Title The Benders
Episode # Season 1, Episode 15
First aired February 14, 2006
Directed by Peter Ellis
Written by John Shiban
Outline Sam is abducted by a family of cannibalistic hillbillies while he and Dean are investigating several decades' worth of missing people.
Monster People / Cannibals
Location(s) Hibbing, Minnesota
Timeline three days between May 23-June 10, 2006 (speculation)
Dean and Sam are investigating some mysterious disappearances when Sam himself goes missing, kidnapped from a parking lot in the same manner as the other victims. Dean ends up joining up with a local police officer, Deputy Kathleen Hudak, whose own brother went mysteriously missing years ago. Though she discovers Dean's true identity along with his damaging police record (1.06), she agrees to continue the search for "cousin" Sam in hopes that she will also discover what happened to her own brother. Dean and Kathleen learn that the perpetrators are not paranormal at all, but instead a backwoods hillbilly family that hunts, kills, and presumably eats human prey for sport. Both Dean and Kathleen are captured before Sam, who has been locked in a steel cage for the duration, is able to get the upperhand on the cannibalistic Benders and free the other two. Kathleen, upon learning the fate of her brother, enacts her revenge by shooting Pa Bender in the head as he laughs in her face. She allows Sam and Dean to flee the scene with her gratitude before police backup arrives.
.
Music
* Joe
Walsh – Rocky Mountain Way
Trivia
This
is the first episode where Dean and Sam don't drive off in their
car. Instead they walk.
Quotes
Deputy
Kathleen: And it just got back to me. Says here your badge was
stolen. And there is a picture of you.
(shows him a picture of a large black man)
Dean: I lost some weight and I got that Michael Jackson skin disease...
Dean: Oh, you gotta be kiddin’ me. That’s what this
is about? You yahoos hunt people?
Pa: But the best hunt is human. Oh, there’s nothin’
like it. Holdin’ their life in your hands. Seein’ the
fear in their eyes just before they go dark. Makes you feel powerful
alive.
Dean: You’re a sick puppy.
Kathleen: (about Sam) Does your cousin have a drinking problem?
Dean: Two beers and he’s doin’ karaoke.
Dean: Don't ever do that again.
Sam: Do what?
Dean: Go missing like that.
Sam: You were worried about me!
Dean: I'm just saying, you vanish like that again and I'm not
looking for you.
Sam: Sure you won't.
Dean: I'm not!
Dean: (talking about Sam) When we were young, I pretty much pulled
him from a fire. And ever since then I've felt responsible for
him, like it's my job to keep him safe.
References
The Benders
Though their methods and motives for killing are different,
the Benders in this episode share their name with another killer
family. The "Bloody Benders" were a family of serial
killers from Kansas, killing an estimated 21 people between 1872
and 1873.
Jenkins: They're just a bunch of psycho hillbilly rednecks...
lookin' for love in all the wrong places.
Referring to the song "Looking for Love" from the
album of the same name by country singer Johnny Lee.
Kid: Godzilla vs. Mothra.
Dean: That's my favorite Godzilla! So much better than the original,
right? (about Sam) He likes the remake.
Movies in the Godzilla franchise referenced here include Godzilla
(1954), Godzilla vs. Mothra (1962), and a remake, possibly the
1984 Godzilla remake, the 1998 American Godzilla, or the 1992
remake of Godzilla vs. Mothra.
Dean: If i tell you, will you promise not to make me into an ashtray?
Real-life serial killer, Ed Gein, was infamous for using human
body parts as pieces of furniture or decorations; among these
were human skulls that had been turned into ashtrays.
Jenkins: Ned Beatty time, man.
Alluding to the 1972 movie Deliverance starring Ned Beatty
along with Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, and Ronny Cox. They play
four city men who go canoeing down a river in Georgia and run
afoul of vicious mountain men.
Kathleen: These traffic cams take an image every three seconds,
as part of the Amber Alert program.
"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.
Jenkins: But I’m waitin’.
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. (This
particular scene is referenced by Dean in 1.01 Pilot when he is
being interrogated by the police).
Kathleen: It says here your badge was stolen. And there’s
a picture of you. [she turns the computer to reveal a heavy-set
African American man]
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.
Others...
* This episode often draws from The X-Files episode "Home," which features a secluded family that has a long tradition of inbreeding and violence toward anyone who comes close to its members. Both episodes play on the same themes: a strong (and perverted) sense of family and a vision of horror that isn't brought by demons or creatures, but humans. It is often said to be the scariest and most disturbing X-Files episode. Also to be noted, Supernatural series producer and director Kim Manners (episodes Dead in the Water, Bugs, Scarecrow, In My Time of Dying, Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things, No Exit and Houses of the Holy) has also directed that X-Files episode among others.