Ben Edlund worked his way over after Kripke, and this guy is every bit as wild in person as is his writing. His comments were definitely out there, but he was really fun to listen to. He was more clear in this interview though than I've heard him in others, and he behaved himself by not giving away things. Sadly, I didn't get in a question for Ben. Of course, once the teddy bear got out of the way first, that pretty much killed my question list.
What creepy things are you bringing up this season on Supernatural? You did the emotional teddy bear that wanted to kill himself. What next?
BE: He's coming back! Wouldn't it be cool? He's coming back and he's crossing the post apocalyptic wasteland. Grrr. (we laugh). What's crazy so far? We've got a lot of good crazy. The one I just finished, which is the first one I've written this season, it puts Dean way into the future. And we get to see a slightly more developed part of the apocalypse and that's pretty cool. Which I won't get too deeply into because we're supposed to be coy I was told.
We thought about this last season that we were really dedicated to this notion which is like we'll try and go as far as we can and use as many directions we can. I think we achieved a lot of that. So we're breaking the format and then also getting really strange like the teddy bear, seven foot tall porno reading booze swilling teddy bear hanging out with a girl. Horrible, who would do that? (shifts eyes). I quit!
Sam's arc this season seems to be recovering from his demon blood problem.
BE: He will have some addiction issues, yes.
What is Dean's arc this season?
BE: You know, we've been working on the notion that both of them have these massive responsibilities that they're gonna step into. Dean's role has been moving from the guy driving the car. He's gone from the chauffer of destiny to a sad participant in destiny. So, he's going to have important things to do. That's one of the areas I was supposed to be pretty coy about though. Try another one! Try another angle, let's see if we can get at it.
Can you tell us a little bit about the character of Lucifer? Was there ever any thought, because Lucifer has to have a vessel, that any of the characters currently on the show would be a vessel for Lucifer? The brothers or Castiel?
BE: The source of the question is its answer. We thought about it too. It's a natural thing. For us though, he's an antagonist. One thing I'll say about him is writing for him is hard. He's supposed to be wicked smart. He's the oldest being we've written words for and stuff. We've mostly decided to make him nice as possible. That's the solution. Speaking of nice, he might actually be nice, if you get away from the human centric point of view, he's actually not a villain at all. I mean, I don't worship him yet but I ...
You're a fan.
BE: Well, I see him across a crowded room, let's say that. That's bad, right?
Sam and Dean fought a lot last season and then that seemed to abruptly end with Lucifer rising up. Is there still going to be fallout in their relationship or will they bond together?
BE: There will be, yeah, there's a lot of fallout. They really harmed each other's sense of family. It would be irresponsible for them to just go "Okay, we have this problem, let's band together and move forward." There's a lot of fallout, that we're gonna be doing. The answer is yes.
When will John Winchester come back from Hell?
BE: We always talk about this, "Where is he?" because he jumped out of Hell for a while and then he went who knows where. Hell is also a distorted, twisted space now because it's nuclear reactor left, basically. Once you rise Lucifer and I get into this, I like this stuff, we never put it on because this is not plot oriented or anything, the notion that Hell froze over because it lost it's power source. We'll put it in at some point. I'll convince them.
(some comment I couldn't hear)
Everybody is dysfunctional on this show. (Someone agrees). Now I'm offended! (joking).
Can you tell us about the return of Meg in the upcoming season opener?
BE: That she returns. And that she's irascible. You know, she comes back to make more trouble. I think that one thing that'll be interesting this season is the apocalypse, and we're dedicated to that, which is a hard thing to pull off on CW dollars. We're, you know, working it out. Characters like Meg, characters for whom we have a little sentimentality, they'll find different roles, not necessarily always just a full-on villain because the fault broke and it's a shifting in the tectonic landscape. I'm getting into plate tectonics, sorry.
What about a character like Henriksen? How different was he with fighting for good and killed by evil?
BE: He was so great right before he got blown up. Lilith! (In a damn you tone). Yeah, that would be cool. I think there is room for maybe a helpful ghost. Essentially, that would be what he would function as if it was possible. I'll take that idea and pretend it's mine.
That ended our time with Ben, and Jim came on next. I must say, that was a very interesting conversation.
Comments
http://www.daemonstv.com/2009/07/27/supernatural-producers-talk-season-5-at-comic-con-2009/
http://www.daemonstv.com/2009/07/27/jim-beaver-from-supernatural-interview-comic-con-2009/
http://www.daemonstv.com/2009/07/27/misha-collins-from-supernatural-interview-comic-con-2009/
I was at a different table of the press room, so it's nice to read an alternate set of Q&As. I've (finally) posted up an edited video of the interview with Ben Edlund here:
http://comic-con.whedonage.com/interviews/ben-edlund-reveals-lessons-from-joss-whedon-supernatural-spoilers/
More of the vids will be coming up.
But then, all of the cast/producers were enthusiastic, funny and accessible. Eric Kripke, in particular, revealed a lot about his thinking about the upcoming season; I just posted the edited version here:
http://comic-con.whedonage.com/interviews/eric-kripke-spills-the-supernatural-secrets/
And yeah, if you're spoilerphobic, you may want to avoid viewing Kripke's stuff
And that episode of the future, first I heard the two brothers travel, now only Dean, if it`s the future version of TB, I`m not intersting at all.