While the makers are waiting for the ratings game to decide whether to end Supernatural or not, writer Andrew Dabb has some surprises. By Team Viva
The exhilarating journey of the Winchester brothers continues as Supernatural enters its 14th season. Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) have spent their lives on the road, battling every kind of supernatural threat. Over the years, after countless adventures, they have faced vampires, ghosts, demons, shapeshifters, angels and fallen gods — but what will the brothers encounter next?
What is the underlying theme of season 14?
In the previous season, the theme was essentially about bringing the family back together. It was about finding Mary (Samantha Smith) and bringing Jack (Alexander Calvert) into the fold. Now the family is back together, but Dean is missing. He is the rock upon which people have relied since the dawn of the show. What happens when he’s gone? How does that affect everyone? If and when he does come back, how does that affect everyone? Season 14, in that sense, is the prodigal son’s story.
In the season 13 finale, Dean agreed to become Michael’s vessel. Will Dean be Michael in season 14?
No. He will not be Michael the whole season but it’s not something that we’re going to tie off by the end of episode two. It will take a while.
What challenges did you face while writing Michael’s character?
As much as our guys evolve every season, Michael has also changed a little by the end of the previous season. We peeled back the onion. This warlord of apocalypse in the first episode of season 13 was very different from the character at the end of the season. You soon realised that he’s actually quite disappointed with how things worked out. He comes to our world with a second chance. In that sense, it’s the same character — but presented in a different way.
How much did you enjoy writing for Jensen Ackles?
When you’re writing for someone like Jensen, you know that whatever you’re writing, he’s going to make it better. That’s across the board, no matter what it is. When you’re writing for
Dean, there’s a temptation to put jokes in there — but that’s much harder to do with Michael. He’s not very pop culture-savvy. He’s not a laugh riot. He has a mean sense of humour, so there’s been a little bit of an adjustment — but anything we give Jensen, he knocks out of the park.
Besides Michael, are there going to be any other ‘big bad’ characters in season 14?
I think Michael is going to be the big problem. When you’ve got someone like him on the loose, suddenly the werewolf alpha doesn’t seem like too much of a concern. That will be the focus for everyone.
How does the fact that Michael is on the loose impact the happenings in heaven and hell?
The Michael we saw in Apocalypse World had a very crystallised view towards all the different factions. Angels were on his side. There were no rogue angels fighting Michael. Those have been weeded out. Demons were the enemy and they have largely been eliminated. Humans are really the only thorn in his side but they were in the process of being eliminated. When Michael comes to our world, he’s got a problem. There are only five angels left in our world, so making an angel army is impossible. The demons are a bit in disarray because Crowley (Mark Sheppard) is gone and there’s really no clear leadership. Humanity is as it always is, which is chaotic and weird. So you’ve got a Michael who wants a similar thing. He wants a power base. I think there’s a question of where that power base is going to come from, because his go-to place, heaven, is really not in position to help him in the way he’d like to be helped.
There are fewer episodes in season 14. Does it point towards the show’s end?
There are a lot of shows that have far fewer episodes than we do. There are shows with six, eight and 10 episodes. Most shows now are closer to 13, which include almost every streaming show, so we still have significantly more than everyone else. I think Jared and Jensen want to spend more time with their families, which I think is admirable, but we will change up the storytelling a little to accommodate the shorter run. For us in the writer’s room, we have to crank back a little bit on the mythology because we can’t do quite as much – but that’s not always a bad thing. And then we are going to have to crank back a couple of the standalone mysteries, which again is not always a bad thing. Our hope is to create 20 episodes that are better than the 23 that came before, but there’s going to be a different rhythm to the season, which is something we’re still trying to figure out.
Do you have any message to the fans to assure them that season 14 isn’t the final season of Supernatural?
At this point, I would certainly hope that we would get a really strong heads up if this was our final season. We have not received that, so we’re not going into it thinking this is the last year. You never know. The ratings gods are fickle. But should it happen to be the final season, we have ideas to wrap it up. However, I would be very surprised if this was our last season.
There were some amazingly crazy storylines in season 13, including the Scooby-Doo episode. Will there be anything similar in season 14?
I don’t know if we could ever go as crazy as Scooby-Doo again. That episode was 18 months in the making. I think we have some interesting meta things in mind for season 14; some are more on the comedic side and some are more on the heartfelt side, but there’s nothing quite as crazy as Scooby-Doo. We think the stuff coming up is pretty cool.
Supernatural will celebrate its 300th episode in season 14. Have you planned anything special for the occasion?
The 100th episode of Supernatural was a very conventional episode. There were very few nods that it was anything special at all. For the 200th episode, we went in the exact opposite direction. It was very meta and very fan-based. For the 300th episode, we want to split the difference.
What can you tease about the story of the 300th episode?
A writer named Meredith Glynn came up with the seed of the idea. Sam and Dean live in this bunker. They’ve lived there for a number of years. This bunker is in a place called Lebanon, Kansas. We’ve never seen what the people of Lebanon think of Sam and Dean; these two guys that come to the bar, who drive the car through the town and go to the laundromat with their shirts covered in blood. We’re going to explore that world. It becomes a story about Sam and Dean but it allows us to make it a bit of a love letter to the show and a love letter to them. It’s going to be fun.
(The show airs from January 31 at 10 pm on AXN.)