BY ANTHONY MEDINA
**This episode originally aired in May 2007. If you are unfamiliar with the series, be aware this review contains spoilers.**
“I couldn’t have done it without your pathetic, self loathing, self destructive desire to sacrifice yourself for your family.” – Azazel
After two seasons of chasing down the Yellow Eyed Demon, our ghost hunting heroes get a final showdown with their arch nemesis Azazel and all hell breaks loose, literally.
But before Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) can unleash their righteous vengeance, they have to deal with the small issue of Sam being dead. In the first half of the two part finale “All Hell Breaks Loose”, Sam is killed by a rival psychic in a demon sponsored battle to the death. With Sam down, his opponent Jake Tally (Aldis Hodge) is named the winner and is recruited to help Azazel find and open the gate to hell.
Dean is inconsolable and refuses to accept his brother’s death. Luckily for him, in the world of Supernatural being dead is only a minor inconvenience. Nothing a little deal with the devil can’t fix. Dean summons an old demon pal and offers his life for Sam’s. The demon agrees and gives him one year before coming to collect. And with that Sam is back in the game.
The two track down Azazel’s man Jake to an old cemetery where the gate to Hell is opened and the demons of the underworld rise up in all their smoky glory. The ghostbuster crew kill Jake and try to close the door but Azazel shows up and opens a can of whoop ass on Sam and Dean. But just as he is about to finish the job, our old friend John Winchester (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) spirits his way out of hell and wrastles Azazel down to the ground. Dean grabs the Colt and kills the Yellow Eyed Demon bringing a close to the biggest story arc of the series so far. John gives the boys a nice nod of approval and wisps off to spy on women changing or whatever it is spirits do. And season three is set up nice and proper with an army of demons on the loose and a ghost fighting duo ready to take them on.
So what can I say about Supernatural. This was a good episode, but I keep running into the same problem with this show. The overall story arcs are fairly interesting, and there are strong episodes to be found. But so much of this show is ghost of the week filler. Not necessarily bad, but very “meh” which is sometimes worse. Perhaps season three will pick things up a bit. After all there is a demon army out there and a ticking clock on Dean’s soul. Let’s hope they take advantage.
Season 2
Thinking Man Rating: 8 Thumbs Up
Season 2 Finale
Thinking Man Rating: 13 Thumbs Up
**Be aware the Thinking Man rating system is based on awesomeness and should be disregarded if you are not now, or have never been, awesome.**
This show is my summer guilty pleasure and I’m catching up on episodes (hopefully all) before S8 starts. I agree with you about the inconsistency. The show gives me a split personality–I want to love it because there are some brilliant moments, especially some of the writing of the relationship between the brothers. But it’s surrounded by extremely predictable supernatural procedural plus some plain ole WTH moments. Sometimes I wonder if the writers spend so much time coming up with one-liners that they end up scrambling for some kind of plot at the last minute.