“We’re delving a lot deeper into the Angel thing with Dean [MY BLOODY VALENTINE’s Jensen Ackles], finding out why the angels are after them and why the demons want him,” Padalelcki tells us. “We’ll also be figuring out why Sam is turning dark, and see him go a little darker. We’ll get to worry about Sam a little bit, which is nice, because it’s always like, ‘Sammy, he’s a good guy, don’t worry about him.’ So now the tables are turning, which is real nice to play.”

But how long will Sam steer toward the dark side? Padalecki is hoping it’s a lot longer than you would expect.“Hopefully, for the duration of the show, I’ll get to explore the bad parts of Sam,” he says. “Maybe there’ll be some redemption at the end, but I would love to go Vader.”

Appropriately enough, Padalecki reveals, SUPERNATURAL’s producers were trying to work FRIDAY THE 13TH’s Jason into the show last year, which ultimately didn’t happen—despite Padalecki being cast in the new movie. “I believe it fell apart for trademarking reasons,” the actor says. “[It was] all the clearances you have to go through to use the name Jason. Then they wanted to do a killer in the woods—make him someone like Jason without calling him that. Ultimately it boiled down to, they couldn’t find a way to put it into SUPERNATURAL’s story, whether I was doing FRIDAY THE 13TH or not.” He adds that going two different rounds against Jason might have been intriguing: “It would have been really weird, to see if I could beat him in one and lose to him in the other or beat him in both or lose to him in both,” Padalecki says. “Ultimately, I’m glad my experience with Jason was not on the series. Whereas SUPERNATURAL is my show, I’d rather be [a guest] in Jason’s show. Jason is the bossman.”

As for whether he’ll return for a future FRIDAY adventure, Padalecki reveals that he didn’t sign up for an option for a second tour of bloody duty. “I believe they tried to, but then we were like, ‘Well, you’re not going to make another [movie], and if you do, let’s figure it out from there,’ ” he says. “Because I wouldn’t want to come back as the hero. I would love to have one scene and die, and they wouldn’t want to option someone to return just to get killed. Still, if they did a sequel, I would love to be a part of it. I had a great time working with those guys; I just wouldn’t want to headline it again. I’ve told this story of Clay, it was fun and I don’t need to tell it again.”