Misha Collins’ return to SUPERNATURAL in season 7: Too little, too late.

By Dan Murray | Follow on Twitter

Now I was a big fan of Supernatural (I still watch it but I can’t really say I’m still a big fan), what’s not to love? Two brothers (Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles play Sam and Dean Winchester) fighting monsters, getting up to Hi-jinx and a Biblical story arc that raised it above all other supernatural shows I’ve seen. So as a fan of Supernatural, I was astonished at how it ended in season 5 with many main character’s either dead or trapped in Hell……..that was until with a click of their deus-ex machina fingers (caused mainly due to the shows ability to make money and wanting to keep it on the air) they reverted everything back to normal and tried to continue a show that had reached it’s logical conclusion. Supernatural was always intended to be a 5 year show (creator Eric Kripke even stepped down as showrunner before the start of season 6) and nearly had one of the best endings of all time. Instead it has dragged itself back for a further two lacklustre seasons.

Be honest….Do these wings make me look fat?

The one bright spot to this was the fact that everyone’s favourite angel, Misha Collin’s Castiel, got to stay around for a while longer. As a little note on why we all love Castiel (Cas to his friends), the character was introduced when he pulled Dean out of Hell at the start of season 4. He started as a pious, aloof, “Holier than thou” angel who didn’t understand humans and was merely there to do “God’s Work”. As the show went on, Cas loosened up and many of his best moments are when he is charmingly befuddled by the World around him (his many scenes trying to figure out how to use a phone are my personal favorites).

Hey guys, you’ll never guess what the auto-correct for “Duck Off” is.

In fact, to prove his popularity, he was originally written for a 6 episode arc but due to fan reaction, was given a recurring role before becoming a regular in season 5. In a nice piece of trivia, the choice of his appearance was based on the character of John Constantine but as a friend keeps telling me, he’s more like a “Young Sexy Columbo”

She has a point, I can’t tell which is which.

However, bar an awesome Cas based episode, the limited capacity and mishandling of the character until near the end of season 6 meant we didn’t really get to see Cas’ appearance contribute to anything other than fan service (oh look, there he is…..no, no, he’s gone again). Things started to pick up when, as the series drew to a close, you got to see that Cas had let things go to his head and was becoming almost as much of the threat to the Winchesters as the monsters they fought. This redeeming arc ended on the cliffhanger as Cas become the new God, and one who took the vengeful Wrath part of the job description very seriously.

Always the way, you put on freshly washed clothes and then you go and get righteously massacred Sinner’s blood all over yourself.

Now rightfully, fans were looking forward to where this could eventually lead, hoping Cas may be the villain in season 7 as the boys struggled with the fact that they had to destroy one of their few remaining friends. Especially as throughout his arc, Cas and Dean had developed a bromanticly close relationship, which has inspired much “Slash” fan fiction and art featuring the two.

Whilst these tales aren’t my cup of tea, I’ll admit the quality of the artwork here is impressive. Unfortunately, the spelling in some of these stories isn’t, there were “throbbing pens” everywhere. Don’t wanna be around when he writes with those.

Sounds like an intriguing and interesting way for the show to go…….so instead they killed Cas off quickly and efficiently so they could introduce other randomly evil bad guys (The Leviathan, who much like Eve in season 6, don’t quite live up to the evil or peril produced by the fact we got at seeing Satan walking the Earth, kick-starting the Apocalypse in season 5) . So it was an abrupt and underwhelming fare-well for Cas as he walked into a lake and out of the show barely 2 episodes in.

This is his actual Swan song in the show, a wet blanket…..sorry, coat, a wet coat.

Now it has been revealed that Misha Collins will be returning in episode 17 and two further episodes of season 7, new showrunner Sara Gamble has said:

“The best way I can be coy about it is to say you’ll see Misha again. There are so many versions [of Castiel] you have seen him play on the show, but I can’t tell you what we’re planning. Hopefully it’ll not be what people have predicted, but we’ll see”

I hope he comes back as Alexis Drazen from season one of 24, no-one’d see that coming.

Now this is vague, unhelpful, and mostly just plain stupid. Does any fan want to see Misha Collins as anything other than the Cas we know and love? Well, maybe kick-ass righteous-anger filled God Cas, he was pretty bad-ass and under-used. Chances are he will appear as a ghost as many of the dead characters seem to (this season’s guest ghosts have included Joe and Rufus). Or maybe he’ll appear as a shape shifter who takes on his form and taunts the boys about their dead buddy (They do that alot too). He could even appear as a “Scorpios” type hallucination who only Dean can see, but they’ve already done that storyline with Mark Pellegrino’s Devil popping up in Sam’s head to start messing with the set dressing. Oh, and in case you were hoping to see him anytime soon, here’s another wrist cuttingly brilliant quote from Sara Gamble:

“I’m sad to report you won’t see Mark Pellegrino in the next few, which isn’t to say you won’t see him again, because we adore him,but this is something Sam will have to deal with and contend with pretty much on an ongoing basis”.

Yes, I did play Jacob in “lost”, and no, I don’t know what it all meant.

Which blows almost as much as Cas leaving did, Pellegrino’s take on the Devil was great. Rather than playing the one note villain he should rightfully have been, he actually characterised Satan as a man who was betrayed by the fact God gave him free will, then punished him when he used it. So if you thought about it, was merely a victim of an uncaring father’s whims. Hell, even I was convinced he had a point…..well, if he hadn’t been trying to destroy the World as he plead his innocence.

Sam and Dean get ready for season 8, where they adopt a child, open their own Burger bar (that’s haunted by a wise cracking ghost), and learn valuble life lessons every week with the help of a motley assortment of eccentric customers…….Come on, it can’t be worse that what they probably have in store for us.

Now maybe I’m being too hard on the show but really, having watched it’s steady decline over the last two years, I’m finding it hard to even work up any enthusiasm for this news that Misha will be returning, which is tough, because I used to really like this show, right up until it ended with many main character’s either dead or trapped in Hell……..and then for some reason continued.