Supernatural: Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki on episode 3

When Amara decided to give Dean a gift at the end of season 11, she thought that bringing Dean and Sam’s mother Mary back to life would be the greatest thing she could do for him. After all, the boys spent their entire lives not knowing what it was like to have a mother after the yellow-eyed demon killed Mary when they were young.

However, having Mary back hasn’t been as seamless as originally hoped. Not only was she forced into an entirely new world that she doesn’t quite understand, but she was forced into a world where her husband is dead and her sons are fully grown men. And in the third episode since Mary’s return, fans watched as Mary tried to embrace the hunting world before finally telling her boys that she needs some time alone to mourn the loss of John, as well as the loss of her sons as she knew them. Just like that, she left the bunker — and her boys — behind.

EW sat down with Supernatural stars Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, where they discussed how Sam and Dean will be affected by Mary’s decision to leave:

JARED PADALECKI: Sam is much more studious about the situation. Sam kind of goes introverted for a second and says, “Okay why did she feel this way? Why did this happen?” Where, one of the funniest things about Supernatural is playing opposites. Dean, he wants to be handsome…

JENSEN ACKLES: I’m sorry, wants to be handsome?

PADALECKI: Let me finish, let me finish.

ACKLES: Please do…

PADALECKI: Hey, this is my answer. [Laughs] He’s the Han Solo. He’s got the fast car and the guns and he’s a badass but he has this emotion that, at the weirdest times, comes out. Whereas Sam, who is more seemingly emotional on the outside, goes like, “Here’s a time where I would be emotional, why am I doing it?” It’s a wonderful mirror image of life where you see these people that are happy-go-lucky and fun, and then something happens and they get hurt by it. And vice versa, you see somebody who’s stoic and then they seemingly overreact. But we see Sam take the academic approach and Dean go like, “This is my mom, man.” It’s a position that Sam and Dean haven’t been in yet.

ACKLES: And I think you saw a lot of that last year with the conversation with Chuck when Chuck came back. You saw Sam looking at it from an educational standpoint like, “I have so many questions.” And then you cut to Dean and he’s like, “Oh I have some questions. Where have you been? Why haven’t you listened? People are dying and they’re dying in your name and how dare you.” The characters work on those different levels. You have Dean who’s obviously an emotional person but he protects that emotion very well. And you have Sam who is an outwardly emotional person but he’s very studious and very introverted when it comes to certain things. That’s one of the great things about working on a show for 11 plus seasons is you get to really dial those little characteristics in and you get to peel those layers back and expose things that you might not ever get to venture into in three seasons…

PADALECKI: Or 10 seasons.

ACKLES: Or 10 seasons, that’s true.

Supernatural airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET on The CW.