Self-centered and a thorn in the side of the series' protagonists, Bela makes her living by stealing occult objects and selling them to wealthy clients.
In her first appearance, "Bad Day at Black Rock", Bela Talbot hires two crooks to steal a cursed rabbit's foot from a storage container owned by the deceased John Winchester, a hunter of supernatural creatures.
After Dean threatens to kill her, she uses a Ouija board to placate him by obtaining information on Gordon's location so the Winchesters can neutralize the other hunter first.
However, the Winchesters discover after Bobby awakens that she was lying, having helped them only in order to gain access to the Colt, a mystical gun capable of killing any being.
[4] Enraged at the theft, Dean and Sam attempt to track her down in "Jus in Bello", but instead are led into a trap she has set up; police arrest the Winchesters and place them in jail.
[7] In season 5's "The Real Ghostbusters," Becky Rosen reveals to Sam that in Chuck's book version of "Time Is On My Side," Bela had lied about giving the Colt to Lilith.
[8] According to series creator Eric Kripke, the writers conceptualized the character as "someone [the Winchesters have] really never come across before" because, though she moves throughout the supernatural world, Bela has no interest in the "altruistic or obsessed or revenge-minded motives of hunting".
[9] Writer and producer Sera Gamble summarized the writing team's characterization of Bela as a greedy "mercenary that [sic] just [doesn't] give a shit about the cause".
Contrary to Kripke and Gamble's assessment of Bela as amoral and uncaring, Cohan envisioned the character as having "fits of conscience" offscreen throughout the third season.
[15] In order to prepare for her role, Cohan received training in weaponry to be "well equipped with swords and a lot of instruments—sharp instruments",[8] and in kickboxing alongside Ruby's actress Katie Cassidy.
As Kripke pointed out, "It's a road show and we're in a different town every week, so if you're going to run into the same character over and over again, you better have a damn good reason..." They were eventually "crushed under the weight of the absurdity of it" because it became more difficult to justify her reappearances within the narrative.
[18] They eventually decided to drop the character from the series, opting to "send her off in an appropriate and dramatic way" which would "show a couple of cards [they have] been holding onto all season" by revealing her backstory "in a way that will surprise the audience and kind of tie her into the story.
As well, he felt her "sexy cat burglar act, coupled with her flirtation with one of our heroes, is clichéd and has been seen a thousand times before", and he likened her to a combination of Catwoman and "the equally annoying Electro-Gwen from Angel".
[21][22] She found the character's tragic backstory to be "too little, too late", but was surprised the writers were able to make her feel "even a tiny bit sorry for [Bela]" during her death scene.
[21] Writing that "Bela had a hint of vulnerability that would have been intriguing had we glimpsed it more than 30 seconds before she died",[23] Steenbergen wished the character had been written differently[21]—"not either annoying or downright contemptible"[22]—and deemed her "a wasted opportunity to give us an interesting female foil for the boys".
[21] Karla Peterson of The San Diego Union-Tribune expressed similar sentiments, voicing her belief in her review of the third season finale "No Rest For The Wicked" that Bela "got gone just as [she was] getting interesting".
[25] From the start, fans were very wary of bringing in female characters to the male-dominated show;[27] they feared Bela was brought on to be "arm candy or [a sidekick]".
[15] To make matters worse, when coming up with the scenes for the auditions for Bela, executive producer Robert Singer spent an hour writing a lackluster script not intended to be used in the show.