Interview par Huffington Post (2)

On Sam's relationship with Amelia (Liane Balaban):
Carver: Suffice to say that for now, Sam is keeping thoughts of this woman and this relationship to himself because it’s a type of thing that greatly informs where he is now at the beginning of the season. It represents something to him. It represents essentially another way, another life and that’s very much where he’s coming into this season right now, so it’s something he’d rather keep to himself than share.

On Dean's post-traumatic stress and how that'll inform the season:
Carver: We’ll see more of that. It’s not overwhelming but there are elements, yes, of his readjustment.

On how long we'll be seeing the flashbacks to Purgatory and Sam's relationship with Amelia:
Carver: I think the flashbacks play heaviest in the first 13now, and I say that with the small caveat that we’re working our way through the second half now, but it feels like it will probably play heaviest in the first 13. [There won't be flashbacks] every episode.
Singer: Not every episode, but where appropriate and that’s kind of a story, two stories that we just wanted to play out over a number of episodes that inform where the boys’ head space is at any particular moment in that given episode.

On the narrative appeal of using flashbacks:
Carver: It’s allowed us to tell slightly different kind of stories, in that we were talking about a relationship that Sam has had. "Supernatural" hasn’t, I don’t think, spent a lot of time on relationship stories, and it’s a really nice mechanism to do that without imposing that on the forward momentum of these other stories that we’re telling ... I think a lot of times in these shows, even when we talk about going to Hell or going to Purgatory, the instinct in the writers’ room is to say, “We’re never going to be able to give a Hell or a Purgatory as good as people’s imaginations,” so the instinct is normally not to go there. But we went the other way this year and we said, “We are going to go there because there’s a really, really strong character thing going on down there and the look of it is super cool" and so it’s turned out really successfully for us, I think.

On how the writers came to the decision that Sam hadn't looked for Dean in Purgatory, and how long Dean will be guilt-tripping Sam for it.
Carver: I think we wanted to look at this from ... the jumping off point. Certainly, when I came back to the show, I was staring at a landscape which was laid out by Bob and Sera, [what they] gracefully gave me, and to pick it up was [Crowley's line], "You are truly alone." So we really went into the idea of, "What does that mean? What kind of impact does that have on somebody, and how might that affect your mindset?" We talk about it in Episode 1. Dean talks about it: “We always ignored the advice we gave to each other” and what happens if someone actually took it? [As for] how long Sam is made to pay for this ... I think one of the things we really like about particularly the first 13 is the way we’re playing with perception because right now, Dean is piling on Sam somewhat for this, and so what happens is these brothers start to discover more about what they’ve done in their past year and might those tables turn in terms of who has to answer for what? So I think ... everyone will get their licks in. No one’s going to be a beaten dog for too long.

On Benny's role on the present-day storyline as well as the flashbacks to Purgatory:
Carver: I think you’ll see Benny playing a pretty important part, both in his physical presence and I guess -- I don’t know if this expression is actually real -- his psychological presence. The idea of Benny hangs over our brothers pretty heavily, certainly as the year goes along, and so he’s a guy who has a tremendous, tremendous bearing and he’s really working out wonderfully as a really complex character and a really interesting wrinkle into our brothers’ relationship this year, how they deal with something like this.

On how soon we'll find out exactly what happened to Castiel in Purgatory:
Carver: How soon? Well, we’ll be telling that story in Purgatory, pretty steadily through the first seven or eight episodes, so by Episode 7 or 8 you’ll start to get a real good understanding of what happened in Purgatory to Cas.

On other recurring characters, new or returning:
Carver: We’ll be seeing a healthy dose of Kevin. Of course Crowley is set up now to be somewhat of the boys’ main antagonist this season. We might [see Meg] ... I’m trying to think of who else is recurring. Obviously there are some new characters -- there’s Benny, there’s Amelia. There are some new angels that we’re introducing. One was announced; Amanda Tapping is playing a fairly mysterious angel named Naomi.

On why Sam decided not to look for Dean this time around when they've made similar promises and ignored them before:
Singer: I think this is the first time that he was, as Crowley says to him, well and truly alone, because he has nobody. He has no Dean. Kevin’s gone. No anybody. I don’t think he knew what he wanted to do and then he hit a dog. And that started something new for him and then exposed him to something that he had never been exposed to because even back in college there was always family. Now he had nothing ... So I think he got a taste of something he’d never had before and it had a really profound effect on him, one that he doesn’t really expect Dean to understand nor does Dean expect Sam to understand what he went through, so much to the extent that he’s keeping a secret about how he got out, who he got out with. So while Sam’s trying to be really forthcoming and say, “My mindset is different,” Dean is being really less than forthcoming, and the fact that he’s judgmental is probably not all that fair to say, given what Dean’s not saying.

On what closing the gates of Hell could mean for the show, and whether that quest is intended to be a season-long arc or more:
Singer: Jeremy’s hell-bent on multiple seasons.
Carver: Yeah. Closing the Hell gate is meant to be a season arc, but the questions that come up in this quest and the series of reveals and the series of discoveries are meant to start giving us underpinnings for questions and secrets and things that will be explored in future seasons ... I think it might be overly sweeping to think [if the gate is closed] that no demons means no hunt, because there are so many other monsters in this universe. I think in the “Supernatural” universe you’re thinking, “Well I’ve eliminated a big chunk,” but certainly not all and ... I’ll leave it at that.

On Jim Beaver's potential return as Bobby and whether Carver can say anything new about the possibility:
Carver: Not right now. Not beyond what we’ve already said. Of course, he was [at Comic-Con] because at the most basic level, he’s one of the most beloved characters and actors on the show.

On what the introduction of Kevin's mom, Mrs. Tran (Lauren Tom), brings to the show, whether she can be trusted and how she might alter the dynamics with Sam and Dean:
Carver: Putting aside the question of trust just for a second, you could say Mrs. Tran does something sort of interesting and somewhat fun in that it gives the boys, in an odd way, a bit of a mother figure that they haven’t had for a long time. So it’s a fun dynamic and it could be a rather moving dynamic at times also, and of course it also gives you a fourth wheel in the car that you’ve got to deal with. Speaking to trust, certainly unpredictable would be the way that I think we’d put it.

On whether closing the gates of Hell would close the gates to human souls as well as demons:
Carver: That’s something that will be clarified later on … clarified or dealt with.

On whether there are any fun or meta episodes coming up:
Carver: I don’t have the pithy one-liner for this one, but we’re doing one a little bit later that is dealing with what happens when you find yourself living in a cartoon universe ... that’s a lot of fun. It will not be animated but it deals more with cartoon physics in a real world ... We will be doing an episode that deals pretty heavily and fun-ly with the LARPing Universe, different than the way that we’ve dealt with it in the past, and those are two real fun ones that are coming up.

On a potential musical episode:
Carver: One can hope. No immediate hopes.
Singer: We’ve been hoping for eight years and it hasn’t ... Jensen can sing. It’s that pesky writing of these songs that’s [the problem].

On the upcoming "found footage" episode:
Carver: Let me go at it indirectly. It’s pretty unlike any episode that the show has ever done before ...
Singer: You’re living in this found footage, with the boys bracketed on either side in the opening and at the very end, but for 95 percent of the show, you’ve living within this found footage. They are in it unknowingly, so it’s crazy. It’s a really good episode and very compelling and it’s got some great guest stars and it deals with college kids.
Carver: College kids dealing with a situation that goes pretty horribly awry ... They’re fantastic and because of the amount of time that they’re in there, they’re really carrying the episode, [so you're] really engaged with these kids. Really neat episode.

On how said episode will differ from the found footage style of the "Ghostfacers" story:
Carver: "Ghostfacers" was still a conceit, in that it was a show, so there was a certain amount of, even in the bumpers or whatever they’re called, going to commercial. It feels most like that but it just feels more like your "Paranormal Activities" or your "Blair Witch." You could say it's a close cousin of those cases.
Singer: Tonally. It’s 180 degrees away from "Ghostfacers."
Carver: Right. It ain’t for laughs.

On Carver's favorite upcoming episode:
Carver: I think we have a really nice string coming up. I’m excited about Episode 5. We’re dealing with a good deal of flashbacks from Sam and from Dean. We’re dealing with our vampires who enjoy boating in their way, and so that’s a really meaty, emotional episode that I think is somewhat of a turning point for the boys also.

On the dark, desaturated look of Purgatory:
Singer: We want it to be a stark contrast to Sam’s flashbacks so what we decided was it would be a real lack of color and high contrast, desaturated look, to help with the harshness of the place and what kind of place it was and that there was no good place to lay your head down. No soft pillow of green leaves and we wanted to contrast that with Sam’s flashbacks, which are diffused and have filters and a little more dreamy, so that you get a sense that Sam’s past year was kind of nice and warm and Dean’s was cold and stark.

On how Dean and Sam's fighting styles may have changed, given how they spent their year apart:
Singer: I think Dean got a little more brutal in the last year.

On how Dean's experience in Purgatory differs from his time in Hell:
Carver: Is he worse for wear? I think he is not great for wear, but I think Dean actually came out of Purgatory with a bit of a surprising reaction to it, which we talk about in the first episode, this idea that it was "pure" down there. I think one of the last things you might expect going to a place that’s so horrible, that someone might have actually considered it something of a happy experience and I think you have to ask yourself, “Why do you think it’s happening and what is this thing inside himself that he connected to, this primal side of him?” And then ... how will he deal with that topside? And I think a lot of that is we use Benny as that thing that is representative of Dean in Purgatory. So yeah, I’ll cut myself off there.

On how this season differs from Sam being in Hell and Dean living a normal life in Season 6:
Singer: I wouldn’t say it’s a total flip. Dean had his normal life, [but] he was salting windows and always on the lookout for bad things and uncomfortably stepped out of the world and never quite really felt good about that. Sam found in this year a real solace, real comfort, and then really convinced himself. His conscience was pretty clear. The only thing that sort of got him back was that yeah, they were responsible for Kevin and so his attitude is to do the Kevin thing and get this done, "I’m done.” Back then, when Sam came back, Sam was soulless and Dean is not that, so the characters, while they went through changes, they’re not mirror changes of what they were.

On Kevin's arc this season:
Carver: I think by virtue of seeing Kevin more, we’ll learn more about how he personally feels about being a prophet, being involved on this mission that the brothers are part of, the personal cost it has for him, and to see how his willingness or desire to do the job, how that rubs off on the boys. I think they’re all playing off of each other and they’re sort of inextricably linked here, so absolutely we’ll see more of what sort of powers Kevin, as it were.

On why Dean would let Benny live, given how black and white he's been about killing monsters in the past:
Carver: I think that’s the question that comes front and center when you see Benny. In terms of our minds, that’s something that’s got to be confronted at some point and that’s something that walks out through the course of the season.

On Dean and Benny's seemingly warm relationship:
Carver: It’s something we’re going to see in the flashbacks, but I think the hopefully intriguing question that the premiere episode asks is: You see this warmness, but when they [first] meet you see this reserve and this general distrust. How did they get from that to [what we see in the premiere]? And that’s what the flashbacks are telling us, so everything ... is all part of the stew of Purgatory.

On other memorable monsters or hunts coming up:
Carver: It’s all situational in terms of the episode. Like the vampires who like to boat, we’ve taken vampires and we’re looking at them a completely different way, so I think we have a lot of fun twisting stuff like that. In terms of brand new creatures, we have a variety of monsters of the week, but there’s not one that I’d tout more over the other right now, nothing jumping off my tongue.
Singer: I think in general, because if you go to 150 or whatever episodes, creating new monsters is hard, but I think one reason we’ve endured is that while you’ve seen the monsters that we’ve come up with before, we try to imbue them with different personalities and make them unique characters unto themselves so not every vampire is the same or not every werewolf is the same. They all sort of bring their own baggage and whatever their particular situation is, so I think our villains are interesting. Crowley is just a demon, but he’s a really interesting character and way different than Meg or [anyone else].

On what they think of their move to Wednesday:
Singer: Ask us Thursday. [Laughs.]

Source : huffingtonpost.com

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