Supernatural Episode Analysis

The CW’s cult television show Supernatural tells the story of brothers Dean and Sam Winchester, played by Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, respectively, who hunt a variety of supernatural monsters from vampires and demons to sirens and ghosts. The show is one of the longest running shows for the network and for it’s genre; it entered its twelfth season on October 13. Supernatural has employed narrative elasticity in several episodes throughout its tenure, and these episodes tend to become the most memorable and humorous episodes of the show. Some episodes that employ narrative elasticity are simple “monster-of-the-week” episodes, such as season one’s “The Benders”. It aired later in the season, after Supernatural had established that monsters, like the cannibalistic wendigo in the second episode, are the bad guys. In this episode, however, when Dean and Sam investigate mysterious disappearances in a small town, the Winchesters discover that a family of humans is behind the disappearances, not a monster. This episode disrupts the narrative diegesis, surprising viewers with its reveal of the true villain of the episode. While this episode does not have a lasting …show more content…
“The Monster at the End of this Book” has lasting consequences for the show. Chuck is helpful to the Winchesters because he sees what will happen before it does, and this is especially important in the season five finale “Swan Song” because it allows Dean and Sam to ultimately end the apocalypse and force Lucifer back into his cage in Hell. It also inspired other episodes such as “The Real Ghostbusters” in season five when the brothers attend a convention for the books, “Season Seven, Time for a Wedding!” where Sam is tricked into marrying fangirl Becky, and “Fan Fiction” in season ten which celebrates the show’s two hundredth episode with a musical written about the boy’s lives, much to the delight of the