A Supernatural prequel called “The Winchesters” from Chaos Machine, the production company founded by Supernatural star Jensen Ackles and his wife Danneel Ackles, has been given a script commitment from The CW.

Robbie Thompson, a fan-favorite writer and eventual executive producer on Supernatural from seasons 7 to 11, will serve as the writer/EP on “The Winchesters” Supernatural prequel, which will explore the relationship between Sam and Dean’s parents, Mary Campbell and John Winchester, from the time of their meeting in the early 1970s. Jensen Ackles will reprise his role – at least vocally – as Dean Winchester, who will be the narrator of the tale, and both Ackles will also executive produce.

As a fan, I’ve got some thoughts about what the actual premise of Supernatural prequel “The Winchesters” should or may include, including which details from the fifteen years of Supernatural canon might be expanded on and what parts might get retconned, and particularly, where I think the writers must take extreme care in order to pull this off – so keep reading for that backstory breakdown and speculation! But first of all, let’s take a look at the details of this announcement and the foundation of the Ackles’ production company, Chaos Machine.

“After Supernatural wrapped its 15th season, we knew it wasn’t over. Because like we say in the show, ‘nothing ever really ends, does it?’” Jensen Ackles told Deadline. “When Danneel and I formed Chaos Machine Productions, we knew the first story we wanted to tell was the story of John and Mary Winchester, or rather the Supernatural origin story. I always felt like my character, Dean, would have wanted to know more about his parents’ relationship and how it came to be. So I love the thought of having him take us on this journey.”

The Ackles couple announced the formation of Chaos Machine Productions in October 2020 after inking a multi-year deal with Warner Bros. Television Group. Chaos Machine will develop original television content for a variety of platforms including broadcast, cable and streaming. Jensen Ackles gave the following statement when the news broke last fall.

“Warner Bros. has been my home for the better part of two decades. The relationships I have acquired there are some of the finest and most supportive I could have hoped for in this industry. Danneel and I are thrilled for the opportunity to continue to grow as artists and now as producers under the mentorship and guidance of Peter Roth and the whole WBTV team.”

How long has a ‘Supernatural’ prequel been in the works?

The star revealed in a virtual panel on March 7 (below) that Chaos Machine currently has about five shows in various stages of development, and mentioned that the first one was taking its final steps to be delivered to network in the following week – “The Winchesters” is presumably the project he was talking about, as he suggested that he’d have a better idea when fans would get to hear about that material by the end of that week.

“Hopefully it’s sooner rather than later,” he said. “Until then we’re just trying to find material we think is fun and exciting, not necessarily genre specific, we’re kind of across the board. We have a really cool project that I’m excited about with a Supernatural alum […] I don’t like to talk about projects until they’re baked, and these are all in the mixing process. We’ll just say we’ve got some fun things happening.”

All has been quiet since then, but given yesterday’s announcement, we can draw the conclusion that the first project going to network and the project involving a Supernatural alum are one and the same. But let’s face it – Supernatural has a lot of alumni, and context-wise he did seem to include the reference to that project in the “half-baked” category, so it could potentially be something else to look forward to – set in the Supernatural universe or not – from one of Supernatural’s many, many talented writers, actors and other creatives!

Also worth anticipating: the involvement of Renee Reiff, formerly a creative executive for television development at DC Entertainment, who was brought on board as Head of Development at Chaos Machine and who has been involved in the development of “The Winchesters.” While at DC, Reiff worked on such series as Lucifer for Fox and Netflix, Sweet Tooth for Netflix, and iZombie for The CW. Reiff was also an active board member of Warner Bros’ OUT@WB (a LGBTQ+ business resource group within Warner Bros. “dedicated to increasing LGBTQ visibility and fostering a culture of understanding within the company and the world at large”) and during this time, organized an employee panel – originally meant for raising internal company awareness but later made public – featuring several actors who play LGBTQ+ characters from The CW’s live-action DCTV universe, hosted by executive producer Greg Berlanti.

More recently, Reiff became one of the founding members of Out In Hollywood, an organization committed to advocating for untold and unseen LGBTQIA+ inclusive stories, curated by proudly out studio/network executives and producers. This past Wednesday, they launched the inaugural Out Loud List, “a list of the best-unproduced pilot scripts that center on stories of gay, lesbian, bisexual, pan, ace, transgender, gender non-conforming, non-binary or otherwise queer characters.” These pilot ideas may be good to keep an eye on as possible future Chaos Machine productions, and it will be interesting to see whether Reiff’s seemingly career-long commitment to LGBTQIA+ inclusive storytelling will have an impact on “The Winchesters” as well.

In the panel, Ackles elaborated a bit on the experience he’s with Chaos Machine over the last few months. “The entertainment industry and developing is a rocky road, a tough road to navigate. Really, if we were just individual or independent it would be an even higher hill to climb, but the fact that we’ve got Warner Bros. – we’re one of their players now – so that makes it really interesting, that makes it really fun, that’s really what I’ve been spending most of my time doing here in the mountains of Colorado.”

It’s not surprising to hear that The CW jumped at the chance to keep Supernatural (and its passionate audience) in-house. Despite passing on prior spin-offs, network president Mark Pedowitz had been extremely vocal on his desire to maintain a working relationship with stars Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles – although he might be eating his words a little about not believing there would ever be a Supernatural “universe” or another Supernatural prequel (as stated at the August 2019 TCAs) he’s made good on his claim that the show’s headliners will “always have a home here,” and his comments that he will always be open to any creative projects that his 15-year flagship stars may bring to the table.

With Padalecki having booked to headline Walker before Supernatural season 15 even started airing, and Ackles back in the fold with “The Winchesters,” it looks like The CW will remain the home turf of the Supernatural stars for the foreseeable future – even if Ackles is spending some time moonlighting at Amazon playing Soldier Boy, a corrupt superhero on The Boys, helmed by Supernatural creator Eric Kripke. Kripke was quick to offer his support for “The Winchesters” Supernatural prequel, sharing that he loved the story Ackles had shared with him.

Unfortunately, and there’s no real easy way to say this, the same can not be said about Ackles’ closest co-star: Jared Padalecki was apparently not brought into the loop about this project being in the works, tweeting “Wish I heard about this some way other than Twitter. I’m excited to watch, but bummed that Sam Winchester had no involvement whatsoever.” Both fans and media outlets have questioned whether this reaction is some sort of elaborate joke, which is fair – it is not a scenario that makes any sense – but Padalecki insists that it is not. Padalecki was present for the March 7 panel when Ackles teased the shopping around of this secret project, but it seems that he knew no further details. Until we get further updates, it isn’t fair to speculate about the whys and wherefores of this, but we hope that the Winchester brothers will sort out the situation soon, having weathered so much as a partnership onscreen and off. [Edit: while this article was being formatted, Padalecki has tweeted again, asking fans not to attack the Ackles’ or anyone else involved in his behalf, and sharing that he and Ackles had a long talk about the situation.]

However, what we can speculate about is what, exactly, this Supernatural prequel is actually going to look like. Diehard fans will be aware of all the news I’ve laid out in the paragraphs above – social media was non-stop when the announcement (and subsequent drama) broke, with cast members’ names trending for hours worldwide. So here’s the really fun part: a deep dive into the questions, concerns and theories I have surrounding “The Winchesters,” based on the very broad scope of the canonical details laid out by Supernatural since 2005.

What the ‘The Winchesters’ prequel can incorporate from ‘Supernatural’ canon

According to Deadline, this is the pitch: “Told from the perspective of narrator Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles), The Winchesters is the epic, untold love story of how John met Mary and how they put it all on the line to not only save their love, but the entire world.”

Okay, so. Here’s what we know. If you don’t freakishly have all 327 episodes of Supernatural on lock in your mind at any given time like me, here is a primer in some of the main context from Supernatural that may matter for “The Winchesters.”

First of all, a brief biography of our leads, Mary and John.

Mary Campbell: Played by Samantha Smith (below) during the series, and played by Amy Gumenick in two flashback episodes. Born December 5, 1954 to Samuel and Deanna Campbell – Sam and Dean were named after her parents – Mary was raised as a hunter from a long line of hunters, however, she did not, as a teenager, enjoy the lifestyle, and longed for normalcy. After meeting John in 1972, she formed a relationship with him, but never revealed the truth about her life as a hunter or the supernatural to him, cherishing his innocence as a “civilian.” In episode 4.03, “In The Beginning,” Dean traveled to 1973 and witnessed how the demon Azazel killed both of Mary’s parents and also killed John, and how Mary made a deal to resurrect John in exchange for access to her home for unknown reasons, ten years in the future.

In 1975, she married John and by 1978 was pregnant with Dean. In November 1983, she was killed by Azazel when she found him interfering with baby Sam in his nursery – feeding him demon blood in order to, in the long run, prepare him as Lucifer’s vessel. Young Mary’s worst nightmare was revealed to be having her children raised in the lifelike she was, unable to be safe and free. Unknowingly, John made that nightmare come true after her death. Mary maintained the lie of normalcy to John up until her death, but in episode 12.06 “Celebrating the Life of Asa Fox” – after she was resurrected to the present day – it was revealed that, despite always insisting that she wanted to get out of the life, she was still hunting independently on the down-low until at least 1980, and in her tenure as the main character in the later seasons of the show, got to know her sons as peers and accepted that hunting was a calling in her blood. She eventually died for good in episode 14.17 “Game Night,” at the hands of a soulless Jack Kline.

John Winchester: Played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan (below) during the boys’ adulthood, and played by Matt Cohen in a handful of flashback episodes. Born to Millie and Henry Winchester in 1954, John served as a Marine in the Vietnam War, and later became a mechanic. Raised by Millie and an unknown male figure – John grew up thinking his real father Henry abandoned the family, but Henry was actually sucked through time and died in 2013, as seen in episode 8.12 “As Time Goes By.” Henry was a family legacy member of the Men of Letters – a secret organization of scholars who study the supernatural, a fact that becomes massively relevant to Sam and Dean in the back half of the series, but a detail that John was never aware of, despite the fact that, if Henry had lived, John would have eventually been recruited too.

John grew up completely naive of the existence of the supernatural. He found out the truth about monsters and demons and became a hunter after Mary died in unusual circumstances, but, to our knowledge, he never found out the truth about the Campbell family or his wife, before his death in episode 2.01 “In My Time Of Dying.” John did learn the truth about Mary in an earlier flashback episode 5.13 “The Song Remains The Same,” but the memories of that incident were removed from both Winchester parents. When John returned to the Men of Letters bunker in the present day for Supernatural’s 300th episode “Lebanon,” he learned the truth about his father and the Men of Letters, but it is unknown if he learned the truth about Mary then too – it’s possible, as they had a loving reunion as a couple. Either way, the memories of his time travel faded away when he returned to his real-time as well, so in the long run, he canonically lived and died never knowing the truth about either Mary or his father.

Casting wise, the show is likely to feature new faces: while Cohen and Gumenick (below) are amazing and still look very youthful, “The Winchesters,” according to Danneel Ackles, will begin in 1972, which would make Mary and John 17 or 18. We are looking at a teenage cast, which is absolutely wild to imagine – I can’t wait to see fun social media posts of EP Jensen Ackles hugging and mentoring his teen mom and dad. Mary’s parents are also likely to show up – though her father was played by Mitch Pileggi, who is currently playing Jared Padalecki’s father on Walker, so they may recast.

However, another comment from Danneel – to Ruth Connell, who plays Rowena – jokingly (or was she) implied that they’d discussed the concept of the immortal witch showing up at a point, and there are a fair few characters – angels, demons, monsters – who could potentially appear in the vessels we know them best in, like Richard Speight Jr. as Gabriel finally sharing a screen with Rob Benedict’s Chuck, if “The Winchesters” does lean into the whole divine plan thing. Probably not Castiel, though – his Misha Collins vessel is a human being born in the 1970s – though we (and Collins, apparently) can dream of a way to make it work!

Then there’s the crucial question of who Dean is narrating the story to. Is this going to be Dean in Heaven, after his death in the Supernatural series finale, speaking with Cas, or some other friend like Charlie? Is it going to be him telling the story to Sam at some point during their younger lives, or telling Jack about his parents’ love story at some point during the last few seasons? Might it be Dean telling Mary what he thought he knew, with her corrections along the way? Or just Dean speaking to us, the audience, in a Wonder Years sort of deal?

Honestly, just the notion of Jensen Ackles continuing to play Dean in some form, especially so soon after the end of Supernatural, is enough to make me heavily anticipate the show, regardless of what else it’s about. Dean Winchester is the greatest feat of long term characterization that I have ever seen in media, and the man who plays him has a particular talent, more than any other actor I’ve ever known, for evoking emotion about his relationship with Dean and the show and even his admitted character bleed – his shared moments of sadness, dedication and passion during the process of Supernatural winding down caused me a great deal of genuine distress. It really seemed like he was struggling to let go of Dean, and was consistently vocal about being sure it was not the true end. I am elated to know that he will continue to play Dean, and more importantly, that he wanted to so much that he created the idea to do so via his own production company.

Now, the premise of “The Winchesters” is about how John and Mary met and fell in love, and how that gets handled is the first huge thing that is going to make or break the show. Because we actually do know how they met and fell in love – in fact, we’ve heard two versions, which could be slightly contradictory or could be made to work together. Firstly, in episode 5.14 “My Bloody Valentine,” as Sam and Dean are coming to terms with the Lucifer and Michael vessel roles they were cosmically fated to play in the apocalypse, it is revealed by a Cupid that the boys were literally bred into being like champion racehorses, due to Heaven’s interference.

Dean: Why does heaven care if Harry meets Sally?
Cupid: Oh, mostly they don’t. You know, certain bloodlines, certain destinies. Oh, like yours.
Sam: What?
Cupid: Yeah, the union of John and Mary Winchester–Very big deal upstairs, top priority arrangement. Mm.
Dean: Are you saying that you fixed up our parents?
Cupid: Well, not me, but… Yeah. Well, it wasn’t easy, either. Ooh, they couldn’t stand each other at first. But when we were done with them–Perfect couple.
Dean: Perfect?
Cupid: Yeah.
Dean: They’re dead!
Cupid: I’m sorry, but the orders were very clear. You and Sam needed to be born. Your parents were just, uh… meant to be.

Later, in episode 12.01 “Keep Calm and Carry On,” Dean identifies himself to his resurrected mother by telling her the details of how she and his father met – a story John had clearly recounted to Dean many times before.

Dean: Mom. Listen to me. Your name – your name is Mary Sandra Campbell, okay? You were born December 5, 1954, to Samuel and Deanna Campbell. Your father, he bounced around a lot for, uh, work, and you bounced right along with him, and you ended up in Lawrence, Kansas.
Mary: How do you know all that?
Dean: Dad told me. March 23, 1972, you walked out of a movie theater – Slaughterhouse-Five. You loved it, and you bumped into a big Marine and you knocked him flat on his ass. You were embarrassed, and he laughed it off, said you could make it up to him with a cup of coffee. So, you went to, uh, Mulroney’s and you talked and he was cute and he knew the words to every Zeppelin song, so when he asked you for your number, you gave it to him, even though you knew your dad would be pissed. That was the night that – that you met –
Mary: John Winchester.
Dean: August 19, 1975, you were married… in Reno. Your idea. A few years later, I came along, then Sammy.
Mary: And then I burned. How long have I been gone?
Dean: 33 years.

So, straight away, you have a contradiction regarding what Mary and John thought of each other when they met – couldn’t stand each other, or immediate dating? I’d like to trust that experienced Supernatural alum Robbie Thompson finds a way to make both versions true – like perhaps the Cupid meant that Mary and John were disposed to dislike each other conceptually, before Heaven interfered – like maybe there was a split second shift from annoyed hatred to attraction when Cupid’s arrow struck or something like that.

The Supernatural prequel “The Winchesters” must reconcile this existing Supernatural canon in some way, or the entire thing is going to fall flat for me, because throughout the series, it becomes apparent on many occasions that John and Mary did not have an ideal marriage and that the stories John told about his dead wife were somewhat heightened. This comes into play in season 5’s “Dark Side Of The Moon” – only a couple of episodes after the Cupid reveal – when Dean, in Heaven, relives a memory of comforting his mother when his father left home for several days (Sam: “Dad always said they had the perfect marriage.” Dean: “It wasn’t perfect until after she died.”)

The false impression John maintained of Mary becomes a big plot point when Mary herself becomes a part of her sons’ lives again and they realize that she is not the lauded maternal image that her father comforted them with, but instead a flawed, prickly, badass hunter who had only really being play-acting as a domestic goddess, down to passing off shop-bought meals as home cooking.

John spun a fantasy of Mary after she died, Mary tried to create a fantasy of her marriage while still alive. They were not naturally compatible, were not meant to get along, and were forced into being soulmates by Heaven, following Chuck’s cruel apocalypse plan, all for his own entertainment. This is fascinating, and that’s before you even begin to touch on the dark underbelly of the consent issues of it all, whether you call it brainwashing or divine interference or however else you might look at it. Even if the show chooses not to paint the forced Heaven bond as toxic and instead tries to claim it as romantic, there is still the ongoing friction of the fact that Mary is living a lie and John is naive to it all.

These elements cannot be ignored. “The Winchesters” cannot gloss over that existing canon and the Supernatural-wide implications of the imperfect dynamic between Mary and John. This is a show where even the slightest canon discrepancies are torn to shreds by viewers – remember when EP Ben Edlund had to apologize for mixing up, in passing, whether Sam and Dean have ever been to the Grand Canyon? The idea of retconning the established manufactured connection between Mary and John, that has influenced so much of Supernatural’s theme of determinism vs free will, is not something I can imagine going down well.

That’s not to say that I feel negative about Supernatural prequel “The Winchesters,” or even about John and Mary as a couple – I don’t. I just think that leaning into the idea of direct heaven interference, Mary’s lies, John’s attitude and all those problems, not trying to paint this so much as an inspiring love but more as a clashing challenge that they’re both in the dark about – they want to be together, so why is it so hard to get along, the tragedy being that they don’t know they’ve been tampered with – is both the most interesting and most canonical version of this potential story. After all, Supernatural has often been about people bonded to one another, loving each other while not getting along. On Instagram, Jensen Ackles promises that “We will hit the waypoints that have been set and fill in the rest in a way you never expected,” and right now I’m trusting him on that – he has advocated for the rigorous adherence to detail before, defending the fact that it matters to fans.

Supernatural subtly established – or sometimes outright stated – that despite Dean’s copycat idolization of his flawed father, Sam and John really shared a lot of inbuilt traits, whereas Dean was more of the Mary mirror – both in terms of taking on the caregiver role that he fantasized was hers, and in some of their general wiring, their humor and impulsivity, taste in music and books, and their struggles with being vulnerable and emotionally available. There are even parallels romantically – Sam’s story with Jess is a sequel to John’s story with Mary, and Mary’s fake-it-til-you-make it domestic life with John is reflected in Dean’s time with Lisa Braeden. In short words: Sam is John’s child; Dean is Mary’s. I really want to see traits and behaviors that I recognize from my beloved Winchester brothers at play while watching their parents.

But the biggest point of contention at the moment, for the Supernatural fandom, seems to be the idea of a show that in some way softens or glorifies John Winchester. Under every announcement about “The Winchesters” on social media, there are fans voicing their concerns about a show where John is the hero. While some fans don’t like Mary either (I cannot relate, and I think her infringing and forcing the boys to deal with the reality of her personhood is one of the best things about the later era of the show,) John is dramatically loathed by a large number of fans due to the fact that all of his choices – his actions and words, his drinking, his obsessive revenge quest and his neglect, literally abandoning his kids alone in motels for weeks, using them as bait, putting the needs of his own urge to avenge his dead wife over the needs of the health and happiness of his living children – caused Sam and Dean so much trauma. Opinions on him range from “deeply flawed and unhealthy parent who did the best he could” to “straight up evil child abuser.”

The commentary surrounding John has been so bad, for so many years, that Jeffrey Dean Morgan publicly stated that he wanted his appearance in the 300th episode to somewhat redeem John, as he didn’t feel the way the story had anecdotally villainized him since he left was fair. Various writers included scenes of Sam and Dean, or even Bobby Singer, telling stories about John that painted him in a terrible light towards both children in different ways – while obviously Supernatural started with Sam and John estranged due to a huge falling out over Sam’s independence, John’s insidious, controlling behaviour towards Dean, who was forced in childhood to become the family caregiver and scapegoat, and, as oft-quoted, “daddy’s blunt little instrument,” has also been addressed many times throughout the series. There’s a reason that “John Winchester’s A+ Parenting” is an actual, commonly used, non-freeform tag on AO3. No matter which way you shake it, John is intentionally written as a problematic father who damaged his children, and their terrible upbringing is why we have a show with such unique characters in the first place.

While I also hate John very, very much, I’ve accepted that Sam and Dean will never purely hate him for what he put them through. I hate him for them because they can’t because they love him. I think it’s important to keep that in mind, when talking about the boys’ relationship with John, or talking about how Dean should not have any positive feelings about his abusive father, or that John should not have access to Dean in Heaven, as the Supernatural finale implied.

I am pretty sure it’s not that black and white for Sam and Dean themselves as it may be for outsider who’s in their corner – like the way that Bobby often spoke ill of John. (I still would have liked to see Cas punch John in the face in 300.) But I also think it’s important to remember that the John of “The Winchesters” is not the John of Supernatural. The big thing we were told about John was always that Mary’s death broke and changed him dramatically. We are going to see the difference, which – at least for me, will make the failed John of Supernatural that much bleaker, and I for one watch Supernatural because I enjoy fictional trauma!

That being said, there is also clearly some wired-in personality stuff about John that I really hope the Supernatural prequel explores. For me, far and away the most interesting John episode is “The Song Remains The Same,” where Matt Cohen, as young John, gives both Dean and Mary a glimpse of his issues with dominance and control. His reaction when he finds out the truth about Mary, and when he feels like he’s the bottom rung of the ladder in terms of competence – the damsel in distress, the least experienced, and all that, despite being a military officer – is a stunning and perceptive piece of work. John is all smiles and pleasantness while things are going his way and his wants are being met, but when he is challenged or not in control, in any way, he gets angry and principled very fast, and there’s an amazing moment where Dean very much recognizes the father he knew in this man’s emotional response to a situation.

During season 1, that issue of dominance, control and principles is featured between John and his sons in most of their interactions. John likes to be obeyed. This may be a result of the military or what have you (timeline logistics wise, by the way, John must have returned to Vietnam between meeting Mary in 1972 and buying the Impala in 1973, but we will see how the show handles that,) but it’s something at play in that flashback episode as well as all his normal episodes. He frequently is more caught up in arguing over why the boys aren’t obeying him than he is concerned about fixing the problem at hand – control and authority comes before practicality or fairness for him, and this quality is one that I think is inbuilt, not a result of Mary’s death. So I’ll be looking out for it in “The Winchesters.” This show will be far more successful and interesting if it does not try to glossily redeem John, and does stay aware of the nuances in the man’s nature that Supernatural presented even before Mary’s death.

On the flip side, we must remember that no matter how much we hate John, the show has always tried to show his situation as complicated and yes, mostly negative, but not outright evil. Give “The Winchesters” a chance to explore things – if done well, it’s likely to add to the delicious pain of Supernatural, not rewrite or soften its history. It’s kind of like the Star Wars prequels, or Clone Wars – when we know how the story ends, the interest is in the details of how it got there. I doubt that Ackles, Thompson and co are going to do anything that casts the truth of the Supernatural legacy in a new and oppositional light.

Also, if they do track closely with canon, this Supernatural prequel doesn’t actually seem likely to be, at its core, the John Winchester story. If it’s anyone’s, it’s the Mary Campbell story, or the heaven manipulation story. The canonical truth that John knows nothing of is what will make this show interesting to me. He barely knows one part of the truth for a brief window, which he then forgets. In the version of that lives in my head right now, Mary is the one that cool and badass stuff will be happening to, John is just the love interest in a female-led action drama.

At this point, my biggest questions are about the actual plot and structure of the Supernatural prequel. When the blurb says “they put it all on the line to not only save their love, but the entire world” – what does that even mean? Does that mean that they become aware of the plot against their sons, or do they mean that their choice to be together unknowingly saved the world? We begin in 1972 – so a teen romance. Will this progress on to marriage and the birth of the boys? How will it redux the time travel incidents in 1973 and 1978? John and Mary both died not knowing about any grand plans, Chuck, or apocalypses. Is that awareness going to be messed with? Rightfully, John should remain unaware of the supernatural during this whole series – will that change? Rather than worrying about how nice John might act before Mary’s death, these are the kinds of things that would deeply recolor the actual story of Supernatural for me.

In the wrong hands, any Supernatural prequel would have the potential to really damage the impact of the original material. But I trust that these particular people know what they’re doing. I remain intrigued and excited about the potential of “The Winchesters,” and hope to see it manifest as a friction-filled, passionate drama full of awesome 60s and 70s music, that doesn’t shy away from the known flaws in the relationship between the protagonists, who did love each other very much and who never got the chance to actually build an honest and authentic life together, due to the sickening divine interference of a cruel authorial God.

Thompson and the Ackles couple know this fandom very well, and they know how much pressure they’ll be under to do any continuation of Supernatural justice. They wouldn’t be doing it if they didn’t think they could do it right. They didn’t have to make this series – they want to do it. They came up with it on their own. And that notion is completely thrilling to me, even if it means I will never know peace again due to this godforsaken show. May it never die.

What do you think about the Supernatural prequel?