In season eight of Supernatural, the show introduces a new vampire character named Benny Lafitte. He’s a southern vampire, from the town Carencro, Louisiana. At first glance, he’s a handsome, rugged man, which might remind you more of a werewolf than a vampire. But, beneath appearances, he’s more “vampire” than most introduced on the show, with his history being an homage to the southern vampires of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire or HBO’s True Blood.
The history of monsters and the supernatural in south Louisiana is a long one, with original Cajun tales of bloodsucking werewolves named rougarou, the word stemming from the French loup-garou, meaning werewolf, to vampires of New Orleans popularized by fiction writer Anne Rice. Vampires becoming synonymous to Louisiana in American culture is a phenomenon, that I assume happened, because of French culture and the supernatural prominence that New Orleans profits off of.
In New Orleans, the graves lie atop the ground and the night’s just as busy as the day, leading a vampire to take refuge inside it’s walls with ease. No one notices people going missing because of the high tourist population, and if your eyes are a bit too red, teeth a bit too sharp, people assume you’re playing a character.
In Supernatural, the vampire lore is a bit different than normal lore. To kill one is to slice their head off, rather than a stake to the heart, and they’re not affected by sunlight, just it’s brightness. In some lore, they’re are turned through digesting their Maker’s blood and being bled till they’re dead, but in the show, they only need a drop of blood, orally or by an open wound. Their blood is infectious.
One of the first appearances of vampires in the show is in season one, “Dead Man’s Blood.” The episode also features the first queer kiss, albeit a nonconsensual kiss meant to border between “hot” and “disturbing” because it’s between two women, one transforming the other into a vampire via a blood exchange, in displayed in front of a man who’s into it.
If I were to read into the scene in an early 2000’s views on homosexuality way, the first thing that would come to mind is that queer blood is infectious. Some eighties horror films portray this in many ways, so I’m not going to get into it, but essentially vampires are sometimes used as an AIDS metaphor to some extent. A lot of queer readings of horror delve into this, so if you’re interested, I’d recommend to research it yourself, as I’m not extremely versed on the subject.
But, to emphasize, in Supernatural, it’s interesting how, when they first introduce vampires to the show, they do it while also having the first queer kiss. Almost as if you can’t escape the inherent queerness in vampires– even in an early 2000’s TV show that wants to shy away from seeming gay, with writers so insecure of their own masculinity that they write bro hug into the script when it’s a goodbye hug between two men. But I’ll get into that.
Benny Lafitte
Benny is the very first recurring “good monster” in the series. His first appearance are technically his bones, dry and rotted from being fifty years underground, but in the flesh it’s a few seconds later, reanimated through some spell that allowed his soul to be transported through Dean Winchester’s arm and put back into his ribs. (Dean is the shows main protagonist, alongside his brother, Sam)
They reveal Benny’s vampirism casually, shining shark teeth revealed as Dean watches with no large reaction. He knows of his disease, he even makes sure that everything’s working right.
Benny’s sexuality is not something explicitly confirmed, but its shown that he has an interest in women through his old partner, Andrea. Andrea was a staple in his life before he was killed, she encouraged him to drink blood, not humans. She allowed him to see that there’s something in humanity that he doesn’t want to kill.
And in a later episode, he compares Dean to her, how Dean is now his leash to humanity, how Dean encourages him to live another day without slipping. And when they aren’t together, we can slowly see Benny slip in every call he makes to Dean.
Andrea is revealed to still be living, but in an unliving state. His Maker turned her as soon as they killed Benny, as a reminder of him. When they meet again, she asks him to kill their Maker, so they can continue on his legacy but as the commanders rather than servants. Benny refuses her, stating, “I wanted to put your memory to rest.” She replies, “But I’m not a memory.”
He realized that he was chasing a ghost inside his memories. Though temporarily, fleeting, his hopes for continuing their relationship was crushed. He has a new tether to humanity and she’s not it.
He replies,
“I think we’re all damned”
Andrea unsheathes her fangs, but before she can pounce, Dean comes up behind her and stabs her in the heart, incapacitating her. He then slices her head off, killing her.
After this, Benny contemplates his existence. Why did Dean resurrect him, why was he back, fifty years later; Dean could’ve betrayed him, easily. Before Benny leaves the show, his existential crises continue on, leaving the viewer to believe that due to his vampirism, he feels like he shouldn’t exist.
Sam is introduced to Benny through a cold handshake and suspicion, because he’s been hidden from him for a while by Dean, who might’ve been ashamed or embarrassed that he befriended a vampire. Or he’s protecting him from a h̶o̶m̶o̶p̶h̶o̶b̶i̶c̶ b̶r̶o̶t̶h̶e̶r̶ monster hunter. Dean’s efforts are lost, nevertheless, because Benny’s later stalked by a hunter that Sam sicced onto him, despite Benny’s efforts to obscure himself.
Bodies start popping up near him, which puts a target on his back by Sam and the hunter, Martin. Dean’s the only one to defend Benny when they want to go after him. Dean even declares that the man was the only one to never let him down, further annoying Sam into hunting Benny.
When Dean finds Benny, he explains that the bodies are from a rogue vampire that he used to know, that the vamp wants to create a new nest. And that he wants to take care of him, considering he tainted his hometown with death. Dean volunteers his help after his plans of siccing Sam and Martin onto the vamp failed.
During the fight, Dean’s neck gets sliced with a needle; a surface wound, but it pours blood out nevertheless. Just as the rogue vamp goes for his neck, Benny saves him, a parallel to their first meeting in Purgatory.
As he helps Dean up, his mood changes. Dean stands confused, but as soon as he feels the warmth on his neck, he knows.
This scene is straight from a vampire flick, where the vampire gets caught off guard by the sudden sight and smell of blood, where they have to run off because if they stay they might do something they don’t want to do.
There’s shame inside Benny. In the next scene he’s depressed, having to deal with what just happened on top of having to move again due to the vampire that terrorized his hometown.
Later in the episode he’s forced to feed, killing Martin in self defense after the hunter threatened someone close to him if he didn’t let him kill him. This might’ve been the breaking point for Benny, as he’s guilt-ridden in the next episode while on call with Dean. We see that he’s on his last leg, struggling to go at it alone. When Dean calls him back later that day, he’s desperate for something; he wants closeness, not the isolation that Dean offers.
Dean breaks up with Benny. It’s explicit in his wording, and the way he carries himself in the following episodes. Even if you could argue what they had wasn’t romantic, it was at the very least coded that way.
Comparing Sam and Dean’s Relationships
During this season, Sam and Dean have flashbacks to what happened during their year apart. Comparatively, their flashbacks are the furthest things from each other with Dean’s being in a muddy filter and Sam’s with a brighter and more colorful filter.
Sam’s memories consist of his new romantic interest, Amelia, and her recently “revived” husband, Don. Dean’s consist of his best friend, Castiel, and their new friend, Benny.
Sam and Amelia meet and become close because of their respective recent losses of their loved ones, and when its revealed that her supposedly dead husband is alive, he’s stuck in a love triangle, or love angle, where she has to pick between the two.
Dean and Benny meet and become close because they’re fighting their way out of Purgatory, and when they find Castiel, Dean has to deal with their constant bickering. And, when Benny and Dean make it out and Cas didn’t, Dean leans more on Benny.
When Cas reappears, Benny’s barely mentioned, but when Cas disappears again from the Winchesters, Benny’s back in episodes. Almost like Dean can’t have more than one homoerotic relationship at a time outside of Purgatory.
When Dean finally breaks it off with Benny, his scene is paralleled with Amelia when she walks into the motel room and finds Sam gone. He chose isolation rather than a relationship.
In Conclusion…
When Benny’s written off of the show, it’s by literally killing him. For plot reasons, Dean needed someone to get into Purgatory to save Sam and Bobby, their recently diseased father figure. He chose the only person he can count on, the only person who can do it without betraying him.
And Benny complies. He needs a break from it all. He doesn’t belong anywhere, with vampires or humans.
He states that Dean was right, that Purgatory was pure. That he should’ve appreciated it more. He felt freer there, his vampirism something that he has a handle on more and he doesn’t have to feel in shame.
Before Dean swings his machete, they shake hands, which turns into a hug, something they did when they were first topside. At this point in the script, the writers wrote that they had a bro hug, which is an interesting description, considering it’s a goodbye hug, something that’s emotional and even if Dean hadn’t known it, he felt it.
Dean still held onto hope as he put Benny’s body into the trunk of his car. When he’s told by Sam that he could only bring Bobby, that Benny had used himself as bait, he still keeps his bones unburned, hopeful that one day they’d revive him.
And they never did in the seven seasons after. He reappeared in an alternate universe or as a hallucination, but he was never fully brought back.
Now, technically, it isn’t bury your gays, but in my heart it is. Or bury your vamps.
