Charlie came in to this episode with something to prove. She’d found a case, and she brought it to the Winchesters because she’d been a bystander long enough, dammit; she knew it was time to make the transition.
Charlie wanted to become a hunter.
She did everything she could to prepare, researching everything she could relating to the case, and everything she could relating to the Winchesters. She came in prepared, and nailed the preliminary rounds, the research, the shooting range. After finding the Winchester Gospels, she knew that you don’t just walk away from the things she’s seen, and she knew that the only way to make it through without turning tail and running was to become a hunter.
Except that Charlie isn’t a hunter. Sure, she has everything down in theory, but she doesn’t know how to dress professionally, she gets nervous while trying to lie, and she fumbles in the field- rookie mistakes that she could learn from, but at what cost? Hunting is a tough way of life, and could strip away all the things that make her Charlie, little by little, and that would be a tragedy almost worse than if she’d been killed in the field. Because Charlie’s character is built around the idea that it’s okay to be strange, and it’s okay to be confident, and it’s okay to be different than everyone expects you to be. Strip all that away, and you get a scared genius struggling to make her way in the world with the weight of a dead father and an almost-dead mother holding her down.
In some other season, maybe that’s the route her character might have gone, a tragic downward trajectory leaving Charlie broken but strong with her jagged edges. But this season isn’t about breaking down into dust; this season is about building yourself back up. This season is about compromise, finding a balance, finding a home and a family and letting go of the things that are trying to drag you backwards. Finding closure.
Throughout the episode, the shadow of her almost-dead mother hangs over Charlie’s head, the parent influencing the child even when they are no longer there. This isn’t a bad thing, necessarily: without her mother’s influence, Charlie might not have become who she is today, confident and enthusiastic and passionate about her interests. But there comes a point where that weight is no longer grounding but imprisoning, holding the child back from what they could become. In order to wake up from the djinn dream, Charlie has to let go of that weight, move on. It doesn’t mean forgetting, but she can’t remain in the shadow of her mother’s coma any longer or she’ll suffocate.
Sam and Dean are held back just as much by the shadow of their father and his mission. John defined them as people, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing; but they’ve long since reached the point where they have to let what happened to them go. Otherwise, John’s dead weight will hold them both down until they run themselves to death in service of the hunter’s life.
All three of them have to grow up, in different ways, and that’s what they’re doing, little by little. Dean is becoming more open about who he is, not who John wanted him to be; Sam is finding the middle ground between the life he’d been raised into and the life he’s idealized as perfect; Charlie has learned to gently let go of her mother’s hand and to walk forward, holding the memory of her close.
The Men of Letters are instrumental to this, for all of them. For Dean, they represent a home, a place he can finally settle himself in, a place he can feel safe. For Sam, it’s a place where he can be who he was raised to be, and be the man he wants to be, at the same time. And for Charlie, she can find the middle ground as well, not becoming a hunter and stripping away everything that is herself and her mother’s legacy, but becoming a Woman of Letters, an intellectual still fighting the good fight, but on her own terms. And through the Men of Letters, all three of them get something else as well: family.
But first they have to let of of the past, and step into their birthright as legacies; they can make their mark on the world as their own people, with a long history giving them a hand.