Supernatural Season Five: Its The End Of The World As We Know It

Ok so...season four ended on a doozy. Sam ganked Lilith in order to keep her from breaking the last seal. That ended up being the absolute worst thing Sam could've done because Lilith herself was the final seal. To make matters worse, the angels knew it was going to happen and actually wanted to bring on the apocalypse as well. All the dominos have fallen into place and now the end of days has begun. NOTE: I will definitely have to spoil major parts of this season since its 4 seasons worth of buildup. You've been warned.

The first episode of the season opens with Lucifer breaking loose. Sam and Dean get caught and the blast radius and somehow end up on a plane while Castiel is back despite being annihilated by an archangel after siding with the brothers over heaven. The brothers get word of something that can gank Lucifer and stop Armageddon: Michael's sword. Demons learn the location as well so its a race to find it. They make it to the place and find some dead demons but no sword. Some angels reveal that there is no sword...because the thing that can kill Lucifer is Dean. More specifically, its because Dean is Michael's vessel. Heaven itself had Castiel pluck him out of the pit not to stop the apocalypse but to be Michael's meat suit for the big prize fight.

The drama this season is absolutely fantastic. Its all about Dean trying his damnedest not to say Yes to Michael while he and Sam try to stop Lucifer. Its made just so damn much harder because Sam is Lucifer's vessel. No matter what they do, everyone says the same thing: The only way this can end is a knockdown drag out fight between brothers and only one of them can come out on top.

I really like how this show paints the angels in this season. They're very much egotistical and holier than thou but they aren't letting people suffer because they believe in the greater good or paradise or whatever. They talk a big game but really...they're doing it because sky daddy stopped calling millennia ago and they're tired of keeping the gears turning. The heavenly bigwigs just sound so defeated, frustrated, and burned out. They simply do not care at all about humanity but god help any talking monkey that does anything to displease them or get on their nerves. They straight up only tolerate Dean because they need Michael to show up for the big brawl. They're very inhuman but incredibly petty and human at the same time.

So...the Trickster in this season twice and I absolutely love him. His actor has done a great job at stealing the scene whenever he shows up. The man has such a great arc. See...the greatest trick he ever pulled is making people think he was a Trickster. He isn't one, he is an archangel, Gabriel specifically. Dude went into hiding after Lucifer's fall because he got utterly sick of seeing Lucifer and Michael at each other's throats all the time. Its really kinda tragic. The man doesn't want to watch his brothers fight and kill each other but both he knows damn well are two stubborn to avoid it. At this point he doesn't care who wins, he just wants this little family spat to stop. The other episode is so good that I kinda don't want to cover it here because I don't think I could do it justice.

Something I didn't put together until I started writing about this season is the little allegory with the Winchestors. I thought it was weird they were specifically the vessels of their opposite angel personality-wise. Then I realized its not just brothers going head-to-head as the classic trope. It sums up the brother's roles in their relationship. Dean is this big rebel who disrespects and disregards authority, except when its an order coming from John. He becomes a good little soldier on that front. Meanwhile Sam is the complete opposite. All too eager to respect authority to a point...except when John shows up. Dean and Sam essentially are Michael and Lucifer so I guess that kinda makes John God in their little family dynamic.

I had planned to try to cover it all when I first started typing this post but man this is a lot to cover so I guess thats my cue to leave some of this in the dark. This season is downright perfect. I mean, how could it not be? Its been four great seasons worth of buildup coming to ahead. On the off chance you haven't seen this show, I highly recommend the first 5 seasons and I can't praise it enough. I knew it was good, I just forgot how good until this rewatch. All in all, its just fantastic tv.

Supernatural Season Four: Bad Moon Rising

Season four takes place about 4-ish months after season 3's finale so I kind of have to talk about that. Surprisingly (back when I first saw it anyway), Sam wasn't able to get Dean out of his deal. Thats right! Dean died trying to kill the demon that held his deal and went straight to Hell. I can't imagine many shows these days actually going through with that plotline. How do you even top a finale like that? Well the answer is actually pretty simple: You start walking down the path to the apocalypse.

Dean wakes up in a pine box and digs his way out of his grave. He is beyond freaked out and drops by Bobby's place to let him and Sam know he is back. After Bobby and Dean try everything they can think of to see if Dean is still human, they think Sam sold his soul to get Dean out of the pit. The problem? Not only would no demon do the deal, they don't have the power to do that anyway. So Dean and Bobby decided to try to summon the thing that did it. What exactly had the juice to pull that shit off? Its an angel named Castiel. Thats right, an angel! A goddamn angel of the lord! Its the perfect oh shit moment and shows just how big of a problem whats coming is if Heaven itself wanted Dean plucked out of Hell. So that clears up the how but not the why...well, lets just say that heaven has plans for Dean Winchestor.

Every episode of this season is fantastic. They're so consistently good across the board that its legitimately hard for me to pick one. So I'm gonna go with one that kinda breaks the mold for the show. The episode "Monster Movie". The episode is basically the show's attempt at Universal monster movie, right down to the sets and sound. Essentially Sam and Dean come to a town during Octoberfest after catching wind of a weird death. Victim was seemingly sucked dry by...Dracula? No not a vampire and I'm not being snarky, it was Dracula. While in town, they hear about a dudes getting killed by the Wolfman and the Mummy. Sam and Dean are kinda baffled and the case just seems to be getting weirder and weirder. So what exactly is going on in the town? Its a shapeshifter with a fixation on the classic movie monsters and a bartender. Yeah, its fairly simple in terms of how it plays out and all-in-all its really kind of a mundane threat for the brothers but what makes this episode my favorite is the Universal style inspiration and classic monster movie feel.

The main plot of the season is about Lilith (the demon who held Dean's contract) trying to crack the locks on Lucifer's cage to bring hell on earth. There are hundreds of locks on the cage but she doesn't need to crack all of them. How could things possibly get worse? Well...it was Dean who cracked the first lock for her by being a good man who broke from being torn apart in Hell and agreeing to put other souls on the torture rack to make it stop. To this day, that reveal managed to chill me down to the bone even though I knew it was coming! While its true that Dean is the only one who can stop it, lets just say that the angels aren't being entirely truthful. Despite having all the power of Heaven trying to stop her, somehow Lilith is always one-step ahead. Its such a bizarre situation that even the loyal soldier Castiel starts having doubts because things aren't adding up. How could the host of the almighty Lord possibly be losing to some cloud of smoke from the pit?

This season is fantastic and like seasons 1 to 3 make for extremely engrossing TV. Seeing the Winchestors fight tooth and nail against monsters and stopping them while still losing because the seals are cracking is harrowing. Now something I didn't touch on is exactly why things aren't adding up on the angels' end of things and why Lilith is somehow always able to keep breaking locks. Well...thats a story for season 5.