This ‘Supernatural’ Death Haunted Us (and the Winchesters) the Most

The Big Picture

• Jo Harvelle quickly became a fan-favorite on Supernatural, but her character was never fully explored due to fan backlash and her untimely death.
• Jo sacrificed herself to save the world in Season 5, but her death was in vain as the plan to kill Lucifer failed.
• Dean and Jo never got the chance to develop their relationship and could have been a powerful couple in the Supernatural universe if given the opportunity.

Everyone dies on Supernatural, or at least that’s how it seems when Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) are always losing some big recurring character to whatever current big bad is prowling around. Between their parents, surrogate parents, half-siblings, best friends, lovers, and fellow hunters alike, there are very few characters who make it through Supernatural unscathed and still breathing. But, the worst of all of these are the deaths that are never really touched on again. Chief among them, losing Alona Tal‘s Jo Harvelle halfway through the show’s fifth season.

Jo Harvelle Quickly Became a Fan-Favorite on ‘Supernatural’

First appearing in “Everybody Loves A Clown” (Season 2, Episode 2), Jo was a part of the writers’ attempt to expand the world and mythology of Supernatural beyond a weekly horror show centered on two brothers seeking revenge on the demon that killed their mother. This included introducing Harvelle’s Roadhouse, a gathering place for hunters and a way for Sam and Dean to meet and interact with others like them. Aside from their surrogate father Bobby Singer (Jim Beaver), the Winchesters didn’t really play nice with other hunters in the show’s early years, but Jo was always an exception.

Though a little younger than Sam and Dean, Jo was willing to do whatever it took to walk in her father’s footsteps, not unlike Dean himself. Jo’s father died on a hunt involving John Winchester (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) years prior, and it turned Jo’s mother Ellen (Samantha Ferris) off to the idea of Jo growing up like her daddy. However, that didn’t stop Jo from forging her own path. After a hunt with Sam and Dean goes wrong in “No Exit” (Season 2, Episode 6), Jo heads off on her own. Then, the Winchesters don’t see Jo for a few years, largely because the show’s fandom was hostile to the character from the beginning.

When Supernatural first began, there was this unspoken rule among the fans that the Winchesters couldn’t end up with anybody. So, when Sam and Dean had love interests throughout the show, said characters had to either end up six feet under or risk getting written off the show. In Jo’s case, she got the brunt of both options. She didn’t appear in Season 3 or 4 at all, even after they had demons burn down Harvelle’s Roadhouse in the Season 2 finale. It wasn’t until “Good God, Y’All” (Season 5, Episode 2) that Jo and Ellen showed up again. And, by this time, Jo had more than proven herself as a hunter. So, when her death came just a few episodes later, fans were understandably upset given how much the character had grown.

Jo Sacrificed Herself to Save The World in ‘Supernatural’ Season 5, and It Was for Nothing

In “Abandon All Hope” (Season 5, Episode 10), Sam, Dean, Bobby, Ellen, Jo, and Castiel (Misha Collins) make a last-ditch effort to ice the Devil (Mark Pellegrino) in Carthage, Missouri. After recovering the Colt (which can kill all except five things in the Supernatural universe), the Winchesters come up with a plan to take Lucifer out for good and finally stop the coming apocalypse. Unfortunately, not everyone makes it out alive. Castiel is captured by Lucifer, and Jo gets mauled by a hellhound. So, when the Winchesters and Harvelles end up cornered in a convenience store as Jo slowly fades, she decides to go out as any hunter would.

Hoping to give Sam and Dean enough time to escape and kill Lucifer, Jo has them build a bomb that she’ll detonate, killing all the hellhounds they let inside with her. Only, Ellen refuses to leave her daughter, so they tragically go up in smoke together. This moment has a profound impact on Sam and Dean as this is the closest to war they had ever been (not so with Alona Tal though, who would go on to star in SEAL Team years later). Unfortunately, it was all for nothing. The Colt doesn’t work, Lucifer raises Death from his slumber, and the plan completely and utterly fails.

Plenty of characters in Supernatural give up their lives for the Winchesters. For instance, Charlie (Felicia Day) gives up her life for Dean, cracking a code that later helps Sam rid him of the Mark of Cain. Pamala Barnes (Traci Dinwiddie) gave up her eyesight and then later her life in saving the Winchesters from demons. And, lest we fail to mention him, Bobby dies not once but twice and still manages to help Sam and Dean from the great beyond. But poor Jo Harvelle, she (and her mom) ultimately died for nothing. The only thing Sam and Dean learned from this encounter was how not to kill the Devil—no wonder this one was called “Abandon All Hope.”

Dean and Jo Never Got To Grow Into Something More in ‘Supernatural’

What’s particularly tragic about how Jo dies is that she and Dean might’ve had a passionate last night together had they both been honest about their feelings before the eleventh hour. If there’s anyone on Supernatural whom Dean ever truly loved—aside from Lisa Braeden (Cindy Sampson) who he’d later shack up with between Seasons 5 and 6, that is—it was Joanna Beth Harvelle. From the moment Dean and Jo met there was clear-cut chemistry, and not just between the characters. Jensen Ackles and Alona Tal played off one another masterfully in each scene, providing just over the allotted amount of sexual tension that network television usually allows.

But, Jo and Dean never got to develop into anything more. After four episodes in Supernatural Season 2, the two parted ways not exactly on the best of terms, with their brief reunion in “Born Under A Bad Sign” (Season 2, Episode 14) particularly underwhelming. The two could never quite catch a break, and with Dean’s demon deal at the end of the season and his subsequent death in Season 3, you would think he would’ve fought to make things right before he was eaten by hellhounds himself. Unfortunately, the 2007-08 writer’s strike likely had something to do with Jo’s absence, though there’s no excuse for why she didn’t return in Season 4.

Their two episodes together in Season 5 only remind us of what could have been, and though Jo feels like a different and more mature woman than where we left her back in Season 2, her feelings toward Dean remain the same. As dedicated hunters who had no qualms with “the life,” nor any particular desire to leave it, Dean and Jo could’ve been the Supernatural universe’s biggest power couple. We know from other episodes (as well as the spin-off The Winchesters) that it’s possible for a romantic pair to be excellent hunters together. Dean and Jo would’ve been no different.

Jo’s Later Return Was A Tear-Jerking Reunion Cut Too Short

A few seasons later—after Jo was temporarily resurrected from the dead in “My Heart Will Go On” (Supernatural Season 6, Episode 17), albeit off-screen—Jo is brought back by the pagan god Osiris (Faran Tahir) after Dean is put on trial for his own crimes against, well, himself. “Defending Your Life” (Season 7, Episode 4) sees Jo’s ghost is used to enact “justice” against Dean after he drowns himself in guilt. Jo expresses remorse for her actions, but since she’s being controlled, there’s nothing she can do to stop. Thankfully, Sam saves Dean in the nick of time, and Jo disappears to the afterlife once more, but not before looking longingly at Dean, possibly imagining what could’ve been.

And, that’s all we get from Jo in Supernatural. The character is never brought back again, nor is she ever mentioned outside the clip show that followed the series’ penultimate episode in Season 15, which serves as the official close to the series’ mythology. The truth is, Jo deserved much better than what she got, and for being the first “little sister”-type character to hang around Sam and Dean, she at least ought to have been brought up on more than one occasion. But, knowing how the Winchesters are and how they keep literally everything close to the chest, maybe it shouldn’t be surprising.

Alona Tal May Have Returned As Jo in the ‘Supernatural’ Series Finale Had Things Been Different

There was one occasion, though, where Jo could have appeared one final time. In the Supernatural series finale, Dean arrives in Heaven after his death, greeted by Bobby at a heavenly version of the Harvelle’s Roadhouse. Of course, if the Roadhouse exists here, it’s likely that Jo has made her way around these parts too. In fact, according to co-showrunner Andrew Dabb, the plan was for a plethora of Supernatural characters to return and greet Dean in the afterlife, and later Sam, all to the tune of Kansas’ “Carry On Wayward Son.”

“[W]e came up with something that felt like a fitting version of Sam and Dean’s Heaven: all the people the boys had met along the way (or, at least, those we could convince to fly to Vancouver) crowded into a re-built Roadhouse,” Dabb told Entertainment Weekly after the fact. Tragically, the COVID-19 pandemic stifled these plans, and any hopes we may have had of seeing Dean and Jo reunited in eternity were shattered. And, as it turns out, the fans weren’t alone in hoping Jo Harvelle would return.

Ahead of the final season, Alona Tal expressed her interest in returning as Jo, a character she genuinely cared much about. “I think the boys have had enough and I salute them for deciding to end it now. I just wish that they’d end it with bringing me back,” Tal explained to MEA Worldwide back in 2019. Given the fact that the rebuilt Roadhouse was still teased in the series finale, complete with the original’s trademark bar monkey, there’s no doubt that Jo found peace in the decade after her untimely death. Who knows, maybe there’s still hope that she and Dean can make it work after all.

Supernatural is streaming exclusively on Netflix.

Watch on Netflix

Denial of responsibility! TechCodex is an automatic aggregator of the all world’s media. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, and all materials to their authors. For any complaint, please reach us at – [email protected]. We will take necessary action within 24 hours.