Supernatural: The Benders

Spoilers for the episode

Story:

People have been disappearing and the Winchester investigate but Sam gets captured and Dean has to join forces with the police to find him.

Recap:

It’s nighttime and a boy is watching monster movies on TV. He then he looks out the window and watches a man get pulled under a car.
The next day the Winchesters show up dressed up as the state police. I wonder why they chose state police usually it’s the FBI and they’ve had to go through the hassle of getting costumes.
The boy heard a weird noise when the man got taken that sounded like a monster. His mother is skeptical because he was watching monster movies. He says he heard the monster leaving and it sounded like a whining growl.
At a bar they find out the local police haven’t ruled out foul play so Dean doesn’t think it’s their thing. But Sam says their Dad marked the area and the area has more missing persons than any where.
Sam goes outside after convincing Dean they should leave to get an early start. He hears a noise and checks under the cars only to be scared by a cat. But something’s watching his feet from under the car.
Dean leaves the bar and finds the journal on the car but no Sam. So he gets worried and starts calling for him until he spots the traffic cameras.
He goes to the police station pretending to still be state police and tells the deputy about Sam but says they’re cousins because Dean’s meant to be dead. She doesn’t get any hits on police reports but Dean asks if he can see the camera footage. She’s reluctant and wants to do it by the book which involves lots of paper work. He says Sam is his responsibility and he’s bringing him back.
Sam wakes up in cage and sees another man unconscious in the other cage.
The deputy pulls the pictures from the traffic camera. While they’re talking Dean hears a van that could have made the noise the kid heard.
Sam fails to kick his way out of the cage and the other guy wakes up. He thinks they are out in the country because it smells. Sam tells him he was looking for him and he tells Sam he’s doing a poor job of rescuing him. Sam asks what they look like assuming they’re some sort of monster but they’re just people.
Dean’s still with the deputy in her car. She ran his badge number and turns out it was stolen and the picture is of a black man. Dean’s fine with being arrested but after they find Sam. He begs her and she agrees reluctantly to wait until after they find Sam.
In the cage Sam breaks something and the door to the other man’s cage opens. The other guy runs off even though Sam tells him to get back in his cage because it was too easy and probably a trap. After the guy’s gone the door re-locks itself.
He tries to sneak his way out and he finds a knife then runs off into the woods. The men enjoy hunting him but they bring him down and kill him.
Dean and the deputy get coffee and he wants to know why she hasn’t arrested him. She knows what it’s like to feel responsible for someone. Her brother disappeared.
They pull over when Dean sees a turn off. She goes to investigate but won’t let Dean come along because he’s probably a felon so handcuffs him to her car. That’s the first smart thing she’s done since she found out he’s not an officer. She ruins it by going alone and not informing the station or asking for back up. I also don’t believe Dean would have let her handcuff him to the car. He’s pretty desperate to find Sam.
She approaches the house and a girl answers the door who’s a bit creepy. The girl’s mother is dead and her father’s not home. She gets the girl to look at a picture but gets whacked in the face with a shovel. It’s the father and he tells Missy to go tell her brothers he wants to see them.
Back at the road and Dean is trying to reach the car antenna to pick the cuffs as the brothers show up. He gets free as they take the deputy’s car.
The deputy wakes up in a cage and tells Sam she cuffed Dean to her car. Then in walks Dean who tells Sam he’s rusty if he got jumped by humans.
The deputy asks if he saw a black mustang in the cars these people have collected and Dean says yes. When they take someone they take the car. That’s a lot of evidence against themselves they’ve got gathered near their house. How have they managed to avoid the police this long?
Dean can’t figure out how to get them out so goes to look for a key. He goes into the house and finds a lot of trophy pictures. He says he understands demons but people are crazy.
He sneaks around the house and finds a man cutting meat (probably human) up.
Dean finds the key and a weapon. He also finds a jar full of teeth and bones hanging from the ceiling. Missy finds him and he’s says he’s not going to hurt her and she says I know before nailing him to the wall and calling for her dad.
The brothers come out of no where and they all start beating each other up and trashing the house (not that there’s anything nice to ruin).
Dean gets knocked out and wakes up tied to a chair. They want to hunt him and he’s disgusted with it. They interrogate him because they need to know if any one else knows about them. Dean is good with the insulting come backs but that makes the dad decide to shoot Sam and the deputy instead of hunting them.
The guy who is sent to kill them though is a moron because he opens the door to Sam’s cage to shoot him instead of doing it through the bars and Sam gets the upper hand.
The others leave Missy to watch Dean and go to find out what happened to the other brother. They lights won’t work because they’ve pulled the fuses but it’s a bit ineffective because it’s not that dark. Sam hides badly as they look for him.
The deputy opens a cupboard and they hear it. One of the brothers come over to investigate but this time he doesn’t open the door and shoots the cupboard. There’s nothing in there and she jumps him from behind. Meanwhile the dad is chasing Sam and the brother accidentally shoots his father in the confusion.
They put them in the cages except the dad who the deputy watches while Sam goes to find Dean. She wants to know why he did it and he says because it’s fun and laughs so she shoots him.
Outside she tells them she shot the dad when he tried to escape. They’ve locked the girl in the closet. I wish we could have seen that confrontation because she’s been quite entertaining.
The deputy calls for back up finally and tells them to get moving. Dean asks for a lift but she tells them to start walking. I don’t believe she’d let them go. It’s not like when they help people with a supernatural problem. She doesn’t know their secret and they’re criminals but she has shown quite poor judgment up to this point so who knows.
She thought the truth about what happened to her brother would make it easier but it doesn’t.
Dean tells Sam he’s never allowed to go missing again and he’s not looking for him if he does. Sam then teases him about being sidelined by a thirteen year old girl.

Thoughts:

I really liked this episode which is odd because it had no monster or anything supernatural. And I’m not usually keen on the whole humans are the real evil trope. It has to be done well to keep my attention. This reminded me a lot of the Torchwood episode ‘Countrycide’ but less disgusting and less forceful with it’s message.
This was more subtle in it’s creepiness. From the jar of teeth to the pictures and wind chimes made out of human bones.
I think I liked it so much because it doesn’t follow the formula that’s become a supernatural episode. It’s refreshing. There’s not a lot of traveling and asking different people I don’t care about questions.
Dean is a bit angsty but he does it better than Sam who always comes off whiny. For some reason I find it hard to sympathise with Sam. Maybe it’s because Sam seems to whine just to whine but with Dean it feels like character development. It’s moving the plot forward. He uses his angst to connect with the deputy and convince her to let him help. But I’m biased in favour of Dean so I might not be remembering previous Sam whining sessions accurately.
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