Supernatural meta -- Dean's Girls: demons, doubles, sisters, moms, and hot chicks in peril
Reading around my flist's reactions to "Roadkill," a comment made by barkley, and a discussion with dodger_winslow, got me thinking about how Dean interacts with the female guest characters on the series.
Where this post ended up wasn't where I thought it was going to end up, but I wasn't a bit surprised when I got there because, well, yeah, of course that's what it's really about.
Dean's interaction with Molly in "Roadkill" in a couple of ways is a combination of what we've seen before, and also something new for Dean and the show. Dean treats some women with an odd combination of leering innuendo and respectful protectiveness, some like a long-lost little (or big) sister, some like a mom (either his, or someone else's), or as mere sex objects. The show also has more than once shown him easily bossed by an older woman.
This isn't meant as an exhaustive catalogue of all the female guest characters, and in the interest of avoiding tl;dr (well, I tried, really!) I'm deliberately boiling it down to three major categories and omitting a few notable characters if I already have other examples in that category. A lot of the women cross categories; even if I put them in only one, that doesn't mean they can't, or don't bleed over into other categories.
So, the three groups:
1. antagonists
2. sisters, moms, & guides
3. potential romantic interest
Antagonists
Despite her sympathetic portrayal, Molly falls most into the antagonist group because she is what Sam and Dean hunt: a ghost. Watching the first half of Roadkill not knowing what Molly is, she's category-less, although it seems like she should have been romantic interest. Dean doesn't show any interest and he doesn't leer once. The fact that she's married might or might not stop him from at least flirting, and whether Dean would seriously hit on a married woman, at this point is merely fan opinion. That's she's a ghost has more to do with it than her married status; Molly to him is an "other." In "Bloodlust" (and I'll get to Lenore in a sec) he was ready to question the beliefs he was raised with about the supernatural, but unlike Sam, Dean isn't quite ready to view a vampire or ghost as a person. Molly seems like the type of woman Dean would flirt with while saving, but he doesn't, because he already knows she's a ghost. But we don't know this (okay, you would know this if you're clever and you guessed) in the first half of the episode, and not knowing this it comes across as Dean thinking she's hands-off because she's married, focusing on the hunt more than usual because of all the trauma the boys have been through, and hunting is sure ground for him. Still, when Dean bursts into the cabin and shoots the ghost tormenting Molly he makes a joke. For a moment it's a regular case where Molly's just another person-in-peril, hot-chick or not. Dean's nature overrides what he knows of hers. In "Roadkill," as is so often the case, it's Sam most concerned with Molly's person-ness, but towards the end we see concern in Dean's facial expressions.
Among Dean's prior interaction with female supernatural beings, Meg was one of the more intense. It starts with Meg as just some girl Sam met; then to outright hostility; and then once Dean realizes she's a possessed girl, she turns into someone to rescue at the same time as she's still an antagonist. He deals with Meg not completely without compassion, but takes a businesslike approach, since his father's life is on the line, and questions her even as she's dying. Going back to the Pilot, there's the Woman in White, which I'm bringing up even though she didn't interact with Dean much, because of some parallels to Molly. Unlike Molly, she seems to know she's dead, but like Molly, she's confused and doesn't know how to move on and Sam has to intervene. As with Meg, Sam interacts with her much more than Dean. Sam and girls is a completely separate post, but whoa, look at that, two of Dean's antagonists have also tried to sexually molest Sam. There's also the demonically possessed chick from Crossroad Blues. Dean has great sexual chemistry with her, but she's in the antagonist group all the way. As with Meg, there's a dual interaction -- Dean and the demon, Dean and the possessed girl. With Meg we see how Dean deals with the de-possessed (dispossessed?) -- there's compassion but it's pushed aside by the business at hand. In Crossroad Blues, we only see Dean and the de-possessed girl for a few seconds. Given the context, though, it's a toss-up whether he'd notice her as a beautiful girl in a whole lot of distress, or he'd bundle her off to safety with brusque efficiency (it's a missing scene I'd really love to see). In "Bloodlust," again it's Sam who has most of the interaction with the female antagonist, Lenore (but without the attempted sexual molestation this time). Dean has to be convinced of Lenore's triumph over her own nature. He concedes begrudgingly, and shows no interest in Lenore as a person or a pretty girl at all, only surprise when she resists her vampire impulses. Lenore and Molly are similar in that they are both supernatural beings who aren't doing evil. But Lenore is a triumph of nurture over nature. Molly has to acknowledge her own nature, not defeat it; her nature isn't doing evil, she's just a sad, wandering spirit. But Dean seems to have trouble seeing either of them as people, although by the time we get to "Roadkill," we do see Molly getting through that resistance.
[ETA 1: astri13 reminds me not to forget Kate the vampire in "Dead Man's Blood" -- their brief interaction is another example of what Dean's interaction with evil supernatural chicks tends to be like, and as astri points out, maybe it's that they seem to dig him.]
Even more significant than Meg, Lenore, or Molly, though, is Tessa from "In My Time of Dying." Dean seems to connect with her immediately. He believes her to be another lost soul, a fellow patient hovering between life and death. She's pretty, fairly poised, in distress, and seems to impress Dean, who tries to reassure her, but also latches onto her in relief at not being the only one. But Dean's main mission in the episode is to stop the reaper from taking more lives. Eventually Dean finds out Tessa is the reaper. Tessa shows a tenderness towards Dean, but this might be how a reaper views anyone hovering at the edge of death -- it's a reaper's job. For Dean's part, his initial bitterness at finding out her true nature, and his angry resistance to dying, soon starts to crumble into resignation and a longing for peace. As with the Crossroad Blues demon, there's good chemistry between them. It's not that Dean never has great chemistry with ordinary, flesh-and-blood women, but the show seems to make it a point that Dean keeps having great chemistry with supernatural chicks, despite his resistance towards seeing them as people.
Sisters, moms & guides
Ellen and Jo spring to my mind first in the second category. (I'm not discussing category bleed; according to which fan you're talking too, Ellen or Jo might fit the romantic interest. But this essay is focusing on their mom and sister roles). Ellen's someone who was important to the boys' father, and she treats the boys like they're sons, scolding and tender by turns. Dean treats her with the same distrust he treats most strangers. At first he seems to resist her compassion and attempts to help them, but by "Hunted," Ellen reveals herself as someone who sees the world somewhat the way Dean does ("They say you can't protect your loved ones forever...well I say screw that!") and he starts to get that she's in their corner -- something Sam had already figured out, since he takes refuge at the Roadhouse. Jo is caught in the little sister role. She's someone Dean could mentor, she needs his advice and guidance, and he doesn't seem that interested in her sexually beyond momentarily noticing she's a pretty female (which is pretty much reflex for Dean, like brushing his teeth). That Jo sees Dean as a romantic interest complicates things, of course. But in canon, so far he's only treated her as a little sister figure. She is also a female hunter (well, aspiring hunter) and, at least to us, it's new to see Dean interacting with that. But Jo's lack of experience and her naivete makes this not the same as if we were to see Dean interacting with a seasoned female hunter, a peer.
In season 1 for sister figures, there's Officer Kathleen in "The Benders." The episode makes mention of her missing brother's black Mustang, and her sense of responsibility for him suggests she may connect Dean and her lost little brother. Dean shows her a certain amount of respect, and doesn't hit on her; she's a "big sister." Eventually he is somewhat honest with her, a bit like he was with Haley. Missouri in "Home" is a mom figure more for Sam than for Dean -- as a mom figure for Dean, she's problematic because of her harshness and bossiness towards him, whether you think there's a good reason for it or not. But still he treats her with respect, helping her down the steps at the end of the episode and deferring to her knowledge. Moms and sisters are sacrosanct in Dean's world (Sam's too, but it seems more pronounced with Dean). The Missouris and Ellens are to be respected (if not fully trusted), the Jo's are to be protected. Emily in "Scarecrow" is a little sister figure, and a more successful one than Jo. Dean seems to actually like her company, and during their final run from the scarecrow-thing, he grabs hold of her and keeps his arm around her as they're running, which for Dean is an unusual level of grabby protectiveness that we've seen Dean do only with Sam. Emily's a cute chick in peril, but he appears to have put her in the sister category. Kat in "Asylum" annoys him, not because she's annoying herself, but for her civilian error of going into a known haunted site. Kat's ability to wield a shotgun, and her lack of knowledge, makes her in restrospect a foreshadowing of Jo. Kat's ability to wield a shotgun seems to earn Kat a bit of respect from Dean, just as Dean grudgingly notices Jo's hunting skills in "No Exit." Dean is also protective of Kat. It's possible that Molly might be more of the "sister" variety than romantic interest. Dean does actually address her as sister, but he means it in the slang, perjorative sense.
Romantic interests
In the romantic interest category, in season 1 there's Haley, who's presented as a female mirror of Dean, an eldest sister in a family of orphans, assertive, strong, and determined to save her brother no matter what (her first run-ins with the wendigo reduces her to screaming, but do we blame her?) Dean flirts with her, calls her "sweetheart," is startlingly honest with her, and in the end seems taken aback by her gratitude and tenderness towards him. He's protective towards her, but also towards her brothers as well, the Collins family as a unit. Andrea in "Dead in the Water" is a mom herself, but young, attractive, and available, and so he tries to hit on her. Eventually the hunt pushes aside his romantic interest, and Dean's identification with Andrea's little boy also far overshadows his interest in her. Dean's startlement at being thanked and kissed at the end plays similarly to "Wendigo." Dean has no trouble flirting with, bedding, or protecting hot chicks, but their thankyous seem to throw him. In "Route 666", Dean takes on a hunt for a personal reason, Cassie, who as far as we know was Dean's only serious relationship. That relationship is long over, and from what we're told Cassie did the rejecting. He's protective of her, makes no snarky sexual comments (unless I'm forgetting something) but unlike Andrea and Haley, actually has sex with her, which puts Cassie in a category of her own. The show's one "serious" Dean girl is also the show's least successful female character, a good idea poorly executed, with little chemistry between the actors. But even with Cassie, his equilibrium is only momentarily upset. Here the hunt maybe does seem important only as a way to save Cassie, but the hunt is still the main focus and Dean doesn't seem all that shook up. The only time Dean really loses his cool on a hunt from concern is over Sam; and even then, he stays on the hunt because that's the way to protect his family.
The other women we know he's had sex during the run of the series so far were just one-night stands (a threesome he conned and sweet-talked his way into getting, no less). Dean seems to make a distinction between the Haley-Andrea types and the one-night-stand-types, and the sister types and the Haley-Andrea types. The one-night-stand girls that we've seen so far aren't connected with a hunt. Dean's elaborate pick-up story that gains him the threesome shows more effort than the snarky flirting he does with Andrea or Haley. When he intends to have sex, he goes about it in the same way he hunts: having fun is serious business and he has his finely honed methods. If he's hunting and happens across a cute girl, the hunting still gets the full attention. Also, when it comes to saving people, Dean doesn't care about the gender. Person in peril is person in peril. The flirting comes across as incidental.
[ETA 2: There's also Layla in "Faith" -- didn't meant to skip her, she's significant. There's definite romantic interest on Dean's part, but as usual, that's pushed aside by the concerns of the hunt, and Dean's concern that if Layla gets cured by the faith healer, someone else will die. Dean's connection to Layla grows more personal as he realizes that because he was cured, Layla, who's dying of a brain tumor, was skipped, and that he now has to prevent her cure to stop what the faith healer's wife has been doing. In fact, eventually Sue Ann plans for Dean's life to be swapped for Layla's cure. Something that starts as Dean's idle romantic interest -- cute girl spotted in passing during a hunt -- becomes a situation where they're bound together in a life-death level. Dean and Layla's goodbye, when Dean says he's not the praying type, but he'll pray for her, is one of the more poignant Dean/girl moments we've had on the series to date.]
There seems to be a lack of Haley-Andrea types in season two (and no Cassies at all), while Ellen and Jo become more important in Dean's life. There is the notable example of Sherri in "Nightshifter." Sherri hero-crushes on Dean until she thinks he's the bad guy. There's a moment when Dean goes out of his way to reassure her, telling her his name like he's handing it to her as collateral, something of himself he's giving away as proof of good intentions. Sherri's a pretty girl, but Dean doesn't seem to particularly respond or seem aware of her crush, he's just too damn busy, but it seems to worry him greatly that she's afraid of him. Sherri then turns into the antagonist -- not Sherri herself, but the shapeshifter posing as Sherri. Dean in fact mistakes the actual!Sherri for the antagonist at first (and is stopped from killing her by Sam), and then Dean fights the antagonist double. The fight scene is another piece of fuel for the theory that Dean has chemistry with evil girls.
Which brings us back to Molly, who is supernatural, and not evil. Dean shows no romantic interest in her because she's a ghost, or she's married, or a combination of both. I'm left wondering if there's some specific reason the show needed this ghost to be a girl. This story could have been told with a boy ghost. Not all of the boys' lessons about the nature of good and evil have been female, but there seems to be a line from Meg, which introduced Sam and Dean to the idea that an innocent human could be used to do evil, to Tessa, to Lenore, and now Molly.
When Molly passes on (joins the choirs invisible, becomes an ex-ghost) in a blaze of sunrise, her body language echoes Mary's when her spirit self-immolates in "Home"--looking upward, hands out. Mary herself is misunderstood as an antagonist--a terrifying vision of fire that frightens the little girl in the house. As in "Roadkill," in "Home" there are two ghosts (presuming the force harming the house's inhabitants is another ghost, but it might just be residual demonic energy), one malevolent, one benevolent, and the benevolent spirit is Sam and Dean's mom's. Which adds the mother category to Molly's possible roles.
After they watch Molly let go, Dean asks Sam if he really thinks she's gone to a better place, and Sam says it doesn't matter, hope is the point. Dean's question is a request for reassurance and Sam's answer both shows Sam being spiritually faithful, and is also what they both desperately need to believe. Because this isn't really about Molly, or ghosts, or whether or all ghosts are evil, it's about the people Sam and Dean have lost, two out of three of which are female. They already have reason to believe their father's soul is in hell; but there is hope that Mary, and Sam's girlfriend Jessica, are at rest. So while this is about losing John, it's also about the women they've lost. Because if Molly can find peace in the afterlife, then there's hope that Mary and Jessica did too.
Where this post ended up wasn't where I thought it was going to end up, but I wasn't a bit surprised when I got there because, well, yeah, of course that's what it's really about.
Dean's interaction with Molly in "Roadkill" in a couple of ways is a combination of what we've seen before, and also something new for Dean and the show. Dean treats some women with an odd combination of leering innuendo and respectful protectiveness, some like a long-lost little (or big) sister, some like a mom (either his, or someone else's), or as mere sex objects. The show also has more than once shown him easily bossed by an older woman.
This isn't meant as an exhaustive catalogue of all the female guest characters, and in the interest of avoiding tl;dr (well, I tried, really!) I'm deliberately boiling it down to three major categories and omitting a few notable characters if I already have other examples in that category. A lot of the women cross categories; even if I put them in only one, that doesn't mean they can't, or don't bleed over into other categories.
So, the three groups:
1. antagonists
2. sisters, moms, & guides
3. potential romantic interest
Antagonists
Despite her sympathetic portrayal, Molly falls most into the antagonist group because she is what Sam and Dean hunt: a ghost. Watching the first half of Roadkill not knowing what Molly is, she's category-less, although it seems like she should have been romantic interest. Dean doesn't show any interest and he doesn't leer once. The fact that she's married might or might not stop him from at least flirting, and whether Dean would seriously hit on a married woman, at this point is merely fan opinion. That's she's a ghost has more to do with it than her married status; Molly to him is an "other." In "Bloodlust" (and I'll get to Lenore in a sec) he was ready to question the beliefs he was raised with about the supernatural, but unlike Sam, Dean isn't quite ready to view a vampire or ghost as a person. Molly seems like the type of woman Dean would flirt with while saving, but he doesn't, because he already knows she's a ghost. But we don't know this (okay, you would know this if you're clever and you guessed) in the first half of the episode, and not knowing this it comes across as Dean thinking she's hands-off because she's married, focusing on the hunt more than usual because of all the trauma the boys have been through, and hunting is sure ground for him. Still, when Dean bursts into the cabin and shoots the ghost tormenting Molly he makes a joke. For a moment it's a regular case where Molly's just another person-in-peril, hot-chick or not. Dean's nature overrides what he knows of hers. In "Roadkill," as is so often the case, it's Sam most concerned with Molly's person-ness, but towards the end we see concern in Dean's facial expressions.
Among Dean's prior interaction with female supernatural beings, Meg was one of the more intense. It starts with Meg as just some girl Sam met; then to outright hostility; and then once Dean realizes she's a possessed girl, she turns into someone to rescue at the same time as she's still an antagonist. He deals with Meg not completely without compassion, but takes a businesslike approach, since his father's life is on the line, and questions her even as she's dying. Going back to the Pilot, there's the Woman in White, which I'm bringing up even though she didn't interact with Dean much, because of some parallels to Molly. Unlike Molly, she seems to know she's dead, but like Molly, she's confused and doesn't know how to move on and Sam has to intervene. As with Meg, Sam interacts with her much more than Dean. Sam and girls is a completely separate post, but whoa, look at that, two of Dean's antagonists have also tried to sexually molest Sam. There's also the demonically possessed chick from Crossroad Blues. Dean has great sexual chemistry with her, but she's in the antagonist group all the way. As with Meg, there's a dual interaction -- Dean and the demon, Dean and the possessed girl. With Meg we see how Dean deals with the de-possessed (dispossessed?) -- there's compassion but it's pushed aside by the business at hand. In Crossroad Blues, we only see Dean and the de-possessed girl for a few seconds. Given the context, though, it's a toss-up whether he'd notice her as a beautiful girl in a whole lot of distress, or he'd bundle her off to safety with brusque efficiency (it's a missing scene I'd really love to see). In "Bloodlust," again it's Sam who has most of the interaction with the female antagonist, Lenore (but without the attempted sexual molestation this time). Dean has to be convinced of Lenore's triumph over her own nature. He concedes begrudgingly, and shows no interest in Lenore as a person or a pretty girl at all, only surprise when she resists her vampire impulses. Lenore and Molly are similar in that they are both supernatural beings who aren't doing evil. But Lenore is a triumph of nurture over nature. Molly has to acknowledge her own nature, not defeat it; her nature isn't doing evil, she's just a sad, wandering spirit. But Dean seems to have trouble seeing either of them as people, although by the time we get to "Roadkill," we do see Molly getting through that resistance.
[ETA 1: astri13 reminds me not to forget Kate the vampire in "Dead Man's Blood" -- their brief interaction is another example of what Dean's interaction with evil supernatural chicks tends to be like, and as astri points out, maybe it's that they seem to dig him.]
Even more significant than Meg, Lenore, or Molly, though, is Tessa from "In My Time of Dying." Dean seems to connect with her immediately. He believes her to be another lost soul, a fellow patient hovering between life and death. She's pretty, fairly poised, in distress, and seems to impress Dean, who tries to reassure her, but also latches onto her in relief at not being the only one. But Dean's main mission in the episode is to stop the reaper from taking more lives. Eventually Dean finds out Tessa is the reaper. Tessa shows a tenderness towards Dean, but this might be how a reaper views anyone hovering at the edge of death -- it's a reaper's job. For Dean's part, his initial bitterness at finding out her true nature, and his angry resistance to dying, soon starts to crumble into resignation and a longing for peace. As with the Crossroad Blues demon, there's good chemistry between them. It's not that Dean never has great chemistry with ordinary, flesh-and-blood women, but the show seems to make it a point that Dean keeps having great chemistry with supernatural chicks, despite his resistance towards seeing them as people.
Sisters, moms & guides
Ellen and Jo spring to my mind first in the second category. (I'm not discussing category bleed; according to which fan you're talking too, Ellen or Jo might fit the romantic interest. But this essay is focusing on their mom and sister roles). Ellen's someone who was important to the boys' father, and she treats the boys like they're sons, scolding and tender by turns. Dean treats her with the same distrust he treats most strangers. At first he seems to resist her compassion and attempts to help them, but by "Hunted," Ellen reveals herself as someone who sees the world somewhat the way Dean does ("They say you can't protect your loved ones forever...well I say screw that!") and he starts to get that she's in their corner -- something Sam had already figured out, since he takes refuge at the Roadhouse. Jo is caught in the little sister role. She's someone Dean could mentor, she needs his advice and guidance, and he doesn't seem that interested in her sexually beyond momentarily noticing she's a pretty female (which is pretty much reflex for Dean, like brushing his teeth). That Jo sees Dean as a romantic interest complicates things, of course. But in canon, so far he's only treated her as a little sister figure. She is also a female hunter (well, aspiring hunter) and, at least to us, it's new to see Dean interacting with that. But Jo's lack of experience and her naivete makes this not the same as if we were to see Dean interacting with a seasoned female hunter, a peer.
In season 1 for sister figures, there's Officer Kathleen in "The Benders." The episode makes mention of her missing brother's black Mustang, and her sense of responsibility for him suggests she may connect Dean and her lost little brother. Dean shows her a certain amount of respect, and doesn't hit on her; she's a "big sister." Eventually he is somewhat honest with her, a bit like he was with Haley. Missouri in "Home" is a mom figure more for Sam than for Dean -- as a mom figure for Dean, she's problematic because of her harshness and bossiness towards him, whether you think there's a good reason for it or not. But still he treats her with respect, helping her down the steps at the end of the episode and deferring to her knowledge. Moms and sisters are sacrosanct in Dean's world (Sam's too, but it seems more pronounced with Dean). The Missouris and Ellens are to be respected (if not fully trusted), the Jo's are to be protected. Emily in "Scarecrow" is a little sister figure, and a more successful one than Jo. Dean seems to actually like her company, and during their final run from the scarecrow-thing, he grabs hold of her and keeps his arm around her as they're running, which for Dean is an unusual level of grabby protectiveness that we've seen Dean do only with Sam. Emily's a cute chick in peril, but he appears to have put her in the sister category. Kat in "Asylum" annoys him, not because she's annoying herself, but for her civilian error of going into a known haunted site. Kat's ability to wield a shotgun, and her lack of knowledge, makes her in restrospect a foreshadowing of Jo. Kat's ability to wield a shotgun seems to earn Kat a bit of respect from Dean, just as Dean grudgingly notices Jo's hunting skills in "No Exit." Dean is also protective of Kat. It's possible that Molly might be more of the "sister" variety than romantic interest. Dean does actually address her as sister, but he means it in the slang, perjorative sense.
Romantic interests
In the romantic interest category, in season 1 there's Haley, who's presented as a female mirror of Dean, an eldest sister in a family of orphans, assertive, strong, and determined to save her brother no matter what (her first run-ins with the wendigo reduces her to screaming, but do we blame her?) Dean flirts with her, calls her "sweetheart," is startlingly honest with her, and in the end seems taken aback by her gratitude and tenderness towards him. He's protective towards her, but also towards her brothers as well, the Collins family as a unit. Andrea in "Dead in the Water" is a mom herself, but young, attractive, and available, and so he tries to hit on her. Eventually the hunt pushes aside his romantic interest, and Dean's identification with Andrea's little boy also far overshadows his interest in her. Dean's startlement at being thanked and kissed at the end plays similarly to "Wendigo." Dean has no trouble flirting with, bedding, or protecting hot chicks, but their thankyous seem to throw him. In "Route 666", Dean takes on a hunt for a personal reason, Cassie, who as far as we know was Dean's only serious relationship. That relationship is long over, and from what we're told Cassie did the rejecting. He's protective of her, makes no snarky sexual comments (unless I'm forgetting something) but unlike Andrea and Haley, actually has sex with her, which puts Cassie in a category of her own. The show's one "serious" Dean girl is also the show's least successful female character, a good idea poorly executed, with little chemistry between the actors. But even with Cassie, his equilibrium is only momentarily upset. Here the hunt maybe does seem important only as a way to save Cassie, but the hunt is still the main focus and Dean doesn't seem all that shook up. The only time Dean really loses his cool on a hunt from concern is over Sam; and even then, he stays on the hunt because that's the way to protect his family.
The other women we know he's had sex during the run of the series so far were just one-night stands (a threesome he conned and sweet-talked his way into getting, no less). Dean seems to make a distinction between the Haley-Andrea types and the one-night-stand-types, and the sister types and the Haley-Andrea types. The one-night-stand girls that we've seen so far aren't connected with a hunt. Dean's elaborate pick-up story that gains him the threesome shows more effort than the snarky flirting he does with Andrea or Haley. When he intends to have sex, he goes about it in the same way he hunts: having fun is serious business and he has his finely honed methods. If he's hunting and happens across a cute girl, the hunting still gets the full attention. Also, when it comes to saving people, Dean doesn't care about the gender. Person in peril is person in peril. The flirting comes across as incidental.
[ETA 2: There's also Layla in "Faith" -- didn't meant to skip her, she's significant. There's definite romantic interest on Dean's part, but as usual, that's pushed aside by the concerns of the hunt, and Dean's concern that if Layla gets cured by the faith healer, someone else will die. Dean's connection to Layla grows more personal as he realizes that because he was cured, Layla, who's dying of a brain tumor, was skipped, and that he now has to prevent her cure to stop what the faith healer's wife has been doing. In fact, eventually Sue Ann plans for Dean's life to be swapped for Layla's cure. Something that starts as Dean's idle romantic interest -- cute girl spotted in passing during a hunt -- becomes a situation where they're bound together in a life-death level. Dean and Layla's goodbye, when Dean says he's not the praying type, but he'll pray for her, is one of the more poignant Dean/girl moments we've had on the series to date.]
There seems to be a lack of Haley-Andrea types in season two (and no Cassies at all), while Ellen and Jo become more important in Dean's life. There is the notable example of Sherri in "Nightshifter." Sherri hero-crushes on Dean until she thinks he's the bad guy. There's a moment when Dean goes out of his way to reassure her, telling her his name like he's handing it to her as collateral, something of himself he's giving away as proof of good intentions. Sherri's a pretty girl, but Dean doesn't seem to particularly respond or seem aware of her crush, he's just too damn busy, but it seems to worry him greatly that she's afraid of him. Sherri then turns into the antagonist -- not Sherri herself, but the shapeshifter posing as Sherri. Dean in fact mistakes the actual!Sherri for the antagonist at first (and is stopped from killing her by Sam), and then Dean fights the antagonist double. The fight scene is another piece of fuel for the theory that Dean has chemistry with evil girls.
Which brings us back to Molly, who is supernatural, and not evil. Dean shows no romantic interest in her because she's a ghost, or she's married, or a combination of both. I'm left wondering if there's some specific reason the show needed this ghost to be a girl. This story could have been told with a boy ghost. Not all of the boys' lessons about the nature of good and evil have been female, but there seems to be a line from Meg, which introduced Sam and Dean to the idea that an innocent human could be used to do evil, to Tessa, to Lenore, and now Molly.
When Molly passes on (joins the choirs invisible, becomes an ex-ghost) in a blaze of sunrise, her body language echoes Mary's when her spirit self-immolates in "Home"--looking upward, hands out. Mary herself is misunderstood as an antagonist--a terrifying vision of fire that frightens the little girl in the house. As in "Roadkill," in "Home" there are two ghosts (presuming the force harming the house's inhabitants is another ghost, but it might just be residual demonic energy), one malevolent, one benevolent, and the benevolent spirit is Sam and Dean's mom's. Which adds the mother category to Molly's possible roles.
After they watch Molly let go, Dean asks Sam if he really thinks she's gone to a better place, and Sam says it doesn't matter, hope is the point. Dean's question is a request for reassurance and Sam's answer both shows Sam being spiritually faithful, and is also what they both desperately need to believe. Because this isn't really about Molly, or ghosts, or whether or all ghosts are evil, it's about the people Sam and Dean have lost, two out of three of which are female. They already have reason to believe their father's soul is in hell; but there is hope that Mary, and Sam's girlfriend Jessica, are at rest. So while this is about losing John, it's also about the women they've lost. Because if Molly can find peace in the afterlife, then there's hope that Mary and Jessica did too.