Supernatural may have ended more than four years ago, but the series creator has a big treat in store for fans who have not yet forgotten the adventures of the Winchesters and their extended family. It’s not a revival of the original show or even the return of The Winchesters; prepare to see the big three from the Supernatural days on The Boys. Jensen Ackles already had the role of Soldier Boy that he can reprise for The Boys Season 5; now he’ll be joined by fellow Supernatural alums Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins to possibly address a lingering finale issue in a very funny way.
After all, what never could have happened on network television is possible on The Boys as viewers saw with Soldier Boy, and Supernatural fans could be in for a surreal experience.
How The Three Stars Are Coming To The Same Show
It’s not a huge surprise that Padalecki at least is going to show up after previous comments by Eric Kripke, who created Supernatural for The WB (which would become The CW) years before developing The Boys for Prime Video. Misha Collins is more of a surprise, and his inclusion is what reminded me of my lingering issue with how Supernatural ended. But before we get into that, take a look at the announcement video and note the iconic Supernatural quote:
“We got work to do” is a line from the end of both Supernatural‘s 2005 pilot episode as well as the Season 15 premiere in 2019, and any fan worth their rock salt surely caught it… even if The Boys fans en masse might not have. While it may be some time before news breaks of who Misha Collins and Jared Padalecki will play, and even though it’s possible that the three actors won’t even share scenes, there’s an incredibly basic way that this could make up for what I still see as a shortcoming of Supernatural‘s last episode.
The Supernatural finale was divisive for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the very unceremonious death of Dean Winchester, played by Ackles. I’ve gone back and forth over the years on how I feel about how he was killed off, and the only two things that I haven’t really changed my mind about at all are 1) Jared Padalecki’s transformation into old man Sam for the flash-forwards was a little bit goofy and 2) Misha Collins should have been there as Castiel.
Cuts had to be made due to COVID production complications, so the finale would have likely included more Supernatural alums before the end if it was possible to do safely, but it still stings that Cas’ last appearance on Supernatural was sacrificing himself to misery after finally doing the one thing that would make him truly happy.
Why The Boys Is Already A Funny Option For A Reunion
Will Ackles, Padalecki, and Collins be playing the Winchester brothers and the angel Castiel on The Boys? Of course not. For one thing, Ackles is already Soldier Boy, and plenty of Supernatural vets have already appeared on the Prime Video show without hugely meta nods to old CW series. But as a TV enthusiast and an entertainment journalist, I’ve witnessed the rise and fall of many fandoms, and I don’t think there’s any fandom quite as dedicated as Supernatural viewers when it comes to taking canon, seeing it, and then choosing what to do with it. (It’s also a valuable approach to The X-Files, in my experience.)
Certainly no show I’ve seen approaches meta episodes the way Supernatural did, to the point that the 200th episode – called “Fan Fiction” – was literally about an in-universe musical about the Winchesters, based on an in-universe book series about the Winchesters, complete with jokes about ship names, subtext, the Samulet, and the fact that Sam and Dean kind of forgot about their half-brother Adam down in Hell for a long time.
All of which is to say that I have full faith that Supernatural fans can watch The Boys with Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, and Misha Collins all presumably playing different characters, and make it both funny and somehow tied to Sam, Dean, and Cas. Why not an alternate universe, a la “The French Mistake” episode that featured Sam and Dean inserted into the lives of Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles through angelic shenanigans?
Not only in The Boys a hilarious option as the show to bring the three back together after we didn’t get one last Supernatural of them as a trio or even an intallment of The Winchesters, but I can’t wait to see how Supernatural fans react to it.
The first four seasons of The Boys, including every episode with Jensen Ackles as Soldier Boy, are streaming with a Prime Video subscription as well, with Supernatural streaming via a Netflix subscription. Since Season 5 likely won’t debut on Amazon until 2026, those are solid enough options to pass the time.
