'Supernatural': The boys are back tonight, but are we excited for a potential season six?

There’s a slew of shows airing new episodes tonight, but the priority on my DVR belongs to one show: Supernatural. The Winchester boys are finally back with a new episode in which they get themselves committed in order to investigate a case at a mental hospital. The setup sounds a bit like Buffy‘s “Normal Again,” one of my favorite episodes of the series, which only makes me more excited. Check out a scene from the episode below.

It’s been a hellish — no pun intended — two-month wait for new Supernatural, during which I came to a realization. If I missed the show this much during a hiatus, imagine how much I’ll miss it when it ends for good. Creator Eric Kripke has long said that he envisioned a five-year plan for the show and that he intends to carry out that vision with the conclusion of the apocalypse arc this season. But then the show saw its ratings grow during the fourth season last year, with fans and critics calling it the best season yet. Word got out that leads Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki were contracted for six seasons. Suddenly, it seemed unlikely that The CW would let the show go, especially when it was holding its own in the ridiculously crowded Thursdays at 9 p.m. timeslot.

Earlier this month at the TCA Press Tour, CW President of Entertainment Dawn Ostroff revealed that she had lunch with Kripke, who seems to be warming up to the idea of a season six, Ausiello reports.

“I think he’s in that state of mind,” Ostroff said, adding that “he’s really excited about the show right now.”

I used to be firmly on the side of “let the show go out on a creative high,” but now I’m not hating the idea of a sixth season. In other words, how can you top an apocalypse? Might be interesting to see, no?

“The trick is to not go big but go intimate,” Kripke told USA Today. The show could return to a more “stripped-down version” akin to season one, “in which the mythology was just as simple as finding their father and finding something that’s really personal and meaningful to Sam and Dean.”

I like that direction, but I hope the hypothetical sixth season gets intimate with more than just Sam and Dean and expands the cast of characters. The show has already explored every nook and cranny of those boys’ psyches while putting them through a gamut of emotional torture. I want to know more about the other hunters out there. I want to get deep inside their brains and worlds. Ellen and Jo’s deaths were like a punch to the gut, but imagine how much more heartbreaking it would have been had we spent a little more time with them.

Are you excited for tonight’s episode? Do you want the show to continue? And what do you think of Kripke’s vision for a possible sixth season?