Castiel Will Be Deader Than Normal On 'Supernatural' Next Season

09/18/2017 12:09 pm EDT

The angel Castiel has died and returned a few times on Supernatural already, but his most recent death may have a little more staying power.

Showrunner Andrew Dabb explained that this time Castiel is even more dead than usual, and that his death will be something the Winchester boys, especially Dean, wrestle with in the upcoming thirteenth season.

"That's one of the reasons that Cas is deader than normal, because we want to play with that [grief]," Dabb told TVLine. "With Dean, especially, everything he's lost… He feels it hard. He's put so much hope in building up Team Free Will 2.0 and building up this very cool group of people he's working with. He's opened himself up in a lot of different ways with Mary, with Crowley, with Cas, and he's been punched in the heart about a million times in the last season. So you're dealing with someone who's a little bit more guarded, a little bit more jaded, a little bit more not necessarily asking, 'What's it all for?' but certainly asking, 'Did they do the right thing? Should they have made the sacrifices they made? Should they have asked other people to make the sacrifices they made?' Those are all questions that are at the forefront of our guys' minds."

For those who missed Supernatural's twelfth season finale, Castiel (Misha Collins) was stabbed through the chest with an angel blade, one of the few weapons capable of killing an angel, by Lucifer. This is the fifth time that Castiel has died on Supernatural, and the second time he's died by Lucifer's hand.

Each previous time that Castiel has been killed he has later been resurrected, either by God or someone else. Whether a resurrection is in the works this time around remains to be seen, but Castiel definitely has a role to play in the next season of Supernatural.

Supernatural returns to The CW on October 12th at 8 p.m. ET.

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