Supernatural S9 Ep19 – Alex Annie Alexis Ann

So, another Monster of the Week episode. After last week, a filler episode is particularly unwelcome because the story leading up to the finale really started to heat up. However, this episode gets a pass from me simply because it focused on Sheriff Jody Mills, one of my favorite characters. The fact that she survived is the sadly surprising icing on the cake.

Major mother issues

Sure Sam and Dean were in this episode, and there was a bit of a hint at Dean’s current situation in their story line, but the center of this one was Jody and her history. Jody’s story has been filled with nothing but pain, kicking things off with her zombie son eating her husband. She got wrapped up in the supernatural by horrible accident, just like most hunters, but she’s taken it all in stride and keeps on truckin’ despite losing her family in such a horrible way. However, that loss has never truly healed for her, as we saw in this episode.

When a vampire nest’s human slave ran away, Jody took her in and treated her like a daughter, dredging up Jody’s buried memories of her son. Family, and particularly motherhood, were themes in this episode, with the leader of the vampires treating all of her turned brood like her own children. What it means to be family, to be a mother, and what it means to lose a child were the heart of the story. The mama vamp had lost her own daughter, Alex, long ago, so she had kidnapped a little girl, Annie, renamed her after her own daughter, and then refused to turn her because she wanted to watch her grow up. She was trying to replace her little girl, and Jody’s hospitality toward Alex/Annie was partly inspired by her wanting to fill the hole where her son had once been. They were both mothers trying to fill a void, but mama vamp clearly was doing it the wrong way.

Jody not only goes through psychological pain in a lot of her episodes, she also gets beaten up quite a bit. That’s part of the hunter life, and being a sheriff she knows how to take the pain. She also knows how to save the day, which she did by chopping off mama vamp’s head. She’s not only a strong female character, she’s a strong female character, and I love how they’ve had her develop over the years. Unfortunately, every episode she’s in has me afraid that it’ll be her last, because this show always kills off its awesome recurring characters, especially the women. Surviving this one felt like a dream, and I almost want her to never come back just so the writers won’t get any ideas about how to gank her. But realistically, I wish she had more screen time. Hell, I’d rather the upcoming spinoff were about her or Charlie Bradbury—or both. I would watch that so hard…

Murder Feels

Anyway, speaking of family and pain, the Winchester brothers weren’t completely absent from the episode. Sam got to have his blood drained by the vampires and somehow survived—off-screen blood transfusion, perhaps—while Dean was having more murder feels thanks to his Mark of Cain. He was up against vampires, which he’s always killed and enjoyed killing—except for Benny, we don’t talk about Benny—but he took an extra special pleasure in offing these particular blood suckers. And Sam noticed. It wasn’t just Dean’s normal bloodlust and desire to kill all evil supernatural things, it was a special kind of murder joy that freaked Sam out and was clearly not natural. You could say it was…supernatural. As Dean kills more and more, is the Mark becoming more and more powerful, taking him over kill by kill? And what will he be like by the end of it all? Cain found a way to quit, but can Dean?

Well, that’s it for me and this filler episode. Watch it for Jody being awesome and kickass if nothing else, because that’s really the only thing that makes it worthwhile. I wish the next episode would dive back in to the myth arc for this season, but instead we’re getting a backdoor pilot. Supernatural: Bloodlines will be based on next week’s episode, exploring the different monster families living in Chicago. It’s no Jody and Charlie: Monster Detective Agency, but it’ll have to do.

Watch “Alex Annie Alexis Ann” on Amazon Instant Video.