Countdown to Supernatural: Fun with Titles 

For all those of you wishing to remain spoiler-free, please skip to the second paragraph.

We’re just three freakin’ days away from the first new Supernatural in four months. If you’ve been reading any of the spoilers that have been judiciously meted out since Comic Con in July, you know that there’s going to be an episode that has fun with the whole vampire trend that’s currently populating the big and small screens. Yes, cold, icy undead vampires are the hot thing right now thanks largely to Twilight, True Blood and Vampire Diaries.  And Supernatural is of course going to put its own humorous spin on things. What I love most is the title of the episode: “Live Free or TwiHard.” That got me thinking about some of the Supernatural titles over the years.

We’re lucky because the folks who create this show week after week are really good at doing the little things that make the TV-watching experience extra enjoyable. This even includes the naming of the episodes. The titles of Supernatural episodes have often been fun or clever or named after classic rock songs or even books. I especially love it when the titles incorporate the names Sam or Dean. Here are six of my favorite episode titles of the past five seasons (in no particular order). They actually come from the last two seasons:

• “Are You There God? It’s Me, Dean Winchester.” Naming the episode after Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret was just so enjoyable. I remember reading that book when I was a child and it meant a lot to me. And it was the perfect way to describe Dean’s struggle with the whole “Is there a God?” question. Because we learned in Season 1’s “Faith” he didn’t believe in a higher force of good, he believed in what he could see. But once an angel (Castiel) raised him from perdition, God was getting increasingly harder to deny.
• “Criss Angel is a Douchebag.” I remember thinking I can’t believe they get to use the term “douchebag” not only in the title, but in the show as well. And then I thought I can’t believe they’re calling Criss Angel a douchebag. How awesome is that? I love that the show is just as fearless as Sam and Dean. That’s a big reason why I love it as much as I do.
• “After School Special.” The writers and producers love to pay homage to classic TV, movies and music. And I love them for doing it. The name of this episode alone starts me thinking about all of the after-school specials that used to air back in the day (especially the 80s). They were educational and entertaining (some, not all). They were even cheesy and don’t really hold up well with time. But just seeing the name “After School Special” took me back. And it was a great way to introduce an episode that featured Sam struggling with memories of his past; when he was a boy in school.
• “The Curious Case of Dean Winchester.” When this aired during Season 5, I had never seen the Benjamin Button movie. But I heard about it so the instant I heard the name I knew exactly what the episode was going to be about. I love when that happens. The spoiler alert is actually the title of the episode.
• “Sam, Interrupted.” I never thought there would be an episode named after a Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie movie. But then again I never thought there would be an episode named after a Whitney Houston song (“I Believe the Children are Our Future”). But I like that hearing the title immediately meant it was going to take place in some sort of psyche ward or mental institution. It further helped that the episode provided us with more drunk Sam (well, he was high on medication) and the infamous and instantly classic Dean scene: “Pudding!”
• “My Bloody Valentine.” I just thought that it was very clever to name Supernatural’s first V-day episode after the classic film as well as the successful remake Jensen Ackles had just starred in the year before. Is anybody looking forward to the Season 6 finale that could possibly air on Friday, May 13^th? After all, Jared Padalecki did star in a successful re-imagining of storied horror franchise, Friday the 13^th.

By the way, I’ve spied a few of the titles for Season 6 and it’s kind of making me fall in love with the show even more. So if I do this list again next year, I’m sure a lot of my favorites are going to come from the current season. No doubt about it.

What are your favorite titles of Supernatural episodes?