Nevertheless, apart from season three, season five is one of the most tense, shocking, and otherwise intense seasons in the series run and is the final season for show runner Eric Kripke who steps down. Granting his fans one last hurrah, season five doesn't pull its punches devising some of the most demented episodes in the series run and garners some rather excellent guest spots from characters we thought were long gone, deaths of characters we love, a recurring role from Matt Frewer as one of the horsemen of the apocalypse, and a massive revelation about Sam's past involving a friend of his working for Lucifer. Season five is without a doubt the best of the first five with top notch performances all around and some truly disturbing moments of the entire series involving Sam and Dean's confrontation with the walking dead, an episode involving cannibalism that begins with a couple in the heat of passion hungry for love, and we finally get to see Castiel--often the humble meek observer--let loose on Dean in a temper tantrum. Season five is on par with some of the best genre television in the last ten years and really does throw out all of the surprises with dives in to theism, explorations in to the after life, one on ones with god's messengers, and the return of the one and only trickster who manages to teach Sam and Dean yet another lesson in playing their respective roles in one of the funniest episodes of the entire series, bar none.

Beyond that we're kept wondering where God went all the while Sam and Dean venture in to heaven and learn for themselves what it entails, and end of the world looms so hastily that Sam and Dean are even kept hostage by gods of other religions including Buddha and Odin as ransom in the end of the world as Lucifer intervenes to whip their tails. Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles have never been better in their roles, and here they add such a sense of urgency and dread that even when they're launching one liners at each other, there's an under current of sadness and horror in their voices. Padalecki and Ackles have always been wonderful as the Winchesters, but in season five they have a sheer sense of experience behind their performances and they inspire much awe, especially with Padalecki is forced to battle Lucifer in the season finale. In spite of being a hardcore fan of "Supernatural" since it premiered on television, I think season five is unofficially the series ender with a wicked resolution involving Sam's final sacrifice for Earth, and Dean's unwillingness to stand by the sidelines. By the end of the season we're left with the signs of more to come and probably the last good season of the series if the CW can knock it out of the park again without Kripke and top the Prince of Darkness and the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

While I sense the CW will inevitably compile all of the season's in to one giant Hunter boxed set with bells and whistles among the season sets, this is a good addition to the series collection. Among the extras there is a really entertaining interactive game called "Supernatural: Apocalypse Survival Guides" in which Bobby guides you through his house to fish through various videos, tapes, and documents on surviving the potential apocalypse and teaching all of us hunters how to scour for facts and tips. It's a great little entrance in to Bobby's world that drops you in to a bevvy of featurettes that explore the lore behind the mythology in season five explaining the prophecy behind the four horsemen of the apocalypse and the end of the world. And of course what would a "Supernatural" DVD be without the ten minute gag reel that displays the goofy side of the gentlemen of "Supernatural" and makes for some damn good laughs. There is of course the usual appearance by the "Ghost Facers" as well as some interesting writer commentary for "The End" that is quite engrossing.