‘Supernatural’ Showrunner Teases New Ruler Of Hell

Hell is going to have a new boss in the upcoming season of Supernatural.

Showrunner Andrew Dabb says there’s a vacancy at the top of Hell’s power structure and there are plans for it to be filled.

“There is a power vacuum,” Dabb tells Entertainment Weekly. “Into that power vacuum will step a new player for us. Once Crowley is gone, demon-kind and some of our players — some we’ve met before and some that are new — start asking themselves: What is the future of Hell? People come with various different agendas.”

In Supernatural‘s twelfth season, Hell was ruled by the Winchester boys’ demonic frenemy Crowley (Mark Shepard). After seven years, Crowley grew tired of ruling in Hell and his constant bids for power and, and in act of uncharacteristic selflessness, sacrificed himself in order to seal Lucifer in an alternate dimension. It sounds like the after effects of that sacrifice will play heavily into Supernatural‘s new season.

Supernatural is headed into its thirteenth season on The CW and shows no signs of slowing down. The series has begun adding new series regulars for its upcoming thirteenth season, which will also see the return of some long-dead characters from previous seasons.

Supernatural returns to The CW on Oct. 12. The season will include the backdoor pilot for spinoff series Wayward Sisters.

In the show’s eleventh season, Sam and Dean Winchester (Jared Padalecki & Jensen Ackles) faced their greatest challenge yet: the all-powerful Darkness, better known as the sister of God. Freed from her prison by Dean, she threatened all of creation, until God (with the help of Sam, Dean, Castiel and Crowley), made amends with her. Before they left Earth, however, they restored Sam & Dean’s mother, Mary Winchester, to life. In Season Twelve, the Winchesters must not only contend with an escaped Lucifer and the British Men of Letters (who’ve come to end their hunting days), but they’ll also have to relearn what it is to be a family again after all these years.