Kirsti: It’s been a long time coming, but we’ve finally finished recapping season 1 of Supernatural!!
Celebrations aside, let’s rank this shiz, shall we?
- Hell House – I have an irrational love for this utterly ridiculous episode. I love the pranks between Sam and Dean, I love Ed and Harry and can’t wait for them to turn up again, and I love the ambiguous victory over the monster of the week. I mean, how can you fight something that’s been created by the thoughts of thousands of people?
- Faith – JULIE BENZ. She was so great in this episode. Plus, there was more of that ambiguous stuff about whether Roy counts as a good man when he’s inadvertently killing people to save the lives of others.
- Scarecrow – Honestly? It was going to be top three solely for “Dude, you fugly”. But it had a pretty great creep content too.
- Pilot – Pilots have a tendency for being pretty rough. There’s a lot of leg work to do introducing the characters and the concepts of the show and forty three thousand other things. But this one is pretty spectacular at hooking the audience without feeling cliffhanger-y.
- Bloody Mary – Creeptastic and with a side of Sam’s-been-carrying-secret-pain feels.
- Something Wicked – Okay, so this is mostly rated as high as it is because of mini!Dean and mini!Sam and all the feels that they give me.
- Home – Mary’s ghost sacrificing herself to save her sons gave me a lot of feels.
- Skin – Kind of gross, but also pretty cool. And it was pretty nifty to see Sam with his college friends again.
- The Benders – Terrifying mostly because the monsters were human. But not a great episode except for the big plot twist.
- Devil’s Trap – Not a spectacular season finale in the grand scheme of things, but this episode sets up SO MUCH for the future. And the fact that Dean knows it’s not his father because the demon is too nice? Holy crap.
- Wendigo – The beginning of the middle of the road episodes. It’s okay, but it’s nothing spectacular.
- Hook Man – I LOVED the idea of exploring the Hook Man legend, but this was a little too neat and tidy to rank any higher.
- Provenance – Don’t get me wrong, I adored Sarah. But the haunted painting thing was pretty dumb, even if it was wiggins-worthy.
- Dead in the Water – Amy Acker was pretty much the best thing about this episode. Although I do have a lot of feels where Protector of Little Kids Dean is concerned.
- Asylum – Meh. It was okay, I guess. But nothing more than okay.
- Phantom Traveller – Sure, it’s the first time we get something demonic happening. But a demon that possesses a plane? WTF.
- Nightmare – Meh. This episode was more a vessel for Sam’s psychic stuff developing than anything else.
- Salvation – Sure, the Big Bad finally turned up. But there was way too much Papa Winchester and I just flat out didn’t give a fuck.
- Dead Man’s Blood – Bored. Bored bored bored bored bored.
- Bugs – This was just dumb. And it consistently reminded me of The X-Files episode Darkness Falls, which – despite being made in 1993 – was much better and much creepier.
- Shadow – Contrivance from start to finish. The monster of the week was dumb, Meg’s trap was obvious, and UGH PAPA WINCHESTER.
- Route 666 – A racist ghost truck. A RACIST GHOST TRUCK. I can’t even.
Share your rankings or favorite moments in the comments below! Sara was also scheduled to rank, but her baby is due in a hot minute. She might be in labor now. (Just kidding.) (Wait, depending on when you read this, maybe not kidding.)
Note: Starting this Saturday, August 30th, Supernatural will start going up twice a week, publishing every Wednesday and Saturday so that maybe Kirsti can actually finish this show before retirement age! DREAM A LITTLE DREAM. Kirsti will be mini-recapping solo, for the time being. Join her then!
I'm a 30-something librarian and I still live with my parents because I'm super broke. Leader of Team Heartless Cow. I have an inexplicable love for 90s television, eat too much chocolate, and read more than is good for me.
