Pictured Above: Crow’s Nest news editor Catherine Hicks (center) met Jensen Ackles (left) and Jared Padalecki (right) at Jacksonville Creation Entertainment Convention in 2015.
Catherine Hicks | The Crow’s Nest
By Catherine Hicks
In 2015, when I first got my tickets to a convention to meet the stars of my favorite television show, Supernatural, I never expected Jared Padalecki to stop the autograph line for five minutes to talk to me.
I walked to his table with a single sentence stuck in my throat, tears in my eyes, the words heavy with emotion as I barely choked out the words I’d come to say to him: “Thank you for Always Keep Fighting.”
Five years after I met Padalecki and just three days shy of 15 years since the first episode of Supernatural was aired in 2005, the end of an era has come.
On Sept. 10, Supernatural concluded the last day of shooting for the 15th and final season.
Supernatural is the longest running American live-action fantasy TV series. It was originally penned by Eric Kripke to span only five seasons – a modern-day retelling of Lucifer and Michael through the characters of Sam and Dean Winchester.
When the show finished its fifth season, it had amassed such a passionate and loyal audience that The CW Network had no choice but to continue the show.
As I was only five years old when the show originally started, I wasn’t part of the original Supernatural viewers, but instead started watching the show in 2012, during Season 7.
Nonetheless, similar to many fans, Supernatural has been an integral part of my life. It has helped me through some of my most painful experiences, such as losing my birth-mother to suicide, battling post traumatic stress disorder and depression and being bullied relentlessly in middle school.
When it was announced that Supernatural would come to an end after 15 seasons in order to allow main actors to pursue other interests, I was devastated. Not a single episode I watched went without shedding a tear for the end that was impending.
Though the final day of filming was originally scheduled for March, like many other television and movie productions, The CW Network was forced to shut down production due to COVID-19 with only two episodes left to film – only prolonging the inevitable goodbye fans spent over a decade dreading.
More than 15 actors that starred or guest-starred on Supernatural took to social media on Tuesday to commemorate the show that changed so many lives, including Kansas, whose song ‘Carry on My Wayward Son’ became a theme song to the show.
“#ThankYouSupernatural. You’ve changed my life in so many ways and you changed the world for the better. Fight on,” wrote Misha Collins, who played Castiel, in a tweet on Tuesday.
#ThankYouSupernatural became the number one trending hashtag on Twitter on Tuesday, in an outpouring of love and support for the show by fans and actors alike.
“Woke up at 6 a.m. this morning,” wrote Jensen Ackles, who played Dean Winchester, on an Instagram post Tuesday. “That alarm went off with a heavy tone. Today is the final day of a 15 year journey. One that has changed my life forever.”
Following years of bargaining with the show-runners, Ackles was given the show’s iconic 1967 Chevrolet Impala as a parting gift.
In its 15 years on the air, Supernatural has amassed one of the most unique and loyal fanbases – the SPN Family. Passionate about Supernatural and proud of being a fan, the SPN Family is one of the biggest reasons the show lasted for so long; promoting the show on social media and to friends and family.
The SPN Family doesn’t exist solely because of a phenomenal television experience and fantastic acting — it exists because stars of Supernatural are engaged, care about their fans and are not afraid to talk about the things that really matter.
When I met Jared Padalecki, I thanked him for the ‘Always Keep Fighting’ movement, which he’d created that year to destigmatize mental illness after opening up about his own struggles with anxiety and depression.
In response to my thanks, Padalecki stopped his autograph line to get to know more about me, asking my name, what I wanted to do when I finish school and learning about losing my birth-mother and my struggle with self-harm and depression. When I told him I dreamed of being an author, he joked that he might be standing in my autograph line one day.
His security personnel and convention officials started pressuring him to move me on, but I had the feeling that Padalecki would have continued to talk to me if he could.
“Remember to always keep fighting,” was the last thing he said to me, smiling gently as he handed me my autographs.
Since then, the fans and stars of Supernatural teamed up to create the SPN Family Crisis Support Network, an online support network designed to help those struggling with mental health issues, which trains volunteers to work on the hotline and has saved countless lives.
Though Supernatural is coming to an end, and time has come to say goodbye to Sam and Dean Winchester, this is not the end of the road for the SPN Family, who have shown themselves to be a force to be reckoned with.
