Supernatural Season 8 Episode 1

I think the episode was a mediocre one at best. Don't get me wrong I love supernatural but I think that the episode was lack luster and didn't pull me in as it did in the early seasons. I think that having the ending of the last season get almost wiped away in the next episode was quite unfair to the fans. For some reasons the show always puts Sam and Dean back together as fast as they can. I hope the season get better from here out as I think there is still hope for the show.

This was the opener to season 8. I found myself watching my phone and watching guitar videos at alot of points in the episode. It just didn't have that supernatural spark.

one of the worst eps yep and the worst season opener of the whole series. how do you people give it a 8 or 9? the shows been going down hill for years the storys are stupid and repetitive. this WAS once my fav show now i can barley stand to watch it.

As far as season premieres go, this one was not half bad. I especially appreciated the parallels with S4E1 (when Dean comes back from Hell). The only thing that really bugged me was the way it ended. The episode had so much potential can the S7 finale left it pretty much open,and they did pretty well throughout the episode but the ending was pretty weak.

Dean returns from Purgatory a year after he gets sucked in after having killed Dick. In a vast expanse of woods in the in Maine wilderness he happens across two campers and asks where he is. He steals one of their packs and hits the road to Louisiana where he digs up the grave of the person who helped him escape from Purgatory: Benny. Benny is a vamp who hid his soul in Dean's arm when he crossed over. Their dealings being done they go their separate ways and Dean reconnects with Sam after giving him the usual (ok you're not a demon or anything else we've ever encountered before type stuff). Sam explains that he gave up the hunting life after Dean disappeared like he promised he would and didn't even look for him. Dean tells a little about his time in Purgatory and when Sam asks about Castiel Dean simply says that he didn't make it which makes me curious about Dean's time there and what led the peace and love filled Cass possibly turn against Dean? Anyway Dean digs out a bunch of Sam's old phone that he hadn't used at all while he was away and finds messages from Kevin saying he had escaped Crowley's grasp and is in hiding. The two visit Kevin's old girlfriend at her college campus but she says that she doesn't know anything. Turns out the girlfriend was possessed by a demon and alerts Crowley to the Winchesters looking after Kevin and tells Crowley that Dean is surprisingly back on Earth. Sam's details about his life after having hit a dog and living with a woman were much more pleasant and uplifting than Dean's brutal encounters with several nasties in the woods of Purgatory. His edginess is very consistent with that of someone who had been fighting wall to wall for a year. The brothers find Kevin in a church and he tells them that the Word of God that Crowley was having him decipher before he killed the demons looking over him and escaped told of a way to close that gate of Hell forever. This is interesting dynamic-wise since the Winchesters have always been aided by lower level demons to take down much stronger or worse creatures than demons so for them to finally turn against the devils they know is a good plot point to open up rather than having to introduce another batch of baddies like the Leviathans. And when the demons were killed and Crowley was on the phone he asked, "Men?" who refers to their minions like that especially when you're only talking to one, didn't that demon have name? Crowley pays the brothers a visit with Kevin's girlfriend (possessed by a demon) showing and saying that he will release her if Kevin surrenders himself to Crowley. Crowley makes the demon inside of her let his girlfriend speak. I'm sorry but her acting of "Kevin is that you?" was crap and I hated her and her poor acting it was so on the nose. Anyway she gets ganked by Crowley and the brothers escape with Kevin in tow and the Word is still hidden somewhere by Kevin. Is this another year where Crowley is the big bad and is then replaced by another bigger baddie or is this is the year where he is well and true the only villain? That's my question, and will we ever see Misha again as Cass or are we destined to not find out what happened to him until season's end of something? Oh well, a decent opening to Season 8 that put the brothers at odds, as usual, in a way that we haven't quite seen before. That being said I hope that this is the last season. As much as I love this show how much longer can this go on for? Once the demons are banished from Hell forever, what then? I just don't see any other endgame here beyond this seeing as many (myself included) only watch the show for the characters now and everything after Season 5 is less than it was before quality wise. I do sincerely like this show but any genre show like this begins to show its stretches after 8 years and in a recent interview with Jeremy Carver he revealed that he had a plan to make the series go thru Season 10. Come on guys, as some who's been with this show since it started all the way back in 2005 we've had our good run and while I do still find this show fun and entertaining without a good solid season arc it feels too thinly plotted and "why should I care?" than it did before. But they're still keeping it floating. I just felt like that needed to be said that after this season I will most likely not be sticking around.

I greatly enjoyed the season opener as it continues the Leviathan story arc from last season, or at least branches off from that series. Dean is back from a year in purgatory and we get constant flashbacks to show what was going on down there. Sam has a few of his own flashbacks mainly about the dog he injured and then saved. I wonder if the dog is going to show up again. I'm not a huge fan of flashbacks when there are too many but these did help fill in gaps. And of course Kevin returns and I wasn't expecting him to play a part any longer. I can see another long story arc developing from this episode. I am not overly thrilled with these long story arcs and would like to see more episodes like the early seasons when they built a show around actual folk lore monsters. And then near the end we see they will be dealing with the debonair yet totally evil Crowley. It looks like we are in for a good season and I am looking forward to future episodes.

Honestly, I was disappointed with the premiere. The acting felt stilted, the plot subpar, and the flashbacks stilted. We're really supposed to believe Sam just literally abandoned everything? That's just so against character. And not in a soulless way, but in a washed out way. What did Sam do while Dean was gone? I don't know....nothing? Let's give him a girlfriend--and a dog! Dean was marginally more believable, acting like a PTSD excombat soldier. Understandably. But for me, he either wasn't jumpy enough or dark enough for being in what looked to be a warzone for a year. I wish they'd showed more of Purgatory, and less of trying to find Kevin. The flashbacks actually made me laugh a couple of times, and not in a good way. The brother/Kevin stares off into the distance and then a short snippet of the past shows itself. Really, it shouldn't have been done in a backwards way. The show really didn't move forward at all and I would have been much happier if they merged three different timelines of Sam, Dean, and Kevin from the end of last season to this episode and they met up at the end or something.

We Need to Talk About Kevin was a superb and very entertaining episode of Supernatural. I really enjoyed watching because the story picked up a year after last season and as many things changed as stayed the same. I liked how the brothers reunited and tried to help Kevin who has received another word of God which is very intriguing. I liked the character and plot development and look forward to watching what happens next as the season unfolds!!!!!!!

Carver has written many of my very favourite episodes. I know he`s a brilliant storyteller and I know he gets all the characters. So I`m going to trust he didn`t just cavalierly write Sam as doing something so unforgivable and out of character as just giving up on Dean, Cas and Kevin. Thankfully, in spite of being a spoilerphobe, I did read one interview with Carver that really helped. ***Very vague spoilers in the next paragraph.***



Carver said we might not like it at the beginning, but there was "good reason" for how he acted, and that they were "playing with perception." He wanted fans to "hold onto their hats" and give it a chance. So it sounds like there is more to it than meets the eye. And I will hold onto my hat.



The problem is, I won`t necessarily enjoy holding onto my hat. I loved the series Chuck, but they were guilty of always asking the fans to hold onto their hats. They were constantly taking characters and storylines off in directions we didn`t want them to go, and then going "PSYCH!` and bringing them back to where we wanted them. That gets very old very quickly. While it may amuse the writers (who know for a fact they will be bringing it back), it`s not as amusing for the viewers who have to wait and worry that there might not be a course correction. The last season of Chuck they really went too far when they gave the Intersect to Morgan and turned him into a douchebag. They lost a lot of fans and the ratings plummeted. All my friends stopped watching, and I wish I had too. I`m now rewatching Chuck and I can`t like Morgan anymore. It ruined the character for me.



So I really hope they won`t make that mistake with Supernatural. Cas fans have been holding onto their hats for a couple seasons now. Ask any of them, they`ll tell you it ain`t fun. And it looks like there`s no end in sight, since Dean has said Cas is dead (again.) And now we have to worry he really is dead for good (again.)



And I`m very concerned about how this might taint Sam. Sam bashing is already a full-contact sport for some fans. (I am going to redouble my efforts to avoid forums and comment sections.) But despite what some might think, this is out of character for Sam. In the past, he has gone to extreme lengths to get Dean back. All through season 3, it was his only focus, he was single-minded about it. He hunted down the Trickster relentlessly in Mystery Spot, took an awful risk stabbing Bobby, was willing to Frankenstein both himself and Dean with the immortal doctor`s formula, was willing to use his demonic powers when Dean`s time was up, tried to open the Devil`s Gates to get Dean out, tried to switch places with him, tried to make deals with demons. That`s who Sam is. (Rebelling against his father when he was a teenager and going to college when Dean was okay, and taking off in a huff for a few days to blow off steam are not the same thing as abandoning his brother when he is in mortal danger. Not even in the same ballpark.) Sam has also several times since season 2 said he is not normal and no longer wants normal, so that too is out of character. So yeah, there better be more to this story. A lot more.



I`m also concerned about Amelia, but trying to keep an open mind. It`s hard enough fitting in a girlfriend in what is essentially a buddy cop road movie without messing with the dynamic. If you set that girlfriend up to be the reason why one buddy abandoned the other buddy, you`re not setting her up to be liked. You`re casting her as Yoko.



There`s also the fact that I like my female characters to have a role in the fight, and not just be props for the male characters as girlfriends and arm candy and damsels to be rescued. The moment I fell in love with Jody Mills is when she stood shoulder to shoulder with Sam blowing out zombie brains. And that`s the other thing. I`m watching Supernatural because I like to see zombie brains blown out. If I were into romantic relationships and apple-pie life, I`d be watching Hart of Dixie. So while I`m okay with a romantic relationship being (carefully) included, I don`t want it to get in the way of blowing out zombie brains. I want the girl to help with the blowing out of zombie brains. So I`m hoping Amelia is more than just a girlfriend, that she has a part to play in the supernatural plot. I`m pretty sure there`s more going on there.



Those concerns aside, this was a great episode. It was great to see the boys again. I loved the reunion scene, especially how the Winchester rule of One Hug Per Death and Resurrection played out, like the rule was made explicit because they both knew the hug was coming. This was their thing, this was their tradition. You died, you came back from the dead, you get a hug.



And I love what they`ve done with Kevin. You can really feel the weight of that year on him. He`s turning out to be quite the fighter, putting those advanced placement brains to good use. And I`m really liking Benny too. I`m looking forward to finding out what he and Dean were up to in Purgatory, and also the ways in which Purgatory changed Dean. And Crowley is the most deliciously entertaining bad guy ever, so I`m really glad he has been kept on as the foe.



And I think they picked the perfect mytharc. Though I personally loved the twisty and turny noir theme of season 6, and I got a big kick out of the novel and entertaining Leviathan in season 7, I think it was time to simplify things. The quest to rid the earth of demons once and for all keeps us within the same themes of past mytharcs, but cuts out all the weighty baggage it had accumulated.



I`m really looking forward to seeing what season 8 holds in store for us.

Let me start by saying that Sam's hair is so early season and made me realized that he still looks the same like barely years on his face hmmm... must be some mojo.



I love that Dean is back but super sad when he said that Cas is probably dead but I'm still hopeful, I love Cas. There's one thing that is a deja vu from earlier season is that one of them is back and another one is bitching about the other not exerting effort not finding the other. But something comforting about the brothers back in tux posting questions and logging on the net finding details for calls.



I'm beginning to appreciate Kevin since he is not whinny anymore probably the prophet learned to control emotions and sure who can miss the slo-mo of neck breaking well, Crowley is bad... really bad. I'm intrigued by the last scene and the conversation of Dean.



I love the old feel and maybe was closing hell's gate for good means this will be over soon? I knew there is a new show runner but from what I've watched earlier, I'm a happy camper so far. So for now you Supernatural next week.

Here's my list of awesome for the season 8 premiere. First of all, how awesome is it we made it to season 8!?



-I love that the first shot is of Baby zooming by. Missed you , Baby! And points for setting the THEN montage to Jethro Tull.



-Feral Dean!!! That is so freakin' cool.



-Whoever chose Man in the Wilderness by Styx to show Dean's return from Purgatory deserves the Most Awesomely Fitting Song Award. Just get a load of these lyrics:

Another year has passed me by

I look at myself and cry

What kind of man have I become

All those years I searched for myself

But I'm still lost in the dark

I can't seem to find the light alone

Sometimes I feel like a man in the wilderness

A lonely man on the road

Sent away to die without even knowing why

It makes no sense, it makes no sense at all



-"Hold on you bastard!" How cool is it that Dean acted as a mule to smuggle a vampire soul across the border between Purgatory and Earth.



-I'm gonna just go ahead and declare Benny awesome right off the bat. I'm really looking forward to finding out what shenanigans Dean and Benny got up to in Purgatory. And bonus: Now we can strike Louisiana off the list of states they have never been to on the show.



-Sam has a puppydog! He looks like a sweet pooch.



-Ooooh! Did you guys see the shadowy figure in the right foreground as Sam is pulling out in the Impala? Awesome, something creepy is afoot.



-Hahaha! Best reunion scene ever. Dean's all hellbent on getting all the safety precautions out of the way as quickly as humanly possible, throwing everything at Sam and then himself with manic speed. And Sam's all "Could we just skip the preliminaries and get to the hug already!?" Then finally Dean gets through his pre-flight checklist and goes "Let`s do this!" Cleared for hugging.



-Dammit! Is Cas dead AGAIN!? They had only just resurrected him!



-Okay. Sam not even looking for Dean is NOT awesome, it is totes the opposite of awesome. BUT I know Sam would NEVER not even look for Dean, so something fishy is going on. The shadowy dude outside Sam`s home would seem to confirm it: there is something rotten in Sam's "apple-pie life." I don't think the dog running out in front of his car was just a random accident, and I don't think Amelia is just some random vet. She went to extremes to guilt trip Sam into keeping the dog, going so far as to say "Maybe you're not an upstanding guy if you hit the dog" when he was clearly distraught about the accident. So I`m going to rest assured somebody put a whammy on Sammy. And I'm going to put it aside so it doesn't harsh my awesome.



-Flashback of Awesome. So cool we're getting to see Purgatory. Dean called it "pure" and it is very primal, the wilderness, kill or be killed, the law of the jungle, the endless supply of evil creatures to gank. Hunting in its purest form.



-Sam's flowing locks deserve their own bullet point on the List of Awesome.



-The church set is just brilliant set design.



-THANK YOU! I have been waiting for years for someone to use a supersoaker water gun!



-"Cliff notes: I went to Purgatory, Sam hit a dog."



-Haha, Kevin is awesome. First the supersoaker filled with Borax, then the old bucket trick above the door filled with holy water. Guess it took a clever teen to finally see the evil-fighting potential in juvenile pranks. Kevin Tran has come a long way since his Advanced Placement days. He even fooled Crowley. Twice. And you have to get up mighty early to fool Crowley. Like sometime back in the Pleistocene era.



-Ha, love the goat shot.



-"Moose! Still with the porkchops."



-"There's a demon in you and you're going to your safety school." Hahaha! I love that there's still enough Kevin Tran of Advanced Placement left in him that he puts having to fall back to your safety school on the same level as being possessed by a demon.



-After that phone call, I'm curiouser and curiouser to find out what Benny and Dean did in Purgatory. Can't wait to find out. Bring on Season 8!!!

Season 8.

Who'd have thought it. A show that was, at its heart, two brothers who hunt down monsters while trailing across the country... and it's lasted 8 seasons. It's commendable that it's come so far, and it's down to the brilliant writing team, not to mention some amazing acting from Jenson and Jared that has pulled this show through to 2012. In it's time, it has become a cult phenomenon. While not being as watched as some other shows, such as Vampire Diaries, it has gotten itself a loyal fan base. Which, luckily, were able to overlook the rather weak seventh season.

I've already gone into why I didn't feel season 7 was that good, but in a quick re-cap I'd say that the Leviathons were average villains at best, they culled half the cast for no apparent reason, there were not enough Angels or Demons and too many stand alones that didn't really live up to the quality of seasons preceding it. A new season brings a new producer, and from the first episode it seems he pretty much agrees with me.

It's interesting how the Leviathons did not feature at all in this premier. I think the writing staff have kind of figured out they dropped the ball with them. Instead, the focus shifts onto the most interesting thing to come out of season seven: the Word of God. In a season were any sight of the Angel/Demon conflict excelled an episode to higher heights, seeing the Word of God at the end of it was like a breath of fresh air. The writers know this and have jumped onto the plot quickly, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Kevin's back, and this time he is less of a hindererance and more of a hard nut. After a year of being on the run, I'm not surprised. It seems like the writers are setting him up to be a continuing character, yet I doubt he'll be the third passenger in the Impala for long. Just ask John, Cas and Bobby... the third man never quite makes it when partnered with the Winchesters.

The introduction of the Word of God plot also allowed Mark Sheppard to do his usual brilliant job as Crowley. Seriously... this guy is one of the best characters on TV in my opinion. Utterly self obsessed and absorbed, he works as both a brilliant ally and foe to the Winchesters. Woefully underused last season, I really hope he's playing a bigger role this year.

So... what about the main event, then? The Boys.

Let's deal with Dean first.

I'm loving the intriguing deal he made with the Vampire to get out of Purgatory. I was slightly concerned that, if Vampires were coming into more prominace this year, it was just going to be a desperate attempt by the writers to pull in some Twi-Hard fans. Thank God it looks like they are sticking far from that. Vampires in the world of Supernatural are disgusting, animal like predators and Benny is a very interesting new character. Is he evil? He certainly didn't seem very nice. In fact, they wasted no time making him as creepy as possible. Would Dean really make a deal with something like that? Clearly there is more to come here, and I like how they are going to show us Dean's Purgatory story gradually in flashbacks.

Sam's actions here kind of made sense. He's literally lost everyone to this horrible sequence of events that began when he was one years old. For him to just give up and go off and try to start the normal life he used to crave fits with the character. When he became obsessed with revenge, he dedicated himself to hunting, either to get some pay back for Jess, or later Dean. Now he was truly left alone, having lost so much, he couldn't do it any more. The whole dog situation just added pathos to that. We learned back in season 5 that Sam once ran away and stayed in a little house with a dog for a week, something he fondly remembers. He associates the dog with a normal life and, again, I recon there is more to come with the Sam story.

So. Overall quite a good episode. Certainly set things up nicely for the season ahead, while promising to provide good pay offs to last year's big plots. So, what didn't quite work for me?

Could I be shot for saying we'd kind of seen all this before? Yes, I know it's season 8. By this point, a show will start to repeat itself. But this situation was pretty much reversed two years ago, when Sam came back to get Dean out of his normal life. That is why I found Dean to be a slight hypocrite in criticizing Sam. He spent a whole year living in suburban luxury with Lisa and Ben, did he not? And he'd lost everything and everyone too, just as Sam had. It's not like Supernatural to take short-cuts in their writing, and I'm really surprised this was not addressed.

It seems that when the show wants to make a radical change in direction, it separates the boys for a certain amount of time. When Dean came back from hell in season 4, it was the start of a whole new mythology, in the Angel and Lucifer heavy storyline. When Sam came back in season 6, it was the start of looking away from Angels and Demons and focusing on monsters, which didn't really work but there you go. Now, in season 8, it seems it's doing the exact same thing. Which is fine. Except there is a nagging feeling we've seen it all before.

So yeah. I'm very excited for what this season has to offer, and already it looks to be improving on the last. I do not know where they are planning to go from here, but Ben Carver has suggested he has it planned up to season 10. To make it that far, I suggest less stand alones (as lets face it... we've seen it all now), more Cas and Crowley and maybe a little return of Lucifer? Still. Roll on Supernatural.

Okay, give me just a few minutes to get my excitement in check. THE BOYS ARE BACK! I've been waiting for the season premiere for weeks now, and maybe because of that I found it lacking.

Don't get me wrong, I like supernatural, but I felt like this season premiere was a bit predictable. It felt like a re-run. Dean coming back. Dean angry at Sam for not looking for him and blah and blah and blah...

Nevertheless, there were some pretty cool stuff, like Dean cutting Benny's soul out and Kevin (with a new hair cut) being less of a liability that I thought: he held his own when Crowley's minions arrived.

I enjoyed watching the usual banter (and resentment among other things) between Sam and Dean, but I'm intrigued by what exactly happened in Purgatory, what Dean had to do there, and of course what happened to Castiel.

Sam's story bored me. But then again, I've always leaned toward Dean. So maybe that just me.

Though I found it lacking, I can't wait to see what Mr Carver has in store for us this year, and I hope to see more of Benny soon.

Please, please, please Mr Carver don't screw this up!

I loved every minute of this episode. It was completely intriguing and felt completely fresh even as it brought together all the existing elements left over from the last season. The good elements that is! I LOVE the Dean/Benny arc and Crowley was awesome with the neck-snapping in slo-mo. Everything just felt more epic than it has in a long time. People everywhere, music, the car... So happy to see this show come back to life again. And mostly, I love that dean is reacting to his time in purgatory. We never really saw him react to hell, things just moved on, but his reaction to this is fascinating. Can't wait for the next episode!

Wow awesome first opener dean and Sam reunited what will happen next for Sam and dean

Meet up with the profit Kevin so thrilled supernatural is finally back after so long