It’s September 10.
Six years ago on this day, Supernatural filmed its final scenes.
I was glued to social media that day, watching the posts come in – from the set from cast and crew, and from all the guest actors over the years whose lives had been changed by the little show that could.
I remember sitting there for a long time, crying and a little stunned, when the confirmation came through that the very last scene had in fact been filmed.
That it was, as they say, a Wrap.
I was so grateful to everyone who kept the fandom apprised that day, making us feel like a part of Supernatural right up until the very end.
So I’m emotional again today.
All week we’ve also been celebrating the days leading up to another important anniversary – on September 13, in three days, it will be Supernatural’s 21st birthday of the day it first aired. How lucky are we, after all this time, to still be celebrating?
On September 13, 2026, fittingly enough, I will be at a Supernatural convention.
Both Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles will be there, in sunny (hopefully) Orlando, Florida at the Creation Entertainment convention, one of many devoted to my favorite Show, along with Misha Collins and many guest actors who were such an integral part of the show. There will inevitably be a moment on that Sunday when I will tear up and get emotional thinking about the long strange trip we’ve been on for the past 21 years.
Twenty-one years.
That’s how long it will be since Supernatural premiered back in 2005.
I didn’t watch the pilot live, but I saw it shortly after, thanks to a friend who saw the show previewed at Comic Con that year and made sure to watch it with her handy dandy VHS recorder ready. She brought the VHS tapes of the first few episodes when she came to visit, sitting me and Kathy and Karen down and informing us that ‘this show is amazing’.
I remember thinking it was scary, and Sam and Dean were cute.
I watched the first season still thinking that, keeping up partly because I wanted to share the enthusiasm of my friends and because we inevitably watched the episodes when we all got together anyway. It wasn’t until the start of the second season that I realized that somewhere along the line, I had gradually fallen in love. Not in a oh-this-is-a-good-show kind of way, but in a OMG-this-is-the-most-amazing-show-in-the-history-of-television way.
My best friend Kathy fell in love too, and together we embarked on all sorts of unlikely adventures for two grown ups with families and kids and professor jobs. We impulsively flew across the country to Texas to try to meet Dean Winchester’s portrayer Jensen Ackles at a local theater production, and ended up meeting Jared Padalecki instead – in the candy line. We flew to California to go to Comic Con and camp out overnight to get into the Supernatural panel long before it was in the giant Hall H; they were unprepared for how many people had already fallen for the show. We watched every episode and dissected it as only a psychologist and an English professor can, long into the night and with just as much enthusiasm and seriousness as we dissected our own textbooks. We went to the very first Creation Supernatural convention, watching Jared and Jensen get emotional when they saw how many people were loving what they were working so hard on. Our experience with Supernatural fandom was so life changing, we changed our professional paths to research fandom and write books on what we found. Every time we visited the Supernatural set, we were more impressed with all the talented individuals who made the Show the unique and incredible thing it was.
Over the past 21 years, Supernatural and this fandom have given me so much joy. I feel incredibly lucky that this is the Show I fell for. So incredibly lucky that almost every single Supernatural actor has turned out to be not only talented but a decent person who is genuinely grateful for all the opportunities the Show and the fans offered them.
When I put together the book ‘Family Don’t End With Blood’ and the actors wrote chapters for it, I worried that I’d see “the real people” and they would somehow turn out to be jerks after all – instead they were more professional and pleasant to work with than lots of the contributors for books I’ve published for my own profession!
Okay, maybe not at that exact moment….
Those three have beautiful chapters, though.
And they really are great to work with.
I know neither the show nor the fandom is perfect. There are episodes I rolled my eyes or gnashed my teeth over, though there are way more that I adored (yes, that includes the finale). There are days I dip into what’s going on in the fandom and walk away discouraged by fans attacking the actors or each other instead of appreciating what we have and letting everyone appreciate it in whatever way speaks to them. For me, Supernatural is still a little island of escape and joy in the midst of a world that is increasingly dark and threatening and lacking empathy. It has been that for me for 21 years.
That hasn’t changed.
So if I’m a little teary on Sunday when I see you, Jared and Jensen, please understand that when I’m talking to you, I’m also seeing Sam and Dean and remembering watching that old VHS tape 21 years ago and ‘meeting’ the characters who would change my life.
Thank you for making them memorable enough to make me get choked up (in a good way) 21 years and six books about Supernatural later.
And thank you, Supernatural, for everything.
– Lynn
You can read the beautiful chapters by the actors
in Family Don’t End With Blood, and their thoughts
on the show and their characters through the
years in There’ll Be Peace When You Are Done.
