Around a year and a half after the long-running, fan-favorite drama Supernatural ended on The CW, a spinoff prequel with flagship Jensen Ackles as EP is in the casting process. While fans may be disappointed they won’t be seeing more of the Winchester brothers in the prequel The Winchesters, assuming it makes it beyond the pilot stage, we can all pretty psyched that their family history is being explored, and with some solid names playing the brothers’ ancestors. After two core roles were recently cast, a Vampire Diaries universe alum has joined the party, with Legacies star Bianca Kajlich being cast as Dean and Sam Winchester’s grandmother.
That’s right, the 45-year-old Bianca Kajlich, who looks far younger than her years, has been cast as a family matriarch within this prequelized timeline. According to THR, Kajlich will take on the role of Sam and Dean’s paternal grandmother, whom we haven’t actually met at all yet. It'll be interesting to get a look at John’s family, as we have mostly focused on the Campbells in Supernatural proper.
If you’re caught up on Supernatural, you know the brothers' grandfather Samuel becomes a recurring character in Season 6, but that's obviously an older version of the character than the one we'll presumably see in the prequel, in which Sam and Dean aren't even born yet. In fact, the prequel series will center around the epic love story of Sam and Dean’s parents, who have also already been cast, with Meg Donnelly and Drake Rodger as Mary and John Winchester, respectively. Their romance was touched on briefly in the series when Dean went back in time to stop the Yellow-Eyed Demon. Viewers met young Mary and John in that time period, as well as both of Mary’s parents, so expect references to those moments in the new project.
The prequel is titled The Winchesters, though, and since Mary is not yet a Winchester in the pilot itself, it certainly makes sense that the creative team would dive more into John and his background. After all, the brothers are not just hunters on their Campbell side, but also legacies on the Winchester side.
From what we already know about the prequel, we will see the beginning of Mary and John’s relationship, them falling in love, and them saving each other and the world at large — like parents, like sons, I guess. It seems that since John and Mary are still young, John’s parents could also factor heavily into the prequel's narrative; we already know John’s father died when John was a child, even though John believes he was abandoned. So it’s possible Bianca Kajlich’s character will know better and become a source of more information on John’s (and his sons’) legacy.
The title also implies the storyline could be lengthy, though, assuming The CW orders it to series. I would love to see Mary and John’s time together between Dean’s time-travel trip and Mary’s ceiling death. Either way, though, I’m pretty psyched that The Winchesters is making some headway in production, and it’s possible we may see some more familiar faces of the (near) immortal sort from the franchise.
For now, fans just have to wait for the Winchesters pilot to finish casting and film before The CW makes a grand decision about its future. Until then though, fans who are hungry for more Winchester content can binge the entire Supernatural series can be binged with a Netflix subscription while keeping up hope that some favorite characters could return for the prequel.
