CONTAINS SPOILERS
My previous experiences with series’ based primarily on the supernatural have been more in line with Vampire Diaries. When my friend recommended that I watch Supernatural, I initially thought I would watch a few episodes and then it would phase out for me. I have to admit that I have rarely been this impressed with a series.
Supernatural revolves around the lives of two demon hunters, brothers Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles). In season two their focus is tracking down the Yellow Eyed Demon Azazel, who is responsible for the deaths of their parents. Azazel visited Sam as a child, like many other children, giving him the ability to see into the future, and killed Sam’s mother when she caught him in the act.
The first episode opens with Sam, Dean and their father John in the hospital after a car crash caused by Azazel’s henchmen. John (played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and Sam only sustain minor injuries, but Dean lies dying in a coma. Meanwhile, Dean has an out-of-body-experience where he walks through the hospital as a “ghost”. He witnesses a Reaper taking people away as they die, and he himself is visited by the Reaper. Dean is saved from death when his father trades in his own life in exchange for Dean’s. John dies after whispering something in his eldest son’s ear.
After the cremation of their father, Sam and Dean struggle to deal with their loss. They continue to work as demon hunters, and end up at Harvelle’s Roadhouse, a place frequented with hunters. They meet Ellen and Jo Harvelle and the highly intelligent Ash, who uses his skills to track demons. Dean and Sam investigate the murders of visitors of a carnival, and discover that a demon of Hindu mythology takes the form of a clown and then murders the parents of the children who invite them into their homes. While not appearing as a clown, the demon takes the form of a blind knife thrower. They kill the demon with a brass pipe. Afterwards Dean starts to deal with the loss of his father by beating up his beloved Impala.
In the next episode the brothers investigate cattle mutilations and find that is was vampires who chose to live off the blood of cattle rather than humans. They meet another hunter, Gordon Walker, and Ellen warns them that Gordon is dangerous. Sam is taken captive by the vampires, and learns that they are reformed, and do not kill humans. Sam tries to convince Dean that the vampires should be left in peace, but Gordon starts to torture the vampire to prove that they remain evil creatures. Gordon tempts the vampire with Sam’s blood, but after she refuses, Sam and Dean save her and leave Gordon behind after tying him up.
The boys visit their mother’s grave to bury their father’s dog tags, and they become suspicious when they notice that the ground surrounding another grave is completely dead. They discover that a woman named Angela Mason had been brought back from the dead as a Zombie, and are busy killing everyone who wronged her as a mortal. They kill her with a silver stake. Dean apologizes to Sam for his behavior and reveals his troubles with dealing with his father’s death.
Sam has a vision where he sees a man committing a murder-suicide, and Ash helps them track Andy Gallagher. Andy’s mother died in the same way as Sam and Dean’s, and they head over to Guthrie where they manage to prevent the man committing crime, but is unable to stop committing suicide. They learn that Andy has mind-controlling abilities, and that his twin brother, Ansen is responsible, not Andy. Ansen almost kills Andy’s ex-girlfriend, but is killed by Andy. Sam starts to worry that he will end up evil, as everyone like him does eventually, but Dean assures him that he won’t allow that to happen.
After Ellen refuses to allow Jo to investigate the disappearances of blond women in an apartment building, Sam and Dean head to Philadelphia to investigate. Jo secretly follows them and offers her help. They realize the ghost of America’s first serial killer H.H. Holmes is behind the disappearances, and Jo is taken captive by him. They find Jo and other victims in a sewer system under the building and free those alive. They trap the spirit with salt and seal the chamber’s entrance with concrete. Jo reunites with the furious Ellen, and she reveals that Jo’s father died while hunting with John Winchester.
Next, the brothers travel to Baltimore to investigate murders. They are arrested on a previous (false) murder charge of Dean, where a shape shifter impersonated him. Sam manages to escape. One of the detectives, Diana Ballard (played by Linda Blair) sees the apparition of a murdered woman, and sets out to help Sam track the missing heroin dealer when Dean’s insists. The spirit leads them to her body, so that she can be burned and laid to rest, and upon the retrieval of the corpse they find a necklace incrementing Diana’s partner, Pete Sheridan. Pete drives Dean from the police station planning to kill him to clear his own name, but is tracked down by Sam and Diana, and admits to killing the woman and the lawyer and his wife. The spirit distracts him, and Diana kills Pete. She lets Dean and Sam go and tells them to continue saving people.
When Sam and Dean find out that hellhounds are behind an alleged suicide, they realize that the man sold his soul to a crossroads demon in change for success. They track down another man, who made a deal with the demon to cure his wife from cancer and now he is being hunted. Sam stays behind to protect him, and Dean sets out to summon the demon. He traps her, and only releases her when she sets the man free from his terrible fate. She does so, but taunts Dean by revealing that John is suffering in hell.
Sam has a premonition of Dean killing a man, and they travel to Riversgrove to find out what is going on. They soon find that al communication has been cut off, and that the town’s people won’t allow anyone to leave. They head to the doctor’s office, where she tells them that the town’s people are infected with a sulfur containing virus. They deduce that it is a demonic plague, and when one of the nurses become violent because of the plague, Dean kills her, but she has already infected Sam. Sam proves miraculously immune to the virus, and they are able to leave town.
Dean finally reveals that on the night their father died, John told him that he either had to save Sam, or kill him. They head to the roadhouse to try and find more psychic children like Sam, and end up finding Scott Carey, who had been murdered the previous month. They meet Ava Wilson, who, like Sam, is able to see into the future, and predicted Scott’s death. She “sees” Sam being killed in an explosion, and it turns out that the crazy demon hunter Gordon is behind it. Sam nearly dies, but is saved once again by Dean, but then Dean is taken captive by Gordon. Sam saves Dean, and Gordon is arrested when the police find him. The brothers goes to check that Ava is fine, but find that her fiancé has been murdered and she is gone, probably taken by the demon.
During the next episode Sam and Dean investigate murders at the Piermont Inn. It is run by Susan, a single mother, who lives there along with her ill mother (Susan) and young daughter Tyler. Tyler has an imaginary friend, Maggie, who turns out to be the ghost behind all the murders. They discover that Maggie is the ghost of Susan’s deceased sister who died as a child. Susan had been practicing hoodoo to keep her away, but Maggie had returned after Susan became too ill to practice it anymore. Maggie attacks Rose, and Rose is saved by Sam and Dean. When Maggie tries to kill Tyler, Susan offers up her life to save Tyler.
Sam and Dean head to Wisconsin to investigate some robbery-suicides. A former guard thinks it is a Mandroid (half man, half machine), but the brothers realize that it is once again a shape shifter causing havoc. They manage to locate the next target, and head to the bank to try and catch the shape shifter. Hell breaks loose when the security guard arrives to capture his “man-droid”, and takes the people hostage inside the bank. Sam and Dean employ Ron’s help, but before they can catch the shape shifter it morphs into someone else. Ron is killed by the police when he moves out into the open. FBI Agent Victor Henriksen arrives at the scene, telling Dean that the SWAT team will swarm the place inside an hour. Sam and Dean kill the shape shifter, and manage another miraculous escape when they get away by posing as SWAT members.
In Providence, when murderers claim that they were sent by angels to do so; Sam and Dean find that the victims weren’t exemplary citizens, and they set out to find if there is any connection. They find the common link is a shared church, and find out that one of the priests were killed outside the church. Dean is a skeptic to whether it really is an angel, and he summons the spirit of the priest. The spirit believes him an angel, but another priest convinces him otherwise and puts his soul to rest. Dean finally considers the presence of God when he witnesses a man being impaled in a truck after Dean chased him when he attacked a woman.
Dean finds Sam covered in blood after being missing for a week, and discovers he murdered another hunter. Sam runs away from Dean after knocking him out, and tracks down Jo where she is working in a bar. He plays mind games with her, but Dean arrives before he seriously injures her. Afterwards, Sam goes to visit a friend of their father’s, Bobby Singer (Jim Beaver). Bobby traps Sam when he gives Sam beer to drink that has been laced with holy water, and together with Dean they force the demon to leave Sam’s body.
Bobby helps Sam and Dean identify a Pagan trickster that is loose on a college campus in Springfield. They find that the trickster is the janitor, and he fakes his own death and escapes.
Next, they meet a woman, Molly, whose husband is missing after they crashed in the road to miss hitting a man. The man chases after her, and she meets the Winchesters on the road, begging them to help her. After a while, they reveal to her that they are chasing the spirit of Jonah Greely, and burn his corpse when they find it. They tell Molly that her husband is alive and well, and that he has married again, because she is also a ghost. After accepting that she is indeed dead, she moves on.
The brothers head to San Francisco to investigate werewolf attacks, and meets Madison, a secretary to the latest victim. They suspect her obsessive ex-boyfriend Kurt of being the werewolf when she discloses his violent streak. Dean searches for the werewolf, and Sam stays with Madison to protect her, ignoring their attraction. That night, Madison becomes a werewolf and injures Dean while she tries to kill her ex-boyfriend. They realize that Madison knows nothing of her nightly activities, and attempts to save her when they find out that it is possible for a werewolf to be saved if his sire dies. They kill the man who turned her, and when Madison doesn’t turn into a werewolf the following night, she and Sam sleep together. She later turns again, and when she realizes that she hasn’t changed, and begs Sam to kill her.
The Winchesters head to the set of a horror film to investigate the killings there. They find out that a slighted screen writer put Latin summoning rituals in the film’s script, and are summoning the dead through it. They confront him, but he is killed when the spirits turn on him in anger for what he has forced them to do.
During their next supernatural hunting stint, Sam and Dean purposely get locked up in prison to find a ghost. Agent Henriksen shows up again and tries to extradite them. Their public defender believes in their innocence, but says that they can only stall the extradition for a week. Dean is attacked by the vengeful spirit, and they find out from another inmate that she is Nurse Glockner, who used to kill infirmary patients. Dean convinces the public defender to find out where she is buried, and after escaping, they head to the cemetery to burn her corpse. Their informant gives false information to Henriksen, and the FBI heads to the wrong cemetery and Sam and Dean escapes.
During the third last episode of the season, Dean is attacked by a djinn, and finds himself in a world where everything is perfect. His mother is alive, Sam’s girlfriend is still alive, he himself is married, and his father died a natural death. Even though Dean enjoys his new found happiness, he is haunted by a young woman. He discovers the djinn’s lair, and forces himself to return to the real world where Sam saves him.
In All hell breaks loose, Part 1, Sam is taken captive by the yellow eyed demon and left in an abandoned town. There he meets Andy and Ava again, along with Lily and Jake Talley. Dean and Bobby head over to the roadhouse to find clues, but find it burnt to the ground, along with Ash’s ashes, and Ellen nowhere to be found. Andy, who has mind controlling abilities, is able to tell Dean of Sam’s location through telepathy. Sam is visited in a dream by the demon, who tells him that they have all been bought together with one purpose: the last survivor gets to lead Azazel’s army. He shows Sam many things; like how his mother and girlfriend died. Afterwards, Ava reveals how evil she had become by setting a demon loose on Lily and Andy. Jake kills her, and then attacks Sam in distrust, but Sam manages to knock him unconscious. Bobby and Dean arrive, and see how Sam is killed by Jake.
In the last episode, the devastated Dean sells his soul to a crossroads demon in exchange for Sam’s resurrection, and is given one year to live before the collection of his soul. Ellen arrives at Bobby’s house, and after she proves that she isn’t a demon, she gives them a map that Samuel Colt, the creator of the only gun that can kill Azazel, created a giant devil’s trap using railway lines. Jake goes to the center of the trap, where an old cowboy cemetery is, and opens a doorway to hell. Sam kills Jake, but it is too late – the demons climb out. Azazel enters, and tries to kill Sam and Dean, who is now in possession of the Colt gun again. Azazel gets the gun again, but when he tries to kill them, the ghost of John Winchester appears and the distraction causes Dean to get possession of the gun and finally kill Azazel. John’s spirit moves on, and the boys can see he is going to a better place. Sam promises to save Dean’s life, as Dean has done it so many times for him. Bobby and Ellen tell the boys to prepare to hunt again, as so many demons are now set free.
Rating: 8/10
I simply cannot describe how phenomenal this show is. I am constantly amazed how well it has been written, acted out, produced and executed. It is rare to find fresh material in the overpopulated supernatural genre, and even though this season is actually quite old, I am so impressed with it. All the emotion in the show is one of the factors that make this show so fantastic. Sam and Dean’s relationship is certainly so profound because of the chemistry between Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki. They manage to appear as true siblings, teasing and irritating the hell out of each other frequently. It is so sad how neither of them ever manages to find true happiness. I nearly cried like a baby when Sam had to kill Madison, after finding out she is still a werewolf. How unfair when he finally managed to connect to someone after Jessica! Dean’s relationship/little sister affection with Jo saddened me. Why couldn’t he just date her and be happy?
Their only venture into popular mysticism, it would seem, was the one episode where the vampires were trying to live morally. I enjoyed even that, and it portrayed another thing; that all hunters weren’t necessarily good. Gordon is such a tool, and I really enjoyed seeing him cornered. I have to say, I cannot wait until he meets his end.
It is a good thing that Sam and Dean are finally being hunted by the FBI. It would be completely unrealistic to commit so many crimes and not get cornered.
I would definitely recommend this show to everyone!
Season one was the absolute best, a season where no supernatural element got repeated twice and the producers had a truckload of things to explore. This season is solid enough and Azazel evil enough to make you tune in for more each time.
Jo, the daughter of Ellen, a lady whose husband hunted with Sam and Dean’s father, gets it into her head to investigate the disappearance of blond girls in an apartment building in Philadelphia.
Life of this city girl 