This week’s episode of Teen Wolf immediately thrusts itself into the action but the momentum only reaches its climactic peak in the last three minutes, leaving us wanting more from an episode that ultimately feels hollow.
A lot happens in this episode: Lydia and Allison confront Peter, Kira explores her new powers as the Kitsune, Chris Argent and Derek are held at the police station after being framed and Scott, Stiles and the twins must track down whatever it is that Stiles has been doing while possessed.
That, it just so happens, has been quite a lot.
We meet up where the last episode left off and Isaac has been left hospitalized after being electrocuted by the chaos that Stiles caused at the hospital. He, his mom and Allison visit and Scott tries to take some of Isaacs’s pain since he hasn’t been able to heal himself, his wounds substantial. We learn that no one has heard from Stiles in at least two days after running from the crime scene.
Later that day, in the B plot that only manages to steal screen time from storylines that would have better benefitted the episode, Lydia and Allison track down Peter because the former believes that he can teach her about her powers. Neither of them wants to see him as neither of them have forgotten or forgiven his past digressions, but they understand the necessity in the meeting.
It means we get a Crystal Reed scene with a cast member who isn’t Daniel Sharman so if anything that’s a plus-that poor actress has been stuck with the worst scenes.
While there not only does Lydia manage to hone her powers, she also tells Peter that he has a daughter. He had told her that his sister had taken a memory from him and she could get it back-he was right.
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He doesn’t get much questioning in before Allison electrocutes him, leaving him incapacitated as they leave. Outside the two girls learn that the daughter in question is Malia Tate, the were-coyote from a few episodes back.
Earlier in the episode Derek had gone to Argent to ask about something he thought had been planted in his house and then went on to ask about what he planned on doing with Stiles if he was found. Chris says that it depends on which version of Stile’s he finds.
They’ve been framed however and their discussion is cut short as they’re brought in for question. The pairing of these two in this episode goes to show just how much the characters on the show have grown over the past three seasons. Where once either would have been fine with allowing the other to die or suffer in a number of other ways, Derek makes the decision to save Chris’s life.
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Because it seems that while Stiles was possessed he not only planted a real bomb, but a decoy one so that the one in the police station could go off without fault. As it does, Derek covers Chris to protect him from the blast.
Scott and Stiles arrive on the scene after a day of chaotic events. They watched as their Coach was shot with an arrow and Scott was forced to take away so much of his pain that the Coach passed out until the ambulance arrived. He seemingly survived though so there’s one character we can place in the safe category for now. (There’s still too many who hover over the in dire danger category for my liking.) And now, Scott must take the pain away from a dying deputy, severely injured by the blast. This is easily one of Tyler Posey’s strongest scenes of the series as he has to feel the life slip away from the man. Posey has never been the shows strongest actors, often relying on his charm and energy but it’s noteworthy to mention just how far he’s come from season one. This is an actor putting in conscious effort to improve and it shows tremendously.
Which is only more fully demonstrated in the sequence that follows.
Kira races to warm them of the Oni that her mother has just beckoned using a fox tail. Scott says they need to get Stiles to somewhere safe and decided to go to Deaton’s.
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I don’t know about you, but locking themselves in a room with Stiles seems like poor planning.
Guess who was one hundred percent right? This girl.
The Oni catch them right before they enter-in pouring rain no less because dramatics are necessary-and Kira and Scott ward them off just before Scott gets a sword through his stomach. Stiles and Kira get him inside to try and help. Or so you thought.
Stiles immediately vanishes and in steps the nogitsune who has apparently been there the entire day, fooling all of them.
The last few moments of the episode are easily the best, one because of how the character managed to pull the rug out from under not just Scott but the audience as well, and again getting to see Dylan O’Brien play unhinged is a great deal of fun, especially when you realized he had scattered moments of the alter-ego poking through throughout the entire episode-it’s right when he makes the revelation that you realize something’s been off with him the entire time.
He tells Scott that the nogitsune feeds off of chaos, strife and pain and Scott has been eating it up all day and now he wants it. He’s taunting Scott, telling him to never trust a fox because he will fool him and we’re genuinely worried for our lead when Deaton steps in to save the day and injects something into Stiles that will poison the fox, for now.
The pacing of the episode was erratic and left us waiting until the big moment was going to happen-it was a lot of lead up for a very short moment. You can tell when Jeff Davis writes an episode due to the scatterbrained manner in which he tells his stories, which was wildly apparent this week. We didn’t need Peter, we didn’t need gross amounts of side moments-this season is easily competing to be the best one the show’s ever produced and this episode threw the momentum slightly off kilter.
Next week could go either way-it’s an asylum based episode so while there will be plenty of good Stiles material, how will they handle it in a manner than doesn’t aggravate or offend?
We’ll see, until then we can keep thinking about how kick ass those last few minutes were.
6/10
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