Huzzah, another episode of Teen Wolf’s awesome fourth season! After last week’s episode, I was all jazzed up for this week. This season as a whole has a feel that is a great mix of familiar and fresh, mixing the style and atmosphere of the first season with new characters and dilemmas. Unfortunately, while I wouldn’t call this episode slow-paced or actionless, I don’t think it had quite the energy of the other episodes this season, as pretty much nothing new was introduced—the plotlines were all extensions and elaborations on what had been set up in the previous episode. Without further ado, let’s dive into the latest adventures of this wacky crew.
Spoilers below the jump.
After a brief scene with Sheriff Stilinski and Derek examining the body of last episode’s dearly departed wendigo, our attention turns to the dynamic duo of Scott and Stiles. Scott brings Stiles back to his house to help him deal with Liam, whom he has unceremoniously tied up with duct tape. Liam breaks loose, hijinks ensue, and after some three-way dude-tussling, Liam manages to escape off into the night. The next day the gang convenes, and they decide it’ll be best to take Liam to Lydia’s family’s lake house, where they take Malia on full moons as she learns to control her transformations. Since they’re looking for a scenario with less kidnapping, Lydia says they’ll use a fake party to lure him there. Only she won’t do it, she wants Kira to do it, since kitsunes are trickster beings and “foxy”. Ummm kay. Random, but Kira is so wonderfully, adorably awkward so I cannot wait.
Please do yourself a favor and re-live the magic here.
And I was not disappointed. As Kira does her sexy slo-mo walk down the stairs, it turns into a less sexy slo-mo fall. Classic Kira! From her place on the floor, she gets Liam to agree to go to the lake house for a “party”. They drive over that night to find the rest of the pack waiting for them at the house. Only whoops, Liam told his friend Mason about the “party” and Mason has told all of Beacon Hills High. Malia and Liam start to transform, confirming for sure that Liam is in fact now a werewolf. In a case of horrible timing, Mason and the rest of the freshman class arrive at the doorstep as Stiles, Scott, and Kira rush the other lycanthropes out, leaving Lydia to throw a party, cuz she’s such a good hostess. (She isn’t pleased with this stereotyping either.)
Over at The Loft, the Assassin (I refuse to call him The Mute, like I would refuse to call a character The Cripple or The Deaf) attacks Peter with a tomahawk, but don’t worry, Peter survives.The only good that came of this was some delicious shirtless moments. Is this the first time we’ve seen Ian Bohen shirtless? I think I would remember that body, just sayin’. Anyway, he managed to take the Assassin’s text-talking glove and Derek shows it to the sheriff, where Deputy Parrish overhears and says it and the tomahawk seem military in origin. Is the Assassin some kind of military experiment? Has the Initiative resurrected itself from Sunnydale and moved to Beacon Hills? Using tech magic, Parrish finds an IP address and they also intercept a message from the Benefactor. Naturally, the IP leads them to the high school, where Sheriff and Derek find a military explosive, along with the Assassin himself, I guess confirming his military connection. They manage to apprehend him, but then Peter shows up and ruins everything by killing the Assassin. Think of all the secrets and answers that were lost with him!
Not bad, but I liked the duo of Derek and Papa Argent in 3B even better.
The party at the lake house is in full swing and some man delivers a keg of beer, charging an extra hundred dollars because they are underage. It skeeved me out that he would so readily supply alcohol to high school freshmen; he’s not someone’s older brother sneaking a six-pack over, he clearly works for some company, would his employer be okay with this? We may never know, because it turns out that beer delivery guy is a werewolf, and as he tries to leave, he is killed by… Violet, a new freshman at Beacon Hills. Whoa! Is she an Argent? A Calavera? Ah, it appears she is neither: the plot thickens as she returns to her boyfriend Garrett, who receives a text from the Benefactor!
Then we have what is one of the trippiest scenes ever on Teen Wolf. Mason has wandered upstairs and Lydia goes to stop him and they end up in this strange, pristinely white room with some funky red décor accents. Mason spills red wine on the white carpet, and Lydia is not happy—altho this scene seems to have fallen victim to an audio production problem: many viewers (including myself) were able to hear movement sounds perfectly, but the dialogue was completely muted despite Lydia and Mason obviously talking. However, others could hear the dialogue, and some said closed captioning also picked up on the exchange even if the words were inaudible. Super weird! Apparently Lydia was extra upset out the wine spillage because her family is trying to sell the lake house. Anyway, Mason leaves an upset Lydia alone in the room. There she discovers a record player, and when she plays it, creepy faces start appearing through a wall and making noises. Yeah, that’s the best I can explain this scene. Lydia’s powers have always been super random and mysterious, but this takes the cake. However, I have hope that we’re finally going to learn more and start to understand her powers and banshees in general a little better this season. After all, this was a room in a house of her family, implying a family banshee history.
Omg you guys, so not the time for this.
Stiles manages to get Malia to control her transformation, but Scott and Kira are less successful with Liam. After Kira knocks Liam unconscious with an oar, she and Scott decide it’s a good time for some flirting and slow dancing. Wrong. Liam has fully wolfed out and runs away from the startled couple. In a nice parallel to the first season, Scott tracks Liam out into the woods, where a flash bolt blinds them, courtesy of one Chris Argent, sporting a mightier beard than ever. Argent helps Scott find Liam, but reminds Scott that Liam is now his responsibility as his own beta. The episode ends as Kira finds Lydia in the strange room with the record player. Kira asks her what she’s hearing, and Lydia answers that it’s the key to break the cyber code that she was channeling last episode. Using whatever Lydia “heard”, they uncover what’s been encrypted: a hit list of supernaturals living in Beacon Hills, including Lydia, Kira, Derek, Scott, and several others. Uh oh! Let’s break it down.
#wheresdanny #tearsfordanny #goodbyedanny #gotogayhelljeffdavis
On the positive side of things, I tentatively want to say Beacon Hills is starting to look a little more diverse? For starters, I’m super pumped that Braeden is getting featured more. In addition, Mason and Violet are both people of color, that’s half of the four main new freshmen we’re focusing on. Mason has also been confirmed as being gay in various press releases, though it wasn’t brought up this episode. Yay for gay, but where is Danny? Did he graduate? Is he in college? Is he dead? Has he run away to another continent to be a busker with his trumpet? Super pissed they haven’t even acknowledged his absence on-screen, like they did for Isaac and Jackson. According to comments that Holland Roden (Lydia’s actress) made at Wolfs Bane 2 (a.k.a. WB2, a U.K. Teen Wolf convention), it appears that Danny’s time on Teen Wolf is over for good. A Twitter search for #wb2 + Danny shows us many fans’ outrage. Jeff Davis, you are a life-ruiner, you ruin peoples’ lives! Seriously, what is wrong with you that as a gay writer, you would create a school inclusive enough for a gay lacrosse star, but not create any stories in which he was truly a central character? You are going to Gay Hell, Jeff Davis.
Yay another gay character who will never feature prominently in any storyline.
Anywho, back to Mason. It’s awesome to have another queer character of color, a double rarity on TV, but I fear Mason is gonna end up being just as peripheral as Danny was. Having a diverse cast of characters is great, but what’s really great is when they get to have actual important storylines in which they feature prominently. It was also very neat to see that Liam’s stepfather is Black: interracial families are certainly underrepresented, but as long as they were striving for more inclusivity, why not make Liam himself, the most central new character, be a PoC or gay or both?
More examples of make-up art learned on the set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
A couple of other things that bothered me were some continuity issues. Why does Malia have this hybrid form now when she originally changed completely into a coyote? Will they ever explain why some lycanthropes can transform into animals while most just go to the hybrid state? I hope they explore that more with Malia, because it would really set her apart from the others if she could still fully change into animal form. And while we’re talking lycanthropes, I spent most of the episode wondering why on earth Scott didn’t call up his Alpha status and power while dealing with Liam. With wolfing out or at least changing his eyes and growling he’s shown to have some sway over animals and other werewolves, and you’d think he’d have even more sway over Liam as his very own beta. Did this not cross the writers’ minds at all? And how come Peter, Malia, and Kate aren’t on this hit list? Speaking of the list…
The Benefactor and their hit list is shaping up to be quite an interesting mystery for the season. First off, I hope they explain the numbers next to the names: Scott and Lydia were in the 20s, while there were names with 250 and even 500, but poor Kira was 6. My first thought was prices, but something as low as 6, even 20, doesn’t make sense… unless it’s maybe listing by the thousands. And who is the Benefactor? The password for the code was “Allison”—does this mean there’s an Argent connection? And how does the Benefactor have assassins as varied as mouthless military mutants to high school freshman? I really hope we find some answers soon! Until we do, leave your theories and comments down below!
Lady Geek Girl and Friends 