Interview With Supernatural Writer and Producer Sera Gamble, Part One

A seven week hiatus can be rather maddening. Given Supernatural’s explosive season four and the mind boggling material that’s been presented for ten episodes, this time to reflect has left me with more questions than answers. I’m sure I’m not alone.   

 

Thankfully, Sera Gamble, Supervising Producer and Writer for Supernatural, an instrumental player in developing the show’s story lines, was generous enough to answer some questions during this long break about season four as well as address a few of my other curiosities. She even opted to tackle a few fan questions I sent her way.

 

Below is part one of my two part interview in which Sera gives her thoughts on the introduction of angels to the mythology, the introduction of Castiel, Dean’s faith issues and some tidbits about Sam and Ruby. Heck, she even talks about the life sized teddy bear. 

 

This is where I must offer the standard spoiler warning, but I wouldn’t call them heavy spoilers, more like teasers. If you don’t even want hints though, stop right here.   

 

We’re happy. Also surprised. Eric (Kripke) emailed us the day after the premiere and I marched into his office holding my bowl of cheerios like, “You’re lying. We did not pick up a million viewers.” He just shrugged and said he was a shocked as I was.

 

Angels weren’t pitched in the writers’ room. Eric started talking to me about them just before hiatus. They’d sorta been in our hip pocket, but I don’t think the show was ready for them before now. I’ve discovered, working on Supernatural, that a lot of good ideas don’t work at all until the time is right. And then they just slot magically into place. This was like that.  

 

Our notion of the angels has evolved a bit, yes. Less that they’re different in their construction, more that we’ve become more thorough and creative in developing them as individuals and weaving them into the story. There’s an episode coming up that opens in Castiel’s point of view. That’s a strong indication of how central the character has become this season. It was an organic evolution; we discovered that we were just unexpectedly inspired by these creatures. It was clear to us that when they were in the sandbox, cool stuff happened on the playground. And it’s interesting to me, by the way, that you call the angels “unfeeling” and “wrathful,” because I don’t see them that way. Castiel wrestles hard with his obedience. Turns out it’s really hard for angels to walk among humans and not get kinda… involved. 

 

 

I doubt anyone needs me to point out that Misha is doing a great job. He’s very sharp. As for the direction Castiel’s going, I don’t want to give away too much.   In his relationship with Dean… Castiel genuinely likes Dean. And that is going to create difficulties for him.

 

 

Rising of the Witnesses is our twist on some of the actual stuff in the Book of Revelation, about the dead rising from their graves. We twisted it up quite a bit; hence our assertion that the version you find in motel rooms is “just for tourists.” Our regular monsters, you can straight-up google. But our mythology tends to reflect a bit more mental ping-pong. We don’t want to just retell the same old thing. 

 

At this point, I couldn’t begin to say where inspiration comes from. I can’t watch a brownie commercial without trying to turn it into a pitch for an episode.

 

 

I guess I must be deeply interested in this stuff, because I end up writing about it over and over. I like the turn Dean took this season, because it was so unexpected and because we laid so much groundwork in previous seasons. I feel like we earned Dean being rescued by an “angel of the lord” and then calling him a dick and continuing to doubt that there’s a God. Needless to say, Jensen kills it. Very talented actor, that Jensen. You may have noticed.

 

 

It kinda writes itself, right?

 

 

What Sam is doing isn’t cut and dry.  Basically, the way I look at it is to put myself in Sam’s shoes.  He can’t do anything about the fact that he was dosed with demon blood when he was six months old, and it changed him forever.  He’s trying to make lemonade out of some seriously fucked up lemons.  Which is what a hero would try to do.  At this point, Sam’s a pragmatist.  He knows he can’t change what he is.  He’s all about the results of his actions. So, yes: saving people.

 

 

We’ll be laying out the specific reasons Dean was chosen. Stay tuned.

 

 

We started work on the episode before any debate began that I know of, so none of it was a reaction. But we did know that Sam having sex with a demon would be provocative. Actually, I was very excited to work on the episode. People do a lot of otherwise unthinkable things when they’re grieving. Who doesn’t want to write the episode where a character they’ve worked on for 70 episodes does stuff he’d otherwise never do?

 

But anyway, the state of Ruby’s body was the subject of much conversation, mostly because I couldn’t shut up about it. I just couldn’t get past the rape thing. I think I actually disappointed some people I work with, who thought I’d be tougher or darker or something. Or possibly just didn’t care as much as I did one way or another.   But I took a lot of writers’ room time talking about it.   And ultimately took the long way around so I could get her into a vaguely more morally acceptable body. I readily admit it’s rather silly, and the mechanics are contrived – that’s why I leaned into the joke so much.

 

 

I referenced Monster’s Ball right in the script. We were asking ourselves, “Where’s the lowest place Sam can go in a state of despair?” That’s why calling it a love scene strikes me as hilarious. It’s kind of like self-mutilating and calling it getting dressed for the prom.

 

 

Ruby’s fun this season because so much has changed between her and Sam. Actually, more has changed than we’ve gotten to so far – there’s stuff coming up later in the season that’s useful in further understanding their dynamic.

 

 

These kinds of title bumps are built into contracts. There aren’t specific responsibilities that go with the title, but it’s true that I’ve picked up some new tasks this year. But the majority of my time is always spent working on the story side of things. I don’t go up to the set – I work with the folks up there by phone and email.

 

We built the teddy bear. Many swatches of fur were fedexed to the office and scrutinized with great seriousness. You’d think we were redesigning the Batsuit or something.

 

They’re all under my wing. They’re great. Since there’s a constant rotation of several episodes happening at once, I’m almost always working with someone.