@child-of-sunshine pointed out this parallel in requesting this set and I gotta say, it’s striking. This is the last time Sam hugged Mary; when he was hallucinating during his detox in the panic room, and she told him she was proud of him and that he was doing the right thing. She wasn’t real.

After his experiences with Toni Bevell over the past few days, after finding his dead mother unexpectedly and miraculously restored to life, it’s not hard to believe Sam might be doubting reality in this final scene of 12x02; or that, at least, he might be thinking about another fan in another room, and wondering whether Mary will still be proud when she hears what he did in the years she was gone.