Is Supernatural Season 13 bringing back too many old characters?

Supernatural Season 13 saw the return of another familiar face, but is it becoming too much for the year?

When the Apocalypse World was introduced, we knew it was a chance for Supernatural Season 13 to bring back formerly dead characters. In fact, the series wasted no time by bringing Jim Beaver back in the Season 12 finale and Christian Keyes took on the role of the archangel Michael in Season 13, Episode 2.

We’re now onto Episode 18 and we’ve had multiple characters return. Many of these have been in the Apocalypse World, but there are some in the Winchester’s world and it doesn’t look like the series is ready to stop. After all, Robert Singer shared that there would be two familiar faces returning and we’ve now seen one of them.

The characters that have returned

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So far, we’ve seen Bobby, Michael, Zachariah, Kevin, and that special return this week (no spoilers here, but you can check out the Supernatural Season 13, Episode 18 recap if you want the spoiler). The Winchester’s world has had Missouri, Ketch, and Gabriel all return (two of them from the dead). That’s eight characters within the space of a season–and I may even be missing a couple of smaller ones off the top of my head (although I’m not including Donatello as a return since he was in Season 11).

It’s just too many for such a short space of time. The returns are starting to lose their shock appeal. Sure, a certain couple of characters returning had many of us happy but there are many others who just didn’t want or need the returns. Sometimes dead characters should stay dead or characters that we haven’t seen in a while should remain off the screen where they are safe (*cough* Missouri *cough*)!

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To make matters worse, some of the characters haven’t had anything to do. They’ve been returns for the fans and not really for the service. Kevin has been in all of one episode and then didn’t exactly play the most crucial of roles. Anyone could have been the prophet–like the one before Kevin? Zachariah got maybe 20-30 minutes of screentime at the most. A character that had a major role in Supernatural Season 5 was used as cannon fodder in Season 13 to show us what Jack could do. Some of the returns have really been useless hype.

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It’s feeling like the beginning of the end of Supernatural

I don’t want to say that Supernatural Season 14 will be the last, but it’s starting to feel like that. Usually, shows start to bring back fan favorites when they’re getting ready to close the doors. They want to make sure fans have the chance to say goodbye to some of their favorite characters over the years.

The Vampire Diaries brought back a number of old faces for the eighth and final season, while Once Upon a Time is bringing back a number of familiar faces over the years for a full goodbye. Supernatural bringing back all these characters makes it feel like they’re getting ready to close the door on the Winchesters’ story and it’s sad.

Next: Will Supernatural dare kill [Spoiler] off again?

Do you think too many characters are returning to Supernatural? Would you like to see something else used for shock and surprise? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Supernatural Season 13 airs Thursdays at 8/7c on The CW. Follow SPN Hunters on Twitter for more updates straight to your feed.

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