'Supernatural': Dean Will Be Absent From Many Season 14 Episodes

Supernatural returns for its fourteenth season in October on The CW, but fans will notice one major character absent for much of the upcoming batch of episodes.

The series' Season 13 finale saw archangel Michael take possession of Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles), who along with brother Sam (Jared Padalecki), has been a pillar of the show since its 2005 premiere. As a result of the Apocalypse World transplant taking control of Dean, Supernatural will move forward without Dean appearing in multiple episodes, something the show has never done before.

"The show's built upon two pillars, and those two pillars are Sam and Dean," co-showrunner Andrew Dabb told TVLine, "and that, in some ways, makes things very difficult, because the show is Sam and Dean, and their interplay. One of the pillars of the show is gone, basically."

"We've taken Sam away for little chunks of time here and there, but never in a huge way," Dabb continued. "He's been soulless and things like that, but he's still kind of present. Demon Dean was kind of a one-episode thing, and largely, the action happened off-screen."

As a result of the storyline, Ackles will have the opportunity to portray a new character, while the move will push the show in a new direction with its biggest villain now appearing as a fan-favorite mainstay.

"The hardest thing about a show like this, sometimes, is every year, you have to create the new Big Bad," Dabb shared. "You have to build that character. You have to build that actor to find a comfort level with the show and everything else. With Jensen playing Michael, there's none of that. This is an actor who everyone loves, who knows exactly what the show is, who knows exactly who he is, who knows exactly [and] very smartly how to approach this character. So it's really given us, like instantly, a great bad guy, which is kind of obvious, but it's something where you're like, 'Oh, wow, that's really, really cool.'"

Supernatural will air its 300th episode during the upcoming season and is currently the longest-running series in The CW's history. Over the years, the series has explored dozens of plotlines, and this latest one is providing a new kind of challenge for both the writers and actors.

"It's challenging to write episodes without Dean Winchester in them because he is such a fundamental part of the show," Dabb explained. "But it's also exciting [for] Jensen and us [to have] the opportunity to play around with this new character."

Supernatural returns on Thursday, Oct. 11 at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.

Photo Credit: The CW