Is a Revival in Store for ‘Supernatural’ — or Did Its Ending Make One Impossible?
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for the series finale of Supernatural, “Carry On.”]
The Winchesters have said goodbye, but is it for now, or for good? (Too soon?! Sorry, talk of a revival seems inevitable.)
Both Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles have said they’d be open to returning to playing Sam and Dean down the road. (Padalecki has his new series, Walker, coming to the CW in January, while Ackles is going to be in Season 3 of Supernatural creator Eric Kripke‘s The Boys.)
“I’ve always thought that there’s a possibility of five years down the road, getting the call and saying, ‘Hey, let’s do a little short order action for a streaming network and bring them back for six episodes,'” Ackles said on Michael Rosenbaum’s “Inside of You” podcast released on September 8. “I do feel like this isn’t like the long goodbye right now. I feel like this is a ‘Let’s hang this in the closet for now and we’ll dust her off down the road a bit.'”
But what could that potential revival look like after the series finale? In “Carry On,” Dean was killed on what seemed to be a run-of-the-mill vamp hunt. After their heartbreaking goodbye, Sam eventually returned to the family business (saving people, hunting things), then went on to have a son (named Dean!) before dying when he was old and joining Dean in Heaven. (Heaven had gone through a few changes, thanks to the new God, Jack, played by Alexander Calvert.)
It seems like a pretty close-ended story, right? It didn’t feel like there was enough time for another chapter of the Winchesters’ lives, together, alive, on Earth, to be told in the time between the penultimate episode and stopping Chuck (Rob Benedict) and when they picked up the case that would be Dean’s last in the finale. And if there is going to be more Supernatural of any kind, it has to be with Sam and Dean together. Whether or not you liked the ending, it was all about the brothers, together (for the most part), as it should have been.
It could pick up in Heaven, which could turn out to not be as great as it seems to be now, but wouldn’t making that true mean getting a bit repetitive with a malevolent or neglectful God? It could show untold stories of the Winchesters from their past, but to have Padalecki and Ackles in the roles, that couldn’t go too far back. (Other actors have already played both brothers in flashbacks.) Something could pull them out of Heaven and require their presence back on Earth, perhaps even fighting alongside Sam’s son, who did have an anti-possession tattoo. There are plenty of possibilities, given the genre and the show.
Perhaps the better question to ask is, should there be a revival? Should Sam and Dean be pulled out of peaceful retirement to once again save the world? Or should the ending, with the brothers together, albeit Dean’s life cut tragically short, be it? Vote in the poll below.
