‘Supernatural’s Most Heartbreaking Loose End Is the Daughter Dean Winchester Never Got To Know

Of all the crazy things to happen on Supernatural, one of the most bizarre occurred smack in the middle of the series’ epic 15-season run. If you ever wondered if Dean Winchester (Jensen Ackles) was dad material, wonder no further. Season 7 was an odd one for the show, introducing the Leviathans, killing off main characters, and stripping the Winchesters of their iconic Impala for a time. But one of the weirdest additions to the show’s ever-evolving mythos was when writers Eugenie Ross-Leming and Brad Buckner gave Dean a daughter after he slept with an Amazon. Not only did the elder Winchester produce a child of his own, but that very same daughter later tried to kill him. It doesn’t get much stranger than that on Supernatural.

“The Slice Girls” Officially Gives Dean Winchester a Not-So-Little Girl of His Own

In the show’s seventh season episode, “The Slice Girls,” which takes place not long after the death of their surrogate father, Bobby Singer (Jim Beaver), the Winchesters find themselves in Seattle investigating some pretty strange murders. Each of the victims had their hands and feet cut off and bore a symbol carved into their chest, which is about right up the brothers’ alley. Additionally, each of these victims had engaged in one-night stands at a local bar, The Colbalt Room, which they only discovered after Dean first had a sexual encounter of his own with a woman named Lydia (Sara Canning). Soon after, Lydia becomes pregnant and gives birth to a young girl named Emma, who ages rapidly into a teenager in less than three days.

As Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean try to figure out their next move, they discover that Lydia is one of the Amazons, a group of warrior women (not unlike Wonder Woman) who were blessed by the Greek goddess Harmonia with the ability to conceive and give birth quickly for the sake of amassing their armed forces. As the Amazons continue to build their army, they do so by traveling from place to place every few years, only to bear more children, kill their fathers, and move on to the next town. With Seattle as their current locale, Sam and Dean put two-and-two together, recognizing that Lydia was an Amazon and that her rapidly aging daughter Emma (played later by Alexia Fast, who had previously played Missy Bender in the fan-favorite “The Benders”) is actually Dean’s offspring.

As Sam is jumped by an Amazon elsewhere, Dean is confronted by Emma, now at the end of her rapid-aging process. Though Sam and Dean thought that Lydia would have come to kill Dean, Sam discovers that the Amazons assign their children to commit patricide as a rite of passage into their ranks. While confronting Dean, Emma pleads with her father to help get her out from under the Amazonian cult, and tries to appeal to their familial ties, but it’s all a trick. Emma had been briefed by her superiors on her father and uncle’s profession and had prepared to deceive Dean into letting his guard down. By the time Sam gets back to the motel, Dean and his daughter are engaged in a standoff, forcing Sam to be the one to ultimately pull the trigger.

Emma’s Potential on ‘Supernatural’ Was Instantly Cut Short

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The idea that either Sam or Dean would have children while Supernatural was in its heyday is something that the showrunners would never have allowed to happen. After all, it would drastically change the tone of the show and introduce character dynamics that wouldn’t conform naturally to the way the series had been set up. Supernatural was always meant to be a horror road show, and because of that, for the first seven and a half seasons, the Winchesters never had a base of operations or a home to call their own. While Season 8 would change that by introducing the Men of Letters and their Lebanon, Kansas-based bunker, Season 7 was still firmly set on the open road. It’s not surprising then that the rest of Supernatural essentially forgets about this moment, never mentioning Emma again after this season.

Nevertheless, “The Slice Girls” exists, and Emma is legitimately Dean’s only known biological child. That’s not something you see every day, and for a character who struggles with living under a deadbeat dad of his own (we still love you, John Winchester), the idea that Dean would have a daughter is a fascinating concept. Considering that Emma was an Amazon like her mother, it makes the concept all the more engaging, knowing that Dean’s only confirmed child isn’t even human. We have to remember that, at this point in Supernatural, Dean was rarely merciful to monsters. If anything, he would go out of his way to make sure more were put down properly. Sure, he and Sam let a few go over the years (provided they didn’t kill humans), but earlier in Season 7, Dean had been responsible for killing a monster friend of Sam’s from his childhood, one who only killed to save her own son. Sam was furious with Dean then, and his killing Emma allowed him to return the ill-gotten favor.

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Carry on my Winchester brothers.

But what happened to Emma — a girl who, had she survived, we might have come to know as Emma Winchester — is a tragedy. Not only was Dean’s Amazon-born daughter brainwashed by the Harmonia-centric cult, but she also showed no remorse about killing her own father. If Dean could have saved her, if he could have convinced her to leave with him (or at least go their separate ways), it’s possible we could’ve had a very heartfelt father-daughter Supernatural story down the road, which might’ve changed the elder Winchesters’ outlook on the opposite sex. More than that, it might’ve been a more natural way to change Dean’s mind concerning monsters in general, rather than how the following season did so with his time in Purgatory.

Emma’s Story Is Tragic, but Dean’s Reaction Is Even More So

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There’s no denying that what happened to Emma here is a tragedy, even if it’s an understandable one. Here’s a girl who died for no reason simply because she was ordered to kill her father by a group of cultic warriors. According to Emma, she had no choice in the matter, though Dean (captain of “Team Free Will” over here), of all people, knows that everyone always has a choice. Dean’s inability to convince Emma of her own autonomy is heartbreaking, and while we’re not meant to sympathize with his psychotic Amazonian daughter, it’s not hard to see why Dean himself would want to. At the end of the episode, Sam accuses Dean of not being able to pull the trigger, which Dean adamantly denies. But the truth is, Sam, might be right. Dean saw Emma as his daughter, his only daughter, and for that reason alone, we can’t help but feel for his strange loss.

To make matters worse, the Amazons get away in the end. As far as we know, Emma’s mother, Lydia, was with them, likely furious at the fact that her daughter didn’t return from her mission. But, because Supernatural never acknowledged this episode beyond a brief reference in the very next episode, “Plucky Pennywhistle’s Magical Menagerie,” Lydia is left in the wind. Though the show treats it as a standard monster-of-the-week story, it feels much more than that, and given how other episodes this season would be followed up on in the future, Supernatural‘s decision to ignore the Amazon story seems like an oversight. It’s unlikely that Lydia wouldn’t want to avenge her daughter’s death, just as it’s strange that the Amazons wouldn’t attempt to kill the Winchesters after Sam first killed two of their own. Instead, this is just yet another one of Supernatural‘s many loose threads.

This Isn’t the First Time ‘Supernatural’ Teased Dean Winchester’s Offspring

Of course, this isn’t the first or only time that Supernatural teased the idea of Dean being a father. As early as the show’s third season, Lisa Braeden (Cindy Sampson) and her son Ben (Nicholas Elia) were introduced in “The Kids Are Alright,” and immediately the show made us believe that Ben was the result of a hook-up between Dean and Lisa years earlier. Though Lisa denied it, Ben’s aesthetic, choice of music, speech patterns, and physical appearance made many believe otherwise. After Sam was trapped in Hell at the end of Season 5, Dean went to live with the Braedens and became Ben’s surrogate father. By the end of Season 6, Dean had Castiel (Misha Collins) erase Ben and Lisa’s memories after the pair were nearly killed by a demon, but not before that demon revealed Ben was indeed Dean’s son.

Naturally, Dean (and Supernatural itself) framed this as just another lie the demon was trying to tell, and so Dean left his makeshift family behind forever. This all took place just before Season 7, when Dean had his encounter with Emma, making her not the first, but the second child of his that he’s walked out on (or worse, in Emma’s case). It wouldn’t be until the show’s final few years that Dean would have one more chance to redeem himself as a surrogate father figure with Jack Klein (Alexander Calvert), the estranged son of Lucifer (Mark Pellegrino). Dean, Sam, and Castiel helped raise Jack (who is a Nephilim) into a stand-up young man, one who ended up being vital in saving the world. While things between Dean and his only confirmed biological child might have turned sour, the elder Winchester proved himself to be worthy dad material by the end. No wonder Sam later named his own child after his brother.

Supernatural is available for streaming on Netflix.

Release Date

2005 – 2020

Network

The WB, The CW

Showrunner

Eric Kripke