Supernatural Finale: More Than We Bargained For


 2016.04.12 – Tipperary Park, New Westminister



The end is near and finales are always fascinating so I headed out immediately after work to the park where I’d heard the day before that Supernatural was filming. People had reported signs there as early as last Friday so we figured it was something big.  Soon, I heard that there was a graveyard set up.  I was pretty stoked that we might get to see a salt and burn this night, I haven’t seen one of those yet in my Supernatural excursions.


I arrived at the location, it was near where they had been a couple of weeks ago and parked on a sidestreet up the hill from the park where the ‘cemetery’ and park had been reported.  Standing at the trunk of my car, I heard the Impala rumbling away behind me down the road.  I gathered up what I needed, set a timer for my 2 hour parking and followed my ears.  Right at the intersection from where I parked, Baby was being pulled into the ‘graveyard’.  There was a path but they use plywood as well to stop the tracks of their vehicles from ruining the foliage of the areas they’re in.  I stood for a few minutes kind of drawn, should I go down? They weren’t filming, just setting up.  I snapped a quick photo but fear of missing out on what was happening right then won out quickly and I walked over to a PA sitting nearby.  I could see down the hill into the parking lot that the circus was in the same place as the last time they were here. Mental note, avoid that area.  There’s a bunch of windy paths in and through the park.  Last time I saw them in the area, I followed a path through the trees that ultimately would have led me right into the middle of it.  I ended up going well through the opposite direction that I needed to go to avoid it, ending up with muddy shoes and wet feet before my day started.  This time I was determined not to have a repeat. 

When I asked the PA (phrasing the question “You may or may not be able to tell me this but…”) where abouts they were, she gestured the opposite way from where I’d come from, saying ‘down there’.  Around the block and towards Royal Ave.  I walked around the park away from the circus towards 6th and then headed down the hill on 6th by City Hall.  I didn’t see any filming, just trailers down on Royal.  Trying to figure it out, I was curious if maybe they were on the back side of city hall.  I walked that way, effectively doubling back, saw nothing and then came out near the entry to the circus.  I still saw nothing that looked like an active set but I did spot a PA on the corner.  I walked mup to them and asked them if they could tell me where they were filming.  He was happy to point the building out for me, along Royal Ave across 6th in an old bar/apartment complex.  I looked down there and saw the trailers were all lined up on the sidewalk, hair and makeup, washrooms.  I figured the boys trailers were at the other place behind me that I’d avoided, everyone else’s probably was too.  I started walking the sidewalk toward the location.  Trying not to gawk and let my geek show was tough, especially with the coolness of the hair and makeup and other parts of filming that were parked there but I just glanced and kept walking, trying to take it in without being creepy.  All I wanted to do was poke around and see if the hair and makeup ladies were there.  They are so nice!  But I didn’t.
Soon, I came upon a star trailer, taped on the outside was ‘BG Change’. Those were the first two doors, and then the next three said “Ghost #2”, “Ghost #3” and Ghost #4”.  I couldn’t help but wonder what happened to “Ghost #1” but I didn’t have time to think about it as the first door on the next trailer read “Mary”.  Wait, Mary? I must not have seen that right.  This trailer was a 3 door, Mary, Chuck and Rowena.  Figured must be someone that’s an episode cast.  Pretty common name, right?  My brain was working furiously but again, no time to process because the next one was a double trailer, First door: Castiel, 2nd door: Crowley.  Crap.  I mean, it’s a sidewalk, there’s lots of foot traffic everywhere, but WHY aren’t Misha and Mark’s trailers up in the bushes? Ugh.  I looked down and sped up my walk, I didn’t want to be there. I nearly panicked thinking what would happen in Misha came out of his trailer.  I’d probably just look at him and say ‘Holy fuck’ and keep walking.  I wouldn’t stop him, that’s for sure.  I made it to the corner and didn’t look back while I waited for the light to change, it took 2 light sequences as I didn’t push the button to walk, my mind was racing.
I walked along Royal on the outside of the building trying to figure out where they were.  I found them filming an interior at a closed out bar. They were almost finished so I hung around and chatted as they wrapped up the location.  At the end I saw Misha, Mark, Jared and Rob streaming out to head back to the circus. They went out the other way and we sauntered back towards the ‘graveyard’   We kind of followed the other group of fans back down Royal and up the backside of the park.  My friend and took our time and by the time I got there, there was already a PA assigned to the fans.  We were seeing a blocking/rehearsal I think of the scene.  Jared, Jensen, Mark, Misha, Ruth and Rob were all there, the crew was crowded around and it looked like the director was giving instructions to everyone.   I pulled out my camera and prepared to take some photos like I usually do.  The PA told us that fan holding was going to be around the corner and she led us past the tennis courts away from them.  As we walked up I snapped a photo and then also once we arrived at our destination.  Soon, though, the PA asked us all to not take any photos.  I quickly put my camera away.  Judging by what we saw, it made sense.  I think they rehearsed from here, I saw Misha sitting on a gravestone and rocking it back and forth. I thought he was just being silly and laughed a little at it.  I also saw Jensen hug Jared.  I was kind of confused because I didn’t realize they were rehearsing. I really had no idea what was going on.  Not long after Misha left, though, a crew member was hammering the gravestone back in that Misha had been playing around on.  I thought maybe he had caused a problem by goofing around.

Quickly, though, everyone disappeared and the PA’s were saying it would be a while before they were rolling.  I had now been hanging around for about an hour and a half and needed to move the car.  Also, I was hungry.  I told the PA that I was walking back to my car, I took the sidewalk, the long way around and crossed to the far side of the street.  As I was walking, I saw Misha sitting on the table part of a picnic bench near one of their tents in the park, feet on the seat.  Ruthie was sitting on the bench part and it looked like they were chatting.  I was pretty far away but it was great to see them just hanging out casually.

I went and grabbed some food and then came back and parked closer to where we were watching, across the street from where they had the fan holding. Way more convenient for stuff like umbrellas and more layers.  I crossed back over and joined my fellow fans, it wasn’t long before they were at it again.  Good timing. 

They first filmed I think with the camera over the Impala.  Either that or it was up the hill.  I couldn’t tell.  I have to say that it’s a lot easier to see what’s going on through a zoom lens. I really missed being able to use my camera.  My eyes are not that good at a distance.  In any event, they filmed a wide shot of the scene.  This is what we saw:

Rob and Ruth were leaning on the drivers’ side of the Impala standing together looking up the hill into the graveyard.  Mark was standing a little way away from them on a 90-degree angle to Rob and Ruth’s left, pretty much staring at the group of fans. Like, for long periods of time I thought for sure he was staring at us.  Misha had his back to us across from Mark but facing him (to Rob and Ruth’s right) and was actually sitting on that gravestone he was messing around on earlier.  Makes sense now. 

Jared and Jensen were starting up the hill and when action was called Jensen walked down the hill.  He slowly veers to Cas and drops a resigned-looking hand on his shoulder.  Dean then heads over to Crowley and takes something from him. It looked white, almost the size of the horn of Joshua but I doubt that was it.  He takes it, looks at it for a second and then gives it back.  Then he walks down to where Chuck and Rowena are standing and talks to them.  We weren’t close enough to hear any dialogue but Dean appears to be having a pretty good discussion with them.  Meanwhile, Cas leaves his tombstone and closes in behind Dean.  Also, Sam slowly strolls down the hill after his brother. 
When Dean is finished with Chuck and Rowena, he turns back to Cas who is pretty close to him.  Cas quickly hugs Dean and Dean seems surprised at first and then hugs Castiel back.  On one take I saw Jensen touch Misha’s face, although it only happened once that I saw (granted I missed a few takes because they were behind stuff) and so it could have been anything.  Dean then talks with Cas, moving his hands pretty animatedly and appears to be giving him instructions.  I’m guessing they are orders for after he’s gone.  He then makes a beeline for Sam, reaches him and pulls him into a fierce hug.  In one take Jensen got right up onto his toes and pulled Jared down with almost a jump to reach his height.  Sam seems surprised or reluctant to accept the hug at first but eventually responds and pulls his brother close, wrapping his arms around his back.  On the third take, we heard Jared’s hands slapping into Jensen’s back.  The first time we saw it, the fans quietly ‘awwed’ and every time they hugged it seemed to get more and more intense.  I get goosebumps just thinking about it now, 2 days later.  Both shows of emotion are pretty unusual, especially Cas, and I very nearly cried watching them film this sequence.   I am not looking forward to the case of tissues I’m going to need for the finale.
Anyway, once Dean releases Sam, a couple of times it looked like they took a second to collect themselves.  One time I definitely saw Jensen wipe/cover his eyes in a very Dean-like movement after he broke apart from Sam.  He then turns and starts walking down the hill again but he only got a couple of steps in before they called cut. 

As this sequence was being filmed I heard a PA say that they had a paparazzi on set.  I’ve spent a lot of time over a few years watching filming in Vancouver.  I know who most of them are.  The PA’s were on alert for them and I was trying to ask for a description so I could tell them who it was.  They didn’t have much info, though.  We watched a little longer and soon a man walked up the path we’d originally come up, that they moved us through because it was too close.  I recognized him right away. I went to the PA and said that they had a problem.  She said this was the same guy they had been dealing with already.  Technically, he is correct when he argued with the production that this was being filmed in a public park and he had every right to stand there and take photos.  But the production had asked us not to in order to keep the integrity of their secrets for the finale.  A few PA’s descended on that side of the production as well as Clif and they did their best to stand in his way, blocking the boys as much as they could and trying to move back and forth. (The next day I saw one of the PA’s and she asked me, “Did you like my dance?” That’s kind of what it looks like.)  Often times productions will get out black umbrellas to shield the actors from this kind of thing and I’m not sure why SPN didn’t do that.  There was enough rain happening, off and on torrentially that day, that they probably could have created a little umbrella wall.  This would have blocked the fans as well, which is an unfortunate side effect of this kind of behaviour.

In any event, from the looks of it he didn’t get too many really great shots. They must have done a good job blocking at least the Cas/Dean hug but he did get a couple of the boys.  He had really nice equipment with a super awesome zoom lens.  Not gonna lie, I have some camera envy.  I saw them posted on Twitter on some SPN fan sites and quickly let them know where they came from.  Most of them actually volunteered to take them down when they heard that the production was strict about no photos of filming that day but it still upsets me a little when fans don’t respect the wishes of the production. Especially when they’ve been told where they came from.  [Side note May 23, 2016: Since then also there were people talking about the Cas/Dean hug, continuing to share the pap photos and also it seems to be common knowledge that Mary was in the finale as well.  Obviously some of the fans that were there liked to talk and shared the information.  Kind of disappointing if you ask me.)  
They filmed that scene from a few different angles and a couple of times we lost sight of parts of it in the crowd of people and gear.  What we pretty much managed to see every time were the hugs, tho.  Every time I nearly teared up.  I’m dying to know what Dean is getting himself into this time.

It was starting to get dark and the rain was pounding in spurts where it would pour literal buckets for 10 minutes and then stop.  Vancouver weather in a nutshell. Pouring rain, mild rain, sun, sun and rain.  Lather, rinse, repeat. They moved further up the hill and it looked like they let everyone go except for Jensen and Jared.  Although it was hard to tell for the trees exactly what was going on up there my bet is on dialogue, possibly will be inserted before the walk down the hill and the hugs.  We kept seeing Jensen walking down and then they’d call cut so it seems like it’s a transition into the scene they filmed first.
As they started filming that there were about 20 fans still standing watching.  We saw Misha and Ruth where they had been before and suddenly they were walking our direction.  We saw them coming right away.   I’ve referred to the long walk to fans before, I know.  Usually that “long walk” is just a few feet.  This time, it really was a long walk.  We were quite far back from the action. 

They were both still in their character clothes and someone told me later that Misha had a laptop under his arm.  I didn’t notice.  They got closer and my reaction was to get my phone out and get ready to take some photos.  I got the camera all ready but was just holding it by my side.  They went to the biggest group of crowd and the first thing Ruthie said was that we couldn’t take any photos.  The group pulled in close around them and tried to keep quiet as they were rolling up the hill with the boys.  Misha was on my side and Ruth was on the other.  They came right in close, Misha in his Cas outfit, black jacket under trench coat and tie.  He smiled huge and said hi to everyone.  Ruthie was also happy to see the fans there and a good deal of people were pretty excited to see them.  A few fans in particular hadn’t met him before and they got very, although quietly, excited, trying to respect the quiet that was needed for filming.  I couldn’t hear what Ruth was saying on the other side but the fans that were talking to Misha were very chatty.  It felt more personal really than any other set meet I’ve experienced because of the nature of the quiet needed.  Misha was standing right in front of me, probably close enough that I could have leaned forward and butted heads with him.  And he stood for a long time because there wasn’t any movement for photos or anything. I quickly pulled out an 8x10 of him that I had taken.  I was just about to ask him but someone else started talking who hadn’t met him before and they had a chat about how important he was to her.  He said quickly after that that he had to go because he had to cross the border before 9:00 (I’m not sure why, though, NEXUS maybe? Although the border wouldn’t be that busy on a weeknight. Afraid he’s going to turn into a Canadian or something? J ) Ruthie wandered over to our side and said hello.  I was struck by her amazing makeup and how bright her mascara was.  And sparkly.  After they left and we were left cleaning up the sobbing mess that some fans were, we went back to watching them filming up the hill, what little we could see.  It didn’t take them long to finish with this location and then start pulling gear out. 

A PA came over and told us that there was one more scene and they were going to move us over there but not until they were set up.  We waited in the dark and, I’m not gonna lie, I got a little impatient.  It was obvious that we werne’t going to see anything where we were, it didn’t make sense at the time that we weren’t able to walk around the perimeter (not through the set) and see what was happening, even from the other side of the street.  I mean, we COULD, it’s a street, but I didn’t wan to anger any PA’s. 

Finally, they led us up the street to where they were shooting another location nearby. It was on a hill and shielded by trees on the other side of the graveyard. They had us on the sidewalk and we really could just see a light bounce and crew standing around.  When they were rolling, we saw Jensen walk up and stare at the lighting for his scene.  I have no idea what else happened.  I thought I might have seen Mark Sheppard but then I realized that it was a crewbie with a paddle blowing smoke around. 

We saw a whole lotta nothing, in short.  As they wrapped, though, things heated up.  Jensen disappeared into nowhere it seemed but I was standing a little way down the path they’d had the impala on earlier, about 10 feet down from the sidewalk at the park end of the line of fans standing there.  Someone emerged from the bushes.  Blonde/brown hair, long jacket on over what was unmistakably a white gown.  Mary Winchesters white gown.  I turned to my friends and got their attention asking them what they thought somewhat frantically (but quietly).  I am 99% sure that it was Samantha Smith.  She wandered out of the trees but then kind of paused for a second before a handler found her and ushered her back out of sight.  It seems maybe she took a wrong turn on her way out to her ride.  Meanwhile, I was (quietly) losing my mind.  That coupled with what we’d seen them film earlier… lets just say that if I’d seen her first I would have been a crying mess all afternoon watching the hugs.
We just kind of stood there and waited to see if anything else would materialize but as we chatted amongst ourselves and to the PA’s and everything got packed out, we realized this night was done.    

We were standing right next to the path that led to the ‘cemetery’ and there were still lots of production workers around.  Cemetery was still up; I think it was actually constructed the previous day or possibly even before that. I had heard about SPN in New West the previous Friday but I’m pretty sure that’s not where they were filming Friday.

My friends had parked near me and we had to go passed the graveyard on the way there.  We figured, since it looked like they’d packed out of the area, we could walk through.  The Impala was gone and there wasn’t any gear left, just fake graves.  The walked past the PA near us and they didn’t say anything so off we went.  Once we got up there we really stopped and had a look at the intricacies that had gone into the graves.  They were made of foam but were etched with names and sprayed, they looked very real.  Flowers and other items were placed at them.  I went over to the one that Misha had been sitting on wanting to grab a quick photo of it since they had wrapped long ago from this space, there was no one babysitting it so it couldn’t be important.  They were done filming for the night so I figured we’d be okay to snap a few photos.  SPN filming in a graveyard is certainly not news and I wouldn’t post any until after the episode anyway. 

I found the one Misha was on and took a photo of it (pics or it didn’t happen ;), and then walked up the hill using my phone flashlight to see if I could figure out what was happening up there earlier.  A few steps up there was a headstone there that made me stop cold. “Mary Winchester”.  Holy shit. 

My friends and I took a few photos of it using flash to get some nice clear photos and then crouched down behind it for a group photo.  Only Supernatural fans think ‘Hey, lets do a set-stalker group photo by a gravestone’. Lol.  We stuck around for a few more minutes enjoying the details of the set and were just about to go when a few of the PA’s that know us all came up and said we had to go.  We chatted with them for another few minutes and then took off leaving them to do their work.  They didn’t seem bothered by the fact we were there and conversation flowed as freely as it usually does.

The next day I headed to the Riverview set where I was talking to a fan and they said that some PA’s got in trouble for us being up there that night.  I was mortified to hear that.  I wouldn’t want to get anyone in trouble and it really got me worried.  All the PA’s I talked to seemed fine and I have since asked a few directly about this.  No one knows anything about anyone getting in trouble.  This made me feel way better.  I asked specifically about sharing the photos I'd taken and they all gave me the green light to share once the episode aired, so here I am.  I know there were people that had been in the same place taking photos earlier in the day and also when I arrived I could have easily gone down there.  There were a couple of fans near the Impala when I got there the first time taking photos.  I chose to go to set instead of going there.  We didn’t post or share anything at all (We’ve all sat on secrets this season all year.  We knew in February that Rowena wasn’t actually dead, we saw her on set at the church, for example) and we never would.

The next day I went to Riverview for the last location of the season.  Really not much to see there by the time I got there.  Interiors with the boys and ghosts.  Earlier there was some awesome Impala driving but I was at work.  


This is my first time really following a specific show and their filming only since I’ve been in Vancouver.  In the past I’d go to anything if it was nearby. I still feel that way but it’s been fun getting to know the crew of Supernatural and see the behind the scenes of the episode of a show that I really love.  The crew and cast are so kind and caring and fun that it’s so hard not to go out when I know where they are.  Here’s to another year upcoming and lots of good stories for you guys to read! J

Click the photo for ALL the photos! :) 

Supernatural 11x23

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