Supernatural prequel The Winchesters rewrites very important moment

That's not how John told it...

By Jay Snow

13 Oct 2022

The Winchesters episode 1 spoilers follow.

The Winchesters, the Supernatural prequel which recently premiered on The CW, follows a young John Winchester (Drake Rodger) and Mary Campbell (Meg Donnelly) as fresh-faced adults.

John has just returned home from serving in the war, now determined to figure out where his missing father has gone, while Mary is completely caught up in the world of hunting and looking for her own father, who went missing while tracking down a lead on a monster.

Together, alongside a group of friends – Carlos (Jojo Fleites), Latika (Nide Khurshid), and Ada (Demetria McKinney) – they band together to save the world and find their missing loved ones.

The CW

The ultimate premise of the show, though, is Dean (Jensen Ackles) digging into the true history of his parents' early lives, which differs from the stories he and Sam (Jared Padalecki) have always heard.

This rings true from the very beginning, as the story of John and Mary's first meeting, which ultimately ends with them falling in love and having their two children, is vastly different on The Winchesters from the tale that fans are familiar with.

In Supernatural, the story of John and Mary's meeting is as follows: John and Mary met outside of a movie theatre in Lawrence, Kansas, where Mary quite literally ran into him and knocked him over. To make it up to him, she invited him to coffee. From there, the duo went on dates and fell in love.

Their primary struggle was Mary's father Samuel not liking John, which ultimately didn't matter because Mary liked the "normal" life she had with John after growing up surrounded by hunters and monsters. Later, it's discovered that John and Mary didn't like each other very much initially, but their union was predetermined to ensure Dean and Sam were born, so a Cupid was sent down to make sure they fell madly in love with one another.

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In The Winchesters, this meet-cute plays out differently… and is a little less cute. They still bump into each other outside of the cinema, briefly discussing the snacks that fall out of Mary's bag. But Mary is a little distracted and doesn't invite him out for coffee as the story should go. They don't even exchange names.

Instead, it's more of a passing moment than the beginning of something special. Later that day, as John is following a lead on a key he received that's tied to his father, he finds himself face-to-face with a demon who wants him to hand over the special key. Shortly thereafter, Mary shows up to battle the demon with her badass hunter skills, where Mary and John have their first real interaction.

After the fight, where John accidentally strikes Mary multiple times while trying to help, the two decide to pursue their leads together and embark on their "first date"… which, in true Winchester fashion, is of course a hunt.

the winchesters trailer mary and john winchester

The CW

The two discover a long-forgotten Men of Letters lair, where John finds proof that his father was part of the organisation, before separating for the night as Mary pleads with John to forget what he saw and not get involved in this life if he doesn't have to.

Unfortunately for Mary (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), John is a dog with a bone and unable to let go of this lead on his missing father. The next morning, John shows up with coffee, and the two decide to work together to get the answers they crave.

While those behind the scenes have said, repeatedly and adamantly, that they intend to honour the legacy and canon of the original series, The Winchesters changing up this single moment is ultimately a larger stray from Supernatural canon than just switching up their meeting.

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This change also makes viewers think differently about everything we know of John, as it is said in Supernatural that John didn't learn about demons and monsters and begin his life as a hunter until after Mary is killed by Azazel.

Going forward, there are sure to be more changes that don't quite line up with what we learned through Dean and Sam – which presents an exciting opportunity for the prequel to embark on its own journey, even if the end result is the same.

Changing the story of how John and Mary meet and begin their future relationship makes it even stronger than before, as their relationship ultimately seemed incredibly fragile in the original series. They had to be coerced into being together, and it was such a delicate matter that literal angels had to intervene.

The CW

On this path, John and Mary are both seeing the full picture of one another from the very beginning, learning the dark secrets that they seemingly didn't know about during their relationship on the flagship series – particularly John discovering the truth of Mary's life.

In addition to surprises in the story, there's now the mystery of how this part of their life was erased from history (or at least from the memories of everyone involved, including Mary's father Samuel, who will be portrayed by Smallville star Tom Welling).

Given the vast abilities of the supernatural in this world, there will surely be a satisfying answer to the above question. But, for now, it's interesting to see the show's history being rewritten in an exciting, respectful, and intriguing manner.

The Winchesters airs every Tuesday on The CW in the US. Broadcast details for the UK are still to be confirmed.