‘Supernatural’: Rob Benedict on Chuck and Sam’s Cosmic Connection
By Danielle Turchiano
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – As the final season of “Supernatural” inches toward the series’ end, it does so with one quintessential question looming over the show: Will the Winchesters have to kill God — aka Chuck (Rob Benedict) — and if they succeed, does that mean all of existence or simply Sam (Jared Padalecki) will cease to, well, exist?
“It’s Season 15 and it’s as epic as it gets: It’s Sam and Dean versus God. The finish is not going to be, ‘Oh they had a really nice talk and everything’s OK.’ It’s leaning towards a bigger faceoff, a standoff. It doesn’t feel like Chuck can be reasoned with,” Benedict tells Variety.
Showrunner Andrew Dabb previously told Variety that God was the “uber-villain” of the final season. Although Sam shot him at the end of Season 14, which gave them matching shoulder wounds that seem to be refusing to heal, God/Chuck has gotten some of his mojo back. His former flame Becky (Emily Perkins) inspired him to write again, and his idea for the end of the Winchesters’ story includes a gravestone with their last name on it.
But as revealed in the Dec. 5 episode, “Last Call,” Chuck’s connection to Sam runs much deeper than a flesh wound. The Equalizer gun Sam used shot a piece of his soul into the all-mighty being. And, after Shaman Sergei (Dimitri Vantis) probed around in Sam’s wound, he began to see some of Chuck’s memories, implying they are more greatly tied together than it appeared at first glance.
“He’s still a little bit frantic, a little bit lost. He’s not in the best place because he’s still affected by the wound that Sam also has. It’s limiting him. He’s still not at full power — full capacity — but he’s plotting his next move,” Benedict says. “He’s got to fix this thing he has with Sam. He realizes at some point he’s going to have to confront one or both of the boys. That’s what this is leading to.”
Benedict shares that the psychic connection between Chuck and Sam “goes both ways” — beyond Chuck writing Sam and Dean’s (Jensen Ackles) story.
Benedict was first introduced to the “” world in the fourth season episode, “The Monster at the End of This Book,” as “that lovable loser writer Chuck,” as Benedict puts it. As time went on, the Winchesters came to think Chuck was a prophet who could see their futures, but eventually learned he was God and actually manipulating their lives. At the end of Season 14, the brothers confronted Chuck about that manipulation, which set him off.
“You have to save the moments where you go super wrathful. There are other moments where you can be more quiet about it,” Benedict says.
In evolving the character, Benedict says he continuously “adds onto what I’ve done before,” but always consistently has thought of Chuck as a “strict father.” Benedict is a father himself, but although he knows what it is to say, “Hey, what I say goes,” he admits he relates “more to being a child of a strict father than the strict father myself.” In order to tap into what Chuck as God is feeling for the Winchesters, who he has called his “favorite story,” Benedict says it’s about love.
“The thing I keep going back to also is that I love them. I’ve created everything here, and I love all of them, but I can’t possibly love them in the way humans can love each other because I can manipulate them around,” he explains.
This makes it emotional for him that “no one really likes me right now,” he adds. And that won’t be changing any time soon.
“It feels to me like Chuck is losing all of his allies. It feels more like Sam and Dean are gathering all of their forces to see who they can use to defeat him,” Benedict says. “I’m looking forward to whatever the big showdown is. I’d like to be able to have a big physical fight with them because I’m like half their size, so it will be fun to do make-believe.”
“Supernatural” airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on the CW.
