Supernatural Season 8 kicked off last night with Sam and Dean reuniting after a year apart in “We Need to Talk About Kevin.” While Dean was fighting his way through Purgatory, Sam was living a normal life – with a girl and a dog.

Last week, TV Fanatic headed to Vancouver (trip provided by Warner Bros TV) to visit the Supernatural set and get the scoop on the upcoming season from Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins.

At the end of a very long day, Padalecki sat down with a beer in hand to talk with us.

The brothers being separated is nothing new to Supernatural, but this time Sam, left all alone, decided to leave the hunter life behind. Jared explains why:

If you think you have it bad, check out Supernaturalwhere the poor Winchesters just can’t catch a break. In tonight’s episode (The CW, 9/8c), Dean gets promiscuous with the wrong person, leaving Sam to try to save his brother’s life. And there’s even more trouble ahead, star Jared Padalecki tells TVLine, including the return of the younger Winchester’s hallucination problem, the emergence of a hellbent-on-revenge Dean and the deeply felt loss of Cas and Bobby.

Padalecki also opens up about the possibility of returning for an eighth season, and what he’d like to see explored.

TVLINE | How has it been for you as actors having lost Castiel (Misha Collins) at the beginning of the season, and now having lost Bobby (Jim Beaver) as well?
As actors, it’s been great to explore those intense feelings of loss and regret and resentment; it’s been a nice acting exercise, so to speak. But as Jared and Jensen, it sucks because we love Jim — love, love, love him. We love Misha. They’re great people off-set, and they’re awesome actors on set. They add to the show quite a bit and, selfishly, I like having them around because they help propel the storyline. They add more dimensions just by nature of being two different people. But I understand how [losing them] makes for good television and good storytelling.

Jared Padalecki took a break from filming season seven of Supernatural to fly down to San Diego for Comic-Con. Check out what he has to say about the upcoming season and the many incarnations of Sam over the years he has played the character.

What can you spoil for us for next season?

Jared Padalecki: Simply put, nothing. But on a real note, I think season six was pretty different — obviously, being soulless and coming back and Dean being with Lisa and Ben. This season is kind of our return to season one. It is not a return to square one. It is not wipe the slate clean and who are these guys and I want to go back to law school, but it is like we are doing our bread and butter — our monster of the week thing. I don`t think of this as season seven. I think of it as episode 128. On that note, Sam and Dean have grown so much. But they are in a different spot than they were in season one and now they are doing it because like they know they need to. Then it was: Well, Dad wants this. There is a demon that did something and what are angels? Now Sam and Dean, with the knowledge they have, are much wiser and they are carrying forth to do what they started 128 episodes ago.