Instead, it’s “about the Walker family and the families that aren’t just simply blood,” star Jared Padalecki said during a recent panel for the series.

Despite those similarities and more — Cordell also shares a complex relationship with his younger brother Liam (played by Pretty Little Liars‘ Keegan Allen), much like Padalecki’s Supernatural alter ego did with big bro Dean — the two characters could not be further apart, making the transition from Winchester to Walker an easier one for Padalecki.

“This version of Walker is so crystal clear and different than Sam Winchester that I’d have to try really hard to kind of bleed the two together,” Padalecki said.

“It was a lot of work, but it was a seamless change from 15 years on Supernatural as Sam Winchester to the next 15 years on Walker as Cordell Walker.”.

After reading a story about “a law enforcement agent who couldn’t bring themselves, simply put, to put a three-year-old in the cage and take them away from their parents… that empathy and that emotion struck me as something,” Padalecki shared.

In keeping with that thinking, “our Walker is not simply a story of law enforcement,” Padalecki emphasized