Sam and Dean Roar on Down the Road

by Pa Rock
TV Junkie

I have been a fan of Sam and Dean Winchester since first encountering the monster-hunting brothers on Japanese cable television back in 2010 while I was living and working in the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa.    Japan, the home of Godzilla and the island nation that suffered two atomic bombings by the United States during World War II, has a long history with science fiction and the horrors that may yet be unleashed on the world through science and sources unknown.  In addition to becoming an acolyte of the Winchesters through their television series, Supernatural, the same Japanese cable company which specialized in English-speaking programming also introduced me to Eureka, Haven, and Fringe.

After returning to the United States, and with the technological advent of the ability to "stream" entire television series, I eventually was able to go back of view all of those shows in their entirety.  Yesterday evening I finished the last two episodes (numbers 319 and 320) of Supernatural.

Backstory:     Sam Winchester was an infant and Dean was a young boy living with their parents, John and Mary Winchester, in Lawrence, Kansas, during the 1980's when Mary was attacked and killed by monsters who came into their home.  John Winchester immediately set out on a quest to hunt monsters with the hope of bringing down the ones who killed his wife.  When Sam and Dean were still young boys they sometimes accompanied their father on these hunting missions, often staying alone in motel rooms while Dad was chasing his demons.

Sam had aspirations to go to college and pursue some sort of normal life, but his plans changed while he was a student at Stanford.    Sam and his pretty female roommate were living normal student lives when Dean showed up and let Sam know that their Dad was missing and Dean needed his help in finding him.  Then the girlfriend was killed by a monster, and, spurred on by that tragedy, Sam joined his brother in the family business of monster-hunting.

As the story developed across seasons, the audience eventually learns that Sam and Dean come from a long familial line of monster-hunters, a line which came down through their mother, Mary.  The audience also quickly becomes aware that few dead people manage to stay dead on this show.  John and Mary Winchester both come back and help their sons hunt monsters years after their initial deaths.

Supernatural first aired on the CW Network on the 13th of September, 2005 and the final episode was fifteen years later on the 19th of November, 2020.  It was created by a fellow named Eric Kripke who wrote and directed many of the early episodes and was responsible for providing the basic structure to the show that lasted throughout its fifteen-year-run.  Many memorable characters came and went throughout the show's history, but as the series ran down, most of the action centered on four main players:  Sam (Jared Padalecki), Dean (Jensen Ackles), Castiel "Cas" (Misha Collins), and Jack (Alexander Calvert).

During Season Four while Kripke was still associated with the show, the series took a sharp turn into Christian religious lore.  Castiel, an "angel of the Lord," came on board as a permanent cast member during that season, and many of the monsters had some relationship to God or Satan.  Castiel aligned himself with the Winchesters and worked with them in sifting though cases that were mired in Christianity.  Subsequent episodes included Christian all-stars such as the Archangel Michael, Adam, Eve,  Satan, and even a wrathful God named Chuck.    Some segments of the show took place in heaven and in hell.

Jack, the son of Satan, joined the cast in Season Thirteen.  While he was unintentionally responsible for the death of Mary Winchester - her second death -  Sam and Dean, who at this point were beginning to more closely resemble a fussy old married couple that a pair of young fraternal monster hunters, took Jack underwing and he became like the son they never had.

The final season, fifteen, was a difficult one for production.  Twenty episodes were planned, and thirteen were completed when the coronavirus outbreak began raging and production was halted.  The CW released those first thirteen episodes and then the public had to wait several more months before the final seven episodes were completed and released.    Much of the final season centered on episodes which allowed some of the more memorable characters from the long series to appear one more time for their "goodbye" performances.   By the end of the next to last episode (#319), the cast had been reduced to just two:  Sam and Dean.

The show ends on a very satisfying note - if you stop with Episode #319 and ignore the final episode.   As #319 ends, Sam and Dean are climbing into Dean's shiny black 1967 Chevy Impala ("Baby") and heading on down the road to more adventures with Jackson Browne's "Runnin' on Empty" blasting away in the background.

But some on the powers behind the show could not be satisfied with a satisfying ending.  They wanted one more episode which would spell out the ways that the brothers lived the rest of their lives - and so tedious Episode #320 was created.  That final episode did nothing but detract from the overall high quality of this long-running hit television series.

I, for one, will remember Sam and Dean roaring on down the road to more adventures as they rid the world of monsters and battle the excesses of religion.  Baby is in fine fettle and Jackson Browne is singing:

"If it takes all night, that'll be all right
If I can get you to smile before I leave
Looking out at the road rushing under my wheels
I don't know how to tell you all just how crazy this life feels
Look around for the friends that I used to turn to to pull me through
Looking into their eyes, I see them running too

Running on (running on empty)
Running on (running blind)
Running on (running into the sun)
But I'm running behind . . ."