Episodes
See also: List of Supernatural episodesIn this table, the number in the first column refers to the episode's number within the entire series, whereas the number in the second column indicates the episode's number within this particular season. "U.S. viewers in millions" refers to how many Americans watched the episode live or on the day of broadcast.
| # | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | Production code |
U.S. viewers (million) |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | "Pilot" | David Nutter | Eric Kripke | September 13, 2005 (2005-09-13) | 475285 | 5.69 |
| When they were young, Sam (Padalecki) and Dean Winchester's (Ackles) mother Mary (Samantha Smith) died a violent and unexplainable death, which in turn led their father, John Winchester (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), to teach them skills which they might need in the search for whatever it was that took her life. Years later, while attending Stanford University, Sam is forced back into the paranormal world by his older brother, who has come to tell him that their father has mysteriously disappeared. The two travel to Jericho, California, to find him, but their search is put on hold when they discover that a ghostly Woman in White (Sarah Shahi)—the spirit of a woman who drowned her children and then killed herself—has been taking male victims. They investigate, but Dean is soon arrested for impersonating a federal agent. However, he manages to escape custody, and saves his brother from the vengeful spirit. The Woman in White is finally put to rest after the brothers force her to confront the spirits of her children. Sam later returns home, and discovers his girlfriend Jessica (Adrianne Palicki) pinned to the ceiling. He is then forced to watch as she is killed in the same supernatural manner as his mother. Jessica's death prompts him to return to the life of hunting with Dean. | |||||||
| 2 | 2 | "Wendigo" | David Nutter | Story by: Ron Milbauer & Terri Hughes Burton Teleplay by: Eric Kripke |
September 20, 2005 (2005-09-20) | 2T6901 | 5.01 |
| After having no luck in the investigation of Jessica's death, the brothers follow instructions found in their father's journal and head to Blackwater Ridge, Lost Creek, Colorado. Posing as park rangers, they help a young woman named Haley (Gina Holden) and her younger brother Ben (Alden Ehrenreich) search for their lost older brother Tommy (Graham Wardle), who disappeared while on a camping trip. Sam and Dean soon realize that he was taken by a wendigo that has terrorized the woods since 1936. While searching, Haley and Dean are kidnapped by the creature, but Sam and Ben are able to track them to a mine. After Dean, Haley, and Tommy are freed, they kill the wendigo with a flare gun. | |||||||
| 3 | 3 | "Dead in the Water" | Kim Manners | Sera Gamble & Raelle Tucker | September 27, 2005 (2005-09-27) | 2T6903 | 5.01 |
| Taking a break from the search for their father, Sam and Dean head to Lake Manitoc in Wisconsin for a possible case. Three drownings have occurred there within a year, with the dead bodies mysteriously disappearing in the lake. The brothers soon come to believe that an avenging spirit of a young boy haunts the lake, and learn that the local sheriff (Daniel Hugh Kelly) and the father of the latest victim accidentally caused his death when they were children. Out for revenge, the spirit targets the sheriff's daughter Andrea (Amy Acker) and mute grandson Lucas (Nico McEown). It eventually pulls Lucas into the lake, so the sheriff gives himself over to the spirit, saving his grandson. | |||||||
| 4 | 4 | "Phantom Traveler" | Robert Singer | Richard Hatem | October 4, 2005 (2005-10-04) | 2T6904 | 5.40 |
| The brothers are asked by a man whom Dean and his father had previously rescued to investigate the mysterious crash of a commercial airplane that left only seven survivors, with signs pointing to a demonically-possessed passenger causing the accident. When they realize that the demon is now eliminating the survivors one by one, Dean is forced to face his fear of flying by following its next target (Jaime Ray Newman) aboard an airliner. He and Sam manage to get the demon into the galley on-board, but it flees its host during the exorcism. Despite this, they continue the ritual, sending the demon back to Hell. | |||||||
| 5 | 5 | "Bloody Mary" | Peter Ellis | Story by: Eric Kripke Teleplay by: Ron Milbauer & Terri Hughes Burton |
October 11, 2005 (2005-10-11) | 2T6905 | 5.50 |
| When a man is killed—his eyeballs having exploded—after his daughter chants "Bloody Mary" three times in front of a mirror, Sam and Dean head to Toledo, Ohio, to investigate. They learn that Bloody Mary (Jovanna Huguet) is the ghost of a young woman who was murdered after her eyes were cut out, and her spirit trapped within the mirror that she died in front of. With the mirror now for sale in an antique store in the town, Bloody Mary has begun to target those nearby who secretly feel guilt over another's death. The brothers must find a way to stop her after a young girl (Marnette Patterson) inadvertently becomes her next target. They track down the original mirror and then smash it, but this only releases Bloody Mary. However, Dean forces her to see her own reflection, and her guilt over her own secrets causes her to destroy herself. | |||||||
| 6 | 6 | "Skin" | Robert Duncan McNeill | John Shiban | October 18, 2005 (2005-10-18) | 2T6906 | 5.00 |
| After Zach (Aleks Holtz), a college friend of Sam's, is arrested for murdering his girlfriend, the brothers head to St. Louis, Missouri, to investigate. Zach's sister Becky (Amy Grabow) claims that he was with her at the time of the murder, although security footage places him at the scene of the crime. After a similar murder occurs, they realize that the real culprit is a being with shape-shifting abilities. The shapeshifter then captures the two, and plans to use Dean's form to kill Becky. The brothers escape and alert the police. Becky is saved, but the police believe Dean to be her attacker. As Dean later searches through the shape-shifter's lair, Sam visits Becky to make sure that she knows what they are dealing with. However, she reveals herself to be the shape-shifter and knocks Sam unconscious before morphing back into Dean. After the real Dean finds the real Becky tied up in the lair, he confronts the shape-shifter and shoots it dead—still in his form. | |||||||
| 7 | 7 | "Hook Man" | David Jackson | John Shiban | October 25, 2005 (2005-10-25) | 2T6902 | 5.08 |
| Sam and Dean head to Ankeny, Iowa to investigate the brutal death of a college student, and the victim's girlfriend Lori (Jane McGregor) says that the attacker was invisible. More attacks occur, with the victims seemingly connected to the girl. The brothers believe that the killer is the Hook Man, and research indicates that it is the vengeful spirit of Jacob Karns, a preacher who murdered 13 prostitutes in 1862 with the hook that replaced his lost hand and was later put to death for his crimes. Despite the man being buried in an unmarked grave, Dean manages to locate it and burn his bones, but it has no effect. To stop the spirit, they must destroy the hook, which was reforged into an unknown object by the church after Karns' death. In order to be sure, they burn everything silver in the church, but it doesn't stop the Hook Man. Lori and the brothers are confronted by the Hook Man. As they fight him, Sam realizes that Lori's cross necklace—given to her by her reverend father—is made of silver, and the spirit vanishes once it is burned. | |||||||
| 8 | 8 | "Bugs" | Kim Manners | Rachel Nave & Bill Coakley | November 8, 2005 (2005-11-08) | 2T6907 | 4.47 |
| After a construction worker for a new housing development dies in a sinkhole, his brain dissolving within minutes, the brothers head to Oasis Plains, Oklahoma, to investigate. There they learn of mysterious, bug-related deaths in the town. After doing research, they discover that a Native American tribe used to live in the area, but its members were murdered by cavalrymen, with the tribe's chief placing a curse on the land as he died. Sam and Dean determine that the curse will reach its climax that night, and race to warn the family living there as swarms of insects attack. They are able to fight off the bugs and survive through the night, and the insects leave at sunrise. The site is shut down temporarily as the boys discovered an unmarked Native American grave and the developer, whose family they saved from the bugs, decides to make sure it remains shut down. | |||||||
| 9 | 9 | "Home" | Ken Girotti | Eric Kripke | November 15, 2005 (2005-11-15) | 2T6908 | 4.21 |
| Sam has nightmares of a family being attacked by a supernatural entity in his and Dean's childhood home, prompting the brothers to return to Lawrence, Kansas, to investigate. They enlist the help of their father's psychic friend, Missouri Mosley (Loretta Devine), to rid the house of a poltergeist. Though Missouri claims to have purified the house, Sam does not believe it was successful, so the brothers watch over the house. When the poltergeist returns, Sam's premonition starts to come true. The brothers rush in to rescue the family, but they themselves are saved by the spirit of their mother, who sacrifices herself to stop the poltergeist. Unknown to them, their father is at Missouri's house and though he dearly wants to see his children, he informs her that he can't until he knows the truth about something. | |||||||
| 10 | 10 | "Asylum" | Guy Bee | Richard Hatem | November 22, 2005 (2005-11-22) | 2T6909 | 5.38 |
| Sam and Dean receive a tip from their father, and travel to Rockford, Illinois, to investigate the haunted Roosevelt Asylum, where criminally insane patients rioted in 1964. One of the riot's victims was the chief psychiatrist (Norman Armour). The spirits there try to communicate rather than attack, leading the brothers to discover that the psychiatrist had been conducting cruel experiments on his patients in order to test his theory that provoking extreme anger would be therapeutic for them. The ghost of the doctor then confronts Sam, causing him to lose his sanity and try to kill his brother. Dean manages to subdue Sam and burn the doctor's corpse, stopping the spirit and returning Sam to normal. | |||||||
| 11 | 11 | "Scarecrow" | Kim Manners | Story by: Patrick Sean Smith Teleplay by: John Shiban |
January 10, 2006 (2006-01-10) | 2T6911 | 4.23 |
| After their father sends a message telling them to investigate the disappearances of young couples in rural Burkitsville, Indiana, Sam reveals to Dean that he would rather track down their father, prompting the two to angrily separate. As Sam meets a fellow hitchhiker named Meg Masters (Nicki Aycox), Dean starts the investigation and saves a traveling couple from a living scarecrow. Dean calls Sam about the creature, and discovers that a Vanir is being summoned in the form of a scarecrow to protect the town in exchange for annual sacrifices, with a sacred tree in the town giving it power. Because the couple intended for the ritual escaped, the townspeople choose Dean and Emily (Tania Saulnier) —a girl who lives in town with her aunt and uncle— to be the new sacrifices. However, Sam returns and rescues them, and the scarecrow instead takes Emily's aunt and uncle as its victims. The next morning, Emily and the brothers burn the sacred tree, and then leave town. Meanwhile, Meg hitches a ride on the highway, but slits the driver's throat, collecting his blood into a goblet and using it to communicate with an unknown being whom she calls father. | |||||||
| 12 | 12 | "Faith" | Allan Kroeker | Sera Gamble & Raelle Tucker | January 17, 2006 (2006-01-17) | 2T6910 | 3.86 |
| While battling a Rawhead, Dean gets electrocuted and his heart is damaged. Doctors give him only a few weeks to live. Sam searches for a way to save him and believes he may have found an answer in a preacher who claims to heal the incurable (Kevin McNulty). At the congregation, Dean is chosen, and is cured of his condition. However, he and Sam soon learn that an openly gay teacher died of a heart attack at the same moment that Dean was healed. Further research reveals that deaths occurred in unison with other healings, prompting the brothers to believe that the preacher is using black magic to control a Reaper; healing people in exchange for the lives of those he deems immoral. However, they eventually discover that his wife (Rebecca Jenkins) is behind everything, and rush to destroy the altar used to control the Reaper. The preacher begins to "heal" Layla (Julie Benz), a young woman with a brain tumor, and the Reaper then goes after Dean. Sam destroys the altar, and the freed Reaper takes the wife's life, though the young woman is not healed. She later tells Dean that she has made peace with her coming death, and Dean promises to pray for her. | |||||||
| 13 | 13 | "Route 666" | Paul Shapiro | Brad Buckner & Eugenie Ross-Leming | January 31, 2006 (2006-01-31) | 2T6912 | 5.82 |
| Dean is contacted by his first love, Cassie (Megalyn Echikunwoke), who asks him to come to Cape Girardeau, Missouri to investigate a string of racially motivated murders, one of which was her father. Each murder is linked to a mysterious truck that seems to have no driver and leave no tracks. The brothers eventually discover that Cassie's mother (Kathleen Noone), a white woman, left her boyfriend, Cyrus, for Cassie's African-American father. Cyrus tried to kill him out of anger, but he gained the upper hand and ended up beating Cyrus to death, dumping Cyrus' body and truck in a nearby swamp. The boys assume that Cyrus' spirit has returned and is out for revenge against everyone connected to his death. They attempt to put Cyrus to rest by burning his remains in rusted out truck in the swamp. However, the ghostly truck appears and attempts to run Dean down, and they realize that Cyrus' evil personality had infected the truck, and led it to take on a life of its own. The brothers end up defeating it by having Dean lead it in a chase and tricking it into driving onto the hallowed ground of an old, burned down church. Throughout the episode, Dean struggles to come to grips with his residual feelings for Cassie. | |||||||
| 14 | 14 | "Nightmare" | Phil Sgriccia | Sera Gamble & Raelle Tucker | February 7, 2006 (2006-02-07) | 2T6913 | 4.27 |
| Sam has a premonition of a man being killed in Saginaw, Michigan, but the murder is made to look like a suicide. They talk to the victim's son Max (Brendan Fletcher) and fail to find anything supernatural, but warn Max's uncle to be careful. When he, too, dies a mysterious death, Sam and Dean believe the family to be cursed. However, their investigation reveals that Max was regularly beaten by his father and uncle as a child. Sam then has another vision of Max using telekinetic abilities to kill his stepmother, angry at her for not having stopped the abuse. The brothers stop Max, and Sam learns from him that, when he was a baby, his mother also died in the same manner as theirs. When Max's anger suddenly resurfaces, he locks Sam in the closet. Sam receives another premonition, showing Max killing Dean. Trying to escape, Sam manages to telekinetically free himself and talks Max out of killing them. A distraught Max then takes his own life. | |||||||
| 15 | 15 | "The Benders" | Peter Ellis | John Shiban | February 14, 2006 (2006-02-14) | 2T6914 | 3.96 |
| Sam and Dean head to Hibbing, Minnesota, where a young boy witnesses a man disappear. While investigating, Sam is also abducted. Dean pretends to be a police officer in search of his brother, and teams up with Deputy Kathleen Hudak (Jessica Steen). Although she soon learns Dean's true identity, she allows him to continue investigating with her, as her own brother went missing in the same manner three years before. Despite this, she does not trust him, and handcuffs him to her car when they find the kidnappers' property. Kathleen is soon captured, and learns that the culprits are a human family who hunt and kill people for sport. Dean frees himself and goes after her, but is also captured. However, this distracts the family long enough for Sam and Kathleen to break out from their cages, and the three of them subdue their captors. When Kathleen is later alone with the father, he taunts her about her brother's death, and she shoots him, planning to tell the police that he tried to escape. She then allows the brothers to leave before more police and the FBI arrive to take the surviving Benders into custody. | |||||||
| 16 | 16 | "Shadow" | Kim Manners | Eric Kripke | February 28, 2006 (2006-02-28) | 2T6915 | 4.22 |
| While investigating an animalistic death in Chicago, Illinois, the brothers find a symbol of blood, which Dean later learns is connected to a Zoroastrian creature known as a daeva. They later run into Meg Masters, and Sam's suspicions of her lead him to discover that she was behind the murder. They confront her, but she reveals that it is all part of a trap set to capture their father. Sam and Dean manage to turn the daevae against her, and she is thrown out of a window several stories to the ground below. When they return to their motel room, they find their father waiting for them, but Meg returns and once again sends the daevae after them. Sam dispels the daevae with lighting flares long enough for them to escape. John then once again leaves his sons, feeling that they are vulnerable when all together. | |||||||
| 17 | 17 | "Hell House" | Chris Long | Trey Callaway | March 30, 2006 (2006-03-30) | 2T6916 | 3.76 |
| As a prank, teens spread the word that a local house is haunted by the ghost of Mordechai Murdoch, a man who reportedly killed his six daughters during the 1930s, and it ends up listed on the urban legend website Hell Hound's Lair. When it soon appears that the house actually is haunted, the brothers head to Richardson, Texas, to investigate, and run into paranormal investigators Ed Zeddmore (A. J. Buckley) and Harry Spengler (Travis Wester), owners of the website. Although their research shows no truth in the legend, the brothers nevertheless encounter the spirit, but it is different from what the legend describes. When Sam and Dean realize that the Mordechai's origins on Hell Hound's Lair has also changed, they theorize that the spirit is actually a Tulpa brought on by a Tibetan spirit sigil painted by the teens as a joke, with the beliefs of the website's visitors causing the story to become reality. The brothers trick Ed and Harry into posting a vulnerability for Mordechai onto their website, and later return to the house to kill him. However, Ed and Harry are also there, and reveal that the website's server crashed. With the Tulpa unaffected, Dean decides to burn the house down to stop the entity. | |||||||
| 18 | 18 | "Something Wicked" | Whitney Ransick | Daniel Knauf | April 6, 2006 (2006-04-06) | 2T6917 | 3.67 |
| On a tip from their father, Sam and Dean head to Fitchburg, Wisconsin, to investigate a case in which children have fallen into comas. They soon discover that the creature responsible is a vampiric witch known as a shtriga, which is stealing life force from the kids. Dean reveals to Sam that their father had previously attempted to kill the creature when they were young, and that Dean's recklessness almost cost Sam his life and allowed the shtriga to escape. After they learn that the owner of the motel they are staying at has a young child that has also fallen victim to the creature, they use the boy's older brother as bait to lure the shtriga. Sam and Dean kill it, and all the children recover. | |||||||
| 19 | 19 | "Provenance" | Phil Sgriccia | David Ehrman | April 13, 2006 (2006-04-13) | 2T6918 | 3.62 |
| After a young couple is found brutally murdered in upstate New York within a locked house, the brothers investigate, and learn from their father's journal that similar deaths have occurred in the area over the past few decades. All of the couple's belongings were taken to an auction house, so they check to see if a spirit may have attached itself to an object. After asking Sarah (Taylor Cole), the daughter of the auction house's owner out on a date, Sam is able to get copies of the provenances of the items. Dean discovers that a painted portrait from 1910 of the Isaiah Merchant family had belonged to all of the other murder victims, and that Merchant had killed his entire family and then himself. Realizing that the painting is haunted, the brothers burn it, but it later repairs itself. Dean tracks down Merchant's body and cremates it, but when Sam and Sarah attempt to destroy the painting again, Merchant's daughter emerges from it, having been the true killer all along. Dean finds an antique doll with the girl's hair in the mausoleum, and the spirit disappears after he burns it. Afterward, the painting is finally destroyed and the brothers leave town, but not before Sam kisses Sarah goodbye. | |||||||
| 20 | 20 | "Dead Man's Blood" | Tony Wharmby | Cathryn Humphris & John Shiban | April 20, 2006 (2006-04-20) | 2T6919 | 3.99 |
| When an old vampire hunter is targeted by a group of vampires, he tries to attack them with an old Colt pistol, but is killed before he can fire a shot. Returning to the nest, the vampire Kate (Anne Openshaw) gives the Colt to her mate, the leader Luther (Warren Christie). When Dean recognizes the murdered hunter's name in the newspaper, he and Sam head to Boulder, Colorado, and discover a letter addressed to their father, who suddenly returns. The letter reveals to him that the gun is mystical and capable of killing anything. Realizing that they can use it to finally kill Azazel, the demon responsible for their mother's death, the Winchesters capture Kate and attempt to trade her to Luther in exchange for the gun. During the negotiation, Luther attacks John, and the brothers intervene. John retrieves the gun, and the legend of the Colt is proven to be true as he shoots Luther dead. | |||||||
| 21 | 21 | "Salvation" | Robert Singer | Sera Gamble & Raelle Tucker | April 27, 2006 (2006-04-27) | 2T6920 | 3.26 |
| As Meg begins to target the Winchesters' friends in order to force them to hand over the Colt, John reveals to his sons the research on Azazel that he has accumulated over the years. Signs point to Salvation, Iowa, as the location of the demon's next target, so the trio heads there to investigate. After Sam has a premonition, he is able to identify the next victim. Before they can formulate a plan, Meg calls and threatens to kill more of their friends unless they hand over the gun. John concedes to her demand, but tries to deliver a fake one, and is captured. Meanwhile, Sam and Dean are able to save the family from Azazel, but he escapes before they can kill him. At the end of the episode, Sam and Dean learn of their father's capture when they call him and Meg answers the phone instead. | |||||||
| 22 | 22 | "Devil's Trap" | Kim Manners | Eric Kripke | May 4, 2006 (2006-05-04) | 2T6921 | 3.99 |
| After learning that their father has been captured, the brothers go to family friend and fellow hunter Bobby Singer (Jim Beaver) for help. However, Meg tracks them down, but is caught underneath a mystical symbol known as a "devil's trap", which renders her immobilized and powerless. The brothers proceed to exorcise the demon though they know it will kill the real Meg due to her injuries sustained in Chicago. Before the real Meg dies, she offers a clue to John's whereabouts. Sam and Dean head to Jefferson City, Missouri, and rescue their father. However, Azazel soon reveals himself to be possessing John, and attacks them. As Azazel tortures Dean, though, John is able to temporarily gain control, and begs Sam to use the Colt to kill Azazel. Not able to bring himself to kill his father, Sam instead shoots him in the leg, and Azazel flees. On the way to the hospital, the three are then crashed into by a large semi-truck with a demonically possessed driver. |
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Famous quotes containing the word episodes:
“What is a novel if not a conviction of our fellow-men’s existence strong enough to take upon itself a form of imagined life clearer than reality and whose accumulated verisimilitude of selected episodes puts to shame the pride of documentary history?”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)
“Twenty or thirty years ago, in the army, we had a lot of obscure adventures, and years later we tell them at parties, and suddenly we realize that those two very difficult years of our lives have become lumped together into a few episodes that have lodged in our memory in a standardized form, and are always told in a standardized way, in the same words. But in fact that lump of memories has nothing whatsoever to do with our experience of those two years in the army and what it has made of us.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)