Supernatural Episodes I Just Can’t Rewatch

In revisiting season nine recently, it reminded me of an exercise that a writer did on this site years ago – Supernatural episodes that NEVER make the rewatch list.   That was done years ago when there were like 50 episodes!  There’s 327 to choose from now, so I thought the concept was worth a revisit.  

I’ve posted my “go to” episodes a few times, but I haven’t posted the ones that no matter how they fall in a season rewatch, I can’t allow myself to watch them again.  Once was enough. There is a caveat in this list though.  There is one big rule, they cannot fall on my “worst” episodes list.  Not that every episode on my worst list doesn’t get a rewatch, even though most don’t.  I mean, I find myself watching “Bugs” now and then just for the laugh.  But episodes like “Hammer of the Gods” and “Man’s Best Friend With Benefits,” never again.  

So here, in order of airing, are the episodes I’m mostly likely to avoid during season rewatches:

2.08 – “Crossroad Blues”

I can’t explain this one.  It’s a vital episode.  It introduces the crossroads deal that became vital to the lore of this show.  It’s actually a good episode.  Still, it never connected with me.  Maybe it was because by this time in the season, I was tired of all that Dean man pain.  Every time I crack out the season two DVDs, this is skipped for time.  I think season two had so much goodness, this just wasn’t worth my time.  

3.01 – “The Magnificent Seven”

This was the follow up to “All Hell Breaks Loose Part II?”  I get that there were a lot of behind the scenes reasons why this one didn’t work out (late season three renewal, slashed budget, Kripke becoming a new Dad…) but really?  The seven deadly sins?  The opener is supposed to set the tone of the big season.  These so called menacing newly freed demons from Hell that just cackled like Beavis and Butthead when they got together.  So you’ve got a hunter, who we ended up not caring for, being forced to drink pipe cleaner?  Ugh, too many gross moments, not enough story.  

5.13 – “Swap Meat”

For such a pivotal season, this was just plain stupid.  Poor Sam, he deserved better.  Since when did Dean go brainless?  I spelled out all the reasons why this didn’t work in my review, but bottom line, it was a bad idea.  

6.08 – “All Dogs Go To Heaven”

Pointless story, Soulless Sam went into asshole mode making him unwatchable, and a poor family finding out their family dog was really a man with a crush on Mom?  Eww.  This was the only reason to watch, and I can look at the Sniper Dean screen caps rather than have to watch the episode.   

7.10 – “Death’s Door”

Don’t get me wrong, this is an amazing story and a stunning masterpiece of an episode.  I just can’t watch it.  Losing Bobby was too hard and killing him off to this day was one of the worst mistakes this show ever did.  

8.03 – “Heartache”

Actually, this is an interchangeable episode, and “Insert your own duo filler episode here.”  A few of them already made my worst episodes list, but how anyone can find entertainment value and waste their precious time rewatching poorly done episodes like “Heartache,” “The Slice Girls,” “Of Grave Importance,” “I’m No Angel,” “Paint It Black”, “The Bad Seed,” “The Rising Son,” “War of the Worlds”, “Bring ‘Em Back Alive” (which did make Nate’s worst list), “Prophet and Loss,” “Raising Hell,” and…I’ll stop there since other episodes from the duo also make this list for other reasons.  Life is too precious for bad TV.  

8.18 – “Freaks and Geeks”

I won’t elaborate on this too much.  I recently did a “Reviews That I Missed” article on this episode.  Read it and you’ll see why, but it was another colossally bad idea.  

9.22 – “Stairway to Heaven”

What a shitty send off for such an iconic character as Tessa the Reaper.  “Let’s kill a character that fans love so it’ll mean something!”  (It didn’t).  It was a tactic that Andrew Dabb kept doing again and again, just to slap fans in the face for loving their beloved characters too much.  I also got very, very tired of the portrayal of both Heaven and Hell in a bureaucratic office setting by this time, and it didn’t stop for several more seasons. That’s watchable?  I work in an office, I don’t need to see it on my Sci-Fi show.  What a shitty setup for a good season finale that delivered after a horrific and misguided season.  

10.09 – “The Things We Left Behind”

10.13 – “Halt and Catch Fire”

Come on show, stop wasting my time.  I get filler episodes can’t always be winners, but this one was utterly ridiculous.   They had just clearly given up by this point.  

11.21, 11.22, 11,23 – “All in the Family”/“We Happy Few”/“Alpha and Omega”

I lump all of these into one.  Season 11 was working really well…until the end.  How this season fell apart so badly is beyond me, and it still makes me furious to this day.  I know, “We Happy Few” already made my worst list, but how can you not include it in this trifecta of travesty?  

12.17 – “The British Invasion”

I don’t have words.  This is the dumbest, absolute worst idea for an episode ever.  Kendricks, an elite private British school, where students kill one another?  That was acceptable with parents?  A dark Harry Potter ripoff  because for some reason the writers thought that the modern day British were savages?  Have they ever been to England?  I hate this episode with 1000 suns, and somehow it still didn’t make my worst list.  That’s how many bad episodes had surfaced by this time.  

14.19 – “Jack in the Box”

Okay, remember that absolute worst idea thing I just said previously?  This comes soooo close.  The only saving grace was Jack was a powerful badass that wasn’t going to take Sam and Dean’s complete stupidity and lack of loyalty to someone they called “family.”  Him busting out of the box at the end was sweet.  The premise is so anti-Supernatural, that Sam and Dean would even consider locking up one of their own like that for eternity.  What happened to “finding a way”.   I’m especially disappointed in Sam, who clearly had reservations but let it happen anyway!  Dean’s useless mope started here and lasted all the way through season 15 making him one unsympathetic whiny jerk.  Castiel had every right to get royally pissed and never talk to the Winchesters again.  But no, he didn’t have the balls.  (Nate also thought this episode was utter crap as well).  

15.09 – “The Trap”

Just…no.  They turned God into a mustache twirler.  They clearly ran out of good ideas on how to make Chuck a villain, which was a really bad idea to begin with.  Oh, let’s show Sam the future with no God!  Oh, what garbage!  

And…just because I can’t help myself…

9.20 “BLOODLINES” 

I mean, WTF were they thinking???  I know, this makes the top of my worst episode list, but seriously, can anything be more unwatchable?  How anyone thought this would fly is beyond me.  I just can’t ignore mentioning it. 

Okay, your turn.  What episodes have you sworn that you’ll never watch again?  It can be a mere list or you can give your reasons.  It’s a safe room here.