This Supernatural feature contains MAJOR spoilers up to and including the series finale.
Over the course of 15 years, Supernatural aired an extraordinary 327 episodes, every single one of them starring the same two people, a quite incredible achievement (there were two attempts at backdoor pilots, but both featured Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles at least briefly).
In 327 episodes, of course, there have been some stinkers, and there have been moments of brilliance. Supernatural did scary episodes, gross-out episodes, funny episodes, tragic episodes, tragically funny episodes and episodes set on its own soundstage. Here are 25 of the very best.
25/327*. Carry On (Season 15, Episode 20)
*delete according to preference, and see “Dishonorable mentions” below
We’re being controversial right off the bat, as the series finale has fans split right down the middle between feeling pretty pleased with it and absolutely hating it. And for the many fans that hate it, they really, really hate it. If that’s you, we understand your issues with it – see our ‘Dishonorable Mentions’ list.
But for others, while this ending was somewhat marred by coronavirus restrictions (which are surely to blame for Sam’s wife being blurred in the background instead of clearly shown to be Eileen, and possibly for the absence of Castiel as well), there were also moments of emotional catharsis and beauty. Heaven has undergone some drastic improvements since we last saw it and the afterlife is no longer strangely lonely and depressing. The music choices for the episode are perfectly on point – it almost seems strange we haven’t heard ‘Brothers in Arms’ before – and finally the promise of ‘Carry On, Wayward Son’ is fulfilled, as “surely Heaven waits for you”.
Best moment: Hearing the voice of Original Bobby (not Apocalypse World Bobby) for the first time since Season 11.
Quotable: “Always keep fighting” (Dean, to Sam)
Watch if you like: Tragic melodrama, great music, Bobby
24. Devil’s Trap (Season 1, Episode 22)
Supernatural’s very first season finale set the tone for many more finales to come. The arc plot kicked up a gear, Winchesters pointed guns at each other, and the whole thing ended in a nail-biting cliff-hanger. This episode sets up much of how the show will work, including the important detail that demons possess innocent humans, which led to our heroes spending some years trying to avoid killing them where possible (before they eventually gave up on that one). Most important of all, though, this is the episode that introduces Jim Beaver’s Bobby Singer, who would become the Winchesters’ surrogate father, and whose particular brand of caring, with a hefty dose of calling them idjits, was always entertaining with a warmth underneath the humour.
Best moment: Sam refuses to kill his father – the first of many times this sort of decision will be forced on the brothers.
Quotable: “The storm’s coming, and you boys, your Daddy – you are smack in the middle of it” (Bobby)
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Watch if you like: Family melodrama, demon arc plots, Bobby
23. All Along The Watchtower (Season 12, Episode 22)
Death and life have always gone hand in hand in Supernatural, and nowhere is that clearer than in this game-changing season finale. We lose one of the show’s few regular characters, Mark Sheppard’s Crowley, along with a newer, highly likeable, recurring character, Courtney Ford’s Kelly Kline, both in moving self-sacrifices that honor the characters and their development. (Oh, and Castiel dies again too, but of course that doesn’t stick). On the other hand, we gain two new characters. We meet Apocalypse World Bobby, and while he can never really replace the Bobby the boys knew and loved, he brings some essential Bobby-ness back into the show. And Jack is born, Castiel’s (and later the Winchesters’) adoptive son, whom Cas is convinced will create a paradise in the future. This episode is full of great character work featuring numerous fan favourites, along with genuinely exciting plot developments that left viewers itching for the next season to start.
Best moment: Castiel took an online doula class in preparation for Kelly going into labour, but it didn’t cover quasi-celestial beings.
Quotable: “Whenever there is a world ending crisis at hand, I know where to place my bets. It’s on you, you big beautiful lumbering piles of flannel” (Crowley)
Watch if you like: Alternate universes, self-sacrifices, Bobby
22. Don’t Call Me Shurley (Season 11, Episode 20)
This episode has shifted down the list since we last ranked it, as the plot developments of season 15 have robbed it of some of its joy, but the episode itself still stands up. It’s well known that Supernatural is often kind of a grim show, and one of the pleasures of watching it is that, however crappy your life is at that moment, it’s not as crappy as Sam and Dean’s. There are occasional moments of satisfaction (like the killing of Azazel in “All Hell Breaks Loose”) and there’s certainly plenty of humour, but real, honest to Chuck, joy? That’s rare, and the best example (Dean’s Heaven) required both main characters to be dead. So there’s something really special about this Season 11 episode, in which God finally comes back (and reveals that He has, in fact, been helping out on the odd occasion all along). The rest of the episode, in which Metatron makes the case for humankind to God, is a philosophical and meta-fictional treat as well, but it’s that conclusion that really makes it something to remember.
Best moment: Dean pulls his old amulet out of Sam’s pocket – signalling that God has returned.
Quotable: “You know what humanity’s greatest creation has been? Music. That, and nacho cheese” (Chuck)
Watch if you like: Philosophy, happy endings
21. Lebanon (Season 14, Episode 13)
Supernatural’s 100th episode (“The Point Of No Return”) was an arc-plot heavy drama; it’s 200th (‘Fan Fiction’) was a delightful and comedic take on the show. For this, the 300th episode, the series went in a different direction again, and focused on the Winchester family unit, bringing Jeffrey Dean Morgan back as John Winchester for the first time since the season 2 finale. Sam and Dean’s whole story has been driven by their broken family life, and before this the closest they’d come to being together as a family was a brief car ride with their parents’ unknowing younger selves while time travelling. Here, they get to spend some proper time together as a family, before it’s inevitably cut short – and as a bonus, we get to see Zachariah (not seen since the 100th episode) and Scary Castiel again as well.
Best moment: All four Winchesters, all alive at the same time, have dinner together. It’s lovely.
Quotable: “Now you live in a secret bunker with an angel and Lucifer’s kid” (John)
Watch if you like: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, family dinners, anniversary episodes
20. Roadkill (Season 2, Episode 16)
Many of the episodes on this list are major arc plot-related episodes, or hilariously funny format-bending episodes, or both. But it’s also worth celebrating episodes that offer just a really good Monster of the Week, and this is one of them. Supernatural was inspired early on by urban legends, and this episode is a sad, scary and effective take on a classic, the Vanishing Hitchhiker. Guest star Tricia Helfer does a great job as Molly, whose perspective we follow throughout the story, keeping her true predicament from both her and the audience until the twist ending. The episode’s conclusion was also the first time we saw a suggestion of something potentially positive waiting for human souls after death, giving all the many, many dead characters on the show a glimmer of hope.
Best moment: The reveal of Molly’s true nature isn’t really a surprise if you’ve ever read a ghost story, but it’s very well done.
Quotable: “Follow the creepy brick road” (Dean)
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Watch if you like: urban legends, scary ghost stories, plot twists
19. Scoobynatural (Season 13, Episode 16)
Best moment: Sam and Dean trying to explain to the Scooby Gang that no really, ghosts are real.
Quotable: “We’ve been stopping real estate developers when we could have been hunting Dracula? Are you kidding me?! My life is meaningless!” (Fred)
Watch if you like: Scooby-Doo, crossovers
18. No Rest For The Wicked (Season 3, Episode 16)
The writers’ strike cut Season 3 short (yes, Supernatural has been going that long), which meant the planned story arc, in which Sam and Dean desperately tried to find a way to get Dean out of the deal he made with a Crossroads demon, also had to be wrapped up in fewer episodes than anticipated. The solution was truly shocking – they failed. Dean was sent to Hell and viewers were left with an image of him being tortured and screaming out Sam’s name. OK, no one really thought he was going to stay there for ever, but it was still a bold move.
Best moment: Sam joining along in a singalong to Bon Jovi’s “Wanted” with his brother, knowing they only had a few hours left.
Quotable: “Family don’t end with blood, boy” (Bobby)
Watch if you like: Dante’s Inferno, soft rock anthems
17. All Hell Breaks Loose, Parts 1&2 (Season 2, Episodes 21&22)
Like “No Rest For The Wicked,” this was a real watershed moment for the show. Sam’s death and the deal Dean makes to bring him back set in motion just about every major storyline since. But these episodes don’t make the list just for that reason. The “only one can live” set up Sam is dropped into is always an intriguing premise, and these two episodes make up a dramatic, satisfying season finale in which the bad guy of two years is dispatched, the Winchester men get some closure, and the mythology gets a bit more development.
Best moment: Sam’s first death. The regularity with which the Winchester boys die and come back to life is a long-running joke and has even been the focus of more than one episode over the years, so it’s easy to forget just what a huge, horrifying moment that first death is, back when they used to take it seriously.
Quotable: “That was for our mom, you sunnnuvabitch” (Dean, to Azazel’s dead body)
Watch if you like: The Hunger Games, Jensen Ackles emoting
16. Abandon All Hope… (Season 5, Episode 10)
Season 5 was Supernatural creator Eric Kripke’s final season as show-runner, and it was written to be the final season of the show. The story arc followed the boys’ attempts to stop the oncoming Apocalypse and recapture the Devil himself, with the stakes getting higher and higher as the season wore on. “Abandon All Hope…” is a turning point, hammering home the seriousness of the situation by killing off half the regular supporting cast, after which the story became increasingly grim until our heroes faced an impossible choice in the season finale. It’s also the episode that introduces Mark Sheppard as Crowley, King of the Crossroads Demons, who immediately cements himself as much more fun than your average demon.
Best moment: Ellen staying with a mortally injured Jo as they sacrifice themselves to save the boys.
Quotable: “Your choice. You can cling to six decades of deep-seated homophobia, or give it up and get a complete bailout for your ban’s ridiculous incompetence” (Crowley)
Watch if you like: Mark Sheppard as Crowley, tear-jerkers
15. Nightshifter (Season 2, Episode 12)
Sam and Dean spent much of the first few years of the series on the run from the law, despite having several police officers in their debt. This would continue until the police thought they were dead, only for the pair of them to turn up again, and the threat of jail time if they were ever caught and identified never quite went away. This episode, in which a shape-shifter is carrying out bank robberies, really notches up the tension as they come to the attention of the FBI in the worst possible way, as well as observing the tragedy of a well meaning civilian caught up in something he doesn’t understand.
Best moment: The brothers escape to the tune of “Renegade,” by Styx.
Quotable: “We’re not working for the Mandroid!” (Sam, to Ronald)
Watch if you like: Bonnie and Clyde, The Lone Gunmen
14. Death’s Door (Season 7, Episode 10)
The decision to kill off Bobby permanently in season 7 was controversial, to say the least, but it’s hard to deny his final episode as a living member of the team is a great one. Poor Bobby’s backstory is revealed to be even more tragic than we already knew it was, but more importantly, his bond with the boys and the reasons their relationship is so important both to them and to him are explored. It also prompts the show to explore a fairly obvious question – we’ve seen plenty of ghosts on the series whose bodies were burned, so even with hunters’ funerals, how is it we haven’t seen more beloved deceased characters return after death?
Best moment: Bobby giving his alcoholic father a proper telling off in his imagination.
Quotable: “As fate would have it, I adopted two boys, and they grew up great. They grew up heroes” (Bobby)
Watch if you like: Bobby and Rufus, daddy issues
13. Dark Side Of The Moon (Season 5, Episode 16)
The earliest episode to acknowledge how often the boys have died and come back to life, “Dark Side Of The Moon” sets its cards on the table by abruptly killing them both in the first few minutes. We finally get to see what happens when you go to Heaven in the world of Supernatural, and it’s a little weird and oddly lonely (with the exception of “soulmates”, everyone is off in their own little worlds – thankfully this is eventually rectified) but it’s a satisfying journey nonetheless. Not that Dean or Castiel would agree, as this is the episode in which they give up on searching for God, having been told He isn’t interested.
Best moment: Dean’s Heaven – playing with fireworks with Young Sam. It’s a truly joyful sequence.
Quotable: “Gentlemen, I don’t mean to be a downer, but I’m sure I’ll see you again soon” (Ash)
Watch if you like: Family drama, nihilism
12. Baby (Season 11, Episode 4)
The Supernatural team have always been clear that the Impala is the third main character on the show (sorry, Castiel) so this Season 11 episode shifts focus to tell a story entirely from the car’s point of view. No, this isn’t a Herbie or Transformers situation – rather, the entire episode is shot from inside the car. What this means for the story is that we get to see different parts of Sam and Dean’s day – while they’re off investigating, we see the Impala get taken for a joy ride by a car park attendant, and Sam and Dean’s traditional emotionally-charged conversations are given a little more space to breathe. This is how you shake a show up while keeping its unique feel after eleven years.
Best moment: All of Castiel’s hilarious phone calls.
Quotable: “Never use Swayze’s name in vain, OK? Ever” (Dean)
Watch if you like: Classic cars, Bob Seger’s “Night Moves”
11. What Is And What Should Never Be (Season 2, Episode 20)
Towards the end of season 2, as the series started to grow in confidence, Supernatural started to do slightly more experimental episodes that took us away from the straightforward “Sam and Dean hunt a monster” set-up. The first meta-fictional episode was the fun “Hollywood Babylon,” while this was an early glimpse of an alternative timeline – or, rather, an hallucination of Dean’s under the influence of a djinn. The result was a fun “what if” scenario and a lovely penultimate appearance from Adrianne Palicki as Jessica, but it culminated in a truly heart-breaking moment for Dean as he confronts everything he, Sam, and their father have had to sacrifice in their attempts to help others, and is forced to choose life at the expense of happiness.
Best moment: Dean breaks down at his father’s grave.
Quotable: “Look, whatever stupid thing you’re about to do, you’re not doing it alone. And that’s that” (Sam)
Watch if you like: Alternate timelines, wishes gone wrong
10. The French Mistake (Season 6, Episode 15)
In this episode, Sam and Dean are pulled into a parallel universe where they are the actors Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, the stars of the TV show Supernatural. The story takes the highest of high concepts and makes it work beautifully, including an appearance from Padalecki’s real life wife and former co-star Genevieve Padalecki and Misha Collins sending himself up gloriously. There’s even a clip of a much younger Jensen Ackles on Days Of Our Lives thrown in. A joy from start to finish.
Best moment: Sam and Dean trying to act. They are not good at it.
Quotable: “You married fake Ruby?!” (Dean)
Watch if you like: High concept comedy, Misha Collins
9. The End (Season 5, Episode 4)
What better way to raise the stakes early in the season than to flash forward five years and reveal what the world will look like after the Apocalypse has come about? Funny and heartfelt in equal measure, this is a classic alternate timeline story with a twist. It is also a really important episode in the development of Lucifer as a character, here played with squirming intensity by Jared Padalecki, who gets to sit out most of the story while Jensen Ackles pulls double, only to come and steal the show at the end. It also features some advice from Chuck (i.e. God) to hoard toilet paper, which turned out to be remarkably prescient.
Best moment: The reveal of Hippie Future Castiel, who has taken a surprising attitude towards the end of the world.
Quotable: “When you get back there, you hoard toilet paper. You understand me? Hoard it like it’s made of gold. Cause it is” (Chuck – some people clearly took this advice too much to heart in 2020)
Watch if you like: Dystopias, toilet paper
8. Fan Fiction (Season 10, Episode 5)
The show’s 100th episode was an important moment in its then-current story arc, but it was the 200th that really celebrated in style. Watching a girls’ school put on a musical version of the Supernatural story (the Kripke years) sounds like a terrible idea but they pull it off brilliantly, making an episode that is both funny and sweet. Most of all, though, this is just a treat for long-term fans, full of call-backs, references, and in-jokes, and that finally ties up a loose end from “Dark Side Of The Moon” in an emotionally satisfying way.
Best moment: The lovely cover of “Carry On, Wayward Son” at the end of the show.
Quotable: “That is some of the worst fan fiction I ever heard!” (Marie, on hearing what happened after the end of Season 5 – a popular take on just about everything that’s happened since then in some quarters)
Watch if you like: Musicals, subtext
7. The Monster At The End Of This Book (Season 4, Episode 18)
Neither “Don’t Call Me Shurley” nor “Fan Fiction” would have been possible without the episode that introduced Chuck in the first place, though back then he was nothing more than a cowardly writer and (apparently) reluctant prophet. Supernatural had done a few meta-fictional episodes by this point but “The Monster At The End Of This Book” was the moment they took it to new places, creating the fictional Supernatural universe within the Supernatural universe and allowing the show to explore fandom, fan fiction, fan conventions and fan musicals further down the line. The whole concept is a real treat for the show’s real life fans.
Best moment: Sam and Dean discover online fandom and slash fiction.
Quotable: “They do know we’re brothers, right?!” (Dean)
Watch if you like: Fan fiction, meta fiction
6. Faith (Season 1, Episode 12)
This low-key Season 1 episode may seem like an odd choice for the sixth best episode ever out of 327. But there are two reasons for singling out “Faith” here. One is to highlight just how good Supernatural’s early ghost stories were. We could fill a whole list with classic examples of spooky tales done really well from the show’s early years (“Dead In The Water,” “Bloody Mary,” “No Exit,” “Playthings”). “Faith,” though not strictly about a ghost, centres around a faith healer’s wife controlling a reaper. But “Faith” is more than a good yarn done well. It’s also the episode that showed what the series could be, as it started to deal with the deep and complex philosophical themes the show would later explore in more obvious, explosive ways. There’s also a great guest performance from Angel: The Series’ and Dexter’s Julie Benz, and poor Dean finds himself dying from something fairly mundane – not for the last time.
Best moment: “Don’t Fear The Reaper” is put to great use here as the reaper hunts down a jogger.
Quotable: “You better take care of that car, or I swear, I’ll haunt your ass” (Dean)
Watch if you like: Theology, Blue Oyster Cult
5. Mystery Spot (Season 3, Episode 11)
The best comedy episodes of Supernatural are not only side-splittingly funny (and they are), they also have a dramatic punch, an element of real drama behind the comedy. “Mystery Spot” is based around a twist on the Groundhog Day concept, in which Sam has to relive a day on which Dean seems doomed to die over and over and over again, unable to prevent it. Dean’s many, many deaths caused by all manner of strange things (just how did he manage fatally to slip in the shower?) are very funny, but Sam’s increasing difficulty in dealing with the situation, and then his terrible three months without Dean (this was the first time that had happened since the series began) bring sincere emotions to the table as well.
Best moment: Sam working out that the Trickster is behind everything.
Quotable: “OK, look. Yesterday was Tuesday, right? But today is Tuesday too” (Sam)
Watch if you like: Groundhog Day, Final Destination
4. Pilot (Season 1, Episode 1)
Not too many shows can claim their pilot as one of their best episodes. But Supernatural’s Pilot really is a great episode of the show. It kicks off the series’ major plot arc, of course, but it also introduces the show’s humor and heart. On top of all that, the Pilot also features a classic Ghost of the Week that’s spooky and sad and ghoulish, as all good ghost stories should be.
Best moment: Our introduction to Dean’s “mullet rock” music collection, including two classics from AC/DC (“Back In Black” and “Highway To Hell,” of course).
Quotable: “We got work to do” (Sam)
Watch if you like: Mullet rock, ghost stories
3. Swan Song (Season 5, Episode 22)
The episode that would have been the series finale, if the show hadn’t been renewed and taken over (first by Sera Gamble, then Jeremy Carver, and finally Andrew Dabb and Robert Singer). “Swan Song” would have made a great finale as well – it’s thrilling, satisfying, tragic and funny all at once. The main reason it’s not higher on this list is that it is a little bit of a downer – if the series had actually ended there, there would have been a lot of Fix Fic out there online, sorting it out. Granted, that’s true of the series’ actual finale as well, but honestly, think about it, and take out the sequel hook shot of a resurrected Sam at the end of “Swan Song” which presumably wouldn’t have been there – this one is even more depressing.
Best moment: The opening narration, describing how the Impala has always been the boys’ real home.
Quotable: “Hey! Assbutt!” (Castiel, to Lucifer)
Watch if you like: Supernatural. Honestly, this one is the conclusion to five years’ story-telling – don’t start here!
2. Changing Channels (Season 5, Episode 8)
Is this the funniest comedy episode of Supernatural? It’s a tough contest, but the genital herpes commercial Sam is forced to star in might just give it the win. But “Changing Channels” is more than comedy. The reveal that the Trickster is actually the Archangel Gabriel in disguise really shouldn’t work, but somehow it does, and it brings a new dimension to the Trickster’s previous appearances (especially “Mystery Spot”) as well as a solid conclusion to this one. But really, the episode’s greatness lies in the fact that it’s just. so. funny.
Best moment: The Impala/Sam as KITT from Knight Rider.
Quotable: “Should I honk?” (Sam/the Impala)
Watch if you like: Grey’s Anatomy, CSI, Knight Rider, cheesy sitcoms, Japanese game shows, adverts for genital herpes treatments
1. Lazarus Rising (Season 4, Episode 1)
What with running for 15 years, Supernatural went through a fair few major upheavals and shifts that sent the show in a new direction, and several of them are on this list. Nothing, though, beats the appearance of real, possessing-someone-else’s-flesh-and-blood angels on the show. This was the episode that made Supernatural what it has become, for better or for worse.
But that alone isn’t the reason we’ve put it at Number 1 of 327 episodes. The episode is hugely emotionally satisfying – although Sam and Dean had both come back from the dead before by this point (Dean technically dozens of times) Dean coming back from being buried for months is undeniably huge. The series needed to show how much of a big deal this was, and they did. We immediately learn that angels are terrifying and that wherever they go, collateral damage follows (it’s easy to forget that the first thing Castiel does on this show is burn out an innocent woman’s eyes).
And then, we finally get to meet an angel face to face. Castiel, in his first appearance, is genuinely something to behold. The deep voice, before it became the subject of in jokes and deadpan comedy, was originally intended to convey gravitas and power, and it works. This is a force like nothing the boys have encountered before, and it is awesome in the classic sense of word – full of awe.
Later, of course, Castiel would become the third member of Team Free Will and one of the most important characters on the show, next only to Sam and Dean. Misha Collins has made the character funny and loveable and awkward and generally indispensable. We wouldn’t change Castiel for the world and certainly don’t mean to suggest that it’s all downhill from his first appearance. Indeed, that later legacy is part of what makes this episode so special.
But really, it’s that entrance we can’t get enough of. We get shivers every time.
Best moment: Castiel’s entrance, of course. Though the rest of the episode is very good as well.
Quotable: “I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition” (Castiel’s first line)
Watch if you like: Castiel, angels
Honorable mentions
There were so many great episodes we didn’t have room for here – “My Bloody Valentine” (gory and funny in equal measure), “It’s A Terrible Life” (a classic Angel Shenanigans of the Week story), ‘The Born-Again Identity’ (Castiel’s return after it looked like they really had killed him off this time), “Houses Of The Holy” (the first references to angels on the show), “Everybody Hates Hitler” (a solid adventure during the course of which the boys discover the Bunker that has become their home), and “LARP And The Real Girl” (probably the best and most fun episode featuring fan favorite Charlie, played by Felicia Day) are just a few of the other greats.
Dishonorable mentions
We don’t want to spend too much time focusing on the negative, but we should probably acknowledge that, in 327 episodes, the show has occasionally got it wrong. Generally speaking, any time the show decides to feature dogs (the domesticated variety, not werewolves) the results tend to be less than excellent – “Man’s Best Friend With Benefits” is a real low point, and while many fans love “Dog Dean Afternoon,” we find it cringe-worthy. “Bugs” and “Route 666” (the one about the racist truck) are the two most often picked on by the writers themselves as examples of terrible episodes, though since both are from Season 1, they’ve long receded into most viewers’ long-term memories.
And of course, there’s “Carry On.” For every fan who found it a flawed but satisfying ending, there’s another who ranks it somewhere up there with Game Of Thrones’ and How I Met Your Mother’s finales in the All Time Terrible Series Finales Hall of Fame. There were too many people missing (largely the fault of COVID-19, but that doesn’t really help), especially Castiel and Eileen, whose absences were palpably felt. To leave Misha Collins and Castiel out all together after years of him sharing show-leading duties with Padalecki and Ackles seems very wrong, and many fans were disappointed that we never really see Dean react to Cas’s confession of love for him in ‘Despair’. Dean’s abrupt death felt anti-climactic to many, and the fact he was robbed of the chance to live a life free of Chuck was frustrating. And on top of all that, Sam’s grey-haired wig really was quite terrible. So all in all, while we would still say that for us it felt like a fairly well played conclusion to the story, we can understand that for many, it belongs at the top of the list of Dishonorable Mentions.
Did your favorite episode of Supernatural make the list? Let us know in the comments below…
