At the end of the seventh season of Supernatural, Dean and Castiel were stranded in purgatory and Sam was left all by himself for the first time. A sizzle reel of footage was shown at the start of the Hall H panel, but what follows are some of the highlights from everything else which was revealed during the discussion with with cast and crew, as well as the audience Q&A session which followed afterwards. Many thanks to Digital Spy for the quotes below, and be sure to sound off with your thoughts on all these new details in the usual place.
• The first question asked at the panel was whether or not Dean will manage to find his way out of purgatory, but Ackles was very careful to not give too much away. "He gets out. How he gets out, that's too much of a teaser - I can't tell you!" Luckily, Ben Edlund made it clear that he'll be back fairly early on in the season, but that will be far from the end of it. "The story of how he's brought to the limits in that place will be something we explore."
• "Sam is totally getting some action this season," Padalecki teased when asked about the rumours of romance for Sam. How about Dean? "I think the only real romance in Dean's life is the car," jokes Ackles. "So in that regard, absolutely."
• As talk turned to the relationships between characters on the show, Jeremy Carver made it clear that the focus will always remain on the bond between Sam and Dean, but their separation will have had a "profound effect" on them. "They are just as open to new relationships and beginnings and endings as anyone else in the world. They're going to have to come to terms, like any partnership, with dealing with the new relationship in each other's life."
• Misha Collins is then asked when we'll see Castiel again, but refused to give anything away. All he said was that what happened in purgatory is likely to be explored with the use of flashbacks. Despite Bobby seemingly being killed off for good at the end of season seven, Jim Beaver was also on the panel and was asked what his presence there might mean for the future of the character. "You can read anything you want into it. The pat answer is it's Supernatural, anything's possible. I have said anything's possible maybe 7,000 times this weekend!"
• What's going on with Crowley? "Crowley's essentially what happens when people aren't paying attention," Mark Shepard says. "I think we might be in a situation this year, I think I'm right to say, where we're kind of chasing after the same thing so it could be a bit of a problem."
• As for what fans should expect from this season, Carver teased that it will have a lot in common with Raiders of the Lost Arc, explaining that the Winchester's are on the search for a "power source" which will introduce a "gamechanging element". "They really want something.It ties into the overarching mythology of the show itself, and something near and dear to their hearts."
• Reiterating that the purgatory storyline is likely to take place via flashbacks, Edlund said that there's a "whole body of events" that take place in purgatory. "They're going to meet some badasses down there," he says. "There are going to be some problems." And Carver adds: "We can safely say purgatory makes strange bedfellows."
• "We're going to pull back from the heavy, heavy mythology. We're going to give a chance for our brothers to come out a little bit," says Carver. However, he hopes that the mythology they do introduce will play a role in the show for many years to come. Jared finishes the panel by thanking the fans for their support and making a point of saying that Supernatural's move to a Wednesday is a great sign.