Warning: Major SPOILERS lie ahead for The Boys season 5, episode 5, “One-Shots”!

After plenty of anticipation, The Boys season 5 has finally brought Jensen Ackles, Misha Collins, and Jared Padalecki back together on screen, and fans weren’t the only ones excited.

Ackles became one of the first of Supernatural‘s main cast roster to reteam with creator Eric Kripke for his adaptation of Garth Ennis’ graphic novels, playing thought-to-be-dead Supe, Soldier Boy. Notably absent from season 4, The Boys season 5 saw Soldier Boy return, awakened by Homelander from cryostasis to hunt down Butcher and the titular group. Their efforts eventually brought them to Los Angeles, where they met former Seven members Mister Marathon, played by Padalecki, and Super-Duper’s Malchemical, played by Collins.

In honor of the episode’s airing, ScreenRant’s Liam Crowley interviewed Jensen Ackles to discuss The Boys season 5. Turning to episode 5’s highly-anticipated Supernatural reunion, the star began by likening it to having “friends that you hang out with all the time,” but subsequently “go do something that’s just amazing, and you can’t wait to share it” with said group:

Jensen Ackles: “You’re like, ‘You’ve got to come see this,’ but this is not something you would normally get to share with your friends because it’s a different job. I’m on a different show. I’m playing a different character. It’s like, ‘I wish you guys could see how fun this is and how crazy and elaborate it all is.'”

Upon Kripke finally hiring both Padalecki and Collins for roles in The Boys season 5, which Ackles likens to getting “two tickets to the show,” he was immediately excited about getting to show them the “crazy” antics that come from the Prime Video series. Once they got filming, they “had a blast” playing the very meta, semi-fictionalized versions of themselves in the world of the series, with Ackles sharing that his co-stars were “fans of the show” before joining and were thrilled they “got to be in there and see the inner workings and experience [everything] from a different perspective.”

When asked about Seth Rogen’s fictionalized version also being part of the scene, and whether the trio collaborated with him and the writers to add anything to the scene, Ackles stated, “we weren’t trying to change the character or the storyline or anything like that” in the episode. They did, however, “have some additional lines” and offered “some input on the blocking of the best way to service the stunt” at the center of Soldier Boy’s confrontation with Marathon and Malchemical, which he says “Jared and I have always been pretty good at.”

Interestingly, Ackles wasn’t the only one who was thrilled about the Supernatural reunion on the series, as he revealed “the execs were all on set” for the days he, Padalecki, and Collins filmed their The Boys season 5 scenes together, as they “wanted to come and see the spectacle.” He concluded by sharing that, in the “10 days we spent shooting that,” the creatives behind the episode offered a variety of thoughts on different jokes and dialogue lines to include, which he hopes make their way to viewers at some point:

Jensen Ackles: “I will say when they’re sitting around the table, the comedic geniuses that a lot of those guys are, they were giving so many different takes, so many different ad-lib takes. I just wish that the audience could see all eight takes because they were all brilliantly usable, but unfortunately, they couldn’t see it, but I got to see them all. And I was like front row, and I was trying my hardest not to just laugh out loud and ruin a take.”

Padalecki and Collins’ additions to The Boys cast have been a long time coming, particularly after Ackles’ casting as Soldier Boy. The Supernatural stars and Kripke frequently affirmed they would make the reunion happen at some point before the show came to a close, with the big thing being determining the best characters and narrative to bring them all together.

Fans of the previous series were sure to find themselves reminiscing about certain seasons while watching The Boys season 5, episode 5. With Homelander and Soldier Boy being antagonistic forces for Marathon and Malchemical, resulting in a brutal fight in which Ackles’ character kills Collins’, while Antony Starr’s chases down and inadvertently kills Padalecki’s, it harkens back to a few arcs in Supernatural in which Dean and Sam found themselves coming to literal blows for a variety of reasons, as well as with Castiel.

Ackles’ reveal that Prime Video and Sony execs were on set for The Boys season 5’s Supernatural reunion certainly speaks volumes for how invested they were in giving fans of the latter series what they had been hoping for. Additionally, his praise of the way many of the creatives played with different versions of the scene on the day similarly shows their understanding of writing to the trio’s strengths.

Though the show is coming to an end with its current season, The Boys season 5 won’t be the last audiences see of Ackles as Soldier Boy. The prequel series Vought Rising, exploring the origins of the eponymous organization in the 1950s, is set to release sometime in 2027 and will expand on the early days of Soldier Boy’s superhero exploits. With a second season already reported to be in pre-production, and it unclear just how far back Marathon and Malchemical have lived and worked as Supes, there’s a chance the Supernatural reunion is only just getting started for Ackles, Padalecki, and Collins.