Supernatural has been a constant in fans’ lives for the past 14 years. It’s hard to imagine life without the show. Yet that’s just what fans have to do now that it’s been announced that the series will end with season 15.
Long-time fans are still processing the sad news, while also celebrating the show’s longevity and continued quality. Still, looking ahead to the day after the season finale, we know there are going to be many things we’ll miss about the show. Here are some of them.
THE WEEKLY VISIT WITH THE WINCHESTERS
Many fans had gotten so comfortable with Supernatural’s weekly presence on their screens that they began to believe it’d go on forever. Even after 14 years, the cast and crew seemed like they were still having fun. Plus, after so many seasons, the news of the series’ annual renewal started to feel like a formality.
Supernatural’s longevity is impressive by pretty much any standard. It was a rarity when the show made it to the 10-season mark. To go on for five more after that is a real feat. But the consistency also gave the fans a comfort-level with the show that’s almost impossible to achieve. Even with all the monsters and drama, watching Supernatural each week became like visiting with good friends. After so many years, we know Sam and Dean. We’ve seen them at their best and their worst and it’s made us feel close to them. We’ll miss catching up with them on a regular basis.
MONSTERS, MONSTERS, MONSTERS!
Monsters are a constant source of fascination, yet few stories have delved into so many of them. The Winchesters live in a world plagued by things that go bump in the night. Although a lot of them are pure evil, every once in a while they can be conflicted and sympathetic.
Over its 14 seasons, Supernatural has incorporated a whole universe of monsters. And it’s used those monsters to examine moral grey areas and what it really means to be monstrous. This let the show ask big questions about the nature of good and evil and if it’s possible to always do the right thing. Even when the Winchesters are trying to do good, they don’t always get it right. That they just keep trying is what’s made us root for them no matter what.
THE FANDOM
Supernatural is a cult hit that’s amassed a huge fan base. Fans meet up at conventions, hang out online, and follow every detail of the show. The Supernatural cast has even leveraged the power of the fandom for numerous charitable causes over the years.
Even with the show ending, the fandom will go on. However, without new episodes to engage it, it’s hard to imagine it having the same fervor and involvement that it does right now. It’s also hard to imagine the actors being quite as engaged with the fandom as they have been while the show’s been on the air. So the fandom may not be quite as devoted as it is at the moment. On the plus side, with streaming services making it easier than ever to watch the show, Supernatural has the potential to continue to attract new fans long into the future. And if nothing else, we’ll always have Supernatural fan fiction to keep us busy.
COMPLEX MYTHOLOGY
Supernatural has built up an amazingly complex mythology over its run. It was surprising enough when the show introduced angels. Since then, Lucifer became a major character, we met both God and his sister, and Sam and Dean became surrogate fathers to the devil’s son. Also, the Winchesters have visited heaven, hell, purgatory, and even an alternate dimension.
By remixing and reimagining religion, legend, and folklore, Supernatural has created a puzzle of a mythology with many moving parts. Yet, it all unfolded organically, letting fans keep pace with the ins and outs of the show’s unique world.
GOING META
Supernatural has winked at the absurdity of its premise on more than one occasion by going meta in the most delightful way. The show’s willingness to break the fourth wall has led to some hilarious episodes that have endeared the show to fans.
Two of the best are season 6’s “The French Mistake” and season 10’s “Fan Fiction.” In “The French Mistake,” Sam and Dean are zapped into a world in which they are… Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, the stars of a TV show called Supernatural. From Sam and Dean’s perspective, Supernatural and the actors’ real lives are bizarre. After all, Sam married the demon Ruby (his real-life wife, Genevieve Cortese)! “Fan Fiction,” the show’s 200th episode, saw the Winchesters stumble onto an girls high school’s production of “Supernatural: The Musical.” Not only did the episode let the show revisit its rich history, it acknowledged some of the fandom’s more popular takes on the series.
EXPERIMENTING IN EPISODES
As Supernatural has gone on, it’s become increasingly willing to take risks and experiment with its format and storytelling. That’s led to stand-out episodes like season 11’s “Baby,” which is told entirely from the point of view of Dean’s Chevy Impala, and season 13’s “ScoobyNatural,” which saw Sam, Dean, and Cas get animated and team up with the characters of Scooby Doo.
On any other show, these episodes would be too ridiculous to work, but on Supernatural they fit right in. And given its lengthy track record, fans are willing to give the show the benefit of the doubt no matter how absurd the premise of the next episode seems. We’ll miss having that faith rewarded again and again.
DEEP BENCH OF SECONDARY CHARACTERS
After so many seasons on the air, Supernatural has collected quite a roster of secondary characters. And many of them have become a beloved part of the show. Fortunately, between the show’s long memory and its mystical premise, characters fans already know pop up to help the Winchesters all the time, even if they’ve technically perished.
There have been several examples in season 14 alone. Demon hunter/werewolf Garth showed up to help the brothers with an archangel problem. They teamed up with the witch Rowena to figure out what was wrong with half-angel, half-human Jack. And to celebrate the show’s 300th episode, John Winchester was brought forward in time to visit his sons long after his untimely passing.
AWESOME FEMALE CHARACTERS
Supernatural hasn’t always had the best track record with female characters. This is a show that featured the refrigeration of two different women in its first episode: the Winchester’s mother, Mary, and Sam’s girlfriend, Jessica. Despite those inauspicious beginnings and some other mistakes along the way, Supernatural has included many nuanced and compelling female characters. Several of them continue to recur on the series.
Between Jody Mills, Donna Hascum, Charlie Bradbury, the resurrected Mary Winchester, and others, the show’s female characters have become fan favorites. So much so that the series even attempted to spin-off some of the women into the series Wayward Sisters. Sadly, that didn’t work out. We’ll miss these ladies when the show is done.
CASTIEL’S GROWING HUMANITY
Angel Castiel didn’t appear on Supernatural until the first episode of season 4. At first, Cas was almost completely devoid of humanity. He couldn’t relate to Sam and Dean and only helped them begrudgingly.
Over time, though, the boys won him over. And after going through his own trials and tribulations — and watching a lot of movies and TV shows — Cas finally started to understand what makes humans tick. In the process, he became more human too. It’s been a lot of fun to watch his evolution, and his attachment to Sam, Dean, and Jack grow.
SAM AND DEAN’S BROTHERHOOD
The heart of Supernatural has always been the partnership between Sam and Dean. While they don’t always see eye-to-eye and sometimes fight passionately, their bond is also unshakable.
The pair’s loyalty to one another rests on a long shared history. Yet, their relationship goes deeper than that. Sam and Dean would do anything for each other. Their belief in each other is absolute and that belief has enabled them to defy the odds countless times. Their relationship has been inspiring and touching. It will be sorely missed when Supernatural comes to an end.