Despite Supernatural’s Controversial Finale, The Showrunner Shares What Really Would Have ‘Destroyed The Show’

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Series finales can be tricky even for shows with the kinds of fanbases who have stuck around through thick and thin, and I would still say that Supernatural‘s ending is one of the most controversial genre finales of the last ten years. Now, with the stars busy in the 2025 TV schedule and the 20th anniversary of the series premiere approaching, showrunner Andrew Dabb reflected on the storyline that he thinks really might have ruined the series if the writers had gone in that direction.

While fans can always debate whether or not Sam and Dean got happy endings with their reunion in the afterlife at the end of the series finale, I’m guessing many will agree with the showrunner that the scrapped storyline probably wasn’t needed at any point in the fifteen seasons. (All fifteen are available streaming with a Netflix subscription now.) Speaking with TV Insider, Andrew Dabb said:

One story line we always talked about, which we never did was basically Sam and Dean go public. They’re like, ‘Look, we’re putting out a PSA. Monsters are real. If you see something, something shows up in your town, it’s a monster. We can’t be everywhere. We’re just going to get the word out there.’

The Winchester brothers may have had a pretty sizable network of allies by the end, but they definitely never went public with a PSA. I could have imagined it happening in a dream sequence, meta episode, time travel storyline, or even parallel world that no show could pull off quite like Supernatural did, but not in the main canon of the show. And that’s saying something, since the main canon of the show once de-aged Dean for an episode and made him a Taylor Swift fan! Dabb went on:

It would’ve kind of blown up the show in a very odd way. But that was always something I was like, ‘They probably should do that, you know what I mean? Just share some information, share it around.’ But again, a little logistically difficult for the show.

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Sam and Dean passed plenty of what then seemed like points of no return over the years, but it might have taken an intervention from Chuck/God at his most powerful to make that storyline logistically feasible. The showrunner clarified that the storyline would have been in a finale, and I’d say that would be an even bigger finale cliffhanger than that time Castiel died (again). Andrew Dabb explained why this really would have been going too far:

Suddenly, Sam and Dean are known worldwide, which, again, I think sounds interesting in theory, but I actually think would’ve destroyed the show. It would not have been any good, which is one of the reasons we didn’t do it.

Short of a Supernatural revival, that storyline will likely never be explored for Sam and Dean Winchester. Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles weighed in on a revival potentially happening someday, with Padalecki doubling down on the idea of returning for a limited series. Ackles thought that the show might have been R-rated on a streamer, and he could see perks of keeping it “like a broadcast show.” Andrew Dabb had his own take, comparing the future of Supernatural to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The X-Files.

The odds of the Supernatural world returning via a spinoff don’t seem great either. The Wayward Sisters series never got off the ground despite featuring some fan-favorite Supernatural characters and getting a backdoor pilot, and The Winchesters only lasted one season. For now, fans can always go back via Netflix and rewatch any of the 300+ episodes of the original series, none of which involve the boys issuing a PSA about monsters.