Since its debut in 2005, Supernatural has been nominated for and won multiple prestigious awards, including multiple People’s Choice Awards, Leo Awards, Critics’ Choice Super Awards, and even the Hugo Awards. With 327 episodes spanning 15 seasons, Supernatural as a show has offered its fans adventure, heartache, hope, endless entertainment, and rousing and chill-inducing music scores. This earned it three separate Emmy nominations in the Outstanding Music Composition for a Series (Original Dramatic Score) and Outstanding Sound Editing categories. That said, the episodes that did get the nominations could be considered unlikely contenders.
Instead of the usual suspects like “Swan Song,” “Changing Channels,” and “Mystery Spot,” it was the “Pilot” and “Jus in Bello,” the 12th episode of Season 3, that earned themselves nominations for the prestigious Primetime Emmy Award.
The “Pilot” and “Jus in Bello”: What Sets Them Apart
When the “Pilot” first aired on September 13th, 2005, not many went in expecting much, only to be blown away by a tale of two youthful brothers searching for their lost father. The story begins 22 years in the past, as a young boy, Dean, bids goodnight to his baby brother, Sam. As the family heads to bed, the mother, Mary, hears crying noises from Sam’s room. She soon realizes that there’s an intruder standing over Sam’s crib. Before the others become aware of what’s happening, she has fallen into the clutches of the demonic intruder. When John, the father, finds her, she is stuck to the ceiling with her belly sliced open. She soon bursts into flame, and John is only able to save his two sons before the room bursts into flame.
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Over two decades later, a sassy 26-year-old Dean hunts down Sam on a Halloween night to ask for his help in finding their father. It is at this moment that Dean delivers the now iconic line, “Dad’s on a hunting trip and he hasn’t been home in a few days.” It is with that one dialogue that Dean pulls Sam back into the “hunting” business. The rest of the episode follows the brothers as they trace clues that lead them to a case of disappearing men and a woman in white. This is where the audience is first introduced to Supernatural‘s monster-of-the-week concept that many of the earlier episodes adhered to before delving deeper into the overarching story.
Since this is the pilot episode, there is a lot of exposition going on. The audience has to absorb a lot of information about their history and background before they can proceed to the next episodes that start connecting the dots one by one. Despite all the exposition, Jensen Ackles as Dean and Jared Padalecki as Sam never once let it get monotonous. Instead, we behold the dynamics between the two Winchester brothers, who perhaps could not be more different from each other. We understand how wacky their upbringing was, with John handing Sam a gun when he was afraid of monsters under his bed. Dean, ever the responsible son, obsessively follows in his dad’s footsteps. Sam, on the other hand, doesn’t even remember his mother and craves a life away from all the supernatural madness. Despite their differences, we realize the bond between the two early on, a bond that will go on to shape the course of the story and the fate of their universe.
“Jus in Bello” is an episode not like many others. Its name literally translates to justice in war, a philosophical concept explored in just war theory. It talks about moral conflicts and decisions one must make in the time of war. The name could not be more appropriate, perhaps, considering how the brothers’ decision not to kill one woman leads to the loss of many lives. The story itself begins when Dean and Sam, who are murder suspects, are captured by an FBI agent, Henrickson, who had appeared in a couple of the previous episodes. They are thrown into a cell at a police station that is soon under siege by a band of demons. Henrickson finally understands that there’s more at play here than he previously knew and enlists the help of the Winchester brothers to deal with the forces of evil lurking right outside their doors.
Ruby, also a demon but sometimes an ally, arrives to tell them they need to sacrifice a virgin to solve their problems. Dean refuses and instead chooses to protect Nancy, the virgin assistant, and take the demons head on. While they technically win, Lilith, the demons’ newly resurrected leader, later arrives at the station and kills every survivor. This again raises questions regarding the brothers’ decision not to kill one human to save the rest. While morally dubious, would it have been okay to murder a willing innocent to save countless victims? What is justice at the time of war?
Both episodes, thus, are quite important to the plot and are masterfully told. What truly sets them apart is the music, of course. After all, the haunting, rousing, melancholy soundtracks of Supernatural have always been one of the best parts of the series. Sometimes the music plays as much of a role in the story as does the writing, which is the case with these two episodes. So, it’s really no wonder they got nominated for not one but three Emmys for their soundtracks.
What episodes of Supernatural do you think should have won Emmys? Let us know in the comments below!
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