'Supernatural's' 12 Best Episodes

If you ask me what my favorite show are, odds are I will give you an ever-rotating Top 27 List, however, The CW's Supernatural has been in the Top 3 for the better part of a decade. Though I've had a few issues with the the later seasons, their winning combination of off-beat humor, horror movie scares and superb acting from stars Jared Padalecki, Jensen Ackles and Misha Collins and call-your-therapist feels still has me obsessively hooked. 

The CW has declared September 13 as Supernatural Day as it marks the anniversary of the show's premiere.  To celebrate this momentous occasion, I decided to do the impossible: to build a definitive list of the sci-fi drama's best episodes.  The only rule is that I could only select one episode per season. No honorable mentions or ties. It took an embarrassing amount of re-watching, agonizing and over-analyzing.  At least I knew I wouldn't include "Bugs" or "Red Sky At Morning," amirite?  

​Grab a slice of pie and check out Supernatural's 12 Best Episodes...

​Season 1 | If you want me to tackle you like a linebacker on bath salts, put your hand near a garbage disposal. "Home" is responsible for that phobia. Equal parts scary and heartbreaking, the brothers return to their childhood home after Sam has psychic dreams of murders there. Bonus: Loretta Devine guest-stars as an eccentric medium.

​Season 2 | Like AU fanfic writers, Dean wonders what his life would be like if they were normal in "What Is And What Should Never Be." Thanks to Djinn's poison, Dean falls into a world where his mother is alive, Sam and Jess are getting married and not surprisingly, he's kind of a douche. Jensen Ackles does phenomenal work in this emotional nod to the pilot directed by creator Eric Kripke.

​Season 3 | Sam and Dean are forced into a suspenseful battle against a demon army in this "Jus In Bello" and debuted their famous anti-possession ink. It's the epitome of the show's self-imposed logline, "saving people, hunting things," which makes the brutal ending all the more painful.

Season 4 | Four words: Giant. Flaming. Pissed-Off. Teddy. If you haven't seen "Wishful Thinking," this is an instant classic involving wishes gone wrong, a life-sized teddy bear having an existential crisis and a cursed sandwich. Supernatural usually makes you cry, but in this case, it's tears of laughter.

​Season 5 | If you're looking for a Capital-U Ugly-Cry, "Dark Side Of The Moon" is your jam. After being gruesomely murdered by hunters, the boys are trapped in a manipulated version of Heaven. They venture through a labyrinth of canonically important memories and emerge more fractured than ever. RIP the Samulet.

​Season 6 | "Clap Your Hands If You Believe" is fantastically strange. When Dean is attacked by fairies, Soulless Sam is pretty unbothered by it. It doesn't get much better than a handcuffed Dean hollering "Fight the fairies!" and a Soulless Sam "banging patchouli" in his abducted brother's bed.

​Season 7 | While Sam and Dean struggle with Bobby's last moments, their hunter and surrogate father makes peace with his tragic life that was made special by his two boys. The last minutes of "Death's Door" will have you sobbing into your pie. And probably calling your dad.

​Season 8 | "Sacrifice" is heartbreaking, odyssey of an episode led by Jared Padalecki's raw performance as a little brother aching to be heard and a hunter ready to forfeit his life for the greater good. Bonus: The final moments are some of the best F/X work the lovingly campy show has ever done.  GOOSIES!

​Season 9 | "Road Trip" follows the chaotic aftermath of Kevin's death and the mission to rescue Sam, who was overtaken by the angel possessing him. You'll want to throw things and probably puke during this episode, which means, it's doing everything right.

​Season 10 | What's a little brother to do when Dean is succumbing to the evil powers of The Mark? Enlist the help of a rogue angel and a dead Bobby to orchestrate a caper-style kidnapping in Heaven in order to get one step closer to saving him, of course. "Inside Man" is high-stakes entertainment!

​Season 11 | You'd think an episode about Sam's imaginary friend would feature SPN's trademark weirdness, and it does. But "Just My Imagination" also yanks on the heartstrings more than hyper kids playing tug-o-war. We get a rare glimpse of Sam's lonely childhood and learn that Dean wasn't always the best big brother. It's also extremely reassuring to learn that some supernatural beings are inherently good.

Season 12 | I often forget that "Who We Are"--season 12's penultimate episode--isn't the season finale, because this extraordinary hour of television has everything Supernatural fans have come to take for granted in its long run: broments, action, gore and watching Sam and Dean come into their own as a leader and a son, respectively.  The grisly end to the British Men Of Letters and one of the mushiest (and best) chick-flick moments ever are just the ice cream on the pie.  

Don't miss the season 13 premiere of Supernatural on October 12!  If you disagree with some of the choices (and I know you will), hit up the comments section with your selections!  

​Happy Supernatural Day, fam!

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