The series finale of Supernatural was divisive for many reasons, ranging from Dean’s anticlimactic death via rebar to a shortage of familiar faces in the very last episode ever. Even as the 2025 TV schedule continues with Jensen Ackles starring in Prime Video’s Countdown and Jared Padalecki set to appear in the upcoming season of The Boys, fans of their CW show surely still want to know: who was the blurry woman who Sam married and had a son with in the finale flash-forward? Showrunner Andrew Dabb shared his thoughts, nearly five years later, and they don’t quite match what Padalecki has said.
What The Showrunner Said About Sam’s Wife
Short of Supernatural getting a Buffy-esque revival, we may never have a canonical answer, but I was among the viewers back in late 2020 who just wanted to know if the woman who was Sam’s wife was supposed to be Eileen, played by Shoshannah Stern. Was she a random brunette who we’d never met before but Sam met and married after Dean’s death? Or was she supposed to be Eileen, but the show just couldn’t get her back to film the finale under 2020 COVID-19 guidelines? Well, showrunner Andrew Dabb weighed in, with Swooon reporting his comments:
We wanted someone there, so it wasn’t like there was no female presence at all. But at the same time, do you cast someone totally brand new that the audience will have not seen before? Or do you keep it a little vague and people can imply whatever they want to imply?
While that initial answer was just about as vague as the face of Sam’s blurry wife in the Season 15 finale, Dabb went on to note that the “logistical challenge of bringing a lot of people in, being the first show up during COVID, was just not feasible on our end.” Considering that Supernatural didn’t even bring in Misha Collins – arguably the third lead of the series – for the finale, I can understand why even some of the most important guest stars couldn’t make the cut. I don’t love it, but I get it!
Dabb had even shared the original vision for Sam and Dean’s endings that would have featured a lot of familiar faces. Still, he has a take of his own, even if the episode will never deliver the answers fans want about Eileen as Sam’s wife (or not). He said:
People can fill in whatever they want, and they’re free to. But certainly in my mind, that’s what we were building toward.
Andrew Dabb’s take? That blurry woman who married Sam and became the mother to young Dean was Eileen, as a natural extension of where Season 15 had been leading with them. Jared Padalecki just had a different take when asked about his character’s wife.
What Jared Padalecki Said About Sam’s Wife
The Supernatural co-lead was asked about the identity of Sam’s spouse a few months after the finale aired, so the mystery was a lot fresher to the episode than Andrew Dabb weighing in circa 2025. Padalecki told Variety that no version of the script included an identity of who Sam ended up with after Dean’s death, so he had no more details than what we saw: a brunette woman blurred out from a distance. He said:
I think it was very, very purposely ambiguous and strangely I agreed with that. I feel like a lot of what Sam did after Dean died was almost in honor of what Dean would have wanted, and Dean would not have wanted his little brother to marry Eileen, Ruby, someone in the life.
I feel comfortable saying that Dean definitely wouldn’t have wanted Sam to marry Ruby even if she was still around, but it’s a little harder to swallow the idea of him objecting to Eileen just because she was still in “the life.” Sam’s feelings for her in Season 15 were very real and apparent, and Dean would have wanted his brother to be happy.
Still, Padalecki is the man who played Sam Winchester for more than 300 episodes over fifteen seasons, so he obviously knows his character. Plus, his speculation is no more canonical than Andrew Dabb saying that he believed in an endgame for Sam and Eileen. Besides, who’s to say whether or not Padalecki still feels the same way these days?
I’d say that the gist is that fans can believe what they want to believe. And really, is that anything new for the Supernatural fandom? Surely I’m not the only one who just overlooks certain episodes for the sake of enjoying the whole! If you want to revisit the finale or any of the other 300+ episodes, you can find the full run of Supernatural streaming with a Netflix subscription now.
