1.15 The Benders
Title | The Benders |
Episode # | Season 1, Episode 15 |
First aired | February 14, 2006 |
Directed by | Peter Ellis |
Written by | John Shiban |
On IMDB | http://imdb.com/title/tt0757750/ |
Outline | Sam is abducted by a family of cannibalistic hillbillies while he and Dean are investigating several decades' worth of missing people. |
Monster | People |
Timeline | three days between May 23-June 10, 2006 (speculation) |
Location(s) | Hibbing, Minnesota |
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Contents
Synopsis
Dean and Sam are investigating some mysterious disappearances in Hibbing, Minnesota. After interviewing a young boy who heard something when the last victim, Alvin Jenkins, disappeared, Sam himself goes missing, kidnapped from a parking lot outside a bar in the same manner as the other victims.
Dean reports his disappearance to the local Sheriff’s office, pretending to be a police officer looking for his cousin.
Inside a barn, Sam is being held captive in a cage, as is Alvin Jenkins. Two hooded figures enter and leave food, and Sam is astonished to find their captors are not supernatural beings, but people.
Deputy Kathleen Hudak begins helping Dean, and they identify a truck making a noise similar to what the witness reported. However, Kathleen discovers Dean's true identity along with his damaging police record (1.06), but motivated by the disappearance of her brother years ago, she agrees to continue the search for "cousin" Sam in hopes that she will also discover what happened to her own brother.
While Sam is trying to escape, the door on Jenkin’s cage opens, and against Sam’s warning he leaves the cage. Once outside, Jenkins is pursued, hunted, by two men who eventually kill him.
Kathleen and Dean follow the truck to where it enters a property, but as they prepare to follow on foot, Kathleen handcuffs Dean to the sheriff’s car.
When Kathleen approaches the house, the door is answered by a young girl, Missy Bender, who distracts Kathleen while her father, Pa Bender knocks her out.
Dean manages to escape from his restraints just before two other members of the Bender family approach. Dean finds Sam and Kathleen in the barn and he sadly confirms for Kathleen that he has seen her brother’s car near the house, evidence that the Benders were responsible for his probable murder. Dean is unable to open the cages, and goes to the house to search for a way to open them. He finds grisly and gruesome human remains decorating the house. Missy Bender surprises him and stabs him, allowing the rest of her family to attack and overpower him.
Pa Bender boasts to Dean that his family has been hunting and killing humans for generations. He threatens Dean with torture to find out if other police are on the way, and then says Dean must choose whether Sam or Kathleen will be the prey for the next hunt. Dean chooses Sam, but then Pa instructs his son, Lee, to go and shoot both Sam and Kathleen.
Out in the barn, Sam has freed himself and Kathleen and they overpower Lee, and then the other Bender son, Jared, who comes to investigate. Sam knocks Jared out, and then shoots Pa Bender, leaving Kathleen to cover him while he searches for Dean.
While alone, Pa Bender taunts Kathleen about her brother’s death, and she kills him.
Dean has escaped, and locked Missy Bender in a closet. Kathleen joins the brothers and tells them she killed Pa Bender as he tried to escape. She lets the boys leave before the police arrive and admits that knowing her brother’s fate has not assuaged her grief.
Characters
- Dean Winchester
- Sam Winchester
- Deputy Kathleen Hudak
- Pa Bender
- Missy Bender
- Alvin Jenkins
Definitions
- Phantom Attacker PoD
- Spring Heeled Jack PoD
- Phantom Gassers PoD
- Deliverance PoD
- The Most Dangerous Game PoD
Music
- Joe Walsh – Rocky Mountain Way
- Composer - Sweet and Low Down according to S1Com
Quotes
Dean: Winchester. Sam Winchester.
Kathleen: Like the rifle?
Dean: Two beers and he’s doing karaoke.
Dean: And they jumped you? Must be gettin' a little rusty there, kiddo.
[...]
Sam: So you got sidelined by a thirteen-year-old girl, huh?
Dean: Oh, shut up.
Sam: Just saying you're getting rusty there, kiddo.
Sam: It's a bracket.
Trivia & References
Jensen Ackles: "...the guys on The Benders - the whole family - were also great..."
Jared Padalecki: "I realize that wasn't supernatural at all, but it was a fun show to films and a fun one to watch."Evan: Godzilla Vs. Mothra.
Dean: That’s my favorite Godzilla movie! It’s so much better than the original, huh?
Evan: Totally.
Dean: Yeah. [nodding towards Sam] He likes the remake.
- "In the United States and Canada, an AMBER Alert is a notification to the general public, by various media outlets, of a confirmed child abduction." The alert goes out through a large number of outlets, including television, radio, and email, and usually includes a description of the abductor and his/her car and license plate.
Sam: Waitin’ for what?
Jenkins:' Ned Beatty time, man.
- Ned Beatty is an award-winning actor whose debut role was in the famous 1972 horror movie Deliverance, where he played a suburban man viciously raped by psychotic mountain men. See Deliverance for other episodes which have quotes from this movie.
Dean: I lost some weight. [laughs nervously] And I got that Michael Jackson skin disease...
- One of the numerous controversies that have surrounded singer/performer Michael Jackson throughout his life has been his changing physical appearance. One of these changes was a drastic whitening of his skin, which Jackson has attributed to the skin disease vitiligo but has also been rumored to be the result of bleaching creams.
- "Looking for Love" is a song from the album of the same name by country singer Johnny Lee.
Minutiae
Sides, Scripts & Transcripts
- 1.15 The Benders (transcript)
- Sides for Abraham Bender & Deputy Sheriff Hudak (zipped pdf files).
- A transcript of the aired episode.