Get your salt and your iron ready, there are potential Supernatural spoilers ahead!
If you’ve watched Supernatural for long, one thing you’ll notice is that the show is pretty dude-heavy, and the women on the show don’t often last long. It’s not uncommon for them to die in gruesome or seemingly careless ways (see Charlie Bradbury, Meg Masters, or Eileen Lehy).
So when the show introduced characters like Sheriff Jody Mills, Sheriff Donna Hanscum, Claire Novak, and Alex Jones, it didn’t take long for fans to flock to those women. With Sheriff Jody taking in Claire and Alex as her adopted daughters and helping Sheriff Donna come to terms with the supernatural world around her, fans started to latch on to an idea centering around these women. Jody evolved from a rule-following civil servant to a badass hunter and sort of mama bear on the show, not only with Claire and Alex, but even with Sam and Dean–something that executive producer Andrew Dabb said Kim Rhodes perfectly brought to the role.
You couldn’t help but love Jody, Donna, and her girls, and it didn’t take long for the fandom to start asking for a spin-off focusing on their stories. After many tee-shirt campaigns, Tumblrs, and social media campaigns, the spin-off Wayward Sisters was announced.
Wayward Sisters was a huge success for fans, showing that showrunners really do listen to what their viewers want, and highlighting the very real interest in stories about kickass women. And in a time when we’ve got Wonder Woman dominating the box office and a female Doctor flying the TARDIS, it’s pretty awesome that Supernatural fans will have some badass, female hunters to cheer on as well. Kim Rhodes, Sheriff Jody herself, was quick to thank the fans for all their support in bringing the show to life.
1/? YOU did this. Your voices. Your presence. Persistence. Resistance. Joy. Rage. LOVE. You ARE DOING this. #WaywardSisters
— ΞXΓЯΞMΞ ҜIM (@kimrhodes4real) June 20, 2017
At San Diego Comic-Con, I asked Supernatural‘s executive producer, Robert Singer, about the huge fan movement that brought the show into being. He called the entire thing a “chicken and egg” situation. “We always loved the Jody character and the two girls,” Singer explained. The Supernatural team definitely saw the potential in Jody’s little family. So they floated a few things out to fans, and after seeing the intense and growing passion the fandom had for those character, they finally decided that a spin-off would be the best way to highlight and expand on the characters.
“We’re excited about it, and we really think it’s female-empowering,” Singer said, “And we don’t think there’s anything really like this on TV right now, and after 12 years of super-testosterone guys, we’re excited about watching what the women can do.”
Jody, Donna, Claire, and Alex all have incredibly fascinating backstories that we’ve only gotten to scratch the surface of on Supernatural. It will be great getting to see a better picture of Jody and Donna as sheriffs and part-time hunters, to learn more about Claire and her life as a hunter and Jimmy Novak/Castiel’s daughter, and Alex’s attempts to live a somewhat normal life despite being raised by a vampire coven.
Of course, Wayward Sisters isn’t only focusing on Jody, Donna, Claire, and Alex. Jody will also be taking in a new, “wayward daughter” negatively affected by the supernatural world, Missouri Moseley’s granddaughter, Patience Turner (Clark Backo). Patience is a powerful psychic running from the forces of evil who want to control her powers, who ultimately finds refuge with Jody.
Backo’s character doesn’t only bring in another complex woman into the mix, but she also brings some much-needed diversity to the Supernatural universe. Of course, one character does not a diverse show make, but it’s encouraging to see the Supernatural universe start to broaden its stories to elevate the women in the universe as well as start on a road towards a more inclusive cast.
One look at Kim Rhodes’ Twitter can show you how important this spin-off is to the fans, and she and the entire cast are taking it seriously. While we don’t know much about the show, there’s already been suggestions of ways to expand the cast even further. Recently, Rhodes teased a way to bring back the beloved-but-dead character Charlie Bradbury (played by Felicia Day).
You know… there’s an alternate world…. *continues plotting* https://t.co/oJe9fEPrY2
— ΞXΓЯΞMΞ ҜIM (@kimrhodes4real) July 24, 2017
Of course that’s nothing more than friendly Twitter conversations, but we can hope, right? So while we still may be at the very beginning of this journey–there isn’t a release day for the spin-off, but we know the backdoor pilot will be airing in season 13 of Supernatural, so Wayward Sisters will premiere some time after that–the Supernatural universe is about to get a pretty exciting shake-up.
What do you think of the Wayward Sisters spin-off? What are you most excited to see in the show? What other characters would you like to show up? Let’s talk about it in the comments!
