Supernatural: What will become of Sam and Dean’s bunker?

The Men of Letters bunker, once perfect home to Sam and Dean, has become a hunting community in Season 14, but will Dean accept its new purpose?

This week’s episode of Supernatural revealed that Dean had been lounging around in his room for a week watching horror movies, potentially feeling cramped and overwhelmed because the bunker is “full of strangers.” After Sam housed all of the hunters the brothers had saved from an apocalyptic alternative universe at the start of the season, Dean returned from his time being possessed by the Archangel Michael to find the bunker transformed into a hunter’s base, full of people he didn’t know. Is Dean going to find all the extra people living in the bunker difficult to deal with?

Back in season 8, Sam and Dean discovered that they are the sole heirs to the American strand of Men of Letters, a secret society with a goal of collecting information about the supernatural. They therefore inherited one of the last secure bunkers and made the space their home. A safe place to wind down at the end of the day was something the brothers had never really had before, having been moving around the country ever since they were kids. So, the bunker was something comforting and secure Sam and Dean could latch on to and use as support, practically and mentally.

Since finding the bunker, the boys have had many lodgers staying with them, including the prophet Kevin Tran, their mother Mary, Castiel, and even Lucifer himself. However, everyone the brothers have invited in have been important to them or, in the case of prisoners like when they had Crowley locked up in their dungeon, a useful means of information. After teleporting a group of hunters from a terrible alternate reality to their own universe, the hunters, including an alternative version of Bobby Singer, Sam and Dean’s surrogate father figure, have made themselves at home in the bunker. Using the range of information in the Men of Letter’s library and having a place to stock up on tools and weapons for hunting trips, the bunker seems the perfect place for a hunting community to arise. However, is Dean happy with it?

This week’s episode, “Mint Condition,” showed that Dean felt a bit lost and unsure about the multitudes of people in his house, calling them “strangers” rather than hunters, and, after Sam talks to one of the guys called Riley on the phone, Dean remarks coldly, “I don’t know who Riley is, but cool.”

Dean has always been a very distant and independent character, willing to sacrifice everything for those who he loves and cares about, but ultimately treating anybody else as less important and being blunt or unfriendly to strangers. Sam has always been a more caring character and, after losing Dean to Michael’s possession last season, clearly turned to the hunter group in the bunker for connections, creating relationships with them and being their “chief” and leader for when they need advice and help. Sam is willing to help out anyone, contrastingly to Dean who doesn’t even interact with the hunters, choosing to stay in his room all week instead.

Dean may feel a little bit of jealousy here because he and Sam have always been alone, aside from the few friends they have allowed into their lives like Castiel and Jack. To see Sam get on so well with other people who he just doesn’t have that connection with, might be difficult for the elder Winchester. Dean being the oldest, he might find it strange that Sam is the one in charge, and being the one making the decisions.

The dynamics in the bunker have definitely changed. Once a cozy home where Sam and Dean could have alone time and get away from their hunting life, it is now brimming with people and noise and hunting. If Dean wanted to take some time to himself to try and forget about what Michael did to him, he might find it difficult when there are reminders everywhere he looks. Will Dean finally break and kick all of the hunters out of his home, or will he eventually come to terms with their house being a hunter motel? It’s safe to say that, despite battling the worst monsters out there, opening his heart and his home to strangers might be the biggest challenge Dean has ever had to face.

Do you like the new inhabitants of the bunker, or do you prefer it when it’s just Sam and Dean’s home? Let us know in the comments!