The WFB Supernatural Season 15 Editor’s Choice Awards
I’ll be honest, “Carry On” would probably take a good chunk of these awards if I let it. In compiling these awards, I took the mentality that if there was another acceptable alternative to “Carry On” I would use it. As you’ll notice though, there were a few where it was impossible to not choose that epic episode. But there were plenty of categories that earned an acknowledgement from yours truly for the season as a whole, good, bad, and ugly. And with season 15, there was definitely some ugly. There was also however some real pretty, and the first award proves it!
So now I present to you, The WFB Supernatural Season 15 Editor’s Choice Awards!
Best Appearance of Sam Winchester’s Hair
“Golden Time”
Something usually happens with Sam’s hair each season. It gets longer as the season goes, resorting to him slicking it back too much, exposing too much forehead and there’s far less fluff. His hair is usually shorter earlier in the season, contributing to maximum fluffiness. See his coif in perfect form above. There was plenty of that in “Golden Time,” but there was also some other golden hair gems that we only get oh so occasionally.
Running in the rain hair…
Hexed hair…
Totally freaky shot hair…
(a Siamese twin?)
Taking that witch bitch out hair…
Having a beer after saving Eileen hair…
It just goes to show in some episodes, Sam’s hair becomes a very valuable supporting character.
Worst Appearance of Sam Winchester’s Hair
“Destiny’s Child”
Fine, this was intentional for comic relief but…A MAN BUN??? WTF??? I don’t care if it is an AU Sam Winchester, it’s just wrong, wrong, wrong. What sacrilege to such a sacred coif.
Most Outrageous Dean Winchester Line
“Last Holiday”
Sam: Why didn’t you call me?
Dean: Well. I mean, I, you know, figured you were… “practicing your sign language.”
Sam: And that’s more important than coming to save you? Dean?
Dean: It’s been a while for you, man, you know?
“Practicing your sign language?” Oh, so priceless. Writer Jeremy Adams so got Dean Winchester.
Runner-Up
“Atomic Monsters”
This is a little different. This is Sam quoting Dean to Dean. But he doesn’t deny it! He knows the double meaning.
Sam: Yeah. But every time I ask for it, you say, and I’m quoting, “I don’t want any of that hippie, Sarah McLachlan grass-eater crap in the Meat Man’s kitchen”. Which, by the way, for what it’s worth, you got to stop calling yourself “The Meat Man”. It– It doesn’t mean what you think it means.
Dean: Yeah, it does.
Best Teaser
“Atomic Monsters”
The Dean Winchester superhero action sequence, aka a dream come true! In the bunker with the red warning lights, fighting many villains, kicking major ass, sporting one really hot beard…what eye candy! Then he loses his partner…Benny? Uh oh, this must be an AU sequence. Then full blown demonic Sam Winchester takes him out with his mind. Okay, that was pretty wicked too. It’s a pretty disturbing Sam dream, but was that an attention getter or what?
Honorable Mention
“The Heroes’ Journey”
I just loved the poetic, dream like quality of the bloody slow motion monster fight to “Clair De Lune.” It was so unexpected and quite the exercise in surrealism. Not for everyone, but for me, it was really exquisite in its brutality.
Worst Teaser
“Raising Hell”
It’s one of those teasers that once you saw it, you knew this is going to be a bad episode. It was. Those people are killed and there’s no mention of them again? No warning that the threat is real and this is the consequences if you don’t stay away? Erm…
Best MOTW
“Last Holiday”
The lovable yet totally brainwashed, almost homicidal Mrs. Butters and her outrageous holiday celebrations. She should have stayed for the rest of the series.
Honorable Mention
“Drag Me Away (From You)”
Baba Yaga. We have been waiting for one to show up for years!
Worst MOTW
Vampires, vampires, vampires and…vampires.
Why did so many of the stories feature vampires this year, which has always proven to contain the weakest MOTW stories? Even the series finale had vampires! SPN never really did vampires right. We even got AU Sam and Dean vampires, which made no sense since they knew about the cure and wouldn’t allow themselves to turn like this, let alone live if they did. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong wrong.
Best Set Decor
“Drag Me Away (From You)”
The retro motel rooms were primo! Same patterns, but each room had different colors. It was a nice homage to the early days of the series when we used to get such creative sets every week. So refreshing to see this one last time.
Episode Where I Can’t Remember a Damn Thing That Happened
“Our Father Who Aren’t in Heaven”
I have to pick one??? When most of the season was that forgettable? Fine, I pick the 8th episode of the season. When looking through the episode titles, I had to go back and look at this episode. It was the return of Adam/Michael! Donatello was in it, though he didn’t do much. Rowena was revealed to be the Queen of Hell. Chuck was being a dick. Given all those pieces, this episode should have rocked! Instead, I remember those scenes happening, but I had forgotten they were all the same episode. I still don’t even remember the plot of this episode. It was just that forgettable.
Best Appearance by an Inanimate Object
“Unity”
“If there’s a key…then there has to be a lock. And when we find the lock, we can get the weapons, and then we can have the weapons. And the lock. We’ll still have the lock, I imagine, because we’ve opened it, and, of course, the initial key.”
Fine, I mostly picked this key as the “object” of my affection just so I could tell that joke. But this choice does have some merit. Because of Sam finding that key, he was able to enter Death’s library, get the facts from the Empty Entity, prevent Dean from sending Jack to his death to kill Chuck, thus saving the world, indirectly. However, that key was first mentioned by Sergei in “Last Call.” That was 11 episodes ago! After he said the key to Death’s library was in the bunker, shouldn’t have Sam and Castiel turned the place apart looking for it? Sounds like it would have been useful. Ah well, better late that never I guess.
Worst Appearance by an Inanimate Object
“Carry On”
Too soon?
Best Cinematography, Direction and VFX Combo
“The Rupture”
So many gorgeous shots in this episode. The technical team definitely brought their “A” game. Here’s just a few of my favorites:
Just gorgeous given its tragic nature. They so gave Rowena the angelic edit. She earned it.
Best Use of Misplaced Optimism that Fell Apart an Episode Later
“Last Holiday”
The ending was a most perplexing one, as if the writers just weren’t comparing notes. Dean makes an attempt to tell Jack all is forgiven, complete with a homemade birthday cake that looked like a five year old created it. It was made with love! There were smiles, forgiveness, cake…all is well…only to be completely forgotten in the next episodes when Dean continued to wallow in his rage over losing Mary, blaming Jack in the process, so much so, he was okay with sending Jack to slaughter in order to kill Chuck. Jack isn’t family? Huh? His rage got utterly ridiculous, so much so he pulled a gun on Sam! Then his anger technically got Castiel killed. So much for a warm and fuzzy ending. So much for Dean’s hero edit.
Best Character Twist
“Proverbs 17:3”
The weekly damsel in distress, the young girl that needs saving and protection from Dean Winchester, gets impaled in a mishap and lives? She’s Lilith??? Sure, it’s improbable how Chuck brought her out of the empty, but it was still a really cool reveal.
Most Refreshing Twist of the Entire Season
Jack’s Fulfilled Prophecy
This is probably just me but I loved the fulfillment of Jack’s destiny. Ever since Kelly Kline and Castiel proclaimed that Jack would be the one to save us all in season 12’s “The Future,” I’ve been patiently waiting for the payoff. After a lot of handwringing, and I mean A LOT of handwringing (cough *Sam and Dean* cough), the writing on the wall was best spelled out by Adam and Serafina in “Unity”:
Adam: Yeah, Billie’s been giving us a hand, yeah. Sera and me, this is our baby, yeah. She kept me alive this long so I could see it through. All we’ve been waiting on is you.
Jack: Me?
Adam: Yeah. The main ingredient. Half-human, half-archangel, all-powerful.
Serafina: I mean, just think of, like, everything that had to happen for you to get Jack to this place, to this moment. Baby, it was meant to be.
There was no stopping him, even Chuck. He got to go to the Garden of Eden! The only being in several millennia. Death, the Empty Entity, Adam, Seraphina, they all saw his potential as did Castiel, who never lost faith. Even Sam came around after a while. Only Dean, lost in his pain, anger, and obsession for revenge, didn’t give Jack the benefit of the doubt. Man did that get freaking annoying. Take away Dean’s part in all this, and with quite a bit of patience, Jack’s story outcome was an inspired twist on the role of faith in this show.
Best Location For An Episode
“The Gamblers”
Alaska! I mean, they went there. Fine, it looks like Vancouver, aka the North Forty Park where loads of other episodes have been shot, but nothing like working in one of those impossible states. I still can’t figure out why an episode was never done in West Virginia but they checked that Alaska box! I also can’t figure out how they got all they way up there in a gas guzzler like the Impala with no money or working credit cards, but hey, it was still cool. Why couldn’t they ever work in Hawaii? Shirtless Winchesters in trunks on the tropical beach…aww man, now I feel cheated. Couldn’t that have done this same scene with some bright blue colors on the building, a super bright camera filter (remember “Dream a Little Dream of Me?”), fake palm trees and fake sand? There is an ocean near Vancouver. The map proves it!
Best “Rock Star Alias”
“Carry On”
Singer and Kripke. That is all. Just perfect.
Most Ludicrous Plot Straight Out of Fan Fiction
“The Trap”
Chuck, our villain, well…that premise alone prompts a huge cry of “foul” for me. He traps Sam, and he knows how to break Sam, showing him a bad future with him not around. By doing so, he breaks Sam’s spirit, which breaks the God wound link? What??? (Crunches the numbers, sees how point a lines with point b…) Yep, got nothing. It was just a lazy out of a side plot that clearly wasn’t working. Not to mention, why zip tie Sam to the chair? Chuck is God. He could have used his mega powers to keep him seated against his will. When the rushed Destiel trip to Purgatory with its lack of continuity ended up being the strong story, something was definitely wrong with all this.
Best Inside Joke
“Last Call’
Dean finds the shotgun behind the bar in Swayze’s when he needs it the most. “Oh, God bless Texas.” Spoken like a true Texan. It does make you wonder if one exists in Jensen’s bar in Dripping Springs, TX.
Most Creative Way of Giving an Actor Work When His Character is Dead
“Back and to the Future”
I loved Alex’s take on Belpahgor. The best demon this show has had in a long time. He had great lines, talked like a used car salesman yet he was still evil as hell. I almost wish he could have been a season long thing, but yeah, we needed Jack back.
Best Appearance By A Supposedly Important Figure that Didn’t Go Anywhere
Donatello the Prophet
“Our Father Who Aren’t in Heaven”
This was Donatello’s last appearance? This??? He did practically nothing except tell us something we all could have guessed easily by looking at the cast list in the early credits. Why wasn’t he around until the end of the adventure? He could have offered so much knowledge! Did Jack restore his soul? Did he still remain prophet after Chuck? So many unanswered questions for a guy that should have played a key role in all this just because his position commanded it.
Dishonorable Mention
Death
Come on, they killed Death again? All because Dean was being a dick? What was the point of Billie even being around if that was the end for her? Okay, she helped Jack but she so deserve a better ending. Was there any reason to make her a villain? The original Death would not have approved.
Best One Tortured Look Tells the Entire Heart Crushing Story
“Carry On”
Sam’s totally lost expression spoke for all of us. Losing Dean really, really, really, really hurt. We all will never fully recover.
Honorable Mention
“The Rupture”
Oh man, Castiel’s heartache over losing Jack’s body? I was crushed for him. The only thing that cheapened his loss was it didn’t stick.
Most Satisfying Act of Revenge
“Inherit the Earth”
Kind of a no brainer, isn’t it? As much as I hated Chuck as the villain, and the fact that Castiel wasn’t there to help, it was a pretty satisfying end for him. Suck away his power and leave him to live a normal life. The worst kind of punishment. Worst than death. It does make you wonder what Chuck did with that life. Personally, I think he went back to his season 4 life, spending most days in a bathrobe and living like a slob while writing books.
Well, that’s all I can muster for Season 15. All in all, kind of an uneven mess. I do have a bonus coming up though. I never did Editor’s Choice Awards for Season 14! Stay tuned for that in the future, once I go back and try to remember what happened that season. It was all kind of a blur.
Any awards I missed? Share your own in the comments.
A HUGE thank you to Raloria. These screencaps from her, especially the episodes from early in the season, made all this possible.
Read More of Alice’s Supernatural insights! Links to all her articles can be found on Alice’s Writer’s Page. (Warning, the list is insanely long!)
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