After season 8's finale left us with not one but several jaw-dropping cliffhangers and with the long summer hiatus almost coming to an end, Supernatural is less than a month away from its season 9 premiere. Based on everything that we have read and seen, let us take a look at what we can expect from the new season!

6. Exploring Men of Letters – Last season introduced the Winchesters and the audience to the Men of Letters which was an elite group of scholars who studied the supernatural, gathered arcane knowledge and stored all their information in a secret, hidden underground bunker which Dean and Sam eventually discover. They also realize that this is a whole new lineage of their family to which their paternal grandfather, Henry Winchester belonged and it has now been passed on to them as tradition demands.

From what we have gathered based on interviews with Jeremy Carver and Robert Singer, season 9 will definitely be exploring the Men of Letters concept in more detail. There will be a flashback in episode 4, “Slumber Party” which takes us back to 1935 and shows the very first two hunters who were stationed at the bunker.

5. Crowley – When we last saw the King of Hell, he was close to being cured of his demon-side by Sam. Since the ritual wasn't finished and the last trial left incomplete because of Dean, the question on most fan's minds are, 'What happens to Crowley next?'

While we don't have a lot to go on just yet, there has been confirmation that Crowley was affected by the ritual even though he did not get cured and turn human. This will definitely be something to look forward to.    

4. Angels – The last line of the season finale was, 'Angels. They're falling' spoken by Dean as he along with Sam gazed at the skies above, witnessing a magnificently vfx-scene of hundreds of angels falling from Heaven to Earth. This obviously opens up a whole new set of possible characters, factions of angels who will be finding each other and realizing that while they have most of their powers, the ability for them to return to Heaven via teleportation is not one of them.

We already know that Battlestar Galactica alum Tahmoh Penikett has been cast as Ezekiel, one of the fallen angels who has only been described as 'A dignified warrior angel injured in the Fall.' Other details have been kept under wraps for now. Whether he will prove to be an ally or an enemy is something we'll have to wait for.

3. More Castiel – At the end of season 8, we saw that Castiel had unwillingly been involved in Metatron's grand scheme of orchestrating the Fall among other things such as ultimately killing Naomi off to everyone's surprise and then proceeded to steal Castiel's grace which was the third element of his plan and rendered our favorite angel, completely and utterly human!

There has been a lot of speculating and theorizing about Castiel's character now that he has fallen and season 9 will prove that there is much to be done in regards to Cas and what is in store for him next! Not only will Castiel take some time to find his way back to the Winchester's at the bunker, but when he does so, he will be a very grumpy and discovering the new aspects of what it means to be human – eating, defecating and fornicating as Misha Collins himself has said.

2. Winchesters – Sam and Dean were more or less in a good place as brothers by the time season 8 closed but once again, it seems as if season 9 will pick up from where we left them, Sam in a very dangerously ill condition and Dean doing everything he can in his power to save his younger brother.
While we don't know the exact details of Sam's mysterious recovery, we do know that the decision/s that Dean will be making is going to cause another rift between the brothers because Dean is not going to be open about his 'secret' with Sam at the beginning and it probably will raise a few eyebrows with the audience as well. I guess after Benny and Amelia's respective storylines with the brother's there has to be something new for them to not see eye to eye on.

1. Return of old characters – Bobby is back! And so is Charlie! Showrunner Jeremy Carver has assured the fans that Bobby Singer's return will be in a surprising and unexpected way that very few people are going to see coming. Along with fan-favorite Felicia Day as Charlie Bradbury making her comeback, the fans can also expect Alaina Huffman to return as Abaddon the Knight of Hell who was last seen getting exorcised by Sam in the finale. As for the other characters like Garth and possibly Gabriel, the Trickster and Archangel, the rumors will have to do until we see whether they return or not.