Seems like we have a lot of fans of the Winchester Brothers here on IoM, so for the fifth (and possibly final?) season of Supernatural, I thought we’d try something new – SUPERNATURAL SATURDAYS!

We’ll talk about the newest episode (starting with this week’s season premiere, “Sympathy for the Devil”), and hopefully have plenty of talkback so you guys can tell us what you thought of the episode!

Spoiler-filled discussion after the jump!

So finally, we get a good season opener for Supernatural What I’ve found with the show is that I typically don’t like their season premieres, but usually enjoy the following episode.  For example,

• Season 2’s “In My Time of Dying” was a bore (the hospital episode), but it was followed by “Everybody Loves a Clown,” and, well, the title speaks for itself.
• Season 3’s “The Magnificent Seven” introduced the Seven Deadly Sins…and killed them in the same episode.  It was a damn good episode, but felt like wasted potential.  The follow up episode, however, “The Kids Are Alright,” featured one of the bloodiest death’s I’ve ever seen on television.  And the rest of the episode kicked ass too.
• Season 4 started with “Lazarus Rising,” which wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t exactly as good as “Are you there, God?  It’s me, Dean Winchester.”

This season starts off with a bang (quite literally) in “Sympathy for the Devil,” which I’d say may not be as good as Season 3’s opener, but is still pretty darn good.  The Devil gets out of Hell, but no, we don’t see him.  In fact, Dean and Sam are suddenly transported to an airplane that happens to be flying over the spot at the exact same moment.  Then, the plane almost crashes as the Earth is ripped open.  Really, this scene was kind of an odd one for me – what was the point of the plane scene?  Couldn’t they have just been transported somewhere else?  If the plane crashed, whoever transported them there would have felt pretty dumb.

From there, the Winchesters check out Chuck the prophet (who was in a bind, about to do battle with archangels at the end of season 3), and find out that he’s still alive.  However, Castiel, their guardian angel, was blown to bits (bloody bits!) in the fight.  Sam and Dean are confronted by the angels who try to take Dean back to Heaven, but the Winchesters outsmart them.  Stupid angels.

The Winchesters check into a hotel room and Chuck uses his #1 fan (known for writing erotic Wincest fiction) to deliver a prophecy to Dean and Sam, foretelling the location of the sword of Michael the archangel. This sword was used by Michael to boot Lucifer’s punk ass out of Heaven ages ago, so it should work again, right?

Bobby comes to help them do research on the sword and Bobby ends up losing his sh*t when Sam tells the truth about his part in causing the apocalypse.  Sam leaves, and Bobby and Dean figure out that Chuck’s prophecy is linked to one of John Winchester’s old storage units.  Then Bobby kicks Dean’s ass.  Turns out, ol’ Bobby’s possessed by a demon, under the control of Meg (played by uber-hottie Rachel Miner).  Bobby breaks free from the demon’s control and stabs himself with Ruby’s knife, killing the demon inside him. Meg escapes from Rachel Miner’s hot body, and Sam and Dean take Bobby to the hospital.

The brothers check out the storage locker, and find demons inside and the angels waiting for them. Apparently, Dean is Michael’s “sword,” the chosen vessel.  Still, Michael must have Dean’s consent before he possesses him.

Zachariah tries to torture Dean and Sam into making Dean agree to it, but Castiel pops in and saves the day by killing a bunch of angels (very God-like, isn’t it?) and scaring off Zachariah.  It’s hinted that the ol’ G-O-D himself may have been responsible for Castiel’s resurrection, and saving the Winchesters from Lucifer.

However, Lucifer has chosen his host, and gets the man (Mark Pellegrino) to consent to being his vessel.

Bobby says he can’t be mad at Sam and him losing his crap earlier was all the demon inside him.  But Dean isn’t so easy – he says that he doesn’t know if he can trust Sam again after everything that happened, and that he doesn’t think things can ever be the way they were between them. (i.e., no more Wincest)

Overall, not a bad start to the season – we get a decent amount of action, which is always nice.  It’s a little tough because the Supernatural season premieres seem like they should be new-viewer friendly, but they’re typically so mired in the series’ mythology, new viewers won’t find much to really get into without knowing the backstory.  It would be nice to have a done-in-one as a season premiere for once.

I was surprised that Rachel Miner seems to only be in the show for one episode – she’s got talent, and I actually liked her as Meg.  Seems like a waste to have only used her once (as opposed to multiple times in one night – zing!).

Again, not a bad start.  When this season was described as the “apocalyptic season,” I guess I just expected more Apocalypse.  At this point, the church incident with Lucifer is being described as anything from a terrorist bomb to any other number of things, and it seems like the world isn’t going to Hell in handbasket like it should.  Still, CW show = CW budget.  The Apocalypse is going to take a while, I imagine!

What did you guys think?