By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues
SPOILERS AHEAD
copyright CW
As much as I’VE enjoyed the first season of The Winchesters, I couldn’t help but listen to the niggling voice in the back of my head.
Young John Winchester and Mary Campbell working side by side battling demons and monsters just like their sons? That sounds great and we will get to learn more of the Winchester’s story from the beginning. There’s a slight problem with this the voice kept saying as I tested my memory by doing a bit of googling. Sure enough, I was right.
This never happened.
In the parent show Supernatural, Dean is sent back in time to 1973 by angel Castiel in season 4 episode 3 In The Beginning.
There he meets his parents. Dean persuades his father to buy the Impala and discovers that his mother Mary has kept her future husband in the dark about her hunting life. Dean also gets to meet the surly Samuel Campbell, his grandfather and his sweet grandmother. However by the end of that episode both his grandparents are dead and Mary has been forced to make a deal with the Yellow Eyed Demon to bring John back from the dead. However all she has done is set in motion the future and her own death despite Dean’s attempts to persuade her otherwise. This has all been a plan by the angels for Dean to find the Colt; the only weapon that can kill Lucifer.
In a direct sequel to In the Beginning, both Sam and Dean and a weakened Castiel travel back in time to stop vengeful angel Anna Hilton from murdering the Winchesters. If that happens they will be able to erase Sam and Dean from ever being born and Lucifer will not rise.
In this episode Mary and John are living a supernatural free life but the angels soon bring them back into it. It is only now in this episode that John discovers the world of the supernatural and that Mary is a hunter. He gives himself to Archangel Michael who stops Anna and wipes Mary and John’s minds of all that happened returning Sam, Dean and Castiel back to the present.
It is further established that when Mary is killed by the Yellow Eyed demon, John discovers the world of the hinters at that point and becomes one to avenge his wife. This action sets Dean and Sam on the path they were always destined to walk.
So how then could the Winchesters series possibly be correct given the history established in Supernatural?
Each episode is narrated by Dean who tells us he is piecing together the story of his parents’ life together and there may be a few surprises along the way.
Are we looking at a previously unknown genesis for The Winchesters that Dean has discovered? Now all this narration had to occur before Dean’s death in the series finale but what has he discovered and did Sam know?
The answer may well have been mentioned in the series already when, as almost a throwaway line, there is mention of a spell that can wipe anyone’s mind. Could this seemingly harmless line be how John has no recollection of his years as a monster fighter? Indeed in the 300th episode Lebanon, it is unclear whether John knows about the Men of Letters or is he just processing what Dean andd Sam have told him given they now live in the Men of Letters bunker at that point. Mary is fully aware of her hunter past and presumably is keeping John’s past a secret from him too. So will the series have a limited shelf life with some major cataclysm causing the spell to be invoked and John to be the John we meet in the Supernatural series?
We have already seen two old familiar characters return to the show; Archangel Gabriel in the guise of the Trickster Loki and the witch Rowena, mother of Crowley. Right now anything is possible in the show. There is talk of a Spiderman No Way Home crossover where all three versions of John will meet.
Which should have tipped me off to what the viewers were actually watching. In the season finale Dean himself turns up and it is revealed that it was he who gave John the letter from his father. In effect Dean has seemingly changed histroy. In our Supernatural John beleived hs father ran away and abandoned him. Dean shared this hatred of his grandfather when they met in the parent series. By delivering the letter Dean ensures that John knows that his father never left him intentionally and how much he loved him. A mystery that haunted and tortured John Winchester for years is nipped in the bud freeing up at least part of the pain that filtered into Dean and Sam’s lives.
However it is much bigger than that as we discover this version of Dean is the one that died in the series finale and is in heaven. We saw Dean find the Impala in heaven and drive off. He reveals he found himself able to visit multiple universes and that this John and Mary are not his parents.
We are in a totally different unoverse.
Bobby Singer is with Dean and they have nudged events here to help the Monster Club stop the Akrida. It is revealed that God created the Akrida to wipe every universe out in the event Dean and Sam stopped (Chuck) God somehow. The new God Jack appears scolding Dean but he argues that he had no choice but to intervene. If the Akroda were not stopped here then their universe where Sam is alone would have fallen too. All Dean was looking for was a universe where his family had a happy ending. It seems this one is the closest he could find. He hands John his journal to help him in the battles ahead but Dean is content that not only are his parents together and in love but they now have an advantage our John and Mary never had.
While this is a lovely and touching scene, it feels flat to me. It is great to see Dean, Jack and Bobby again and wish they could stay longer for a couple of episodes but the whole multiverse thing is now becoming stale. I feel it would have been much better if they had taken the hidden history route with an impending tragedy where John would have his memory of monsters wiped so it dovetailed into established history.
As it is now we get a whole new history but the question is would this John and Mary really bring kids into this life? Will Sam and Dean ever be born in this reality?
While my instincts may have been right about the discrepancies, at the end of the day it was probably the only way to go without being tied down by established history. Now we have a whole new future to unfold bringing a whole new slurry of enemies. But will Mary listen to Dean’s warning and kill the Yellow Eyed Demon before he destroys their lives like he did before?
Now we have a whole new road to travel.
The Time Warriors and Beyond 