#2019-jul

(...) In the past, when asked how he’d like Sam and Dean to go out, “I always said I wanted them both to die,” star Jared Padalecki shared at San Diego Comic-Con. “I always said [like] Butch and Sundance, and people would yell at me and throw stuff.”

It’s not that Padalecki wanted the characters to suffer or have an unhappy ending after years and years of struggle. “I think that was my way of saying I want them to achieve peace,” he explained. Having been looped in on what the series finale holds, “I feel like Sam and Dean find some version of peace. Whether or not that’s alive or dead, or if Amara possesses me or whatever the situation is, I feel like they find more peace than when the season starts.”

The end of Dean and Sam’s story was a little more difficult to come to terms with for Padalecki’s TV brother. “When we were in the room and the idea came down the pipe, everybody was kind of signed off on it,” Jensen Ackles recounted. “My reaction was more like, ‘OK, OK.’ I struggled with it for about a week or so, and then I realized I’m too invested, I’m too emotional. I’m too close to this character. To see anything with finality on it, it’s just hard to digest. I talked to a few people about it and got some clarity on it and have tried to look at it from a different perspective. I, now, have come around to being like, ‘This is a really good ending. This is satisfying.'”

Also giving the final hour their seal of approval: creator Eric Kripke. “He actually has been told the ending, and he kind of likes it,” executive producer Robert Singer said, noting that he and co-showrunner Andrew Dabb were set to have dinner with Kripke the following week.

But perhaps the most important reaction will be that of the #SPNFamily that has kept the CW drama on the air for fifteen seasons. At the end of the series, Dabb hopes that the fans feel like the hundreds of hours they put into watching the show were worth it. “You don’t want to leave people feeling hollow. You don’t want to leave people feeling cynical,” Dabb said. “That doesn’t mean the ending is always happy and everybody high-fiving, but it means that the journey was worth something and came to a place that makes everyone feel it was, again, worth kind of taking that trip.”

(...) “If the season ends the way we’ve discussed, I’ll be pleased as pie,” said Jared Padalecki on Sunday, July 21, at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront hotel adjacent to the San Diego Convention Center where the massive four-day conference is held.

While the entire season hasn’t been fully written, executive producer Eugenie Ross-Leming says that they know where it begins and where it will end but they haven’t settled quite yet on what will happen in between.

“There is a big surprise that I don’t think anyone will expect further down,” Ross-Leming teased. However, she was unwilling to confirm a possible romance that executive producer Brad Buckner said may pop up in the 20-episode season.

Showrunners did confirm that fans will see several familiar faces of friends and enemies alike when the season premieres on Oct. 10. Characters that will be back include Jack, Billy/Death, Rowena, Ketch, Chuck/God, Adam, Amara and the Empty, besides, of course, the Winchester Brothers Sam and Dean along with angel Castiel. Buckner warned that returning characters from the past may not be what fans are used to, hinting that they may be coming back in different capacities.

Fate and faith will play a major role in the upcoming season as the brothers portrayed by Jensen Ackles and Padalecki try to come to terms with everything that happened in the jam-packed season 14 finale. Showrunners were hesitant to call Chuck/God the big bad of the upcoming season, but did say he wouldn’t be of help during season 15. Ross-Leming said that the character would try to manipulate everything he can behind the scenes.

“The question of faith and free will is the biggest twist going into this season,” Misha Collins, who plays Castiel, said. “They’re also discovering that God is the nemesis and he’s been scripting their path and that’s a really tough pill to swallow … So, breaking out of that is going to be hard.”

Executive producer Bob Berens said that when the 15th season begins, Sam and Dean will be drawing the darkest possible conclusions after learning that Chuck/God has been pulling the strings to their storyline the whole time.

“They’ll be asking themselves ‘What if everything we’ve done doesn’t really matter?’” Berens said. That question really affects both Sam and Dean in different ways that will make them question how or if they should move forward and what they should do, Buckner said.

While Buckner said that the revelations from season 14 have shaken Castiel to his core, Ross-Leming said that the angel will eventually talk the brothers off a ledge of doubting everything that they do. Andrew Dabb, another executive producer, said they’ll be trying to reclaim their lives.

Several of the executive producers also talked about the pressure of the final season and the want to please fans, especially after some of the backlash “Game of Thrones” received when it ended.

“You can never please everybody. You have to do the ending that makes the most sense and I think we have an end point that works for us,” Dabb said. “I hope everyone likes it, but I’d be kidding myself to think that we can please everyone.”

Dabb confirmed that there’s been a conversation about the possible end of the series for the past two years. He said that it really came down to what Ackles and Padalecki wanted to do, saying that it was something they had to decide together.

“I think we were all on board to call it before the quality of the show deteriorated,” Ackles said. “Not to say it would, but I always wanted to go out on top — or at least while we still had gas in the tank.”

Executive producer Bob Singer, who has been with “Supernatural” since the beginning, admitted that he wasn’t sure how much longer he wanted to continue the show. Once Ackles and Padalecki said they were ready, he said that he would see it through until the end and confirmed that he’ll direct the series finale.

Singer refused to talk about if either of the Winchester would die in the upcoming season even though Padalecki had said previously that he can’t see any other end to “Supernatural.”

Padalecki clarified his comments on Sunday though, saying it’s just because he wants the character to “find peace.”

“As of right now there’s no plan for a continuation of ‘Supernatural’” such as a movie or spin-off, Dabb said. “What we intend to offer is a true ending. It’s a real ending.”

Collins called the ending bittersweet, but couldn’t deny that he was looking forward to “having a hole in the calendar,” calling it a silver lining.

“We’ve been doing this a long time,” Ackles said. “Jared and I were sitting backstage (before the panel) and I said ‘Don’t forget to take it in.’ We had that little moment when we walked out to take it in. It was really heavy. A wave of emotion. I was really nervous. My heart was pounding.

It just goes to show how thankful we are for what the fans have given us the past 15 years,” he continued. “It’s been the greatest experience of my professional life and probably my entire life.”