What with eight seasons behind it, and a questionable season nine coming up, fans of “Supernatural” are still in heavy contention if the CW genre series is perhaps one of the greatest horror shows of all time. Maybe it’s one of the greatest of the network. You can debate on the merits of the argument and the series itself, and surely season six is the worst yet, but it’s managed to churn out some of the most memorable and terrifying moments in genre television. And what with the end of the Winchester clan potentially coming up to its ninth season, here are ten of the best “Supernatural” episodes of all time.
10. Weekend At Bobby’s
Season Six
Season six was packed with literally nothing but filler episodes and about ten really important episodes of the arc. While “Weekend at Bobby’s” is technically filler, it’s also one of the most important episodes of the series. Bobby Singer has always been the go to guy for Dean and Sam whenever they needed information on a demon and spell. But Bobby Singer is also the go to guy for about thirty other hunters on the road. He spends his days cleaning up other people’s messes, battling demons, and looking for time to eat, all the while keeping his senses about him.
“Weekend at Bobby’s” is a wonderful look at the other side of the fight against evil. The side where there’s little action, but much strategizing against the forces of evil to keep them from overtaking the world. One of the best moments involves Bobby being at a cross roads since the demon Crowley has his soul. Dean and Sam are revealed as being shockingly careless to his own problems, and he takes a few minutes out to verbally shut them down over the phone calling them “whiny, self-absorbed, sons-of-bitches.” Though we love Sam and Dean, we can understand why Bobby feels so unappreciated, since they come off as petulant and self-centered for most of the episode. It’s a moment of clarity and realization that without Bobby Singer, the Winchesters are lost. Idjits.
9.It’s a Terrible Life
Season Five
Dean and Sam are two lowly office workers. Dean is an executive going about his day by day routine, while Sam is a customer service rep committed to slacking off and mocking his bosses. The two are brought together one day thanks to a series of unexplained events where guilt ridden workers are committing suicide as a form of hari kari. After a string of coincidences, Dean and Sam decide team up to hunt the ghost that is causing these suicides and seek the help from their old friends The “Ghost Facers”!
Two inept ghost hunters who explain in stilted instructions what to do to kill or repel a ghost and they make a point of mentioning those “useless douche bags the Winchesters” in passing, but hey at least Dean and Sam find out how to destroy the menace within their office building, even if they’re oblivious to the lip service provided by their scorned wannabe hunter rivals. Through these events, they realize that they’re both a part of a major play that the angels have staged for the duo. No matter what, they simply can’t stop being hunters, thus they’re forced to accept their roles in season five. It’s a fun and often hilarious episode, and one of the more interesting moments of realization for the brothers.
8. A Very Supernatural Christmas
Season Three
Dean is about to end up in hell, and the Winchesters may be spending their last Christmas together. Though Sam refuses to acknowledge it, he remembers back to their past Christmases where their dad was off hunting and they had to ring in the holidays all alone as children. Meanwhile, parents of kids are being slaughtered in lieu of Christmas, and the brothers investigate. They end up coming across a lovely old couple that end up being pagan gods who feast on human flesh.
The episode is a perfectly funny and wonderful self-contained installment of the series and a hilarious one as Sam and Dean come across Gods once again, but posing as a suburban couple. Sam and Dean find themselves hopelessly outmatched and barely survive, especially when the couple being torturing them mercilessly. The episode also further reveals insight in to the relationship between Dean and Sam and how their view of John led them to different paths. Through the hardships, Dean always thought of John as a hero, while Sam always doubted and undermined his dad. It’s a great entry in a fine season.
7.Heart
Season Three
Easily one of the best episodes of “Supernatural,” not because of epic battles or scary demons, but because of its heart felt story about a girl doomed to live a life as a force of evil she can’t control. Sam, is the man she falls for who is also headed down the path she is with his prophecy of leading the armies of hell. Prone to choosing the wrong men time and again, Madison is punished for it by being marked as a lycanthrope and can do nothing to help her urges when the moon is full.
Blessed with a good heart, she and Sam fall in love and in a final act of mercy, Sam is forced to shoot her with a silver bullet as Dean watches his little brother fall to pieces emotionally; forced to end the life of the girl who could mean happiness for him. As is the case with the Winchesters, happiness is a foreign concept and ultimately fleeting. Left off screen, we see the end through Dean’s face as tears fall from his eyes, flinching in horror as Sam kills off one of the few shreds of joy in his life. It’s an episode that pulls at the heart strings every single time because Sam rarely finds a woman he can connect with, and when he finally finds one, she’s incapable of being saved.
6. Tall Tales
Season Two
The Trickster is one of the few villains of the series that could give Sam and Dean a run for their money and always be one step ahead of them. After a series of incidents involving fantastic events occur near a college campus, Dean and Sam arrive to investigate. Stumped as to the mysterious appearance of aliens and alligators in sewers, Bobby arrives to help on the case and is shocked to learn Sam and Dean are at each other’s throats. The episode is one of the best hours of the show, not just because the Trickster is such an excellent villain but because we’re given an idea in to the warped thought process Sam and Dean have toward one another.
We’re given a series of flashbacks with utterly exaggerated moments that still arouse laughter as Dean recalls Sam consoling a woman with an immensely over the top emotional moment, while Dean converses with a witness stuffing food in to his mouth to where he’s nearly incomprehensible. Bobby is, of course, the voice of reason, and we garner a look at the first of many surprising and hilarious run ins with the Trickster who always knows how to work around the Winchesters, even at their best. This episode still bring me to tears.
5.What Is and What Should Never Be
Season Two
The horrible burden of being a Winchester, or a hunter in general, is that if you attempt to live a normal life, someone will always pay. Dean pursues a djinn who is murdering people, and is accidentally ambushed by the monster. When he awakens, he discovers he has the perfect life. He has a gorgeous wife, his mom is alive, his brother is married and successful, and the family is together. It’s great unless you don’t count the nasty visions of a dead girl that keep plaguing Dean.
Sort of the “Supernatural” version of “For the Man who Has Everything,” this is a gripping and heartbreaking episode, not just because Dean ultimately has to drop the sheet on the facade that is this wonderful life, but he has to face that he will likely die alone and as a monster hunter. Without Sam and Dean around, people die and go missing, and it’s a sacrifice he’ll have to make until he finally passes on.
4. Pilot
Season One
This is where it all starts and thankfully it was able to expand upon what seemed like a one note premise, at the time. Two brothers have split up for years, Dean comes to town to find his brother Sam, and relays the news that their monster hunter father has gone missing. Unfortunately, the same demon that kill the brothers’ mother murders Sam’s girlfriend, and now Sam is back in the game of hunting. Sam and Dean have a huge hump to work over in season one, all the while looking for their father John.
John is constantly on the move, giving his son’s a look back in to the darkness of evil, leading in to a wider and more complex narrative involving the Winchesters, and the relationships between Sam, Dean, and their father John. Originally I mocked the show before it premiered, and after giving it a fair shake, I’m glad I became a fan. The pilot is shaky, but definitely sets the tone for the rest of the series as a classic rock-centric, hard edged horror series in the vein of “Frailty.” That is if Bill Paxton’s sons grew up to become demon hunters of their very own.
3. Mystery Spot
Season Three
Sam and Dean go to a town to investigate a mystery spot accused of killing people inexplicably. When Dean is killed, Sam learns that he keeps awakening to the same day over and over, and in his efforts to keep Dean from dying, learns of new ways Dean can be killed or die by accident. Hilarity ensues. One of the many episodes that would alter reality with hilarious results, this is an important episode if only for the finale. In the end Sam learns that the Trickster is pulling the “Groundhog’s Day” bit on Sam by killing Dean over and over.
Though the Trickster is their enemy for most of the series, he seems to have good intentions in the episode. Dean is about to go to hell, and Sam can’t deal with it. So the Trickster is only showing him that he has to come to grips with a life not including Dean. The episode is important but also absolutely hysterical, as Sam battles fate, looking for ways to keep Dean from dying. And failing big time. Dean dies in some of the most vicious and hilarious ways, including being mauled by a dog, being electrocuted by an outlet, slipping in the shower, a bad breakfast burrito, a piece of breakfast sausage and who knows how many more? Like “Groundhog’s Day” is hinted Sam spent a year or so in the time loop, and it never stops being funny.
2. Jus In Bello
Season Three
One of the best episodes of the series by far, this is a pure throwback to John Carpenter in its purest. Dean and Sam, on the run as serial killers after “Night Shifters,” are finally captured and brought in to jail thanks to a tip off by their nemesis Bela Talbot. Put in a temporary holding cell in a small town, they’re left there to await transfer. Little do they know that demons have their own plans for the Winchesters, and have not only overtaken the prison, but have also overtaken the entire town surrounding the prison. The black ooze is taking down people left and right, and now Dean and Sam have to work with the detective that nailed them to bring down the demonic menaces from all corners.
“Jus in Bello” is a tense and taut action packed episode that doesn’t just explore the sheer mercilessness of the demons, but introduces the vicious Lilith who would serve as a difficult nemesis for Sam and Dean throughout season three. You have to appreciate some of the brothers’ improv in tight situations, including using their toilet’s water to bless it and use it as a means of taking out the demonic spirits, and using a recording of the incantation over the PA of the sheriff’s office to wipe out the demon army. “Jus In Bello” unfortunately ends up being a pyrric victory, but a damn good episodes.
1.Swan Song
Season Five
If “Supernatural” were a hit on a cable channel, they would have known to end the series on season five. The entire series was building up to Sam becoming Satan and diving in to hell to keep Lucifer trapped forever. Meanwhile Dean would go on to lead a new life as a husband and stepfather. Everything from Sam learning he was infected with demon blood to Dean being pulled out of hell led to “Swan Song.” Watching “Swan Song” with the mentality that it was the series finale was compelling and incredibly gripping. Satan overtakes Sam, the third Winchester Brother is taken over by Michael, and they have their grand showdown. Meanwhile Dean is told he’s utterly irrelevant. Never one to be told what to do, Dean interrupts with his impala and “Rock of Ages” blaring.
Bobby is killed, Cass is blown up like a water balloon, and in spite of Lucifer’s amazing power, Dean’s love for Sam and their memento the impala close by, Sam is able to come to his sense and throw himself in to hell’s abyss as a final sacrifice. It’s an incredible episode, with a wonderful sense of epic mythos the series was always capable of providing for fans. “Swan Song” is the last desperate grasp from the Winchester brothers to save the world, and whether or not they won would be left for debate by many. “Swan Song” was the end of the first major arc of the series, and one that is closure for fans of the series that consider this the series finale that we deserved and one that had to close up the show once and for all. It’s still such an important and excellent finisher and one I never tire of watching time and again.