3.15 Time Is on My Side

Title	Time Is on My Side
Episode #	Season 3, Episode 15
First aired	May 8, 2008
Directed by	Charles Beeson
Written by	Sera Gamble
On IMDB	Time Is on My Side
Outline	A doctor who has achieved immortality is harvesting organs from victims. Sam thinks immortality will get Dean out of his deal, so he insists they take the case.
Monster	Doc Benton
Timeline	Early April - Three weeks before Dean's deal is due on May 2nd.
Location(s)	Erie, Pennsylvania Canaan, Vermont
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Synopsis

The episode starts with a young man who is abducted late at night. He later shows up at hospital with his liver removed. Sam and Dean are looking for leads on Bela when Sam comes across a newspaper article detailing the incident involving said young man. They suspect zombies but when they arrive at the hospital in Erie, PA, they find that the man's liver was removed surgically. They talk to another patient who had his kidneys removed. Sam finds out that one of the victims was sewn up using silk threads, while maggots were used to prevent infection. John's Journal tells the story of a 19th-century surgeon called Doc Benton who found a way to live forever by replacing organs the moment they stopped working. Even though John had cut out the Doc's heart, it seems Doc Benton has survived and is again abducting healthy young people to stay immortal.

Meanwhile, Bobby calls Dean and lets him know that Bela was spotted in Canaan, VT, and that Rufus Turner, a retired hunter, was the one who informed him. Dean wants to leave for Vermont but Sam is adamant on staying in Erie. Sam then reveals his whole purpose for coming to Erie was trying to find a way for Dean to live forever so he won't ever have to die and go to Hell. After an argument during which Dean makes it clear that he believes the Colt is their only means of retrieving Dean's contract, Dean leaves and Sam heads for the woods to find Doc Benton. In an isolated cabin, he finds not only the dead body of the jogger who had his heart removed, but also a young woman missing a chunk of skin on her arm who is still alive. Sam manages to escape together with the young woman, running over Doc Benton with his rental jeep.

Dean, in the meantime, finds Rufus and bribes him with a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue for the location of Bela. Rufus tells him the hotel Bela is staying at and presents Dean with Bela's criminal record. Dean then confronts Bela at the hotel. She tells him the Colt is gone and is on a plane with her buyer. He prepares to shoot her and tells her that he knows that when she was fourteen, she had the brake lines cut on her parents' car, an action that resulted in them being killed. Bela flashes back to when she was fourteen and remembers when her father used to come into her room and close the door (hinting that he was abusing her). Before Dean pulls the trigger, he makes a discovery: Bela has devil's shoestring placed above her door, indicating that she too is trying to keep out the devil. After Dean leaves without hurting her, Bela calls someone and lets them know that Dean was in her room and she knows where the brothers are, because she lifted the receipt from the Erie Hotel from Dean's pocket.

Dean calls Sam from the road. Sam tells him what happened and that he has the Doc's journal. From that journal he learned that only science, and not magic, is responsible for the Doc's immortality. Doc then abducts Sam using chloroform. Sam wakes up tied down to a table at the Doc's cabin with Doc Benton standing over him, trying to remove his eyes. Dean shoots the doctor before he can operate. Doc Benton goes after Dean and Dean stabs him using a knife dipped in chloroform to knock him out. They strap Doc Benton to his own table. The Doc comes to and tries to bargain with them, telling the brothers that he is their only hope to get Dean out of his deal. Dean doesn't want to live his life the way Doc Benton does and Sam and Dean decide to bury Doc Benton alive, chained in an old refrigerator.

At the hotel, Bela enters the Winchester's room and shoots at the beds, only to find that the brothers are already gone and have placed blow-up dolls in their beds to fool Bela. The phone rings and it's Dean. He tells her that he knew that she stole the receipt from his pocket and that the twig above her door was devil's shoestring, used to keep the hellhounds at bay. He concluded that she had also made a deal with a demon and the demon killed her parents for her. Bela reveals that she used the Colt to bargain with the demon that holds her contract but it wasn't enough. The demon wanted her to kill Sam too. Dean then states that they could have helped her, if she had only been honest with them. She reveals that Lilith holds her contract and Dean's as well, and that Lilith is the one who wants Sam dead. When he asks her why she is telling him all that, she replies that she wants them to kill Lilith first. It ends with Dean hanging up on Bela and the clock strikes midnight. At the same moment hellhounds can be heard howling nearby.

Characters

• Sam Winchester
• Dean Winchester
• Bela Talbot
• Bobby Singer
• Doc Benton
• Rufus Turner

Definitions

• The Colt
• John’s Journal
• Devil's Shoestring
• Alcohol
• Hellhounds

Music

None

Quotes

Sam: Remember that thing in the paper yesterday?
Dean: "Stripper suffocates dude with thighs"?

Dean: Zombies do like the other other white meat.

Sam: Lost your appetite yet?
Dean: (considers burger) Oh, baby, I can't stay mad at you.

Rufus: 'Cause that's the job, kid. Even if you manage to scrape out of this one, there's just going to be something else down the road. Folks like us, there ain't no happy ending. We all got it coming.
Dean: Well, ain't you a bucket of sunshine?

Rufus: You do her ear?
Dean: Hey man, I'll try anything once, but I don't know, that sounds uncomfortable.

Dean: It's simple. Black and white. Human or non-human. See, what the doc is, is a freaking monster. I can’t do it. I would rather go to hell.

Trivia & References

The episode title "Time Is on My Side" is the title of a song originally written by Jerry Ragovoy and first performed by jazz trombonist Kai Winding and his Orchestra. However, the most widely known version of this song is the cover by The Rolling Stones.

There is an actual "Doc Benton" legend, set in New Hampshire, on which this episode is obviously based. See Dr. Tom Benton.

John Winchester fought Doc Benton in 1983 and cut his heart out using a chainsaw. This story is told in the comic Supernatural: Origins #4.

Dean: [referring to bloody fingerprints] Okay, great. My man Dave Caruso will be stoked to hear it.

Dave Caruso plays Horatio Caine, the lead investigator on CSI:Miami. This role is later parodied in 5.08 Changing Channels.

Dean: Zombie with skills. Dr. Quinn, Medicine Zombie.

This is a reference to the TV show Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. Jane Seymour, who played Dr. Quinn, also played Genevieve Teague, the mother of Jensen’s character Jason Teague on Smallville.

Bobby: Rufus Turner.

Dean: Is that like a Cleavland Steamer?

Cleavland Steamer refers to a sexual act involving excrement.

Dean: A little Antiques Roadshow surgery, some organ theft.

Antiques Roadshow is a TV series where people bring their old treasures (or trash) to be appraised.

Dean: Ah, what is this, Sid and Nancy?

Dean is referring to Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious and girlfriend Nancy Spungen who had an intense drug-addicted relationship. Nancy was found murdered in Sid’s hotel room in 1978. Four months later Sid died of a heroin overdose.

Steven Williams, who plays the hunter Rufus Turner, appeared in two series associated with Kim Manners. He played Mr. X in The X-Files, and Captain Fuller in 21 Jump Street.

The patient's story is almost identical to the urban legend of "The Kidney Heist," where a young man meets a beautiful woman and she drugs his drink. He wakes the next morning to find himself in a bathtub full of ice with his kidneys surgically removed. See the story.

Bobby: One other thing. Take a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue.

Rufus: You know, I don't even bother drinking unless it's this stuff. Nectar of the gods, I'm telling you.

A 750mL bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label whiskey currently sells for $160. For contrast, a 750mL bottle of Jack Daniel's whiskey currently sells for $20.

This beverage is later referenced in 6.16 ...And Then There Were None.

The two men in the teaser are played by Kavan Smith (the victim) and Craig Veroni. Both actors had reoccurring rolls on Stargate: Atlantis, another TV series that was shot in British Columbia; however, they were employed in different seasons and never had a scene together until this episode of Supernatural. See Weren't You On Another TV Show?.

Minutiae

In 5.09 The Real Ghostbusters, fangirl Becky tells Sam that in the Supernatural book written by Chuck which tells the events of this episode, Bela gave the Colt not to Lilith but to her right hand demon, and possibly lover, Crowley.

Bela is staying at the Hotel Canaan, room 39, in Canaan, Vermont.

Sam and Dean stay at room 15 of the Erie Motel in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Sam's rental car is from Lariat Rentals (a name apparently cleared and used in The X-Files).^Source

Despite being set before Dean's deal is up on May 2nd, the receipt Bela steals from Dean is dated 6-11-2008.

Terence Kelly plays the coroner Dean and Sam speak with about the first victim who loses his liver. He also played Daniel Elkins in 1.20 Dead Man's Blood. See Weren't you in another episode?.

Sides, Scripts & Transcripts

• 3.15 Time Is on My Side (transcript)

Promotion

• Episode Stills. There was some controversy when the episode stills were released, as a caption on one identified Dean as being strapped naked to the table.
• Episode Promo: 3.15 Time Is on My Side