepiest of all.

And I still don't see how Sam driving off without a word to anyone was remotely realistic. He's in Louisiana, she's in Texas. It's not right around the corner.

There being a real Amelia that he knows (clearly) makes the idea that any of that was false *way* creepier, because now he's the kind of guy you get a restraining order on.

Why? He hasn't been back at all, or they wouldn't have taken us up to the present time. And he drove away after he saw her inside with Don.

if Sam is recalling real memories and saccharine coating them like this, either the Supernatural writers don't know what love/romance looks like onscreen. or Sam's fucking nuts. Sam, thinking he gave Amelia the space to *really* decide she wants him--and now she reaches out to him? Hot damn. He hasn't loved anyone since Jess.

I'm not sure what you're truing to say here. The fact that she really did reach out by coming to the bar, or the fact that he thought she did with the text? What does loving Jess have to do with it? It makes it more believable that he's finally really in love again?

Also, aside from the birthday-cake-in-the-park scene, none of Sam's memory flashbacks have actually *been perfect* -- she yelled at him when they met, she yelled at him when they met again, they had sex but she assumed it was a one-off, they painfully shared what they'd both lost, and her dad showed up and hated Sam on sight. I'm thinking the vaseline filter and dreamy colors of those scenes might simply be the technique they used to differentiate them from Dean's nearly black and white flashbacks of purgatory, and not much more.

Why? He hasn't been back at all, or they wouldn't have taken us up to the present time

Because he told his brother he settled down with someone and he didn't? That's not weird to you? But, if he did do that, wouldn't he just haul ass to go keep playing with his delusion? Or maybe he only thinks he's in Texas, dunno.

And he drove away after he saw her inside with Don.

To their local bar. He wasn't trying really hard to get back out of her life. It did make her seeing him predictable.

I'm not sure what you're truing to say here

I'm saying he's going to want that life back, just like he told Dean he wanted it back. That's not a phone conversation or a text message discussion. If you're the sort of person who drives across the US in whoever's stolen car (do they have two cars now?) that's clearly no hurdle. So we have a guy that has been romantically alone for ten years, and the woman he made an emotional sacrifice for to let her not just pick him because of recency, but has spent weeks with her husband with whom she was very in love, and decides she needs him?

Why wouldn't he pop one (very large) state over to see the woman he's willing to give up hunting and his brother for? What does he value more highly right now than her? The tablet they have no leads on? He's been pretty clear about his priorities. The second woman he's ever loved needs him and he can't get her on the phone. What should he do?

But he did settle down with her! Not for long, it turns out, but I'm assuming they were also co-habitating at the motel for a bit before they found the house. And if she hadn't gotten the call about Don, he'd probably still be there, in my mind.

I get what you're saying about him leaving like that to be with her, but it's still a leap for me. Leave that night, sure. Leave that hour, sure. Not even tell Martin, who you're abandoning in the woods, that something came up? Not very Sam to me.

But he did settle down with her!

Unless he made it up, which was what I said was really creepy. How his making all that up about a woman you actually know not creepy? I could give myself a panic attack thinking about someone doing that to me, and then appearing at my window with a gun months after the last time we saw each other (or broke up earlier than he fantasises, or whatever). That's horrible.

So far their portrayal of the relationship, be it true or false, has a number of people thinking there's something weird about it--that he's compelled, that he made it up, that he's insane--whole jobby. All that is why I wouldn't be surprised that he dropped everything to rush to her aid. Because if it's real, it's reading so weird that people think it's not real. And not real in a bad way, not in a comforting yourself on a rainy day way. And those are the sorts of situations I'd imagine illogical behaviour stemming from. Something that viewers can't even agree is normal.

Oh, I see. I'm now assuming he actually did move in with her, until it's explicitly shown otherwise, so that's what I didn't get.

Were you saying there was a non-creepy interpretation of any of those memories not being true? I can't wrap my mind around that, especially if I put myself into her place. There's not a thought he's had I want a guy having about me without me.