This week’s episode of The Winchesters returned to the classic ‘monster of the week’ format and pitted the core four against Limbo the creepy clown, turning Sam Winchester’s biggest nightmare into John, Mary, Carlos and Lata’s new reality. Underlying all the horrific clown makeup in episode 12 were some deep emotions and rather harsh words exchanged between John and Mary, who were finally forced to confront their issues.
For the most part, John and Mary’s relationship has been smooth sailing since the two finally decided to start dating and ditch the ‘just friends’ label they were so insistent on keeping in the first half of the season. Supernatural fans are all too familiar with the fact that Winchesters aren’t great at handling their feelings, so John’s denial and eventual blow up at Mary didn’t come as much of a surprise.
Relationship drama aside, next week marks the end of season one and the stakes are higher for the core four than ever before. Plus, viewers finally got to see some more of Ada and explore a different side of magic with her as she finds herself in the middle of a secret witch club, where magic users can gamble with their powers. These scenes in particular were a high point of the episode because they brought back another Supernatural fan-favorite character, Rowena.
Ada and Rowena came to an agreement during the episode, trading magical items with each other to get something they both need. Ada is now in possession of the crystal that’ll help her stop the Akrida and Rowena has access to a demon, previously captured by Ada, with information about her son.
SPN fans know that the son Rowena is referring to is actually Crowley, the former King of Hell who eventually became Sam, Dean and Castiel’s best frenemy. So if The Winchesters is brought back for a second season, hopefully Rowena will return to aid the hunters with whatever monster they’ll be fighting, this time joined by everyone’s favorite demon, Crowley.
But for now, the big issue to focus on is that Ada will have to give up a piece of her own soul in order to use Rowena’s crystal and stop the Akrida queen from making it to earth. The Winchesters isn’t the first dabble with soullessness in the Supernatural-verse, and fans saw just how drastically Sam changed in season 6 of Supernatural when his soul was stuck in Hell.
Ada has offered a much different perspective on witches in the SPN universe, being a lot kinder and less selfish than a majority of the other witches viewers have met across both the prequel and the original series. Giving up a piece of her soul to stop the Akrida will have a massive impact on how her character behaves moving forward, and although the gang wasn’t going to get out of the Akrida battle unscathed, Ada will be paying a very high price to save the world.
Aside from that, a lot of the other problems the crew have been dealing with seem to be wrapping up nicely. Millie popped in at the end of episode 12 to tell John there’s a way to clear his name from Kyle’s murder, Mary and John finally had an open conversation about their problems and fears, Lata finally let go of her biggest secret, Carlos confirmed this week that he’s still going to therapy to manage his PTSD, and things are looking up for the core four.
Given that next week is the season finale, it’s unlikely that life will continue to be that way for the gang. Episode 13 will surely be the epic Akrida showdown fans have been waiting for since the beginning, so it’s going to get much worse for the characters before it starts to get better.
At the very least, it’s nice to see that all the smaller storylines woven throughout the first season have been properly integrated throughout the overarching Akrida plot. The Winchesters has consistently delivered well-written, detail-oriented episodes since the pilot aired in October 2022.
The momentum built in the first half of the season hasn’t slowed down as the final 7 episodes draw to a close, and the series has done a great job developing the characters while keeping the intrigue alive. Of course, there are still canon discrepancies that have yet to be explained, but Jensen Ackles has done a great job with the prequel thus far.
After spending so many years playing Dean Winchester, Supernatural fans should put their faith in Ackles as he continues to flush out the story of John and Mary Winchester. He’s made public promises that The Winchesters will eventually line up with the Supernatural canon in one way or another, and viewers should trust that he’ll deliver on his promise as season 1 draws to a close next week.