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The Benders - Recap
Episode fifteen opens in Hibbing Minnesota, with a boy watching monster movies in bed, there is a strange noise outside and the boy watches out the window as his neighbor, Mr. Jenkins, takes out his trash and then is pulled under a car by an unseen thing. Slamming the curtains shut the strange noise comes back and we fade into the next scene where Sam and Dean are questioning the boy in the guise of the state Police.
Not sure if this is a job for them, the brothers are discussing it in a local bar. Their father has marked the area as a possible hunting ground of a phantom attacker, and the county has a higher per capita of missing persons than the entire rest of the state. They decide it's at least worth looking into and Sam heads out to the car to wait for Dean. There we see what looks like the same set up as when Mr. Jenkins disappeared, but we're treated to the obligatory cat under the car scare instead and it seems all is well.
Only when Dean comes out, Sam is missing.
The only clue may be from some traffic cameras set up near the bar, so Dean heads to the local police to get their help. Using a stolen badge he is masquerading as a state police officer looking for his cousin. He gets help from Officer Kathleen, who looks up their past record and sees that he's not in any current field reports. She's insistent that they do this the right way with paperwork and going through the right channels, Dean manages to convince her that he needs to be with her on this investigation because Sam is family, and he's responsible for him.
The traffic camera captured the image of a truck with a trailer on it. We saw this truck in both parking lots when the two disappearances happened. A passing motor in need of a tune up clicks with Dean on the final clue, the strange noise that was heard when Mr. Jenkins disappeared, a whiney growl, was the truck engine and nothing supernatural at all.
Meanwhile Sam wakes up in a cage with someone asleep or unconscious in another cage beside his. Testing out the security of the cage, Sam wakes up Mr. Jenkins, who's not exactly thrilled with the quality of his rescue, and it's found out that their captors are only people. They use remote locks to open the cage and feed Mr. Jenkins and leave without a word.
Officer Kathleen discovers that Dean has stolen the State Police badge, threatening to arrest him he manages to convince her to continue looking. She looks unsure of this decision but continues the quest to find Sam.
Back in captivity, Mr. Jenkins' cage opens and we finally find out why people are being taken. They are there to be hunted. Jenkins finds a knife but he doesn't hold out long against those hunting him, he is chased through the woods and killed by his captors.
The next morning, still searching for the truck and for Sam, Dean finds out that the reason Officer Kathleen has been so sympathetic to his plight is the loss of her own brother the same way Sam was lost. Finding a turnoff Dean is left handcuffed to the police cruiser while the officer goes to investigate. She finds the truck and unfortunately the owners and ends up being knocked out.
The police car is taken to hide it, luckily Dean managed to free himself before being found, and he finds Sam and the Officer in the cages. Officer Kathleen finds out that her brother's car is in the junk pile of victims vehicles, he won't be coming back. The automatic lock to the cages needs a key so Dean takes a tour of the house of horrors looking for it. There are various hunting trophies, such as a mason jar full of teeth, and Pa Bender is in the midst of hacking up something that needs a bone saw to be taken apart. It doesn't take too much imagination to think there might be human on the menu in the Bender household.
Unfortunately he is discovered by the Bender children and captured. Pa Bender wants to make sure no one else knows about what they are doing so he tortured Dean with a hot poker for information. Given a choice on who is to be hunted, Sam or Officer Kathleen, Dean chooses Sam thinking he's better able to defend himself. Sam and Kathleen make their escape and eventually the two brothers are in the cages and Officer Kathleen is left to guard Pa Bender. Not surprisingly he is shot “trying to escape”.
The brothers are let go before backup arrives to clean up the situation. They will have to make their way back to town where the car is waiting at the police station, but considering Dean was impersonating an officer and is supposed to be dead they are getting off lightly.
Review :
There is good continuity in this episode, the police records showing “Dean Winchester” as deceased and suspected of murder from the episode Skin.
You also start to see how Dean views Sam, he calls him his responsibility and is insistent that he will bring him back when he goes missing. This is a continuation of Dean telling Sam that he was the one who carried him from the burning house 22 years ago when their mother was killed, Dean feels like it's his job to keep Sam safe, which he verifies when he tells officer Kathleen that he pretty much pulled him from a burning house. Somewhere over the years Sam has become Dean's job. In Faith you got to see Sam's protectiveness of his brother, and in fact he's said before he would die for him, but this episode really started to delve into Dean's feelings.
Driving at night seems to help with their issues of bad blue screen, they either had to actually drive or they came up with better special effects. That was nice, I find the rather obvious blue screen while driving jarring, especially since they work so hard on their other effects.
The almost continuous rain of the episode worked well for the atmosphere, keeping it dark and moody. Granted sometimes in Vancouver you don't get a lot of choice, but if you have to have an episode out in the middle of the woods, dark and drizzle add to the feel of being lost and hopeless.
Without a doubt the best imagery of the episode was the shot with the hot poker reflected in Dean's eye. There was stark terror on his face and you could very well believe that he was in danger of losing an eye. The extreme close up and involuntary twitching of his eye made it a very tense scene to play out, keeping the viewer on the edge of their seat as well.
Alexia Fast, who played Missy Bender, was without a doubt the creepiest kid in a long time, playing someone with a completely predatory side. She was the living example of the female of the species being deadlier than the male. I pity whatever social worker has to take her on.
Dean says he gets demons, people are just crazy. The things they normally hunt usually have a much simpler motivation, food, safety, revenge. The Bender's motivation isn't complex, just different. In fact it boils down to something simple, they hunt and kill people because it's fun.
Guest Stars:
Jessica Steen - Officer Kathleen
Trivia
This episode contained elements from “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, based on the life of Ed Gein who made trophies from human remains, and “The Most Dangerous Game”, a movie about a man arranging to hunt humans on a private island.
The monster movie on the TV was Godzilla vs. Mothra, released in 1964, it's considered the best of the Godzilla movies by many of the fans. Apparently Dean agrees.
Police records: Samuel Winchester, born 5-2-1983, 6'4” brown hair and eyes.
Dean Winchester, born 1-24-1979, Died 3-7-2006, 6'4” brown hair and green eyes
Jensen Ackles is actually listed as being 6'1” in his IMDB.com profile, Jared Padelecki is listed as 6‘5“ in his profile.
Ned Beatty time is a reference to Deliverance, where four friends were hunted by locals while on a rafting trip.
Aliases:
Dean: Officer Greg Washington of the State Police
