Actor: Steven Williams
First appearance: Time is on my side (season 3)
Last appearance: Weekend at Bobby's (season 6)
Number of episodes: 3
Species: Human (hunter)
Powers: None, but he has a lot of knowledge, and is an experienced hunter.
Bio:
Rufus is an acquaintance of Bobby, whom he hasn't seen in fifteen years. He's a hunter, who has gotten very suspicious about others, and seems very bitter with his life. But he has a fun side too. Rufus is just very human, and we see his character progress slowly throughout the series. It's almost as if each new episode with him in it, reveals another piece of the puzzle that is Rufus.
We first see him in 'Time on my Side'. When Bobby gets a call about Bela Talbot from Rufus, he sends Dean to get more information. Rufus, however, isn't very talkative and seems to have a four word vocabulary for almost the entire conversation.
RUFUS (voice): What?
DEAN: Hi, ah, ah, Rufus.
RUFUS (voice): Yeah, even if I am the question is still the same. What?
DEAN: Ah, I’m Dean Winchester, I’m a friend of Bobby Singers.
RUFUS (voice): So?
DEAN: You called him this morning.
RUFUS (voice): So?
DEAN (voice): Ahh, hhhm, you told Bobby about a British chick making contact with you.
RUFUS (voice): Yeah, and so?
RUFUS (voice): Yeah.
DEAN: Great, could you tell me where I could find her?
RUFUS (voice): No.
DEAN: Course not.
DEAN clears his throat and readdresses RUFUS.
DEAN: Ah, look Rufus man..
The door opens, cutting DEAN off, and revealing RUFUS.
RUFUS: Look, let me point something out to you. You are knocking at my door, so don’t “look man” me, I’m not your man.
DEAN: Sorry Sir.
RUFUS: Alright, I’m gonna tell you a little story, see once upon a time, Bobby called me, asked me to call him if I got a whiff of this Bela Talbot. I got a whiff, I called. The end.
DEAN: Okay, if, you could just tell me where she is, that’d be great.
RUFUS: Dean Winchester right?
DEAN: Yeah.
RUFUS: Dean do I look like I’m here to help you?
DEAN: I’m gonna say no.
RUFUS: Then get the hell of my property.
DEAN: All right, hey, hey, fair enough. I got one more question for you though. See, I got this ah, this bottle of scotch, and ah, I...
DEAN pulls the bottle of scotch out of his bag.
DEAN: Is this considered good?
RUFUS looks from the scotch to DEAN, a wide smile breaking out on his face.
Thank God for Bobby, right? He's after all the one that told Dean to pick up the Johnny Walker Blue Label, and gave Dean an 'in' with Rufus.
After being an big-ass grump at the door, he shows himself to be a jovial guy when liquor's involved. Only to add in a pinch of pessimism. Rufus truly is a character we all would like to brain-dissect.
RUFUS: You got 3 weeks left. Why you wasting your time chasing after that skinny, stuck-up English girl?
DEAN laughs, but with a measure of discomfort.
DEAN: How’d you know about that?
RUFUS: Because I know things. I know a lot of things about a lot of people.
DEAN: Is that so?
RUFUS: I know aint no pea-shooter gonna save you.
DEAN: What makes you so sure?
RUFUS: Coz that’s the job kid. Even if you managed to scrape out of this one, there’s just gonna be something else down the road. Folks like us, there aint no happy endin’. We all got it comin’.
DEAN: Well, aint you a bucket of sunshine?
RUFUS: I’m what you’ve got to look forward to if you survive. Which you won’t.
He does help Dean eventually, even giving him a hint on how to identify people without fingerprints - the ears, man!
Bobby briefly mentions Rufus in 'When the levee breaks', but it's not until 'Good God y'all' that we finally get to see him again. In this episode, Rufus calls Bobby from River Pass, Colorado. He had followed some omens, and stumbled upon a town infested with demons. During the call, we can see sitting behind a car with an injured civilian. The entire town looks like a warzone, and it really is one. There's a lot of static during the conversation, and it ominously ends with gunfire on Rufus' end.
The next time we see Rufus, he fights Sam and actually overpowers him! That's pretty impressive, because let's face it, Sam's huge. He and Jo believe that Sam is a demon and try to exorcise him, to no avail, of course.
Then we see Rufus' skills as he makes bombs and attaches them to the windows, in order to slow down the demons.
"But in my experience, demons come at you slower if they're in a body with no limbs."
Finally, we reach the climax of the episode with a fight between Dean and Rufus. Dean tries to tell Rufus what's going on, but he just won't listen. Dean had no better option than to hammer it into his thick skull.
DEAN: Listen to me. I'm not a demon. Think, Rufus. All those omens.
RUFUS: You go to hell.
RUFUS kicks DEAN in the crotch, then hits him in the chest and face. RUFUS lunges for his dropped gun and DEAN hauls him away, pushing him back against the wall.
DEAN: Rufus! The polluted water, the shooting star, the red Mustang—it's War. I'm telling you, it's War.
RUFUS: You're damn right it is.
RUFUS punches DEAN in the face and goes for the gun. DEAN tackles him.
DEAN: The Horseman!
RUFUS: Horseman?
DEAN: Yes. He's turning us against each other. You're hallucinating.
RUFUS stares up at DEAN. The black fades from DEAN's eyes.
RUFUS: The Horseman. War.
DEAN: Yes.
RUFUS looks to each side.
RUFUS: Did you figure this out all by yourself, genius?
Ah, you gotta love Rufus.
As soon as he understands what's going on, he tries hard to stop the violence going on, but there is one idiot that just keeps shooting away, and actually hits the priest. Kid's so going to hell.
"'Stop firing' usually means 'stop firing'."
And Rufus disappears for the rest of the episode, in a non-supernatural way.
Besides another phone call with Bobby that we can't hear in 'The Devil you know', Rufus remains unseen and unheard off. Until he suddenly reappears in 'Weekend at Bobby's'. Rufus is such an idiot in it, despite his experience and know-it-all attitude, that I came to adore the guy a little more. Bobby's great in it too, but we'll discuss him later. *winks*
Rufus has a dead Okami on his hands, and to make matters worse/interesting, the cops are chasing him. What to do, what to do? Oh, he knows! Just drop in on Bobby. Good one, Rufus, because the old bugger doesn't have anything else to do.
At least they make for some hilarious conversation;
RUFUS: (out of breath) Good you're home! Listen.. You gotta help me bury a body
-OUTSIDE-BOBBY: Why'd you bring it here?
RUFUS: The law is on my tail! What was your guess? (sarcastic) What, what, what? They got lucky.
BOBBY: Yeah or your getting slow
RUFUS: Yeah I'm getting slow- says mister sits on his ass all day taking calls.
Bobby and Rufus reach Rufus' truck. Rufus lowers the tailgate and uncovers the body of an Asian woman. Rufus gestures at the body “there it is”
BOBBY: Vamp, shifter – what.
Rufus is looking down at body.
RUFUS: None of the above.
BOBBY: Okami? Where did you shive it?
RUFUS: Get this. Billings.
BOBBY: The only time I ever saw one of these was in Japan
RUFUS: DUH. No one's seen one of these except in Japan
BOBBY: For what it's worth, Sam and Dean are tracking a Lamia in Wisconsin
RUFUS: Get out. I thought they never leave Greece.
Bobby shakes his head slightly
BOBBY: Monsters lately. Is it me. Or is it weird?
Bobby looks over at Rufus
RUFUS: Yeah well, definitely something. (Rufus stops pondering and snaps his head up) So, you got a shovel?
We also learn that Rufus wants a machine just like Bobby's to do his digging for him, and that he's pretty stubborn when he wants to be.
RUFUS: You know I've got contacts over there...I could make a few calls. (starts to rake)
BOBBY: (rests on shovel) Well I ain't askin' for no help.
RUFUS: (rests on his rake) I ain't askin' for your permission.
Then his know-it-all attitude comes to bite in his ass, when the Okami isn't dead.
BOBBY: Your Okami ain't dead.
RUFUS: Of course it is.
BOBBY: Did you use a bamboo dagger?
RUFUS (voice over phone) Of course!
BOBBY: Blessed by a Shinto priest?
RUFUS: I'm not an imbecile Bobby,
BOBBY: Did you stab it seven times?
RUFUS: Five times.
BOBBY: It's seven!
RUFUS: No I'm pretty sure it's five.
BOBBY: Clearly it's seven times, the damn hole is empty.
Rufus -tries- to redeem himself though. He has found a lead on Crowley, and heads over to Hannover to steal a ring Bobby needs. Only, his help only makes matters worse again, when he's caught. Poor Rufus just can't do anything right in this episode. He makes Dumb and Dumber look like the possible new Einsteins.
Rufus swallows the ring for safekeeping, despite Bobby's protests. Hell, no one would want to flush out Rufus' guts, but it seems there's no other choice...Nasty!
RUFUS: Listen Bobby – Bobby I gotta stash this ring.
BOBBY: Well don't swallow it.
RUFUS: RIGHT! I'm swallowing it Bobby! (Rufus swallows the ring)
BOBBY: Don't swallow it! (Bobby can hear Rufus swallowing something then drinking something) Damn it.
Thankfully, Rufus already...got the ring out of his system before reaching Bobby's. When Rufus tries to give it to Bobby, he instantly leaves to boil some water. He prefers the ring to be sterile. Something that Rufus clearly doesn't understand.
His confused "What?" is the last we hear, before the scene fades and the episode carries on Rufus-free.
I believe we'll see much more of Rufus in the future, because there is still so much more to discover about him. And he's the perfect bitter old guy, but he's also very efficient as the comical relief. Rufus will appear again, I just know it.
And that concludes our Character Profile.
Click here to see a fragment from my favorite episode featuring Rufus.
Shirley Out!
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