Say goodbye to the war between good and evil, folks, because the Apocalypse is set to end (possibly with a bang) on the season 5 finale of Supernatural, which will be airing tonight (May 13). Series creator Eric Kripke has always stressed that he had a five year plan for the show, with the showdown between Lucifer and Michael – and possibly the Winchester brothers themselves – to play out by the end of the fifth season. When word came a few months ago that Supernatural had been renewed for a sixth season, fans were wondering “where do we go from here?”
In the last episode (see recap), Sam made an off-handed remark to Dean, asking him if he remembered the simpler days the brothers used to enjoy when hunting wendigoes. At the time I ventured a guess that season 6 might head back to the roots of the show. With the overarching mythology of the Apocalypse complete, perhaps the boys would return to monster-of-the-week type cases and stop having to worry about the battle between Heaven and Hell.
Executive producer Sera Gamble recently spoke to TV Guide and it seems like my guess may have been accurate:
Gamble announces that next season deals with life after the Apocalypse. “We will have lots of meat-and-potatoes closed-ended episodes, and we also have a season-long story arc to weave in,” she says.
Which means we’re definitely heading back to season 1 territory – where the boys focused on cases of the week while also venturing on a season long search for their father (and the Yellow Eyed Demon – although that took two seasons to fully resolve).
The question is whether fans will be happy with this. I personally like the way the Heaven versus Hell mythology played out on the show. In fact, season 4 (when the Apocalypse really started and the angels were introduced) is my favorite overall season, but there are still a lot of stand-alone episodes that I like from earlier seasons and I’m actually happy about this news. I just wonder how the brothers’ relationship will be affected. It will be difficult to do the more closed-ended episodes if the brothers’ relationship is strained, especially if they’re back to spending more of their time alone solving cases. So it will be interesting to see how that factors into the storyline.
As for the showrunner shake-up, you might all have heard that Kripke is stepping down as showrunner and Gamble is stepping into the role, although the fans have been assured that Kripke will remain as a consultant. I’m sure a lot of people have some opinions about this, but it seems like the production team is convinced that many things won’t change just because some titles are being shuffled around.
Meanwhile, apparently I haven’t been astute enough to recognize some Easter eggs hidden in the show:
Eagle-eyed fans may have noticed that the hotel rooms the Winchesters frequent are numbered in accordance with what episode it is (Room 100 for Episode 100). Gamble confesses that the production team cooks up the Easter eggs.
“It’s about visually supporting the story being told, often in a sly way that sort of winks at the audience,” she reveals. “Check out the room number on the door in the Casa Erotica tape in ‘Hammer of the Gods.’”
UPDATE: Read another spoiler article we posted on May 17 about season six.
Read our review of the season five finale.
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