Supernatural Season 15: God as the Big Bad

Warning: This Supernatural Season 15 article contains major spoilers for the end of Supernatural Season 14.

Ever since Castiel first gripped Dean tight and raised him from Perdition in Supernatural Season 4, the concept of free will has been an important one on Supernatural. Heaven was an absolute real thing, not just a nebulous concept, and the Winchesters were introduced to their first prophet, Chuck Shurley, who ended up being so much more than he let on…

What direction will this exploration take in Supernatural Season 15? Den of Geek spoke with producers Bob Berens, Robert Singer, Andrew Dabb, as well as actors Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins to dive into what it really means when God is your enemy.

The evolution of Chuck.

In Season 4 episode “The Monster at the End of This Book,” Sam and Dean confront Chuck, asking how he knew so much about them. Chuck tells them: “Well, there’s only one explanation — obviously I’m a God. A cruel, cruel capricious God. I mean the things I put you through! The physical beatings alone!”

After mentioning how Mary Winchester and Jessica died in the same manner, Chuck laments: “And for what! All for the sake of literary symmetry! I toyed with your lives, your emotions, for entertainment.” Later in the episode, Dean says to Chuck: “Why do I get the feeling there’s something you’re not telling us?”

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The end of Supernatural Season 14 introduced Chuck as the villain of the final season, proving he had been toying with Sam and Dean’s lives for another bout of literary symmetry. He wanted Dean to kill Jack, Abraham-style, but when Dean and Sam rebelled, he ended the kid himself and started the End.

Although it might not initially have been planned this way, the interactions with Chuck in this episode perfectly set the stage for him to reveal he was God all along, an evolution—from prophet to absentee God to this new vengeful God—that executive producer Robert Singer talked to us about.

“A lot of the characters that come on to the show, those characters really evolved,” Singer said. “Bobby Singer was one off, Castiel was never meant to be a regular, Crowley was a one off, but when these characters hit then we started writing to them and the same thing happened with Chuck. Going for the last year we said, ‘Well, you know, there’s no bigger bad than God.’ “

read more: Jake Abel to Return as Adam Winchester in Supernatural Season 15

For Singer and the other creators, Chuck was one of these character who was too great to let go of, with the potential of leaning into the darker side of actor Rob Benedict’s performance becoming increasingly tempting as the series went on.

“Rob is a terrific character,” said Singer, “and when he’s playing sweet and nice, Rob is really sweet and nice… but he can play this dark side and we really sort of found that over time. We’re happy to go out with him as our major antagonist.”

Casting God as your villain.

Misha Collins said he was nervous about the big Chuck as God reveal, noting that casting God as a villain might be a controversial move.

“When we first introduced God as a character it felt risky because [he] was a flawed character,” said Collins. “The fans embraced it and we didn’t get a ton of pushback. I’m really curious to see how it plays out with God as a nemesis because that’s a different take on traditional Judeo-Christian things.”

And how will things play out with God as Supernatural Season 15’s Big Bad? Berens teased: “We’ve learned this massive thing about God and Chuck and Jack is dead as far as they know, and that really takes precedence on the emotional side for them, I think that the adventure side of that is kind of like cleaning up that mess and hitting those old hits from the past we saw glimpses of in the finale.”

read more: Supernatural Stars Not Ready to Close Door on Revival

It’s not all bad. Jared Padalecki is up for the challenge and doesn’t seem cowed by the predestined future for his character…

“Now [Sam and Dean’s] loyalty and their sacrifice is ironically almost even more meaningful, because now they’ve kind of been told by God that, “Hey, it’s already written anyway. Destiny is destiny,'” Padalecki said. “So now if the boys get up and keep fighting even though God himself said, ‘No point in you fighting. I’ve already written the books.’ They’re going against even more infinitesimal odds or whatever, so to me it’s almost even more brave and courageous.”

“They have agency in a way that they’ve never had agency before,” added executive producer Andrew Dabb. “But I think there was also a question of, do they really, or do they not. And that’s really a question they’re asking themselves throughout the entire season.”

Supernatural Season 15 will premiere on The CW on Thursday, October 10 at 8 p.m. Read more about the final season here.

Read and download the Den of Geek SDCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!