SUPERNATURAL Season 8 Premiere Post-Mortem: Jeremy Carver Teases What Comes Next

[Warning: This post contains spoilers for the season 8 premiere of SUPERNATURAL. If you haven’t seen it yet, go watch it now and then come back to see what showrunner Jeremy Carver had to say about what’s next.]

Have questions about what comes next on SUPERNATURAL? So did I.

Thankfully, showrunner Jeremy Carver sat down with reporters to tease about what’s to come from our favorite television brothers…

Dean is still going to struggle a bit with his return home.

As Jensen Ackles (Dean) teased on set last week, Dean is very much a soldier coming home from war, and that means his adjustment back to the “normal” life will be a little shaky.

“We’ll see more of that,” Carver teased of PTSD-esque moments, such as Dean being overwhelmed by a vending machine. “Not overwhelming, but we’ll see elements of him readjusting.”

Of course, there’s also the issue of why Dean felt so at ease in purgatory.

“I think Dean came out of purgatory with a bit of a surprising reaction to it in which we talk about in the first episode…the idea that it was pure,” Carver noted. “I think one of the last things you might expect going to a place that is so horrible is that someone may have considered it a happy experience. I think you have to ask yourself, why do you think it’s happy? What is this thing inside…that he connected to, this primal part of himself..and how will he deal with it topside?”

One person who will be there as Dean is readjusting is Benny, with whom Dean clearly shares some kind of a bond with.

“We’re going to see [their history] in those flashbacks,” Carver said. “But hopefully, the intriguing question the premiere episode asks is you see this warmness, but when you see them meet, you see the reserve and the general mistrust. How did they get from that to that embrace? And that’s what the flashbacks are telling us.”

Sam’s year away from Dean isn’t completely in the past.

While Sam indicated his relationship with Amelia was in the past, viewers know he only left her when Dean returned. So why the secrets?

“Suffice to say for now, Sam is keeping thoughts of this woman and this relationship to himself because it’s the type of the thing that greatly informs where he is in the beginning of the season,” Carver said. “It represents another way, another life.”

A life that didn’t consist of Sam looking for his brother…a potentially controversial move Carver defends.

“Certainly the jumping point when I came back to the show was I was staring at a landscape, which was laid out by [executive producer] Bob [Singer] and [former showrunner] Sera [Gamble] who gracefully gave me to pick up was, you’re truly alone,” he said. “We really went into the idea of what does that mean, what kind of impact does that have on somebody, and how does that impact your mindset after so many years. We talk about it in episode one — we always ignore the advice we gave each other, but what happens if someone took it?”

So, yes, Dean may be mad at Sam now, but that doesn’t mean the tables won’t turn later on in the season.

“One of the things we really like particularly about the first 13 is the way we’re playing with perception, because right now, Dean is piling on Sam somewhat,” Carver said. “So what happens when the brothers start to discover more about what they’ve done in the past year and might those tables turn about who has to answer for what. So I think everyone will get their licks in. No one will be a beaten dog for long.”

Also happening in those first 13 episodes will be more flashbacks to help color the time we missed.

“The flashbacks play heaviest in the first 13,” Carver said. “The small caveat is that we’re working our way through the [rest] of the episodes, but it feels like they’ll play heaviest in the first 13.”

Will the brothers really close the hell gate?

Sam seems to be viewing the potential closing of hell’s gate as his way out of the hunting game, but Carver cautioned that just because the gate gets shut, that doesn’t really mean that all of the creatures the brothers hunt will really be taken care of.

“I think it might be overly sweeping to think no demons means no hunt,” he noted. “Because there are so many other monsters in this universe. I think in the SUPERNATURAL universe, [closing that gate would] eliminate a big chunk, but certainly not all. And I’ll leave it at that.”

And what does that mean for human souls that are in hell? Carver said that was “something that will be clarified…or dealt with.”

Which also means this isn’t necessarily gearing up to be a final season arc for the show.

“Closing the hell gate is meant to be a season-long arc, but the questions that come up in this quest and the series of reveals and series of discoveries are meant to start…questions and secrets that will be explored for future seasons,” Carver teased.

–

What did you think of SUPERNATURAL’s premiere?

SUPERNATURAL airs Wednesdays at 9 PM on The CW.

Related:

SUPERNATURAL: Jared Padalecki Teases Sam’s New Love Interest and Life Away From Dean
SUPERNATURAL: Jensen Ackles Talks About Dean’s Relationships with Sam and Benny
SUPERNATURAL: Jeremy Carver on Season 8, Having an Endgame, and More

Follow @GiveMeMyRemote and @marisaroffman on Twitter for the latest TV news. Connect with other TV fans on GIVE ME MY REMOTE’s official Facebook page.

And to be the first to see our exclusive videos by subscribing to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/givememyremotetv