‘Supernatural’ 12×20 Recap “Twigs & Twine & Tasha Banes”

On this week’s ‘Supernatural’, Sam and Dean intercept a call from one of their newer hunting acquaintances, Alicia and Max Banes. We first met them in the Asa Fox episode when it was revealed they were twins born of a witch and a hunter.

Read through my quick recap below, and then let’s discuss how this one will play into this season’s end game…

 

This Week’s Case

Find Tasha Banes. Tasha, mother of the witch hunter twins Max & Alicia Banes, has gone missing. Trying to get in touch with Mary, Alicia gets Sam instead and after hearing her concerns agrees to come help. Dean is more worried about what’s going on with Castiel, and trying to get in touch with Mary. In the end, Sam convinces Dean to help them by saying, … “their mom’s on a hunting trip and hasn’t been home in a few days.” How could he say no after that one?

 

Alicia tells the guys that her mom was hunting a “borrower” witch; a witch that gets their power from a demon deal. We see Tasha in the beginning of the episode, tracking the witch to a root cellar and getting stabbed by something when she goes down there. When they reach the B & B later, Tasha is there and surprised to see them.

Tasha asks the manager to get a couple rooms for the Winchesters and the twins and invites everyone to her room for dinner and drinks. Sam runs out to pick up the food while Dean stays in the room and drinks with the Banes’ family. Sam returns and shows Dean a missing poster of a man they saw when they came in town. They saw him near the root cellar on the side of the B&B. Dean and Sam leave the get-together and see what they can find out.

They go down into the cellar and find the bodies of the man on the poster, the manager of the B&B and Tasha Banes. Max followed them down to the cellar and see’s his mother’s body. They go back to the room and he uses his magic to find out what the thing posing as his mother really was.

 

The borrower witch Tasha has been hunting found her in the cellar. She is looking for someone to take over her powers so that when she dies, her soul doesn’t go to Hell. When the old witch realizes Tasha’s natural abilities, she offered her to take over the magic. Tasha refused so the witch killed her. Now, Dean and Max have confronted the witch. She forces Dean in a chair and makes Max the same deal as his mother when she sees that he also has natural abilities of a witch.

The witch tells Max that the creature that was is mother is a doll made of twigs and twine. Her magic brings them to life with all the memories of the person who’s heart it holds in its chest. If he holds the magic, he can control the doll and keep his mother with him forever.

Before Max can accept her deal, Dean is able to shoot the witch with his “witch killing bullets”. When they get back to the room, they find that Alicia has been stabbed in the fight that ensued and both the mother and manager dolls have turned to ash when the witch was killed. Devastated by losing his mother and sister in one night, Max tells the Winchesters to leave while he cleans up the mess. Instead, he picks up the witch’s magic and brings his sister back to life as one of the dolls. He sets fire to his true sister’s body before leaving with Alicia.

 

Ketch Gets the Drop on Mary

 

Mr. Ketch and Mary have a shapeshifter at the headquarters, and Ketch is inflicting torture to get information. Ketch and Mary disagree on the tactics considering it didn’t give up anything. Mary voices concern for a missing Mick, but Ketch waves it off. Later, Mary overhears Ketch on the phone talking about a package with a specific lot number, 12257. After Ketch hangs up Mary’s phone vibrates and she comes into the office, saying she wanted to use Mick’s computer for her email. There’s a message from Mick saying he’ll be stuck in London for a few more weeks.

Mary goes and looks for this package 12257 and discover’s Mick’s body. Trying to evade Ketch, she ducks into a room with all the hunter’s pictures and profiles: Garth, Claire, Eileen, Mary, Sam and Dean’s. When she touches Dean’s it plays the recordings that they captured after bugging the guys’ bunker. Ketch finds her in the room. Mary accuses him of killing Mick, calling him a psychopath and punches him, but he hits back harder. Mary finally gets Ketch down, but he hits her with a taser as she steps over him to leave.

 

Aftermath

Dean finally listens to the messages Mary left for him, including one that said, “we have a problem”. He calls her back, but she can’t answer because Ketch has Mary strapped to a chair. In walks Lady Toni Bevel, back from her banishment and ready to get to work breaking down Mary Winchester.

 

Season 12 End Game

There’s still a lot to wrap up in the last three episodes, and I can only imagine what fresh Hell the two-hour season finale will deliver on May 18th. What makes me the most nervous is how this episode one again addresses the happy family getting torn apart in the blink of an eye. Getting Mary back this season has been a rollercoaster for the Winchesters. Sure,

Getting Mary back this season has been a rollercoaster for the Winchesters. Sure, their happy mom is alive, but with her need to roam free and find herself, and the fear of losing her again has made the reunion a bittersweet one. Now that Mary is in the grasp of the Men of Letters and torture freaks Bevel and Ketch, will she be torn away from her boys again before she can even really get used to being back?

Will the hunters featured on the screens be returning for the finale? I’d kind of like to see this group come together and tell the Brits to go back across the pond and let them handle the US in their own way. The Winchesters have taken on much worse and survived, I just hope that ALL the Winchesters can walk away from this one in one piece.

We also have the pesky matter of Billie’s last works and baby Lucifer on the way. Things rarely get dropped or swept aside on ‘Supernatural’ so I imagine the reaper’s warning to the boys during the mid-season premiere will come back around. Again, I worry… will Mary be the one to pay the price? Personally, I’d like her to stay. I think her presence adds a good dynamic and I’d like to see more of that before they take her away again.

Besides, anytime you can a kick ass mama bear like this, how can you not want her to stick around?

 

https://youtu.be/_Uyc_2Mzzsk

 

 

What did you think of “Twigs and Twine and Tasha Banes”?

‘Supernatural’ returns next Thursday, May 11th at 8/7C on The CW.