Strong Sense of Foreshadowing

Okay, first of all, I originally thought Max and Alicia were mirrors for Sam and Dean, respectively, because Alicia wanted to look for her Mom the way Dean wanted to look for John in the pilot and Sam didn't think it was necessary at first. Then when they met them in person, the parallel was flipped. Alicia feels like the outsider in her family, because she's not a witch. Sam felt like he was the outsider in the family, because he didn't want to be a hunter. Max was into Dean's car and a date with the bartender. Max makes a deal to bring something resembling his sister back. But at the same time, I feel like that was all surface stuff, and the original parallel between Max = Sam and Alicia = Dean might have been the one that was more important.

Alicia is the one who wanted to look for her Mom even though Max thought she was fine. I'm thinking that since next week, the synopsis says, [spoiler]Sam and Dean are alarmed when they learn hunters are being killed by suspicious "accidents" all over the country. They decide it is best to find Mary and make sure she's safe.[/spoiler]

Maybe Sam thinks that Dean is overreacting at first if they have time to be concerned about [spoiler] hunters dying all over the country [/spoiler] before they decide to [spoiler] look for Mary [/spoiler]. Mary's message was pretty ambiguous. Max's lesson was that he should have listened to Alisha. Maybe Sam's is supposed to be he should've listened to Dean.

I'm not saying that Mary is going to die next week or the week after the way Tasha did, but I also wonder if there wasn't a bit of foreshadowing with the way Alisha reacted to Twig!Tasha. For some reason she refused to believe that wasn't her Mom, and all of her hunters instincts went right out the window even though Max said that wasn't their Mom, and the Twig!Tasha was convulsing on the floor one second and fine the next as soon as Alicia's back was turned. She sounded really naive and happy to see her Mom standing there and took a step towards her instead of a step back, and that's what got her killed.

I'm wondering if we aren't going to see something similar with Mary/Lucifer and Dean. We already saw Dean face off against a possessed Mary in episode 3. She almost killed him the way Azazel in John, but stopped the spirit from doing it, the same way John stopped Azazel from killing Dean, and then Dean begged the spirit not to make him have to shoot her after the spirit took control again. Dean found another way around it, but I thought at the time, it might be foreshadowing for that kind of a scenario to be played out later with Lucifer (before the magic egg was introduced).

What if Lucifer coerces Mary into being his vessel, and because she's the vessel, it makes Dean drop his guard allowing Lucifer to kill him? Sam is the one left standing, and it's a reversal of Season 2. Season 12 seems to be all about throw backs and re-hashes of seasons 1, 2, and with the BMoL theme, 4. Mary sacrificing herself by becoming Lucifer's vessel to save Sam or have Lucifer bring Sam back would be like John doing that for Dean. I've often thought her arc was very similar to John's, and Mary sacrificing herself for Sam would be in line with that, but if she does that for Sam, what about Dean?

Maybe before Lucifer leaves wearing Mary, he kills Dean. It could be a Sophie's choice kind of deal where Lucifer says she can save one, or they both die, and she can only bring back one, but I'm thinking with the way Dean reacted to possessed Mary in the past and the way Alisha reacted to Twig!Tasha, there will be a confrontation and the son who is confronted won't be able to act and will be killed. Of course, it could be Sam too if the parallel with Alisha was only ever supposed to be with Sam and Dean with Max. Except, we've already seen that as was made painfully aware in this episode . . . It was a little strange. Alisha and Max both mirrored Sam and Dean in different ways, so it could be either one. And while Dean overcame seeing Mary possessed in The Foundry and found another way to contain her until Sam killed the spirit, Sam hasn't had to face anything like that and overcome it yet.