With ‘Supernatural’ premiering the first episode of its last season this week (on Thursday, October 10th to be exact), the producers recently sat down with Variety to answer some questions about the upcoming final season and what they plan for the Winchesters, Castiel, and the fans as they bring the long-running series to a close.
First up was whether the ending was changing how stories and episodes were being written, especially with a villain like Chuck hanging over everything, the question about Free Will still haunting the characters, and so many characters from past seasons coming back for cameos in the final season. According to executive producer Andrew Dabb:
“I don’t know that our approach this year has been that much more different than last year, other than we’re writing to an ending, rather than a cliffhanger. The temptation is that you’d go into a final season and just do straight serialization with every episode tying to the bigger, larger God plotline, and we do have a lot of episodes that do that, but it still needs to feel like a season of ‘Supernatural.’ So there are a lot of standalone adventures — some are scary, some are funny. We wanted to keep that mix going because it’s a key part to the show overall.”
Dabb goes on to talk about the season premiere (titled ‘Back and to the Future’) and the next episode, which will deal with the repercussions of the guys pissing off Chuck (aka God) and trying to survive all of the resurrected villains and monsters from the past 14 seasons, which sounds like an excellent opportunity to bring back a lot of memorable characters from the past for final season cameos.
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According to Dabb, having these villains return due to Chuck’s action is something that will “reverberate throughout our entire season,” making me think there will not be a quick fix to put everyone back in Hell during the season premiere, something that the other executive producer, Robert Singer, seemed to confirm when talking about how the guys will end up dealing with Chuck throughout the season:
“When God is your uber-villain, it’s not just a one-episode deal. It’s not simple, just going for Chuck, and a big part of what we’re dealing with in the season is how to do that. At a certain point, Chuck will be at full strength, which gives our boys even more problems.”
It is intriguing to hear Singer talk about Chuck eventually being at “full strength,” as though he were lacking some of his power, and it makes me wonder whether they might be referring to some of his followers or his army of angels, which will be even more enemies the Winchesters will have to fight. It almost makes one wonder how the show will have any time for the stand-alone adventures they usually get to, or the more emotional beats they have between the brothers, or even Castiel, though Dabb assured fans in the interview that the final season, similar to the last few seasons, will have plenty of those powerful emotional scenes.
“This is not just true of this season, this has been true for awhile, but we can devote a lot more time to the emotions of the guys. In the beginning of the show they were always on the road, but since they’ve been able to be settled, we’ve been able to see their lives beyond just the next monster.”
Dabb went on to talk about the longevity of the series, and some of the reasons he sees for the show’s success, claiming that a lot of it had to do with how much the show has grown and changed over the years:
“I think you really get an evolution of TV as a medium. When this show started it was a very different show than where it will end, and the same thing about television generally. And I think what’s allowed the show to stay on as long as it has is that it’s been able to adapt.”
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When asked about rumors stating that the cast and crew were still open to revisiting the world and the characters in the future, Singer replied:
“We weren’t really considering whether there would be a future movie or a reboot or anything like that. We wanted to write the best ending that we could, that we all were internally happy with, and that’s what we’ve done.”
Which makes sense, I’m sure they are still in the midst of trying to produce the best finale season they can, and any thought toward the future would only get in the way of their current work, especially since they have quite a job before them not only writing a satisfying ending where the guys are able to convincingly take on God himself, but also manage to wrap up a lot of loose ends and story-lines from the proceeding 14 seasons. Though Dabb was quick to say that they will definitely not be able to wrap up every story-line and loose-end:
“I think we’d be promising more than we could deliver if we said we would tie up every loose thread the show has dropped over 15 seasons, but we’re going to tie up the big ones…I hope we’re speaking to the majority of our fans. There’s definitely episodes where we do address things that come out of the fandom and out of social media, but in terms of how the story ends, in terms of bringing back certain characters, it was [about] what makes sense for the guys on their journey and in this story at this point. To some extent, all television now is fan service, but it’s not about direct fan service in that way; it’s more about what is going to get us to the emotional conclusion that we want for these guys.”
All in all, they definitely have their work cut out for them, both the Winchesters and their crew in trying to bring down Chuck and save the world one last time, and the cast and crew of the series who have to figure out how they are going to make that happen on screen. Do you have any theories about the final season of ‘Supernatural’ and where it is all heading? Do you have a loose-end that you are really hoping they wrap up before the finale? Feel free to share in the comments below!
Source: Variety
