‘Supernatural’s Two-Parter Changed the Course of the Show
05/10/2023
What Happens in ‘Supernatural’s Episode “All Hell Breaks Loose?”
After a season of grieving their father John Winchester ( Jeffrey Dean Morgan), who died in Dean’s place after making a deal with the Yellow-Eyed Demon (often played by Fredric Lehne), and two years hunting the same creature that killed their mother and Sam’s college girlfriend, . They’ve met other hunters with connections to their father’s past, discovered Sam’s demonic psychic abilities, and are slowly realizing that the Demon’s plan is much bigger than they originally gave it credit for.
“Part 1” starts with Sam being abducted and waking up in a ghost town called Cold Oak, South Dakota, where he discovers that he isn’t the only one of the demon’s Special Children there. Others are with him (albeit each with their own special abilities), but most notably Ava Wilson ( Katharine Isabelle), whom the brothers met earlier that season, and newcomer Jake Talley ( Aldis Hodge), a soldier with super-strength. After being hunted by a demonic little girl, the survivors discover that Ava has been picking them off one by one, waiting for her time to strike Sam down and take her place at the Demon’s right hand. Meanwhile, Dean and Bobby () search for Sam, only to arrive too late. The first part ends in a brawl between Sam and Jake, who each have been visited by the Demon who claims that only one of them will walk out alive.
Though it looks as if Sam has at first supernaturally overpowered Jake, the soldier kills the younger Winchester just as Dean and Bobby arrive. In “Part 2,” Dean makes a deal with a Crossroads Demon ( Ona Grauer) to resurrect Sam, which leaves him with only one year to live. Having located old Yellow-Eyes in Wyoming, the Winchesters, Bobby, and Ellen Harvelle ( Samantha Ferris) get there too late to stop Jake from opening a Devil’s Gate to Hell. Though they close the Gate, it isn’t before Sam and Dean confront the Yellow-Eyed Demon, and, with the help of the ghost of their father (who has climbed out of Hell for his boys), kill him with the demon-killing Colt. After making peace with their father, the boys hit the road again, now ready to take on all the evil spirits they just let out.
The Two-Part Narrative in “All Hell Breaks Loose” Is Necessary
If this two-part episode feels more like a movie, that’s because it basically is. After two years of hunting together and fighting for their father, the only way this leg of the show could’ve ended was with a two-hour sendoff. The truth is, in many ways, these episodes mark the end of an era. By the next season, the show became more serialized and introduced new cast members to supplement our favorite Winchesters. Characters like Ruby ( Katie Cassidy; Genevieve Padalecki), Castiel ( Misha Collins), Crowley ( Mark A. Sheppard), and Jack ( Alexander Calvert) were series regulars during their respective tenures, meaning that became more than just the Sam and Dean show.
But not here. With “All Hell Breaks Loose,” the cast and crew composed a spectacular symphony of thrills and chills that wrapped up the series’ entire plotline (to this point) neatly with a bow. Sure, there were still some loose ends (Dean’s year-to-live being the biggest), but the Winchesters’ long-time-coming revenge on the demon later named Azazel, their final moments with their father, and the self-sacrificial nature of their relationship all come to a head here. Almost every question we’d asked since the “Pilot” is answered, and while the show would later reveal that Azazel was only working to prepare Sam for the Apocalypse, the Season 2 finale feels awfully like the end.
Of course, it needed to feel that way. Up until this point, the show had asked more questions than it answered, with various monster-of-the-week breaks in the middle to keep us guessing. So naturally, when “All Hell Breaks Loose” starts revealing more about Azazel’s “war between demons and mankind,” series creator Eric Kripke and company hit the gas, hard. Later on, when (no, seriously), the series ended with an adaptation of “All Hell Breaks Loose, Part 2,” opting to only adapt the first two seasons of the original show. No doubt, they felt as if , as it once was, really ended here, and there’s some truth to that.