What we can expect this season...

SPOILERS!

Kripke said that the remainder of the season will be balanced between stand-alone stories and episodes that further the mythology of the series, leading to a spectacular conclusion in the finale.

General

According to Kristin Veitch at E! Online: "Kripke says the show will continue with stand-alone episodes, which are Supernatural's bread and butter, but every two to three episodes will be big mythology episodes, revealing something pretty major. His writing staff is "pretty much right on track" with what they planned to reveal at this point."

Kripke revealed: "We do have a very big mythology episode coming up where you'll learn a lot more about Sam and you're going to learn about what Dad whispered to Dean about Sam on his deathbed. And we're going to find that out very soon, we're not going to wait until the end of the year to reveal it. I'm excited about that, and that'll really tee up a very interesting endgame for the end of the season."

Also, there will apparently be "a werewolf episode before the season ends."

Daddy Dearest

According to what show creator and exec produer Eric Kripke said earlier on this season, Jeffrey Dean Morgan (who plays John Winchester) will be in more than one episode.

"John Winchester really is dead," Kripke insists. "But the show is called Supernatural, and characters can come back in all sorts of ways. In the short term, we want the boys to deal with their dad’s unexpected death, and all the drama and angst that comes out of that, so we won’t see John for a little while. But this isn’t the last we hear from him."

Exec producer John Shiban: "I can say yes, we have plans of bringing [Jeffrey Dean Morgan] back and having Dad make an appearance. It's not in the near future, but as is obvious on our show, the dead are not always dead, and we've heard about where he may or may not be as you recall if you saw the last episode that aired, 'Crossroad Blues', where the demon said Dad's down in hell suffering. Yeah, demons sometimes lie, but I don't know. We will deal with that and you will see him again, but I'm not sure when.

Update Jan. 27

Kripke revealed: "On Supernatural there’s room for anything. Spirits can come back; demons can come back, so yeah we’d like to bring dad back in some capacity. Jeffrey Morgan is a very busy boy so trying to find a schedule that works for all of us is a consideration as well. But yes, we’re talking about finding a way to bring him back."
To this, exec producer Robert Singer replied with a laugh and "What he said. We’ve got some plans in the works."

Update Feb. 15

Kristin from E! Online revealed - Jeffrey Dean Morgan will indeed be back later this season.
Kristin: "The CW has confirmed to me exclusively that Jeffrey—aka Papa—will be coming back to Supernatural this season! Yes, Jeffrey, Jensen and Jared are reuniting and it feels so good—and of course, looks so good."

Update March 16

Ausiello at TVGuide.com told us, "It looks like JDM will appear in the season finale, 'All Hell Breaks Loose Part II.'"

Love

Sam
John Shiban announced Sam and Dean will indeed get love interests this season. But... "The trick with them as the fans know is they're always on the move, so relationships are hard to establish and hard to maintain. But we're going to try to deal with that issue and let Sam have some emotion there."

Kripke revealed a lot juicer news, by announcing "Sam does get laid this season! Yes, he does find a girl and it's a big deal for him, since he's been mostly celibate since Jessica. We are currently negotiating with Jared's people for full-frontal nudity, and I think it's going to work out nicely—so definitely tune in for that!"
The two are going to having "crazy, hot sex" according to Kripke - and he said Jared paid them, so they had to cast someone beautiful. Note: this 'someone beautiful' is Emmanuelle Vaugier. (picture?)

The whole deal will be going down in episode 17 of this season (airdate February/March 2007).

Note: for those of you who saw sparks flying between Sam and Ava - let go of the dream. Producers came up with a 'different game plan' and so she won't be a love interest for Sam.

Update Jan. 27

The character Vaugier will be playing, is going to be a werewolf.

Dean
No sex for Jo and Dean!

The rumors are true, she was supposed to be a love interest for Jensen. However, producers felt she related to the brothers more as a sister opposed to a love interest, so that plan was changed.
Producers do love her work however, and so she'll be coming back for 'a great episode' very soon...

Characters returning?

Kripke said they are bringing a lot of people back for the finale.
Who we know about...

As said above, Alona Tal (Jo Harvelle) will return for "a great episode" very soon.
Robert Singer: "She is quite spectacular in it, and it really helps him paying her character off. We love her and brought her back because we do love her. In this episode coming up, she's really great. It's a great episode."

"Ava is coming back for the season finale," Eric Kripke revealed. But it's for just "one more episode, Episode 21." After that, sorry, but you don't stand a ghost of a chance of seeing her again. "We thought at the beginning [about her being] a potential love interest for Sam," Kripke admitted. "But we came up with a [different] game plan for her that we were more excited about."

Third, Kripke revealed they would love to have Amber Benson (non human blood-loving vampire from episode 203 'Bloodlust') back.

Also, haven't seen the last of FBI Special Agent Henrickson yet... Kripke told TV Guide Online, "We bring Henricks back for an episode before the end of the year."

Season finale

According to Kripke, this season's finale will have a final episode that will wrap things up and answer a lot of questions - unlike last season's cliffhanger. Some of the questions that will be answered in the finale: What's the deal with Sam's destiny? What's the deal with the yellow-eyed demon? And will we see Sam and Dean's dad one last time?

Kripke says, "We're giving a climactic season finale that we think is going to feel epic and pretty exciting. We think the fans should be pretty stoked to see what's coming."

Also: "Ava is one of the children who are chosen the way Sam is," Kripke revealed. "We climax [the selected-children] story line. We end it in the last two episodes of the season, and we bring all of the special children together in one location and then sort of decide who's going to remain standing. So that was the story line that ended up taking precedence [over Ava's potential romance with Sam], this idea of a competition to see who of the psychic children will survive."

Kripke: "We keep talking over and over about how there's a war that's about to begin between demons and humans, and things keep feeling like they're going to escalate higher and higher," he observed. "In the season finale of Season 2, definitively, the war begins."

If the show will get picked up for a third season, according to Kripke "the boys spend much of Season 3 scrambling [concerning the 'war' between humans and demons], with things getting worse and worse."

Finally, he revealed: "You will by the end of the season [why Sam is a monster and not Dean.]. We've got a major reveal coming up."

Update Jan. 27

Kripke: "I’ll say this, there’s certainly a reason all of these kids have been chosen, and there is something evil within all of them. We don’t choose these children pel-mel there’s a reason why these children are special; which we reveal at the end of this season it’s in the finale. That’s all we can say."
Singer: "There’s a fine line between good and evil and we’re walking it."

Update Feb. 21st

Kripke: "Our season finale is a two-parter, and we've been busting our asses to give the fans something really climactic and special. I think you'll be happy. And you're right — the war definitively begins. We definitely tie up some major story threads. We climax the "psychic children" story line, for example, as well as deliver a few other surprises. But we're telling a multiyear story, so in no way do we answer everything. Nor should we. We answer some questions; we leave some hanging; we ask new ones, too.

"I don't want to give too much away, but I will say this: Our heroes confront and converse with the Yellow-Eyed Demon in a way they never have before in Episode 21. And because the Demon's feeling charitable, he gives Sam some answers."

Kripke also revealed... "There's the beginning of a major Dean story line in the season finale two-parter."

And as said above, Kripke said, "We bring Henricks back for an episode before the end of the year. But no, we don't resolve the fed story line this season. We wanted to... but we sort of got too busy dealing with demons and wars and various apocalyptic stuff."

And afterwards...?

It's the question everybody keeps asking, but nobody receives a decent reply: will the show get picked up for a third season?

According to the CW prez Dawn Ostroff, Supernatural "is holding up really well. That is the toughest timeslot on television. Last night [Jan. 18, episode 211 'Playthings'] it had very, very strong numbers and creatively, the show is absolutely at its best."

Eric Kripke however replied to the question that he put the show's chances at "solidly, solidly 50-50. I wish we had a million to a half-million more viewers," he admitted. "I think those X-Files fans are out there. We're just struggling to get the word out that there's an X-Files-quality show on the CW. And it's hard to get the viewers who are not watching Grey's Anatomy or CSI. We're sort of the odd duck on the network, so we're trying to let people know that there's a hard, sci-fi-genre show that just happens to be on the CW."

If the show does get picked up for a third season, we don't have to worry about the story arc. Kripke already has his ideas.
As said above, "In the season finale of Season 2, definitively, the war begins, and the boys spend much of Season 3 scrambling, with things getting worse and worse."

And although this season's finale will resolve pretty much all issues, "The story is by no means over," according to Kripke. "There's major issues that still need to be resolved."

Update Jan. 27

Singer revealed: "We know what season three is going to be conceptually. We have sign posts along the way and we know where we want to get to during the course of the season."
"What we’ve done this year is answer a huge question at the end about the mythology, but it opens up a much wider world and a bigger mythology and I know it’s going to be satisfying for the audience."

Kripke: "Season three is in many ways about them [the brothers] fighting this war. The value of that mythology is we don’t have to get so wrapped up in bicentennial levels of complexity and mythology; it can just be a war has begun. War can take many different, painful for the guys and fun for the audience, forms. We still plan on keeping the same level in season three between self-enclosed and mythology episodes, we just plan on ramping up the stakes, because this war keeps getting bigger and bigger and more and more dangerous. That’s been fun for us because every season things keep getting more and more dangerous and worse and worse but we can still convey it to the audience that doesn’t become too bewildering or complicated."

Update Feb. 21st

Kripke: "But we plan on getting back into it [the fed storyline] for Season 3. And yes, you're right, the feds cramp the boys' style for sure. But don't forget, Sam and Dean are expertly trained, very clever and cagey, and they know how to drop off the grid when they need to. When they don't want to be found, they can't be found."

As for the future seasons... If it's up to Eric Kripke, the show could go on for at least five seasons. "I've always thought that we could tell this story properly in five years. That's what I'm currently aiming — and hoping — for."
And if the show becomes a hit, well... the genius writer wouldn't be complaining either. "I love the show, and if it turns into a monster hit that goes on for eight years, I guess I'll adjust accordingly."

Update March 5th

Kristin @ E! Online didn't have the most heart-warming news. In reply to the question if she thinks Supernatural will be picked up for a third season, she replied: "Sadly, it's not looking good."

Update March 8th

- However, Ask Ausiello at TVGuide.com what he thinks about a possible third season - and he'll reply honestly that his sources "put the show's chances of renewal at 60/40 in its favor".


Sources



Spoilerfix.com
BuddyTV
Kristin on E!Online
Ask Ausiello @ TV Guide
Sci Fi Wire

The Family Business

Ask Ausiello @ TVGuide.com