Okay, "Supernatural" fans, we know you've been through a lot this season. It hasn't been easy watching the Winchesters lose Castiel, Bobby, and their car over the course of just a few months. We feel your pain (though we will say, we're loving the unexpected turns this season has taken!).
While we can't make everything better, we can give you some good news. At Wednesday's Television Critics Association party we spoke with executive producer Robert Singer and, in addition to some serious scoop on Misha Collins' return as Castiel, we got official confirmation that Jim Beaver will be back.
"Jim will be back, in one form or another, this season," Singer says. "That's probably as much as I'm going to say. The killing of Bobby was part of an overall idea this year of isolating the boys. It started with losing Castiel, then we went into a real, constant bonding with Bobby. We really built their relationship with Bobby this season, and then we ripped that away from them. We put them in a place they've really never been before, where they have no life supports, no lifelines, and no backups. They're facing this huge monolithic evil, but they're reduced to two lonely cowboys."
Singer tells us that the death of Bobby has been planned since the season began. "I think we did it in a way that the audience accepted," he says. "We really wanted to send Jim off that way, with a tear in everybody's eye. It was dangerous, but we like to go where the story takes us, and that's where the story took us."
When we spoke with Sera Gamble this week, she wouldn't breathe a word about Collins' three-episode arc, which begins with episode 317. Singer had a bit more to say now that the script is finished. "When they run across Castiel, it's a very different kind of Castiel. Dean has a bit of a moral dilemma in regard to Castiel in that first episode," he reveals. "Dean does some soul searching."
Fans felt that they were left out to dry when Castiel "died" at the beginning of the season, but Singer promises a more satisfying conclusion this time. "It will feel like some sort of closure, yes," he says. "Not in the first episode back, of course, but by the third, absolutely."
Speaking of closure, Singer tells us that there is a cliffhanger ending planned for this season, whether or not The CW gives the show an early pickup for Season 8. "We like to be optimistic about the pickup," he says, "So we're going to write another cliffhanger ending, I think, and then just see what happens."
