I just can’t quit you.

by Kevin Gaussoin, Editor-in-Chief
As a series, Supernatural is about the Winchester brothers, Sam (Jared Padalecki – Gilmore Girls, Friday the 13th) and Dean (Jensen Ackles – Dark Angel, Batman: Under the Red Hood), two young men who travel the country in a 1967 Chevy Impala protecting the good and normal denizens of earth from every evil supernatural being we’ve ever heard of and a few we haven’t.

Season Four of Supernatural ended with the Winchester brothers unwittingly setting the Apocalypse in motion and releasing Lucifer from Hell. Supernatural: The Complete Fifth Season shows us how they solve this little dilemma. Sam and Dean are the only guys for the job, but can they come through and save the world from doom, and at what cost?

(SOME SPOILERS AHEAD!)

The overarching theme of the season is Sam and Dean reversing the impending end of the world by returning the Devil (Mark Pellegrino – Dexter, Lost) to Hell. How will they even set about doing such a thing? Will God help? Where is God anyway? If they get the Colt back will that help them? Will the angels help them? How will they defeat the Four Horsemen? Where are the Ghostfacers? What’s a guy got to do to get a comedy episode around here? These questions and more are answered on the Blu-ray edition of Supernatural: The Complete Fifth Season.

Stay here, I’m going to borrow the Ghostfacers’ camera…

Episode Highlights:

Saving the world from Armageddon is hard work, so often the Winchesters and friends go off on side missions for some R&R. Here are our favorites from Season Five…

S05E04: “The End” – Zombies! Everyone loves zombies!

S05E05: “Fallen Idols” – Paris Hilton guest stars as… well, that would be telling.

S05E06: “I Believe the Children Are Our Future” – 11 year old Jesse is the Scarlet Witch. …At least he has some serious reality-altering powers.

S05E07: “The Curious Case of Dean Winchester” – Betting away years instead of money? I’m sure I’ve heard this scenario before, but of course Supernatural does it better. This is a little more serious than many of the Supernatural off-mythos episodes, but it pays off in the end.

S05E08: “Changing Channels” – The Trickster returns and puts Sam and Dean on TV. A ton of contemporary tropes are explored to our giggling delight. The comedy episodes are some of the true treats of this show and this one is one of the very best.

S05E09: “The Real Ghostbusters” – Chuck Shurley, aka Carver Edlund (Rob Benedict – Waiting, Threshold), returns as the Winchesters attend a fan convention of Supernatural. It doesn’t get any more meta than this, folks.

S05E12: “Swap Meat” – Magical body swap with a teenager? Sure we’ve seen it before and we’ll see it again, but when you body-swap with Dean Winchester, you better be prepared to take damage, dorky D&D kid.

S05E13: The Song Remains the Same” – Sam and Dean go back to 1978 to prevent harm their parents.

S05E15: “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid” – More zombies, except this time it’s a comedy, and then it’s not.

S05E19: “Hammer of the Gods” – Deities and Demigods convention. Reminiscent of Sandman arc Season of Mists to the point of homage, it might as well remind “Each and every one of us always give the devil his due.”

“That’s what I told him!”

Audio and Video:

Supernatural: The Complete Fifth Season is an excellent transfer, with the 1080p graphics looking richer than when they originally aired in HD. The sound is mastered in digital 5.1 surround sound and if you turn it up and turn out the lights, you’re going to have one of the best immersive experiences you can get with any of today’s take-home-TV on Blu-ray.

That’s what she said!

Special Features:

This season’s Special Features are creepier than ever, as getting to most of them requires a search of Bobby’s house. They’re not hard to find of course, but you may find yourself wondering where the fiction ends and the true documentaries begin. Creepy!

Here is the complete list:

• Supernatural: Apocalypse Survival Guides – Bobby’s Extensive Video Collection
• Ghostfacers: The Web Series
• Writer/Director Commentary on Episode 4: The End
• Unaired Scene from Episode 9: “The Real Ghostbusters”
• Gag Reel

Supernatural has proven season after season that it will continue to deliver some of the best if not the best horror/supernatural genre fare on TV. The only reason it doesn’t earn a perfect 5 out of 5 is because it didn’t end where series creator Eric Kripke wanted it to end: The final episode of this season. If it weren’t for the final cliffhanger scene, we’d have as perfect an ending as we got from the final episode of Quantum Leap (explaining the comparison would be too spoilery). Instead we have Season Six to look forward to. I have to admit, I wasn’t ready to let go of this show either, but at the same time, at what price? Kripke may not be the show runner anymore, but he’s still Executive Producer and it seems everyone else is still in it to win it too, so maybe Season Six will give us answers to some things that we didn’t know we wanted to know: What happens after the credits roll after the last arc? What happens after the Apocalypse is over? Can we get some more comedy over here? Where did God go? Is He coming back? Will the WB reps at Comic-Con 2011 finally let us interview the Supernatural Cast?

Rating:
ComicsOnline gives Supernatural: The Complete Fifth Season 4.5 out of 5 metatextual deities.

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