Bela Talbot
Name | Bela Talbot |
Actor | Lauren Cohan Tiera Skovbye (Young Bela in 3.15) |
Dates | 1984 - 2008 (killed by a hellhound) |
Location | Queens, New York (Home) Hell |
Occupation | Thief Con artist |
Episode(s) | 3.03 Bad Day at Black Rock 3.06 Red Sky at Morning 3.07 Fresh Blood 3.10 Dream a Little Dream of Me 3.12 Jus in Bello 3.15 Time Is on My Side |
I procure unique items for a select clientèle.
– Bela Talbot, 3.03 Bad Day at Black Rock
History
Bela Talbot (real name Abby3.15) acquires supernatural objects for rich clients, and also runs scams selling fake charms and running seances. According to Bobby, Bela knows her way around the hunting world, but occupies it in a different way to typical hunters.3.03 Bela has some skills in contacting the dead and uses them as an information source. In 3.03 Bad Day at Black Rock she tells Dean she used a Ouija board to find John's lock-up, and in 3.07 Fresh Blood, a spirit tells her where Gordon is. She had her parents killed in exchange for her soul as part of a 10-year deal she made with a crossroads demon when she was 14 due to what is implied to be abuse by her father. 3.15 This was the reason the ghost ship allowed her to see it and why she was hunted by the sailor's ghost.3.06
Aliases
- Kary3.03 (poses as waitress at Biggerson's Restaurant).
- Lugosi3.03 (a reference to Bela Lugosi).
- Alex3.06
- Mina Chandler3.15 (Mina may be a reference to Mina Harker from Bram Stoker's Dracula portrayed by Helen Chandler).
Episodes
3.03 Bad Day at Black Rock
Bela tries to obtain and sell a rabbit's foot (the highest bid seems to be $1.5 million). She finds out that it is in a curse box in a storage container of John's by communicating with the foot's victims via a Ouija board, and pays thieves to retrieve it for her. She swipes the rabbit's foot from Sam's pocket at Biggerson's Restaurant while she poses as their waitress (Kary) and pretends to flirt with him. Ultimately, falling victim to the curse herself, she's forced to help Sam and Dean destroy it.
3.06 Red Sky at Morning
Bela reveals more of her character by telling Sam & Dean about how she seemingly scams rich customers (such as Gertrude Case) by holding seances for them & selling them supernatural charms. At first she seems to be working the same job as Sam & Dean (ghost ship), but it turns out to be an elaborate manipulation – with their involuntary help, she steals the Hand of Glory, which she sells to a client. When Bela herself sees the ghost ship, she turns to Sam and Dean for help. It is revealed that this particular ghost ship – the Espírito Santo only appears to those who have spilled the blood of a family member, but Bela refuses to share this part of her history. By summoning the brother of the vengeful spirit, the spirit is put to rest and Bela escapes death. She gives Sam and Dean $10,000 for helping her.
3.07 Fresh Blood
Gordon has escaped from prison, and tracks down Bela after he finds out she had been working with the Winchesters. Although he threatens to shoot her, she only reveals their whereabouts when Gordon gives her a priceless mojo bag. When Dean later deduces that Bela led Gordon to them, he calls her and threatens to kill her. In an attempt to avert this, Bela contacts a spirit, who reveals Gordon's whereabouts. She passes this information onto Dean.
3.10 Dream a Little Dream of Me
When Bobby lapses into a coma Sam and Dean find the culprit is Jeremy Frost, a patient of the doctor who was unable to dream until the doctor gave him African Dream Root. Sam and Dean decide to take some of the herb themselves in order to enter Bobby's dream, and contact Bela to see if she can obtain some. She at first refuses, but then arrives at the boys' hotel room, just after Sam has had a rather sexy dream about her. Bela says she wants to help Bobby because he saved her life in Flagstaff, although this is later revealed by Bobby to be a lie. She remains to help during the case, but disappears suddenly – having stolen the Colt.
3.11 Mystery Spot
Bela is brought up at the start of the episode when the Winchesters argue about what they should be doing; apparently, she got away from them and has been able to keep the brothers from learning her whereabouts. Dean wants to resume the chase, but Sam convinces him to keep working unrelated hunts until they find clues to where Bela is.
3.12 Jus in Bello
Sam and Dean get a lead on Bela and resume pursuit, tracing her to a hotel room in Monument, Colorado, and breaking in in an attempt to retrieve the stolen Colt. However, the room is abandoned, and Bela calls the room from her car to taunt them and reveals that she has set them up by phoning in an anonymous tip to the FBI, at which point they are apprehended by Victor Henriksen. She is revealed to still have the Colt and that she has something else in mind than selling it.
3.14 Long-Distance Call
Dean mentions that he and Sam haven't been able to find Bela and the Colt, nor get anywhere on releasing him from his deal, so he now wants to concentrate on side-hunts until they find something concrete.
3.15 Time Is on My Side
Dean receives a phone call from Bobby, who in turn got a phone call from an old hunter friend by the name of Rufus Turner after Bela contacted him under one of the aliases they know her to use. Rufus claims to know about Bela's whereabouts, so after a fight with Sam about whether or not it's such a good idea to hunt for Bela now Dean goes to Vermont to meet him. Rufus presents him with a manila folder – ten confidential files from England's records – on Bela's past. Dean learns that Bela's parents died in a "car accident" when she was 14 years old and deduces that she killed them. When Dean finds Bela in the Canaan hotel, he suggests she killed them to inherit their money, which she plays along with; however, a flashback suggests that her father had been sexually abusing her. Bela claims to have sold the Colt to a buyer already and that Dean won't be able to catch up to him in time. Dean is close to killing her but stops and leaves her alive when he spots a devil's shoestring propped on the door pane above her. Bela is revealed to have picked Dean's pocket for a receipt from the motel room he and Sam are staying at. She contacts someone to tell them that the plan to lure Dean to her had worked and that Sam hadn't been with him, though she knows where they're staying.
Later, Bela drives to Erie, Pennsylvania. When she arrives in the boys' motel room, she shoots at the occupied beds, only to discover that the boys weren't in them and that she had shot the two inflatable sex dolls they'd left in their place. She then receives a phone call from Dean, who reveals that he'd felt her pick his pocket and that they'd escaped ahead of time. He has figured out that she didn't kill her parents herself but had made a deal with a crossroads demon who had killed them for her and that today is the tenth anniversary of that deal, thus her soul is due. She had stolen the Colt and given it to demons to fulfill another deal and be released from her original deal, but they changed the terms of their arrangement and demanded that she also kill Sam. Crying, Bela admits to Dean that she needs help, but he points out that it's too late for him to help her now, though they probably could have saved her before she'd stolen the Colt. Bela reveals that she had learned of Dean's deal from Lilith, who had told her that she holds the contracts to all deals. Insisting that it's the truth, she says that she's telling him all this because maybe he can kill Lilith. After Dean tells her he'll see her in Hell and hangs up, the digital clock on the night stand strikes midnight and Bela hears the howling of a hellhound. She is last seen standing watching the motel room's window where the growling appears to be coming through, before the screen cuts to black with the sound of glass shattering.
3.16 No Rest For The Wicked
Bela does not appear but she is mentioned by Dean, who is highly skeptical of the information she gave him in the previous episode – that Lilith holds his deal – as she has a history of lying to them.
5.09 The Real Ghostbusters
Fangirl Becky tells Sam that in the thirty-third chapter of Supernatural: Time Is on My Side book written by Chuck, there was a scene in which Bela gave the Colt not to Lilith but to Lilith's right-hand demon, Crowley. With this new lead on the Colt, which they hope to find and use to kill Lucifer, Sam and Dean track Crowley down in the following episode (5.10 Abandon All Hope...) and find that he does indeed have the gun.
Trivia
- In the 16th century, there was a notorious English occult charlatan called Edward Talbot a.k.a. Edward Kelley, who in his younger years was pilloried for forgery or counterfeiting, and who later claimed to be a spirit medium and an alchemist (on a continuous quest to make gold). Swindling, occult activities aimed at riches, and consulting spirits, are also traits of Bela. But whether her last name is based on this historical character remains a speculation.
- In the Old Testament, Bela is a city close to the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, but unlike these it was not destroyed (Genesis 14:2, 19:22).
- While her first name is a reference to Dracula actor Bela Lugosi, her surname Talbot is a reference to Lawrence Talbot, the protagonist of The Wolf Man.
- She was 24 in 3.15 Time Is on My Side, making her about four years younger than Dean and the same age as Sam.
- Casting Side for Bela from June, 2007. This scene between Bela and Dean was used to cast the role of Bela. The scene features a plot line that did not occur early in Bela's role in the show, and so it is likely this scene is either from a script that was substantially re-written or the scene was written specifically for casting.
- Bela frequently uses a stainless steel Walther PPK/s pistol chambered in the .380 ACP caliber, which is a slightly larger version of the Walther PPK, widely recognized as James Bond's choice weapon. This is a fitting small pistol for a someone who is a career thief and needs a light and compact weapon. Despite this, Bela has also been spotted wielding a Desert Eagle pistol chambered in .357 Magnum in episode 3.03 Bad Day at Black Rock, when she holds up Dean and Sam demanding the Rabbit's Foot back.
See also
External links
Meta
- SPN 3.15 All the Time in the World by blackcat333-99 (May 2008); archive link
- Bela Talbot analysis by hellosweetease; eating-my-wings; x-halation (July 2011)
- Untitled meta on Bela, Bobby, and patricide by super-skitty (November 2013); archive link
- no Bela did not have better options & Catholicism (untitled) by cappyrogers, tartapplesauce (December 2013); archive link
- bela talbot was exploited by warpfactornope (December 2013); archive link
- A few reminders about Bela Talbot & Ben Edlund by isthemachinesinging (December 2013); archive link
- it is misogynistic (untitled) by saltfree, hollyjollyunicorn, deancasotp (December 2013); archive link
- untitled commentary on bela not being a “good victim” and how that influences fandom discussion about her by veneredirimmel (March 2014); archive link
- Bela/Dean were explicit mirrors by destronomics, amonitrate (April 2014); archive link
- So let’s talk about why people hate Bela Talbot by heyacas (May 2015); archive link
- An essay on Bela Talbot, because it's the year of Our Lord 2018 and it’s time to admit that she didn't deserve that by inkbleeder (July 2018); archive link