The Winchesters 0101: Pilot

The Winchesters, starring Mary Campbell (Meg Donnelly) and John Winchester (Drake Rodger) is supposed to be the untold story or Sam and Dean’s parents; however, Supernatural already did this, or so we thought. Maybe? This might be an alternate reality? The show isn’t exactly forthcoming with the details as to why Everything We Thought We Knew is Wrong.

The first episode of The Winchesters is laced with continuity issues, new actors, bad jokes, and one very poorly-named animated monster. The one thing that I was absolutely struck by was how much Drake Rodger looks like a young Sam Winchester, which is… something?

If you are a fan of Supernatural, you will need to do what I was not able to, and set aside everything you already know about John and Mary Winchester. While watching the show, I found myself quite irritated with a multitude of differences from the story in Supernatural to this story. The Winchesters basically took all of that prior knowledge that we had and stomped it into the ground and then spit on it. Which might have made sense if the episode ended with a twist that we were actually in an alternate reality, but doesn’t, leaving viewers utterly confused.

Without going into great detail and ruining the episode, here is a brief list of the continuity issues, that fans of Supernatural should fully understand:

1. The Men of Letters
2. The Bunker
3. John’s dad
4. Mary’s dad
5. John’s hunting while Mary is alive
6. A tool that would have made hunting much easier

There is a glimmer of hope though and it comes in the form of Dean Winchester (Jenson Ackles), driving Baby as he narrates the episode. I think I know what direction the story is going in but I would rather not just jump to conclusions here and ruin the show for anyone.

As stated above, a majority of the actors are relatively new to the screen and will hopefully get better with experience. There were two actors in the pilot episode that have eight acting credits between them. Besides the freshness of the actors, the show has, what I was hoping for, a typical first few episodes of growth in all things acting and writing.

The music for fight scenes was typical, but what I enjoyed was the use of classic rock, or, just rock based on the timeline of the show. Supernatural always played classic rock like AC/DC, Kansas, Led Zeppelin, and on occasion, Bon Jovi because he’s cool sometimes.

Now, let’s talk about this very poorly named monster. Anyone who has seen the previews knows that John and Mary are both looking for their fathers and because Mary was raised a hunter there are monsters and demons on the way to find answers. One of those monsters is called a loup garu. There is no explanation for why the monster is where it is, what it is, or why Mary knows how to kill it, but it is down in a hole, it is a poorly animated monster, and Mary knows how to kill it for convenience’s sake. The other issue, was the way the demons talked. We all know that they just have the same voice as the person that they are possessing, or at least that is how it use to work.

Loup garou – no not a werewolf, and pronounced “loo garoo,” which sounds weirdly similar to “rugaru,” a well-established creature of Supernatural lore.

In addition to meeting and working with John, Mary is also working with two other hunters named Carlos (JoJo Fleites) and Latika (Nida Khurshid). Carlos is a Hispanic male in the 1970s that seems to be openly homosexual in Kansas. Carlos has one of the most fantastic introductions ever and I immediately had to look up the actor. This next part has nothing to do with the story of The Winchesters but as the mother of a non-binary child, inclusivity and representation is very important and my search revealed that JoJo is a transgender male who is non-binary using the pronouns they/them. Latika seems to be the hunter in training and the book smart sidekick.

From left to right John, Mary, Latika, and Carlos