Supernatural: Season 1 (2005 - 2006)

This is definitely one of my most favourite series of all time. I have watched and rewatched it so many times, and it never gets old. I have been longing to watch this big time over the last couple of months. Every year I have an itch that needs to be scratched with Supernatural, and I am only sated when I have walked the road with the Winchester brothers. So my journey began, geared up and ready, last week sometime. I am duly satisfied.

*CONTAINS SPOILERS*

Mary’s fiery death

Synopsis: Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles) and his brother, Sam (Jared Padalecki), have not had the easiest childhood. When they were just children, their mother was burned to death in a very questionable way in Sam’s nursery. Their father, John Winchester (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), did all that he could to save his boys, but their mother, Mary (Samantha Smith), perishes in the nursery fire. Four year old Dean runs his brother outside, and they are joined by their father shortly after. Their family has been irrevocably damaged, the dynamic forever changed. No normal childhood for these boys. The moment John realizes the truth of the matter, the boys become trained to fight all that is supernatural, from ghosts to demons and otherworldly creatures.

Sam has not seen his brother in a few years, and is shocked when Dean shows up in his home near Standford University. Sam wants Dean to leave, who will not because their father, John, has been on a hunting trip and hasn’t been back in a while. Sam evidently reads further into the secretive message, and takes off with his brother to find his father, leaving his girlfriend, Jessica Moore (Adrianne Palicki), behind, promising to return in time for his interview for a full scholarship at Stanford.

The brothers do not recover their father on their trip, but return to Sam’s home when their mission is complete. Sam goes inside, content that he has done his duty and that he can return to his normal life. Sadly for Sam, this is most definitely not the case. Jessica is pinned to the ceiling, on fire and dripping blood, just like Mary all those years ago. Sam freaks out, and is only fortunate in the sense that Dean came back for him, and again saves him from the freak fire. Sam is crushed and broken, having now lost his girlfriend, and loses his lust for life. Instead, vengeance really is his top priority now, and he is consumed by the same fervent desire to track down the killer of the women in his life and do justice by them. Dean feels sorry for his brother, and realizes Jessica’s death has rocketed him straight back into the game.

Together the brother’s start their trip to find their father, fighting all that is evil along the way. Sam and John have a very dysfunctional relationship, permanently headbutting and fighting, while Dean is the “good” son, the obedient one. However, the boys’ search for John is fruitless, except that they recover his journal, his single most important possession. It seems he is encouraging Sam and Dean to continue fighting evil, and their is a vague understanding that they will meet up with him eventually. As they go along, Dean uncovers that Sam has been hiding a core piece of information from him: he seems to have some form of ESP. Sam dreamed of Jessica’s death for days before it happened, and he is dreaming of other people’s deaths, too. Dean is majorly unimpressed, and is worried that Sam is wide open for possession what with the ESP, and knows how evil is drawn to such things. It is his job to protect Sam, but he seems to be failing.

An old school friend lets Sam know that her brother is in trouble, that he was arrested for his girlfriend’s murder but that she knows he did not do it as he was with her. Dean is not happy, but returns to St. Louis with Sam to investigate, and discovers a shapshifter is at work. Unluckily for the brothers, though they kill it, it had taken the shape of Dean, and caused a nationwide alert to be sent out on him, marking him as dangerous prior to its death. After its death, Dean is branded a sick individual, and a deranged killer. The debacle creates dangerous and difficult ripples for the two. Sam drags them out back to their old house about something he saw in his dream, and they progress to save the new family that is staying there, as well as seeing their mother’s spirit fend off the evil from them. This does nothing more than confuse him. Later, the brothers have a massive fight and Sam leaves Dean to fend for himself, and while on his travels he meets a young woman named Meg Masters (Nicki Aycox), who is also running from a controlling family. When all is said and done, though, Sam returns to Dean. The two have a bond that they cannot seem to break.

Meg Masters in all her possessed glory

John eventually contacts the boys telephonically, after six months of absolute silence. Sam demands to know where he is, and they are told nothing. John is sorry about what happened to Jessica, but he feels that he is getting close to what happened to their mother and the Yellow-Eyed Demon (the Demon) that killed her. Naturally they want in, but John simply refuses. Instead, Sam wakes with more frightening dreams about people dying, and hauls Dean along with him to save them. It turns out it is no demon doing the elimination, but a boy, Max (Brendan Fletcher), who has telekinesis  that is picking his family off. Sam and Dean cannot understand why Sam is connected to this boy. It turns out that Max’s mother was killed in an identical fashion to Mary. Alarm bells are going off in their heads. How is this possible? Why would that be done? All that they know is that they need to find out, and soon.

Sam and Dean return to investigate another death they think could be a part of their plan. When there, Sam runs into Meg again, and he becomes instantly suspicious. He does not believe in coincidences when it comes to his family. Soon they find that Meg is evidently an evil person, and that drawing them there was a way to draw their father there. Meg falls from a window high up in the building, and they realize that the Yellow-Eyed Demon is after their father. They meet up with John briefly, and instead of joining ranks as they wish to, Dean sends John away. The logic being that they are stronger apart as what they are when they are together. When they are together, they are vulnerable, they walk around with their weak spots. So they all part ways, and Sam is upset that after all the time spent looking, John is still not with them, and they know nothing more than they did.

A while later, a hunter named Daniel Elkins (Terence Kelly) is murdered by what we discover are vampires. While on the job, the brothers are surprised when they run into their father, who is intent on solving the case. Working together, they eventually get it out of John why this is important, beside the fact that Elkins was his mentor. John tells the boys about a gun that was manufactured by Samuel Colt. They say that he manufactured it for a hunter, just like them, in 1835, and it said that this gun can kill damn near anything. There are five remaining bullets left. The pieces all fall into place, and Sam and Dean realize that they need to find this gun to kill the Demon, but they need to be wise about it. After much warring, the gun falls into their hands, and they are ready to hunt the demon, to track it down and kill it, but alas, it seems that it is not in their destiny just yet. One bullet is used to save Sam’s life

Meg returns and starts killing off John’s friends, and anyone that ever helped him. To stop it all, all the family needs to do is return the Colt to the Yellow-Eyed Demon and Meg. John hops off to give them a replica Colt while buying time for the boys. They have used John’s research to track the Demon to Salvation, and this may be their only shot at killing him. While they split, Sam finds the correct house that the Yello-Eyed Demon will be entering for a baby on it’s six month birthday, and they break in to stop it. However, Dean takes a shot and misses, as the Demon disappears. Dean has a major fight with Sam about his willingness to die to just kill a demon, and that it is not worth it. Soon they discover that Meg has John, and they are on the warpath to recover their father. After much fighting, lying and scheming, they meet up with Bobby Singer (Jim Beaver), who helps them lure and trap Meg. While exorcising her, Bobby tells the boys that Meg really is a girl, and that the demon is possessing her body. They know that if they remove Meg from the girl’s body, the girl will die. They finally get John’s whereabouts out of her, and start a huge rescue mission to recover him. While on their great escape, an unknown demon attacks Sam and starts beating him to death. With the last three remaining bullets, Dean shoots and kills the demon.

John Winchester, possessed

The family hides out in a cabin in the woods, and the boys find out that John is possessed by the Demon. He reveals that Sam and Dean exorcised his daughter and murdered his son on their mission to save their father. John fights the Demon off long enough to not kill Dean (which is surely the direction that the Demon was headed). While Sam becomes free, he threatens the demon with the Colt, who mocks Sam, saying to kill him he would kill his father. Sam shoots John in the leg, and he goes down. John is on the surface, and begs and pleads with Sam to kill him immediately, so that the Yellow-Eyed Demon will be dead and this will all be over. Sam cannot, however, and the Demon frees himself from John’s body. Sam loads the family into the Impala and they are on the way to the hospital when a truck driver gets possessed, smashing clean into the Winchester’s.

Best Episode: Devil’s Trap

Worst Episode: Bugs

Rating: 8/10. I have watched and rewatched this show more than any other out there, as I have said, and again I enjoyed it immensely. As is typical for a first season, there is no real set story line, just a main idea, and then a lot of small, inconsequential things surrounding it. The main idea: these brothers were trained by their father to hunt all that is evil, and they do so. Sam left to start a life, Dean did not, and remained. The Demon killed off their mother and Sam’s girlfriend, Jessica, because they stood in the way of his plans for Sam. The boys are hunting all sort of evil and kicking ass until they meet up with their father and the Colt becomes central to the show, as well as killing the Yellow-Eyed Demon. Supernatural has, hands down, the greatest soundtrack of all time. I absolutely love the music, and I love how episodes are also named after big songs by bands. Extremely impressive stuff, I tell you. This show is one of the most amazingly well put together series I have ever seen, and they manage to perfectly balance the humour, sarcasm and lightness in it, as well as correctly incorporate the darkness, seriousness and drama. Excellent, and totally worth the watch. I don’t know if there are a lot of people out there that have not seen it (Natasha o.O), but if not, watch it! If you have, you will know what I am talking about when I say you finish a season and lapse into withdrawals from it when you don’t have more. Heck, I lapse into withdrawals on it at any random time… maybe that is why I have seen it so many times.