‘Supernatural’ 13x01 recap: Sam and Dean’s different grieving styles

“Supernatural” season 13 premiered on Friday in the US with an emotionally charged first episode. “Lost and Found” saw Sam and Dean Winchester (Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles) dealing with the grief of losing their best friend and their mother quite differently.

Spoilers are ahead for ‘Supernatural’ 13x01. The episode aired on The CW in the US and will be aired on Monday on Network Ten in Australia.

The episode opened where the season 12 finale left off, with Castiel (Misha Collins) dead, Kelly (Courtney Ford) dead, and the boys’ mum, Mary (Samantha Smith), trapped in the alternate universe with Lucifer (Mark Pellegrino). Jack the nephilim (Alexander Calvert) is barely a day old yet he is a fully functioning young adult.

Worth noting is that season 13 did not open with Kansas’ “Carry on My Wayward Son,” as it had done in past seasons. Instead, it narrated last season’s events with “Nothing Else Matters” by Metallica as the recap music.

Jack knew his mother was “in heaven,” but he was confused why his father wasn’t waiting for him as he was supposed to. It was later on when Sam found out Jack was referring to Cas as his father, not Lucifer.

Sam and Dean were both mourning the recent events, but while Sam was at least level-headed, Dean appeared to be losing it. Sam was still able to think rationally, talking to a bemused Jack and trying to gain his confidence. Dean, on the other hand, shot at the nephilim right away, which proved not to be a sensible decision as Lucifer’s progeny has powers that they hadn’t seen before. Jack also cannot be killed by an angel blade.

Dean begging God to revive Cas and even Crowley (Mark Sheppard) and return Mary to them was a heart-wrenching scene. There was a lot of pent-up anger and desperation that he could only expressed by swearing at God and punching a door when his prayers went unanswered. He did not even care when a girl wrote "b----" using the dust on the Impala’s window. Sam’s teary goodbye to Cas did not have the same intensity of desperation as Dean’s but just as devastating. It’s not only Dean who lost their mum and their best friend; Sam just knew he should stay strong for them both.

Producer Brad Buckner said the boys’ grief would last several episodes. “[Castiel] is not coming back real soon, and it influences, greatly, Dean’s state of mind,” he was quoted by Mashable as saying during the press screening of the show. “Both the guys have had to rebound from stuff over and over and just kind of shake it off and go on with the family business, and this overwhelming loss at the start of the season is something that Dean just can’t dig his way out of yet.”

Padalecki said Cas’ resurrection would bring “obviously great relief” for the boys, but that’s not all. “There’s also – and we’ll see how it comes about – great concern about, wait a second, you saw us burn him. I don’t know if we’ve had somebody come back after they’ve been salted and burned. There’s some genuine concern about what could have made this happen, who made this happen, why they made it happen. Can you trust it? Can you trust this version? When I came back, I was soulless. Is this different? There are a lot of questions in the air. Obviously, the major emotion is relief and happiness. But as is the case with all ‘Supernatural,’ the other shoe might drop.”

The alternate timeline, which already saw the return of Bobby (Jim Beaver), also opens up the possibility of dead characters returning. Osric Chau, who played the prophet Kevin, has been confirmed to return as well. As it is another universe, his character wouldn’t be the same as the Kevin the Winchesters knew.

“It’s a different Kevin,” showrunner Robert Singer told EW. “It’s Osric, but it’s different so we’re having a lot of fun playing that.

Andrew Dabb, co-showrunner, added that Kevin’s return would be “really fun.” And while they didn’t want to take advantage of the alternate world, it still gave them opportunities to bring back new interpretations of old and dead characters.