By demand, plus boredom this afternoon at work, I present the season two awards. You know, the awards I would have handed out at the end of season two if I was actually blogging AND watching the show. Better late than never I always say.
The season two awards are particularly challenging. One single event easily takes many of these categories. It was that earth shattering. You know which one I'm talking about. So, except for the Best Winchester Death category (since Dean was technically only on life support), Sam dying in Dean's arms will be disqualified from all categories other than that one.
So, here we go, the best, worst, and whatever of season two.
Best Winchester Death: Sammy! Noooooo!
Most Gruesome Villain Death:
Wow, there weren't any spectacular villain deaths this season. Azazel's death came up lame, and even Sam plugging Madison was off camera. So, since the key words are "gruesome" and "villain," I'd say the rogue writer at the end of "Hollywood Babylon." Getting your guts ripped out while alive by three vengeful ghosts fits the bill.
Best MOTW (Monster of The Week):
The Trickster of course. Any creature powerful enough to stage a gut busting alien abduction and get two Victoria's Secret models to beat the crap out of Dean complete with strobe light and round bed in the background wins with me. Plus, I appreciate his love of chocolate.
Worst MOTW:
H.H. Holmes. The ghost of America's first serial killer? Seriously? Only a racist truck makes that seem less ridiculous.
Best Appearance of Sam Winchester's Hair:
All Hell Breaks Loose Part 2. Only when Sam was a corpse though. Go figure, it took death for Sam to finally become well groomed. That hair was back in his face the second he popped back to life.
Worst Appearance of Sam Winchester's Hair:
"In My Time Of Dying." What a flyaway mess. Granted, he had other issues considering he was the only Winchester left standing after the car wreck, but that still made it a bad hair day.
Best Badass Moment:
I know you want to say Dean killing Azazel, but that whole graveyard scene was a bonafide mess. Too much chopped up green screen for my tastes. I'm going with an amped up Dean in "Bloodlust" sawing the vampire's head off while blood spurts all over his face. Sure, Dean was bat shit crazy at the time, but isn't that when he's the most badass?
Best Torture of a Winchester:
Dean is the clear winner this season. Man was he put through the ringer. Heck, the season even started with him in a coma on life support being chased by a reaper. I first couldn't decide if it would be him being tied up and held by Gordon Walker who waited to kill a rescuing Sam or being shot and beaten badly by Meg while possessing Sam. Ultimately though, how can you not go with what the Djinn did to him in "What Is And What Should Never Be?" His torture went way beyond being strung up and slowly bled to death over days. Very little has proved to be more devastating to Dean than having his dream family life and then have to give that up. That'll stick with him forever.
Best Ending To An Episode:
Duh, "Nightshifter." Still probably the best of the series.
Worst Ending To An Episode:
"Croatoan." Why? Granted for me this wasn't an issue since I first saw this on DVD, but from what I heard from others, after the episode, which ended with the cliffhanger of Dean finally ready to tell Sam John's final words, the show went on hiatus for four weeks. That's awful! What else was awful, while the reveal was interesting, it didn't justify that much torture for those that had to wait.
Most Gruesome Injury:
This one doesn't come from a character this season. No, the honor belongs to Jared Padalecki himself. There's been so many variations of this story, but this is how I understand it happened.
Apparently in season one Jared injured his wrist and/or hand in a bar fight that also involved Jensen (they were attacked). He must have broken it or severely stressed it, because it healed wrong, so when filming "Bloodlust" (the scene where he's knocked out in the motel room by the vampires), he fell wrong and broke it. The trouble was, he didn't know it was broken until filming "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things." By that time, the script was committed, so he had to film without a cast. They wrote the "I think I broke my hand," in at the end, and for the next 7 episodes Sam wore a cast. Also, did you notice the not much Sam in "No Exit?" Poor Jared was having surgery on the wrist.
Best Use of Classic Rock:
Duh, "Nightshifter." Still probably the best of the series. To think I wasn't fond of Styx's "Renegade" until this. Honorable mention goes to that mind-bending creepy opening montage to "White Rabbit" in "Hunted."
Best Quote:
My all time favorite quote comes from this season. I'm not sure why I love it, but I do. The brothers rile on each other's phobias in "Everybody Loves A Clown." Dean defends his with, "Planes crash." Sam points out, "And apparently clowns kill." That still gets me rolling every time. Probably because it wasn't just the lines, it was Jensen and Jared's perfect snarky delivery. A VERY close second, "We are so screwed."
Funniest Moment:
Okay, it's in "Tall Tales," but what should it be? My vote goes to "Alien Slow Dance," (if you saw my Top Ten Funniest Moments list) although as a close gut busting second, I'd say the scene in the bar. Sam remembers Dean hitting on a whore, while Dean remembers hitting on a sophisticated babe. Sam, in Dean's version, in the most bitchy way tells Dean about their "serious" investigation, they actually get Jared to say "blah, blah, blah, blah." I have no idea how either of them got through that.
Angstiest Brotherly Moment:
So many! I'm going though with the entire episode of "Born Under A Bad Sign." That was 42 ½ minutes of pure, high energy, in your freaking face angst. Easily one of the most intense episodes of the series.
Most Touching Brotherly Moment:
Literately! Dean pulls Sam in a huge hug after coming back from making his demon deal, relieved to see his brother alive. It's especially heart breaking because Sam has no idea what's going on. That leads to the other most touching moment, when Sam figures it out at the end of the episode. Also, this doesn't count as brotherly, but when Bobby figures it out too and confronts Dean in the junkyard...oh I can't talk about it without weeping profusely.
Most Delightfully Tacky Motel Room:
Easy, the Schlitz themed room in Milwaukee in "Nightshifter." For anyone that hasn't been to Milwaukee and thinks that's over the top, sadly, it isn't for them. They're mighty proud of their brewing heritage.
Most Tear-Jerking Moment:
Sam dies"¦oh crud, can't use that. Oh, I don't know about this one. "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things," comes to mind, with Dean's heartbreaking talk to Sam about their father's death. There's "Houses of The Holy," where Sam confesses to Dean his need to believe in a higher power. There's Sam's tearful and mini mental breakdown before killing Madison in "Heart." However, if I HAD to pick just one (no fair!), I'd go with Dean's speech over Sam's corpse in "All Hell Breaks Loose Part II." That was Jensen's masterpiece.
Best Obscure (aka blink and you miss it) Pop Culture Reference:
A Spongebob placemat as an altar cloth for a séance? "Spongebob side down." Ha! Does anyone realize how sacrilegious that is? The same tactic works at dinner parties by the way.
Best Location for Episode:
I like that we finally got that episode in the deep south of Mississippi in "Crossroads Blues." They don't go there too much, especially when a snow storm in Vancouver last season migrated a sordid tale of racism to a shrimping town in Missouri.
Second place goes to "Heart," but only because I have a fondness for San Francisco. Hubby and I took our honeymoon there.
Plot Device Introduced That Should Be in All Episodes:
Best Acting By The Impala:
No contest. Her triumphant return from being a smashed heap in the junkyard in "Bloodlust." Dean's unadulterated joy over driving his baby again, plus taking on a case, is infectious! Makes me want to get my own classic car (although I'm a Mustang girl).
Best Gratuitous Scene:
It's not like season two had many. Sam gets laid. Sure, so did Dean, but we didn't get to see with him the hot naked sex and all (including from behind!), plus jaw dropping and very pretty cuddling at the end like we did with Sam. I did love Dean stumbling out of Tara Benchley's trailer though in "Hollywood Babylon." "You're one hell of a PA." He certainly is!
Most Out Of Character Moment:
I'm giving this prize to "What Is An What Should Never Be." We saw what happened to Sam if Jessica never died and he went to law school. He goes preppy (A yellow shirt? Tracksuit?), becomes a wimp and is booorrring! Azazel really saved his manhood if you think about it.
I can tell you my favorite "in character" moment too. Finding out Sam's phobia, just like Dean's last year, in "Everybody Loves A Clown." The fact that he goes undercover at a circus even though he's afraid of clowns? That running gag was played very well. It made me wonder if Jared actually had the same fear.
Best Puppy Dog Moment:
I'm a softie for drunk, sorrowful, cry in your beer anything. I'm a sap like that. So poor Sammy, obviously still struggling with his "dark destiny," gets hammered in a hotel where there's a weird wedding dress on the wall. That would drive me over the edge. It's isn't the drunken speech to Dean though, where he begs Dean to kill him if he turns evil, that gets us. No, it's after Dean puts him to bed, and he rolls over on his stomach and clutches the pillow. Gulp! You all know I'm that shallow.
Best Inside Joke:
Again, too easy. The entire episode of "Hollywood Babylon" was an inside joke. Those that didn't like the episode really didn't get all the references. If you can't make fun of yourself and the business you're in, then you don't win at life.
There is a second though. The guy who plays Tiny in "Folsom Prison Blues" is Jensen's real life bodyguard. You know those guys had a blast over "They're donuts, not love."
Best Appearance of Polar Bear On A Van:
No, it wasn't a zombie alligator, but we can pretend he was alone in Andy's van with the giant bong in "Simon Said." He probably hazily slithered off when Sam and Dean searched it.
Comments
You know, I don't get the whole thing with the truck from Route 666 - why does everyone seem to hate that truck and the episode? I think the truck is awesome and really, it's not the truck that's racist, it's the spirit of the truck's owner...
Ah well, guess that's just me! GRIN I have a huge white Ford Turbo Diesel with dualies that I get to drive when I do work out at the barn where my horse lives, so perhaps I'm biased.
As for the fear of clowns thing - Jensen did talk about it in an...interview or at one of the conventions...h e mentions the TV miniseries of Stephen King's IT that wrecked clowns for him.
As for the van with the polar bear on the side, I remember seeing a few vans here with Boris Valejo art splattered on the side. The best bumper sticker I saw on one of these vans (bubble windows and everything) was "Don't laugh lady, your daughter might be in here".
And Alice, out here every other muscle car seems to be a Mustang. You'd have a great time just watching cars go by. GRIN.
Excellent awards! It's been a long time since I've watched season two so the trip down memory lane was great! One of my personal favourite, most heart-wrenching scene is when Dean smashed the Impala with the crowbar - you can really see the raw grief over John's death.
There is a video on youtube from a Con [posted by BabyBlueSteel] in which Jensen reveals he is afraid of clowns and how he was the one "freaking out" in that episode. It's actually funny to see him talk about it.
Petranda: I love that moment too!
I have been named editor of the SUPERNATURAL section of a new web site, Moogi.com
I hope you'll check it out, Alice. I will be synopsizing the new episodes of SUPERNATURAL and, whenever I can, going backward to do the same doe eps in seasons 1-4. I have my work cut our for me for sure!
I've said it before, Alice, I ADORE your articles on SUPERNATURAL and agree with you about 98% of the time.
It was my understanding that Jared missed most of his screen time in "No Exit" because he needed root canal and was just too loopy to do his scenes, so they sent him home to Texas and re-wrote the script to accommodate his absence. I read that in more than one article.
Who the heck knows the real story? I've heard so many versions of "Jared's broken wrist," I have no clue what is real and true!
Love and admiration, Robin
Worst MOTW. Oddly enough I liked that one. Sure it was a little out there, but it turned out OK. The racist trunk episode as well. It was the story behind the trunk that I liked most about it.
Dean’s speech over Sam’s corpse in “All Hell Breaks Loose Part II.â€
That was amazingly well done. I'm amazed at the all times these guys cry (and how often sad tearjerker moments appear throughout the series), all the talent these actors have in pulling off these moments so well. Right down to the facial expressions, the quivering lips, or the slight change in their voice. Just amazing, my brother seems to find it weird that these little things are what get some sort of reaction from me.
Best Acting By The Impala. Yeah seeing her all fixed up and on the road again was great. Although I was almost yelling at the tv when Dean took his anger out on the Impala's hood. Poor thing, shes been through enough. Leave her be. Classic cars are the best though. My dad liked them and worked on cars most of my life. I like them way over all the cars out today. I'm eying the Mercury comet hes restoring.
I have to say my favorite pop culture reference was the ectoplasm bit where Dean mentions the Stay puff Marshmallow man. Perhaps maybe its one of the few 80's reference I managed to catch.
(lmfao, the ad at the bottom of the page. http://i29.tinypic.com/2hz0cwy.jpg)
In "What Is An What Should Never Be." Dean calling Sam a bitch (along with Sam's funny reaction to it) saved what was turning out to be a pretty sad episode. The whole this is what would happen if your dream came true. The Winchesters have a pretty messed up life. I do agree though that Sam being this preppy good-doer was pretty weird.
Will now READ (damn typo in my last comment for season 1:evil:-) season 3. Yet again these are great.