Charisma Carpenter & James Marsters’ Supernatural Cameos Explained

Actors Charisma Carpenter and James Marsters both played vital roles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but would later cross paths on Supernatural. That’s not entirely surprising, as Supernatural featured lots of actors from prior genre shows, many of which helped pave the way for Supernatural‘s blend of creepy horror, scary monsters, constant apocalypses to avert and witty banter between the leads. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spinoff Angel – along with shows like The X-Files – were definite precursors to Supernatural‘s 15-season run.

The X-Files especially saw lots of crossover into Supernatural land, most notably with Steven Williams (Mulder’s gruff informant X) playing hunter Rufus or Mitch Pileggi (Mulder and Scully’s boss Walter Skinner) playing none other than Sam and Dean’s resurrected grandfather Samuel Campbell. While Sarah Michelle Gellar never strutted her way onto the Supernatural set, Buffy actors such as Amber “Tara” Benson, Amy “Fred” Acker, and Julie Benz all showed up in guest roles.

The biggest names to make the journey from the Buffy-verse over to Supernatural though were definitely Carpenter and Marsters. Carpenter played the title character’s rival turned friend Cordelia Chase on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and later made the jump to Angel‘s cast. Meanwhile, Marsters became an unlikely heartthrob as Spike, a vampire who started as a villain but later became an antihero primarily due to his growing love for Buffy. Here’s where and when Carpenter and Marsters stepped into Supernatural territory.

Marsters and Carpenter guest-starred on Supernatural in the season 7 episode “Shut Up, Dr. Phil.” It’s a “monster of the week” story and not one that figures into the show’s main mythology arc very much. Buffy’s James Marsters and Charisma Carpenter play a pair of married witches, Donald and Maggie Stark. They’re both hundreds of years old, and in that time, have naturally accrued their fair share of marital problems. Unfortunately, the episode sees their issues boil over as Don has been unfaithful, and Maggie is taking her anger about that out on the town they call home.

Sam and Dean get caught in the crossfire and nearly killed by the powerful witch duo. Don and Maggie do eventually work things out though, sparing the Winchesters. Don even shows up near the end of the episode to prevent a Leviathan monster that had been tracking Sam and Dean from taking them out. The door is seemingly left open for further appearances from Marsters and Carpenter as the Starks, but “Shut Up, Dr Phil” would be their only appearance on Supernatural. Still, it was a treat for Buffy and Angel fans to see the former co-stars share the screen once again, especially as equally powerful villains.

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