Dean Will Be Absent From Supernatural For A Few Episodes In Season 14

Throughout its previous thirteen seasons, the producers of Supernatural have figured out creative ways for allowing their series regulars to flex their acting muscles. More often than not, it’s Misha Collins who’s putting yet another spin on Castiel (I’ve honestly lost count of how many different ways that guy’s played our favorite angel, or different characters altogether), but sometimes Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles are able to partake in the fun as well.

So, if you’re current on the seemingly neverending horror series, then you no doubt remember how the saga left off in May with Dean’s body being inhabited by Michael from Apocalypse World. To me, it wasn’t the most shocking of cliffhangers, though it’ll certainly chart new territory for season 14.

From the sound of it, this isn’t a problem that’ll fix itself in the season premiere. Rather, we’re getting the impression that Michael will take residence in Dean’s meatsuit for a somewhat substantial amount of time. Weighing in on this was current showrunner Andrew Dabb, who had this to offer while speaking with TV Line:

“It’s challenging to write episodes without Dean Winchester in them, because he is such a fundamental part of the show. But it’s also exciting [for] Jensen and us [to have] the opportunity to play around with this new character.”

Granted, it’ll indeed be intriguing to see where Ackles is able to go with this, but it stands to reason that some viewers could check out before long if the Winchester boys aren’t fighting side by side. Personally, I think Michael will eventually jump to another body sometime this fall – or he’ll give way to someone even worse around the midseason mark.

Dabb continued by hyping up the new villain played by Jensen, saying:

“The hardest thing about a show like this, sometimes, is every year, you have to create the new Big Bad. You have to build that character. You have to build that actor to find a comfort level with the show and everything else. With Jensen playing Michael, there’s none of that. This is an actor who everyone loves, who knows exactly what the show is, who knows exactly who he is, who knows exactly [and] very smartly how to approach this character. So it’s really given us, like instantly, a great bad guy, which is kind of obvious, but it’s something where you’re like, ‘Oh, wow, that’s really, really cool.’”

Supernatural returns for its fourteenth season on Thursday, October 11 on The CW. In the meantime, let us know what you think of this seismic shift in the comments section below.