Supernatural Spinoff The Winchesters Poster Released by The CW

05/19/2022 12:14 pm EDT

The world of Supernatural is finally back on The CW — and we have our first look at what that will entail. On Thursday, during the network's Upfronts presentation, fans were treated to the first poster for the show's upcoming spinoff series, The Winchesters. The Winchesters will recount the epic, untold love story of how John met Mary and how they put it all on the line to not only save their love, but the entire world. The series will star The In Between's Drake Rodger as John, and American Housewife's Meg Donnelly as Mary. The cast will also include Legacies alum Bianca Kajlich as John's mom, Mary, as well as Jensen Ackles, who returns to his Supernatural role of Dean Winchester as the series' narrator, and also executive produces the series.

The series dives into the origin story of John and Mary Winchester, in a story narrated by their adult son, Supernatural's Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles). Ackles, who also executive produces the series, recently spoke to TVLine about what fans can expect, especially after John and Mary's story was first explored in a Season 4 episode of Supernatural. As Ackles put it, the series will allow for connections to established Supernatural lore in "much crazier ways."

"To be honest, I was like, 'I don't know if we can do this,'" Ackles revealed, "and then it took [writer] Robbie [Thompson] and me sitting down going like, 'Well, we know we have to do this, and we know we have to do that, but if we just connect those dots with a straight line, that's not entertaining. That's boring. That's a simple story. If we connect those dots in a much crazier, wild Supernatural way, then we've got a show.' So that's what we've been doing."

According to Ackles, the canon that has already been established with John and Mary — particularly their lineage as members of the Men of Letters and a family of monster hunters — will be navigated to a unique capacity in The Winchesters.

"That's kind of the exciting thing, in my opinion, is that the waypoints or the tentpoles that were established on the mothership, as we lovingly call it, those will get touched on," Ackles added. "But we'll get to those waypoints in a way that we probably didn't expect. And that's what we're really having fun with is, like, the story is coming together. It's not the washed version. It's not the sugar-coated version of how mom and dad met. This is like what really happened."

"But we do play into the moments that were discussed and that were talked about," Ackles continues, "just maybe in a slightly varied way that seems like, 'Whoa, wait, we knew that happened, but I didn't know that's why it happened or that's how it happened.'"

Disclosure: ComicBook is owned by CBS Interactive, a division of Paramount. Sign up for Paramount+ by clicking here.