At the time, we didn’t know what the connection between Mary and Amara/The Darkness would be, but they were brought into close parallel through visual storytelling in season 11.  

Since season 1, Mary’s been commonly associated with pink, red, and white colors, but particularly pink and red flowers.  Here she is in WIAWSNB and In the Beginning.

Amara, too, was associated with pink and red, and introduced with pink and red  flowers.  Little did we know at the time, but that was foreshadowing Mary’s return.

I’ve said elsewhere that flowers are often used by Supernatural as a visual storytelling device to foreshadow secrets or things that are yet to be revealed.

And here Mary is now in Season 12:

Well, then, we have something else to learn about Mary, don’t we.  We’ve already learned that she didn’t cook that meatloaf or pie that Dean remembers so fondly.  What else is going to be revealed?

I think we’re being given clues in the parallel that is being drawn between Mary and Toni. They’re both mothers, obviously, but there have been other visual motifs that are drawing them into association.  I get the feeling that, like Mary and Amara, there’s something more going on here.  

Here we have Toni on the phone with her son, re-establishing that, yes, she is a mother.  “I know, darling, but mummy will be home soon.  I miss you, too.  I love you so, so much.”  Note the pink flowers on the wallpaper behind her. 

Here is Toni surrounded by pink flowers, again.

Now, you could argue that the flowers there hint that this interaction was a manipulation, that things are not quite what they seem, but I think there’s more. Toni and Mary are the only people with whom Sam was physically intimate.  We didn’t get that greatly anticipated Dean and Sam reunion embrace this time, like we’ve come to expect.

Toni wears red (associated with demons/danger in Supernatural visual motifs) and white (associated with death) in her confrontation with Mary.  Mary wears red and white when she first confronts Toni.

Toni likes tea and seeks information about hunters from Sam.  She finds that the way to get to Sam isn’t through pain, it’s through intimacy and the promise of affection and acceptance that he has longed for.  (”Really, you don’t ever want something more? You don’t ever think about something? Not marriage, or whatever, but, something, you know, with a hunter? Someone who understands the life?” Season 11: Baby)

Sam wonders if Mary likes tea.

And he brings her his emotional vulnerability, and, importantly, information.

Not only that, but he opens a new world of knowledge to her about John and American hunters, all while he’s wearing an orange shirt.  Orange has been used in Supernatural as a visual storytelling device that is associated with the danger of getting too close to monsters. It’s that effect of staring too long into the abyss and the abyss staring back.  You become what you fight.  

~*~

So here we are.  Mary and Toni are being brought into close parallel, all surrounded by themes of death, danger, betrayal, and choices that may lead them down the path of becoming monstrous.

Supernatural has carefully reminded the audience about Mary’s initial deal with the YED and the culpability that she feels.  We’ve been reminded that she chose John over the rest of her family.  It may have been 30 years for her sons, but for her, she just lost John.  And now she’s learning all the ways that her death changed him and her children into something they weren’t before.  

Why bring up Ruby, and make sure the audience remembers her? Again, Ruby was someone with whom Sam was intimate, someone who manipulated and betrayed him. But why also bring up Benny?  Did Toni, too, make a Sophie’s choice at one point like Mary did?  Where is her husband/the father of her child?  What happened to him?  Is that why she is so adamantly against any association with monsters? Did she make a choice that horrifies her and gives her that fierce belief that anyone who associates themselves with monsters isn’t no better than them?  Does she HAVE to believe that, or else she wouldn’t be able to live with herself?  What did the British MOL make her do?

And so, what does this mean for Mary?  Mary, like Ruby, betrayed Sam once.  What will learning about hunters do for her?  What choice is going to be presented to her?  What is Mary going to do?