Bobby and Rufus reunite in exclusive Supernatural sneak peek

Sam and Dean Winchester might be two of the best hunters the world’s ever seen, but they are by no means the first duo to make a difference. And in this week’s episode, fans will get a glimpse at how another of Supernatural’s great duos once worked together: Rufus and Bobby.

When Sam and Dean come across a ghost, they turn to Bobby’s journals for guidance seeing as how Bobby and Rufus hunted that same ghost years before. More specifically, Rufus called Bobby in for help on the case around season 4, just as angels and the threat of the apocalpyse were becoming a thing.

“It’s supposed to be two grumpy old men,” Steven Williams tells EW of the Rufus-Bobby dynamic. “It’s like a love-hate relationship. It’s like a bromance with a fist fight in the middle of it,” he adds, laughing.

In an exclusive clip from the episode, fans get a glimpse at the return of that dynamic as Rufus takes a very Rufus-esque approach when it comes to dealing with a nosey neighbor. But that’s only the beginning of the case, and as Williams puts it, if Sam and Dean are fighting the same ghost seven years later, “Obviously we didn’t do a very good job, whatever it was we did.”

Overall, however, Williams says he loved returning to the Bobby-Rufus relationship. “Rufus was kind of a mentor [to Bobby]. I like to think Rufus is a little bit lighter because Jim [Beaver] was doing grumpy old man so well that I’m not going to try and match this cat doing grumpy old man, I’m just going to be a person who annoys the hell out of him,” he says with a laugh, adding, “I think that’s what it is, like hunter and pest.” 

As for his time as Rufus, Williams says the character “has a certain richness that I like. I love the action-adventure stuff. It has the comedy to it. He’s a tough guy [but] he’s kind of a softie and he’s got some tragedy in him because he’s had a few losses during his course of hunting. There’s so much more to be said and written about the character that I hope the writers will take a look at.”

Supernatural returns Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET on The CW.