Supernatural: 15 best Sam Winchester moments, ranked

10. Soulless Sam Tries to Be Human

Granted, Soulless Sam doesn’t exemplify the best that Sam Winchester could be. One could say that the soulless version of the character is one of the worst things to happen to the Winchesters.

But the Winchester’s loss is a big win for us fans because Soulless Sam is one of the most entertaining iterations of a character to grace Supernatural.

The brilliance of Soulless Sam is exemplified in Season 6’s ‘Clap Your Hands if You Believe’, where Sam and Dean investigate a town known for its alien abductions.

Having recently discovered that the reason why Sam had been acting strange since returning from hell was because his soul was still in the Cage with Lucifer, Dean tried to teach his soulless brother empathy. Easier said than done—imagine trying to teach empathy to someone who can’t even grasp the concept.

However, Soulless Sam does his best to be empathetic—and by best, we mean the absolute bare minimum. Sam antagonizes everyone in the town with his blunt interrogations, abandons Dean during a supposed alien abduction, and gets together with an attractive UFO-enthusiast, mere hours after Dean’s abduction.

And he doesn’t really feel that sorry for any of it—Soulless Sam comes to the conclusion that having a soul means endless suffering, so he’s happy the way he is. Leading to more entertainment for us fans.

The reason why the Soulless Sam arc works so well is because Padalecki comes into his own when he’s playing this version of the character. His reactions are genuine and cold—he’s a sociopath in the skin of the protagonist we all love. Yes, he does some horrible things, but he has a ton of fun doing it!

9. Sam Winchester Can’t Act

Season 6’s ‘The French Mistake’ has many detractors among Supernatural fans, but I still stand by this meta episode that was a laugh riot, while advancing the plot for the season.

With Sam and Dean in danger from the Archangels, Castiel (Misha Collins) sends the brothers into an alternate dimension without magic. It just happens to be the ‘real world’, where Sam and Dean are mistaken for their real actor selves—Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles.

The brothers have to take the place of the actors—though it involves wearing make-up, putting up with the ‘real Misha Collins’, and even acting.

Sam Winchester may be a great scholar and hunter, but he is a dreadful actor. The brothers manage to avoid doing any real acting for most of their time in the alternate universe. Instead, they spend all their counterparts’ money on magical objects they hope will help them win the war against the angels.

But eventually, they are dragged onto the set and made to act—and unlike the real Padalecki and Ackles, who are expressive and relatable, Sam and Dean are a disaster.

There will never be a greater Supernatural scene than Padalecki and Ackles playing Sam and Dean, pretending to be Padalecki and Ackles playing Sam and Dean very badly. ‘If there’s a key, there must also be a lock’ frequently gets stuck in my head causing me to chuckle to myself in the most inappropriate situations. I’m sure you know the feeling.