The words, “Dad’s on a hunting trip, and he hasn’t been home in a few days,” have haunted me since my brain was only half-formed. At 12, I filled pages with Dean Winchester’s one-liners during class, which somehow made me more focused. Maybe, but maybe not (ask my report cards).
The Winchester brothers, Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles), raised a generation on Thursday nights — and then another on Netflix. Every year, I paced with fellow fans for renewal news, until season 4,…