One Year Later: Danneel Ackles as Sister Jo on ‘Supernatural’

On this day in 2018, Danneel Ackles made her highly anticipated debut in Season 13 of Supernatural. Since then she’s been in three episodes and all three have been big episodes with some very pivotal moments.

Let’s take a look back at the journey Sister Jo has had so far on Supernatural.

Season 13, Episode 13 – “Devil’s Bargain”

Lucifer has just returned from the apocalypse world and he needs to have his grace topped up. After speaking to a panhandler, he learns of a faith healer named Sister Jo. Interested the idea of a healer considering his current state, Lucifer follows the lead to a community center where he discovers Sister Jo is using grace to heal people. Recognizing her as the angel Anael, Lucifer attempts to drain her of her grace to save himself. Sister Jo isn’t going down without a fight though, and she proves that she’s far from the typical naive angel when she appeals to his greed by pointing out that grace regenerates, so if he just takes a little bit from her at a time they’ll both be able to live longer.

The Winchesters and Castiel track their own lead and Sister Jo’s credit card to find she’s booked a motel nearby. At the motel, Lucifer takes more of Sister Jo’s grace and they talk about how it feels when their grace is low and they begin to experience human sensations: cold, hunger, exhaustion, loneliness. Lucifer says he doesn’t like it, but Jo (like another beloved angel on Supernatural) can see the appeal of free will. In Heaven, her only job was to press a button. All day every day, over and over for a millennia, despite the fact that she had her own ideas and tried to change things. When the angels lost their wings in the Fall, Sister Jo says she felt liberated, not devastated.

When Lucifer decides he’s done talking, he turns to the Bible instead, and Jo gets up to answer the phone. Sam’s calling, posing as a hotel employee and asking Jo to bring her credit card to the front desk. Once Jo exits the room, she’s confronted by Sam, Dean, and Castiel. After they tell her they’re looking for Lucifer, she convinces them that Lucifer captured her and she needs their help since she’s not at full power because he’s draining her. Once in the motel room, she turns on them, sending Sam flying into a wall and ultimately escaping with Lucifer.

The next time we see Sister Jo and Lucifer, Lucifer is talking his way into Heaven via the sandbox portal, and after promising the angels that he could restore their wings, both Lucifer and Sister Jo are admitted into Heaven where Sister Jo takes the spot she’s earned at Lucifer’s side.

Season 13, Episode 18 – “Bring ’em Back Alive”

We see Sister Jo enter the throne room where Lucifer is playing Solitaire. When he questions where she’s been and implies that she should be more appreciative for everything she has because of him, she argues back, demanding to know why he isn’t doing anything more to get the angels back their wings like he promised. After another angel comes to tell Lucifer that they have been unable to locate Jack, Lucifer complains that God would get better treatment, which leads Sister Jo to tell Lucifer, “Uh-huh. Well, before all of us start treating you like God, you might try acting like God. Just a thought.”

After attempting to take Sister Jo’s advice and listening to prayers, Lucifer quickly decides that nothing on earth is worth his time. Not humans or angels, everything is flawed beyond redemption except for Jack. He tells Jo he’s going to refocus his energy on finding Jack so the two of them can combine their powers and recreate a world in Lucifer’s image with people who worship him instead of God. Irritated with Lucifer’s whining, Jo asks him to get over himself and do the things he said he would do like giving the angels their wings back. Once Lucifer confesses he doesn’t actually have the power to do that, she loses her temper and tells him there doesn’t seem to be anything he can do,  he has absolutely nothing, so he might as well go back to the Cage.

Of course, that causes Lucifer to lose his temper, and he chokes her with his eyes glowing red until he decides to let her go in an uncharacteristic show of mercy. That seems to be the final straw for Jo, and she proves what a strong, badass character she is when stalks away from Lucifer himself after getting her final word in.

Season 14, Episode 1 – “Stranger In A Strange Land”

We next see Sister Jo after she finishes up healing the sick after a church service. As she exits into an alley, she’s confronted by what she recognizes as Michael possessing Dean.

As he did earlier in the episode he asks her what she wants. She laughs off-handedly responds, “I don’t know. Chanel, Dior, Louis Vuitton.” Michael isn’t impressed with that answer, and asks if she thinks this is a joke. She responds that she doesn’t know what it is, but she’d like to be done now. Michael insists she lied and the things that she really wants are human things, and according to him, so disappointing. He confesses that he thought the angels might be worth saving, but declares if they’re all lost, fallen things like her, maybe not, and walks away.

In a move that surprised many, Sister Jo’s next decision was to call Sam and tell him where she just saw Michael.

This is the last we see Sister Jo, but Sam mentions that she’s the one who told him where Michael is in the following episode, “Gods and Monsters.”

Since Sister Jo is still alive as well (as far as we know) it’s probably safe to say that her story isn’t finished on Supernatural just yet. Considering how rare it is to see a strong female character on this show without any familial or romantic ties to the Winchester family, Sister Jo brings a unique quality to the episodes she’s in. It’s still unclear whether she is trustworthy enough to work with the Winchesters and Team Free Will, or if she will always choose to do what’s best for herself above anyone else, but hopefully that’s because it’s an answer that’s still coming.

Supernatural returns from its hiatus on Thursday, March 7, on the CW.