Like all good-intentioned Teen Wolf season finales, this one fell into the same rushed, poorly-paced rut that the last season did, but shining with a few gem moments as well.
Like the beginning! Alison, Scott and Stiles all come to from their self-sacrifice death-by-tub and wake up in an eerily lit room with the base of a tree set in the middle. Each one of them, hesitant, approach and each of them feel themselves transported into the middle of the woods, a little over a year prior to where their news lives in the supernatural began.
We see Scott watch his younger, floppier haired self be bitten by Peter. Stiles sees his dad reprimanding him, and Alison in a newly added scene, sees herself with her mother as they almost hit Scott that night in the rain.
They also all see where their parents have been kept.
They all come to a second time back in Deaton’s office where sixteen hours have gone by, leaving the lunar eclipse only four away.
Because you know, human biology never really mattered anyway and on top of claws Scott’s also grown gills.
Wasn’t the whole point of Deaton, Issac and Lydia being there to hold the other three down, be the “emotional tethers”, and be the ones to pull them back….after they had almost died? So why were they sitting in other rooms for sixteen hours letting our trio float about in lukewarm water? What did they do, take a nap?
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It isn’t worth getting nit-picky about this show but it would be nice if Jeff Davis could remember his own plot points that were only an episode prior.
It’s about when they get out of their ice baths that the episode goes a bit downhill.
Derek is healing from losing his alpha-status and curing Cora as Peter delivers one ominous line after the other making sure we all know that something is going on with him that we’re not being let in on quite yet.
Scott, Alison and Issac split in one direction and Stiles in another and at Alison’s place they run into Scott’s dad who is still trying to get a handle on everything that’s going on. Before he does Alison goes into badass territory and smoke gasses them and the three make a swift get away.
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Stiles is having rather poor luck while on the way to the meet them crashes into a tree after barreling through the woods on a rainy night.
And then we don’t see him for forty minutes or so which I highly expect was the writers “clever” way of excusing Dylan O’Brien’s absence while he was off filming The Maze Runner. Which kind of works I get but it would probably be smarter to not inflict the character with head trauma and then expect us to just ignore it when he pops up well-to-do at the end.
Derek joins Jennifer after she’s demolished the alpha pact to face off with Scott and Deucalion and the fight is kind of intense but it just made me realize how great the female villains are on this show and how they’re always, always, unceremoniously killed off while the male villains are ALL still alive (aside from Matt from last season). Kate Argent from season one, an awful human being sure, was a fantastic antagonist and fit the campy, season one Buffy the Vampire Slayer feeling that the show was going for and got her throat slashed. Peter who is also an awful individual (which many fans choose to ignore) also got his throat slashed but was allowed to come back and now is used mainly for his one-liners and exposition scenes. In season two Victoria Argent was an antagonist but also a surprisingly complex character in the end, totally reliant on some code that was centuries old in her family. Yet she died by her own hand and by her own sense of duty. Gerard on the other hand, the over the top Grandpa gone bad was presumably dead at the end of season two but popped up in the middle of season three, still alive but now bleeding mountain ash.
And now we’ve lost Jennifer and Kali, the former probably my favorite villain thus far (which much of the credit going to Haley Webb who just went for it whether she was playing the love interest or scarred villain) to the hands of Deucalion. And what happens to Deucalion whose body count is as high as Jennifer’s? Oh, he gets a free pass from the righteous brothers Derek and Scott as long as he promises to find the light again.
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There is a serious dichotomy problem between who dies and who lives which is beginning to cause me to think about why this is being seen as okay. Just because the show is rare in that it aims for the female gaze doesn’t mean that it gets a free pass in everything else revolving gender issues.
But for now there’s a new alpha Scott, Stiles has saved the day using an aluminum bat and the kids and parents are reunited, Scott won’t say hi to his dad and while Stiles and Scott feel the darkness around them due to their sacrifice, they have their friends to tether them.
Oh and Derek and Cora’s leaving but we all know the former will be back-that would eliminate half of our gratuitous shirtless scenes if he disappeared for good.
It wasn’t a bad finale but it was messy and the last three episodes prior had been so good that it can’t help but feel lackluster. Season two was the same way with “Party Guessed”, “Fury” and “Battlefield”-three of the shows best episodes-all coming before the letdown finale.
Luckily we only have till January to wait and with Peter as the big bad again a lot is in store. What does everyone want to see once the winter season hits?
Episode Grade: 6/10
Season 3a Grade: 7.5/10
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