6 Heartbreaking moments in Supernatural Season 2

Season 1 of Supernatural hightailed into the next with the ending shot leaving the Winchesters on Death’s door. What tear-jerker moments were in store for us in Supernatural Season 2?

Since you’ve watched Season 1, you’d know the assumptions we first had about Supernatural has been deemed exactly that. Untrue to a fault.

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The Impala is the best muscle car to travel with in-style and the chemistry between Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki is a testimony to the two-hero story. However, it wasn’t exactly as cheerful nor sexy as the network at the time made it out to be.

In fact, we found ourselves reaching for the tissues continually as they couldn’t quite catch a break. We’d like to say demons and ghastly ghouls took a breath and let the boys carry out a more peaceful existence but it would lead to a fantasied version of season 2 as life without John had just begun.

John sacrifices his life for Dean’s

While the trend of coming back from the grave is one followed throughout the series, Season 1 was the first time Dean wrestled from its grip after being electrocuted on a hunt. Season 2 was the start of the Winchester’s defiance with what’s dead should stay dead.

A demon with a hand on the wheel purposely drives into the Impala, leaving John and his boys in tow, in the hospital. Dean wonders the halls in “In My Time of Dying” not realizing his time has come until he fails to interact with the nurses and then stumbles over his body connected to various machines.

As a desperate Sam towers over his brother, the doctor presents him with the news: John is alive and well. Escalating to an invisible standoff between the father and son duo as Dean questions why John isn’t doing anything to save him.

Little does he know, John has struck a deal with Yellow Eyes. In a moment of sentimentality that has them recounting past hunts, John apologizes to Dean for making him grow up too fast. Stricken with fear and confusion, Dean’s unsure as to why the conversation has transpired until Sam later finds John dead on the hospital floor.

Ole Yellow Eye’s plan

The destiny of the two protagonists has been an arc threaded into the narrative since Yellow Eyes bled into a baby Sammy’s mouth in the “Pilot” but we are never exactly sure of the imposing contrasts until “Croatoan.”

Sheer minutes before John’s death, the hunter tells Dean to look out for his brother. We’re under the illusion it’s simply what he has always done yet standing in a park, overlooking the water, with the Impala stationed behind them left us with the suggestion that Sam has an inner-darkness. Enough for Dean to potentially have to kill him.

Some monsters have hearts

Under no surprises, the writers have their way with ripping us to shreds, however, we unlikely found ourselves having compassion for Madison the werewolf when Sam had to kill her with a silver bullet.

“Heart” starts out with a case where it is presumed Kirk, the stalker ex-boyfriend who lurks outside her apartment window is going after those Madison is in close contact with. Upon breaking into his apartment, Dean and Sam hear scuffling sounds which lead them on a trail to a now deceased police officer’s body beside a dumpster.

With all clues still pointing towards him and Madison being the next in line, the brothers stand on guard in her kitchen, engaged in a game of rock, paper, scissors to see who will be staying the night to keep watch.

Much to Dean’s dismay, he loses and Sam spends the night tripping around his words, sitting by his lonesome on the couch before stripping down Madison’s walls when they share a tender moment. However, what could have been between the two (and what later does when he is tangled in her sheets) is shortly taken away when she lurches onto Dean who has found her attacking Kirk.

No matter the inevitably, Sam and her have an understanding after he finds out she has no prior recollection of what happens when the night falls. Only to then die after there is no cure to be found and she loses control over herself.

A life that never was

When we come to the term soulmate and surely heaven itself agrees, we think of Dean and Sam. However, it can only be a thought if the two were twined together from a life dealt with tremendous pain.

“What Is and What Should Never Be” painted the picture of what if the span of tragedies had never happened and the stories of hunting ghosts and demons alike were simply fables that they were told as a child by a mother who is still alive.

After Dean kills the Djinn, we come across a confrontation between the two brothers as they sit beside each other and the eldest spills out how different life could’ve been. He doesn’t hold back and instead delves into details with it mostly revolving around their relationship.

“I’m glad you dug yourself out, Dean”, Sam admits before there’s a beat between them. “Most people wouldn’t have had the strength… They would’ve just stayed.” Picking himself up from the couch and walking away so there’s a distance between the two, Dean tells him that he wanted to stay in the dream.

It doesn’t reduce the amount of love between the brothers rather Dean could see his family was happy and the slice of normalcy that he always wanted could’ve been established.

Sam dies in Dean’s arms

It has been known in the earlier seasons the title of the main character belonged to Sam with the narrative largely being centered around him and Supernatural Season 2 was the height of it. Turns out, Yellow Eyes was busy in 1983 with converting several babies to continue out demonic plans.

“All Hell Breaks Loose, Part 1” sees those with psychic visions in an abandoned roadhouse together under his watch. Unlike The Hunger Games, there are no voluntary tributes but there is the idea that only one will make it out alive.

The bomb goes off after Sam finds out he wasn’t the only one Yellow Eyes visited in his dream. He also visited Jake and he has a clear vision in his head to be the one making it out alive not to become Yellow Eyes leader as he would like but because they don’t have a choice.

Jake takes the first shot and not before long the surrounding ground turns into a battlefield where Sam must be able to outrun the other as he refuses to play Yellow Eyes’ game. He almost does when beating Jack with a crowbar.

Until, out in the rain with the desperate cries from his brother and Bobby, comes a move neither he nor the audience were expecting. As the hunters sprint towards him, the knife turns into his back and he sinks into his brother’s arms knowing it’s worse than he says it is.

At a crossroads

By now, we have an understanding that deals run within the Winchester family with every member making one at or at least trying to at some point but it isn’t until Dean sacrifices his life for Sam’s do we realize how much they can’t live without the other.

With his brother’s dead body laid out on a bare mattress in front of him, Dean sits by himself contemplating what to do. The air is thickening as he talks to him.

He depicts a younger Sam having questions about why their lives were the way they are and no matter how much he didn’t have the answers for it himself, he knew he had one job: to look after Sammy.

It’s as much mourning his brother as it is feeling he failed his duty. His self worth has crumbled down to ashes and it’s in the final cry of desperation that verifies Ackles deserves an Emmy. Of course, Dean finds a way to bring Sam back by following in the footsteps of John and making a crossroads deal.

Which scenes in Supernatural Season 2 had you heartbroken? Are there any we left out? Share in the comments below.

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