One of my favorite TV shows of all time is the CW's Supernatural. The show revolves around two brothers, Dean (Jensen Ackles) and Sam Winchester (Jared Padalecki), who grew up under the strict thumb of their father, John Winchester (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). John raised his two sons to be hunters--people who protect humanity from things that go bump in the night (ie: werewolves, vampires, demons, etc). Through the years, the two brothers learn how to live alongside one another and they embrace the life they were forced into. The relationships the Winchester's form on the show really set the series on a path that focuses on family and friends and the sacrifices they are willing to make to save not only themselves, but the world around them as well. In honor of the 12th season starting this fall, here is my countdown of the top Supernatural episodes of all time.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

18. Pilot (Season 1, Episode 1 // 2005)

This list wouldn't be complete without the episode that started it all. The episode starts off the way any show would--with introductions to the main characters and the general theme of the show. We see the Winchester family in their home in Lawrence, Kansas, and we meet Dean Winchester (4 years old), parents John Winchester and Mary Winchester, and Sam Winchester (6 months). Then, we watch as Mary is brutally murdered via fire as she's pinned to the ceiling and engulfed in flames as a toddler Dean carries his baby brother out of a burning house. Flash forward 20 years and we get the famous line, "Dad wants us to pick up where he left off. Saving people, hunting things--the family business." Thus starts the tale of the Winchester duo that we all know and love.

17. Goodbye Stranger (Season 8, Episode 17 // 2013)

This is personally one of my favorite episodes from Season 8. We see Castiel (Misha Collins) under control of the angel Naomi (Amanda Tapping) as she prepares him to kill Dean. The whole scene in the Lucifer's Crypt where Cas relentlessly beats Dean, almost to death, as he's seen battling Naomi in his mind and trying to stop himself from hurting his best friend is one of the most powerful scenes of the show in my opinion. Eventually Dean pulls Castiel from his own mind and helps him overcome Naomi's influence with the moving, but powerful, "Cas, it's me. We're family. We need you. I need you."

16. On The Head Of A Pin (Season 4, Episode 16 // 2009)

Again, another one of my personal favorites--this time from Season 4. This episode reveals a whole new side to Dean Winchester that the audience has never really seen before. He deals with the aftermath of being in Hell for 40 years and having to acknowledge the torment he went through. In this episode, Castiel and Uriel (Robert Wisdom) force Dean to confront his old tormentor from Hell, Alistair (Christopher Heyerdahl). Dean, while trying to get information from the demon, tortures him using techniques he learned while he was in Hell. After Alistair escapes and beats the living snot out of Dean, he's finally slowed down by Sam, but manages to escape. It should also be noted that this is the episode where the audience finds out that Dean is technically the one who jump-started the apocalypse. Awkward.

15. Wishful Thinking (Season 4, Episode 8 // 2008)

This is one of my favorites simply because it's completely ridiculous and equally hilarious. Dean and Sam come across a town that has a wishing well that actually grants wishes. This wouldn't be so bad if people weren't horrible and selfish and didn't wish for things that could harm others. One guy wishes that the woman of his dreams would fall in love with him and marry him and one poor girl wishes that her teddy bear was alive. Unfortunately for the town, all of the wishes went bad--the guy finds out that having someone be so in love with you that they're obsessed with you is really not all it's cracked up to be. The girl ends with an alcoholic and suicidal teddy bear that does nothing but drink and watch porn. In one gruesome scene, he's even seen putting the barrel of a shotgun in his mouth and blowing stuffing out the back of his head. Also, Dean Winchester actually says, "On Thursdays, we're teddy bear doctors!" Honestly, sometimes I think this whole episode was one big hallucination.

14. Swan Song (Season 5, Episode 22 // 2010)

One of the most heartbreaking episodes of the whole series. The Season 5 finale was both cruel and capricious. We see Sam struggling with saying yes to Lucifer and what he's going to do to trap the Devil and throw him back into the cage. Sam is almost instantly overpowered by Lucifer (Mark Pellegrino) and the rest of the episode is spent trying to get Sam back. Finally, at the end of the episode, Dean manages to find Sam (who has been trapped inside his own body with Lucifer as the host the entire time) and the two share a very touching moment before Sam throws himself and Lucifer into the cage. Iconically, Castiel also yells, "Hey, assbutt!" (I have to admit, I'm also partial to this episode because when I attended the Supernatural Convention in DC, Jared asked the audience what episode they'd repeat forever and I yelled out Swan Song and he turned to me and said, "Swan Song was sad too!")

13. The Real Ghostbusters (Season 5, Episode 9 // 2009)

This was one of the most meta episodes I've ever seen in my entire life. Honestly. This was the weirdest thing. Dean and Sam get an SOS call from Becky (Emily Perkins) and they race to her side, only to find out that she just wanted to see Sam again. Somehow, they find themselves at a Supernatural convention. I wish I was kidding. Sam and Dean then realize that the place where the convention was being held is actually haunted and then have to fight off and protect a hoard of cosplayers dressed as Sam and Dean and save the day. They also find Chuck (Rob Benedict) there, as he was the creator and author of the Supernatural books. Chuck also has an incredibly hilarious line, "No, there's really no such thing as a Croatoan virus for... down there. You should really see a doctor."

12. The End (Season 5, Episode 4 // 2009)

This thrilling episode finds Dean Winchester in the future--five years to be exact. Dean is transported to August 1, 2014 by the angel Zachariah (Kurt Fuller) so he can witness what the future would look like if Sam and Dean said yes to Lucifer and Michael. In the future, Dean finds that the world has been overrun by the Croatoan Virus, which creates zombie-like creatures, and that most of the population has been wiped out. He ends up meeting himself from the future and discovers that Sam was taken over by Lucifer and Castiel has lost his angelic powers. He sees that in the future, Future Dean is willing to sacrifice his friends to get one final shot at the Devil, but ultimately fails--dooming himself and everyone around him. Dean is then sent back to the past with the knowledge of the future and how to manipulate it so that no one has to die.

11. Lazarus Rising (Season 4, Episode 1 // 2008)

This is one of the most pivotal episodes in the whole series. For the first time in the series, the audience is introduced to angels. Sam and Dean had been fighting demons since the first episode--more specifically, the demon Azazel, who killed their mother when they were children--so it was only fair that they bring in angels. The first angel ever introduced on the show is Castiel. He is ultimately the one who rescues Dean from Hell because God has work for him. His first words on the show (and perhaps his most popular, behind hey, assbutt) were, "I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition."

10. Ghostfacers (Season 3, Episode 13 // 2008)

Again one of my personal favorites because it's one of the funniest episodes out there. This episode is one of the first few not told from Sam and Dean's perspective. Instead, we're introduced to the Ghostfacers, run by Ed (AJ Buckley) and Harry (Travis Wester) who we met in a previous episode. The Ghostfacers are a paranormal investigative team who are trying to spend the night in a place where people are known to die and never return. While investigating, they find Sam and Dean (who are, ironically, investigating the same case) and they end up teaming up to solve the case. Ed and Harry have a very antagonistic relationship with Sam and Dean, one that's full of sarcastic quips and dark humor. Also, one of my favorite lines from the show, "Gay love can pierce through the veil of death and save the day."

9. My Heart Will Go On (Season 6, Episode 17 // 2011)

This one proves why we shouldn't mess with history. When Balthazar (Sebastian Roche) goes back in time and stops the Titanic from sinking, Dean and Sam end up in an alternate reality. For one thing, Ellen (Samantha Ferris) and Jo Harvelle (Alona Tal) are still alive. Ellen is also married to Bobby Singer (Jim Beaver) and she takes care of him while the boys are away. The villain in question is Fate (literally) and she's after Sam and Dean for screwing with the timeline. After a hilarious montage of Dean and Sam testing Fate, they finally confront her and Balthazar goes back in time to re-sink the ship.

8. The Monster at the End of This Book (Season 4, Episode 18 // 2009)

Supernatural has a penchant for meta episodes. This is one of them. While investigating a case, Dean and Sam discover Supernatural--a series of books that follows the lives of Sam and Dean, two hunters on a mission to rid the world of evil. Sam and Dean go to confront the author, Carver Edlund (a shoutout to one of the actual writers of the show by the same name) but find out that Edlund is just a pseudonym for Chuck Shirley (Rob Benedict). After finding out that Chuck is actually a prophet of God, Sam and Dean then try to use him and his visions to trap and kill Lilith--the demon they'd been hunting at the time. Chuck, who is a serial alcoholic with a pessimistic view on life and a self-deprecating humor, also says, "Obviously, I'm a God." which is hilarious to me since it's confirmed in Season 11 that Chuck is actually God. Talk about a plot twist.

7. It's A Terrible Life (Season 4, Episode 17 // 2009)

What would life be like without the Winchesters? Well, boring, for one thing. In this episode, the audience meets Dean Smith and Sam Wesson (the name itself is an irony, since Smith and Wesson were an arms manufacturing company, just like Winchester rifles). Sam and Dean aren't brothers, they don't know each other, and they both work in an office building with Dean as a CEO and Sam as a computer tech. Sam and Dean eventually realize that something is....not natural about their predicament and figure out that Zachariah has cast them into a separate universe where they aren't brothers. He eventually sends them back to their world, but I'll never forget Sam barging into Dean's office and yelling, "I mean, what if these suicides aren't suicides? What if they're something... not natural?" YOU HAD ONE JOB, SAM.

6. Yellow Fever (Season 4, Episode 16 // 2008)

One of my personal favorites because it never fails to make me laugh. One of the more iconic Dean Winchester moments occurs in this episode. When Dean gets infected by a virus that makes people paranoid and panicky, he starts finding it difficult to help Sam on the case. He only has a few days to live until they can find the cure and save him, but as the hours tick by, Dean becomes more and more jumpy. The most iconic scene from this episode involves Dean and Sam investigating an abandoned building when they hear a noise rattling in some lockers nearby. Sam counts down from three to one and opens the locker, only to have a cat jump out. Dean begins screaming for several long seconds in one of the funniest, more fantastic moments on the show. As Sam stares at him in confusion and horror, Dean lets out a breathy laugh and goes, "Whew! That was scary!"

5. Baby (Season 11, Episode 4 // 2015)

One of my favorite episodes of all time because of how incredibly different it is. This is the first episode told entirely from Baby's perspective. In case you're wondering, Baby is Dean's 1967 Chevrolet Impala. All of the camera angles takes place from either inside the car or mounted on the outside of it. One of my favorite scenes involves a shot where Dean is battling a creature outside the car and the viewers can only see it from interior of the car while Castiel, who is on speaker phone, drones on and on about a werepire. This episode will go down in Supernatural history as one of the most creative episodes ever.

4. Changing Channels (Season 5, Episode 8 // 2009)

When the trickster angel Gabriel (Richard Speight Jr.) traps Dean and Sam inside of a literal television, they find themselves flicking through different TV shows in a desperate attempt to get out. Most memorably are: Dr. Sexy, MD, the Herpexia commercial, the CSI knockoff, the sitcom with a live-studio audience, and my personal favorite--the Japanese game show, Nutcracker. This whole episode has a deep underlying message that family is what's most important and that you can't pick your own family, blah, blah, blah. I just loved watching this scene:

3. Mystery Spot (Season 3, Episode 11 // 2008)

Once again, the trickster Gabriel has messed with the Winchesters. This time by setting Sam in a time loop in which he relives every day over and over again. The days only end and begin when Dean dies. The most memorable ones were: the tacos, slipping in the shower, getting hit by a car, crushed by a falling piano, electrocution, attacked by a dog, and an accident with an ax that happens off-screen. Sam supposedly goes through over 100 Tuesdays and finally stops Gabriel and sets things back to normal. Some of my favorite scenes involve Sam and Dean bickering, the repeated blaring of Asia's Heat of the Moment, and the whole diner scene where Sam and Dean share dialogue which consists of, "Sam Winchester wears makeup. Sam Winchester cries his way through sex. Sam Winchester keeps a ruler by the bed and every morning when he wakes up--"

2. Fan Fiction (Season 10, Episode 5 // 2014)

The special 200th episode was a musical episode. It took 200 episodes, but we finally got it. I almost cried when I first watched this episode because I was laughing so hard. Dean and Sam stumble upon a case where a school is putting on the musical Supernatural (based off of the Chuck Shirley books, of course). It's full of girls dressing up as Sam and Dean and singing about Supernatural while still fighting off the creature after them. I know every song from this episode by heart and I am not ashamed to admit that the rendition of Carry On Wayward Son at the end of the episode made me tear up.

1. The French Mistake (Season 6, Episode 15 // 2011)

Arguably the most popular episode of the whole series, it topped my list for a reason. Balthazar sends Dean and Sam to an alternate reality where Supernatural is TV show and their names are Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki. To clarify, they get sent to our world. There are special cameos in this episode made by: Jared's real life wife and love interest on the show (for a season or two, before we realized she was bad and Sam killed her, awkward) Genevieve Padalecki, Misha Collins, and the writers and creators of the show (though they are portrayed by actors and not the real people themselves). To sum it up, the episode shows: Jensen and Jared playing Sam and Dean playing Jensen and Jared who are playing Sam and Dean. The whole episode is full of laughs and hilarious situations and is by far my favorite episode of the series.