1.15 The Benders

In Hibbing, Minnesota, a boy named Evan is watching Godzilla vs. Mothra on his bedroom TV when he hears a noise outside. He goes to the window to check, and sees a neighbor, Alvin Jenkins, taking out the trash. It's night, and Jenkins has heard a strange noise. He looks around, and kneels to look under a car. He sees something, and stands up quickly. As Evan watches, Jenkins is grabbed and roughly dragged under the car and vanishes.

Dean and Sam are dressed as state police, and are asking Evan McKay to describe what he saw and heard. Evan says the noise he heard sounded like a monster. Mrs. McKay thinks is he imagined the noise as a monster, as he was watching Godzilla, but that he didn't see it, only Mr. Jenkins dragged under a car. Dean bonds with Evan over Godzilla, but Sam wants to know what happens next. Evan describes the monster leaving as a scary sound - a whining growl.

That night, at Kugel's Keg, Sam and Dean discuss the case. Dean plays darts as he suggests it could be just a normal kidnapping. Sam suggests some kind of phantom attacker because their dad marked the area in his journal as a possible hunting ground as the county has a higher-than-average disappearance rate. It doesn't fit the normal type, so Dean agrees to ask around more tomorrow. Sam wants an early start, so even though Dean wants to have another round he gives in. Dean heads for the toilet while Sam heads outside. Sam hears a strange noise and checks under the car, but it's only a cat. As he waits by the car something approaches him from underneath. When Dean comes out a minute or so later there's no sign of Sam. Dean searches, but finds nothing - only their dad's journal that Sam was carrying. He spots a video camera but otherwise no clue.

The next morning Dean visits the Hibbing County sheriff's office posing as a state trooper named Greg Washington. He tells the on-duty cop, Kathleen Hudak, that his cousin Sam has been kidnapped and that he has a lead on the case. Kathleen checks Sam's record on computer and eventually agrees to help by getting the traffic camera footage. She wants him to sit tight, but Dean says Sam is his responsibility and he will bring him back. Outside of the county works department, Kathleen brings Dean some printouts of the camera footage taken outside the bar. A beat up truck with false plates apparently left the bar around the time Sam vanished. An old van passes by and gives off an odd noise that matches what the boy Evan described, so the truck is probably what Evan heard when Jenkins was taken.

Sam wakes up inside cage that is in a dark room in a barn. He looks around and spots another cage with a guy in who is either asleep or dead. Sam is kicking at the cage to try and escape. The noise awakens the missing man, Jenkins, and they talk. Sam tells Jenkins he was looking for him, and now he's got a brother looking. Jenkins thinks this is a piss-poor rescue, and that no one will find them out in the middle of nowhere. Sam wonders what are they that grabbed them, which makes no sense to Jenkins, but as they talk, two hooded figures enter, and Sam realizes his captors aren't monsters, but just people. One feeds Jenkins, and they both leave. Jenkins is worried about them assaulting him, but Sam thinks that's the least of their worries, as he grabs a metal casing of wires and begins to pull.

Deputy Kathleen and Dean are following the route the truck took according to the traffic cameras. Kathleen gets a report through on her onboard computer, reporting on "Gregory Washington". It says Dean is not the cop he is pretending to be. He eventually confesses, but begs her to still let him look for Sam. Motivated by the disappearance of her brother years ago, she agrees to continue the search for "cousin" Sam, and then she's taking Dean in.

Meanwhile Sam pulls at a piece of conduit till it breaks from the ceiling and gets a bracket of it. Jenkins' cell door opens. Sam suspects something is up but Jenkins ignores him. After he leaves, the cell doors swing shut again and lock by remote. Outside in the rain, Jenkins finds a knife on the driveway and runs, but is ambushed by a guy. He keeps going but another man takes him down. Staggering to his feet, the two men drive him into a tripwire. Finally satisfied with their game, the men kill Jenkins as Sam hears his screams.

In town the next morning, Dean asks Kathleen why she's helping him as they grab a coffee, and she explains her brother, Riley, vanished like Sam three years ago, and was never found. She knows what it's like to feel responsible for someone. They go back to their search on the highway and come across a muddy turn off on the road. Dean calls for Kathleen to pull over to investigate. As they prepare to follow on foot, Kathleen tricks Dean and handcuffs him to the cruiser's door handle saying he's a civilian. She heads on down the road to investigate. When Kathleen approaches the house, the door is answered by a young girl, Missy Bender. The girl acts strange says her mom is dead. Kathleen shows her a picture of Sam, Missy just smiles at her. She says, "That's gonna hurt' and when Kathleen turns around, Missy's dad is there and hits her unconscious with a shovel.

Dean tries to grab the car antenna to pick the handcuffs as the family truck approaches. He manages to unscrew it and pick his handcuffs just in the nick of time. The two Bender boys arrive, spot the car, and take the car to hide it. Kathleen wakes up in a cell next to Sam, assuring him that his "cousin" was looking for him but was handcuffed to her cruiser. Dean sneaks in and finds Sam and Kathleen in the barn. Both brothers are relieved the other one is good; Dean telling Kathleen he knows a trick or two to get out of the cuffs. They exchange information - they are just people, and Sam doesn't know what they want. Dean says there are a lot of cars out the back of the house, and Kathleen asks if there was a Mustang. He sadly confirms that there was, so the Benders killed Kathleen's brother. Dean realizes the cages have to have a special key to open them, so he leaves to go find it in the Benders house.

In the basement he finds jars filled with the brothers' "trophies" as well as a wall of photographs of them with their victims. Going upstairs he finds grisly and gruesome human remains decorating the house. He hears a man cutting something while music plays on an old Victrola. He creeps around the main house when he spots some keys near a jar of human teeth. As he's looking at the teeth, the board creaks behind him and he spins to see Missy there. Trying to get her calm, Dean assures her he's not going to hurt her. Missy Bender surprises him and stabs at him, pinning his jacket to the door frame, screaming for her dad! This allows her brothers to attack. Dean is holding his own between the brothers, but Pa Bender sneaks up behind him and knocks Dean out with a frying pan over the head.

Later Dean awakens, tied to a chair to find the Benders watching him. The brothers want to hunt him, after all, he's a fighter and should be fun. Dean realizes they hunt humans for fun. Pa Bender boasts to Dean that his family has been hunting and killing humans for generations, claiming to give them a fighting chance and only hunt one or two a year to not get sloppy. Dean claims they are sloppy, and the father wants to know if more cops are coming looking for him (Dean). Dean replies with sarcasm. Pa claims they will have a hunt, and for the boy (Dean) to name who gets to be the animal - the boy (Sam) or the cop. Eventually, Dean says no one else is coming, but Pa doesn't care and takes a red hot poker to Dean and burns his shoulder with it. He threatens next time to take an eye. Dean chooses Sam, thinking his brother might have a fighting chance. Pa tosses the key to his son Lee and tells him not to let Sam out, but to shoot him in the cage, and then kill the cop too! Dean's upset - he thought Sam would be given a chance.

Sam hears someone coming, and Lee Bender unlocks his cage. Sam picks up the bracket that he pulled down earlier. Kathleen calls "Hey!" to try to distract Lee, as Sam throws the bracket, causing Lee to miss. Back in the house Dean hears the shot and screams "You hurt my brother, I'll kill you, I swear. I will kill you all!' Pa ignores Dean, calling for Lee, who doesn't answer. Because Sam overpowers Lee, knocking him out, and takes the gun. However, it's jammed. Since Lee doesn't reply, both remaining Bender men go to see what's happening, picking up their guns and leaving Missy with a knife to watch Dean.

Pa and his son Jared go out to investigate and find Lee, unconscious, and the power cut off. They separate to search better, when Jared hears the cabinet click open. He fires into the furniture three times, but to no avail. Suddenly Kathleen jumps him and tries to wrestle. Pa spots Sam, firing his gun, but Sam ducks and runs. Jared throws off Kathleen, and prepares to shoot her. Sam, who is continually being shot at by Pa, runs in and manages to distract Jared, and as he turns to fire Sam ducks, causing Jared to shoot his father in the shoulder.

Sam knocks Jared out and locks him in the other cage. Kathleen takes one of the men's rifles, saying she'll watch Pa, telling Sam to go get Dean. When Sam's gone, Kathleen asks Abraham why he killed her brother. He says, "Because it's fun.' When he laughs about killing her brother, she shoots him.

There's a gun shot. Sam and Dean are exiting the main house when Kathleen exits the barn. She meets up with Dean and Sam in the middle. They locked up the girl in a closet, and Kathleen claims she shot Pa trying to escape. The three of them share a look, knowing what really happened. Later she has called for backup and they're on their way. She tells Dean and Sam to leave before more cops arrive. Dean says he's sorry about Kathleen's brother. It was hard not knowing what had happened to him, but knowing her brother's fate has not assuaged her grief. Dean and Sam go strolling down the road, arguing. Dean says if Sam gets kidnapped again, he's not going to look for him. Sam says sure he will, and then laughs saying Dean got sidelined by a thirteen year old girl, and that Dean is getting rusty. Dean tells him to shut up and they vanish into the night, Sam laughing.