The Winchesters boss on that Dean photo, a certain cameo, and what comes next
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Warning: This article contains spoilers for The Winchesters season 1, episode 9, "Cast Your Fate to the Wind."
The secret's out! John Winchester (Drake Rodger) and Mary Campbell (Meg Donnelly) are officially a couple, and thanks to this week's episode of The Winchesters — and a few evil vampires — they're no longer keeping their relationship status from their friends. And it's a good thing, because considering what they're all about to face, there's no room for secrets.
Not only are our hunters trying to figure out the identity of the "mystery man" — a.k.a. Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles) — but there's also still the matter of the Akrida. EW spoke with The Winchesters showrunner Robbie Thompson about what to expect from the final episodes of the season (and how those recent Supernatural returns came about).
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: It's so interesting how the entire dynamic of the show shifted when John and Mary finally got together.
ROBBIE THOMPSON: We felt the same shift in the writers' room, and it's one of the reasons why we knew we wanted to do that in episode 7. We knew we were building to a kiss. We didn't know necessarily what all the mechanics were going to be of the plot and the mythology and the Akrida and all that kind of stuff, but we knew that was going to happen. And then it was like we sort of had to live with the consequences too. So it was exciting. There's like a bit of a buffer in episode 8 when it's just sort of theirs, and then in 9 they have a big coming-out party at the very end of the episode. And then we live with the consequences for the rest of the season. It was really fun to dive into that. We have two great partners in that with Meg and Drake, who really embraced that as well.
Skip Bolen/The CW JoJo Fleites as Carlos Cervantez, Meg Donnelly as Mary Campbell, and Drake Rodger as John Winchester on 'The Winchesters'
It's always a little scary to see how that dynamic changes. There are TV couples that I loved in the build-up but that didn't work for me once they got together.
You know, it's funny, it's something that we talked a lot about internally, and that's certainly something I've talked about with [executive producers] Jensen and Danneel [Ackles] as well. Not that we titled it Superman and Lois or anything like that, but because there's always been a John and Mary, there's that sense of inevitability. You want them to get together, and then you're also maybe, depending on your point of view of things, dreading them getting together. From Meg and Drake's first chemistry read to being with them on set last week and wrapping, they just bring a completely unique energy to both parts, but then you get the two of them together and they're just a lot of fun. And then to your point, it does change the group dynamic, but in a really fun way.
This episode gave us our first Winchester death and revival! Will we be seeing any effects from John dying, or was that more so to push those two together?
On the grander scheme of things, it was about the aftershock of it and John and Mary's burgeoning romance becoming part of the group dynamic. But I think it's also somewhat emblematic of John's journey that he's been on this season as well. This is a guy who puts himself in harm's way. And that's something that both John and Mary are going to have to wrestle with for the rest of the season as well. I wouldn't say there's necessarily fallout from being dead and coming back, but John putting himself in harm's way and still being a hunter who is learning is definitely going to put him in a tough situation a couple times with Mary.
I loved that line about how he's still punching things.
John is John, and obviously there are some differences from the John and Mary that we've seen before, but we really wanted to stay true to the core of that character, which is somebody who has been driven by some real deep childhood trauma, some of which we've unearthed on the show and has been hinted at in the mothership as well. And those things don't go away quickly and they don't go away easily. And we have a great partner in Drake, who really loves getting into the muck of that and playing around in there.
Last week unearthed the photo of Dean! Going forward, are John and Mary digging more into who this guy is?
I think we refer to him a lot as the Mystery Man, and he's a huge drive for the remainder of the season. They obviously know that this person is someone who's been on the Akrida's radar, but they don't know who he is. We obviously do. [Laughs] But the drive to find this handsome, slightly out-of-focus man is a huge, huge part of the remainder of it. And we'll see more glimpses as we go along.
The way I gasped when you revealed that Dean gave John that letter…
That was something that we talked a lot about early on in the writers' room. That feeling of a sense of both a surprise and inevitability was really exciting. It wasn't quite fixed, you know, when we were going to drop it in the season, but once it landed, it was pretty crazy to see. And we're not just throwing Easter eggs around. This is all building to something that will pay off in episode 13.
Skip Bolen/The CW Richard Speight Jr. on 'The Winchesters'
Speaking of Easter eggs, you had Louden Swain perform in last week's episode, which means Rob Benedict showed up on screen. Is that an Easter egg, or was that just something fun?
I'll be really honest with you, that came from mostly just a place of fun. I was down in New Orleans, we were shooting episode 7, which Richard Speight Jr. was directing, and we were prepping episode 8, which he was going to be in. We knew that it was taking place in this club, we knew we wanted two musical numbers with a band performing, and while we were prepping it Richard actually was like, "I got the band for you." And as soon as he said, "Louden Swain," it was like, "Oh my God, yes, please." He reached out to Rob, and then Rob and I had a conversation. Obviously I know that fans will read into it, and I'm not going to get in the way of any of those readings. But I will say it really honestly came from a place of fun and I'm so, so grateful to Rob and everybody in the band.
It was so fun to see Richard back in character.
There was a list of actors and characters that I really wanted to hopefully have a chance to work with on this show. And Richard being an old friend, he was way up there on the list, and he really exceeded expectations. Nic [Chatree Sridej], who wrote the episode, did a really terrific job capturing his voice. And then on the day, we really encourage all of our actors to embellish, to improvise. There's so many lines in there that it's just Richard being Richard.
You end this episode with a big reveal. As we're heading toward the end of the season, are we focusing more on the Akrida?
Yeah, the Akrida have been busy doing their own thing, but now that they've recognized that Mary and John are going to be a problem for them, they make a pretty strong move. We will still be monitoring some cases along the way in episodes 10, 11, and 12, but it really puts our characters on the defensive. The fallout of what happens at the end of this episode will last through the end of the season. The Akrida did a very bad thing at the end of episode 9, and our characters will be paying the price for it.
The Winchesters airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the CW.
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