The season starts off with Dean appearing back in the mortal realm and resurrecting a vampire named Benny (Ty Olsson), the two of which have apparently been through a lot together during their year in Purgatory. When Dean catches up to Sam, he finds out that the younger brother has actually given up the hunter lifestyle. As the first-half of the season progresses, Dean deals with his resentment towards Sam for not looking for him, while we learn via flashbacks what both characters did during their year apart.
The Winchesters catch up to Kevin (Orsic Chau), the prophet they discovered last season, and learn that Crowley (Mark Sheppard) had him imprisoned and forcing him to translate a second Word of God Tablet, this one is called Demon. Kevin escaped during the year off-camera and did so with the Demon Tablet where he has started translating a way to shut down the gates of Hell forever.
The season-long story focuses on the Winchesters taking on the three trials that Kevin translates as he learns from them, but none of them are easy, and it starts to drastically change Sam, the Winchester that successfully completes the first challenge.
Sam and Dean can’t just rest on their laurels while Kevin stays secreted away. They have quite a few adventures apart from these trials. For one, Castiel returns from Purgatory and its obvious that he has changed (again). What the Winchesters don’t know is that he is working under new orders, orders he can’t refuse. These are given to him by an angel we haven’t seen before, Naomi (Amanda Tapping, Stargate SG-1, Sanctuary).
Felicia Day’s character, Charlie, reappears in two episodes, one that reveals a lot of her backstory and one that is just a fun episode where Sam and Dean hunt down deaths that seem to be tied to a game of LARP (Live Action Role Play). Other guest stars include Lauren Tom (Futurama, King of the Hill) as Kevin’s mom, Alaina Huffman (Painkiller Jane, Smallville and Stargate Universe) as the demon Abaddon and Curtis Armstrong (the Revenge of the Nerds films) as the angel Metatron, the Voice of God.
Supernatural: The Complete Eighth Season’s extras include three lengthy featurettes. One is about making the found footage episode, "Bitten," another focuses on the Word of God Tablets and their importance to Supernatural in the coming years, while the last is all about Castiel, both the character and Collins’ portrayal of the troubled heavenly creature. All are worth watching. The hidden episode featurette will be interesting to any future-filmmakers while the other two give a lot of insight into how the show has changed over the years and what the future might hold.
While I felt like the early parts of Season Eight were a bit shaky and directionless, once the season found its focus, it is a non-stop ride straight to the cliffhanger. At the time of this writing, Supernatural is going on one more season and possibly a tenth, so long-time followers don’t want to stop here as there are some changes in the wind.
