When they were boys, Sam and Dean Winchester lost their mother to a mysterious and demonic supernatural force. Subsequently, their father raised them to be soldiers. He taught them about the paranormal evil that lives in the dark corners and on the back roads of America ... and he taught them how to kill it. Now, the Winchester brothers crisscross the country in their '67 Chevy Impala, battling every kind of supernatural threat they encounter along the way.
This tv show contains 145 potentially triggering events.
A character's dad is abusive, though only the bruises are shown on screen. The same character's stepmother isn't abusive, but she stood by while he was abused. It's a large part of the episode.
In season 7 episode 10, it shows Bobby’s early family life. His father abused him and his mother emotionally and physically.
There are themes of domestic violence throughout the show. ( A kid literally whipping herself through emotional manipulation, multiple spouses killing eachother (though one is usually a monster) etc.
Perhaps not for "spectacle", but women are often hit, beaten, abducted and killed, sometimes in unnervingly realistic ways that could definitely be triggering for some.
Dean gaslights Sam throughout all of season 9, and is very manipulative and emotionally abusive to everyone around him(but especially Sam, Castiel, and Jack)
Sam and Dean were abused by John (some is shown in flashbacks, it's verbal/mental and heavily implied physical abuse as well as neglect), there are episodes where children have been/are being abused.
There is an episode where Crowley has his hell hound attack another hell hound, but they are both invisible. You can, however, hear the whimpers and see the blood.
Women get slapped/punched etc. I feel like I need to mention that it’s not gender based violence, every gender gets it’s fair share of punches thrown at them
Yes, people are drugged hundreds of times, thats a legitimate estimate not an exaggeration. People are also supernaturally "whammied" frequently which is akin to being drugged.
It is mentioned that two bullies held their victim under water too long and it caused him to drown, a little boy is later held underwater by a spirit but he is saved
There is that one episode in the earlier seasons where we get to see sam and Dean in their school years, and there is a bully there who has issues with sam and does beat up a kid and I believe he hits sam too
havent got to it yet but sam has a seizure in season 4, dean and the dude hes with say they have to restrain him down i assume they continue to do as said they also held his head down by putting a belt in his mouth or so he wouldnt bite his tongue idk
In season 7, there’s extremely strong alluding to Sam being raped/sexually assaulted by Lucifer when he was in the cage. He’s also plagued with ptsd and hallucinations of Lucifer which constantly make him feel unsafe, and cause him to be unable to eat and sleep
There is so many examples of non-consensual sex which is often not acknowledged as sa. Though most examples of on screen rape it is because of uninformed consent, sex while on mind altering substances, or sex with a being thats possessing someone else so the people we see involved are happy and enthusiastic during, it's still not consensual.
throughout all seasons of the show there are scenes of characters cutting their palms or firearms for rituals, spells, ad sigils. The cuts are not often shown explicitly on camera and I the later season are healed quickly by Castiel.
There are a few scenes of Castiel with larger cuts. One scene shows a sigil cut into his chest, and another shows a message carved into his chest by another character.
Almost every character ends up with a cut at some point, most often from violence from a monster or another character.
As seasons progress, characters get more and more mutilated. They are often put back together by an Angel. However, there is an entire arc of Frankenstein people who decapitate and dislocate people's parts.
In the pilot episode Jessica, Sam's girlfriend, is also burned alive on the ceiling
Although they are technically dead the ghosts and spirits are burned when their bones are torched, they are dead but they scream while they burn a lot of the time
s2 ep9: dude at the beginning has a seizure
s4 ep20: jimmy (castiel's vessel) has a seizure at 6 minutes
s7 ep17: sam is forced to get ECT (electroshock therapy) by a demon at full force and hes convulsing/seizing while it happens at 36 minutes
s7 ep23: polly (the blonde girl) has a seizure after dick roman injects her with something in a syringe and shes seen profusely foaming at the mouth at 23 minutes
s10 ep16: the witch who led the grand coven is seen convulsing for a few seconds at 32 minutes but stops
s11 ep3: cas has a seizure at 9 minutes then again at 36 minutes, honestly probably most realistic ones ive seen so far so if this is your trigger id watch out but it doesnt last too long
s11 ep17: pretty similar to the last one w cas very realistic, dean od'ed in a hospital and has a seizure
around 24-25 minutes, theres more in the other comments and in the "does someone v*?" section but i wont spoil much.
s14 ep7: at 3 minutes jack is sick and has a seizure
s14 ep14: dean kinda seizes for a few seconds at 29 minutes after hitting his head
The teeth aren't exactly pulled. There is an intention, but it doesn't happen.
There is however an episode where someone loses all of his teeth. They just fall out
Typically sticks to suggestive sprays of blood, shots of bodies that don't peer into injuries, blood on clothing. Most injuries are streaks of red on bodies with a few exceptions for pitted looking burns or magical wounds that don't look like normal gore. Some episodes show severed heads. Individual body parts such as bones or eyeballs. Sometimes graphic sound effects meant to gross the viewer out. Many characters die in horrible ways but the wound itself is off-screen, with sprays of blood and gross sound effects.
Teenagers die more often than young kids but both do die, often violently or on-screen at least, this I suppose also goes for ghost kids which are sometimes 'killed' to dispel their spirit.
Child death is also referenced
The three main characters die, are resurrected, and find some new way to die again. There is also a time loop episode where a character dies over and over in a multitude of ways.
There is an episode where 2 witches are feuding because the husband cheated. There’s more cheating throughout the show, though not on the main characters behalf (It never explicitly shows them cheating)
S2, E11 - Sam can be seen hanging over a toilet during a hangover, but no vomit (20 mins).
S3, E9 - Dean coughs up blood after being hexed by a witch (22 mins).
S4, E8 - Dean can be heard vomiting from inside the bathroom after getting food poisoning (20 mins).
S5, E21 - There's scenes where a doctor vomits, and patients and doctors have vomit around them. Castiel also coughs up blood in this scene (After recap - 7 mins and on).
S6, E5 - Dean vomits blood concoction (37:40).
S8, E12 - Henry Winchester can be seen vomiting after getting out of the Impala (10 mins).
S8, E14 - Kevin can be heard vomiting, no visuals (5:30).
S9, E23 - Dean vomits in corner of bunker cell (2:50).
S11, E10 - Dean vomits from smiting sickness (from around 8:30 to 11 mins).
S11, E17 - Dean vomits up pills from overdosing (30:45).
S14, E15 - An employee vomits after someones head explodes (3 mins).
S15 , E10 - Dean vomits after finding out he's lactose intolerant (24:30 - 25:30).
Arguably there is more audio gore than visual gore. Splatting, cracking, screaming, groaning, all sorts of gross out and wince worthy noises even when only blood is shown.
while the main characters aren't always fans of law enforcement, cops are shown as heroes quite frequently, with quite a few being returning good guys 🙄
Sam and Dean are arrested and sent to / are held in jail on multiple occasions.. there is also an episode where deaths in a prison are a major plot point.
Sam and Dean go to an abandoned institution and patient abuse is discussed. For one episode Sam and Dean are in a psych ward. One character is shown being in a psych ward.
In "Born Under A Bad Sign," Sam has a week he can't remember where he was apparently running around and doing things he doesn't remember. It seems very similar to a dissociative episode, and could be triggering to some viewers.
The protagonist wakes up in an alternate reality and can't decide if it's real. Sensations from reality like dead bodies randomly appear and cause jumpscares. The characters in the other reality admit they aren't real. The protagonist kills himself hoping his death won't be real and it will bring him back to reality. The audience doesn't know which is reality during the episode or whether suicide will just kill the protagonist.
In one scene, Cas says "If I go back to Heaven, I'm afraid I might kill myself" (paraphrased) but it's brushed over very quickly. Not sure about any other instances
•In S5 Famine, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, causes insatiable hunger similar to binge eating. We see this affect a main character [Castiel].
•It is implied that Dean (main character) may have a binge eating disorder from childhood neglect (lack of food while Dad abandoned them on hunting trips). Most non-violent scenes with Dean feature him consuming food of some kind. He has an unhealthy relationships and attachments to food, sometimes putting it above other priorities.
Dean overdoses and dies momentarily (can’t remember the season). Crowley stabs himself with an angel blade to save the Winchesters (last episode of season 12). Boy shoots himself (season 1). Angel suicide bombers exist in season 9. (all I can think of off the top of my head, may be more x)
The mother of a boy sees him from a distance, the boys also see a man sat on the deck from a distance, but it isn't stalker-y even though they dont know theyre being looked at, theyre not really being "watched"
There is lots of talk of abortion for a couple episodes, with the main characters trying to convince Kelly Kline to abort her baby because the dad is Lucifer, but ultimately Kelly decided to keep the baby.
In earlier seasons, Dean makes comments to Sam of like "can you be any gayer?" And lots of homophobic jokes are thrown around but less frequently in later seasons
Dean is pretty ableist, makes fun of/dismisses mental illness, Bobby talks in an ableist way about himself when he is first put in a wheelchair after a fight in s5 I believe
Hitler is briefly risen from the dead, but is quickly killed. None of his ideals are appreciated or adopted by any protagonist characters. There is a Jewish character, Aaron if I remember correctly, but he is not portrayed in an antisemitic way. Crowley, when he was the king of hell, has a portrait of himself in Nazi uniform with an insignia of a pitchfork in place of the swastika. He does not hold antisemitic beliefs or values. Jewish folklore is mentioned several times throughout the show, but never in a derogatory way.
In s6 e23, Crowley makes a running gag out of misgendering Raphael for inhabiting a female vessel.
In s8 e23, Castiel briefly makes an insensitive comment about a (presumably)trans woman’s biological sex.
In "Free To Be You And Me" Dean finds out Castiel is a virgin and attempts to get him to have sex despite his visual discomfort in the situation. This scene is played for laughs. There are other cases where Castiel's lack of understanding about sex is laughed at (such as season 6 episode 3, the "pizza man" bit) but it is never directly stated in the show that Castiel is on the asexual spectrum.
The “windy boys” as I will be calling them (rhymes with bendigo) are shown and spoken about, the name is said repeatedly and often in Indigenous folk lore saying their name or writing their name attracts them to you (which is why I refuse to type the name)
Practically every single black character who served an important role is now dead. The ones that bothered me the most were Gordon, Rufus, and agent henrickson, as their deaths did not push the plot foreword at all
One early episode is based in a very racist man being killed by a black man, and his ghost runs over black people with his truck. Confederate flags are shown in a few episodes.
uhhh pretty much the entire show plot, each episode its either a spirit, demon, or something else. in the phantom traveler episode (one of the first episodes) it is a demon and they show the exorcism
In season 5 episode 3 one character tries to get another character to lose his virginity, but fails. In season 9 episode 3 the same character loses his virginity.
several sex scenes throughout the show. no genitalia is shown but there’s bare skin and not much is left to the imagination, specifically in the first couple of seasons.
While not an illness, a main character makes a deal with a demon in season 3 and only has a year to live until he is killed and taken to hell. Multiple episodes in this series touch upon the fear and grief this character and his loved ones experience while faced with this information, which may be upsetting to watch
Dean gets a memory curse cast on him. At one point he looks in the mirror and keeps saying who he is over and over again until he Can no longer remeber his own name. It is a brutal scene imo (season 12, episode 11)
The male protagonists actively try to convince one character to have an abortion multiple times. There is focus on the entire season around preventing the birth and catching the mother, who doesn't want to abort. The mother tries to kill herself in desperation but does not succeed. She doesn't want to abort but is being told if she doesn't she'll endanger the world. She dies from the birth.
!SPOILERS!
God is defeated by Jack, who quickly fills the position. Cas is in The Empty (SuperMegaTurbo Hell), and stays there until being briefly mentioned by Bobby in the last scene. Dean dies while fighting "clown-vampires", getting impaled by a large screw sticking out from the wall (OSHA Violation). Sam lives on, without his brother and starts a family, but eventually dies of old age. They are reunited in heaven. Cas and Jack are absent for the finale. Not necessarily sad (more bittersweet), but extremely disappointing for long-time fans.
All of the angels in heaven attempt to smite the antagonist in one huge blast of power called grace, which is depicted on screen. The protagonist is later said to have grace poisoning from his proximity to the blast while showing symptoms similar to radiation poisoning from a nuclear explosion.
Season 7, episode 15 - a very cute small dog is killed for its heart to be used in a ritual