Eric Kripke Explains Why Supernatural Didn’t Imitate Lost: No Appetite for Endless Mythology
Fifteen seasons, zero chaos: Supernatural kept its mysteries grounded—by design, not luck. Showrunner Eric Kripke breaks down the blueprint that kept the Winchesters’ saga tight and tangible in a candid sit-down with The Futon Critic.
Supernatural ran for 15 seasons, which sounds like a recipe for lore overload. But the show never felt like a maze of unsolved puzzles, and that was very much the point. Creator Eric Kripke built it to close doors, not keep opening new ones forever. If that ethos feels familiar when you watch The Boys, it should.
Closure, not endless lore
"It’s a personal preference of mine, my own taste. I think 'Lost' is a terrific show but personally my own taste isn’t to have endless mythology. Because the answers are never going to be satisfying at the end of the day, I promise you. It’s so hard to go season after season after season with a mystery and then provide an answer that’s going to be satisfying."
That’s Kripke talking to The Futon Critic about why Supernatural’s mysteries always had lanes, not labyrinths. The show leaned into monsters, urban legends, and faith vs. fate, but it did it with guardrails. That grounded vibe - call it grounded surrealism - is a big reason people stuck with Sam and Dean for a decade and a half.
It was never mapped for 15 seasons
Kripke has said he didn’t plan every beat from day one, and that lack of a full road map sometimes made the job harder. In The Hollywood Reporter, he pushed back on the idea that Supernatural was neatly built for exactly five seasons, while also making it clear he never expected it to run as long as it did.
The truth is more practical: Supernatural wasn’t an expensive show, it did just well enough to stay out of the red, and that was enough to keep lights on. When it premiered, The CW was the home of Gossip Girl and 90210, and Supernatural felt like the odd goth kid in the back row. By the time the Winchesters said goodbye, the network had fully leaned into genre. Meanwhile, the industry shifted the other way: the current mandate is big, pricey tentpoles - think The Boys, Fallout, and House of the Dragon.
The blessing and the bloat
Fifteen seasons is a flex and a trap. The show’s longevity built a unique little TV ecosystem, but in the later years you could feel the stretch. Some arcs spun their wheels, audience heat cooled, and the run started to feel more like endurance than momentum. Win and warning, all in one.
The Boys is the same instinct turned up to 11
Kripke’s other hit takes superheroes and treats them like media-managed celebrities with corporate bosses, political agendas, and very human rot. It’s stylized and outrageous, but the ideas are painfully real: power, profit, control, and the cost of loyalty. The protagonists aren’t noble saviors so much as broken people trying to choose the least-worst path. And just like the Winchesters, the emotional core is family, loyalty, and messy moral calculus.
Kripke knows the danger of staying too long at the party - he’s said as much about not chasing endless mythology. The Boys borrows the best of Supernatural’s grounded weirdness, but whether it avoids the late-stage bloat is the big question. We’ll see.
- The Boys - Showrunner: Eric Kripke - Seasons: 4 - Where to watch: Prime Video - Main cast: Karl Urban, Antony Starr, Jack Quaid, Erin Moriarty, Jensen Ackles - IMDb: 8.6/10
Supernatural is streaming on Netflix in the US.
Do you think The Boys really does the Supernatural thing, just meaner and messier? Drop your take below.