'Supernatural' Season 8 premiere pics: Plus 5 things we know and 5 things we want to know

Here we go, "Supernatural" fans! It's almost time for the Oct. 3 premiere of Season 8. (Remember when we were afraid Season 2 wouldn't get picked up? Oh, we were so young then.) Thanks to Twitter, we've learned that today (Thursday, Sept. 13) is actually the seventh anniversary of the "Supernatural" pilot episode premiere, so it's only fitting that today, The CW finally released photos from the upcoming episode, "We Need To Talk About Kevin."

Check out all the pics below. In the meantime, here are five things we do know about the premiere episode, though most of the details are, of course, being kept under wraps.

1. Dean returns from Purgatory with the devil on his back a vampire named Benny, played by Ty Olsson. The vampire helped Dean escape from Limbo, but not without a price. "That character doesn't just go away. [He] will stick around and of course cause problems," Jensen Ackles told us. "Because Dean is indebted to this character for his exit, it makes the situation very volatile. That's how the onion gets peeled back, through this crazy relationship with this new character."

2. Sam has been leading a normal life, complete with a dog and what Jeremy Carver refers to as an "emotionally honest" relationship with a veterinarian named Amelia (Liane Balaban). He drops everything when Dean returns, but returning to his life as a hunter on a mission to save the world proves more difficult than he expected.

3. Kevin (Osric Chau) is still in the picture, and still the only one who can understand the word of God. He's the only one who can help the Winchesters find the key to closing the Gates of Hell, which will forever banish demons from the earth. Which, you know, would make the Winchester Family Business a whole lot less awful.

4. The time apart didn't exactly hurt the Winchester brothers' relationship, but it did make it considerably more complicated, as they've now learned to survive without each other -- something they never did very well before. Of course, Dean also will be conflicted over the fact that Sam didn't spend that year trying to get him back. "Like, 'Why didn't you look? We have a tacit agreement that we always break our agreement not to look?'" says executive producer Ben Edlund. "I think that too, it gets to a large philosophical issue that they need to grapple with, which is how do you live a life [when] all they've done is be at the service of a terrible crushing duty? Like, Sam actually took time out to see, again, what the world was. If you're a hero and you're losing your substance, you can't fight anymore. You don't know what you're fighting for. You're not connected with the prize in an intimate way."

5. Castiel is MIA. We'll see Misha Collins in flashbacks from Purgatory, but we won't see him in the present day in the first episode. "Where's the angel?" is an actual quote from the Season 8 premiere episode. We've confirmed that Collins is contracted to appear in at least 8 episodes this season, but there's no word yet as to whether they're all flashbacks to Purgatory, of which there will be many throughout the season.

And here are five things we want to know:

1. Why did Castiel look so sad in that shot of him crouching by the river? Sure, Purgatory doesn't look like a cakewalk, but if Dean manages to emerge with a smile on his face, it can't be that bad. (Just kidding. It can.)

2. How quickly did Sam give up on looking for Dean? To hear them tell it at Comic-Con, it sounded like Sam checked under a few tables at Dick Roman's office, shrugged, and strode out of the building to find himself a girlfriend. Obviously, that wasn't the case, so how long did it take Sam to get over his brother's absence? What were his theories, since he didn't know about Purgatory?

3. Where was Crowley hiding Kevin for the entire year that Dean was away? Since Kevin and Crowley likely would've been Sam's only leads toward finding Dean -- assuming that nothing in Bobby's or Rufus' library would work -- we know they've been missing in action. Wherever they were, they clearly had a barber, because Kevin's new haircut is so GQ. So what's the deal?

4. How does Bobby factor in? Jim Beaver was promoting Season 8 at this year's Comic-Con, so we know that he's got to play some part in the season -- Warner Bros. wouldn't just pay for his ticket to San Diego for no reason! His bones and his flask were burned, and we assumed we'd seen the last of his ghostly visage.

5. And most importantly... what did Sam name his dog? This is a serious matter.

Tune in Oct. 3 at 9 p.m. EST for the Season 8 premiere, "We Need To Talk About Kevin."