The Winchesters: Gil McKinney Reprising Supernatural Role in Spinoff
Fans of Supernatural will be seeing a familiar face this season on The Winchesters. According to TVLine, Gil McKinney has joined the cast of the prequel spinoff, reprising his role as Henry Winchester. As fans of The CW's Supernatural may recall, McKinney first played the role of Sam and Dean Winchester's paternal grandfather in Season 8 of Supernatural where he met his future grandsons thanks to time travel — a mission that resulted in Henry's death and prompted John Winchester to believe his father had abandoned him. Henry later appeared again in a Season 9 flashback.
As for The Winchesters, McKinney will appear in episode seven of the series, though he's already "appeared" in the series premiere in a sense with it being his voice reading a letter Henry wrote to John (Drake Rodger). The official character description for Henry on The Winchesters describes the character as "the intellectual patriarch of the Winchester clan. Having come from a long line of Men of Letters, Henry fully dedicated his life to the institution. However, when a Men of Letters' mission leads to Henry's untimely death, his absence and the secrecy surrounding his life inside the organization creates an unrepairable rift in his family.
According to The Winchesters executive producer Robbie Thompson, McKinney won't be the only familiar face from Supernatural that fans can expect.
"We will see some Supernatural faces," Thompson said. "I'm not at liberty to say who just yet, but in the back part of our first 13 episodes, you will definitely see some familiar faces, which I'm super, super, excited about."
What is The Winchesters about?
According to the series' official description, "Before Sam and Dean, there was John and Mary. Told from the perspective of Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles), The Winchesters is the epic, untold love story of how John met Mary and how they put it all on the line not only to save their love, but the entire world." The series is set to dive into the couple's origin story and will be narrated by Dean.
How does The Winchesters fit into established Supernatural canon?
According to Ackles, canon that was already established with John and Mary in Supernatural — particularly their lineage as members of the Men of Letters and a family of monster hunters — will be navigated in a unique way in the prequel series.
"That's kind of the exciting thing, in my opinion, is that the waypoints or the tentpoles that were established on the mothership, as we lovingly call it, those will get touched on," Ackles previously said. "But we'll get to those waypoints in a way that we probably didn't expect. And that's what we're really having fun with is, like, the story is coming together. It's not the washed version. It's not the sugar-coated version of how mom and dad met. This is like what really happened."
He continued, "But we do play into the moments that were discussed and that were talked about, just maybe in a slightly varied way that seems like, 'Whoa, wait, we knew that happened, but I didn't know that's why it happened or that's how it happened.'"
Who stars in The Winchesters?
The Winchesters stars Drake Rodger as John Winchester, Meg Donnelly as Mary Campbell, Bianca Kajilich as Millie Winchester, Demetria McKinney as Ada Monroe, Nida Khurshid as Latika Desai, and Jojo Fleites as Carlos Cervantez. It was also recently announced that Bridget Regan, who may be best known to The CW audiences for her appearance as Pamela Isley/Poison Ivy on Batwoman, had been cast as Rockin' Roxy, a character described as a "honey-voiced pirate radio DJ" who has taken over the airwaves in Lawrence, Kansas to "broadcast a wicked new sound. Not surprisingly, being the world of Supernatural and all, Roxy's listeners aren't all of the human variety."
The Winchesters airs Tuesdays at 8/7c on The CW.