supernatural

Supernatural is an American paranormal drama television series, filmed in Canada, that debuted on September 13 2005 on the WB, and is now part of The CW's lineup, where the second season premiered on September 28 2006, and the third season is set to premiere on October 4 2007.

The show follows brothers Sam and Dean Winchester, who travel across the country in a black 1967 Chevy Impala investigating and combatting paranormal events and other unexplained occurrences, many of them based on American urban legends and folklore as well as classic supernatural creatures such as vampires, werewolves and ghosts.

Eric Kripke cites Neil Gaiman's The Sandman and American Gods as influences on Supernatural, along with Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey.

On May 15, 2007 Supernatural was officially renewed for a full third season of 22 episodes.


SEASON 1

When Sam Winchester was an infant and his brother Dean was only four years old, their mother, Mary, was murdered on November 2, 1983 (All Souls' Day). Her husband, John, saw blood dripping onto Sam's cradle, looked up, and found his wife pinned to the ceiling, her midsection sliced open. A moment later, she burst into flames. John told Dean to take baby Sam outside and tried to make a desperate and futile attempt to save his wife while the house was consumed by flames.

After a psychic told John that something of the supernatural was responsible for Mary's death, he became obsessed with finding and destroying the thing that killed his wife and in the process trained his sons to recognize and defend themselves against paranormal entities. At a young age, both Sam and Dean became resourceful sleuths and experienced fighters assisting their father in his quest to destroy dangerous creatures and find the demon that had killed their mother. However, Sam rebelled against the lifestyle his father chose for him, eventually having a falling out with his father and leaving to live a "normal" life. He attended Stanford University on a full scholarship and lived with his girlfriend, Jessica Moore, in an apartment near campus. But when Dean, after two years of estrangement, appears one night on Sam's doorstep during the autumn of his senior year, bearing the news that their father has gone missing while on a "hunting trip". Sam reluctantly agrees to help Dean in the search.

The brothers trace John to Jericho, California, where they find more clues about their father's possible location and help solve the ghost murder mystery their father had been working on before he disappeared. After all was said and done however and John was yet to be found, Sam declines his brother's invitation to continue the search and conduct more hunts, opting instead to return to his life with Jessica. Unfortunately, shortly after arriving back in his apartment, he finds her pinned to the bedroom ceiling, bleeding from the abdomen. As Sam watches helplessly she bursts into flames and dies in the same manner as his mother, twenty-two years to the day afterwards. Dean rescues his brother from the burning apartment, and the bereaved Sam decides to join Dean in the search for their father who may have answers about the demon who killed his mother and his girlfriend. In Dean's 1967 Chevy Impala, the Winchester brothers pick up John's trail, traveling the back roads and small towns of the continental United States in the process.

Eventually the brothers locate their father, and he reveals the extent of his knowledge of the demon that killed Mary, and his intention to kill it. At first he opposes the boys' involvement because he fears losing them, but eventually he yields. Together, the Winchesters search for a special weapon: The Colt, which was created during the Alamo and Halley's Comet for a demon hunter, and has the ability to destroy any being with one bullet. All three Winchesters, after recovering the Colt from a band of vampires, band together and start to hunt the demon in earnest. However, due to a series of catastrophic events (beginning with John's capture), they are eventually overpowered by the demon, who, while possessing John, nearly tortures Dean to death before Sam is able to free himself and shoot it in the leg with the Colt. Sam tries to rush Dean and John to the hospital, but a demon possessed truck driver plows into the Impala, totaling it and leaving all three Winchesters incapacitated.

SEASON 2

At the beginning of season two, the trio are rescued via MEDEVAC and taken to the hospital, but due to his extended injures caused by both the demon's torture and the car accident, Dean is comatose. John summons the demon to make a deal and trades the gun and his own life for Dean's.

Both Dean and Sam struggle to cope with John's death while trying to continue their job. As they continue to hunt any supernatural spirit they find, they come across many people that share the same story as Sam, a mother who mysteriously dies in their nurseries when they were 6 months old. These "special children" each discovered recently that they have some sort of psychic power. In the light of these revelations, Dean reveals to Sam that their father (just before giving his life to the demon) had told Dean he had to save Sam or be forced to kill him. Various revelations occur throughout the rest of the season that lead the pair to believe these psychics are being trained to participate in an army that the demon will lead in a coming apocalypse.

After several months of "by-the-book" jobs, Sam disappears while ordering food at a diner. He awakens in a ghost town with four other psychics, two of whom he had met in prior episodes (Ava from Hunted and Andy from Simon Said). There, in a dream, the demon reveals to Sam he has brought all of them to the town to compete against one another and the winner (the only one left alive) would become the leader of the demon's army, which the demon was still working to assemble. The two innocent psychics are killed, before Ava (who has killed Andy by summoning a murderous demon) is revealed to be a demonic familiar herself. Jake, an Army soldier who claims he was abducted from Afghanistan, kills Ava by snapping her neck after taking her by surprise. Dean has been frantically trying to locate his brother, discovering the Roadhouse has been burned to the ground, leaving Ash dead and Ellen missing. With the help of Andy, who can "beam information" directly into people's brains, Bobby discerns where Sam and the others are (a haunted ghost town in rural, fictional "Cold Oak, South Dakota"). Upon their arrival, Dean and Bobby watch in horror as Sam is stabbed in the back by the only other survivor, Jake. Sam dies in Dean's arms.

In the season finale, Dean, distraught and unable to cope with the loss of his brother, believes that he has let Sam down. His mind made up, Dean sets off without Bobby, leaving Sam's body behind. He makes a deal with the demon at the crossroads, his soul for Sam's. The demon agrees and brings Sam back from the dead. However, she tells Dean that she will only give him one more year to live, and if he tries in any way to prevent his death, Sam will drop dead on the spot. When Dean returns, he finds his brother alive and well and unaware of all that has happened. After everything Dean went through knowing that his father had died for him, he wants to protect Sam and decides not to tell his brother that Jake had killed him.

Ellen, who was away when the roadhouse burned down, finds Bobby, Dean, and Sam and shows them a map that Ash had prepared just before his death. They discover that an elaborate gate was constructed by Samuel Colt to bar an entrance from hell. The demon tells Jake that he must open the gate and that the colt is the key. The whole group arrives to stop Jake, who is beyond surprised to see Sam and insists that he killed him. Jake gets the gate open but is shot to death by Sam.

The demon returns and taunts Dean with the possibility that the Sam that Dean has had resurrected may not be "one hundred percent pure Sam." He then attempts to kill Dean. However, John Winchester, who has escaped from hell, manages to save his son. Dean shoots and kills the demon with the last remaining bullet in The Colt, and John's soul departs, no longer condemned to hell. Bobby and Ellen are able to close the gate, but not before hundreds of souls and demons escape. Sam is suspicious and wants to know why Jake insisted that he had killed him. Dean is then forced to reveal the deal he had made at the crossroads, and Sam, who is upset over the sacrifice Dean has made, promises to save him.

**wikipedia.org