I wrote this essay in the middle of Season 3 for a contest for inclusion in the book In the Hunt: Unauthorized Essays on Supernatural (SmartPop series). My essay was not chosen, but it was a finalist-my name is listed in the book-and since then a couple of people have asked me to share it. I'm long overdue, but here it is for anyone interested. You can decide for yourself if the parallels I drew have held up in the many seasons since. -KHK
The Family Business
Families in Supernatural
"Underneath it all, this has always been a story about family," Eric Kripke has said repeatedly of the show he created. Supernatural is about American folklore and fighting monsters and two blue-collar guys on a road trip, but anyone tuning into the show quickly realizes that at its heart, the show is about two brothers and a family legacy. The death of their mother propels them and their father into the hunting life. The younger brother's rejection of that life leads to a rift between him and his remaining family. The disappearance of their father is the catalyst for older brother to go find the younger, who rejoins the hunt when his own lover is killed. And their father's death leads to the brothers' rededication to the family business, culminating in one brother trading his soul for the other's life. Every major step along the characters' journey is motivated by family loyalty, history, and love.
The Winchesters are not the only family in Supernatural, however. Due to the transitory nature of the hunting life, the main characters find themselves in a new town each week, dealing with new people, both victims and perpetrators. Many of these guest-stars-of-the-week are, in turn, families themselves: couples, siblings, and parents with children. Naturally, they play their necessary parts in that episode's story, situations that are often metaphors for what the Winchesters are going through at the moment.
But the guest characters themselves and the families they portray are also often reflections, either positive or negative, of the current state of the Winchesters. Through these other families, we see depictions of healthy and unhealthy family life, of how family can hurt and heal, and, vicariously, judgments on recent events and choices in the Winchesters' lives. When they're better, the families they come across are depicted more positively. Conversely, when the Winchesters are in full dysfunction, other families mirror their negatives. In these side relationships, therefore, we can gauge how the hunters are functioning, how healthy their own family dynamic is, and whether they've acted and chosen wisely—or not. Deliberately or as an innate byproduct of the Winchesters' arc, families in the show reflect The Family.
Season one's theme can be summed up as the struggle to reunite family. Dean comes to get Sam at school because Dad is missing. Sam goes with him because he's lost his lover. They finally find Dad, only to wrenchingly nearly lose him again, all while Sam plans to rejoin his classmates and Dean just longs for them all to be a family once more. The brothers are clearly meant to be together, both for physical protection and emotional well-being, and as danger closes in on their family and John needs help, their search for him is obviously a good thing. It is no coincidence that one of the last lines of the season is Sam's statement that "not everything" comes before killing the demon. The implication is that family comes first. It is a strength in this season, a source of safety and fulfillment to be wished and fought for.
It is therefore not surprising that the families the Winchesters meet in season one are also shown in an overwhelmingly positive light. In Wendigo, the first episode after Sam has returned to hunting and the search for Dad, several hikers have gone missing. One, Tommy, is a brother whose two siblings are worried about him. Haley, the eldest, insists on going to look for him, and while Sam protests that they shouldn't be allowing civilians on a hunt, Dean merely says, "I think I know how you feel." Dean repeatedly connects with Haley throughout the episode, and in the end, it is Haley's tenaciousness that leads to Tommy's rescue.
In the following episode, Dead in the Water, Dean again bonds with a victim, this time a boy who has lost his father. The boy is clearly traumatized by the loss, something Dean knows from the experience of losing his mother. It is their link that saves the boy's mother, Andrea, who in turn gets through to her father in time to avoid further tragedy. Andrea is also the first of many positive depictions we see in the show of mothers, especially single mothers, mirroring the Winchester brothers' adulation of their own mother.
Hookman is the first mixed portrayal of a family. In it, Laurie turns out to be the summoner of the Hookman thanks to her strict upbringing by her father. While a still-mourning Sam struggles with betraying his dead lover with his desire for Laurie, her father's betrayal of his own beliefs nearly leads to his death at the hands of Laurie's manifestation. The parallels are obvious, as is the lesson: Laurie and her father made some mistakes, but they love each other and their lapses can be forgiven. Sam leaves Laurie, but for the first time, Dean offers to stay in one place longer for his brother's sake.
In Bugs, the analogous parent-child relationship is even more obvious. Matt's father believes him to be a troublemaker and doesn't listen to him, even when Matt is concerned about what becomes a real danger to his family. His frustration leads to Sam consoling him that in two years, he can "get out of that house and away from your dad." Dean counters with, "Kid should stick with his family." Sam later reveals that he believes their dad was disappointed in him, but Dean tells him their dad loved and was worried about him. Eventually, Matt's dad realizes his son was right, and after their family faces the threat together, father and son's relationship is restored. In the end, Sam repeats his desire to find his dad, saying he wants to apologize. More than one father has been redeemed.
Scarecrow contains the first truly destructive family relationship we see. Emily loves her aunt and uncle, but they end up offering her in sacrifice to appease a god for a nebulous "good of the many." Emily's hurt and bewilderment quickly turn to hatred, and she is the one who sets fire to the tree the god is bound to. However, this betrayal of family is contrasted sharply with the Winchesters. While Sam takes off on Dean early in the episode, his worry for his brother leads him to return at a key moment to save Dean. It is the superficially loving family that is shown to be rotten to the core, not the sometimes fractious Winchesters, who are there for each other when it counts.
There are a few other negative family portrayals in the season. The LeGranges in Faith love each other deeply, but the love becomes twisted when it leads the wife to kill in order to save her husband. The Benders in their eponymous episode are the ultimate perverted family, inbreeding and passing down murder as a family tradition through generations. And the Millers have so abused their son throughout his childhood that when he develops telekinetic powers, he begins to kill the adults one by one.
Each in its own way, however, serves to depict the true strengths and benefits of family. Sue Ann LeGrange will stop at nothing to restore her husband to health just as Sam vows to do for his stricken brother; it is with understanding that Dean realizes, "[she was] desperate. Her husband was dying." The Benders are loyal to and protective of family, and are father-and-sons hunters, like a dark version of the Winchesters. Jim Miller is another example of what might have been, as, after losing his wife the same way John Winchester did, he turned to alcohol and beatings instead of hunting, driving his son to murder. Clearly, it is not the family bond that is to blame here, but rather its corruption.
These unfavorable portrayals are the exception in this season rather than the norm, however. Along with the Benders and the Millers, we have Jenny in Home, who protects her children as fiercely as Mary Winchester ends up doing her own, or the Robinsons of Route 666, who've kept a dark secret to protect their family and whose daughter ends up saving her mother by swallowing her pride and going to the Winchesters for help. It is another fraternal bond in Something Wicked that leads to the death of a creature that has preyed on children for decades, and which reveals a new layer and motivation of his brother to Sam. Even in the demon world, we see a strong familial bond: demon Meg does what she does "for the same reasons you do what you do. Loyalty. Love." Their family's machinations nearly bring down the Winchesters at the end of the season, but John fights for his sons, Sam refuses to kill his demon-possessed father, and it's Dean's bloody face he looks at when he declares that not everything comes before vengeance. Family is first.
The season ends on the ambiguous note of the car crash, leaving the fate of the Winchesters uncertain. But the theme, the message of the season is clear: family is the most important thing and a strength. Every other family we see on the show confirms it.
Second season is, in many ways, the dark opposite of season one. While the first year was about the strength of family unity, year two shows how it's also one's greatest weakness. In the first episode of the season, In My Time of Dying, while Sam tells a comatose Dean they're "just learning to be brothers again," he butts heads with John at every turn. John ends up trading his life for Dean's, dying without leaving Sam any closure and after burdening Dean with the revelation he might have to kill his brother if he cannot save him from an unnamed threat. These issues permeate the entire second year, as Dean's despair and guilt blur the line between hunting and killing and has him considering trading his own soul for his father, and Sam struggles to make sense of his father's vague warnings about his destiny. The season of loss and fear culminates in Sam's death and Dean's sacrificing himself to bring his brother back, just as his father did for him. The family's love and devotion has become its Achilles' heel.
Not surprisingly, the families the brothers meet in season two reflect this change. While first season showed a mostly positive depiction of families, second season's relationships are overwhelmingly negative. Basically, we're told that families sometimes suck, and when they do, they can destroy you.
The villain of the second episode of the year, Everybody Loves a Clown, is a rhakshasa, an Indian shapeshifter that devours its victims while they sleep but can only come into a house when invited. This one, therefore, takes the form of a clown to trick children into bringing it into their homes to kill their parents. The adults are therefore indirectly killed by their own children, a painful parallel to Dean and John.
In the next episode, Bloodlust, another hunter, Gordon Walker, is introduced. We soon learn Gordon was also initiated into the hunting life through the death of a family member. At first, he and a grieving Dean bond as, Sam accuses, Gordon becomes a "substitute for Dad." It comes out later, however, that Gordon killed his vampire sister as ruthlessly as he does anything supernatural, whether they're evil or not. Unlike the Winchesters, who channeled grief into helping others, Gordon follows Jim Miller's path, the murder of a loved one turning him sadistic and amoral. A path John's death seems to have also started Dean on.
The grief-stricken father in Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things is perhaps the most positive family figure we see all season, although he is clearly shattered by his daughter's death, to the point that Dean suspects him of necromancy. The man turns out to be innocent, but not before his brokenness resonates with Dean. That, and Sam's pleas that Dean is all Sam has left, lead Dean to confess his guilt over their father's death: "I was dead, and I should have stayed dead." Sam is speechless and unable to comfort his brother.
The brothers in Simon Said are among the most pointed examples of family-gone-bad. While Andy turns out to be an affable loser, the murders the Winchesters suspected him of turn out to be the work of Andy's evil twin, Anson. In a twisted case of fraternal devotion, Anson had been killing those he feels responsible for separating him and his brother, hoping to win Andy over in the process. Andy ends up having to shoot his brother to keep Anson from killing again. The family bond has once more led to violence.
Crossroad Blues provides us with a man who sells his soul to save his wife, a callback to John's pact and a foreshadowing of Dean's. In Croatoan, family is once again fatal as Tanner father and son tie down Mrs. Tanner and infect her with a demonic virus. Playthings introduces another dangerous child, this one nearly leading to her mother's death through her hidden bond with a malicious spirit. While the single mother is also shown in a positive light, her attempts to save her daughter prove weak and ineffective.
Meanwhile, we learn a little more about the family life of another hunting family: the Harvelles. Ellen's love for her daughter, Jo, does not keep Jo from running away and taking on a dangerous hunt with the Winchesters. It turns out this bothers Ellen not just because she fears for her daughter's safety, but because she blames John Winchester for her husband's death. The sins of the father just keep on revisiting themselves on the sons.
Born Under a Bad Sign turns the Winchesters' bond against them as a possessed Sam first pushes Dean to kill him, then shoots his brother. It is only Dean's tenacity that saves his sibling, although both men are left bleeding and reeling at the end. Then in Tall Tales, they are again the family at odds, this time turned against each other by a trickster's game. Interestingly, it takes Bobby, a father figure but not a blood relative, to help them figure things out and fix them in both episodes. Family, real and adopted, can still be a positive force when it applies itself correctly, but the pattern of broken and twisted families continues.
Roadkill is about another spouse driven to torture and murder through loss, while his widowed wife hung herself in her grief, and a spirit who can only break the deadly cycle by letting go of her husband. And Heart, while not about true family, is one of the most poignant examples of the anguish love brings, as Sam is forced to kill a werewolf-bitten woman he's come to care for.
The last episode of the season before the finale's arc is all about family. In What Is And What Should Never Be, Dean is thrown into a fantasy world in which his family is intact and happy. He knows something is wrong, but the longing is so strong for the dream, he ignores the warning signs as long as he can. Finally, after a talk with his dead father, he rejects the illusory loved ones who want to lull him to his death and returns to a frantic Sam. The decision was clearly the right one: the djinn's wish-family was a trap, the ultimate family-as-weakness. But one cannot help feel the drabness of the reality Dean's returned to after leaving the color-drenched, love-filled fantasy. "It's still better than anything you had," the fake Mary says, and we cannot disagree.
All Hell Breaks Loose finishes out the season with the death of Sam and Dean's subsequent trade of his soul for his brother's life. Following his father's example, Dean's greatest strength has become his greatest weakness, and it, in theory, has led to his death. The season ends with Sam horrified to learn what his brother has done and vowing to save him, Dean's loss therefore becoming his own. For the moment, they're alive and victorious, but ultimately, family has cost them everything.
At the time of this writing, season three remains unfinished, Dean's deal and Sam's destiny up in the air. Based on the families we've seen depicted in the season so far, however, the theme for the year seems to be that the same thing that hurts you can also save you. Dean's love for Sam made him offer up his soul. Sam's love for Dean has him pulling out all the stops to rescue him, skirting darkness to do so. From being the Winchesters' strength to becoming their weakness, perhaps by the end of the season, their family will come full circle and become their saving grace.
The Magnificent Seven introduces the first husband-and-wife hunters we've met. Isaac and Tamara also turned their grief into something constructive, and they are clearly an intelligent and loving couple. Isaac's subsequent murder drives Tamara to recklessness, but the Winchesters help her channel her loss into the fight. Sam wonders if she'll be all right, to which Dean's answer is, "No. Definitely not," but this is the reality of death without deals or second chances. It's still painful.
The changelings in the episode, The Kids Are Alright, masquerade as children to feed off unwary parents. But the real kids are innocent and trapped, and the boy Dean suspects may be his own, Ben, helps free them. While parents are briefly turned against their monster children, including a wrenching scene where a mother tries to drown her daughter, ultimately the family bond is reaffirmed, kids returning to their worried parents. Lisa, Ben's mom and another admirable single mother, tempts Dean with "You're welcome to stay" afterward, and he clearly longs to accept. But knowing he would only be leaving them soon, Dean reluctantly turns his back once more on the dream of family, a real and healthy one this time.
Sin City and Fresh Blood depict two very dark forms of "family," a committed pair of demons who've been together for centuries, and a lonely vampire who only wishes to add to his nest so he has company for eternity. The Winchesters are contrasted against these quasi-families, a partnership that has been "to hell and back, literally," and another who will pay any price not to be alone. Neither is shown as good, offering warnings of what the Winchesters might still become…but they are not there yet. There is a sense of urgency, but also time and hope, as Sam comes to the rescue and Dean rediscovers how to be a big brother.
The family of Bedtime Stories offers a story of redemption that mirrors the Winchesters' own. The father has inadvertently been pushing his comatose daughter to murder in an attempt to communicate and relieve her frustration. However, once he understands what she's trying to say, he is also able to give her peace and release, and to stop the killings. He cannot fix the damage they've caused, but he does what he can. And that evening, at a crossroads, Sam does the same for his brother.
Red Sky at Morning is another example of the mixed nature of family this season has to offer. The death of one brother at the hand of another has led to a centuries-old cycle of vengeance and murder. The Winchesters are able to break it only by bringing the brothers together for a final confrontation, one hurting and angry—"you hanged me, your own brother!"—the other only offering, "I'm so sorry." They cancel each other out, and brother finally stops brother. It's family as both damnation and salvation.
The Christmas episode also shows both the joy and pain of family, as Sam remembers his father's absences and the lack of a real holiday celebration, but then also Dean's attempts to give him one. While the thought of a last Christmas with Dean is agonizing, Sam finally focuses on the good and gives his brother the holiday Dean pines for. The final shot of the episode, and of Sam's expression, sums up the season well: the brothers are together, finding joy and encouragement in being together, yet burdened by the sorrow of knowing it might be only for a few more months.
It seems likely that the season will end with some variation on this theme: as Dean's deal comes due, the family bonds that have brought him to this point will also be the means to save him. And maybe Sam, too, if his love for Dean pushes him to go "darkside" to redeem his soul. The trickster warns Sam in Mystery Spot that he's holding on too tightly to Dean, and his brother will be his "greatest weakness." But if holding on too tight leads Sam into darkness to save his brother, maybe Dean's holding on too tight will also bring him back.
Season one set the tone of strength in family, repeatedly offering positive examples of family as the Winchesters seek to reunite theirs. Second season offers the other side, conjuring up one twisted family after another as cautionary tale for how much love and family can cost you. Season three is the weary but wiser bottom line: family can sink you to greater depths than anything else. But it can also be the one thing that pulls you back up, too.
And for the Winchesters, saving people, hunting things, and loyalty to each other, is a family business.
The End