Go Behind the Scenes of 'Supernatural' Season 14 (PHOTOS)

“This season was a rough one for Sam,” admits Jared Padalecki (seen floored by a flame-blowing perfume bottle). Not only was the sensitive younger Winchester forced to promise that he would lock brother Dean (Jensen Ackles) away forever in a magical trunk if banishing the wicked archangel Michael from Dean’s brain proved impossible, but he also lost his beloved mother, Mary (Samantha Smith), and discovered God was not on the Winchesters’ side. It’s a good thing that “Sam had family and friends there to look out for him,” the actor says.

Michael looks eager to fillet his next victim while inhabiting Dean’s body. Filming the scene was fun for Ackles because Richard Speight Jr. (far right, with Ackles), aka the former angel Gabriel, directed. “Camaraderie is vital,” Ackles says. “We get a heavy dose of that when our buddies return — even if we are murdering souls and spraying blood everywhere!”

After accidentally killing Mary Winchester, nephilim (half-angel, half-human) Jack Kline (Alexander Calvert) was desperate to keep the love of the Winchester brothers and sought out witch ally Rowena MacLeod (Ruth Connell, far right, with Calvert) to find a spell to bring Mary back from the dead. It didn’t end well.  “Wee Ruth Connell is a joy to be around,” he gushes. “But it was unfortunate that Jack [acted] like a terrible ex-boyfriend to her!”

“I’m a bit of a Method actor, so sometimes I bring my own demons on set to help me get into character,” jokes Misha Collins (left), who plays the brothers’ angel pal Castiel. The above goofballs are Collins’s real-life kids: 6-year-old Maison (center) and 8-year-old West. And yes, they are dressed as miniature versions of Cas.

Both Lucifer and his human host Nick (Mark Pellegrino) can charm and kill sans mercy. But sometimes good deeds will get you spared, as reporter Diane Fargo (Leanne Khol Young, near left, with Pellegrino) learns. “Nick’s sad arc,” explains Pellegrino, “is of a man who starts out searching for justice, but whose first taste of blood and revenge ignites the residual Lucifer within.”

In the landmark 300th episode, the Winchester clan got a magical visit from long-dead patriarch John (Jeffrey Dean Morgan). Though the pair hadn’t shot together since the pilot in 2005, Smith (far left, with Morgan) says it felt like no time had passed when they filmed the reunion scenes between Mary and John. “Thank God for Jeff,” she says. “He’s so open and relaxed. He made it easy.”