The Winchester brothers have been fighting off evil since before they could walk or talk — just ask Sam, who met his first demon when he was six months old. But when Supernatural returns for season 11, there’s a new kind of monster in town: the Darkness, which enveloped the brothers at the end of season 10.

From what we know of the Darkness, it’s a prebiblical entity that will appear to the brothers in the form of one person, and more than likely, that person will be a woman. We also know that the “prebiblical” element of the Darkness could lead the boys to need God’s help.

For everything else, we asked what you all wanted to know, and then took your questions right to stars Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki. Here’s what they had to say about what lies ahead (or beneath or whatever):

What will the dynamic of their relationship be like this season? —@kitty_kat2015

JENSEN ACKLES: Once again we find Sam and Dean in the threshold of some earth-shattering, catastrophic, apocalyptic event. This is a story that predates the bibical Revelations, so it’s something they have never dealt with. What that does as far as the dynamic goes is it puts them back in the car on the same team together, having one target and being unified in that mission.

JARED PADALECKI: I think a lot of the fandom is going to be happy to learn that we’re finally accepting the fact that we’re stronger together than apart. And this far into the season, they’re certainly acting on that and I like it, personally. I am a brother and I have a big brother and Jensen is a brother, so I like the dynamic and I like the story that we’re able to tell with the brothers working together.

Does this season remind you of any past seasons? —@TVDSweetness

ACKLES: It’s a bit of a throwback to maybe season 1 or season 2, when the brothers were fighting less with each other and fighting more for humanity as a team. Because over the years there’s been a flip-flop of Sam being afflicted and Dean doing everything he can to save his brother, and then the next year, Dean makes some terrible choice like the Mark of Cain and then it’s Sam trying to do everything he can to save his brother. We’ve done that now. The brothers have been saved; the Mark is gone. And now they’ve kind of unleashed this unknown entity and they’ve got to team up and pool their resources and figure out how they’re going to deal with it.

PADALECKI: It feels season 4-ish, where we’re fighting against something that’s so much bigger than we are. The boys are always fighting against something so grand and something so beyond themselves that I guess it has a little bit of a lot of seasons, but maybe even season 5. It’s the boys realizing that they can’t do this on their own, and they’re going to have to reach out to get all the help they can get.

Will Dean be bonded somehow with the Darkness since he was the bearer of the Mark? —@AcklesUniverse

ACKLES: Because of the time that he spent with the Mark, there is certainly an imprint left on Dean. It certainly pulls on some sort of strings inside him that he doesn’t understand why. He’s not necessarily drawn to it or affected by it but there’s something that resonates with Dean regarding the Mark because he was afflicted with it for so long that it did leave an impression on him. So now there is that kind of connection that only he can have and he can understand, so that is going to be something that he’s going to find himself faced with and struggle with.

WATCH: EW’s Sam Highfill on the potential of a shirtless car-wash scene on Supernatural

Also, he killed Death in the finale. What consequences this will bring to him? —@JustJensenDean

ACKLES: Maybe not specifically for Dean but there’s a consequence in general for Death being slain. What does that mean for all the reapers? And what does that mean for that part of the equation? And how is that going to rear its ugly head, which you know it will. So I think it’s less of a bounty on Dean’s head and more of a, “Well you just screwed up the whole natural order of things and things are going to go pretty haywire.”

How will Sam’s visions play into this season? —@kristyl_

PADALECKI: Sam and Dean are both struggling with the idea that they don’t always know what’s real and what’s not and they’re both having visions of sorts, or they both think they’re having visions. And Sam’s natural instinct is to back away from it at first because it takes him back to a deep dark place and he doesn’t know what they’re for. I say this with an asterisk because it is supernatural, but Sam’s pretty grounded, pretty rooted in the reality of the situation and he tries to go about it in a scholastic way. When these visions start, he’s less concerned with what’s happening in the visions and more concerned with why he’s getting them and who’s sending them to him. We’ll see Sam doing something we’ve never really seen him do — pray. He doesn’t know who he’s praying to but just asking for some help because he realizes it’s beyond him and it’s beyond Dean.

I want to know what will happen with Rowena and the Book of the Damned? Will the book be important for the mythology? —@AcklesLogic

PADALECKI: I think so and I hope so. Rowena’s out in the wind and she certainly doesn’t want to be found and the boys are hitting a bunch of dead ends. Although Sam’s kind of the researcher, there’s not really a lot written about the Darkness, so we have to reverse engineer the situation and we are unfortunately going to have to either ask for help from our enemies or beat some help out of our enemies. We’ll see which category Rowena falls into but we do love Ruth [Connell] over here and I’m excited to have her back whenever she gets to come back.

I’m hoping for some lighter, fun episodes this season. Will we see any? —@SPN_Sherry

ACKLES: Oh yeah, after all it is a show that really made its mark at how we balanced the dark episodes with the light episodes and everything in between. I think that juxtaposition has always been a signature of ours. Even though the last couple of seasons have been pretty heavy and pretty dramatic, I think now that we’ve got the brothers back in the saddle so to speak, it is going to lend itself to some more of those moments. In fact, I foresee a lot of T-shirt and bumper sticker sayings [about episode 4].

PADALECKI: I’ll give you a hint: I am on my way to shoot a car-wash scene.

Supernatural returns Wednesday, Oct. 7 at 9 p.m. on The CW.

To continue reading more about EW’s Fall TV Preview, pick up the new issue of Entertainment Weekly, on newsstands now, or buy it here.

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