SUPERNATURAL’s Ruth Connell on the Final Season: ‘The Stakes Get Pretty High Pretty Quick’

As SUPERNATURAL’s Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) desperately try to contain all of the released souls, they were able to get a temporary win in the last episode, thanks to Rowena (Ruth Connell): the witch was able to use a spell to contain the spirits that had been trapped in a neighborhood. But things are never calm, and the trio is back at it on the Thursday, October 23 episode, “The Rupture.”

“It’s an epic episode, and for many reasons: story-wise, effects-wise,” Connell teases.Though the SUPERNATURAL characters are no stranger to hardships, this could be their biggest challenge yet.

“You see her in the beginning of the episode, pretty confident,” Connell previews. “I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that changes. There’s some real some real jeopardy in the episode, which is what we want, right? We want to see characters challenged and under some real duress and under pressure and see what happens. And it’s quite a big episode for all the characters.”

“We’ve seen them face the Darkness,” she continues. “There was almost an apocalyptic moment. They’ve faced Lucifer a couple of times. There’s been some real jeopardy. But the stakes get pretty high pretty quick. And I think it’s important that there’s not just always a ‘get out of jail free’ card. You see what comes through under pressure; I think it even surprises Rowena herself.”

Connell acknowledges a special connection to “The Rupture,” which was penned by Robert Berens, who wrote the original scenes she auditioned with to get the role years ago. “It’s always interesting to me when I open up an episode, because there’s the tone of that particular writer in it,” she says. “And so, I have a particular fondness for Bob and I was just so delighted when I saw the episode. It was so meaty. And there’s some real depth in it.”

Of course, these big moves are also being done with the awareness that the series is ending its run this season—and it’s been significantly more serialized in the final year. (At least so far.)

“It was so great [for me] to do two [episodes] in a row, and to build on that [arc],” Connell says. “There’s a feeling, overall, this is the last season. It’s a real gift to know it is. So there is a heightened awareness [about the upcoming end], with everybody, as we are doing it.”

“It’s rewarding and it’s kind of intriguing to see what the writers are coming up with,” she continues. “They have a few surprises up their sleeves, let me tell you. And there is a thing, because it’s last season, of going ‘balls to the wall’…That’s super fun for me. That’s what I enjoy the most. That’s where Rowena enjoys it the most, too.”

In the midst of the chaos, Rowena did get to have a little fun with former Men of Letters member Ketch (David Haydn-Jones)—with whom she had a long, complicated history with—as the duo engaged in some of the strangest quasi-flirting the series has seen.

“Normally it would have just been, ‘Oh, Rowena is flirting it up with Ketch,'” Connell says. “It would normally just be that. David’s a real pro and he was fantastic to work with…but I had an email to [showrunner] Andrew Dabb about it, saying, ‘I really want to keep in mind Rowena is now really a survivor. We’ve seen that element of her. She’s not the same Rowena from five years ago.’ Eventually, she may be able to use him. But it is also the cat and mouse [game], when somebody has had power over you—[even though] there may well be attraction—how do you then use that power to toy back and forth and see where it lands? She has not forgotten what happened in the past.”

As the show gets closer to its own end game, Connell is getting a bit reflective about her more than five years on the drama.

“In particular, I want to give Jared a shout out for tonight,” she says. “He really went balls to the wall, and I think it’s been so exciting as a performer to have the kind of show, and the kind of part, where you get to do that. Who knows what other jobs I will get where I can do that? Maybe I will never have this kind of a position again. I will really just miss the actual doing of [the work].”

SUPERNATURAL, Thursdays, 8/7c, The CW

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