Top 10 Most Meta Moments of Supernatural

While fans of Supernatural are waiting for season 12 to start, let’s take a look back at the most meta moments of the show that we love so much. Warning! There will be minor spoilers!

10. “The Devil is in the Details” 11×10

In this episode Rowena is having a dream where Crowley is opening Christmas presents (one of which just so happens to be a Sam Winchester Pop! Vinyl Figure). Santa Claus kicks down the door and asks Rowena if this is what she really dreams about. She states that it’s a nightmare she can never wake up from.

9. “Sympathy for the Devil” 5×01

After learning that there are novels about Sam and Dean’s life written by Carver Edlund (aka Chuck Shurley), we meet superfan Becky Rosen, also known as samlicker81 online. She’s a Sam girl–like many of us are–and also runs a website called morethanbrothers.net. In this episode she is writing some good ol’ Wincest fan fiction. You can read it here!

8. “Hell House” 1×17

The boys don’t know what they’re getting into when they meet Ed and Harry: two “ghost hunters” who think they’re the real deal but they’re really just amateurs who are in Sam and Dean’s way. This is the first episode of Supernatural where the writers started getting more into meta seriously. The episode references fantasy/sci-fi classics like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The Ghostbusters.

7. “Hollywood Babylon” 2×18

Sam and Dean learn about a supernatural death on the set of the movie Hell Hazers II: The Reckoning so they go to investigate. The episode included lines of actual criticism that Supernatural creator Eric Kripke had received from network executives. It also pokes fun at Kripke’s movie Boogeyman that was released in 2005. Sam and Dean take a tour of the studio and the tour guide mentions that the show Gilmore Girls (the show that Jared Padalecki had stared as Dean Forester) was filmed there. Sam becomes uncomfortable and decides to leave the tour early. A lot of crew members for the show appear as background characters in this episode as well.

6. “Meta Fiction” 9×18

As soon as this episode begins we see Metatron explaining to the audience how a good story is written. Metatron, being the scribe of God, should know what a good story is. He asks the viewer what makes a story good.

“What makes a story work? Is it the plot, the characters, the text? The subtext? And who gives a story meaning? Is it the writer? Or you? Tonight, I thought I would tell you a little story and let you decide.”

5.”Changing Channels” 5×08

Sam and Dean investigate the death of a man whose wife claims the Incredible Hulk killed her husband. They learn they are dealing with the Trickster but are soon lured into his trap where they are thrown into a TV world. They appear in shows such as Dr. Sexy M.D., a Supernatural sitcom and even a herpes ad. The episode makes fun of shows like Grey’s Anatomy, CSI: Miami and TV just in general.

4. “The Real Ghostbusters” 5×09

Becky Rosen strikes again in this episode as she lures the boys to a Supernatural convention. That’s right, there’s a convention for the novels written by Chuck Shurley where everyone is cosplaying as Sam, Dean and the monsters they’ve battled. Sounds just like real life! The guests of the convention are participating in a murder mystery, but turns out that there really is a vengeful spirit lurking in the hotel the convention is taking place. Sam and Dean team up with two cosplayers to salt and burn the spirit’s bones while Chuck distracts the other con-goers.

 3. “The Monster at the End of this Book” 4×18

This is the episode where Sam and Dean first find out about the Supernatural books. It’s also the first time the show’s fandom gets brought up in an episode. Kripke was quoted saying, “It was a good chance to lovingly make fun of the fans.” Sam and Dean also discover fan fiction and that there are Dean girls, Sam girls and “slash-fans” as in Dean-slash-Sam, together. Like, together together.

2. “Fan Fiction” 10.05

There had to be a musical episode! And they waited until the 200th episode to do it. Sam and Dean come to investigate the disappearance of an all girls school’s teacher and are surprised to find that they’re putting on a musical production of the Supernatural books. There are many good meta moments in this episode. For starters Dean learns what Destiel means (and for those of you who don’t know what it means, it’s the mash-up name for Dean and Castiel). Sam plays along with this new discovery and suggests, “And what about Sastiel? Samstiel?” As soon as Dean finds out about Destiel he stares directly into our souls, I mean, the camera. As if to say, “Seriously?” There’s so much more to go into about this episode so you’ll just have to watch it to fully get all the beautiful meta moments. I’ll wait.

1. “The French Mistake” 6×15

The most meta moment isn’t even a moment, it’s an ENTIRE episode. In this episode Sam and Dean get transported into a universe like ours where Supernatural is just a show. Monsters aren’t real. They appear on a set where everyone calls them Jared and Jensen and all the other actors are just…actors. They find “Castiel,” but to their dismay it’s really their co-star Misha Collins. They discover Jensen was the star on the soap opera, Days of Our Lives (yep, he really was) and that Jared is married to Genevieve Cortese, the actress who played Ruby the demon (yep, he really is). Sam and Dean even try to act as “Sam” and “Dean” but turns out they aren’t as good of actors as the real Jared and Jensen. If it couldn’t get anymore meta Misha Collins was actually tweeting the tweets from the episode in real life.

 This episode has so many meta moments there’s no way to fully wrap up all the meta goodness so here’s some of the best moments of the episode in gif form: