‘Supernatural’ Stars Tease ‘Fantastic’ Finale & Characters’ Endings
There are only four episodes left of Supernatural, but it sounds like fans will be able to “Carry On” when it ends on November 19.
In addition to looking back on the series as a whole and the fans, stars Jared Padalecki (Sam Winchester), Jensen Ackles (Dean Winchester), Misha Collins (Castiel), and Alexander Calvert (Jack) and executive producers Robert Singer and Andrew Dabb teased what to expect from the finale during a PaleyFest NY conversation moderated by TV Guide Magazine Senior Writer Damian Holbrook. (It will be available to the general public on Paley Channel Yahoo Entertainment at 8/7c.)
Read on for some vague hints about how the series and characters will say goodbye after 15 seasons.
How It All Came Together
It can’t be easy to figure out how to wrap up a series after this long, but as Singer pointed out, they’d known it was coming. “It was really a community decision to go out while we still had our fastball, so we knew the challenge we had in front of us, but we came to where we wanted to go pretty quickly in our meetings,” he said.
And “very little” changed even with the shutdown in March due to the coronavirus pandemic, he continued. “We were happy with the scripts.” (They filmed the final two episodes in August and September.) “Because of COVID and the new way we’re shooting, certain things, certain cosmetic things had to be changed a little bit,” Dabb added. “But where we were going never changed.”
For example, they were limited on the number of extras they could have in a scene. “[That] in the finale affected my shooting a little bit, maybe the scope of a shot or what lens I would use,” Singer, who directed the finale, said. “But the last episode is really about the guys and it’s a very sort of intimate episode.”
(Cate Cameron/The CW)
How Will It End for the Characters?
“I couldn’t be happier,” Padalecki shared of how the series closes out his character’s story. (He’s cared about Sam and the story since he was cast in February 2005.) “It’s been a big part of my life and I’d be lying if I tried to posit that I hadn’t thought many times about how I want this to end up, where I want Sam and Dean. … I guess I could’ve seen it ending a slew of different ways, but now that it’s all said and done, I couldn’t be more pleased with the way it turned out. Kudos to the writers.”
Ackles agreed. “It is a fantastic way for this show to wrap up. This is not a secret: I had my reservations about it when I first heard the idea, and I just realized I’m so close to the story and so close to these characters, maybe I had my own ideas of how it was going to look, and I didn’t necessarily,” he admitted. “The more that I thought about it and the more I mulled over all the different possibilities of what could happen and maybe what should happen, it’s interesting to think I kept coming back to what ended up happening.”
Collins and Calvert also teased their final scenes. “My last scene on the show was epic in its own right and felt like such a satisfying conclusion to that arc,” the former said, while the latter revealed he was in the Impala “with some of the guys.”
All-Time Favorite Moments
Trying to narrow that down to one on or offscreen was not easy for any of them. Ackles pointed out Padalecki has a “great default answer”: meeting his wife, Genevieve Padalecki (who recurred as Ruby), in Season 4.
“That season, for whatever reason, was magical all around,” Padalecki added. “I really loved Sam’s storyline that season. It seemed like the weather was better than normal. … I will say, knowing what I know now, the series finale is my favorite episode of all time.”
(Colin Bentley/The CW)
Ackles also pointed to the last episode and a moment in it that might take “the number one spot of all time,” but he also acknowledged, “it’s also fresh.” But for offscreen, he named their final appearance at Comic-Con. While the Supernatural cast does conventions all year round, “there’s something really special about that room and that crowd, and the grandeur of it all.”
For Collins, he pointed to the “bookends” for angel Castiel. “[His] introduction on the show was epic,” he said before using the same word to describe his ending. “The offscreen moments were literally hundreds of hours of Warner Bros.’ money that was wasted by us just laughing on set. The countless hours that we spent laughing and enjoying the process of being together and the friendship and camaraderie we built on the show over those years was for me deeply meaningful.”
“We wouldn’t have made it 15 years without that,” Ackles agreed.
After recounting his last scene, Calvert added, “I told the crew that there wasn’t a day that I didn’t show up on set that I wasn’t thankful to be there and for everybody else’s efforts.”
And a Message From Creator Eric Kripke
While the series’ creator, Eric Kripke (The Boys), wasn’t part of the conversation, he did send along a message for Ackles and Padalecki: “When I sat you guys down on Episode 2 and said that this show, this story, starts and ends with you, and even more than that, you two have to be the leaders of all of Supernatural, not only did you rise to that challenge, you have exceeded it in every way.
Not only did you give amazing performances as Sam and Dean, you are even better people. The good that has come out of Supernatural is the thing I am most proud of. I know that the Supernatural family will always be there, so I know this isn’t goodbye.”
Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles in the pilot (The WB / Justin Lubin)
Supernatural, Thursdays, 8/7c, The CW
