Teen Wolf: “Monstrous” Review

teen-wolf-season-4Last week, Teen Wolf left us all wondering what the hell was going on when it revealed that Meredith was both alive and the Benefactor. This week, we learn that maybe Meredith isn’t as evil as we may have initially thought, Peter is still an asshole, and more hunters and assassins attempt to murder everyone.

Spoilers after the jump.

Our episode opens with Kira tracking down and saving two members of Satomi’s pack from a bunch of former-hunters-turned-assassins. She and Scott take them and all the other surviving members to Chris’s place, where they all hole up and prepare for the next wave of assassins. Since anyone can have a copy of the deadpool now, they don’t know who to expect, but Derek suggests that they make a deadpool of their own, consisting of anyone who thinks they can kill supernatural creatures for money.

Meanwhile, back at the police station, neither the Sheriff nor Lydia can get Meredith to open up about the deadpool. When Lydia goes to talk to her, Meredith says that she will only speak to Peter. Oookay. This can only end badly. Sure enough, they get Peter into the station, and Meredith insists that the two of them have met before. Peter, however, doesn’t remember Meredith, and he even seems a little peeved that she created a deadpool with both his nephew’s and daughter’s names on it. However, this is still the guy who ripped his own niece in two, beat up and blackmailed his nephew, and later abandoned his daughter to fight a bunch of berserkers, so at no point during this exchange did I actually think he really gave a shit that Derek and Malia are on the deadpool.

Father of the year.

Father of the year.

Anyway, in typical Peter fashion, he physically assaults Meredith to take a look at her memories. After the fire, Peter and Meredith ended up in the same hospital, and during her stay there, Meredith was privy to all of Peter’s dark horrible thoughts. It turns out that Peter is the Benefactor. While in his coma, he thought about making every supernatural creature die because they were weak. If they were strong, the fire wouldn’t have happened. As such, he thought about using his family’s money to hire assassins to kill all the supernatural creatures, so he could start over and make a new, stronger pack. Years later, Meredith heard Lydia screaming over Allison’s death and knew that it was time to enact Peter’s plan.

Papa Stilinski, after this reveal, wants to shoot Peter in the head since he is the mastermind behind the deadpool. However, oddly enough, I actually found myself on Peter’s side. If Peter truly never remembered meeting Meredith, let alone his own plan, then he clearly had no intentions whatsoever of enacting that plan. I can’t blame him for having shitty thoughts after being set on fire, especially if he never would have gone through with it. It’s not his fault that Meredith could hear his thoughts, and it’s not Meredith’s fault that she’s neuroatypical and acted out what Peter was thinking. Of all the things to shoot Peter in the head for, this wouldn’t be it. Now, if Papa Stilinski wanted to shoot him in the head for murdering people, turning Scott into a werewolf against his will, mind-raping Lydia, mind-raping Meredith, and attempting to murder everyone else, by all means, let’s go for it.

Of course, this is Peter, so I probably won’t be surprised if next episode it turns out that he did remember Meredith and knew what was happening. If that ends up being the case, then once again, by all means, Papa Stilinski can shoot him in the head for that too.

Peter, he’s such an asshole that even without knowing it, he’s responsible for every single death this entire season.

Peter: he’s such an asshole that even without knowing it, he’s responsible for every single death this entire season.

While all that is going on, Stiles and Malia reunite with one another—complete with a touching moment where Malia forgives Stiles for lying to her—and then the two of them work together to figure out how Meredith is running the deadpool. It turns out that the deadpool is on an old computer system hidden in the walls of Lydia’s lake house. Using a key hidden in the house, they are able to turn the computer off, which then automatically sends out a “contract terminated” message to every assassin with the deadpool.

Our episode ends with Peter talking to Kate down in the sewers about their team up. It turns out that Peter’s master plan is to kill Scott. What a shocker, right?

I wasn’t sure what to make of this episode because I was still trying to get over what had happened last episode. While it is nice that Meredith is still alive, I’m not sure how I feel about her. I love her character, but Teen Wolf has done a pretty poor job in portraying mental disabilities in the past. I can only hope that in the upcoming seasons that Meredith will be given more screen time, that her disability will actually be explained, and that she’ll have better character development in general. Unfortunately, though Meredith was a main focus this episode, we don’t learn all that much about her. And the whole backstory explaining why Meredith became the Benefactor ended up being about Peter. It’s not Meredith’s personal goal to kill everyone; it’s Peter’s. Meredith was also injured and in the hospital, but once again, we don’t learn about her own internalized pain over what happened to her. We only learn more about Peter’s pain, which we’ve been learning about since Season 1.

mereheadshot-originalHowever, my biggest issue is that other than Peter’s name not being on the deadpool—though one of the assassins tried to kill him anyway—nothing was set up. Last episode left us wondering what the hell was going on, because we had had no previous indication that Meredith even could be the benefactor. We have also had no indication that she even knew who Peter was before now. And this might be nitpicking on my part, but how old is Meredith anyway? That fire took place years ago, but in the memories, Meredith is the exact same age she is now. Furthermore, how did she even access the computers hidden in the walls of Lydia’s lake house while as a patient at Eichen?

I’m also wondering where the hell the Calaveras are. They seemed to be pretty big players at the beginning of this season, even promising to hunt down Scott if he ever turned someone—which he did—and we know they’re in Beacon Hills currently. Some of the assassins this episode were hunters as well. Yet the Calaveras are still nowhere to be seen.

There’s been a lot going on this season—Scott has a beta of his own, Kate is alive, Derek’s lost his powers, berserkers are running around, the deadpool, etc.—and I’m not even sure we need this many plot threads, or how the season is planning on tying them all together. Hopefully we’ll get some more answers next week. And hopefully Peter will die.


Follow Lady Geek Girl and Friends on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook!

This entry was posted in opinion, Reviews, Teen Wolf and tagged , , , , , by MadameAce. Bookmark the permalink.

About MadameAce

I draw, I write, I paint, and I read. I used to be really into anime and manga until college, where I fell out of a lot of my fandoms to pursue my studies. College was also the time I discovered my asexuality, and I have been fascinated by different sexualities ever since. I grew up in various parts of the world, and I've met my fair share of experiences and cultures along the way. Sure, I'm a bit socially awkward and not the easiest person to get along with, but I do hold great passion for my interests, and I can only hope that the things I have to talk about interest you as well.

1 thought on “Teen Wolf: “Monstrous” Review

  1. Pingback: Teen Wolf: “Smoke and Mirrors” Review | Lady Geek Girl and Friends

Comments are closed.