The Winchesters – Season 1 Episode 3 Recap & Review

You’re Lost Little Girl

Episode 3 of The Winchesters starts with a young girl named Carrie calling her mother to help look for her play toy – Bernice. Her mother tells her that she will be home the following day and will help her look for Bernice after work. The girl hears a sound and finds a bag with the toy inside her room. She takes the toy from the bag and goes to bed happy but soon a monster comes out of the bag and Carrie wakes up screaming.

The episode then follows Dean’s narration about how hunters are not made but become who they are by following their gut. In Lata’s library, Mary ends a call from her mother’s friend. Lata and Mary both talk about how she has been on a hunt and probably is unaware that Samuel is missing. Mary loses faith in finding Samuel but John and Lata try to cheer her up by asking her to keep looking for him.

Lata hints that John and Mary have been working for days and asks them to go out for a movie. John agrees but Mary does not understand that Lata was suggesting that John and Mary go on a date. The group is still not close to opening the rune box and Ada thinks that the demon that possessed her is the key to opening the box.

Just then, Carlos joins them and informs Mary about cops being all around Mary’s neighbour’s house. Mary and John leave to go to her house to look into the matter. She asks Ada to look for the friend of the demon that possessed her and asks Carlos to accompany her. Mary and John arrive at her house where eight-year-old Carrie, Mary’s neighbour is gone missing. She was home alone with her 12-year-old brother, Ford.

The cop on the case – Betty turns out to be a friend of John’s and he introduces her to Mary. Betty tells Mary about Carrie being missing and the hunter excuses herself to talk to Ford. John and Betty seem to have a connection from the past where Betty shares that she had tried calling John after he came back from war.

Ford tells Mary about seeing a creature grabbing Carrie and taking her inside the sack before the two disappeared. Mary and John look inside Carrie’s room for clues and Mary is clearly annoyed about John’s friendship with Betty. John and Mary get to talking about their respective childhood dreams and Mary claims that she was never given the luxury to aspire to become anything other than a hunter.

He tries to tell her that she can change that and become whatever she wants to be. John insinuates that once Mary finds Samuel, she can stop being a hunter for good and move on to a better life. Mary finds a piece of the sack that has a word written in the Devanagari script. The episode shows a monster who is in a room full of children’s plushies.

The following day, Mary is demon and monster-proofing Ford and Carrie’s house. Ford states that he wants to help out as they look for Carrie but John and Mary tell him that he should stay back home and be safe. Ford is adamant and John and Mary try to calm him down by revealing that they are monster hunters and know how to take care of the situation better.

Carlos and Ada are on a stakeout looking out for the demon when he targets them. Carlos attacks the demon with his patent holy water gun while Ada pushes him into the back of the van. The demon cannot leave the van because Ada set it up with a devil’s trap. They take the demon away while John and Mary come to Lata to look for clues about the monster.

She claims that the monster originates from North India – “Bori Baba” translating to “Sack Man” similar to bogeyman. Lata explains that the monster lures people in using a sack to tempt them to their most priced possession. Mary wonders why the monsters that they are encountering ranging from different parts of the world and links them to the Akrida.

Lata states that she does not know much about the monster other than what her family told her and has no idea how to kill it. John hopes she could ask her parents about it when Mary tells him that Lata’s parents were no more. She still hopes to contact her relatives back home and tries to help the duo. Ford hears a knock outside his door and finds the sack with Carrie’s hair clip.

In no time, the monster captures Ford too and Mary and John are shocked coming back to an empty house. The two hunters are worried and Mary starts looking for clues. Betty is at the door and John does his best to stop the cop from checking up on Ford who was left unattended and home alone by his mother despite Carrie’s abduction.

At the back door, Mary finds another piece of the sack and learns that the monster has taken Ford too. Betty confronts John about their breakup and mentions how they ended things with a promise to stay in touch. He tells Betty about how he discovered that his father had died and tells her that he was having a hard time processing that. Betty tells him that she is here for him and was a call away.

John goes back inside Ford’s house and notices Mary was missing. Mary uses Carrie and Ford’s mobile radio to contact him and tell him about Ford’s abduction. She is in a rush and mentions that she will get into Bori Baba’s sack and save the two siblings. John is against Mary’s plan and states that he does not know how to get her and the kids out of the sack but Mary is adamant John and Lata will find a way.

Mary tries to remember her father’s hat being lost and summons the monster who takes her away. She then wakes up in a room full of toys and missing items. She donned her father’s hate and beings looking for Ford and Carrie. Ada and Carlos are questioning the demon by holding him hostage and he tries to mock her for trying to become a witch.

Ada threatens to trap the demon inside a bonsai tree in order to make him talk about the rune box. The demon falls for Ada’s trick and claims that Akrida only asked him and his partner (the demon that possessed Ada) to look for the box. He claims that the person who asked them to do so was a demon hiding inside a human woman.

Instead of exorcising the demon and letting him go, Ada follows along with her ritual and traps him inside the bonsai plant. John and Lata argue about letting Mary go inside the monster’s trap and she tries contacting one last relative. Inside the monster’s house, Mary finds both the kids and temporarily slows down the monster by slashing his arms and legs.

The monster begins healing and getting back up when she drags Ford and Carrie into hiding. Lata gets the help she needs from her family but as it turns out, her mother is still alive. She tells John that the Bori Baba is only vulnerable outside his sack and if they summon him out, the sack and everything inside it gets destroyed.

Lata claims that they will have to first free Mary and the children before summoning the monster. She adds that in order for the hostages to be free, they have to willingly let go of the items they are holding onto. John uses the mobile radio signal to tell this information to Mary. The kids are adamant about going back home and do not need much convincing to let go of their respective loved items.

Mary on the other hand tries burning her father’s hat but it doesn’t burn. The monster starts attacking her and John tells her that she has to willingly let go of the thing she loves the most. She wonders how she can let go of her dad and John tells her that maybe it is hunting that she needs to give up on. She is worried because hunting is the only thing she knows how to do but John’s words reassure her and she is eventually able to burn the hat.

The monster catches on to her but Mary is able to burn the hat in time and return to the real world. Somehow the monster escapes his world too and s outside into the real world. Since he is vulnerable in the real world, John is able to kill it by slashing its neck. Carrie and Ford reunite with their mother and Betty thanks John for helping on the case.

She gives John the ring he gave to her in the past and leaves him with a promise to stay friends. Mary and John get to talking and she claims that she will be taking her life as a hunter slow. She goes out to the movies and finds a movie buddy to watch the film with. John and Lata are in the library talking when Ada and Carlos arrive.

The two tell John and Lata that the Akrida is a demon disguised as a human woman who is summoning rare and wayward monsters. An epilogue shows that Akrida is an RJ named Rocking Roxy who hosts a late-night radio show. After John has burned traces of the Bori Baba, the Akrida’s “spider” brings its essence that the demon collects in a small glass jar.

The Episode Review

The episode seemed a little better than the last two now that we are back to ancient lore and good old monster hunting but it seems like the show is deflecting a lot with John’s past love track and Mary’s side romance. I wish the story of John and Mary falling in love was more organic and natural as viewers have imagined it in the past and it does not include more scheming and jealousy like we are being promised now.

One plausible effect of John being a hunter and having no connection to hunting until Mary’s death could possibly be because Mary had his memory erased to have no recollection of being a hunter. Carrie’s mother is suspiciously missing the entire time both her children have been abducted too, which seems unrealistic.

Mary’s connection with the kids is also not foreshadowed but rushed, which makes her bond with them more unbelievable. It was hilarious to see John and Mary talk to each other via the radio signals before she goes inside the sack. That way we know the solution way before the conflict is presented. Credit to CW for using the same set of conflicts years after – way to go!

“You found me once I have faith you will do it again,” has to be THE LINE from the show because it is hilariously outrageous how much faith Mary has in a boy she met weeks ago. Well, we can only expect more organised chaos in the episodes to come.