Bunker
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.
– Charlie Bradbury reading from The Hobbit, Source
History
The Bunker is located in Lebanon, Kansas and was set up by the Men of Letters. Here they stored their collected knowledge "every object, scroll, spell ever collected for thousands of years under one roof...the safest place on earth, warded against any evil ever created."[1]. The key to this place is in The Box.
The door to the bunker opens onto a balcony surrounding a large circular room containing a ham radio, telegraph and switchboard. There is also a chess board. Leading of this room is a large library, full of books and weapons, and an extensive card file. At one end the far end is a large telescope.
When they first arrive, Dean refers to the bunker as the Batcave referring to the secret lair where Batman did his research and kept his weapons. Sam and Dean find the facility has power, running water and sleeping quarters. Somewhere off these main spaces is a full kitchen, which Dean uses to show off his culinary skills, as well a shower which Dean reports as having good water pressure. They also install a small fridge in the library.
There is also a firing range in the bunker [2] Room 7B contains archived material. Two of the shelves push back to reveal a dungeon with a large Devil's trap (symbol), and manacles engraved with spellwork. [3]
The style of architecture and decoration in the Bunker is Art Deco, suggesting it was built in the late 1920/30s. The Men of Letter's crest, the Aquarian Star appears as a motif, such as in the floor tiles.
Dean's Bedroom
I haven't had my own room... ever. I'm making this awesome. I've got my kickass vinyl. I've got this killer mattress. Memory foam--it remembers me! And it's clean, too. There's no funky smell. There's no creepy motel stains.
Dean takes great delight in decorating his bedroom in the bunker. He buys a copy of Led Zeppelin's first self-titled record to add to the collection of presumably left by the Men of Letters, which include Howard McGhee, vol. 2 and Nat King Cole Sings for Two in Love. Dean has also bought a memory foam mattress for the bed. Dean mounts his weapons on the wall, including the axe he found in Purgatory, and places a photo of himself and his mother which he carries in his wallet, on the desk.
Trivia: The photo of young Dean and Mary was made by graphic designer Mary-Ann Liu, it was done by manipulating a photo of Samantha Smith as Mary with an actual photo of Jensen as a child.
Appearances
8.12 As Time Goes By
In 1958 Abaddon, one of the Knights of Hell, was sent by party or parties unknown to kill the members of the group who were gathered in Normal, Illinois. They were gathered for the initiation of Henry Winchester and Josie Sands. Abaddon killed David Ackers and Ted Bowen, and blinded Larry Ganem. After Henry bursts through to find out what was happening, Larry, crawls up to Henry and entrusts him with The Box, which contains the key to the Bunker. She than went on to burn down their quarters before following Henry through the portal created by his Blood Spell. Sam visits Larry Ganem, the other survivor of the incident, who tells Sam about the Bunker, and gives him coordinates to it. He tells Sam to lock it forever to keep it out of the hands of the demons.
Abaddon, possessing Larry's wife kills Larry and captures Sam. Abaddon then calls Dean for a trade between Sam and Henry and The Box. During the trade, Henry shoots Abaddon in the head with a bullet that had a Devil's Trap carved onto it. This immobilized Abbadon which allows Dean cut her into pieces. After Henry's death, Sam and Dean decide to find out if the bunker is still intact.
8.13 Everybody Hates Hitler
Sam and Dean follow the coordinates provided by Larry, and find the underground Bunker, which they are able to enter using the key inside the box. The boys are stunned at what they find, with everything perfectly preserved. Sam is thrilled at the rich store of information contained in the bunker, although Dean is initially dismissive of its worth. While Dean is visiting Kevin, Sam researches the Men of Letters and their networks. During this he discovers the Judah Initiative, and finds out that a member, Rabbi Bass, recently died in what is reported as a case of spontaneous combustion. The boys leave to investigate.
After the care the boys return to the bunker, and Sam immediately starts entering information from the Thule Society's red ledger on the index cards. As Dean pours them each a scotch, he asks whether Sam is Becoming a Man of Letters. Sam considers but doesn't reply. "Good" says Dean. And silently they toast each other.
8.14 Trial and Error
Sam and Dean have completly moved into the bunker as their new home and Dean sets up his own room, excited as he hasn't had a room of his own for most of his life. As Sam researches in the library, Kevin Tran calls saying he has something important and Sam and Dean leave to meet with Kevin.
8.16 Remember the Titans
Sam and Dean stay at the bunker while waiting for word from Kevin on cracking the next trial. During that time, Sam hides the fact that he is coughing up blood as a side effect of doing the trials. After reading in a magazine about an apparent zombie in Great Falls, Montana, Sam and Dean leave to investigate.
After finding out that it is actually Prometheus, Sam and Dean bring him and his ex-girlfriend Hayley and their son Oliver back to the bunker for protection. While there, they search through the bunker's books for information on Zeus and find the journal of an ancient Greek hunter named Dracopolis who trapped Zeus and learned how to kill him. After learning how to trap and summon Zeus, the group leaves the bunker to get the ingredients and break the curse.
After everything is over, Sam and Dean return to the bunker and Dean prays to Castiel to look after Sam who he knows is not doing as well as he is trying to pretend. Castiel does not respond or appear.
8.17 Goodbye Stranger
While looking through The Bunker's artifacts, Dean finds the Spear of Destiny and a porn magazine. Sam finds a case where people who die across the Midwest have burns on their hands and feet along with their organs being liquified causing Sam and Dean to leave and investigate.
8.20 Pac-Man Fever
After the second trial takes a major toll on Sam, he and Dean return to The Bunker to rest. While Sam wants to go hunting for the missing Kevin Tran, Dean doesn't believe he is ready and proves it by having Sam shoot at a target on The Bunker's shooting range and miss the target completely. Charlie Bradbury contacts them with a case and they learn that The Bunker blocks a cell phone from being able to be tracked despite the fact that they can make and receive calls inside it. Charlie comes and introduces them to a case where the victim's insides have been turned to "jelly." After Charlie proves herself on the shooting range, she and Dean leave without Sam who eventually heads out to work on the case himself.
After finding a second victim and learning that the bodies have been burned, the three return to The Bunker to research what could be doing this. Eventually, Dean discovers in John's Journal that it is a "bastard off-shoot" of a Djinn. Charlie heads out to supposedly get food, but when she doesn't return, Sam and Dean follow her using the GPS in her cell phone. They later briefly return to try to figure out who the Djinn responsible is and leave after figuring out that it is Jennifer O'Brien and where she is keeping Charlie.
After Jennifer and her son are killed and Charlie is rescued, the three return to The Bunker and Charlie leaves the next morning. Charlie is invited back to go through the archives anytime she wants and Dean embraces Sam and finally agrees to go looking for Kevin with him.
8.21 The Great Escapist
While at The Bunker, Sam and Dean receive an email from Kevin Tran containing a video message stating that he's probably dead or will be and that he's sending them his notes and translations on the demon tablet. Sam and Dean go through the notes, trying to figure out the third trial, but are unable to. However, Sam finds a symbol appearing repeatedly in the notes that belongs to Metatron, the angel who wrote the tablets. After remembering seeing it in one of his Stanford classes, Sam looks through one of The Bunker's books on Native American lore and finds that the symbol belongs to a tribe in Colorado that has managed to hold onto their land through everything and is supposed to be gifted by God's Messenger. Realizing that this could lead them to Metatron himself, Sam and Dean set off to follow the lead.
8.22 Clip Show
Visitors
People aside from Sam and Dean who have visited the bunker:
Behind the Scenes
The reveal of that [bunker], which I believe is in the next episode…it’s a really stunning set. It's full of mysteries [and] it'll become kind of a home base for the boys. We’re really excited about it. After eight years of never really having a home base, this will be home base for quite some time and I think you guys will really dig the set. It's really cool. They'll go to great pains to keep that hidden. It's also kind of impenetrable. We've had places like this before [ie. Rufus' cabin]. They need a place, not just for us to have a set to shoot on, but I think that the boys need a place where they can decompress, have their bromance. When you see this set you realize they have lots of room to move around and there's lots of really cool things in there. Adam [Glass, the episode's writer] came up with this idea and we really latched on to it immediately. It's a very expensive set and we’re going to be using it [a lot].
– Bob Singer, Source
When Adam Glass brought the Men of Letters into his episode it was the opportunity to give [the Winchester brothers] a really, really cool atmosphere-rich kind of space for them to be in and Jerry Wanek has done a beautiful job making it real.
– Ben Edlund, Source
When Edlund first sat down to write the language to make the set become real he said that he:
Kind of got really prosey in the scripts because I was just so excited to do it I had to limit myself. It started out unproduceable and then we scaled it back. At one point it was constructed as ‘an echo of the Axis Mundi’ and it actually was a mini-universe underground that had all of these spiral staircases. But this is just gorgeous. I made something that was unshootable and Jerry made it something incredible.
– Ben Edlund, Source
Trivia
- Lebanon Kansas is the geographic centre of the contiguous lower 48 states of the United States.
