Supernatural Season 8 made this blunder with Dean’s backstory (& even the writer agreed to the mistake)

Supernatural made a lasting impression with its long run of eerie hunts and emotional storylines. But even a show with such strong character roots isn't immune to the occasional mishap.

One particularly noticeable blunder came in Season 7, when the show contradicted an earlier moment involving Dean and Sam Winchester's childhood—a mistake that fans caught immediately and one that did not go unnoticed by the writer either.

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Dean’s Grand Canyon contradiction changed what we knew about his childhood in Supernatural

In Supernatural and its earlier seasons, the show built its emotional backbone on how Sam and Dean's unconventional upbringing shaped who they were. They always fought monsters rather than be jolly with their families. Mom dead, father gone.

This familial relationship helps characterize Dean's childhood and his character. In Season 2, he tells Sammy,

“You know, I’ve never been to the Grand Canyon?”

This plain and simple line builds on the underscored sacrifices the siblings had to make while growing up in extreme and harsh environments.

That single line would carry emotional weight across seasons on end—that is, until Season 8 happens. In "The Great Escapist," Sam casually mentions a family trip involving donkeys at the Grand Canyon. Drifting from the canon way now, are we?

Sam says,

“Hey, you remember when dad took us to the bottom of the Grand Canyon on that pack mule run?”

To which Dean here replies,

“Dude, you were like four years old. I barely remember that.”

Suddenly, that memory erased what Dean had once expressed so openly: wanting to go to the Grand Canyon. This left fans to wonder whether Dean truly forgot that trip or if the show had simply dropped the ball with this one.

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Acknowledged mistake, but the damage was done

Continuity errors aren't unusual for long-running series, and Supernatural had its fair share. But this Grand Canyon inconsistency struck a particular nerve. It implied that the emotionally loaded moment in season 8 had no basis—that Dean had been there after all.

The episode's writer, Ben Edlund, acknowledged the goof publicly, tweeting,

“Sorry about [that] Grand Canyon gaff in [the] last episode I wrote... That dropped ball of canon was mine to carry.”

Fans appreciated the honesty, but the damage to internal canon had already been done. Ironically, Edmund had written many important episodes across Supernatural and was no stranger to its already established canon.

To complicate matters further, the novel Supernatural: Witch's Canyon also included a Grand Canyon storyline, and this added another layer of confusion for those following the Winchester brothers and their path.

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Supernatural built its foundation on strong character arcs and emotional truth, but this particular misstep left fans scratching their heads. While a simple oversight, the Grand Canyon mix-up ended up rewriting Dean's identity again, something that even the show's own writer admitted wasn't supposed to happen.

Continuity, it turns out, can be just as tricky as monster hunting.

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