Monday, April 25, 2016

The Death and Life of Rowena MacLeod



So as of episode 11.18, “Hell’s Angel,” Rowena is back in action (hallelujah). Although honestly, between the reveal and the end of the episode, I sort of lost my excitement.

It makes sense that Rowena wouldn’t have died because she’s a powerful witch who has stayed alive for centuries past her natural expiration date. She evidently has the power to heal Amara and to send messages and listen in to conversations from far-off distances, so why not have some sort of spell that keeps her alive—like a (hopefully benign) version of a horcrux. Plenty of fans predicted this. (Although the actual mechanics of the spell were iffy: did no one notice that her body just disappeared? How did she get out without being seen? What if someone was still in the room when she woke up? It was just all-around too neat of a wrap-up for my taste.) And it doesn’t really seem to me to make much sense in narrative terms either. As evidenced by the way she was shuffled around from ally to ally in the episode, she doesn’t really have a place any more. I don’t know where her character is going.

I was so excited when they introduced the possibility of Rowena working with Amara; that would give us a way for Rowena to keep growing, as well as a way to show us more of her power and generally just have her be more vengeful and interesting. Instead she got scared and ran away back to those back-stabbing Winchesters and the son SHE HATES. Like, didn’t she know how powerful Amara was? Wasn’t that the whole point of finding her and nursing her back to health? She’s just being used as a plot device and it’s like she’s being punished AGAIN for seeking power and revenge; guys she already died for that, give her a break! 

So now the option of an awe-inspiring girl-power team-up is out, and Rowena is left in the dark, dangerous cold. What will she do now?

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