Pilot is the series premiere of Supernatural. It is the first episode of Season 1 and aired on September 13, 2005.
Summary[]
There was something about being there... It felt pure. This episode summary is an official CW press release. It may contain errors. DO NOT CHANGE! |
Two brothers, Sam and Dean Winchester, witness their mother's paranormal death as children and grow up trained to fight by a distraught father who wants nothing more than to hunt down the thing that killed his wife. Sam escapes to college to start a new, normal life, but gets pulled back in after Dean shows up on his doorstep to tell him their father is missing. Following clues from an eerie phone message from him, the boys travel to a small town and encounter a vengeful spirit called the "Woman in White" who then starts to haunt Sam.
Plot[]
LAWRENCE, KANSAS, 22 YEARS AGO On November 2nd, 1983 - Dean Winchester, a 4-year-old boy, says goodnight to his baby brother Sam Winchester, along with his mom and dad. Mary Winchester is lying in bed when she hears Sam crying on the baby monitor. She goes to investigate and sees someone standing over Sam's cot. She assumes it is her husband, John. However, she sees the lamp flickering and goes downstairs and realizes John is actually sleeping in his chair by the TV, she runs back to Sam's room. John Winchester is awoken by her scream and runs to Sam's bedroom, but the baby is alone. Blood spatters from above on his hand and Mr. Winchester looks up to see his wife pinned to the ceiling by an unknown force, her belly sliced open and bleeding. Her body bursts into flames and the horrified father grabs Sam and gives him to Dean. He orders Dean to take Sam outside as fast as he can, then rushes back to try to save his wife. He is too late, however, and the flames completely consume the room, forcing him to flee the house. Sam's room explodes moments later.
STANFORD UNIVERSITY , PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA, PRESENT DAY on Halloween - Sam is now grown up and going to a Halloween party with his girlfriend, Jessica Moore. He talks about an interview he has on Monday for law school and that his family doesn't know, because he is not close to them.
LATER THAT NIGHT - Sam is in bed with Jess when he hears someone break in. He fights the shadowy intruder until he realizes that it is Dean (26 years old now), his older brother. They haven't seen each other for two years. Dean explains he needs Sam's help to find their dad because he went missing after going on a 'hunting trip.' The pair steps outside to talk and discusses the family obsession to find what killed their mom. Sam is reluctant to continue the crusade. He wants a normal life, but he does agree to help Dean find their dad.
Sam asks what their dad was hunting and Dean opens his car trunk and shows newspaper clips. He explains men are vanishing from their cars on Centennial Highway. 10 are missing over the past 20 years and it is happening more. Dean plays Sam a voicemail from their dad, saying that something big is about to happen and they all are in danger. It also has EVP on, but Dean has cleaned it up to hear the hidden message, 'I can never go home.' Sam reminds Dean if he goes, he has to be back by Monday for his law school interview.
BACK INSIDE - Jess finds Sam packing and he makes an excuse his dad is hunting deer with a few guys and got carried away. He is going to just bring him back. Jess reminds him of the interview and worries what's going on.
JERICHO, CALIFORNIA, NIGHT - A teenager is driving down the road when he sees a woman in white standing alone in the dark. He pulls over and she gets in. She acts seductively, teasing the guy and asking him to go home with her. He says 'hell, yes' and heads where she directs him. When they arrive the house is derelict and she tells him 'I can never go home,' before vanishing. He gets out and looks around, but gets spooked and jumps back in his car and drives away. When he looks in the rear-view she is in the back and he freaks, crashing through a barrier onto a bridge. The car stops and Troy screams and blood splatter in the windshield.
A GARAGE SOMEWHERE NEXT MORNING - Dean and Sam have stopped for gas and Sam accuses Dean and their dad of credit card scams to pay for their 'hunting.' Dean doesn't deny it. Sam then tells Dean he needs a better selection of music in his car, to which Dean replies, 'House rules, Sammy. Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cake hole.' They drive off and they pass a sign for Jericho. Ahead, they see the bridge where the guy's car crashed the night before and lots of cop cars. Dean pulls up and takes out a fake ID and the two brothers' question the cops posing as US Marshals. The cop says he knew the latest victim, named Troy and that his girlfriend is putting up missing posters, but they have no leads to his whereabouts.
DOWNTOWN - Dean and Sam find Amy, policeman's daughter (Troy's girlfriend) and tell her they're his uncles and are looking for him too. They go to a diner and she explains he last spoke on his cell from his car. Rachel, Amy's friend, is there too and brings up a local legend about a girl who died on Centennial Highway whose ghost hitchhikes and the drivers who has picked her up disappears.
LATER - Dean and Sam search the net for news items concerning deaths on Centennial. They find an article about a woman who committed suicide after her 2 kids drowned mysteriously. It seems Constance Welch jumped from a local bridge back in 1981, the same bridge where Troy's car was found.
THE BRIDGE THAT NIGHT - Dean and Sam go to check out the scene where Constance died. They talk about more family stuff and Dean gets upset with Sam for not even remembering his mom. Suddenly, they spot a ghostly woman in white jump from the bridge and a few minutes later Dean's car starts on its own and tries to knock them down. The brothers run for it, and Dean ends up diving off the bridge. He survives, but gets pretty muddy.
HOTEL - Dean and Sam book into the same hotel their dad was in and check out his room. There is a salt circle in front of the door, so John tried to keep something out. He also left all his stuff in the room. There are pictures stuck to the walls and Sam notices their dad had solved the puzzle. The killer spook Constance Welch is a 'woman in white.' Dean says dad would have destroyed the corpse and Sam says maybe the ghost has another weakness. Dean says their dad would still have dug her up, so they decide to go talk to the dead woman's husband to find where she's buried. First, Dean decides to get cleaned up and go for food. Sam calls Jessica.
OUTSIDE THE HOTEL - Dean is going for food when the cops arrest him for impersonating a US Marshal. He does manage to call Sam first warning him to run for it.
SHERIFF'S OFFICE - Dean gets interrogated and is told he's a suspect in the men's disappearances. The sheriff throws Dean's dad's diary at him and asks what the numbers in it mean. Dean seems surprised to see them.
CONSTANCE'S HUSBAND'S HOME - Sam visits Mr. Joseph Welch and asks if John was here, Mr. Welch says, that John was there 3 or 4 days ago. Sam also asks him where Constance is buried and what happened back in 1981. Constance was buried at their old house. Sam fathoms out Joseph was unfaithful and suggests in temporary insanity, Constance killed her kids and herself when she found out, thus becoming a 'woman in white.' She now kills unfaithful men on the highway. Joseph asks Sam to leave.
SHERIFF'S OFFICE - The sheriff's interrogation of Dean is interrupted by an emergency call and he leaves Dean cuffed to the desk. Dean picks the cuffs locks with a paperclip and escapes.
OUTSIDE - Dean calls Sam who is on his way to the old Welch house where Constance is buried. Dean says he knows Sam made the fake call to the sheriff to distract him. Dean says dad left his journal, though he never goes anywhere without it. He also says the numbers in their dad's diary are coordinates and their dad has left Jericho to go there. Before they can discuss more, the woman in white appears in front of Sam's car and he drives right through her. He yells, and Dean knows something is wrong. The next minute, the woman in white is in the car with Sam, asking to be taken home. When he refuses, she takes control of the car and it drives on its own.
THE OLD WELCH HOUSE - The car stops and Constance says she can never go home. Sam figures she is too scared to enter. Constance jumps on Sam intent on making him unfaithful, but he refuses to give into her seduction. She starts to hurt him and she transforms into real, grotesque features as Sam screams. Then, Dean comes to the rescue, shooting at the spook. The distraction gives Sam enough time to drive the car straight into the house, taking Constance's spirit with him. Dean runs in and pulls Sam from the car, but Constance pins them down with a desk. It looks like their goose is cooked, but Constance's dead kids' show up, just as Sam had hoped when he drove the car into the house. Constance was too scared to face her children because of the guilt of what she did. The kids take their mom's spirit back with them to the netherworld and all 3 apparitions vanish into a pool of water on the floor. Dean and Sam push free and get in their car.
On the way back they figure out their dad is in a place called Blackwater Ridge, but Sam says he isn't going. He is going back to Stanford for his interview.
STANFORD UNIVERSITY - Sam seems happy to be home and smiles at the cookies lying on a table. He finds a note "Missed you! Love you!". Sounds coming from the shower makes him feel Jessica is probably home. He comfortably lies down but blood splatters on him. He is horrified to see Jessica pinned to the ceiling in the same way as his mother. She bursts into flames and Dean appears at the right moment and rescues Sam. As the fire is doused down by the fire engines, Dean and Sam pack their stuff on to the car and Sam ends by saying "We got work to do."
Characters[]
Main Cast[]
Recurring Cast[]
Guest Stars[]
- Jeffrey Dean Morgan as John Winchester
- Samantha Smith as Mary Winchester
- Adrianne Palicki as Jessica Moore
- Kaare Anderson as Azazel
Co-Stars[]
- Sarah Shahi as Constance Welch
- Steve Railsback as Joseph Welch
- Ross Kohn as Troy Squire
- Derek Webster as Deputy Jaffe
- Jamil Walker Smith as Luis
- Elizabeth Bond as Amy Hein
- R.D. Call as Sheriff Pierce
- Miriam Korn as Rachel
- Cletus Young as Motel Clerk
- Robert Peters as Deputy Hein
- Rick Dano as Hotel Clerk
- Hunter Brochu as Young Dean Winchester
- Sandra-Jessica Couturier as Monica (uncredited)
- Allan Graf as Sheriff's Driver (uncredited)
- Ken Waters as Sheriff's Search & Rescue Diver (uncredited)
Title[]
- The title Pilot could refer the term used for the first act of original works.
Featured Supernatural Beings[]
- Demons (Brady, unseen)
- Ghosts (Constance Welch's son and daughter)
- Prince of Hell (Azazel)
- Poltergeists (Amherst’s Poltergeist, mentioned only)
- Special Child (Sam Winchester)
- Woman in White (Constance Welch)
Continuity[]
- This is the first appearance of Azazel.
- This is the first appearance of Constance Welch.
- This is the first appearance of Dean Winchester.
- This is the first appearance of Jessica Moore.
- This is the first appearance of John Winchester.
- This is the first appearance of Mary Winchester.
- This is the first appearance of Sam Winchester.
Trivia[]
- Antagonists: Constance Welch, Azazel (past), and Brady (unseen).
- Multiple changes to the final episode script were made prior to the show's airing:
- John and Mary were first written as being in a car crash caused by a demon, where she doesn't survive.
- In the earliest drafts of the episode script, Mary and John's last names were Harrison instead of Winchester.
- John's first name was going to be Jack.
- Originally, Sam and Dean were to be raised by their aunt and uncle without knowledge of the supernatural. This element was dropped in favor of the boys being raised as hunters as the show-runners felt the original pilot-in which Dean had to convince Sam the supernatural was real-was too awkward.
- The original plan in shooting the bridge scene 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.
- The streets used are the names of streets from Eric Kripke's hometown of Toledo, Ohio.
- Sam's comments suggest his father is an alcoholic, or at least a habitually heavy drinker. This is mentioned several other times in the series.
- Bobby Singer, another father figure for the brothers, is also shown to be something of an alcoholic.
- The scene on the bridge where the Impala suddenly starts itself is remarkably similar to a scene in the pilot episode of The X-Files, where protagonists Mulder and Scully exit their car after it dies and turns itself back on a few moments later.
- 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 blonde, live-in girlfriends named Jessica.
- 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 (supposedly) uninterrupted, round-the-clock construction on it for 38 consecutive years (in actuality, construction was interrupted several times by outside forces). 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 and 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 the entire series.
- When Dean asks Sam to help him locate their missing father, he claims not to have spoken to Sam in two years, although Sam has attended Stanford for almost four full years, suggesting the brothers had some degree of contact between Sam's leaving for school and the events of the episode. Another interpretation is that Sam completed the first two years of his undergraduate study in a community college or online school. Then, when he was ready to leave the nest, he got into Stanford to complete the second two years of his degree.
- When the boys are in their dad's motel room, they investigate the articles and research pinned to the walls. The article Sam finds referencing Constance Welch's ("Woman in White) suicide mentions a neighbor named Deanna Kripke. Deanna Kripke is writer Eric Kripke's wife.
Errors[]
- At 19:06, in the background of the window, a flat terrain can be seen but just as the brothers park, a hill with trees beside the road can be seen.
- When Mary is pinned to the ceiling, her blood drips on Sam. Yet when John sees her body and falls down screaming, he looks in another direction that would make it impossible for Mary's blood to drip on Sam.
- When Sam criticizes Dean's choice in music Dean takes a Metallica tape off of Sam and puts the cassette in the stereo but instead of Metallica playing, Either "Back in Black" by AC/DC or "A Gift to the World" by Loveless starts playing depending on the version.
- Dean shoots Constance and she dissipates, but he seems to shoot her with regular bullets.
- In the scene where Dean gets arrested his coat collar jumps up and down.
- The sign on the door handle of the motel room gets stuck on the door frame as Dean leaves but is straight a moment later as the cop is walking to the door.
- John leaves Dean a note with the coordinates 35 and 111, presumably meaning 35 degrees north latitude, 111 degrees west longitude. Sam reads a map and says the place is in Colorado. In fact these coordinates are in Arizona, very close to Meteor Crater; the nearest town is Winslow.
- Fire Engines in Lawrence, Kansas during the 1980s were painted lime green, not red.
- In Sam's place at college is a photograph of Mary and John, the same one that was on the mantel in the house that burned to the ground 22 years earlier. It would be impossible for that same photograph to still exist since all their possessions were destroyed in the fire, unless he had a duplicate made from the original negative, probably when he left to attend Stanford.
- When Constance kills Troy in the car, blood is splattered all over the windshield and driver's side window. When the police are investigating the car the next morning, there is no blood splatter anywhere.
Deaths[]
- Women in lore (mentioned only)
- Women in White ghosts (lore)
- Mary Winchester
- Troy Squire
- Andrew Moore, James Parks, Scott Nifeng, William Darrell, Mark Brown, Barnek Behildida, J. Gregory, Kevin Dancheks, Michael Noverby, Andrew Carey (mentioned only)
- Constance Welch's son and daughter (Humans, mentioned only)
- Ghost Welch children
- Constance Welch (Human, mentioned only)
- Ghost Constance Welch (Woman in White)
- Jessica Moore
Featured Music[]
- AC/DC - "Highway To Hell"
- ACDC - "Back in Black"
- Torch Ginger - "Gasoline"
- Classic - "Whatcha Gonna Do"
- Eagles of Death Metal - "Speaking in Tongues"
- Allman Brothers Band - "Ramblin' Man"
- Loveless- "A Gift to the World"
- Kid Gloves Music - "My Cheatin' Ways"
Cultural References[]
Sam: "We're not exactly the Bradys."
Friend: "And I'm not exactly the Huxtables."
- Sam is referring to the family in the TV show The Brady Bunch, a large patchwork family that stands for the ultimate American middle-class family. His friend mentions the Brady's 80s African-American equivalent from The Cosby Show, the Huxtables.
Dean: (referring to Jessica's T-shirt) "I love the Smurfs."
- The Smurfs was a cartoon series about little blue creatures living in mushroom houses in the woods. Some fans believe that Dean is referring not to the smurfs on Jessica's shirt, but to the pair underneath.
Sam: "So he's working overtime on a Miller Time shift; he'll stumble back in sooner or later. [...] Yeah, he's just deer hunting up at the cabin and he's probably got Jim, Jack, and Jose along with him. We're just gonna go bring him back."
- All references to alcohol: Miller (beer), Jim Beam (bourbon), Jack Daniel's (whiskey), and Jose Cuervo (tequila). Miller Time refers to a well-deserved break, relaxation, possibly with friends, after a hard day's work.
Dean: (to two FBI agents) "Agent Mulder, Agent Scully."
- FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) from the series The X-Files.
Dean: "Okay, thank you, Unsolved Mysteries."
- Unsolved Mysteries was a TV show that featured re-enactments of unsolved crimes, with actors portraying the victims, perpetrators and witnesses. Many of the stories hinted at paranormal phenomenon.
Policeman: "So you want to give us your real name?"
Dean: "I told you, it's Nugent. Ted Nugent."
- Ted Nugent is the first of Dean's rock star aliases.
Sam: "What were you thinking shooting Casper in the face, you freak?"
- Reference to the famous cartoon series Casper, the Friendly Ghost.
Quotes[]
Dean: "Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cake hole."
Dean: "No chick flick moments."
Sam: "Alright ... jerk."
Dean: "Bitch."
Dean: "You found her weak spot. Nice work, Sammy."
Sam: "Yeah, I wish I could say the same for you. What were you thinking shooting Casper in the face you freak?"
Dean: "Hey saved your ass. I'll tell you another thing. If you screwed up my car. I'll kill you."
Dean: "That Constance chick — what a bitch!"
Sam: "We got work to do."
Police: "Fake US Marshals, fake credit cards... Got anything that's real?"
Dean: "My boobs."
Dean: "Agent Mulder, Agent Scully."
Sam and Dean: "What do they talk about?"
Gallery[]
Behind the Scenes[]
International Titles[]
- Czech: Mrtvá na mostě (Dead on the Bridge)
- Brazil: Dois Irmãos (Two Brothers)
- Finnish: Isää etsimässä (Searching for Dad)
- French: La Dame blanche (The White Lady)
- German: Die Frau in Weiß (The Woman in White)
- Hungarian: Nyomtalanul (Without a Trace)
- Italian: La caccia ha inizio (The hunt has begun)
- Polish: Kobieta w Bieli (The Woman in White)
- Spanish: Piloto (Pilot)
External Links[]
- "Supernatural: "Pilot" Review", IGN review.