Supernatural stars Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins recently discussed their characters in season 8, including Sam’s future and Castiel’s fate in Purgatory. Spoilers ahead!
Sitting down with Zap2It, Jared Padalecki discussed Sam’s decision not to look for Dean after he vanished at the end of season 7, saying, “The way I kind of had to work it out — A, it was nice to have something different, after [around 150 episodes] it was nice to come in and show that different side.
According to Padalecki, Sam had no idea where Dean was or if he was even alive; he was completely isolated. “It wasn’t like ‘Here we go to Purgatory!’ He could’ve been in Missouri having a burger,” he says. “Sam had no one to turn to and nowhere to even start. He had nothing, so he took it as his cue — and he kind of touches on this in the premiere — saying, ‘The family business and us looking for each other is what’s gotten everyone we know and love killed, so I kind of took this as my cue.'”
And while Sam is currently checking out his options for returning to school, the question of what will happen to motivate Sam to continue hunting remains. In the pilot, which saw a similar Sam to the Sam of season 8, it took his girlfriend dying to get him on the road, and it wasn’t until his father’s death that he gave up the idea of returning to his normal life after getting revenge.
Along those lines, Padalecki says, “What’s kind of been the catalyst to get him back into it as of yet … has been the incentive of something huge,” meaning the Word of God and the possibility of sealing the gates of Hell permanently. But Sam is looking at this as a last hoorah, according to Padalecki. “It’s like ‘Okay, if I can do this now, I have penance. I started an apocalypse and I drank demon blood … so if I can maybe do this one amazing thing … then I can put that feather in my cap and sleep better at night knowing that I’ve done a lot of good.'”
Once Castiel appears in the present, he will be “reinvigorated with a sense of purpose. He essentially feels like he has to do good in order to right the wrongs of his past,” Collins reveals. “So he starts to collaborate with Sam and Dean for that reason — so that he can continue to try to make things right. He’s no longer paying penance, really, because it’s no longer an act of suffering for him. But he’s doing his best to right the wrongs of his past.”
Of course, things are never easy on Supernatural. “He’s doing that in ways that help Sam and Dean and then, ultimately, it might also make life — as per usual with the Supernatural universe — complicated for Sam and Dean. At first, it seems like everything is hunky dory. But things quickly fall apart.”