With nearly as many episodes as there are days in a year, Supernatural has built an enormous catalog across its 15 seasons. Some episodes are genuinely scary, self-contained horror stories, but the series has always been bigger than its scary monsters. What kept fans coming back for more was the relationship between Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) Winchester, a bond strong enough to carry the show even when an episode didn’t fully stick the landing — and there were, most fairly, a few. Ackles has gone on record about his favorite hours, but Padalecki’s top pick is a more surprising choice, and it’s also one of the most debated episodes of the entire series.

The ‘Supernatural’ Series Finale Is Jared Padalecki’s Favorite

Ahead of the series finale, “Carry On” (which aired on November 19, 2020), Padalecki spoke with Entertainment Weekly in an effort to tease the show’s remaining episodes and reflect on Sam and Dean’s nearly two-decades on television. When asked about his favorite moment from filming the 15-season series, the actor’s response was somewhat surprising and gave fans hope for the remainder of the series.

“The series finale is my favorite episode of all time,” the actor said, but that wasn’t enough. Soon after, he doubled down on his personal X (formerly Twitter) account. “I love all of my children equally, but this one is my favorite,” he teased. Now, some folks may prefer the first episode, which sets the Winchester brothers on their dark path.

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It’s not exactly a secret that “Carry On” is one of the most debated episodes of Supernatural. Some fans love it, considering it the best ending that the Winchesters could have gotten under the circumstances. Others maintain that the show should’ve ended years earlier, possibly when series creator Eric Kripke departed after Season 5. But whichever camp you fall into, the series finale was something special for those involved in the making of Supernatural, and it left a powerful mark on the show’s star.

Interestingly, years before he had gotten the script for “Carry On,” Padalecki had another episode in mind as his most beloved, this one a fan-favorite all-around. No, this one wasn’t some monster-of-the-week special that put Sam and Dean up against a ghoul, ghost, or Djinn, but rather Season 6’s “The French Mistake,” which the star held onto for the next four years until Season 15 came around (via EW). But considering that “The French Mistake” is something of a love letter to Supernatural‘s production, it doesn’t come as a surprise that Padalecki would cling to “Carry On” by the time they’d completed filming.

“Carry On” Is the Perfect ‘Supernatural’ Finale, According to Padalecki

Although showrunners like Andrew Dabb and Robert Singer famously wanted “Carry On” to serve as a satisfying conclusion for all Supernatural fans, it didn’t exactly live up to fans’ expectations. In many ways, Season 15’s final bow — which was originally meant to have a different ending before the COVID-19 pandemic — felt more in step with the show’s earlier years. It even re-inserted Sam’s desire for a normal life apart from hunting into the narrative, something we didn’t know the character still wanted after all these years. While Dean’s ending was maybe a bit anticlimactic (something The Winchesters thankfully fixed later on), Sam got to live a full life and die in peace. Sure, he had to wear a terrible wig, but it was an ending that Padalecki adamantly approved of.

“I think I cried every time I read the script,” the actor told Entertainment Weekly after the fact, arguing that the finale’s dual “wonderfully tragic” and “wonderfully optimistic” tones were just what the show needed. However, you feel about the series finale, it’s clear that Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles were happy with how things turned out. It’s not often that a series finale is so impactful that one of the show’s leading stars believes it to be the show’s finest hour, but Supernatural is a rare exception. “I feel really proud to have been a part of this,” Padalecki reflected. Yes, they’re still open to returning for more, but if another season of the beloved low-fantasy horror series never happens, “Carry On” offered Sam and Dean Winchester the closure they’d long desired.

Supernatural is available to stream on HBO Max.

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Release Date

2005 – 2020

Network

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The WB, The CW

Showrunner

Eric Kripke

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Directors

Philip Sgriccia, John F. Showalter, Kim Manners, Thomas J. Wright, Charles Beeson, Guy Norman Bee, Richard Speight Jr., Mike Rohl, John Badham, Steve Boyum, Amyn Kaderali, Jensen Ackles, Tim Andrew, Eduardo Sánchez, Jeannot Szwarc, P.J. Pesce, Nina Lopez-Corrado, James L. Conway, amanda tapping, J. Miller Tobin, Stefan Pleszczynski, John MacCarthy, Jerry Wanek, Ben Edlund

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Writers

Meredith Glynn, Davy Perez, Raelle Tucker, Cathryn Humphris, Brett Matthews, Nancy Won, John Bring, Ben Acker, Daniel Knauf, David Ehrman, James Krieg, Trey Callaway

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By Chris Snellgrove
| Published 27 seconds ago

While many Star Trek fans dislike various characters in Starfleet Academy, the one they hate the most isn’t one of the main characters. Like members of the early Discovery bridge crew, she has a name, but almost nobody watching actually knows it. To them, she’s mostly “the girl who ate her comm badge.”

This character (who is actually named Pickford) has only appeared in three episodes so far, and she’s always in the background, being generally useless. So useless, in fact, that you might find yourself wondering why the writers put such a stupid character in their prestige sci-fi show. Now, some Star Trek fans have a compelling theory about Pickford: that her stupidity is just an act, and she’s secretly a spy for Nus Braka!

The Woman Who Knew Too Little

In the very first episode of Starfleet Academy (“Kids These Days”), Pickford stood out in the worst possible way, nervously admitting to the Doctor that she had swallowed her comm badge. Critics pointed to this as an example of the new show having the kind of broad comedy more suitable to a Saturday morning cartoon than a new Star Trek show. After all, this was a character training to be the best of the best, but she appeared to have the wits and intelligence of a toddler in her first appearance.

She doesn’t acquit herself very well later, either: in that premiere episode, she has a full-on meltdown after Nus Braka’s pirate attack. Later, she’s rude to the holographic SAM, and in the most recent episode (“Come, Let’s Away”), she had another panic attack in a tense situation and had to be escorted off the bridge. So far, Pickford has revealed herself to be rude, stupid, and completely useless in almost any situation, prompting a growing number of Star Trek fans to ask why she was put in the show in the first place.

A Secret Spy?

Apart from just being annoying, the biggest issue with Pickford is that she doesn’t seem to be Starfleet material. Sure, she’s in the academy and wears the uniform, but she seems to have none of the emotional and mental discipline you’d expect from a future Starfleet officer. This is in direct contrast to Starfleet Academy‘s Big Bad Nus Braka, who presents himself as a goofy joke (complete with cackling monologues about time being an origami chicken) but is secretly hypercompetent.

That competence was on full display in “Come, Let’s Away,” an episode where Starfleet asks for his help in defeating nefarious villains known as the Furies. Braka pretends to cooperate, but he manipulates the situation to his advantage and has his flunkies destroy a Starfleet vessel. Later, he disables and ransacks an entire Starbase, which is quite the accomplishment; sure, the Klingons in Discovery took out a base, but now, a simple space pirate was able to obtain the same accomplishment as one of the fiercest space empires the galaxy has ever known.  

In “Come, Let’s Away,” this is presented as evidence that Nus Braka is a criminal genius, but some fans aren’t buying it. A growing number of viewers believe that the only way this skeezy pirate is able to so consistently outwit the smartest people in the quadrant is because he has someone on the inside, feeding him information. The primary suspect, surprisingly enough, is the girl who fed herself a comm badge!

Hiding In Plain Sight

Why do people think Nus Braka has a spy within Starfleet? For one thing, he has shown up whenever Chancellor Ake takes her students into space; this was explained in the first episode (he tracked Caleb’s transmission), but in the second episode, he seems to know enough about the Furies and their plan to coordinate an attack that destroyed a Starfleet ship and crippled a Starbase. He was likely coordinating with the Furies and possibly with his spy, which might be why he attacked a Starbase that focuses on researching (as Nelrec says) “classified things.”

Obviously, there are many characters that could be potential spies for Nus Braka: Genesis is still very mysterious and seems to share the space pirate’s Daddy issues. Nelrec is continually disillusioned by working with Starfleet, so he might very well team up with Chancellor Ake’s biggest enemy. Heck, even the Doctor may have become disillusioned enough (or just reprogrammed) to change sides, and since multiple versions of this character exist in the galaxy, Braka might have even replaced the Voyager Doctor with a copy loyal to him.

However, I agree with the fans who think Pickford is a secret spy: antics like swallowing her comm badge are a great way to ensure that nobody thinks she is smart enough to be a double agent. Plus, her frequent meltdowns could just be a convenient way to take her out of the action. For example, she could have easily communicated with Nus Braka in “Come, Let’s Away” after being escorted from the bridge, transmitting to the pirate once she is in her quarters and away from prying eyes and ears.

Is Starfleet Academy About To Redeem Its Worst Character?

There is no definitive proof that Nus Braka has a spy, and he may very well just be the criminal mastermind he presents himself as. But now that the Federation has placed him at the top of their Most Wanted list, it stands to reason we’ll see more of this villain going forward. Honestly, it would be downright shocking if we don’t get some big reveals in the season finale, and a secret spy update would be the biggest reveal of them all.

Right now, all my latinum is on Pickford, if only because it would be such a delightful heel turn: how cool would it be if the dumbest, most incompetent cadet turns out to be the biggest traitor since Seska? This would redeem Starfleet Academy’s throwaway character in the most unexpected way and give us a new villain to hate. If nothing else, she and Nus Braka could have an earnest, onscreen debate about the most pressing question in the galaxy: what tastes better, a comm badge or an origami chicken?

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