Supernatural: 10 Ways Gabriel Got Worse And Worse

Gabriel is the youngest archangel brother in the show Supernatural but for a long time, he is not known as an archangel. He comes to the scene halfway through Season 2 as The Trickster in the episode, “Tall Tales.” He appears to be a goofy demigod that they kill. In the Season 3 episode entitled “The Mystery Spot” Dean dies over and over as Sam relives the day every time he meets his demise.

The Trickster, who isn’t dead, tells him that it’s time he learned to live without Dean and figure things out on his own because Hell was going to get Dean and there’s nothing Sam can do about it. Sam lives in an alternate reality for months without Dean before finding Gabriel (who he still knows as The Trickster) and getting him to turn back time again. Fans were heartbroken watching Sam’s suffering, but Gabriel only got worse and worse from there.

10 The Righteous Younger Brother

When Sam and Dean first meet Gabriel, he is introduced as The Trickster but later they find out the truth. Gabriel is really the youngest brother of the four Archangels, Michael, Lucifer, and Raphael being his big brothers.

Every time Gabriel appears in Sam and Dean’s lives after they find his true identity, he talks about how his big brothers were always fighting and always a pain in his behind. He was the one who was above it all so he left. He was the better brother that didn’t want to break the world with the apocalypse.

9 Never Played His Role

In the episode “Changing Channels,” Gabriel sends Sam and Dean to an alternate reality where they have to play along with the roles he created for them. The channels keep changing and the brothers are forced to adapt or die. This is when Castiel discovers that Gabriel is more than just The Trickster.

He keeps putting Sam and Dean into role after role until they finally comply. But when he reveals his own identity at the end of the episode, he also reveals that he ran away from his own role as an archangel. There was a lot he could have done to help but he ran away.

8 A Soldier Missing In Action

Throughout the entire apocalypse story arc, Gabriel only makes appearances to try to force Sam and Dean into playing their roles as vessels for Michael and Lucifer. As one of four archangels, he has immense power.

While Raphael is rampaging through heaven with plans of his own and Lucifer is looking for Sam and paving the way for his grand battle, Gabriel is missing in action. Later he complains about their actions and Sam and Dean ask him what did he do to stop it all?

7 Served Up Just Desserts

As The Trickster, Gabriel showed up anywhere there were people he believed to have deserved a whacky punishment. The idea was that he doled out punishments fitting the crimes of arrogant jerks. In the episode “Tall Tales,” Gabriel, as The Trickster, doled out punishments in a small town that had Sam and Dean stumped as well as at each other’s throats.

It took Bobby’s influence to snap them out of it and find out that The Trickster was behind it all. Gabriel’s snappy one-liners and carefree attitude make him appear quite similar to the people he wants to punish. It turns out that he’s been killing people who are just like him and playing it all off as silly mischief.

6 Another False Death

Before the big prizefight between Michael and Lucifer happens, several other gods and goddesses meet up at a hotel called Elysian Fields in the episode “Hammer of the Gods.” While they talk about the Christian apocalypse with Sam and Dean in the room, Gabriel shows up late under the guise of the trickster god Loki. Lucifer arrives, tipped off by Hermes, the messenger god at the front desk.

He kills Gabriel and Sam and Dean narrowly escape. Lucifer was weak and he had a chance to damage him further. Instead, he let his big brother get the jump on him and faked his death again so he could go into hiding.

5 A Cryptic Message

Before his supposed death by Lucifer’s blade, Sam and Dean discover a cryptic message delivered in a strange manner. Gabriel made a recording on a pornographic DVD called Casa Erotica. In it, he tells the brothers how to slam Lucifer back into his cage in Hell by collecting the rings of the four horsemen.

He only tells them that the rings make a key, not how to get Lucifer into the cage or the spell they’ll need to close it. Then he goes on to play out a scene that Sam and Dean have to turn off immediately. He couldn’t just tell them what he knew.

4 Captured By Asmodeus

For many years, Gabriel is assumed to be dead. Even Chuck/God says that he believes Gabriel is truly gone. What actually happened was that he was sold to Asmodeus, a Prince of Hell. Asmodeus fed off his grace and became more and more powerful with every dose.

Had it not been for Gabriel faking his death and falling for the real Loki’s trap, he never would have been sold to Asmodeus and the Prince of Hell would not have become as powerful as he did. Lucifer says that Asmodeus is his weakest creation but he and everyone else underestimates his power because they don’t know that another archangel lived to be used by him.

3 A Disappointing Rescue

Ketch is also captured by Asmodeus and he discovered that Gabriel was Asmodeus’s prisoner. He devises an escape plan that takes a lot of his effort and almost didn’t work but he makes it out and takes Gabriel and the archangel blade with him.

With these ingredients, Sam and Dean have everything they need to get to Apocalypse world to save their mother and Jack. But, in a twist that disappoints them and almost sends Dean into a downward spiral, Gabriel says no when they ask for his help.

2 The Selfish Revenge Plot

The reason behind Gabriel’s refusal to help Sam and Dean is that Gabriel wants to get revenge on the deities that sold him and had him enslaved to Asmodeus for seven years. His grace is the only thing that can open the door to another world but his singular focus is finding Loki’s sons and killing them before going after Loki himself.

He doesn’t care that this plan could kill him or that Mary and Jack (his nephew) could be trapped forever. His only care is to get revenge on Loki in as brutal a way as possible.

1 One Last Sacrifice

Gabriel’s grace isn’t enough to open a door to the apocalypse world, even after he consents to help, once his revenge on Loki has been enacted. Lucifer’s grace is needed to make the spell happen. Gabriel, although weakened, is the only one who can wield the archangel blade.

Lucifer escapes into Apocalypse world with much of his grace depleted and joins the group on the way back to the door to their world. Apocalypse world Michael intercepts them just as they’re almost free. Gabriel, Lucifer, and Michael are all in one place and Gabriel has the opportunity to kill them both before they attempt to decimate the world that was saved. Instead, he is killed and this time it’s permanent.

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