Major spoilers for 4.3 "In the Beginning"
So, knowing what I now do, I'm guessing that Mary's apology to Sam in Season 1's "Home" (which I took to be a simple sorry I didn't get to watch you grow up and a very maternal, sorry I wasn't able to protect you better) was nowhere near as straightforward as I thought.
But then, what on SPN is?
In retrospect I owe some people apologies. I've always been a harsh critic of John's, for dragging his boys into the Hunting Way of Life. Now, I'm still not prepared to nominate him Father of the Year, but after this season's revelations I see that he himself sort of married into this mess. (Point of debate: how much are we to assume Mary actually told her young fiance about all of this? She was trying to the night he proposed, but they were interrupted by his untimely death. How much did she reveal afterward?)
I owe Mary an apology for my moment during the pilot when I assumed she was TSTL. Here's the scene: you're a skinny blond woman in the middle of the night who just realized that the guy in the nursery can't be your husband because you're looking at your (sleeping) husband. It bugged me that she acted on that horror movie cliche of running off to face the big, bad danger with no back up. I was willing to cut her some slack because she'd gone into Mama Bear mode and wanted to haul ass to protect her child, but still, you can't throw something at the sleeping husband on the way? Yell out, "JOHN! DANGER! WAKE THE HECK UP!" But now I realize she was actually more likely to kick butt than even her ex-Marine husband. So she gets a pass for charging into the demonic fray solo-slayer style.
However, now I have a new gripe for her...
I haven't been able to get my hands on issues of Supernatural: Origins (how many of you have read the series pre-quel comic?) It's my understanding that John found someone to train him after Mary's death and I don't see anything in the show that led me to believe she was giving her hubby advice on how to avoid and defeat demons. I empathize with her wanting to get away from the Hunting life--it's a painful irony that it's the lifestyle her death inflicted on her orphaned sons--but there's making a fresh start (which is what she wanted) and then there's just unproductive denial. SHE MADE A DEAL WITH A DEMON. Desperate circumstances, granted, so I'm not judging, but really, how did she think it was going to turn out? With rainbows and butterflies? I'm just a little surprised that we don't get hints of more evidence of her being cautious or forewarning (thus forearming) the family.
(In an interesting parallel, Sam really is his mother's child. His attempt to deny his dark heritage and go off and have a normal life and normal relationship--not that I blame him--led to the person closest to him being killed by association.)
What I love most about this show is probably a three way tie between Jensen/Jared/and the writing (because, let's face it, Jensen and Jared could only carry things so far if the dialogue and storylines sucked). It's impressive that four years into a show, the writers can turn the mythology you think you know on its ear and force you to reexamine the family dynamics and the backstory (which we get through intriguing but frustratingly limited drips and drabs). I, along with much of the SPN viewing audience, assumed that the boys were shaped and molded by their father...having no inkling of just how much their long-dead mother informed their lives (hunting aside, he kicked off a Winchester cycle of making deals with demons that haunts the boys to this day).
Do you think we'll be seeing more of Mary's character in some way or form? Do you think there's more to Azazel statement that Mary's his "favorite"? What was your reaction to her hunting past and the boys' inherited legacy?
