Oh, Teen Wolf, how I have missed our love-hate relationship. I can’t say that I liked Season 4 all that much—Peter was once again a prominent character, and the benefactor storyline should have been about Meredith instead. Then there’s Eichen House, the poor man’s Arkham Asylum, and Teen Wolf should just throw that place and all its ableist undertones away forever. Hopefully, Season 5 will be better.
Well, judging from that, it looks like Eichen House is sticking around for a while longer, and nothing else on Lady Geek Girl’s wishlist will come true either. So I guess that also means that Danny won’t be coming back, or that the show won’t devote much time to LGBTQ+ representation. God damn it.
Now that Game of Thrones has more or less descended into a world of suckage, I was hoping so much that Teen Wolf would be the pick-me-up I need. But of all of Teen Wolf’s bad ideas, Eichen House has to be the worst, so I’m not too excited for another season featuring it. Especially when it looks as though it’s going to be used to abuse yet another female character.
I adore Lydia so much. I love her personality, her temperament, the fact that she is the smartest character on the show—but I hate almost all of her storylines. I didn’t like her relationship with Aiden due to the age difference, I hate how Peter mind-raped her, and the kidnapping by the nogitsune was also just another giant rape allegory. In other words, the show could do a lot better with her.
But hey, if Eichen House is showing up again, maybe we’ll also see Meredith, Lydia’s fellow banshee. I would love for Meredith to feature more. The past season did not do her character the justice she deserved and it squandered a really good chance to further develop her and provide some good representation for disabled women of color. Instead, we got another storyline about Peter, but hopefully he won’t be in this season that much. Or at all.
Probably the biggest change for the season is that Derek’s character won’t be showing up as much. The actor wants to go off and try other things, so now he’s no longer a regular. I can’t say that I ever really liked Derek all that much, so I’m not too upset by this change. I will, however, be upset if Braeden isn’t around either because of this. Teen Wolf did a pretty decent job by her character in Season 4—we learn more about her history and motivations, and because of that her character cannot be defined solely by her relationship to Derek, which Teen Wolf could have easily done. I want to see more of her and her interactions with the main cast. I also really want to learn more about her search for the Desert Coyote.
And of course, I’m also looking forward to seeing more of Malia and Kira, who are at this point quite possibly my favorite characters. But when it comes to them, Teen Wolf also has room for improvement. The show struggles to address what kind of psychological and developmental issues Malia should suffer from due to spending half her life trapped in the body of a coyote, and when it comes to Kira, Teen Wolf struggles with racism. It would be awesome if the show could stop subjecting her to racist-Asian stereotype after racist-Asian stereotype—like giving her the genetic ability to perfectly wield any and all traditional Japanese weapons, or an encyclopedic knowledge of tea. I would also like Teen Wolf to explain to us how her abilities work in more detail. What different kinds of kitsune are there? Which kind is her mom? How do tails work?
I’m not too certain that I should get my hopes up that any of these problems will be going away anytime soon. But I am excited for this new season, and I really want to see how the show plans to include the fan monster from their creature feature contest. I guess we’ll find out in about thirty days.
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