The Winchesters: Gil McKinney to Reprise His Supernatural Role

The Winchesters has recruited a familiar face from Supernatural: Gil McKinney will reprise his role as Henry Winchester in an upcoming episode of the CW prequel spinoff, TVLine has learned exclusively.

McKinney first appeared as Dean and Sam’s paternal grandfather in a Season 8 installment of Supernatural, when he met his future grandsons via the wonders of time travel. That mission to stop the demon Abaddon ultimately resulted in Henry’s death, leading John to assume that his father had abandoned him. A Season 9 episode featured flashbacks to Henry’s time in the Men of Letters in 1958.

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McKinney will guest-star in Episode 7 of The Winchesters. (He has already lent his voice to the show, having read a letter that Henry wrote to John in the series premiere.) On the offshoot, Henry is “the intellectual patriarch of the Winchester clan,” reads the official character description. “Having come from a long line of Men of Letters, Henry fully dedicated his life to the institution. However, when a Men of Letters’ mission leads to Henry’s untimely death, his absence and the secrecy surrounding his life inside the organization creates an unrepairable rift in his family.”

During an interview with TVLine, showrunner Robbie Thompson confirmed that fans could expect to see some Supernatural vets in the back half of the first 13 episodes, “which I’m super, super excited about,” he said. Plus, “we also have plans not just to bring back some of our familiar faces, but younger versions of the characters that maybe we haven’t seen yet,” Thompson shared during a virtual press panel.

On the other side of the family tree, it was recently announced at New York Comic Con that Smallville vet Tom Welling will recur as Samuel Campbell (originally played by Mitch Pileggi in Supernatural), Mary Campbell’s father, and Dean and Sam’s maternal grandfather.

The Winchesters airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on The CW.

Launch Gallery: <I>The Winchesters</i>: 12 <I>Supernatural</I> Characters Who Should Visit Spinoff

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