The Supernatural Ending That We Never Got To See
Contains spoilers for the series finale of Supernatural.
Proving that it wasn't actually going to outlive us all, Supernatural rode off into the sunset last fall after 15 seasons across two TV networks, multiple apocalypses averted, and a few trips to hell in between. After defeating God (Rob Benedict) with an assist from Jack (Alexander Calvert) in the penultimate episode, the Winchesters, Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles), were finally able to live their lives without his interference.
But the peace that brought them didn't last long. During a routine job clearing a vampire nest, Dean was impaled on a piece of rebar and killed. He then went to heaven, where he reunited with Bobby (Jim Beaver) and Baby, while Sam quit hunting full-time because he missed his brother too much. He finally got himself some of the life the brothers always dreamed of but never thought they could have. In the end, after Sam died of old age, the Brothers Winchester were reunited in heaven. It was a sweet, heartwarming ending that spoke to the brotherly bond that kept Supernatural on the air for a decade and a half. But it's also not the ending series creator Eric Kripke had in mind.
Eric Kripke's original Supernatural ending was much darker
As most fans of Supernatural are aware, Kripke left the series after the end of season 5, which focused on Sam and Dean trying to avoid their fates as vessels for the archangels Lucifer (Mark Pellegrino) and Michael, respectively, at the end of the world. It was a traditional battle of good versus evil that found Lucifer possessing Sam while the Winchesters' half-brother, Adam Milligan (Jake Abel), ultimately became the vessel for Michael once Dean refused. The season finale, titled "Swan Song," is among the best the show has ever done, and it would have been an excellent series finale, but The CW renewed the show for season 6, and then kept renewing it for another decade.
When the series finally came to its inevitable conclusion 10 years later, Kripke spoke with Entertainment Weekly about the ending he had originally planned, revealing that 80 percent of "Swan Song" was actually how he had wanted the series to end. "I probably wouldn't have done that again had I had another chance but I thought maybe there was another year or two," he said. "Outside of a few little scenes and a few more moments, that was the meat of where I thought this show should end, which is Sam versus Dean and then ultimately good versus evil but brotherhood wins and sacrifices are made."
But what about that other 20 percent? Well, it definitely doesn't sound like Dean was going to ride off into the heavenly sunset, if you know what I mean. "I can assure the fans that my ending was so much darker than the ending they're going with," Kripke told EW, noting that fans probably would have hated his ending. "It was a horror movie and it was going to have a horror movie ending, so I can promise you the ending [they went with] you'll love much more than if you had let me end the show."
How Supernatural's creator feels about the end of the show
Although the ending of Supernatural is not what Kripke would have written, the creator and showrunner of Amazon Studios' The Boys admitted to Entertainment Weekly that it's probably the better ending of the two. "I had a long talk with Jensen [Ackles] about it and I had a long talk with [co-showrunners] Andrew [Dabb] and Bob [Singer] about it and I think it's the best possible ending for the show," said Kripke. "It was interesting, they pitched it to me and I went off to think about it for a couple days, and admittedly, me being me, I spent some time thinking, 'Okay, is there any other ending I would pitch back that I think is better?' And I spent a couple days trying to chase down a couple avenues and couldn't come up with anything better. So I went back and I was like, 'Guys I think it's the right one.' There's some substance to it but there's something emotional, I think there's a positive energy around it."
Kripke will get to work with one half of the Winchester brothers again when Jensen Ackles joins The Boys' cast for season 3.