Is Supernatural Scary? The Verdict and the Whole Plot
Yes, 5 out of 10. Most episodes are a standalone monster case with jump scares and a lot of salt.
Ruling: Fine for most adults and older teenagers, one episode at a time, with the lights on.
Supernatural ran for fifteen seasons, and episodes run 45 minutes. In most of them, two brothers drive a '67 Impala into a new town, work out what is killing people, and burn something.
The premise, briefly
After a supernatural force kills their mother, Sam and Dean Winchester are raised by their father to hunt ghosts, monsters and demons, and they spend years driving around the country looking for them.
The verdict above is spoiler-free. Everything below, including the ending, stays hidden until you pick a depth.
Jack takes over from Chuck and restores free will. Dean is impaled on a spike during a vampire hunt and dies. Sam grows old with a family, dies of old age, and meets Dean in Heaven.
The season 3 finale: Dean's contract runs out and a hellhound mauls him while Sam watches, then his soul is shown in Hell hanging from chains and meat hooks. He is back in the next season premiere.
A dog dies. A hellhound, a demon's monster, is shot in one episode. Dean adopts a dog named Miracle in the finale.
It's a case-of-the-week show about two brothers hunting monsters, with jump scares, some gore and a long story that ends in Heaven.
How it ends, the scene you're dreading, what happens to the dog, and the bottom line. About twenty seconds to read.
What actually happens
The family business has a very bad retirement plan
When Sam and Dean Winchester are children, a supernatural force kills their mother, Mary. Their father, John, spends years raising them as hunters so they can find whatever did it. Sam tries for a normal life at Stanford with his girlfriend Jessica, until she dies the same way Mary did and he goes back on the road with Dean. Most episodes follow a pattern: the brothers investigate mysterious deaths, identify the culprit, and destroy it, using salt against ghosts and demons and fire against remains. In the first season finale, the demon Azazel possesses John and Sam cannot bring himself to shoot his own father, so he shoots him in the leg instead. A truck with a possessed driver then hits their car. In the second season John gives up his life to save Dean. The brothers learn Azazel killed both Mary and Jessica and fed Sam demon blood as a baby. When Sam is killed, Dean sells his soul to a crossroads demon for a year of Sam's life. Then Dean shoots Azazel with the Colt, with a little help from John's spirit.
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A one-year contract with a hellhound clause
Dean spends season three with a deadline. In the finale, with his last hours running out, Ruby points the brothers at the demon Lilith, but Lilith has already switched bodies, and her hellhound mauls Dean to death in front of Sam. This is the scene to brace for, and it comes at the end of the season finale: after the mauling, the episode shows Dean's soul in Hell, hanging from chains and meat hooks. It is not permanent. In the fourth season premiere, four months after his death, the angel Castiel brings him back. Castiel then turns against Heaven to help the brothers prevent the Apocalypse. Meanwhile the demon Ruby manipulates Sam, and he keeps drinking demon blood, and by the end of the season he kills Lilith, which frees Lucifer from Hell. Season five is the big fight. Sam and Dean turn out to be the intended vessels for Lucifer and the archangel Michael, and Sam wrestles control of his body back and throws himself and Michael into the Cage. Castiel later gets him out, and Dean goes to live with Lisa and her son Ben, and Sam watches from a distance.
The monsters from Purgatory have a business plan for humanity
In season six Dean tries a quiet life with Lisa and Ben, while Castiel allies with the demon Crowley to open Purgatory so he can keep the angel Raphael from starting the Apocalypse again. It goes badly. Purgatory's ancient monsters, the Leviathans, get out, and Castiel absorbs every soul there and announces that he is the new God. Season seven is the Leviathan season. Their leader, Dick Roman, wants to turn humanity into a food source, and the brothers, Meg and Castiel go after him. They kill him, but Dean and Castiel are pulled into Purgatory by the death, and Castiel vanishes there. Dean spends the next year in Purgatory, then returns in season eight to help Sam work through the trials meant to lock the Gates of Hell. Sam is willing to die finishing them, and Dean talks him out of it. Meanwhile Metatron tricks Castiel into helping him with a spell that throws every angel out of Heaven, and the season ends with the whole sky full of falling angels.
Dean takes the Mark of Cain and starts acting like a demon
Castiel is human now that the angels have fallen. Sam is dying, so Dean tricks him into accepting an angel as a passenger in his body, and the brothers stop trusting each other. Dean then takes the Mark of Cain to kill the demon Abaddon, and it gives him a hunger for violence that ends with his death and his return as a demon. In the season ten finale, Dean calls up Death, who offers to take him far away if he kills Sam first. Dean turns the scythe on Death instead. Meanwhile the witch Rowena casts a spell that removes the Mark, which releases Amara, God's sister, also called the Darkness. In season eleven God turns out to be a novelist named Chuck Shurley. He joins the fight against Amara, and in the finale Dean talks her out of her revenge. She and Chuck make up and leave Earth, and Amara brings back Mary as a thank-you. Dean finds his mother alive in the woods.
Lucifer has a son and nobody can find a babysitter
In season twelve Lucifer fathers a Nephilim named Jack Kline with a mortal woman. She dies giving birth, and Sam and Dean decide to raise Jack with Castiel. Jack's power opens a rift to a parallel world where a nastier Michael survives. Crowley gives his life to seal the rift, and Lucifer drags Mary through it as it closes. In the season thirteen finale Lucifer steals Jack's grace, and Dean agrees to be Michael's vessel so he can fight Lucifer, which he does, killing him with the Archangel Blade. Michael then breaks the deal and takes full control of Dean. Jack later beats Michael with his remaining power, but he loses his soul and kills Mary by accident. In season fourteen Chuck returns, tells the brothers to kill Jack, and when they refuse he starts ending the world. He kills Jack himself, and the season ends with Sam, Dean and Castiel surrounded by zombies. Season fifteen is the brothers' last refusal to follow Chuck's script. Castiel sacrifices himself to Death and is banished to the Empty.
The ending, explained
Jack absorbs Chuck's power, becomes the new God and gives humanity free will. Six months later Sam and Dean have ordinary lives, and Dean has adopted a dog named Miracle. A murder and kidnapping by masked vampires pulls them into a case their father John worked in 1986 and never solved. They catch one vampire, follow him to the nest, and recognize Jenny, someone from their first hunt. They destroy the nest, but Dean is impaled on a metal spike during the fight, and he dies after a last conversation with Sam. In Heaven, Bobby Singer greets him and explains that Jack remade Heaven with Castiel's help, so everyone is together now. Dean drives the Impala through it. Back on Earth, Sam has a family and a son named after his brother. He grows old, dies of natural causes and meets Dean again in Heaven, on the bridge from the pilot.
The post-credits ruling
There is no post-credits scene. You can leave when the credits start.
Questions people ask at 1am
The whole plot of Supernatural is hidden, ending included. It stays that way until you ask.
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