The Winchesters: Latest News, Release Date, Cast, Plot, and Everything Else to Know

After more than a year since it was first announced, The Winchesters is finally about to hit our screens. Supernatural fans have patiently waited for this prequel series that will tell the origin story of how Dean and Sam's parents — John Winchester (Drake Rodger) and met Mary Campbell (Meg Donnelly) — met and fell in love. The show will be narrated by Jensen Ackles' Dean Winchester himself, and Ackles is also producing the show along with his wife Danneel and Supernatural alum Robbie Thompson. 

While they were not present for most episodes of Supernatural, John and Mary Winchester played a huge role in Sam and Dean's lives. The show began with the death of Mary (Samantha Smith) when Sam Winchester was a baby and the disappearance of John (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) after more than 20 years of trying to hunt down the monster that killed her. It was explained throughout the series that John believed his father had abandoned him and left high school to join the Marine Corps. He served in Vietnam, then was working as a mechanic when he met Mary. 

What John did not know is that his father, Henry, had actually been a member of a secret order called the Men of Letters, and had died during his final initiation into the order. Mary, on the other hand, grew up with two hunter parents, and was raised to be a hunter. Both John and Mary died and were resurrected during the original series, allowing Morgan and Smith the chance to build the characters as adults. Now, we'll get to know their elaborate histories as young adults, and meet the other hunters in their orbit. 

Here's everything we know about the new series!

8 Shows Like Grey's Anatomy To Watch While You Wait For More

Cast

At New York Comic Con, The Winchesters announced that Tom Welling will star as Sam Campbell, Mary Campbell's dad who is also a professional hunter. 

Rodger and Donnelly will lead the new series as John and Mary, but they won't be alone as the cast list is starting to round out.

While Jensen Ackles is heavily involved in the new show, so far it sounds like he will only be reprising his role as Dean in a narrator capacity and won't actually be on screen.  

The Winchesters Main Cast

• Drake Rodger - John Winchester
  
• Meg Donnelly - Mary Campbell
  
• Nida Khurshid - Latika Desai
  
• Jojo Fleits - Carlos Cervantez
• Bianca Kajlich - Millie Winchester (John's Mother)
  

Demetria McKinney and Michael Tacconi also star. 

Release Date

The Winchesters will premiere on Tuesday, October 11, just in time for spooky season. The series is part of The CW's fall TV lineup, with new episodes airing Tuesday nights at 8 p.m.

Premise

The Winchesters will tell the epic story of how Mary and John met and put everything on the line to save not just their love, but also the world. It begins in 1972 and follows 19-year-old Mary, who has been fighting the forces of darkness since she was a child. After losing someone close to her, the hardened hunter considers quitting the family business, until her father's disappearance and the arrival of newcomer John forces her to lead a new team. John has recently returned from Vietnam and finds a new mission back home, where traces of his father's past lead him to a secret organization and a whole new war as a hunter. 

Trailer

More Shows Like Supernatural

We get it. October is a long time to wait to get your fix of all the monster-hunting suspense. That's why we've compiled a list of shows like Supernatural that you can watch in the meantime until The Winchesters comes out in October.

How Does Supernatural's Mythology Fit In?

In an interview with Variety, Ackles said he has been carefully thinking about how to make the show flow without disrupting the mythology established on Supernatural. "We were sitting around when COVID hit going, 'You know what would be cool? If we went back in time and we actually saw the story of mom and dad and how they met — but do it in a way that skews the narrative so that we hit those waypoints that we established on Supernatural, but get you from A to B, B to C, C to D in a way that is really unexpected,'" he told the site. "And then we found a way to continue that story in a way that might be surprising, but always keeping in our back pocket getting us back to the mythology that is established, which is not an easy task. It's not an easy map to draw, but we're doing our best."  

Is There Still Drama? 

While there was a momentary schism in the Winchester family when this show was announced, apparently all is well. When Ackles first tweeted about the show, his onscreen brother Jared Padalecki tweeted about how hurt he was to learn about the project over Twitter. Later, in a podcast interview with Michael Rosenbaum, Ackles explained that he is "superstitious" when it comes to projects. He didn't want to "jinx" the prequel, so he didn't even want to tell Padalecki about it until it was a done deal, and it was announced before there was even an outline. The two long-time costars worked it out, however, and they're "great." They're also reuniting on the CW, since Padalecki stars in an executive produces Walker and it's spin-off Walker: Independence.