Supernatural Season 3

Today is Supernatural Day—the day the Pilot episode first aired on TV in 2005. So, naturally, I’m celebrating by watching a couple of episodes. (While lifting weights and folding laundry—two things that are honestly only bearable while watching TV.)

The first episode of season 3 is not my fave (or maybe I’ve just watched it a few too many times) but the second episode (The Kids Are Alright) is stellar. Dean finds an excuse of a possible case in Cicero, Indiana, where he had an epic, “semi-illegal” weekend with a “bendy” yoga teacher, about 8-9 years ago. Turns out Lisa has an eight-year-old son who bears an uncanny resemblance to a young Dean Winchester.

And there really is a case in this town. Changelings. Monsters that have replaced children in the town, killed their fathers, then feed off their mothers until they die.

I don’t have kids myself but the clinging, demanding, isolating behavior of the changelings seems to me to be a total metaphor for the worst aspects of being a primary caregiving parent.