How is the winter Hellatus going for you, 'Supernatural' fans?
Not enjoying the lack of Winchesters on your television? Well, I can't speed up the CW show's return date -- it's still coming back Jan. 28 -- but I can share some news about the drama.
I interviewed 'Supernatural' executive producer and showrunner Sera Gamble when I was in Los Angeles last week, and I'll post a long transcript of that chat closer to the show's return date. But before then, I just had to share some brain-melting intel about upcoming episodes of the show. (Spoilers ahoy.)
Here's a 'Supernatural' exclusive for you: The Winchesters will be visiting the Old West this season.
"You may see the guys in Stetsons. You may see Jared [Padalecki] on horseback. It could happen," Gamble said. "I've already talked to Jensen [Ackles] about it, he's excited about it and I think the guys are going to have a lot of fun with it."
"We've always wanted to do one," she added. "Supernatural is a Western. We've always wanted to find a way to get Sam and Dean into the Old West, at least for part of an episode, and the main obstacle was always how to do it produceably."
Fans who've hoped to see the Winchesters out West "should write a love letter to [executive producer Robert Singer] and to Jim Michaels, our line producer, and to Diane [Widas], who handles our costumes. Just to be able to do something like that on the kind of moderate television budget that we have, it's a testament to their craftiness," Gamble noted. The episode, which will probably be the eighteenth of the season, is being penned by 'Supernatural' writers Andrew Dabb and Daniel Loflin.
Gamble calls another upcoming outing "the craziest meta episode of all time." Yes, 'Supernatural' will go mega-meta in an episode called 'The French Mistake,' which airs Feb. 18 (the title of the episode will be familiar to fans of the classic comedy 'Blazing Saddles').
"We have an episode in which Sam and Dean find themselves in essentially ... to shorthand it, we'll call it a parallel world," Gamble explained. In the world in which they find themselves, "there is no magic, there is a television show called 'Supernatural' and everyone seems convinced that they are actors named Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles."
"It appears that there are actors having a psychotic break on a set and the producers don't know what to do, basically," she noted. "The dailies are fall-on-the-floor hilarious. The guys are so funny in this episode. And, you know, meta is not to everyone's taste, but I enjoy a nice slice of meta."
How meta is this? Jared Padalecki's real-life wife, Genevieve Cortese, will guest star as herself in the episode. The show's producers won't appear as themselves, but Brian Doyle-Murray will play Robert Singer, the executive producer of the show in which the brothers find themselves.
"As is completely appropriate, I am a disembodied voice on the phone," Gamble said.
Will she provide her own voice for those scenes? "I don't know. Who knows if I'm a good enough actor? I might not get the job," Gamble joked.
Will some version of 'Supernatural' creator Eric Kripke be in the episode?
"Part of the episode deals with the fact that Eric is difficult to track down," Gamble said. "Part of it deals with the fact that Eric is off in a cabin somewhere writing a movie of the week for the Syfy channel."
Here's a rundown of some of the other info I gleaned from Gamble:
* We'll see more of Castiel and the civil war in Heaven in the second half of the season. We'll also meet one of Cas' lieutenants.
* Expect to see more of the angel Balthazar, who's played by Sebastian Roche. "Balthazar causes some serious, hilarious problems because he just does stuff for the [hell] of it, basically," Gamble said.
* Rufus, one of my favorite recurring characters, will return in season 6.
* We'll see Ben and Lisa again before the season ends.
* We'll see Samuel again in the Feb. 4 episode of the show, which will flashback to when Sam was hunting with Samuel.
* The photos on this post come from the Jan. 28 episode, 'Like a Virgin.'
Again, look for that interview transcript around Jan. 27. In it, Gamble will talk about the season as a whole and the writers' approach to exploring the Winchesters' post-Apocalypse world. And of course, I'll continue recapping the show each week when season 6 resumes.
