After much buzz and speculation about the new role that Jensen Ackles would be playing on Supernatural, season 13's finale saw Dean betrayed by Michael, with the archangel taking over his body and giving his host a Peaky Blinders-inspired makeover.

Can Dean be saved? And with Jack (Alexander Calvert) having been reduced to merely human by Lucifer (Mark Pellegrino), what's next for Sam (Jared Padalecki), Castiel (Misha Collins) and the refugees from Apocalypse World?

Digital Spy grilled the cast and creative team of Supernatural to get the skinny on season 14, including some very surprising revelations...

1. Michael will be sticking around for a while

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Don't expect the show to resolve Dean's fate quickly. "Michael's going to be around long enough to be a really legitimate threat," says executive producer Brad Buckner. "He has to build his forces, build his strategy..."

"It's been challenging, playing this character who's totally different but doing it in the environment that I've been playing in for so long," adds Jensen Ackles. "To walk on to that set and not just instantly transform into Dean was more challenging than anticipated.

"I didn't want to venture too far into doing something different. There are subtleties that I'm attempting to do different. Hopefully you'll pick up on those."

2. Sam will step up as leader of the hunters

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Supernatural co-showrunner Andrew Dabb confirms that season 14 will see Sam having "really stepped into a leadership role", completing a "journey that he's been on for quite a while now" but that "really comes more into focus this season".

"Sam is keeping the hunters in line – and he takes that job very seriously!" says executive producer writer / Eugenie Ross-Leming. "Getting Dean back is their mission, from the beginning of the season. That's part of their goal. The other part I can't tell you about!"

According to Jared Padalecki, as well as teaching the Apocalypse World hunters about the basics of living on our Earth ("How to live in the bunker, where the toilet is..."), Sam will also be looking to curb their desire for revenge on Michael, at least long enough to save the archangel's vessel...

"They want to kill Michael, not save Dean. They don't know Dean. They more want to kill the guy who destroyed their planet, so Sam is trying to get to Dean and extract Michael, as opposed to killing the vessel."

3. Rowena, Charlie and Bobby will all play major roles

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"Rowena (Ruth Connell), we're just finishing a script...I think it's [episode] seven, and she plays a very pivotal part in that episode," reveals Ross-Leming. "She's at the core of the problem... and the core of the solution!"

"Rowena comes back and becomes very actively involved," adds Buckner. "There's a whole plot that's about to unfold that she's going to become instrumental in. She's going to be a major player for us this year."

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We'll also be seeing "a good deal" of Apocalypse variant Charlie (Felicia Day), Buckner confirms. "It's strange for the guys, because they can't help falling back into old patterns and treating her like this kid sister, yet this is a whole new person.

"She is not a mirror image of Charlie, which she aggressively points out!"

As for Apocalypse Bobby (Jim Beaver), "he falls into that natural mentor role [that the original version fulfilled]. We're going to see a lot of Bobby – he slips right into the team, so it's fun to see that dynamic again."

Related: Supernatural season 14: Cast, release date, spoilers and everything you need to know

4. Jack is struggling with his power down

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Alexander Calvert confirms that season 14 will open with Jack still "in the throes" of struggling with his newfound status as merely human.

"Jack is a human being who's been on the planet for maybe a year and has zero human experiences," Buckner elaborates. "From the get-go, he was this amazing supernatural force that had to be channelled, because he was so incredibly powerful, he could be destructive.

"All of that's been taken away. He is not the biggest bad-ass in the room anymore, so how do you go from that to being just a regular guy, one who has no experience being on this planet? So that's a huge shift."

5. Castiel will become a mentor for Jack

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With Dean 'absent' and Sam busy leading the Apocalypse Hunters, Cas will become the "de-facto parent" of Jack, building a relationship that Ross-Leming describes as "tough" but also "profound and sweet".

"He's going to mentor Jack, because he's also lost all of his powers [in the [past]," Buckner explains. "You can imagine the despondency of losing all of that [power] and Cas has got to pull him back up."

"Jack and Cas definitely have a very special connection," says Calvert. "We're going to see where that goes, and push it a little further this season than we did last year."

6. Castiel is in "a higher percentage" of episodes

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Bit of a complicated one, this. While, at 20 episodes, this is the shortest Supernatural season in a while, Misha Collins has confirmed that he'll appear in roughly the same number of episodes as previous, meaning we'll get "a higher percentage" of Cas.

"He's in a lot of scripts," says Ross-Leming. "It's rare for Cas, but he's starting the season in good health!" adds Collins. "He's pretty close to full power and has a mission that he cares about, trying to rescue Dean."

7. Episode 300 will be "a love letter to the show"

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"Episode 100 [season 5's 'Point of No Return'] was really jut a normal episode," says Dabb. "There was nothing really meta about it. Episode 200 [season 10's 'Fan Fiction'] went very much the opposite direction, where it was all meta. The idea we have for the 300th occupies a little bit of the middle ground."

Sam, Dean and company have been operating out of the Men of Letters bunker in Lebanon, Kansas for a few years now, with the landmark instalment exploring how the people of Lebanon feel about "these guys who drive this muscle car and always turn up at the dry-cleaners, covered in blood".

"It's a way to look at our guys and the life they lead through a different lens, in a way that hopefully will be a love letter to the show," Dabb concludes.

"It'll be a totally different kind of episode," adds co-showrunner Robert Singer, who'll also direct the 300th. "What's their life like when they're not on the road, when they're in their home town? And what does their home town think of them?"

8. There'll be another crossover episode... sort of

Though we won't see another out-and-out crossover in the vein of Supernatural meets Scooby Doo, Misha Collins told us to look out for "one episode that's a little weird, on the Scooby end of the spectrum".

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"We have an episode that's not a straight crossover but it very much explores one of Dean's childhood passions," says Dabb. "It'll bring in some pop culture things we haven't seen yet."

Related: Is Supernatural ending after season 14?

9. Everything old (and evil) is new again

Besides Michael, the threats our heroes will be facing will be the show's "old stand-by monsters - vampires, werewolves, shape-shifters" – but Dabb promises that we'll see "different versions" of these familiar dangers.

"They're not going to be the same ones we've seen before. They're going to be changed, one way or another."

Intriguing!

10. The status of both Heaven and Hell will be touched upon

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"We'll come to that," Singer says of the current situation up in Heaven. "But not very early. We're going to play out the fact that Heaven's not in great shape and there are very few angels left on Earth, but that's not a main thrust in the first half [of the season].

Likewise, Ross-Leming confirms that "there is a future in Hell... but that's butting into an era that I can't talk about".

11. Expect a "more grounded" and more emotional season

"This season is probably smaller in cope than last year," Singer suggests. "But a little bit higher on emotion and the interpersonal relationships between all the characters. It's a little more grounded in the emotion of the situations that they find themselves in."

12. The Impala is gone... for now

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Supernatural fans... take a deep breath.

According to Ross-Leming, the Impala is "not being driven by anybody" while Michael is in possession of Dean's body. "It's in dry dock, until Dean is rescued," she reveals. "We don't use the Impala in the first part of the season."

Sacrilege! We're excited for Supernatural to return, but even more excited to see Dean and his baby reunited...

Supernatural season 14 returns on Thursday, October 11 at 8/7c on The CW. The series airs on E4 in the UK.

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