“Saving people, hunting things” is the Winchester motto. Supernatural definitely does a lot of both. This show began its run 2005 and is heading into the 9th season this year. The story focuses on the Winchester brothers, Sam (Jared Padelecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) and their adventures in…well, “saving people, hunting things”.
After the pilot episode aired, I was hooked. My best friend and I used to call each other and sit on the phone in silence until the commercial breaks…until we figured out commercial breaks didn’t sync up between our two cities. I may or may not have been physically unable to keep my mouth shut until her commercial break. (Hint: I wasn’t able to keep quiet.) To help our friendship survive, we switched to recap calls after the episode ended.
Recently, I decided to watch the whole series again from the beginning. Yeah, I still love it, that hasn’t changed …. at all. I finished watching Season 1 over the weekend. Holy cow….Season 1 scares the crap out of me, and I still watched the finale of that season with the light on and a blanket pulled up to my chin. It really didn’t matter that I knew what was coming.
The brothers face everything from vengeful spirits, demons, clowns, creepy dolls, weird supernatural illnesses…clowns, wendigos, vampires…Bloody Mary, dead serial killers, and clowns. (Only one episode with a clown, but it sends chills down my spine just thinking about it. Clowns are creepy!) There are some episodes that I just can’t get past, like Everybody Loves a Clown (Why do people send those things to kids birthday parties? Don’t they creep anyone else out?) I still have an overwhelming urge to sleep with the light on after watching Bloody Mary. There are a lot of episodes that leave me with with a profound feeling of gratitude for Thomas Edison and his light bulb, and so help me, if the lights flicker in my house like …ever…you’ll be able to find me in the middle of a circle of salt in the kitchen frantically trying to keep my dog from licking it up off the floor.
Apart from scaring myself half to death, oh my gosh, I love the relationship between these guys. In the midst of all the preternatural craziness surrounding the show, their relationship is genuine and very real. They pick on each other, incessantly…anyone out there have siblings? Yeah, it doesn’t matter how old you get, that part never stops. You can ask my sister. (Whatever she says, I am not the reason she doesn’t like mirrors in her bedroom…or the dark. I’m innocent. Really!) They know exactly which buttons to push to drive each other nuts. Sam and Dean have practically developed their own language…scratch that. They have. Do you know anyone else (except the fandom) who would consider calling each other “Jerk” or “Bitch” an assurance that everything is fine, or at least it will be?
Both Winchester brothers grew up knowing that the monsters under the bed were real, and that you should be afraid of the dark. Instead of reassurances that everything was going to be okay, Sam was given a gun when he was nine, so if the thing in the closet came after him he could kill it. They were long on preparedness and short on the gentleness that most kids get…there are reasons, for the way John Winchester (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) raised them.
Those first five seasons scared the ever-living-crap out of me. Even after watching with the lights on(and sometimes a comedy after) I would just lie awake at night…thinking…about stuff….like monsters….Bloody Mary, Skin, and Everybody Loves a Clown are just a few of the episodes that make my heart beat a little faster just thinking about them. It was pure awesomeness, the kind of terror you find during horror movies and haunted houses. Here was the problem though, I read (did you notice?) a lot, about…interesting topics. A good portion of the stuff in the show, comes from real legends. So at night, with the lights off, you lie there…thinking about monsters…remembering that little tidbit…and…don’t most legends start with a grain of truth? Dracula started with a real guy who did some really terrible things…what if? (I hate what ifs in the middle of the night!) The dark does not like logic, I’ve discovered.
You know me and characters, right? Well, this show has some that I love. Bobby Singer (Jim Beaver) is a great character. Bobby’s place is more “home” for the Winchester brothers than anywhere else. With his trucker’s hat and no hesitation to call either one of the hunters an “idjit” when the occasion calls for it. He’s not afraid of these big bad guys who drive around in a 1967 Impala with an arsenal in the trunk. Who do you think helped fix up the car and showed them how to stock the arsenal?
Season 4 introduces another character that I absolutely adore, Castiel, Angel of the Lord (Misha Collins). He arrives in Lazarus Rising and…well, spoilers. Cas does interesting things for character development too. He gives new insight into characters we think we know so well, and proves they still have room to surprise us.
There are so many other great characters that have made an appearance over the years. Jo & Ellen, Gabriel, Loki…Balthazar & Crowley (oh yeah, Mark Sheppard is here too. He is an awesome Crowley!) If I tried to list my favorites, we’d all be here all day. Some of them didn’t get to stay nearly long enough, some of them surprise us with visits often enough for us to never get over missing them. When they leave, I always retain a little hope, the name of the show is Supernatural…
Tell me about your favorite TV shows? Favorite characters? Are you a Supernatural fan? Tell me your favorite episode…or the one that scares you the most? (They can be the same one.)
‘Til next time,
Jessica
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I Love Geekology 101 
Bloody Mary was quite creeptastic!!
Yep, doesn’t matter how many times I watch it either.