With some television shows, the longer they are on, the more episodes begin to blur or simply get buried in the recesses of one's memory. But not Supernatural.

The WB-turned-CW demon-hunting drama that first premiered in 2005 ended up airing for 15 seasons, and as time passed, the show grew bolder in its storytelling, both in plot (introducing Hell, Purgatory, Heaven, and even God himself — and his sister!) and in style. Over the course of its whopping 327-episode run, Supernatural shifted from following brothers Dean and Sam Winchester (Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki, respectively) to a new town each week to hunt down a monster into a deeply mythological drama that required the boys to save the world on a much larger scale. It also began to break its own format from time to time, delivering one-off musical, animation, black-and-white, Western homage, and other visually unique episodes.

Which episodes you gravitate towards to rewatch the most may be determined by which character you identify with the most, as well as whether you prefer the standalone case-of-the-week format or the deeper myth arc of that given season. Although there is some subjectivity involved, there are also quite a few episodes that are widely viewed as essential viewing for the way they evolved the show.

Here, Metacritic highlights those — the 10 most memorable Supernatural episodes. Please note, we are not calling these the best because there are no Metascores available at the episodic level, but all of the below episodes, listed chronologically, are ones that represent much-tweeted about (and/or memed) standout stories because of character, mythology, stylization, and of course, rewatchability.

Pilot (Season 1, Episode 1)

Best for: Lovers of urban legends, complex sibling dynamics, and road-trip mysteries

Is it too easy to include this world-setting episode? Maybe, but because the world it set up is so rich, long-lasting, and ever-evolving, we had to feature it. Part of what makes it so memorable all of these years and episodes later is how it stands the test of time as not only being a scary ghost story, as Dean and Sam stop a Woman in White (Sarah Shahi) from disappearing men from a remote stretch of road, but also sets up a larger mystery around what happened to their father (played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan), and why they (or mostly Sam) have been targeted by something — pardon the obvious word choice — supernatural since they were children. The story begins back in those youthful days, when their mother (Samantha Smith) is pinned to the ceiling in Sam's nursery and killed as a fire breaks out around her. Flashing forward in time, Sam is in college when his older brother Dean comes to get him, saying their father has not come home from a hunting trip and they need to go look for him. The way the brothers' lives have diverged from their childhood until this moment is apparent immediately and sets up a complicated relationship that will be worked out in fits and starts over the course of the series. There is more personal loss for Sam in the episode, which results in him giving up on his apple-pie life dreams and joining his brother full time, and there is immediate intrigue around how that will play out for them both as they have to find a rhythm in working together as adult men for the first real time.

Mystery Spot (Season 3, Episode 11)

Best for: Fans of Groundhog Day, Russian Doll, and Asia (the band)

To get Sam (and the audience) used to the idea that Dean is going to die (because he made a deal to give up his life after one year in order to save his brother at the end of Season 2), the Trickster (Richard Speight Jr.) traps the boys in a loop that forces Sam to live the same day over and over again. And at some point in the day, Dean always dies. The emotional undercurrent is poignant in the fated nature of death, especially for a duo that fights for #TeamFreeWill, but the deaths get more inventive ("Do these tacos taste funny to you?") the more days Sam goes through. After 100 days (and deaths), Sam begs for mercy, only to watch Dean die one more time, in the most horrific and realistic way yet. But because Dean's year isn't up and it is just the Trickster pulling pranks, not the Hellhounds barking at his door, Sam is pulled out of the loop by the end of the episode.

Lazarus Rising (Season 4, Episode 1)

Best for: Castiel diehards

Misha Collins makes his first of what would become a fan-favorite appearance in the fourth season premiere of Supernatural. Dean was dragged to Hell at the end of Season 3, paying the debt he owed for making a deal with a demon to save his brother's life, but at the start of Season 4, he awakens in a grave and digs himself out. He doesn't know how he has returned or why, and he has a mysterious burn in the shape of a handprint on his upper arm. His re-entrance to the world of hunting is memorable then, and again when neither Bobby (Jim Beaver) nor Sam trust it's really him at first. But Castiel's entrance into the their world is even more memorable, not only for the way he looms larger than life as he withstands bullets, burns a bright light, and shows off his wings, but also because it is the first time an angel really becomes a part of the story, and that opens things up tremendously when it comes to new allies and new foes for the Winchesters.

In the Beginning (Season 4, Episode 3)

Best for: Fans of origin stories

Before a spin-off centered on a young Mary and John Winchester was even a twinkle in Ackles' eye, Supernatural delivered a version of their origin story in the fourth season. In the episode, the first of the show's soon-to-be recurring time-travel theme, Castiel sends Dean back to 1973 where he meets his parents and his maternal grandparents. Not only does the episode deliver a twist on what many assumed to be the Winchester hunting legacy when it is revealed that Mary's family has a history in that field, but it also delivers important answers about why Azazel (Fredric Lehne) was in their house years later, dripping his blood into infant Sam's mouth and killing Mary in a ring of fire on the ceiling. After Dean bonds with his family, he is even more desperate to change their tragic fate and he tries to warn his mother (played here by Amy Gumenick) not to get out of bed on the day he knows she dies. He isn't successful in that, of course, but he is influential in another key family moment: He talks John (played here by Matt Cohen) into buying a 1967 Chevy Impala.

Changing Channels (Season 5, Episode 8)

Best for: Lovers of all television genres, but especially comedy

Genre series, namely those on broadcast television, were historically not taken very seriously, but this one episode showcases its creative team's wide range of talents by changing styles and sets every other scene in the 40-something minute episode. The Trickster, who is later revealed to be the archangel Gabriel in this episode, dodges Dean and Sam's capture by shoving them into different television worlds, ranging from a Japanese game show to a crime procedural and a medical melodrama. As the writers play with recognizable story tropes for each, the production design, costume, and camera teams further build out those sub-worlds. Dean and Sam are themselves throughout, so beyond the special opening credits, Ackles and Padalecki don't lean into changing much about how they play their characters, which makes the juxtaposition of these serious guys in these over-the-top settings notable (and funny), as well. The reveal of the Trickster being Gabriel is also an important moment because of how much he (and angels in general) will continue to come into play throughout the run of the show.

Swan Song (Season 5, Episode 22)

Best for: Fans of good-vs-evil battles

The fifth season finale is also the last under creator Eric Kripke's reign, and it closes an epic arc of good versus evil that literally brings the devil himself and an archangel into play, while the brothers attempt to stop the apocalypse. That alone is extremely heavy, world-ending, let alone show-ending, material, and the 40-plus minute episode does not skimp on emotional torture as Sam becomes Lucifer's latest vessel, as well as physical torture as Lucifer-in-Sam's-meatsuit kills Bobby and whales on Dean. The original plan called for Dean to become the archangel Michael's vessel so it would be a brother-versus-brother showdown, but the show opts to side step that a little bit. Instead, their surprise half-brother Adam (Jake Abel) is the one to allow Michael in, and he falls into the pit with Sam, leaving Dean topside. Narrated by Chuck (Rob Benedict), the episode also features a very special thread about the importance of their car, and since this is just a season ender, delivers one heck of a tease for the subsequent sixth season, showing Dean playing house with an old girlfriend some time later, while Sam stands outside and watches, having mysteriously returned from Hell.

The French Mistake (Season 6, Episode 15)

Best for: Fans of meta stories and those who love to watch good actors pretend to be bad at the gig

Although everything Dean and Sam go through in this episode is just so they can be a decoy to distract the archangel Raphael (Lanette Ware) from a heavenly weapons transfer, is it such a fun ride you aren't even mad that you missed the real action. Balthazar (Sebastian Roché) sends them to an alternate reality where Dean is an actor named Jensen Ackles and Sam is an actor named Jared Padalecki and they work on a television show called Supernatural that is centered on brothers named Dean and Sam Winchester. It's not the first time Dean and Sam have encountered a Hollywood set, but the weirdness of who everyone thinks they are in this world throws them for a loop, especially when they encounter Ruby — err, the actor that plays her, Genevieve Padalecki. The episode pokes a lot of fun at the guys, from Ackles' past as a soap opera star to Padalecki marrying "fake Ruby," and even Collins' obsession with Twitter. But although there is a lot of humor in watching them adjust to this new world, including trying to deliver lines of dialogue and not look at the camera while doing so, they also have to take down one of Raphael's assassins who follows them to this world and begins taking out the crew. Very few shows could get away with being this meta, but Supernatural pulls it off.

Fan Fiction (Season 10, Episode 5)

Best for: Those who love musicals (sorry, Dean)

Although Season 5's "The Real Ghostbusters" was the first time the show really acknowledged the fandom (by setting an episode at a convention for fans of the comic books about the Winchesters), five years later, the show really went for it when it came to showing just how much the people behind it see the fans. "Fan Fiction" is well past a wink and a nudge, staging a high school musical about the Winchesters from a couple of teenage girls whose lives have been changed by reading stories about sibling love so strong they would die for each other. In addition to all of the in-jokes and references and earworm original music, including making fun of their own past plots and a throat-catching rendition of "Carry On Wayward Son," the episode delivers a deceptively complex case of the week involving a muse who needs to eat the author after the show. While Dean and Sam want to protect the kids, the real author of their lives is Chuck, who is revealed at the end of the episode to be God. 

Baby (Season 11, Episode 4)

Best for: Classic car enthusiasts 

The Impala that first belonged to John and then to Dean, which the latter lovingly nicknamed "Baby" is both the third protagonist of Supernatural and the other two protagonists' home. Sam explicitly says the latter in this special episode, which finally gives Baby her moment to shine by showing the action of the story from her perspective. That means instead of joining Dean and Sam to confront the creature that attacked a local Oregonian sheriff in the episode, the camera stays with Baby, sometimes seeing pieces of the fight through the windshield, but always waiting patiently for the boys to return. They come back bloody and bruised, but they always return to her. The episode is much more memorable for the camera angles director Thomas J. Wright and cinematographer Serge Ladouceur collaborated on than the case itself (once this episode existed, there were questions about why it hadn't happened sooner), although there is also an important advancement for the season's Darkness myth arc as the boys begin to realize the effect it is having on creatures and people alike.

Carry On (Season 15, Episode 20)

Best for: Those who want to have a good cry

The series finale of any show that last as long as Supernatural did might be memorable simply for its episode number, but this was never a show to rest on its laurels, and it certainly did not coast its way to end credits. Although the larger myth arc came to an end in the penultimate episode, "Carry On" still had to provide closure for the Winchesters and their audience. And what better closure would there be than to see the boys on one last hunt? That is always what they did best, but unfortunately without Chuck watching over his favorite playthings, this time they don't both survive. While taking down a nest of vampires, Dean is impaled on rebar. He accepts his fate, but not before he and Sam share some extremely touching and emotional moments. From there, the show follows Dean into Heaven where he gets to drive Baby down an open road, and it also follows Sam into family life and old age, before they reunite one more time, and this time permanently. The episode parallels a lot of moments from the pilot, right down to what the boys are wearing when Dean picks up Sam in the afterlife, which shows just how far they have come, but also just how important they have been to each other and the world (fandom included).

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