When a show has run as long as Supernatural has, there are bound to elements that don’t add up. The show has been on since 2005, and will be on air guaranteed till at least 2019. Sam and Dean were 22 and 26 respectively when the series began, and now by next year they will be 36 and 40.
The show has evolved with them and we never see teen fantasy elements such as those that had been there in the earlier seasons. What we do get now are plenty of contradictions to earlier established character traits. To accommodate the expansion of beings in the show, the manner to combat them is altered so as to explain how regular humans like Dean and Sam could put up a fight. Unfortunately, this makes the beings look like chumps where they formerly had powers no normal human could counter.
As fantasy shows feature resurrection heavily, the explanation for their return is hardly convincing many of the time considering there are ways their presence could have been detected earlier. Sometimes the one to blame nonsensical elements is production as showing powers onscreen is easier said than done. Planet buster level beings are never seen display these powers as there is no way it can be translated with the budget of the TV show.
While several plotholes and goofs can be explained as writer oversight or production limitations, there can be no excuse in-universe. As Supernatural is insanely popular, the showrunners know they don’t have to venture very far with explanations as the fanbase will eat up anything with few complaints.
25 Gabriel’s Secret Existence
In Season 11, when Chuck revealed himself as God, he informed the Winchesters that Lucifer was detrimental to fighting the Darkness as the rest of the Archangels weren’t around. Michael was in the cage while Raphael and Gabriel were deceased.
Turns out even the All-Knowing doesn’t know everything.
Turns out Gabriel was not only alive, he had never passed away in the first place. He had played another Houdini-esque escape in Season 5, but had been a prisoner since. But how could God of all beings not be aware that his Archangel was still alive? Gabriel had been in possession of Asmodeus, somewhere Chuck should have easily been aware of. We’ll add that to Chuck’s list of uselessness (More on that later).
24 Can Angels Time Travel Or Not?
The time travelling element in Supernatural seems to be based on the whim of the writers. Previously, any angel displayed the ability to travel through time, or send someone else through time as well. This was consistent until Castiel was cut off from Heaven in Season 5 but was still able to send his pals in the 70s, albeit with great difficulty.
Nowadays, there is no consistency to this time travelling principle as even after regaining all his powers, Castiel does not have the time travel feature. Apparently now only someone as powerful as Lucifer can do it. This doesn’t make sense as Castiel is now a Seraph, which is much more powerful than a Fallen Angel.
23 The Final Showdown
Talk about failing to deliver, the Season 13 finale fight between Michael and Lucifer was the biggest dud the show has ever produced. In Season 5, the very idea of a battle between them was supposed to be terrifying, with Castiel claiming it would “Scorch half the planet”.
What we saw were random fist punches and a hilariously terrible flying sequence.
Check it out if you haven’t seen it yet, because it is a laugh riot. Dean, powered by Michael, goes up against Lucifer and all they do is punch one another, with barely a scratch apparent, and rolling around in the air in what is an awful piece of filmmaking. At no point was any “Earth Scorching” on the cards.
22 Turning Antagonists Into Protagonists
Joining up with a former villain for a joint cause isn’t new, but should only be used when necessary. Supernatural always overdoes this trope and we are at this point now where every antagonist can be expected to become one of the good guys. The list goes on and on: Meg, Gabriel, Lucifer, Crowley, Castiel, Rowena, Metatron, Arthur Ketch, and a bunch of others were once grasping for the Winchesters’ throats but have turned to the good side afterwards.
It is something reminiscent of the Fast and Furious series where Shaw had blown up Han, only for him to become part of the “Family” in the most recent part. These bad guys have taken out close personal friends of the Winchesters but all is easily forgiven.
21 Removing The Mark Of Cain (And Dooming Everyone)
By Season 10, it had become hard to distinguish whether the Winchesters were good or bad guys. Their actions were questionable to say the least, most of all Sam and Castiel’s decision to remove the Mark of Cain from Dean at any cost.
Despite knowing the Darkness would be released, they went through with the plan.
We were supposed to admire how much they loved Dean, but it was totally moronic when they knew the Darkness was powerful enough to combat God. Every person that has passed away since Season 10 has to be held accountable towards Sam, Dean, and Castiel as it could all have been avoided had they allowed Dean to be sent in a different dimension as was the original plan.
20 Hypocrite 101: Dean Winchester
In Season 7, Dean took out Sam’s friend Amy, reasoning that being a monster was inherent to her nature and being remorseless to her son’s now orphaned state. Sam eventually overlooked this betrayal on Dean’s part and we were supposed to believe Dean had taken the right decision.
In actuality, however, Dean was a complete hypocrite. He sired a monster daughter in the same season and attempted to let her live even though that daughter had set out to take his life. In Season 8, he continued taking liberties with his monster hunting principle by letting Benny Lafitte, a Vampire, live and aided him when the latter needed it. Poor Amy passed away for no real reason.
19 Sudden Change Of Heart
The entirety of Lucifer’s story in Season 12 and Season 13 involved him wanting to connect with Jack to grow as a father. His main motivation had remained in uniting with his son no matter the cost as evidenced by the penultimate episode of Season 13 where he bargained to let Michael roam into our world in exchange for Jack.
All this love was thrown out the window to acquire further powers.
His affection for Jack–which he had made known several times–was no more all of a sudden and he went so far as to steal his son’s Grace and pit him against Sam in a gladiatorial fight. This hunger for power came out of nowhere and undermined Lucifer’s motivations from a whole season back.
18 The Forgotten Foes
The Leviathans were introduced as beings that were more powerful than Angels, and those that were older than even Archangels. What we saw of them was a poor rendition of what was promised. They were insanely easy to defeat with just about any normal human being able to do so and the only thing to distinguish them from other monsters was their quest for world domination.
Once Dick Roman was taken out, however, all points became moot. We never found out what happened to this guy as his soul was said to have gone back to Purgatory. Yet, we never heard of him in that realm when Dean and Castiel had been stuck there for a year. On Earth, the Leviathans vanished without a trace.
17 One Year Later, The Same Year
Twice on the show we have had One year time jumps and both times these are only apparent in conversation. After Seasons 5 and 8, we had these jumps where everyone said it had been 12 months since the previous events but the calendar year never changed.
In Season 5, it was 2010, a year later it was still 2010.
The same was the case for Season 8, where the year continued to be 2012, the same as Season 7. The ongoing year right now is 2018, which can’t add up if we take into account the two year additions. It should be 2020 if the show stuck to chronology. But it seems they are content with simply using the One year thing as part of conversation.
16 Coming Back From The Empty
We’ve seen plenty of resurrection on Supernatural. The Big D had claimed the Winchesters kept running the natural order by coming back from their deceased state repeatedly but the explanation given was that certain beings had the power to do so. We’ve seen Angelic resurrection in Castiel since Season 5, but the realm deceased Angels go to was only shown in Season 13, revealed to be the Empty.
The entity in control of this place boasted that not even God had control of this environment and only he could send someone back to the land of the living. However, God has brought Castiel back a total of three times previously. Either the entity was lying or this is one of the nonsensical elements of the show, we’ll go with the latter.
15 The Nature Of Purgatory
When humans pass away they go to either Heaven or the Underworld while Angels and Demons go to the Empty. Once there, these beings’ souls exist indefinitely unless resurrected. The case for monsters is much more complex and confusing. In Purgatory, every monster is fated to prey upon one another.
But how can a monster be ganked in a place where they aren’t even alive?
After all, it is their soul that has entered Purgatory after passing away on Earth. The soul is said to be indestructible in Supernatural, then how can monsters be done away with so easily in Purgatory, effectively destroying their soul? Castiel even lampshades this in Season 8 by wondering where monsters go after Purgatory.
14 Moving On When And Where
The disintegration of the human spirit into a vengeful ghost is unclear. In Season 2, an episode featured a ghost who had no clue she was one and had been repeating the same antics for over a decade until she had become aware of her true nature, and then was able to move on to the afterlife.
In Season 7, Bobby’s ghost takes a vengeful turn mere months after his passing. Previously it had been believed that turning into a hostile ghost took years but here we had a case where it had been expedited for some reason. It is still unclear how ghosts work as some move on to Heaven without the need to burn their bones or some possession from their living days.
13 The Most Useless Deity
For an all powerful deity, the most useless and worst character has to be Chuck. Hiding behind the persona of an everyman, he rejects any responsibility and refuses to help anyone despite their utter devotion or weeping pleas. Only resurfacing when the Darkness was at its zenith of power, Chuck did nothing even then and the Winchesters had to come up with a plan.
What is the point of anything when God doesn’t care?
It was theorized that we would get a resolving answer to all queries when he would show up in full but all we got was knowledge that Chuck had apparently had several girlfriends and boyfriends (which was information that was neither here nor there).
12 Ganking The Ganker
Unlike Chuck, another supremely powerful entity was actually useful in the eldest Horseman. He assisted the Winchesters in Season 5 by providing them with his ring that opened Lucifer’s cage, helped them send all the souls back to purgatory in Season 7 and retrieved Sam’s soul in Season 6. Unfortunately his run came to an end when the Winchesters’ immoral practices reached their peak in Season 10, and he forced Dean to end Sam’s life with the Scythe.
Dean would choose his love for Sam instead (as if anyone was surprised) and impaled the Scythe into its own master. This was both cool and ludicrous as we saw the end of the one that brought end to everything in the Universe.
11 Have Angels Been Visiting Earth All This Time?
The angels were said to have avoided arriving on Earth for Millennia and were content to remain in Heaven and watch from afar, at least according to Season 4. As early as Season 5, we saw this claim to be false as Uriel, Anna and Michael were seen in the 70s.
If you’re unsure who the woman in the picture is: It is Castiel… in the past.
Castiel was implied to have never been on Earth before Season 4, but a later season changed this by showing him to not only have visited Earth, but having taken possession of a female vessel. He was among several other angels, one of whom had married a human! Then what was all that talk about angels never having been on Earth?
10 The Winchesters Not Caring About Their Friends
The Winchesters have a habit of calling any recurring character their “family”, only to seemingly abandon them when their usefulness has run its course. We’ve seen this with their biological brother Adam (More on that soon) and allies such as Chuck, Garth and Kevin Tran.
They had abandoned Chuck to this degree that Dean had a hard time even remembering his name in Season 7. Garth turned into a werewolf and the Winchesters couldn’t care less, while poor Kevin lived for over two years as a ghost before Chuck sent him to heaven. During this time they never checked up on Kevin even once and were surprised to see him when they did. If they’d actually cared they would’ve been aware of his status beforehand
9 Azazel’s Not-So-Master Plan
Azazel’s endgame kept flip flopping all over the place until it was decided in Season 4 that his plan had been to raise Lucifer out of the cage. In Season 2, though, Azazel didn’t give two hoots about Sam’s passing and was content with Jake taking the reins as the demon prince to lead the army of escaped demons from the Underworld.Afterwards, it was said Sam was always supposed to be Lucifer’s vessel.
If that was the case, then Azazel should have been panicking like crazy seeing that the only key to Lucifer’s victory was now gone.
There was no way he would’ve known that Dean would strike a deal to bring Sam back. Clearly there was a different idea in place for Azazel’s endgame before combining it with Lucifer’s return.
8 Angels Developing Feelings
When angels were first introduced it was made clear they lacked the physical and emotional elements that distinguished humans from them. The idea of an angel developing physical attraction was absurd and they didn’t seem remotely interested in it. Then, in Season 8, we saw a Nephilim, the outcome of an angel and human union.
Angels weren’t designed to engage in acts such as procreating but here we had a clear case for it. The archangel Gabriel relished in all sorts of debauchery as did his brother Lucifer in Season 12. We also saw other cases of Nephilims in later seasons, thereby negating the earlier statement that angels can’t feel physical affection.
7 What Makes A Fallen Angel?
Castiel has been altered to serve the story going on at the time. In Season 5, his powers receded to having been cut off from heaven, although we never saw him lose his grace. As the season progressed he became more and more human until there was nothing reminiscent of an angel left in him. Once resurrected, he was a Seraph.
Come Season 7, he was a Fallen Angel again, only to become a Seraph the next season.
His status as a Fallen Angel was convenient to design the weapon to gank Dick Roman but when that purpose was fulfilled he became an angel again without explanation. The same can e said for his sanity, which was restored in Purgatory, because why not?
6 Money, Money, Money
For the last 13 years we’ve seen Sam and Dean travel state to state and reach their lowest depths as far as notoriety is concerned, but we’ve never seen them have any money problems. Apparently they got by by hustling pool. But that can’t be enough to keep two men well fed and up to date with technology as these two are shown to be.
The guys always have the latest phones, laptops and gadgets with them. They shop to their hearts content and always have money for Impala fuel. The hunter life pays $0 a year but it does give access to untold riches. Maybe we should all hunt demons for a living.
