A few months have passed since Supernatural closed out its historic fifteen-season run with an emotional series finale that saw Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) end their hunt following the elder Winchester's tragic demise. The back-half of the hour then served as an epilogue of sorts for the show as Dean moved on to Jack's (Alexander Calvert) new-and-improved Heaven while Sam lived out a full, joyful, life on Earth with his family, handing off the Winchester legacy to his son, before he also passed on, at an advanced age, and reunited with his brother in the afterlife to live happily ever after.
It was a touching end to their rollercoaster of a journey and considering everything it took to get to that last scene, especially with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic interrupting production on the final few episodes and significantly altering their original plans for the finale, it was even more impressive that the creative team was actually able to get us to an emotionally satisfying conclusion.
However, it is fair to wonder what that original finale may have looked like and thanks to Supernatural 15 Seasons: The Crew Member's Souvenir, a new book from production designer, co-producer, and director Jerry Wanek, we have some insight into what they originally envisioned for the final hour before the pandemic threw a major monkey wrench in their plans.
In the book, co-showrunner Andrew Dabb details one of the most perfect final sets they constructed that, due to COVID, unfortunately, didn't make it into the last episode. He writes,
"Dean was always going to end up in Heaven, and we were always going to see Sam's life in fast-forward, but those final moments were supposed to take place somewhere else.
When Bob Singer and I sat down to talk about season 15, and our inevitable end, we came up with something that felt like a fitting version of Sam and Dean's Heaven: all the people the boys had met along the way (or, at least, those we could convince to fly to Vancouver) crowded into a re-built Roadhouse, as the band Kansas played our (official unofficial) theme song: 'Carry on Wayward Son.'
...and when we opened back up in August, getting that many people in an enclosed space, much less traveling some of our favorites from LA and making them quarantine two weeks for what would be a half day's work, just wasn't realistic. Even Kansas, always game, didn't feel like they could make that trip, which we completely understood.
And so that Supernatural ending … ended. I love what we have now, Dean in the car on the open road, but I have to admit that I sometimes think about our original idea — all of Sam and Dean's family and friends, and one of the greatest rock bands ever on a masterpiece of a set, and I miss is … even though it never really existed.
I miss what it could have been."
While we did get to see Jim Beaver reprise his role as Bobby Singer for one last time, there's no telling who else we may have seen, especially since it sounds like they were planning on going extremely big with it. Fans would have certainly loved to have seen Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Samantha Smith again and, of course, Misha Collins, Mark Sheppard, Ruth Connell, and Kim Rhodes would've been more than welcome as well along with countless others.
Luckily, this is Supernatural and even if the story is over for now, there's always a chance it'll be back before we know it. Hell, it's not like it would be the first time Sam and Dean have returned from the dead.
Read the full excerpt below: