Though there were years when it seemed as if The CW would never bid farewell to the horror-tinged drama Supernatural, the series finale wrapped its fandom-spawning run in 2020. In the time since, star Jensen Ackles reteamed with creator Eric Kripke for the R-rated superhero romp The Boys, and his run with Soldier Boy will continue in the new spinoff beyond the 2024 TV schedule. With some no doubt evil shenanigans in his future, Ackles reflected on how he now feels about the way Dean Winchester’s story ended.
The past and future Tracker guest star took part in Creation’s Supernatural fan-con SPNAustin, where he took the stage with former co-star Jared Padalecki and others to answer fans’ questions about their careers. Specifically, the large chunk of their careers where the Winchester brothers were their second skin. One enthused viewer took the stage and asked how they currently felt about how the creative team handled Dean’s demise, and here’s how Ackles answered (via Fangasm):
Yes, I am happy. I think it had to be him going out, doing what he was made to be doing, doing what he loved to be doing. But also like, it needed to be in a way where he could stay on top. Getting sick or getting debilitated in a way that made him fall down or on a deathbed or anything like that, I don’t think was as powerful as him actually standing up and looking at his brother eye to eye. So I was happy with how that worked out.
To be sure, Jensen Ackles doesn’t seem to have ever gone public with any sense of dissatisfaction about the way Dean’s story closed out. That said, he was perhaps more emotionally stricken by the show’s ending closer to the time when it filmed, as he was still in the throes of shedding a character he’d played for 15 years.
Years later, and with a growing number of acting gigs under his belt, it’s likely a little easier for him to reflect on Dean dying after the vampire battle, his heavenly exploits with the iconic Impala, and reconnecting with Sam after the latter survived into old age with a family of his own.
If nothing else, Dean got to go out with his youthful looks still intact and without having to slog through a half-season of medical diagnoses and maudlin conversations, which likely would have been the case had the writers opted to close out his story via sickness rather than monster-mauling.
Jared Padalecki also shared his thoughts on Dean bowing out earlier than the Winchester bros themselves would have wanted, and why he thinks it was an important part of the show’s message. As he put it:
Furthermore, though I didn’t write it, I think it was a part of the magical juxtaposition of the characters, which is they’d done so much: they’d killed God, and they killed Satan. But at the end of the day, they were human and they were flawed. And they killed all the vampires, all the zombies, all the and rougarous and wendigos. So the reminder that these people aren’t superhuman, they’re people — I think that was a nice way to say it.
Funny he should put it that way, seeing as how Jensen Ackles' character on The Boys is indeed superhuman, and also seemingly impervious to death. I'd love to see how Dean and Sam Winchester would go about trying to stop the patriotic quasi-hero. Probably not with their fists.
All 15 seasons of Supernatural can be streamed with a Netflix subscription, while The Boys and its nutso Season 4 finale can be streamed with an Amazon Prime subscription.
