Supernatural Season 1 Episode 1 "Pilot" Recap

Episode 01 - Pilot
Directed by David Nutter
Written by Eric Kripke
Original Airdate: September 13, 2005


Lawrence, Kansas - 22 Years ago
Dean's mom brings him in to say good night to his baby brother Sammy.  Dad comes in and Dean is excited to see him.  They go to bed, as lights flicker and soon the baby monitor makes some strange noises which wakes up the mother up.  She walks into the nursery sees a figure in the baby's room, and thinks it's her husband John.  She notices the flickering light at the end of the hallway, and goes down stairs to find her husband asleep in from of the TV.  She rushes back up and we hear scream which awakens John.  He rushes into Sam's room to find Sam alone in his cradle, but he soon notices blood dripping from the ceiling.  He turns to see that Mary is on the ceiling and she bursts into flames.  John grabs Sam and gives him to Dean to get him to safety.  John goes back in the room and see his wife consumed in the fire, and we hear what appears to be growls in the flames.  He rushes outside and grabs his boys just before an explosion rocks Sam's room.  We see police, fire fighters and EMT's are on the scene, keeping on lookers away while the family sits on the hood of an Impala.


Stanford University - Present Day
Sam's girlfriend dressed in a naughty nurse costume is telling him to hurry and asks where his custom is, and he says, "you know how I feel about Halloween."  They attend a costume party.  Sam scored a 174 on his LSAT, and has a shot at getting a full scholarship to Stanford Law School next year, but has to go to an interview Monday to secure it.


Sam and his girlfriend are asleep, when he hears noises and goes to investigate.  We see a figure pass by a door, and then Sam fights the intruder revealing that it is Dean, his older brother.  Sam wants to know why Dean is here.  Dean implies that Sam wouldn't answer his  call.  Jessica comes in wearing a Smurfs t-shirt.  Dean came to see Sam, because Dad is on a hunting trip and hasn't been home for a few days.


They go outside to talk, and on the way, Sam mentions a poltergeist and the devil's gate revealing part of their past as hunters, and he says that their dad was missing then and he was.  He's always fine.  Sam goes on to say that he's given up hunting for good and that when he was 9 years old when he was afraid of something in his closet his dad gave him a .45.  Dean says that he should be afraid of the dark because he knows what's out there.  They grew up killing everything they could find trying to find the thing that killed their mom.  They were raised like warriors with weapons training and melting down silver into bullets.  Sam says that he was just going to college, and it was his dad who said if he was going to stay gone.  Dean doesn't want to do this alone.


Dean opens his truck revealing an arsenal.  Dean had been working a gig down in New Orleans involving Voodoo.  Dean is 26 and can go on hunting trips on his own, which surprises Sam.  Their dad disappeared while investigating a stretch of road near Jericho, CA where several men had disappeared mysteriously over the past several months along with several others over the last 10 years.  He was missing and then yesterday Dean got a crytic voicemail that included an EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon) of a spirit saying. "I can never go home."  Sam has been gone for almost two years, and Dean says he's never bothered him or asked him for anything.  Sam says that he has to be back first thing Monday for his law school interview.  Sam starts packing including a weapon.  He tells Jessica that he dad is probably at a cabin with Jim, Jack and Jose.  Jessica is confused about his action considering he doesn't talk about his family.


Jericho, California
A man is driving down that stretch of highway that John was investigating talking on his cell phone with Amy, his girlfriend, as he explains that he can't come over tonight because of work.  He sees a beautiful young woman in white is on the side of the road, and his radio starts to flicker.  He stops to offer her a ride.  She asks him to take her home.  He opens the door for her.  When she sits down, we see the rear of the car and she has no shadow.  She tells him that she lives at the end of Breckenridge road.  He notices her outfit and thinks she might have been a Halloween party.  She asks if he thinks she's pretty and asks him to come home with her.  They arrive at an abandoned old house, and he says that she doesn't live there.  She disappears from the car, and we see a hand print of the windshield.  He gets out of the car, and walks towards the house.  We see a picture of lady  with two children on the wall, just before birds fly out of the broken glass of the door scaring him.  He gets in his car and drives away and is scared again seeing her in the backseat.  His VW car veers onto an old bridge, and we see blood splatter on it's windows.


"Ramblin' Man" by the Allman Brothers is playing on the radio, as Sam and Dean stop for gas and breakfast.  We learn that Dean and his dad use credit card scams to pay for things.  They apply in various names apparently being successful, last time that got two cards as father and son.  Dean gets in the Impala and we learn that he has a cassette tape collection that includes Black Sabbath, Motorhead, Metallica, which Sam dubs "the greatest hits of mullet rock."  Deans tells him, "house rules, Sammy, driver picks the music and shotgun shuts his cake hole.  Sam protest that Sammy was a fat 12 year old, but Dean can't hear him because of "Back in Black" by AC/DC.


They soon arrive 7 miles to Jericho, California, and Dean finally turns down the volume of AC/DC long enough for Sam to tell him no one matching their dad's description is in the local hospitals or morgues. They come upon the scene of the VW on the abandoned bridge, that is surrounded by law enforcement.  Dean grabs one of many fake IDs and walks onto the crime scene.  The car was owned by Troy, who was dating one of the deputies daughter's Amy.  She's putting up missing posters down town.  Sam and Dean posing as US Marshall's asks lots of questions about scene, and Dean cracks a joke.  The sheriff wants to know if he could help them, and as they are leaving Dean calls the men who walk by "Agent Mulder, Agent Scully" which is an X-files reference.


Downtown we see that an emergency town hall meeting has been called for 8 pm, and Amy is putting up missing persons posters below the theater marquee.  Sam and Dean ask her a few questions posing as Troy's uncle.  She says he never mentioned them.  Amy's friend join the boys in a local diner.  She explains what happened that they were on the phone and that he said he'd call her right back.  Sam says that he likes her pentagram necklace.  She says that Troy gave it to her to scare her parents with devil stuff, and Sam says that its the opposite it's actually a powerful protection.  Dean says thank you "Unsolved Mysteries."  Amy's friend brings up the local legend of a girl getting murder out on Centennial Road decades ago and supposedly she's still out there and she hitchhikes and if whoever picks her up disappears forever.


Dean searches various topics in the local newspaper the Jericho Herald for cases that might match the legend, but Sam is impatient and search for a suicide, and finds a story about Constance Welch who jumped off a bridge in 1981.  The newspaper reported that an hour before she jumped she called 911 says that she left kids alone in the bathtub and they drowned.  Her husband Joseph Welch (30 at the time) was quoted in the article.  She killed herself on the same bridge the car was found.


Sam and Dean go to the bridge that night.  Sam is still concerned about his interview.  Dean asks if Jessica knows the truth about him and the things he's done.  Sam says that she'll never know, and goes on to say if they find the thing that killed her what difference will it make killing it won't bring her back.  They see Constance on the bridge and see her jump.  Then the car starts and drives towards them, even though Dean has the keys.  They jump over the side of the bridge to get away.


Sam was able to hang on to the bridge, while Dean went down below into the water and id muddied.  The car is okay, despite what she did to it.  Dean smells like a toliet.  Sam and Dean go to local motel to get a room and the attendant recognizes the last name on the card and says that a guy rented a room for a month.  Sam picks the lock and they enter the cluttered room with things pinned all over the walls and old food left out.  The rings of salt and cat's eyes shell on the floor reveal to Sam that he was worried and was trying to keep something from coming in.  Their dad had info about the different victims pinned to one wall, and information about various occult things on the wall, along with info about the woman in white legend on another wall.  Dean says that if it's a woman in white, their dad would have found the corpse and destroyed it.  They both theorize about what dad would do, and the next step would be to talk to her husband if he's still alive.  Sam tries to apologize and Dean says, "No chick flick moments."  Sam finds an old family picture from when he was young.  Sam is trying to call Jessica, but is listening to her voice mail message.  The cops are outside when Dean goes to get something to eat.  The motel manager must have turned them in.  The cops ask about his partner, and they arrest him for the fake credit cards and impersonating a Federal Marshall.


At the police station, Dean tells them his name is Ted Nugent.  The Sheriff tells him that he doesn't know how much trouble he's in, and Dean asks if it's "misdemeanor trouble or squeal like a pig trouble," which is a "Deliverance" reference.  There were the info about 10 missing people and satanic mombo jumbo on wall of the hotel room, but oh course the earliest one was from when he was three years old.  He figures out from his dad's journal that his name is Dean.  The sheriff couldn't understand much, but he found "Dean 35 - 111."


Sam goes to see Joseph Welch, and he saw John about 3 or 4 days ago he told him that he was a reporter.  Sam says that he's working on the story with him and he's fact checking.  Mr. Welch says she's in a plot behind the old place on Breckenridge.  He says he never married again that Constance was the love of his life and that they had a happy marriage.  Sam asks about the woman in white legend that all over the world, including the part that these woman murdered their children and took their own lives because of cheating husbands, and that these spirits kill unfaithful men and kill them.  Mr. Welch says that he made some mistakes, but Constance would have never killed her own children.  He was very angry and told Sam to get out of here and never come back.  


Dean says that the number is his high school locker combination.  The police receive a 911 call about shots fired, and the sheriff leaves Dean alone in the interrogation room with the journal handcuffed to the table. Dean uses a paperclip to pick the lock and escape from the jail.  Sam receives a phone call from Dean, and Dean starts the conversation with a fake 911 call is pretty illegal and explains that their dad has left Jericho and he has his journal.  John left them coordinates of where he wants them to go.  Sam see the woman in white and drives through her, and then slams on brakes.  She appears in the backseat demanding to for him to take her home.  He refuses and she locks him in and drives the car herself with her powers.  She tries to seduce Sam, because he is not unfaithful she can't kill him, but she says that he will be.  She starts kissing Sam, and she disappears again.  She's reappears and appears to be sucking the life out of him.  Dean shots at her, which distracts the woman in white while she was attacking Sam.  Sam starts the car and drives it inside the house, saying, "I'm taking you home."  Her spirit picks up the picture of her and her children.  Then she slams a desk against them, but then light flicker and water flows down the stairs.  The spirit of her children whom she murdered appear, ad they suck her down in to the floor presumably taking her to hell.  She could never go home because she was afraid to face her kids.  Sam mentions Dean shooting Casper in the face, and Deans says that it saved Sam.  More AC/DC is heard as they drive away this time it's "Highway to Hell."  They determine that their dad is about 600 miles away in Blackwater Ridge, Colorado.  Dean says that could make it there by morning, but Sam wants to go back home for his interview.


Dean takes Sam back and Sam asks him to call him if he finds their dad and that maybe he could meet up with them later.  Dean says that they made a great team.  Sam walks inside looking for Jessica.  He finds cookies she made for him, and then he lays down on the bed.  Just then blood beings to drip on his face and Jessica is on the ceiling.  As she bursts into flames, Dean kicks in the door and once again pulls Sam out of a burning home.  A very similar scene is replayed with the police and fire fighters from earlier in the episode.  Sam is loading a gun when Dean walks over to the car, and he says, "We've got work to do."

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About Jimmy in GA

Jimmy in GA is a blogger, host and producer of the several podcasts including The Muppets Podcast with Jimmy in GA, The Random City Podcast, and several others. Jimmy is a life long Muppet and Star Wars fan. Jim Henson and George Lucas are two of the individuals that he looks to as visionaries who have helped to shape not only entertainment but the lives of countless people by inspiring others to create, write, share and perform.