Jo Harvelle
Name | Joanna Beth Harvelle |
Actor | Alona Tal |
Dates | April 7, 1985 - 2009 (killed by a hellhound) |
Location | Originally Harvelle's Roadhouse |
Occupation | Bartender Hunter |
Episode(s) | 2.02 Everybody Loves a Clown 2.05 Simon Said 2.06 No Exit 2.14 Born Under a Bad Sign 5.02 Good God, Y'All 5.10 Abandon All Hope... 7.04 Defending Your Life |
I was still in pigtails when my Dad died, but I remember him coming home from a hunt. He'd burst through that door like, like Steve McQueen or something. And he'd sweep me up in his arms, and I'd breathe in that old leather jacket of his. And my Mom, who was sour and pissed from the minute he left, she started smiling again. And we were... we were a family. You wanna know why I want to do the job? For him. It's my way of being close to him. Now tell me what's wrong with that?
– Jo Harvelle, 2.06 No Exit
Contents
- 1 History
- 2 Episodes
- 2.1 2.02 Everybody Loves a Clown
- 2.2 2.05 Simon Said
- 2.3 2.06 No Exit
- 2.4 2.10 Hunted
- 2.5 2.14 Born Under a Bad Sign
- 2.6 4.17 It's a Terrible Life
- 2.7 5.02 Good God, Y'All
- 2.8 5.10 Abandon All Hope...
- 2.9 5.16 Dark Side of the Moon
- 2.10 5.18 Point of No Return
- 2.11 6.10 Caged Heat
- 2.12 6.17 My Heart Will Go On
- 2.13 7.04 Defending Your Life
- 3 Trivia
- 4 Jo in Fandom
- 5 References
History
Jo is a hunter, the only child of Ellen and William Anthony Harvelle. She was born April 7, 1985.[1] Her mother Ellen calls her "Joanna Beth."[2]
Her parents are both hunters who run Harvelle's Roadhouse in Nebraska, which acts as a base for hunters. Bill Harvelle is killed when Jo is '"still in pigtails"[3] while on a hunt with John Winchester. After his death, her mother Ellen continues running the Roadhouse.
Jo did go off to school, but left after feeling she didn't fit in.[4] Ellen doesn't want Jo to go hunting, but she follows Dean and Sam on a case to Philadelphia. After this, Ellen tells Jo about the circumstances of her father's death. However sometime after this, Jo leaves to go hunting on her own, sending her mother postcards as she travels around. [5] Her next encounter with the Winchesters is when she is attacked by Sam when he is possessed by the demon Meg.[6]
Years later, Jo and Ellen are hunting together when they answer a call for help from Rufus to a town he thinks is under attack from demons, although Sam and Dean uncover the fact that the Horseman War is at work.[7]
Ellen and Jo join up with the Winchester again, on a mission to kill Lucifer with the Colt. However, Jo is mortally wounded after being attacked by hellhounds under Meg's command. While taking shelter in a hardware store, Jo suggests they build a bomb to blow up the hellhounds, using her as bait to lure the demonic dogs. Ellen volunteers to stay behind, too, so she can let the hellhounds in and set off the bomb while Dean and Sam escape. After a tearful goodbye with Dean, Jo dies in Ellen's arms, who then blows up the building, killing herself and the hellhounds.[8]
Episodes
2.02 Everybody Loves a Clown
Thinking Dean is an intruder at the Roadhouse, Jo holds him at gun point. He disarms her, but she punches him in the face.
Jo is used to having hunters hit on her:
- "Most hunters come through that door think they can get in my pants with some... pizza, a six pack, and side one of Zeppelin IV."
And while Dean says "normally I'd be hitting on you so fast it'd make your head spin," in the wake of his father's death and the secret he is carrying, he concludes it is "wrong place, wrong time."
2.05 Simon Said
Jo beats a hunter at an arcade game, as Sam and Dean turn to Ash for help. While Dean is waiting at the bar for Sam to get a profile on nursery fires, Jo begins playing "I Can't Stop This Feeling" on the jukebox, much to Dean's chagrin. She offers to help Sam and Dean in their hunt for which Dean refuses, citing his fear of what Ellen would do if he were to take her on a hunt.
2.06 No Exit
Jo wants to go hunting on her own, but Ellen doesn't want her to. Even though Ellen gives the case she has researched to Sam and Dean, flush with cash, having won it playing poker with hunters at the Roadhouse, Jo sneaks off and joins them, getting Ash to help her cover her tracks. While hunting with the boys, Jo is kidnapped by the spirit of Dr. H.H. Holmes. Dean and Sam are able to rescue her, and she then helps them capture and trap Holmes by luring him into a ring of salt and sealing the chamber shut with concrete.
Back at the Roadhouse, Ellen reveals to Jo that her father was killed while hunting with John Winchester. While Dean tries to comfort her, she spurns his attempts and tells the brothers to just leave.
2.10 Hunted
Ellen tells Sam that Jo has left the Roadhouse to become a hunter on her own (against Ellen's wishes), although she is still sending postcards of her travels.
2.14 Born Under a Bad Sign
Jo is working in a bar in Duluth when Sam (possessed by the demon Meg) arrives. He teases her about having a crush on Dean and then takes her hostage. The demon taunts her about her father's death. She relates the version she knows:
- "Our dads were in California: Devil's Gate Reservoir. They were setting a trap for some kind of Hell spawn. John was hiding, waiting, and my Dad was bait...The thing showed up. John got too eager, jumped out too soon, got my Dad exposed out in the open. The thing turned around and killed him."
Evil!Sam gives his own, more horrible version:
- "You see, Bill was all clawed up. Holding his insides in his hands. He was gurgling and praying to see you and Ellen one more time. So my Dad... killed him. Put him out of his misery like a sick dog."
and concludes (in a sing song voice) "My daddy shot your daddy in the head."
The accuracy of this story must be doubted as the Meg is interested in hurting Jo and also painting John in a bad light.
After Dean arrives, Sam turns his attention on him. Dean frees Jo as he pursues Sam. Jo finds Dean half-drowned after Sam has shot him. She patches him up, asking him if demons ever tell the truth. He answers that they do sometimes, if they think it will hurt the most. When they are done, Jo wants to come with him in pursuit of Sam, but Dean refuses.
4.17 It's a Terrible Life
Dean Smith says that he has a sister named Jo and that their parents are named Ellen and Bob.
5.02 Good God, Y'All
Jo and Ellen are hunting together when they answer a call for help from Rufus to a town he thinks is under attack from demons. When Sam and Dean arrive she has been separated from her mother. When Ellen and Sam go looking for them, and find them, she thinks they have been possessed by demons. Jo calls Ellen a "black-eyed bitch" indicating she thinks Ellen is possessed. She and Rufus capture Sam, thinking he is possessed. Later, Ellen and Dean are able to break the spell War has over them.
5.10 Abandon All Hope...
- "Sweetheart, if this is our last night on Earth, then I'm going to spend it with a little thing I call self-respect."
Jo and Ellen join Sam, Dean, Bobby and Cas in a mission to retrieve the Colt and use it to kill Lucifer. Jo helps Sam and Dean break into Crowley's mansion, and the demon gives them the weapon, claiming he wants Lucifer dead as much as they do. At Bobby's place, the night before they take off after Lucifer, Dean hits on Jo with his "last night on Earth" line, but she turns him down.
Jo, Ellen, Dean and Sam arrive at the town they meet Meg, now in a new meatsuit. She unleashes hellhounds them after them. Dean kills one of the dogs, but he is nearly attacked until Jo saves him, shooting a dog, before she is attacked herself and is badly wounded. They take her to a store and barricade themselves with salt. After a while they realize that she isn't going to survive, and they set up explosive devices made from propane gas tanks and buckets loaded with salt and iron nails. Ellen didn't want to leave her daughter, and she sits down with her, crying. Dean says goodbye to her and says he'll see her on the other side, kissing he goodbye. Sam and Dean then leave, leaving Jo and Ellen to their grim-looking fates. Jo eventually dies from her wounds. The hellhounds then proceed to come inside the shop, just to be blown asunder after Ellen sets off the explosives, killing the hounds and herself.
5.16 Dark Side of the Moon
After Sam and Dean enter Heaven, they encounter Ash, and inquire if he has seen Jo and Ellen. Ash it turns out was unaware that Ellen and Jo had died, as he had not encountered them in Heaven and was greatly saddened by this information. He asks the brothers if the two women "went out fighting," and is somewhat consoled that they had.
5.18 Point of No Return
Dean mentions Jo as he lists the people he and Sam have "gotten killed."
6.10 Caged Heat
The brothers are captured by Meg, who wants to find Crowley. After Sam suggests that the brothers work with her to kill Crowley, Dean is enraged, pointing out that she killed Ellen and Jo with hellhounds. Sam sways him by assuring him that Meg will be killed once she has helped them.
6.17 My Heart Will Go On
In the alternate timeline created by Balthazar, Jo is alive and hunting with her mother investigating deaths in California, similar to those Sam and Dean are looking into. After Ellen returns home to Bobby, her husband in the alternate timeline, Jo continues hunting 'with her own crew'. When the timeline is restored, Jo is gone.
7.04 Defending Your Life
Osiris puts Dean on trial to weigh his guilt. He call Jo's ghost as a witness, and tries to get her to say it was Dean's fault that she became a hunter and ultimately was killed. Under cross examination by Sam who is defending Dean, she agrees that it was her father who was the motivation behind her hunting. Later after finding Dean carries much guilt, Osiris sentences him to die and releases him.
Jo appears at the hotel where Dean is staying. He has protected himself within a ring of salt. Jo is being compelled to kill Dean in a manner reflecting how she died. Dean tells her he feels guilty for getting both her and Sam into hunting. Jo refutes this, and tells Dean he carries too much weight for things that happen. She turns on the gas on the stove and then breaks the window so that the salt line around Dean is broken. As she takes his lighter, and prepares to ignite the gas, she disappears, because elsewhere Sam has neutralized Osiris.
Trivia
- Jo's Blog documents her life, and life at the Roadhouse from 1993-2006. It was part of the Hunter's Blog section on the Official Website which was first made accessible with the release of the Season 1 DVD. The content has been edited and changed significantly. Luckily, some fans have recorded the blog entries at various stages.
- According to the original version of Jo's Blog, she knew John Winchester as early as 1994 and called him "Uncle John."
- Though her email address is Enihpesoj91@gmail.com[1] (josephine spelled backwards), her mother has instead referred to her as "Joanna Beth" on multiple occasions.
- In Jo's Blog we find out about her desire to become a hunter, her first relationship with another hunter called Rick, and her tutelage by Gordon.
- In early drafts of the script, Jo was called "Alex" (see 2.02 Everybody Loves a Clown for copies of sides featuring Alex.)
- The character was originally conceived as a love interest for Dean, but even the writers admitted that Jo came off more like a little-sister character. "In hindsight, Dean wouldn't be attracted to that character...(...) He'd be attracted to someone who walked in the door, slaughtered everybody and walked out, and then he would say, 'Who's that?'"(Eric Kripke, S2Com, p. 15)
Jo in Fandom
Meta
- Jo meta for No Exit by briarwood (November 2006); archive link
- Hunter and Hunted: Jo in "Born Under a Bad Sign" by missyjack (March 2007); archive link