Eric Kripke’s Supernatural is a beloved show for many reasons. It brings the viewers into the family business as they try to cope with the sheer amount of trauma that the Winchesters go through. It also takes them on a journey in an Impala as they get a front-row seat to the most out-of-pocket show to have ever aired on television.
There are many things that showrunner Eric Kripke got right with the series. Be it the chick-flick moments or the action, fans do not have to worry about feeling unengaged. At the same time, the series has faced a very big criticism in the fifteen years that it ran.
The way that Kripke wrote the female characters in the series has become a topic of discussion for years within the community. With this, one cannot talk about poorly written women in the series without mentioning Mary Winchester.
Supernatural’s worst character should have never come back
Over its fifteen-season run, Supernatural introduced several insufferable characters. Be it Gordan, the British Men of Letters, or Dick, fans were forced to tolerate many characters who were written to piss people off. However, one does not need to look further than the Winchester brothers’ family tree to find the worst of the worst.
While Samuel Campbell and John Winchester are perfect examples of the same, it was Mary Winchester who ended up getting on fans’ nerves the most. For eleven seasons, Mary was dead. Her death was the catalyst that started the events of the series and all that happened to Sam and Dean indirectly happened because of her death.
Considering how significant of an event this was, fans were very confused when she came back at the end of the eleventh season. The series could have played this very well, having her be a part of their lives, taking accountability for the part she may have played in the life they lead, and finally being an interesting female character on the show.
However, she quickly became very annoying and fans were forced to watch her inflict more and more emotional wounds on the beloved characters. Although Dean did give the perfect moment of catharsis when he told her he hated her, the way that Mary was written opens up a bigger conversation about the series’ relationship with women.
Mary Winchester is just one of Eric Kripke’s many badly written female characters
Recently, fans on X started a conversation about Mary Winchester and her insufferable behavior on Supernatural from a new angle. Rather than focusing on her being a bad person and mother, they talked about the way that she was written by the creators of the series, including Eric Kripke.
Although Kripke has been doing an excellent job at writing heroines on The Boys, similar treatment wasn’t given to the women on his previous show. In a series where women frequently come and go, there are only a handful of examples of complex women.
While the way that Jody, Donna, Charlie, and Rowena were written certainly impressed many fans, the fact still remains that the show had a very big problem with surface-level characters. Some might argue that it was a product of its time. However, when fifty percent of their “strong female characters” are dead by the end of the show, it showcases a painful pattern.
Mary’s character specifically exposes a theme in media where strong female characters are written to be horrible people, which simply makes them annoying to watch rather than effective. On top of becoming a bad mother to Sam and Dean, she was painfully selfish and ended upbeing emotionally unemotional in the worst ways possible.
Given surface-level depth disguised as representation, she is the perfect example of the gap that the show had with its female audience, even though they were predominant. Although the series ended its run five years ago, this remains one of the greatest tragedies of Supernatural.
Supernatural is available for streaming on Netflix.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
