1.01 Pilot

Contents

1. Summary
2. Timeline
3. Plot
4. Characters
5. Music
6. Aliases
7. Supernatural Beings
8. Pop Culture
9. Trivia
10. Errors
11. Quotes

Characters

Music

• Ginger - Gasoline
  Plays while Sam and Jess are getting ready for the Halloween party.
• Classic - Watcha Gonna Do
  Plays while Jessica, Sam, and Luis are at the Halloween party.
• Eagles of Death Metal - Speaking in Tongues
  Plays when Troy stops for the hitch-hiking Woman in White.
• Allman Brothers Band - Ramblin' Man
  Plays when Dean and Sam are at the gas station.
• AC/DC - Back in Black
  Plays after Sam finds Dean's "mullet rock" collection.
• Kid Gloves Music - My Cheatin' Ways
  Plays when Dean and Sam investigate the bridge, posing as US Marshalls.
• Keith Rosier - She Cheated on a Cheater
  Plays as Dean and Sam check into the motel.
• AC/DC - Highway to Hell
  Plays when Dean says "Saved your ass".

Aliases

• Dean - Hector Aframian, fake credit card
• Dean and Sam - US Marshalls
• Dean and Sam - Tory Squire's uncles
• Dean - Ted Nugent - guitar, bass guitar, vocals; 1958-present

Supernatural Beings

• Demons - Azazel
• Spirit (Vengeful, Woman in White)- Constance Welch

Writing the Episode

• The scene of Mom on fire on the ceiling was the original scene in Eric Kripke's head when he started writing the "Pilot".
• The streets used are the names of streets from Eric Kripke's hometown of Toledo, Ohio.
• Sam's life and story share many similarities with Tim Jensen, the lead character of "Boogeyman", also written by Eric Kripke. Both characters are haunted by a supernatural past and creature that took both a parent and, by the time the credits roll, their blond, live-in girlfriends named Jessica.
• First scene at Stanford University between Jessica and Sam was rewritten.
• The scene between Dean and Sam talking while walking down to the car has been the most rewritten scene in the history of the series, numbering in the twenties or thirties. It was all about the backstory between the brothers.
• Supernatural was originally going to be called Unnatural, and would follow a reporter going to investigate the urban legends and writing about them in his column. There was not a Winchester brother in sight!
• Eric Kripke wanted this series to be about urban legends in American folklore. "People talk", "they say", and "I heard this from a friend of a friend" were what he was thinking about to base the series on.
• Eric Kripke wanted blue collar, greasy, worn down weaponry. The characters were to be Motorheads, love classic rock, and know how to work a chainsaw. They weren't supposed to do magic or spells.
• Eric Kripke's first version of the Supernatural pilot script ended with the Winchester brothers finding their Dad. He was dead on the ceiling!
• The Woman in White legend was a crossover between the "Vanishing Hitchhiker" and "La Llorona". The "Vanishing Hitchhiker" legend states that you pick up someone at the edge of the road, but you don't realize she's a ghost until you get her home and she's no longer there.
• Eric Kripke was afraid of the choice of music would be changed before it went to production. He wrote in for classic rock - 'Cue music here and you can take your anemic alternative pop and shove it up your ass.' In the Official Companion for Season 1 (pg 11) Kripke is quoted as, "I swear, if you change the music on this show I'm walking off it." The test audience loved the old classic rock, and that music has become a standard on the show.
• Eric Kripke says the characters of Dean and Sam were - "very subversive. They're con men. They make their money through stealing... pool hustles, and credit card scams... they take on aliases and lying." But the show is also about the relationship between the brothers - hitting each other, stepping on the foot, arguing - so it's not just two cop detectives. And the emotional overtone of the show.
• Eric Kripke says, "If Buffy was at it's core, a show about high school, and that high school is hell. Our show is a show about family, and family is hell."
• Eric Kripke and David Nutter had to work out an idea of how the boys could connect to their dad without actually being with their dad, and David came up with the idea of the motel room. No set under went more scrutiny than the walls of that motel room, and it became a signature of the show.
• Eric Kripke states that Supernatural is fresh real estate - no one has tried to do a scary show week in and week out. X-Files had some very scary episodes, but it had a science fiction sort of vibe. The Twilight Zone, while brilliant, was sort of all different sorts of all different shows.
• There were drafts of the script where Constance Welch had murdered her parents instead of her kids.
• Sam's line, "What were you thinking, shooting Casper in the face, you freak?" was to cover up Eric Kripke's poor plotting and complete lack of logic, but the boldness of the line makes it work. Fans have also latched onto that line.

Casting Characters

• Jensen was originally cast as Sam, but after hearing Jared, Eric had the brilliant idea to ask Jensen to play Dean. Sam was considered Luke Skywalker, and Dean was considered Han Solo.
• When Samantha Smith read her part, Peter Johnson winked at her because she had the part. She winked back, thinking he was forward.
• Adrianne Palicki is from Toledo, Ohio.
• Allan Graf, one of the top set unit directors in Hollywood, traded in for a guest spot - he was one of the divers looking for Troy's body.
• Alex A. J. Rassamni was Constance's son and Kaitlin Claire Machina was Constance's daughter. Neither of them are listed on IMDB.^{(Supernatural The Official Companion Season 1, p.47)}

Filming

• At Jus In Bello Italy 2012, Jensen said that the scene where Dean and Sam were in the library together was one of his favorite scenes, because it was the first scene ever filmed.
• Both Jensen and Jared have the drive to do a lot of their own stunts, which Eric Kripke calls, "Pretty impressive".
• The downstairs of the Winchester home was a real house, but the upstairs was on stage, because of all the effects they needed.
• Mary climbs out of the bed on John's side of the bed, after being awoken by Sammy from the baby monitor. Right before the picture on the night stand is shown, she is rolling to the other side of the bed, probably to not get in the way of the cameraman.
• The babies used for little Sammy in the nursery were actually triplets, although they looked nothing alike. In the commentary of the episode, a mention is made that there were six babies.
• The baby would NOT cry, no matter what scare tactic was used, during the scene where John came to check up on Sammy, after Mary's scream.
• Because the opening scene at Sam's apartment was rewritten, it had to be filmed on the set of the OC a month or two after the principle photography.
• When Dean breaks into Sam's apartment and they fight, the scene is from 90 seconds to 2 minutes. For the fighting, the actors had to undergo rigorous training. It paid off. One evening when Jensen and Jared had taken off for a night while filming Dead in the Water, they ended up walking into a bar. Some patrons mistook them for the boys who had just been in there fighting, and the two actors got pulled into the bar fight. They ended up putting four patrons into the hospital, with only a Jared's hand being broke. Read more about it here.
• Jessica's shirt was to be Scooby Doo, but ended up being Smurfs.
• Filmed at UC Campuses for outside Sam's apartment, when Dean opens the trunk.
• Pictures for the missing men were prop guys.
• Filmed at Hollywood House, at Disney Ranch for the old Welch home.
• The bird flying out at the Welch home was not scripted, but added later for an effective jump scare.
• Troy's death in the car originally didn't call for blood. Network wanted more blood and gore so Eric Kripke was happy to give it to them. The blood pack used misfired, but it showed enough blood so the shot was left in.
• At the gas station, Sam tosses Dean the Metallica cassette, but it's AC/DC's "Back in Black" that plays. This is because in the original pilot "Enter Sandman" was used; however, the show could not get the rights to use it in the broadcast version.
• Filmed at Lake Piru for the Bridge Out scene.
• Dean's comment of, "Agent Mulder, Agent Scully." had to be fought to be kept in, so many people wanted it pulled out.
• No one else is eating lunch in the diner when Dean and Sam are interviewing the girls, to make it more creepy.
• Sarah Shahi, the actress who played Constance Welch, was really afraid on the bridge. They wired her and tied her up, but she was quite fearful.
• The original plan in shooting the bridge where the boys jump off, both Jensen and Jared were planned to go in the river. However, there was a costuming error and they only had enough for one of them to fall in, accidentally adding more humor to the episode.
• Jensen was a sport - filming at 3 am in the morning, he was dumping freezing cold water on himself to get a good consistency of the mud.
• Jared was told to really yank Jensen back into the hotel, after picking the lock. It caught Jensen off-guard being yanked back like that.
• Walnut dust was used as atmosphere in the scene between Sam and Joseph Welch.
• Dad's coordinates pointed to Two Guns Arizona, because the show was going to be shot in Los Angeles, and they were going to go to some dusty Western town in the next episode. However, Vancouver happened, and suddenly they were going up to Blackwater Ridge Colorado where there are lots of evergreens. But by the time Vancouver was decided on, that scene with the coordinates had already been shot.
• When Dean drops off Sam and drives away, there are extras that push the car out of the frame.
• The following scenes were deleted from the aired version but were subsequently included as DVD extras on the season 1 DVDs.
• • The first deleted scene is the very first scene in the present day. The on-screen caption says "Stanford University, Palo Alto, California. Present Day". We open to see one of Sam's friends (who is dressed as a zombie) meet up with Sam and Jess on their way to a Halloween party. He has a go at Sam for not dressing up, but Sam insists that he just doesn't like Halloween - something his friend cannot understand.
  • The second deleted scene is towards the end of the episode, after Dean has dropped Sam back off at his apartment. We see a clip of Dean in his car, interspersed with the footage of Sam in the apartment. Dean looks at his watch and turns the car around.
  • The final deleted scene extends the final scene of the episode. After Dean walks away from the crowd outside the burning apartment building, he asks Sam if he's okay. After Sam answers, we see the familiar trunk slamming moment. In this version, we watch the boys drive off past the fire trucks.

Other

• The Meaning of the Episode Title: "Pilot" is the pilot episode of the series.
• The pilot was filmed in March/April of 2005 in Los Angeles.
• The episode first premiered on Yahoo!TV on 09/06/2005. The "Pilot" could also be seen on the internet weeks before the airing. The premiere of the pilot episode ran an extra 7 minutes (9:00 to 10:07 EST), bringing the total run time to 57 minutes.
• The subtitles on the DVD sections are:
  
  1. 22 years ago.
  2. Jericho
  3. Hector Aframian
  4. The journal
  5. Kiss of death; reprise
  6. End Credits
• Jensen Ackles cited this episode as his favorite in the premier issue of the Official Supernatural Magazine saying:
  

  "I mean, obviously the pilot stands out among all the rest."

• The nursery clock stops at 8:12.
• Sam scored 174 on his LSAT (out of 180).
• This episode introduced the much debated question, "How long was Sam at Stanford?"
• John is snoring slightly when he is asleep in front of the TV.
• Sam knows how to pick locks; he has his own tools when he picks the motel room's lock.
• Dean knows how to pick locks, picking his handcuffs using just a paperclip.
• Both Mary and Jessica die in exactly the same way; in both cases, they die above Sam's bed with their stomach sliced open, dripping blood, before catching fire.
• John's motel room is papered with articles. One is about a cambion, suggesting John was speculating on Sam's heritage. Another is about Constance Welch. The article says a neighbor described Constance as a quiet but very lovely woman. This neighbor is named Deanna Kripke - the name of Eric Kripke's wife.
• Fans have latched onto the idea of "No chick-flick moments".
• There is a scene where Constance shoved Sam back so hard that the driver's seat reclined, but it really wouldn't have been possible. 1967 Impalas with bucket seats would recline, but Baby has a bench seat. Baby is a 4th generation Impala, since she was made between 1965 and 1970. It was redesigned from 3rd generation Impala, so the assumption is nothing from the earlier generation Impalas would have fit into the 4th generation. On that same assumption, nothing from the 5th generation (or later!) Impalas would be able to fit comfortably into the 4th generation Impala. Yet it is the 5th generation (1974) Impalas that had the 50/50 bench seats that reclined on the passenger side, but not the driver's side.There is no mention of a driver seat that reclines before 1980. By then the car had gotten into 6th generation, and was completely different than the 4th generation, and so none of the later seats could have fit.
• The second deleted scene listed above shows the reason Dean returned to save Sam from his burning bedroom: his watch stopped, and the car radio sent static. That's why he turned the car around, sensing something was wrong. Later on, we learn that in the days before the fires, signs crop up in an area: cattle deaths, temperature fluctuations, electrical storms.
• The episode contains a number of scenes that are mirrored in subsequent episodes. WARNING: SPOILERS Highlight to read
• 1. In the teaser John hands Sam to Dean and says, "Take your brother outside as fast as you can, and don't look back." This is repeated in Home when Sam hands Ritchie to his sister Sairie and repeats the same words.
  2. The sequence of Dean breaking into the apartment and wrestling with Sam is repeated in What Is and What Should Never Be when, in the wishverse, Sam tackles Dean as he breaks into the family home.
  3. The exchange when Dean tells Sam he doesn't want to do it alone is recalled in Defending Your Life.
  4. Dean slams Sam against the bridge when he questions the family mission. This is mirrored when Sam does that to Dean in Salvation.
  5. At the end of the pilot, there is a shot of Dean and Sam standing over the trunk of the Impala. As Sam tosses a weapon into the trunk he says, "We've got work to do," and closes the trunk. At the end of All Hell Breaks Loose (Part 2), the scene is replayed with the brothers' positions reversed. Dean tosses the Colt into the trunk and says, "We've got work to do." In Lazarus Rising, when Dean asks Castiel why he was brought back, Castiel responds, "Because we have work for you." In Of Grave Importance, the line is used by Bobby to explain his presence as a ghost. It is also re-created at the start of Fan Fiction after Dean announces he has found a case, he threw a weapon into the trunk saying, "We have work to do."
• The Yellow-Eyed Demon returned into Sam's life exactly 22 years after the day it disappeared. The number 22 is closely related to the idea that, sometimes, goals that go beyond an individual trump personal motivation. That could be said of the Yellow-Eyed Demon, but also of Sam in his personal motivation of becoming a lawyer. This is also reflected when Sam faces his destiny as a Special Child.
• It was assumed by Sam, Dean, and fans that Azazel was the one who killed Jessica. However, it was revealed in The Devil You Know that Sam's demon-possessed friend Brady did the actual killing, albeit on Azazel's instructions.
• Winchester, the brothers' last name, is also the name of a well-known rifle manufacturer called Winchester Repeating Arms Company. The heiress to the rifle fortune, Sarah Winchester, built a house in San Jose. She was convinced spirits would kill her if she completed construction of her California home. Sarah used her fortune to continue uninterrupted, round-the-clock construction on it for 38 consecutive years. Since her death, the sprawling Winchester Mystery House has become a popular tourist attraction, known for its many staircases and corridors leading nowhere, a sprawling maze. It is considered to be haunted by the ghosts of all the people killed with Winchester rifles.
• Their last name being used in reference to the rifle is only brought up once in the entire series, in The Benders.
• This episode made the 10 Most Memorable Supernatural Episodes So Far (May 26, 2016)
• Supernatural.tv: Inside the Legend: Pilot