Supernatural: 15 best Sam Winchester moments, ranked

6. Only Sam Winchester Can Perform a Reverse Exorcism

Demons are part and parcel of Supernatural—granted, they’ve taken a back seat since Season 1, when they were the chief villains.

Sam and Dean Winchester have since been possessed—or in Dean’s case, become a demon. They befriended the King of Hell, Crowley (Mark Sheppard), and they are now co-parenting—alongside Castiel—Lucifer’s son, Jack Kline (Alexander Calvert).

But when demons were still the enemy, Sam showed a true gift for discovering new ways to defeat them—the reverse exorcism.

The Winchester brothers have always had one problem when dealing with demons—the moment demons felt threatened, they would exit the body they were possessing, disappearing into another person or back to hell. Not ideal when you want to question the demon or kill it!

In Season 8’s ‘What’s Up, Tiger Mommy’, Sam discovered a way to keep the demon in possession of the host body—long enough to vanquish it. He did this by saying the exorcism spell backward—as a result, the demon smoke would go right back into the host, ready to be stabbed with the demon-killing knife.

This isn’t the only time Sam gets inventive with his methods to defeat demons. In an earlier season, he used a PA system to play a recorded exorcism against a group of demons. And in Season 9, he uses a phone recording of the spell to stop a demon when she grabs him by the throat, which prevented him from chanting the spell out loud.

Sam Winchester? More like Smart Winchester, amiright?

5. Sam Undergoes the Heavenly Trials

Since Season 1 of Supernatural, Sam and Dean Winchester have been looking for ways to shut the door on hell permanently. In Season 8’s ‘Trial and Error’, the Winchesters finally get the chance they’ve been looking for.

Prophet Kevin (Osric Chau) spends his time deciphering the word of god and finds the key to closing the gates of hell permanently—three Trials of God. The catch? Only one person can undergo the trials.

Of course, Dean decides that he must be the one to undergo the Trials, seeing as they’re dangerous and potentially fatal. But while on a mission to achieve the first Trial, it is Sam who completes the quest of killing a hellhound.

Rather than try and summon another hellhound so Dean can kill it, Sam makes the valiant decision to undergo the Trials himself, no matter the cost to his body.

It is an easy decision, at first. Sam achieved the first task with aplomb and even though the actual Trial caused some pain, he seemed well-equipped to continue to the next two.

But the second Trial took more out of Sam—so much so, that Dean had to step in and stop Sam from going out hunting in a weakened state.

Despite the agony he was in, Sam continued to push forward for the third and final Trial, knowing that he could possibly die in the process.

But having seen his brother sacrifice himself repeatedly, Sam was ready to step up to the plate and be the one to make the sacrifice play. And this remains one of the most endearing aspects of his personality.