Blu-Ray Review: Supernatural: The Fifteenth & Final Season
For those who are not series-long fans of the Supernatural series, I must note that starting at Season 15 is probably not the place to start. That said – that’s no reason not to get excited about the release of the fifteenth and final season! You can now go back and watch the entire season in one fell swoop (there is a complete series release coming out as well). For those that have been keeping up with the Winchesters, this is a great season and really ends the series well. It’s bitter-sweet in that a show is ending, but they did do a solid job wrapping everything up.
Spoiler alert: At the end of season fourteenth, Sam and Dean knew that they had to get rid of Jack, but the task seemed almost impossible with his unstoppable powers. At least until God gave them a gun that could destroy him but killed whoever took the shot as well, Dean ultimately couldn’t take the shot, and God snapped his fingers and just destroyed Jack in an instant. Dean realized that Chuck had been playing them the entire time and tried to turn the gun on God but ended up getting shot himself. Chuck unleashed all of the souls in hell, and we left Sam and Dean surrounded by zombies.
Season 15 picks up right there where 14 left off with our heroes fighting an army of zombies. In the act of escaping, the team joins forces with a demon that “liked hell the way it was.” They discover that among the billions of souls released from hell, there could also be souls from those they have killed throughout the series. They have to capture, contain, or destroy all of these escaped souls to avoid another apocalypse, all the while dealing with Dean’s gunshot would that has more grim consequences than they would have thought.
There’s a lot of good about this season. Obviously, the writing teams knew this would be the last season, so they really went all-in with that. They didn’t hold back, and storylines were fleshed out and closed out. They really tried not to leave any storylines unfinished.
In an interesting turn, the writers gave the series two endings—sort of. In episode 19, we really wrap up the overarching storyline of the past 14 seasons. But there is a 20th episode in which the show comes full circle back to the first episode and gives closure to the series. Episode 20 does, however, give more of a sense of finality to the series. Episode 19 wrapped up the story and left it open-ended in a way. Episode 20 really stops that and wraps it up so that it would make it extremely difficult to come back to later.
All 20 episodes of the show’s final season are split up across three Blu-ray discs and then a fourth bonus disc with lots of fun extras (except deleted scenes on the same disc as their episodes). Even with seven episodes per disc (a heavy load), the picture looks nearly flawless in both darker and lighter scenes, featuring beautiful colors and an excellent level of detail.
The audio gives clear, clean dialogue with an immersive score and sound tone that draws you into the episodes. The special effects and music provide a lot of rich detail without drowning out dialog or washing each other out.
All of the bonus material besides the deleted scenes resides on the separate bonus disc. There are also a lot of extras on the fourth disc that is definitely worth a watch.
Extras
- “Supernatural: The Long Road Home,” a special retrospective originally aired on The CW on the night of the finale, and there are additional features that recaps the journey from episode one to the end of the series.
- Supernatural: The End of the Road (New)
- Supernatural: Family Don’t End in Blood (New)
- Gag Reel (New)
- Deleted Scenes (New)
- Supernatural: 2019 Comic-Con Panel
- Winning Baby: A Supernatural Giveaway
- Winchester Mythology: Midwestern Heroes
- Supernatural: The Long Road Home – Special Retrospective Episode
There’s really a lot to take in with the release, and you might want to watch it a few times to really get everything. It’s a satisfying completion to the series storyline that I think all fans will want to watch. It’s a great set, and the extras and packaging make the home release far superior to streaming it somewhere. It’s a must-have for Supernatural fans!
Supernatural: The Fifteenth & Final Season and Supernatural: The Complete Series will be available on Blu-ray & DVD on May 25th from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment.
I have to say – and I don’t know why -I never watched this series. It does sound like something I would like but I just never got around to it. But apparently my not watching it did not hurt the number of viewership seeing how it lasted 15 seasons! Wow! But good review…I just might check out what I have been missing.