Joanna Beth Harvelle, nicknamed Jo, was an innocent girl who became a hunter to honor the memory of her late father.
Biography
Early life
Jo was born to Bill and Ellen Harvelle on April 7, 1985.
Because she lived at the Roadhouse, Jo grew up around hunters, including John Winchester and Bobby Singer, whom she and her parents regarded as family. She called the hunters she knew "uncle", such as Uncle Caleb and Uncle Shawn.
On Jo's eighth birthday, Bill gave her a bow-and-arrow set and taught her how to use it, while Ellen gave her a diary to write in, which she later turned into a hunter's journal.
Growing up
On May 16, 1995, Jo learned that her father had died on a hunt. She was devastated by his death. She also began wanting to become a hunter herself, to feel close to her father and be a "hero" like her father and save people. However, Ellen's protectiveness prevented her from fulfilling her dream.
Jo disliked attending school, which she felt was a waste of time. After she got into a fight with a bully who was bothering her, Shawn started training her in hand-to-hand combat.
Jo met Gordon Walker when she was 12 years old. They became friends, though she had a crush on him. When she was sixteen, he manipulated her into accompanying him on a hunt and (unwittingly) acting as bait for a rawhead. She became frightened and fled, running right into her mother, who had figured out what they were doing and tracked them down. Furious, Ellen forbade her daughter from going near Gordon again, but she secretly kept in contact with him online.
Jo also befriended Ash, who started living at the Roadhouse.
Jo tried to attend college per her mother's wishes. However, Jo felt she never fit in as "the freak with the knife collection" and dropped out, returning to the Roadhouse.
When Jo was 19 years old, she dated a hunter named Rick who frequented the Roadhouse. However, he stopped contacting her in the middle of a hunt, which worried her. Whether he was killed or merely wanted to end their relationship was not revealed.
Meeting the Winchesters
Jo first met Sam and Dean Winchester in "Everybody Loves a Clown". Thinking they were intruders, she held Dean at gunpoint while Ellen apprehended Sam; Dean disarmed Jo, but she punched him in the face and took her gun back. Despite this rocky start, they became friends when Ellen realized they were John's sons and the Winchester brothers paid irregular visits to the Roadhouse.
Jo was attracted to Dean but in the wake of his father's death and the secret he was carrying, he concluded that it was "wrong place, wrong time," which she understood and accepted.
Becoming a hunter
Eager to go on her first hunt, Jo complied research on a case in which six young blonde women vanished from the same apartment building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for over eighty years. To prepare for the trip, she earned money from a combination of cash bets, swindling, and pick-pocketing.
Ellen refused to let Jo go out of fear that she would be killed, and instead passed the case onto Sam and Dean. Jo, however, enlisted Ash's help in creating a paper trail to convince her mother that she was going to Las Vegas, Nevada while she actually went to Philadelphia to investigate on her own. In the guise of a potential buyer, Jo encountered Sam and Dean at the apartment and convinced them to let her join them on the case.
When the group found no reports of a violent death that could explain a spirit's presence, they split up to search for EMF, with Dean accompanying Jo to watch over her and urging her to pursue a normal life rather than that of a hunter's. She felt the spirit try to grab her and they found EMF and a bloody clump of hair from one of its victims within a wall vent. Jo did not sleep that night as she was too busy reviewing information about the case. The next morning, she bonded with Dean; his attempt to give her one of his knives to replace the one she was carrying (which had belonged to Bill) led to them talking about their fathers and her revealing her reason for hunting to him. She, Dean, and Sam learned that Teresa Ellis, another blonde woman, had gone missing the night before.
Jo realized that criminals from a prison that was later destroyed had been executed on the grounds that the apartment building was built over. With Ash's help, Sam identified the spirit as America's first serial killer, Herman Webster Mudgett, AKA H.H. Holmes, whose remains had been buried and encased in concrete.
The group split up again to try to locate Teresa inside the building's walls. While separated from Dean, Jo was abducted by Holmes and imprisoned in a torture chamber in an abandoned sewer system beneath the apartment's foundation. Though she was frightened, she comforted fellow abductee Teresa. Holmes grabbed Jo by the hair and ripped off part of her hair. She attempted to break out of the chamber and slashed Holmes' hand to the ground with her father's knife when he tried to grope her.
Sam and Dean arrived and rescued Teresa. Jo agreed to be used as bait to lure Holmes out as their only viable plan. When he manifested to attack her, she escaped, and the brothers trapped him within a ring of salt and sealed him into the chamber using cement. Sam asked her if hunting was as glamourous as she expected and she answered, "Well, except for all the pee-your-pants terror, yeah. Sure. But Teresa's gonna live a life because of us. It's worth it, isn't it?"
Having learned that her daughter went against her wishes to hunt in Philadelphia from Ash, a very angry Ellen took Jo back to the Roadhouse. When Jo tried to defuse her mother's anger, she realized that there was something Ellen wasn't telling her and she learned that John had been Bill's partner for his last hunt: John caused his death when he exposed them to the creature they were hunting.
Hurt and upset, Jo confronted Dean and Sam with this knowledge, blaming John, and by proxy, them, for her father's death.
Ellen told Sam in "Hunted" that Jo had left the Roadhouse "weeks ago" to become a hunter when Ellen refused to allow her to do it. However, Jo kept in touch by sending her postcards.
Meeting "Meg"
In "Born Under a Bad Sign", Sam, possessed by the demon that had formerly possessed Meg Masters, tracked Jo down to the Sandpiper, a bar that she worked at in Duluth, Minnesota. She was uncomfortable about his presence from their last encounter and the strange shift in his personality, as he teased her about her crush on Dean, claiming that Dean thought of her as merely a little sister or a schoolgirl, and started to come on to her aggressively. He overpowered her and knocked her out when she rejected him.
Jo is held captive by a possessed Sam.
Jo woke up tied to a post, accusing Sam of being an imposter, which he refuted. He forced her to recount Bill's death, but claimed that what Ellen told her was not the truth: what really happened, Sam taunted, was that Bill survived with horrific injuries and John shot him dead to end his suffering.
Dean traced Sam's location via his cell phone. However, he refused to kill Sam to protect Jo and instead threw holy water onto him, revealing that Sam was demonically-possessed. When Sam fled, Dean untied a shocked Jo and went after him.
Jo returned the favor in saving Dean's life by bandaging his wound after Sam shot him and left him to drown, having found him using his cell phone ringtone. Remembering what Sam had said, she asked Dean if demons occasionally told the truth as well as lies but did not reveal what she'd been told. She wanted to help him pursue Sam, but he refused though he promised to call her. She waited until he was out of earshot before she muttered, "No, you won't."
The Roadhouse's destruction
Jo had already left the Roadhouse months ago when demons burned it down, killing everyone inside, including Ash and many hunters. Ellen survived on simple good luck, having been out buying pretzels at the time.
At some point, Jo and Ellen reunited and became hunting partners in order to protect each other.
The Apocalypse
After Lucifer's release from Hell, the Harvelles went to River Pass, Colorado to help Rufus Turner fend off an apparent demonic siege, but got separated in the chaos, with Jo joining up with Rufus and some other townspeople.
Ellen perceives Jo as possessed.
Jo and Rufus fought Ellen and Sam, both sides perceiving the other as being possessed by demons due to the presence of War, one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Jo and Rufus captured Sam to exorcise him but were confused when all of their anti-demonic measures failed to work on him. War, disguised as one of the townspeople on Jo and Rufus' side, made it appear as though Sam had attacked him and said more demons were coming. When Rufus set pipe-bombs to slow down the "demons", Jo was worried about the safety of her mother, but he assured her that he would help her save Ellen from her "possession".
After a brief struggle, Ellen and Rufus managed to convince Jo and Rufus that all of the supposed possessions were hallucinations created by War to pit them against each other. Jo helped to prevent the townspeople from slaughtering each other and ending War's spell.
The Harvelles joined Sam, Dean, and Castiel in their mission to kill Lucifer. Jo helped Sam and Dean break into Crowley's home and retrieve the Colt in order to slay the Devil.
That night, the hunters spent their last night on Earth at Bobby's house. Jo drank a beer and watched on in amusement and amazement as Ellen challenged Castiel to shots and lost. When Dean tried to seduce Jo, she turned him down on the basis of having "a little thing I call self-respect." She joined the group photo, but was unsettled when Castiel mentioned they would likely all die tomorrow.
At Carthage, Missouri, the Harvelles, the Winchesters, and Castiel split into two groups, with Jo looking for survivors in the abandoned town with Ellen and Castiel, who left to investigate after detecting a large gathering of reapers and instead got captured by Lucifer. Jo and Ellen confirmed that all the buildings in town were empty before re-joining Sam and Dean.
Death
Meg arrived to capture the Winchesters and set a pack of hellhounds upon the group of hunters. A hellhound attacked Dean and Jo saved his life, but it cost her hers; she was injured to the point that she could not walk and bleeding heavily.
Dean carried Jo into a nearby convenience store while Sam and Ellen fended off the hellhounds. They salted the entrances to the store and bandaged Jo's wounds as best they could, but she interrupted when they tried to figure out how to save her and pointed out the reality of the situation: she was dying. In desperation, she suggested that they construct bombs out of iron and salt and escape, leaving her alone to detonate the bombs and kill the hellhounds. Even after Sam and Dean reluctantly accepted her plan, Ellen continued to argue. Jo smiled tearfully and reminded her, "This might literally be your last chance to treat me like an adult. Might wanna take it."
The other hunters assembled the bombs and gave Jo the trigger. Dean kissed her goodbye first on the forehead, then on the lips. Ellen, however, decided to stay with her, saying that someone needed to let the dogs in and that she would not let Jo die alone. The brothers left via the fire escape.
Jo and Ellen's final moments.
Tragically, Jo died in her mother's arms before she could activate the explosions, not even able to finish saying, "I love you" back to Ellen, who blew up the store, killing both herself and the dogs.
When Sam and Dean's souls end up in Heaven in "Dark Side of the Moon", they asked Ash about the Harvelles. Ash, however, was suprised to learn that they were dead. Whether this means that Jo and Ellen's souls (as well as those of John and Mary Winchester) are not in Heaven or merely that Ash had yet to encounter them remains to be seen.
Legacy
In the alternate timeline created by Balthazar, the Harvelles were still alive. Jo continued to hunt with "her own crew" and occasionally with her mother. Like Sam and Dean, Jo was investigating the freak deaths by one of the sisters of Fate, Atropos. However, Castiel was forced to reset the original timeline when the Winchesters were threatened by Atropos, resulting in Jo becoming dead again.
When Dean was put on trial in "Defending Your Life", Jo was called as a witness to his guilt. Jo did not blame Dean, however, and later told him that he carried too much guilt for circumstances outside his control. Although the judge (Osiris) failed to make her testify that it was Dean who caused her to become a hunter and get killed, Dean was pronounced guilty and she was compelled against her will to try to kill him in a manner reflecting her death: she turned the gas on the stove on, broke the window to blow away the ring of salt he was protecting himself with, and took his lighter to ignite the gas and kill Dean in an explosion. Sam temporarily incapacitated Osiris, however, freeing Jo from his control. She touched Dean's cheek and smiled before vanishing.
Notes
- 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 ("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.)
- Jo resembled Mary, particularly when comparing Jo in Season 5 and the younger version of Mary.
- Jo was a fan of REO Speedwagon, once telling Dean that "he sings it from the heart."
- Like Sam, Jo felt that she was seen as a freak. However, she embraced the hunting lifestyle against her mother's wishes while he rejected it against his father's wishes.
- Jo always carried and constantly played with one of her father's knives, which was pure-iron and had his initials engraved on it. She used it as a weapon in "No Exit".
- Meg's account of how Bill died was similar to how Jo died, as both Harvelles were fatally wounded by creatures from Hell as a result of their partnership with a Winchester. Meg also claimed that Bill was "holding his guts in his hands" while Jo said "my guts are being held in by an ace bandage."
- 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)
List of appearances
Season 2
- "Everybody Loves a Clown"
- "Simon Said"
- "No Exit"
- "Hunted" (mentioned only)
- "Born Under a Bad Sign"
Season 4
- "It's a Terrible Life" (mentioned only)
Season 5
- "Good God, Y'all"
- "Abandon All Hope..."
- "Sam, Interrupted" (mentioned only)
- "Dark Side of the Moon" (mentioned only)
Season 6
- "Caged Heat" (mentioned only)
- "My Heart Will Go On" (mentioned only)