“Back on the Jolly Roger, this is what my crew members liked to call foreplay.”
This week on Once, Captain Hook learns that, contrary to popular belief, the best way to make friends and influence people is not by taking their Pop Tarts and murdering their dads. Also this week, the Evil Queen develops a southern accent for some inexplicable reason, and reconnects with an old flame. Oh, and Belle gets an ultrasound . . .
It’s a very wet, but not particularly wild, episode. So, let’s get to it. Shall we?
We all live in a blue-ish submarine . . .
Once upon a time, Captain Nemo kidnaps Captain Hook from the Jolly Roger and forces him onto his submarine, the Nautilus. Nemo does this, apparently, because he has this magical object aboard his ship that acts as a GPS for Man Pain. And nobody has more Man Pain than the guy with the hook for a hand.
Captain Nemo, an expert on all things vengeance, believes that its super unhealthy for Captain Hook to spend his life seeking revenge against Rumpel for murdering his side piece (who also happened to be Rumpel’s wife). More healthy? Stomping around under the sea in a scuba suit, while trying to avoid being eaten by a giant CGI octopus.
(And this is why you shouldn’t take advice from a guy who shares his name with an adorable cartoon fish with a really bad sense of direction.)
Like all the other guest star characters this season, Captain Nemo has been searching for a key to the Land of Untold Stories . . . a place where he can go to avoid having to face all the people he was a dick to in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.
Helping Nemo to find this key is his first mate, Liam, a guy whose Man Pain Sonar apparently was bleating just as loud as Hook’s, after the murder of his father left him an orphan at a young age.
Hook, Nemo and Liam eventually find the key. Shortly thereafter, though, Hook figures out that Liam is actually his baby brother. This means that Hook is the reason for Liam’s Man Pain, because HE KILLED BOTH THEIR DAD’S! (What a friggin coincidence, right? Of all the Man Pain Submarines 20,000 leagues under the sea, Hook and Liam both ended up on this one!)
Having never been much for confrontations, unless he’s the one starting them, Hook attempts to make a hasty exit from the Nautilus. Unfortunately, Nemo finds Hook before he can do this. Nemo, bless his heart, truly believes that Big Bro and Little Bro can hash out the whole Dead Dad / Orphan for Life thing over milk and animal crackers. But Liam, upon overhearing Hook’s true identity has other ideas. He wants to KILL HOOK BIG TIME!
A scuffle ensues between the Brothers Man Pain. And Nemo, who dumbly puts himself in the center of the fracas ends up mortally stabbed.
This gives Liam extra incentive to hightail Nemo to the Land of Untold Stories, so the latter won’t die. It also gives Hook the incentive to get the eff out of there!
Leggo My Pop Tart!
Though Henry never seemed to have any issue with his mother dating Hook before, this week, he exhibits some plot-convenient “Mom’s New Man is Trying to Be My Dad” angst, when the pirate tosses Henry’s Pop Tart in the trash, and tells him to eat grapefruit and fish for breakfast instead. (Ew?)
Nobody gets in between Henry and his Pop Tarts! Nobody!
This Pop Tart is pissed!
Evil Queen, who seems to have the same Magical Man Pain GPS system as Captain Nemo, appears out of nowhere to take advantage of this new crack in the otherwise perfect fairytale family unit.
Under the guise of familial concern, the Queen reveals to Henry the “Cut of Your Savior-Ness” scissors that Hook was supposed to destroy for Emma, but instead kept poorly hidden in his tool box. (Because Hook is kind of a tool. A sexy tool, mind you. But a tool, nonetheless.)
An enraged Henry then takes the “Cut Your Savior-Ness” scissors himself, planning to finish the job his mother had initially assigned to her boyfriend. Hook finds the teen seconds before he can flush the darn things into the sea. And that’s when the pair get kidnapped by, you guessed it, a blue submarine!
This time, Liam, not Nemo, is piloting the submarine, since the Magical Time Stopper of being in the Land of Untold Stories is no longer around to prevent Nemo’s mortal chest wound from running its course. And you don’t need a Man Pain GPS to tell that this brother is PISSED with a capital P at Captain Hook!
Knowing that Liam only wants to kill Hook, not Henry, and believing there only to be one scuba suit aboard the Nautilus (even though there were at least three just minutes earlier in the episode). Hook gallantly offers Henry the escape hatch back to Storybrooke, while the pirate remains to take his death medicine. (Hope Henry knows how to scuba!)
Fortunately for Hook, Henry must have a Man Pain GPS too, because he only appears to escape the Nautilus, only to return at the exact moment when Liam is about to murder Hook, thereby saving his new father figure’s life. All together now: AWWWWWW!
You see, apparently, Henry DOES actually consider Hook to be part of his family . . . he just happens to be a part of the family that steals pop tarts and scissors, and has terrible taste in breakfast foods.
Back in Storybrooke, Liam is rushed to the hospital for the injuries he suffered during his ill-fated attempt to murder his big brother. It is there that Liam is united with another patient at the hospital: Nemo. Apparently, in Storybrooke, mortal chest wounds don’t have to be so mortal after all. Anything, for the sake of a happy ending!
Also in Storybrooke, Henry and Hook, having decided to be a Big Happy Family Again, finally drop the “Cut Your Savior-ness” scissors into the sea togeteher. It’s a slightly better hiding spot than inside Hook’s tool box. But not good enough that those scissors don’t find themselves in the wrong hands by the end of the episode . . .
Speaking of wrong hands . . .
Kiss-Tastrophe
This week hasn’t been a really great one for the Evil Queen. Not only did she fail to drive a permanent wedge between Hook and Henry by taking advantage of the latter’s undying devotion to sugary breakfast foods. She also lost her captive, Jiminey Cricket, to her better half’s employment of the oldest trick in the book: the “oh look over there, it’s a bird” distraction technique.
I would have expected better from the lady who imprisoned an entire cast of characters in a twenty-eight year daily reenactment of the movie Groundhog Day . . .
But things start looking up for the Evil Queen when she retrieves the “Cut Your Saviorness Off” scissors from their crappy hiding place at the not-so-bottom of the sea, and offers them to Rumpel (who wants to use them to cut off Belle’s being pissed off at him . . . or something), in exchange for some Evil Queen / Dark One tonsil hockey . . .
Also in this scene, the Evil Queen reveals her true motivation for the season. It is . . . wait for it . . . to rip out Snow White’s heart.
Ugh! Again! This has been the Evil Queen’s motivation for six seasons. Get a new hobby lady! Just don’t let that hobby be making out with Rumpel, because that was really gross to watch . . .
It should be noted that the Evil Queen inexplicably decided to sport a Southern accent throughout this episode, despite illustrating no evidence of actually being Southern at any other point in her life. Perhaps, she was taking a page out of the Aladdin School of Accents and Acting Playbook, just to spice things up a bit.
Speaking of Aladdin, Emma convinces him not to run away from his girlfriend, just because he was a total coward and cut off his saviorness. Emma is sure that Jasmine will like Aladdin anyway. (I mean, it’s not like he cut off his p$%@s . . .) Aladdin offers to help Jasmine save the kingdom of Agrabah from total destruction. But Jasmine tells Aladdin he can’t . . . because the kingdom has already been destroyed.
What a bad boyfriend that Aladdin turned out to be! Not only is he Sans-Saviorness, he can never be bothered to be on time!
In other bad boyfriend news, Belle has a slight change of heart after seeing her first ultrasound, and decides to share a photograph of the blessed event with Rumpel. Of course, while she’s slipping the photo under the door of his shop, the Dark One is busy contracting mouth herpes from the Evil Queen.
With boyfriends like this in Storybrooke, it’s amazing that the female characters haven’t all decided to become lesbians . . .
So, I’ve been thinking a lot about this, this past week. Do you want to know what I’ve decided makes the Dredd Doctors so terrifying?
It’s not the fact that I can never understand what the heck they are saying . . .
Or that they consider scuba masks with trench coats a fashion statement . . .
It’s not even that they enjoy finding creative ways to murder teenagers, because every villain on this show does that . . . (bo-ring!)
Honestly, the Dredd Doctors freak me out, because they are such unbelievable pigs!
You want to know why all your little medical experiments are such “failures”, Dredd Doctors?
Perhaps, it has something to do with the fact that you operate on your “patients” on top of cars . . .
. . . or on dirty floors and rusted operating tables . . .
. . . reusing the same bloody medical equipment over and over again . . .
. . . after “sterilizing” it in murky gross vomit water with little (but not cute) creatures living inside it . . .
. . . and then, after you operate, you leave all these kids’ wounds exposed, gory and festering . . .
They have these things called Bandaids now, Dredd Doctors. Maybe it’s time you learned to use them . . .
As if it wasn’t frustrating enough that the Dredd Doctors’ MO is murky at best: (Make the best wuzzle ever? Kill all the teenagers in Beacon Hills? Make everyone hallucinate for no conceivable reason? Turn Scott into a whiny b*tch?), they don’t even seem to be particularly good at their job!
A nice young studly doctor in a white lab coat, with a hospital full of sterile medical equipment, (not to mention lots and lots of bandaids!) would make way better wuzzles than these Dredd Dorks . . . just saying . . .
Anywhoo, let’s review, mmm-kay?
[As always, a special thanks to Andre, who somehow manages to make an episode that, to me, looked like a big ole ugly infected wound, into a work of screencapping art!]
Deaton Goes on Spring Break
Possibly because flights to Disney World, Vegas and Hawaii were too expensive (Since no one in Beacon Hills lives long enough to get themselves a pet, the vet business in Beacon Hills isn’t what it used to be.), Deaton decides to take his annual vacation to . . . a water treatment facility somewhere in Europe that is seemingly identical to the one in Beacon Hills?
Talk about a waste of frequent flier miles!
Apparently, the Dredd Doctors were there too. The Dredd Doctors just looooove water treatment facilities, which makes me really glad my liquid diet consists entirely of Sugar Free Energy Drinks and wine. Water is dangerous!
We know this particular water treatment facility is a hang out for the Dredd Doctors because it has their logo on it, the Ouroboros, which is basically a snake eating its tail. I don’t about you, but if I was a Franken Doctor, I would choose a mascot that inspired a bit more confidence . . .. like, for example, ANYTHING ELSE IN THE WHOLE WORLD!
Eating your own body parts is just a bad idea generally. I mean, I bite my nails on occasion, but you don’t see me listing it as a skill on my resume . . .
At the water treatment facility, Deaton meets Malia’s mom, the Desert Wolf, who helpfully kills Deaton’s Russian-accented friend, so that the two can have a “private conversation.” Why is Malia’s mom hanging out at a random water treatment facility in Europe? I don’t know. I decided to stop asking logical questions about this show around the same time Dead Peter became a ghost teenage version of himself, so that Lydia could dig up his grave and make out with his rotted corpse.
Anywhoo, Malia’s mom wants to kill Malia, supposedly, but hasn’t been able to do so for 18 years, even though she’s supposedly the best hit woman in the whole wide world.
Nice to meet you, Desert Wolf. You are going to fit right in on this show!
Meanwhile, back in Beacon Hills, Scott is frustrated, because Baby Wolf Liam has been kidnapped, and his Alpha Wolf nostrils can’t smell the kid anymore.
Damn you, Old Spice Deodorant! DAMN YOUUUUUUUU!!!!!
At the Adult Table . . .
Mama McCall is quickly becoming my second favorite character on this show. (First, is Stiles, obviously.) This makes me feel old and very uncool, but also like I have good taste, because Mama McCall is awesome. (Giving birth to Scott, notwithstanding.)
She calls her soon-to-be boyfriend, Sheriff Stilinski over to her house to help her with a rather pressing matter. “You’re a strong man, aren’t you Sheriff Stilinski?” Mama McCall inquires coyly. “Think you could help me move this monster teen’s corpse with Kira’s sword in it off my kitchen table for me? It is really hard to serve pot roast on top of her, as the murder weapon keeps getting in the way.”
“You do realize I have to report this dead body to the rest of the police department, don’t you?” Sheriff responds judgmentally.
“Oh, don’t be such a stick in the mud!” Mama McCall complains. “Teens on this show have the lifespans of fruit flies. Who is going to miss another dead one? This one didn’t even get a name. Now, move her, so I can eat my dinner!”
“No!” Sheriff Stilinski retorts. “This girl is dead and your son’s girlfriend killed her. I’m going to make sure she gets the death penalty, and try to get your son thrown in jail too, for having such awful taste in women. I’m not sure that’s a crime per se, but I’ll find a way to make it one.”
“Are you just behaving this way, so viewers will understand why Stiles is so freaked out about telling you he killed that punk who wanted to murder you in self-defense?” Mama McCall inquires.
“Pretty much,” responds Sheriff Stilinski.
So, Mama McCall does what any woman would do while hanging out with a corpse and a cop in the kitchen, she smacks Sheriff Stilinski in the face. “And to think, I was going to have sex with you on this murder table!” She mutters under her breath.
Mama McCall isn’t done having foreplay with Stiles’ dad yet though. She pops down to the station later on to file a police report about the dead body that is basically a recap of Seasons 1 through 5 of Teen Wolf.
“You know, I can’t file this, Melissa!” Sheriff Stilinski scolds. “There are way too many plot holes and inconsistent character development. Plus, who the heck is this Danny character? He’s around for four seasons, then he just disappears and everyone forgets he existed?”
Then, Mama McCall and Sheriff Stilinski start having hot angry hate sex right on Sheriff Stilinski’s desk . . . or at least they would if I wrote this episode . . .
Out on some random street, Kira is wandering around in a daze. So, Hayden’s sister tricks her into getting into the back of the cop car and arrests her for murder. Of course, she doesn’t read Kira her Miranda rights, so the arrest is totally invalid. But hey, at least they got the police code right. It’s 187 for homicide, like that 50 Cent song!
Kira’s dad confesses to the murder in Kira’s place, even though he totally thinks his daughter is a psycho fox killer, who will most definitely strike again. This makes him a good dad (better than Stiles’ dad!), but a bad member of society.
Meanwhile, over in the most unsanitary water treatment facility ever . . .
“Her condition worsens.”
The adorable Hayden and Liam are lying on matching operating tables, so that the Dredd Doctors can inject them with dirty water, and chop little pieces out of them for no logical reason. When the Dredd Doctors are done doing this, they leave the two teens on the dirty floor. They do this even though the operating tables aren’t in use, and it would make more sense to keep the teens on the tables, separated from one another, so they can’t (1) plot their escape; and (2) DIE FROM NASTY FLOOR INFECTIONS!
Liam tries to take Hayden’s pain from her by squeezing her hand in his own, but it doesn’t work, because his hands are not where Liam’s strength lies. (As we will find out, by the end of the episode, there are other parts of his body that are much stronger.)
Liam and Hayden are then taken to another room, where they meet another wuzzle, whose name is Zac, but whom, for purposes of convenience, I will call Exposition Chimera. Exposition Chimera helpfully tells Liam and Hayden that this is where the Dredd Doctors take all their failures, so they can morph into monsters, bleed silver, and then be subsequently murdered.
Exposition Chimera then shows Liam and Hayden his back, where he used to have wings, before the Dredd Doctors inexplicably chopped them off. We know they used to be wings, because the Dredd Doctors are terrible at using scissors, and only cut off ¾ of the wings, so that two p*nis-like stubs can stick out of Exposition Chimera’s back.
Having given us all the information we need for this episode, which, honestly, isn’t much, Exposition Chimera starts bleeding silver, and is subsequently dragged away by the Dredd Doctors.
“Don’t worry,” Liam reassures Hayden. “Scott will save us before we bleed silver.”
“Scott?” Hayden inquires. “Isn’t that your loser friend who took a nap, while we got kidnapped, and has asthma, but needed you to growl at him so that he could remember how to use his inhaler?”
“Yeah, that’s him,” Liam responds.
“We are SOOO dying!” Hayden replies.
We Interrupt this Important Plot Point to Bring You Deputy Parrish (a.k.a your friendly neighborhood Naked Garbage Man), in a Towel . . .
You are welcome . . .
Reading is Fun. . . damental
Teen Wolf continues its war against literacy, when Kira angrily throws her Dredd Doctor book against the wall. “Mom, I’m supposed to read this book for Scott’s book club. But it’s a really sucky book with boring villains, so I can’t finish it. Also, I’m illiterate this season, because I’m dumb as a fox. Get it? Dumb as a fox? See, that was a clever play on a well-known saying the likes of which you’d never read in this crappy book,” Kira complains.
“You should read the book backwards then,” Kira’s mom offers.
“But then I won’t understand it,” Kira argues.
“Which is exactly how fans feel about this Dredd Doctor plot . . .” Kira’s mom notes wisely.
Kira reads the book backwards, and it causes her to remember that time in the premiere episode, when the Dredd Doctors experimented on her right in the middle of a traffic jam on Highway 115, in front of thousands of people, but nobody cared or tried to stop it, including her parents, because most drivers are selfish bastards.
We interrupt this important plot point to bring you the first initial of Stiles’ real name
It’s “M”. Even though a few seasons back it was “G”.
You are welcome . . .
Finding Liam
Desperate to locate Baby Wolf and Little Miss Baby Wolf, an increasingly desperate Scott rapes the back of chimera Corey’s neck to tap into his memories. Evil Theo watches him do this, and silently reminds himself to wear turtlenecks every day for the rest of the season . . .
Once Corey’s neck has been successfully impregnated, Scott draws what he was thinking about during the whole neck fondling incident. It looks a bit like this . . .
Just kidding. He draws the water plant! Scott, Malia and Mason immediately head there to find the baby wolves, while Theo continues to grill Corey on the information that was conveniently left out during the whole neck rape thing, like WHERE IN THE HUGE WATER PLANT CHIMERAS ARE ACTUALLY KEPT.
Long story short. Scott, Malia and Mason wander around the water plant aimlessly for hours, while Scott cries for his mother, and puffs on his inhaler. Then, Theo rescues both Baby Wolves in about the amount of time it takes someone to take a leak after they drank a small glass of soda . . .
In the car, on the way home, Liam the PLAYA has come up with another idea on how to remove Hayden’s pain. He’s going to do it with his p*nis! Just kidding . . . it’s with his tongue. But still. Smooth, Liam, very smooth!
Theo creepily watches the pair of baby wolves eating each others’ faces off in his rearview mirror, and contemplates canceling his internet porn subscription. Between this, and his front row seat to the neck raping earlier this episode, he’s totally covered in the sexual desires department.
A Naked Garbage Man’s Job is Never Done
Back at the morgue, Parrish successfully mists an entire police force to steal yet another body, and is back on the job before you can say, “These cops are terrible!”
Parrish acts so shady throughout the whole episode that it’s pretty much as if he’s wearing a t-shirt that says, “The Naked Garbage Man: Carrying Dead Bodies to a Tree without Wearing any Underwear Since Episode 2.”
“I knew I should never have smoked those twelve doobies before coming to work. So incredibly baked right now.”
But just in case you happen to be illiterate like Kira, he also leaves his nametag at the scene for Lydia to find.
“For most people, this would be a total dating dealbreaker,” Lydia explains. “But if you’ve met any of my previous boyfriends, you’d know that psychopathy, multiple personality disorder, and a generalized fear of wearing clothes are pretty much my three biggest turn-ons.”
Scott has a Major Case of the Sads
Good news, Kira’s dad fans . . . or should I say, the one person who really likes Kira’s dad . . . who is probably Kira’s mom? No dead body equals no murder, so the cops have to let him go.
Once this happens, Kira and her family decide to skip town, so that Kira won’t accidentally murder someone and leave her dead body on his boyfriend’s mom’s kitchen table. (I mean, obviously, she’ll keep murdering people, she’ll just leave them on kitchen tables that don’t belong to her boyfriend’s mom.)
Kira’s fox self has been hitting the steroids hard, since it first appeared on the show . . .
Kira says goodbye to Scott, and the Lord is so sad about this that he cries raindrops down on them from Heaven. I’m not talking one or two tears here either. This is some serious ugly-face cry, bawling that’s going on here.
We end the episode with Scott sitting in a closet, holding the leash of a dead dog. The pathetic scene is pretty much a metaphor for the character’s super crappy life right now. “I am the worst True Alpha ever,” Scott mopes.
“Yeah, pretty much,” Mama McCall agrees. “Now, if you excuse me, I’m going to see if I can find Sheriff Stilinski on Tinder, so I can right swipe his ass all night long.”
“Is that a hypodermic needle in your pocket and a scuba hat on your head, or are you just happy to see me?”
Well, Wolfbangers, after what seems like 15 years (but was actually only four), Scott McCall and his rag tag gang of werewolves, banshees, kitsunes and Stiles but not Allison, or Isaac, or Boyd, or Danny, or Ethan, or Aiden, or Derek, or Erica, or Cora, or Jackson have finally made it to their much- awaited senior year. It’s a time for rituals, parties, prom, and graduation. But because this is Beacon Hills, it is, apparently, also a time for Wuzzles . . .
For those of you who are unfamiliar, the Wuzzles were basically children’s introduction into how creepy the wacky world of genetic engineering can be. Hailing from the Land of Wuz, the Wuzzles were crazy hybrids of two distinct members of the animal kingdom with conveniently predictable names (Bumblelion, Eleroo, Rhinokey) and refreshingly unmentioned lineage (because the idea of a bumblebee and a lion porking is not the kind of thing anyone wants to spend too much time thinking about).
They also seem to be the new Big Bads’ go-to Modus Operandi . . .a werewolf with eagle talons . . .another werewolf that climbs roofs, picks locks, and eat crows, a werewolf that can steal the powers of a wolf outside of his own pack . . . another werewolf that looks nice enough but ends up being a total douchebag . ..
A werewolf who takes AP Biology despite seemingly not being able to read . . .
A Phoenix (I mean, obviously, Parrish is a phoenix, even though they’ve spent 2.5 seasons pretending otherwise), who fawns over age and situation inappropriate women, and is, unlike the Hufflepuff Hogwarts house in which he so obviously belongs, a really terrible finder.
In other news, Stiles is finding himself nostalgic for the good old days, which is kind of crazy, because seriously, does he remember how awful the last four seasons have been for him? Like the time he was going to bone a hot chick and, moments later, she got brutally murdered by his English teacher, or that time he turned into an Evil Toilet Paper Head with awful teeth, while rotting in a scary mental institution?
Seriously . . .
Let’s review, shall we?
[As always a special Werebanging thank you to my pal Andre, who provided all the awesome screencaps you see here.]
Flash-Forward
“IS IT FRIDAY YET?”
Sometime in the not-so-distant future, Lydia Martin is in the nuthouse, a.k.a Eichen House. Being institutionalized has become kind of a rite of passage on this show, seeing as about half of the cast has already done some time (and exchanged bodily fluids) there.
When we first reunite with Lydia, our girl is just chilling in the shower, just a wee bit lobotomized. (Is that an actual thing? Being a little bit lobotomized? Is that like saying someone is a little bit paraplegic?)
Anyway, she’s staring off into space, and kind of drooling, and doing that whole zombie shuffle step thing, as some unsmiling attendants roughly manhandle her toward her bed deep in the confines of the psych ward. (Why is it that on every show featuring an insane asylums, all the attendants are sadistic sociopaths? Have all TV writers had really bad childhood experiences in nuthouses? Because it would certainly explain a lot.)
So, logically, the unsmiling attendants want to shoot her up with more drugs to “calm her down” or make her OD or whatever.
Unfortunately, for the unsmiling attendants, for reasons that science and logic most definitely cannot explain, the drugs actually end up having the opposite effect on our favorite ginger banshee. Not only do they totally wake Lydia out of her drug induced stupor . . .
They also instantaneously teach her to become an X-Men Mutant Ninja Warrior . . .
(Warning for the Kiddies: Intravenous drug use will not turn you into an X-Men Mutant / awesome kickass ninja. Do not try this at home . . . or in your insane asylum, wherever it is you happen to live.)
Unfortunately, all that solid IV drug use is no match for Drippy Ghost Aiden, who is both literally drippy because he is soaked in the convenient downpour that has just overtake Beacon Hills, and metaphorically drippy, because he’s delivering his lines to Lydia as if he’s reading to her the side effects on the prescription label of a bottle of Viagra.
“You are so boring. I can’t believe you and I used to bone.”
The Eichen House folks are done with Aiden’s complete inability to emote too, apparently. . . so they shock Lydia into unconsciousness to put an end to these shenanigans.
And that’s when she turns into the Hulk AND MURDERS THEM ALL DEAD WITH HER BARE HANDS!
Just kidding, this time she just passes out, maybe they should have done that whole taser thing a bit earlier. It would have kept everyone dry, and avoided a lot of hassle. But, hey, hindsight is twenty, twenty, right?
Lydia is brought back to bed, has some really horrible flashbacks of all sorts of terrible things that will, apparently be happening to her friends this season. She then looks on in horror, as a doctor casually contemplates drilling a hole in her skull.
“Will drilling a hole in my head mess up my hair?”
Sucks to be Lydia Martin, right?
Unless, of course, the skull drilling has the reverse effect it’s supposed to and Lydia becomes the smartest girl in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD . . .
But first . . .
We have to travel back in time to figure out how everything went to total and complete sh*t . . .
The Wall Flower
While investigating a noise complaint, Deputy Parrish comes upon a man stuck inside a wall, and attempts to free him, which . . . doesn’t exactly end up going as planned . . .
“I hate you, Parrish, and your smooth perfect skin!”
For one thing, the man seems to be completely covered in black goo, which completely clogs the pores of the Deputy’s flawless poreless skin, the instant he comes in contact with it. He may even get a pimple. And everyone knows that a pimple-faced Parrish would be the absolute worst thing to happen to Teen Wolf, since Derek Hale stopped having perfectly pointless erotic dream sequences in every episode.
Wolfman has these weird eagle talons that steal Deputy Parrish’s powers . . . you know, the ones he still isn’t entirely aware that he has.
Someone needs a mani / pedi!
Also they kill him . . .
“I always knew my chiseled good looks would be the death of me.”
Then, Dead Parrish has a wet dream where Lydia sticks her tongue down his throat, and he comes back to life.
“Best . . . death . . . ever.”
Now, that’s what I call a powerful wet dream tongue. (Is that another unknown banshee power about which we are not yet aware?)
Deputy Parrish’s dubious powers and flawless skin are restored! Hooray!
Too bad he’s still kind of crappy at his job (maybe if Lydia has sex with him, she can cure that ailment as well!), as we will see in the second hour.
Bonding with Bondage
“This is not nearly as much fun as they make it seem in the books.”
It’s Full Moon time in Beacon Hills, which means it’s an excellent opportunity for Scott and Stiles to introduce Liam to the wild and wonderful world of bondage. While little Liam is embracing his own personal Red Room of Pain, Scott and Stiles are waxing poetic about the one thing way more frightening that eagle-taloned pour ruiners, and unsmiling nuthouse attendants who drills holes in your skull. Of course, I’m referring to . . . THE FUTURE!
Stiles worries that the band will break up after high school. He hears his dad’s cautionary tale of his no longer keeping in touch with any of his friends from high school, and it terrifies him. Scott worries that things have been going to well (translation: boring) for him and all his friends during the off-season. So, under the principle of Regression to the Mean, things are going to have to go to hell pretty soon, right? Like, say in the next ten minutes of the show?
Elsewhere in Beacon Hills, Malia is worried her time being home schooled in the woods as an honest-to-goodness coyote has put her so behind in her studies that she won’t be able to become a senior like her friends . . . also that she may get really hungry one day and eat her friends . . . like that time she accidentally ate her mom and sister.
That evening, yet another massive storm breaks out in Beacon Hills (do these people live in a rainforest?), and Kira worries she won’t get to the library in time for the senior ritual of vandalizing it with permanent markers.
Fortunately, Scott is there to suck her face in the middle of the traffic jam / rain storm. How romantic!
Later, that power stealing, eagle talon having, perfect pore ruining demon attacks and almost steals powers from Scott at the school, en route to the Senior Scribe, while all his friends stand around and watch looking vaguely bored. It is, Season 5, after all. They’ve all been there, seen that.
“Your skin is almost as flawless as Parrish. Grrr.”
Eventually, Scott disarms the monster, who runs off crying to his doctor friends in gas masks, who reward him for his generalized suckiness at life by brutally murdering him!
Huzzah! The pores of the men of Beacon Hills have been miraculously saved! Or have they?
Scott & Allison 4 Eva A Few Seasons
Over at the Senior Scribe the whole cast (except for Liam, because he’s a tiny tot, and the parents, because they are old as dirt) write their initials on a library bookshelf in a metaphor for their friendship and pack status. Malia gets to write hers too, because, apparently, being in school for a week of your junior year guarantees you graduation status.
In a genuinely sweet moment, Scott scribbles the dearly departed Allison Argent’s initials “AA” into the mix, indicating that while Ms. Argent’s body may no longer be fighting supernatural crime with her friends, her spirit most certainly is . . .
“Three seasons as the star of this show, and all I got from you were my initials in lousy permanent marker?”
“Hi, my name is Theo. I’m the dubiously motivated Shady Hot New Person of this season. (P.S. I’m also evil.”)
Because half of the cast has already left the show, Teen Wolf is in definite need of some tasty and fresh man meat.
Enter Theo, a supposed old friend of Stiles’ and Scott’s from fourth grade — who claims to have been turned into a werewolf during, no joke, a freak skateboarding accident – has heard about Scott’s True Alpha status, and wants to join his pack.
Maybe the werewolf bit him, because he hated his dorky hat . . .
Theo’s story, and Theo, himself, are both basically full of sh*t. Stiles and Liam recognize this instinctively, but Scott, being Scott, instinctively trusts Theo. Just like he trusted his English Teacher Jennifer . . . Kate and Grandpa Argent . . . and occasionally Peter Hale . . . and we all know how well all that turned out.
Detective Stiles a.k.a Batman is officially on the case (with his adorable sidekick Liam a.k.a. Robin, of course)!
He notices that Theo’s dad’s signature on something he wrote in fourth grade, and something he wrote transferring him to Beacon Hill’s high look crazy different. It’s highly suspicious . . . maybe . . . I guess.
They go on a stakeout!
Which basically involves Stiles and Scott watching Theo put flowers on his dead sisters grave, and Liam hanging out in a hole next to a very suspicious-looking necklace, and not picking it up, despite it undoubtedly being the key to this whole season.
“Yeah, because this isn’t a thinly veiled metaphor for my bourgoning sexuality at all.”
“See?” Says Scott. “Theo isn’t a sociopath at all. He’s just your garden variety sexy werewolf . . .”
“Yeah, I’m not a sociopath at all!” Theo insists, when confronted with the mysterious errant dad signatures.
They look the same to me.
Then, nice normal Theo does what any of us would do in such a situation, he goes and breaks his “father’s” hand for having such sloppy handwriting.
“Good penmanship is important, dammit.”
Then, he goes into a forest and burns bunnies while dancing around naked and worshipping Satan . . .
Scott McCall: True Alpha Veterinarian
“Hey buddy? Think you can help me pass biology? Bark once for yes, twice for no.”
While working at Deaton’s, the owner of one of the dog’s Scott does his weird “arm fondling pain sucking” thing to mistakes him for a vet.
So, of course, Scott decides that this is exactly what he wants to do when he grows up (which, given the fact that he already looks about 30, should happen in a few months).
There’s only one problem. You see, Scott . . . well, he’s not exactly the sharpest wolf-colored crayon in the box. Also, he can’t read all that well, and can’t count higher than 21, and that’s only because he has a weird extra toe.
Of course, all that doesn’t matter, when you can cure animals just by feeling them up a little bit. But before Scott can fondle animals professionally, first, he will have to graduate . . . and, apparently, because it is highly plot convenient, take AP Biology, with Lydia, Kira, and Evil Theo.
Liam: Gummy Butt Werewolf
“Chicks man . . .”
You know what’s adorable? When studly twinks have absolutely no game. Enter Liam, who positively melts into a puddle of teen awkwardness when a lovely lady from his recent past (sixth grade, just in case this show wasn’t making me feel old enough as it is) gives him a healthy dose of side eye, and puts a wad of gum on his seat.
Apparently, back in the day 10-year old Liam wronged Gummy Girl in some way (maybe by putting gum on her seat), and she never quite forgave him.
Don’t sweat it Liam, that’s how teeny bopper women show their love!
“Is that a big wad of gum on your pants, or are you just happy to see me?”
In other Liam news, Teen Wolf’s littlest wolf cub was having a bit of difficulty “coming out” as a werewolf to his pal Mason. So, New Guy Evil Theo decided to help out . . .
Problem solved!
(So, apparently, recently-turned werewolf Evil Theo can turn into a full-wolf, whereas Scott and most of his pack can’t? Yeah, because that’s not suspicious at all . . .
A Feast for Crows
In other new character news, meet Tracey . . . (She’s single!)
“They told me it would taste like chicken?”
Her hobbies include having weird nightmares about crows and doctors and occasionally vomiting black goo . . .
But fear not, Tracey. Lydia and Deputy Parrish are going to use coming to your rescue as an excuse to eyef*ck one another shamelessly.
“Hey Parrish, can you come to this girl’s house, who I’ve never met before in my life and investigate it for this season’s Big Bad P.S. I’m 18, and basically graduated from high school. I’m only taking A.P. Biology for plot reasons, so I’m totally legal, OK fans?” Lydia inquires.
“Sure! I won’t find him, because I’m horrible at my job, but I’d love to stand on a chair and ignore the family of dead crows rotting outside her window, while you ogle my ass,” responds Parrish. “Then, later that night, I’ll camp outside her house, so we can have a booty call there at midnight when you ‘bring me coffee,’ and our squad car will be rocking so hard we’ll totally miss when zombie Tracy wanders off into the wilderness in her PJs.”
“Hmm . . . I wonder what Lydia looks like naked . . .”
“Sounds awesome,” replies Lydia. “P.S. I love you because all my previous boyfriends left the show, the writers won’t let me couple up with Stiles, even though I obviously should, and you are pretty much the only single male available, despite your being way too old for me.”
“Works for me,” answers Parrish. “Chances are three quarters of the women in this town will be dead or evil by the end of this season, so I’ll take what I can get.”
Elsewhere in Beacon Hills, the Doctors corner Tracey and pump her up with some drugs, that make her remember how she broke through her own window and ate all the crows on her roof, yet somehow still managed to maintain her girlish figure. (Possibly from all the black goo vomiting.)
Oh, and they’ve also made her into a werewolf, so there’s that . . .
And that, my friends, was the first two nights of Teen Wolf, in a nutshell.
What say you, Wolfbangers? Why do the doctors keep making Wuzzles? What’s Theo’s deal? Will Scott pass his AP Bio exam? How many episodes before the inevitable Lydia and Parrish hookup? Who the heck is Malia’s mom? Will Liam ever get that gum off his ass?
Have you ever seen a children’s magic show? By design, a children’s magic show has to be different from its adult counterpart. You see, children generally don’t have the patience for the pomp and circumstance of adult magic shows . . . the “mood music,” the attractive scantily clad assistant, the table that spins in the center of the stage for no apparent reason than to make the audience dizzy.
Because of this, children’s magic shows tend to consist of a variation of the same magic trick, over and over again. “Presto chango.” This hat is empty.
“Presto chango.” Now there is a rabbit in it.
“Presto chango.” We poured milk into a rolled up newspaper.
“Presto chango.” Now it’s dry.
“Presto chango.” This is a blank coloring book.
“Presto chango.” Now it’s filled with the colors the audience shouted at the magician, a moment earlier.
Season 4 of Teen Wolf, in general, and the aptly titled “Smoke and Mirrors” finale, specifically, felt a bit like watching a children’s magic show . . .
“Presto chango.” There’s a deadpool.
“Presto chango.” Just kidding!
“Presto chango.” Derek’s a man werewolf. “Presto chango.” Now, he’s a kid werewolf. “Presto chango.” Now, he’s dying. “Presto chango.” Now, he’s not dying, and is an actual wolf.
“Woof.”
“Presto chango.” Scott’s a berserker. “Presto chango.” He’s better now.
“Presto chango.” Liam’s petrified of berserkers , and doesn’t want to be a member of the pack. “Presto chango.” “I’ll die for you, Scott McCall!”
Back in my early season recaps of Teen Wolf, one of the aspects of the show I always complimented was the way in which its writers never felt they had to underestimate their fans intelligence, by spoon-feeding them information they could figure out on their own. But there’s a difference between providing the audience with only some of the pertinent information, and providing them with none. When you do the former, you are treating your fan like she’s smart. When you do the latter, you are treating your fan like she’s . . .well, a child.
Let’s review, shall we?
[As always, special thanks to Andre, who faithfully recapped this entire season of Teen Wolf, without grumble or complaint, and even indulged my Deputy Parrish fantasies and thinly veiled requests for pictures of him naked, without judgment or mocking.]
Scott McCall and the Temple of Relationship Doom
Not to be a Debbie Downer (I promise I’ll try to make the rest of this recap more upbeat.), but I was so incredibly disturbed by the scene where Berserker Scott beat the crap out of Kira that I think it may have colored my perception of the rest of the episode. My main issue with the scene is that I have this sneaking suspicion that Scott’s actions will have no repercussions in his relationship with Kira, next season. “He didn’t mean it,” she’ll say. “He wasn’t himself at the time.”
“This is all starting to feel very Afterschool Special.”
In this particular instance, it may be true. But how many times have you heard an abusive boyfriend or husband use the same excuse? “I wasn’t myself . . . I was angry . . . I was drunk . . . I haven’t been sleeping.”
“I was wearing a funny hat.”
Even Stiles, who actually wasn’t himself, back in Season 3, when he was possessed by the Nogitsune, was willing to take some responsibility for the havoc “his body” wreaked on the town. “I was there. I saw everything. And a part of me enjoyed it,” Stiles admitted to Malia earlier this season.
If the writers were to have Scott make a similar confession to Kira, could they allow Kira to willingly continue the relationship, without sending a terrible message to fans everywhere?
Ummmm . . . .
Anywhoo, back in the Temple of Relationship doom, Kate is Villain Monologuing about how this cave has magically imbued her with the power to create Berserkers, and make them 100% loyal to her, because . . . um . . . bears really like jaguars, I guess.
“Are they still considered six-pack abs, if you have to wear them as a t-shirt?”
She tells her pet Scott to stab Kira in the chest, and he does.
“Good Bear / Dog. You get a cookie . . . or should I say, another bone.”
Has the Mexico Department of Tourism Gotten Wind of This?
In the season premiere, the Scooby crew all took a nice little road trip to Mexico to save Derek from Kate’s clutches . . . and also to tussle with a Mexican crime syndicate. Now, in the finale, they are heading back to Mexico to “save” Scott and Kira . . .
Apparently, if you are looking for a place where your adult friend can get turned into a teen, and your teen friend can get turned into a mindless bear zombie, Mexico is the Vacation Destination for you!
“Cancun, baby!”
Did I mention they have Chimichangas?
Papa Stilinski is totally not cool with Stiles and his friends heading off to certain death in Mexico. “I get it. You need a vacation. But why not somewhere like Daytona Beach, Bermuda, New Orleans, Vegas . . . a Giant Maze where bug-like creatures chase you around for sh*ts and giggles . . .”
“Nope, viva la Mexico,” replies Stiles. “Also, I’d very much like some guns, please.”
“What’s that you say, Stiles? You would like to take your trustee bat to the Murder Church? Yes, you can take your bat,” replies the Sheriff.
“I said GUNS . . . G-U . . .”
“All right, sonny boy, now you run along and play . . .”
Speaking of guns . . .
All Paws on Deck
For trained bounty hunter, Braeden, murder is like playing golf. You bring every gun you own, everywhere you go, and then carefully select the best one for the circumstance at hand . . . hopefully, before someone shoots you in the face.
“You’re going to need a really big backpack.”
. . . which, I guess, makes Derek her caddy.
For a hero, Derek seems surprisingly cool with his impending demise.
DEREK: “They’ve got that little guy, with the pretty boy face now. Clearly, I’m being phased out, sent off on the ice floe, like the Eskimos do to old people.”
BRAEDEN: “But if you’re dead, we can’t have sex in your poorly furnished apartment, while Lydia screams in our ear anymore.”
DEREK: “You’re over 18, (I hope. I mean, you are, aren’t you? Because, I never actually asked). Maybe they’ll send you on the ice floe too . . .”
BRAEDEN: “Hmmm . . . I’ve never had sex on a block of ice before . . .
Also packing for the trip are Stiles and Malia, the former of whom helpfully offers Malia a pair of his besties dirty underwear so that she can pick up his scent . . .
. . . which would be very helpful, if Scott was trapped under something heavy, and the only part of his body out in the open air was his crotch . . .
Malia rolls her eyes, and decides to sniff his pillow instead. Smart girl!
Last week, Liam was all, “No thank you,” to the opportunity to be a series regular on a show that involved him willingly walking into the jaws of death every week. “Please keep me in mind when there’s an opening on Dawson’s Creek,” he said.
“I have soulful eyes. I can totally be broody like Dawson, or misunderstood and charming like Pacey.”
But then that other wolf guy gave him a pep talk, and he changed his mind . . .
(Also, he Googled Dawson’s Creek, and learned it’s been off the air for over 10 years.)
“I’d very much like it if you tied me up, and strapped me to the roof of your car, so that I can come along on this Super Fun Suicide Trip with you all,” Liam offers, shrugging off the second full moon of his werewolf existence like it no big deal . . .
“Hey, can I come too? I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to be good or evil in this episode Maybe I should go back into a coma, so Meredith can tell me what I’m really thinking,” chimes in Peter.
Now, THAT’S what I call a road trip. But wait . . . SOMEONE’S MISSING . . .
Not Without My Lydia . . .
“Kind of smells like Scott’s crotch . . .”
Back at school, Lydia is snorting one of Kira’s jackets, when this happens . . .
“Hey Lydia, I was hoping I could borrow your calculus notes. You see, I have this big exam on Monday, but Kate’s had me out late every night eviscerating innocent flesh, and I just haven’t had the chance to sit down and study.“
RUH-ROH!
I get that it’s the weekend. But I love how no one noticed the GIANT BEAR BONE ZOMBIE THINGY wandering the halls in broad daylight . . .
Mason’s at the school too, because he’s human, and not friends with Scott, which means he still has to do boring things on this show like eat nasty cafeteria food, dissect frogs, and, in this particular instance, “attend Study Group.”
Also, because every cute red-headed high school teen needs a gay best friend . . .
Stiles tries to get the group to wait for Lydia. But Peter seems to be in a very big rush to leave her behind, so he can save two teens he doesn’t like very much. Yeah, because THAT doesn’t seem suspicious at all . . .
So, the Scooby Gang leaves without Lydia, which is pretty much what they’ve been doing all season, probably because she’s not dating Stiles or Scott . . . also, maybe, because of the Screaming Thing, which is super unpleasant . . .
Mason eventually finds Lydia’s cell phone in the hallway . . .
“Cool screensaver, is that from an app?”
. . . and then, he finds Lydia, just not in the way he would have hoped.
“Bet you never thought you’d wind up back in the closet, huh?”
“That guy, in the hallway . . . the one who beat me up. He had a really great Halloween costume. But I’m not sure if he was supposed to be Shredder from the Ninja Turtles movies, or someone from Game of Thrones. Think I should ask him?” Mason inquires.
“Not human,” Lydia remarks ominously of their burly captor . . .
Humanity is overrated . . .
As the full moon rises, all of our Scoobies appear to be becoming a bit more feral. En route to Scott, Peter is doing a pretty good job of convincing Malia that murder is totally OK, provided it’s for a good cause, like, for example, to help out the person you occasionally bone. “Also, losing control and becoming an animal is OK, if you want to kill the Bear-Looking thing, that may or may not be Scott, so I can become Alpha, because . . . wait for it.”
Meanwhile, in the other car, Derek is offering up a slowly wolfing out Liam, his very favorite cereal box toy, to help him control his animal urges.
“I think it was supposed to come with a matching decoder ring, but I accidentally threw it out with my box of Lucky Charms.”
When that doesn’t work, he teaches him the Latin Alphabet.
“Not impressed.”
When that doesn’t work . .. it’s all about the Buddhism, baby! I’m thinking, The Sun, the Moon, The Truth would make for a great phrase to put on a Teen Wolf t-shirt, don’t you?
Meanwhile, back in temple, Kira is self-mutilating, because the spirit of her Mom told her it would make her feel better. And it works! She’s healed! (And the negative messages for kids, just keep on coming . . .)
“Thanks for making me a cutter, Mom. You’re the best!”
Derek gets sent on the ice floe . . .
Our gang barely manages to park outside the church, when Derek gets his intestines sliced open by a Berserker. It’s the kind of wound you see humans in movies suffer, and you just know they are about to bite it. But Derek . . . well, I guess he’s sort of kind of human now.
The Scooby Gang makes sure to put on their best sad faces for all of two seconds, before leaving Derek to die, and rushing off to rescue their REAL Hero, Scott.
To Stiles’ credit, he looks sad for at least FOUR seconds . . .
Braeden stays with the dying Derek, though . . . possibly because now she has no caddy to hand her guns in battle . . .
But then Kate and the Berserkers arrive, and it’s every man (and woman) for themselves . . .
And the CAVALRY IS HERE! Hello Deputy Parrish, Crazy Mexican Crime Syndicate, Chris Argent . . . We missed you! Well . . . at least I very much missed one of you!
I love how there are thousands off bullets being shot off in every direction, and every single one of these “trained shots” is totally missing the Berserkers. I get that the bone armor is probably pretty effective in warding off bullets. But there are enough openings in the Berserker wardrobe that one would think even a novice marksman could get in a few lucky shots on. . .
THE STOMACH . . .
THE ARMS . . .
THE EYES . . .
Maybe not all of these shots are kill shots, but they would at least do a better job at disarming the Berserkers than, whatever the heck it is they are doing in this scene . . .
“Pretending this is the carnival game where you have to shoot water into a clowns mouth until the balloon on his head pops . . .”
Having slightly better luck against the Berserkers on the home front. . .
Bombs Ove Beacon Hills
I’m pretty sure my favorite part of the episode was the scene where Lydia and Mason, kamikaze themselves (and their baseball bats) at the Berserker. I mean, Mason even came up with his own battle cry, which sounded like ArRRAHHIIAHIHIHI! It was awesome.
Then, Sheriff Stilinski added to the comedy, by engaging the Berserker in a friendly game of catch . . . with IEDs of course. I very much enjoyed the Wil E. Coyote facial expression the Berserker had while he’s holding on to the bomb and knowing he’s about to go kablooey . . .
“Front toward enemy? I don’t get it. Why would you want to play catch with your enemy? Wait a second . . . Awwwww sh*******t.”
S.O.S. – Save Our Scott
Inside the temple it’s a Berserker versus Scooby showdown. Stiles finds a newly-healed Kira, who warns Stiles that (1) Scott is a Berserker; (2) Lydia was left behind on purpose, so that she couldn’t warn the others before they killed Scott.
“My boyfriend physically abused me, which caused me to voluntarily cut myself, which, if this was another show, would make you very concerned for my well being. But this is Teen Wolf, so SAVE SCOTT!”
Meanwhile, everyone seems to be working pretty hard to murder our newly-turned Doesn’t Care Bear . . .
“STOP! It’s our fearless leader Scott, in that Shredder costume!” Stiles warns, just as “Scott” is attempting to strangle little lost Liam.
In that moment, Liam looks into the face of the thing he fears most and sees EYES . . .
“Hey, I’d know those bushy unplucked verging-on-unibrow eyebrows anywhere! That’s my surrogate daddy!”
Since mantras had worked so well on Liam, he decides to use one on Scott . . . the same one Scott used on him to help control his change, earlier in the season. “Scott, you are not a monster. You are a werewolf, just like me.”
And . . . presto chango . . . Scott has, once again accomplished the impossible, and broken the Berserker curse . . . now, if he could just wax those eyebrows . . .
Minutes after coming back to himself, Scott sees Peter and immediately figures out that HE has been behind Kate’s plans all along. (For a dumb-dumb, Scott can be pretty insightful, when its plot convenient.) And he’s PISSED! So, he runs toward Peter, and Peter runs toward him, and the two of them embrace one another in a snazzy dance move I like to call the “Flying Hug of Death.”
“Let’s dance.”
“Think happy thoughts . . . You can FLY. You can FLY. You can FLLLLYYYY.”
So, just when everything seems like it’s going to crap, Derek turns into an actual wolf, and attacks Kate with what at first seems like puppy licks, but is actually gnashing teeth . . .
“Tee hee, that tickles. Wait. Why are you biting off my tit?”
He doesn’t kill her though, because . . . she hosts Wolf Watch . . .
Then Kate’s own brother, Chris, shoots her with a yellow-tipped bullet. Kate looks super offended, but this also doesn’t kill her . . . because . . . Wolf Watch.
“My feelings = hurt.”
THEN DEREK APPEARS NAKED, AND I START DROOLING, AND MY MIND TURNS TO MUSH . . .
(I don’t think anything really important happened at that point anyway . . . except for maybe that whole, Derek kills a Berserker by smushing his face with his bare hands thing.)
Back in the Church . . .
FINISH HIIIIIIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Scott and Peter fighting was like something straight out of the Mortal Kombat video game. Five minutes of, punch, punch, punch, kick, fly, punch, throw, fly, punch . . .
And I started looking at my nails and thinking, my nail polish is really chipped. I should invest in a better top coat . . .
Then Scott, had Peter on the ground FINALLY. . . and I’m like the announcer from the Mortal Kombat video game. “FINISH HIM . . . FINISH HIM . . . FINISH HIM.”
But he doesn’t . . . lame.
Also, lame is how Chris totally has a chance to, if not kill, at least disarm, Kate. And he willingly lets her go, only so he can leave the show head off with the Mexican Crime Syndicate to find her again . . .
“Feeling alone and emasculated . . . wondering if I remembered to DVR My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, before I left the house.”
How it ends . . .
Stiles comes back home, and gets grounded . . . big time.
Malia decides her favorite food is pizza, after all . . .
Coach tells the boys that he’s seen things in Mexico that would knock off their genitals. (I smell a prequel!!!!)
Kira gets a tail . . . well . . . actually a piece of the glass she mutilated herself with, but . . . details.
*sigh* Memories . . .
Lydia gives Parrish a book that looks surprisingly skinny for a bestiary (abridged version, perhaps?), and tells him she’d like to try and help him figure out that he’s a phoenix what he is. (Meanwhile, Parrish patiently waits for Lydia, to leave, so that he can check his database to confirm that she’s had her 18th birthday, before he invites her over to his place for some . . . bestiarying.)
Peter ends up in Eichen House, and he has a roommate!
“I bet he snores and farts in his sleep too.”
(So maybe my guess about the X-Men Eichen House breakout is not so far off after all . . .)
Welcome back, Werebangers. This week on Teen Wolf a number of our favorite Beacon Hill residents finally got laid . . .
While others just got boned . . .
“Worst date everrrrrrrrr!”
We experience episodes like this around this time every season of Teen Wolf. You know, the ones after the main mystery of the season has been solved . . . where the Beacon Hill Scoobies are just trying to catch their breaths, and possibly engage in a little R-rated action, before the inevitable Finale Cliffhanger turns everything to sh*t once again . . .
Stiles: “So, whose turn is it to get possessed by an evil demon and commit evil acts over which you have no control, and therefore won’t have to pay any consequences?”
Scott: “I think it’s mine.”
Stiles: “Good luck with that, buddy.”
Finally, Stiles’s dad has enough down time to take Stiles and Malia out to savage the local deer population . .
. . . or just eat some pizza. That works too . . .
“Tastes like Deer .. . and cheese.”
Scott finally took Kira on a date in what is undoubtedly the most morbid, ugliest, most dangerous, friend-dyingest place in Beacon Hills . . .
“Consider yourself haunted.”
Liam’s lower lip quivered . . .
. . . while he tried to sleep . . .
. . . while he lifted weights . . .
. . . while he played video games with his friend . . .
. . . while he got eaten by a Berserker and died. . .
Just kidding about that last one . . . for now.
Basically, it was your average day in Beacon Hills . ..
With one or two exceptions.
Let’s review, shall we?
[As always, a big hearty thanks to my good pal Andre, whose screencapping talent, passion for all things supernatural, and trademark snark, mean that one day he will (and should) write and produce a teen show TV show that rocks 100 times harder than Teen Wolf, and we can all say we met him here. :)]
Third Eye Not-So Blind
You know what really pisses me off? When I’m captured by a wendigo, and he spends five minutes yammering on about how much better I’m going to taste when I’m nervous. You know what makes me nervous? BEING EATEN BY A WENDIGO!
You know what makes me bored and annoyed? Listening to a wendigo talk about eating me. It’s like those annoying food commercials where the two obnoxious dad types try to make hip jokes about their slushies . . . or when the Wendy’s girl and her friends have nothing to talk about during their lunch break except how delicious their hamburgers are.
JUST EAT IT, AND SHUT UP ABOUT IT, MMM-KAY?
I’m not going to lie. I cheered when Deaton clocked this guy’s ass, and carted him off to Eichen House . . . a place that seems to be a Rite of Passage for all residents of Beacon Hills. After all, we all go a little mad sometimes. Am I right?
The idea of there being a floor of the nut house, dedicated entirely to supernatural creatures (and yet, Malia and Meredith got to stay on the regular floor. . . weird) presents a lot of really fun possibilities for next season. Are you listening, Jeff Davis?
I mean, just check out this Samuel L. Jackson-looking guy? How cool is he!
I’m thinking something along the lines of an X-Men villains-type storyline, where all the creepiest, and most disturbing of supernaturals stage an awesome breakout from Eichen House, and proceed to terrorize Beacon Hills residents, just because it’s fun . . . and because they can!
And because Stiles, who is most definitely a comic book fan/ fan of the X-Men series, would have so many funny / meta things to say about a group of big bads like this that come from his and Malia’s Alma Mater of Wackjobs, Eichen House . . .
Anyway, Deaton — being the kind of guy whose clearly not capable of just rescuing a girl from being eaten by a Wendigo, and then heading home to binge watch old episodes of True Blood on Netflix (the early seasons . . . naturally . . . back when the show was still good, and I was still recapping it) — decides to go have a nice chat with creeptastic creeper, who, at first, appears to be sporting a massive gunshot wound in his forehead, but actually just has a really bloody nasty ass third eye . . .
WHHHHHY? WHY Teen Wolf? Why must you be so unnecessarily grotesque? Can we go back to the annoying dude eating the teenage girl? That’s starting to seem downright pleasant about now in comparison to this.
“I told you I’d grow on you. Would you mind terribly if I nibbled on your left ear?”
So, why did Deaton choose to ruin all of our dinners by visiting Third Eye Guy? Apparently, he believes Triclops here will somehow help Deaton SEE the way to save Derek from Inevitable Death By Inexplicable Loss of Powers . . .
Instead, Triclops just makes Deaton take a nap . . .
If all Deaton wanted to get out of this trip was a little extra shut-eye, popping a few Ambien would have been easier (and way less gross). Just sayin . . .
In dream land, Deaton dreams of the bone zone, which is not only where Der Bear first lost his Mojo, it’s also where Scott . . . well, more on that later . . .
“Is this IKEA?”
Anywhoo, just when it looks like Deaton will enter The Big Sleep, everyone’s favorite Banshee Alarm clock pops by to give him a “friendly wakeup call.”
And they all lived Deaf-Ever-After . . .
Scott’s Down with O.P.P . . . (Other People’s Property)
This season on Teen Wolf, Peter’s Blood Money Duffle Bag got more action from Scott than Kira did.
So much money fondling . . .
Sometimes Scott fondled the money by himself . . .
Sometimes he fondled the money while Liam watched . ..
Sometimes Scott and Stiles took turns fondling the money . ..
This week, Scott’s mom found the money (probably because Scott’s brilliant idea of hiding it, involved pushing it under his bed, open, with massive wads of cash tumbling out of it) . . . and began to fondle it with Scott.
AWK-WARD!
Scott’s arguments as to why the McCall’s should keep the money: (1) we need it; (2) its true owner already has enough v-neck shirts and doesn’t need more; (3) hiding millions of dollars in a rather easily accessible vault is a piss poor investment strategy; and (4) its true owner is a rotten excuse for a human being who repeatedly tries to murder me . . .
are quickly shot down by Mama McCall’s moral imperative.
“Bloody money has cooties . . . See? Check out the masssive cooty on this stack of G’s.”
Why was that particular pile of cash bloody, anyway? If the deadpool notifications are to be believed, the assassins had money wired to their bank accounts immediately following verification of the kill. There was no physical cash payout.
Even if the killers immediately cashed out their earnings, that bank money would presumably be “clean.’ Garrett and Violet succeeded in making at least two kills, of which we are aware. Did they then just keep cashing out the money , shoving it into the same duffelbag, and using the unmarked bills in that duffelbag to wipe off the blood from Garrett’s hockey stick? Wouldn’t a bottle of hydrogen peroxide been a more sanitary cleaning method?
No matter . . . when Scott tries to return the money to Derek, he doesn’t want it. “Peter’s a moron,” Derek muses. “He should have invested the funds in a death trap apartment complex and become a slumlord, like I did. Serves him right, spending the money on something stupid, like World Domination. Finders, Keepers, I say. YOLO.”
Oh sweet Derek, you may be dying, but your getting laid by a non-psychotic female, for a change, is making you so much more enjoyable to be around . . .
Cockblocks of the Screaming Kind
Dear Braeden . . .
Please don’t take this the wrong way . . .
I like you. I like that you taught Derek to use a gun, and, in doing so, made him about 50 times less useless in fights than he ever was as a plain vanilla werewolf.
I also think its cool that you are a confident, strong woman, who isn’t afraid to show off your assets . .. even, and perhaps, especially, the physical ones . . .
But your choice of post-coital wardrobe this week, made me laugh out loud . . .
You see, I understand that, as consenting adults, you and Derek occasionally fornicate. (I would fornicate with Derek too, if I were you . . . like, all the time . . . sooooo much fornicating.)
And then, after it’s over, you go to sleep . . .
See, for example, Stiles and Malia. This is a couple that clearly has sex with one another, and sleeps together. But they’ve been dating long enough to have given up the need to “dress for the occasion.”
Sex with a girlfriend or boyfriend is sometimes just sex. To celebrate the occasion, they wear nightclothes. Simple . . . comfy . . . cute.
You know, I wouldn’t mind as much, if Derek and Braeden slept naked (They both totally seem like the type), and had to grab for some quick blankets to cover their unmentionables, when the inevitable screaming intruder popped by . . .
But Braeden wears THIS to bed?
You see, this is how I know a man wrote this episode, one who has never had to suffer through the agony of wearing a lacy bra, with underwire, lots and lots of padding, and boyfriend-style underwear that rides up your ass crack every time you take a really deep breath . . .
Rest assured, Jeff Davis. The only women who sleep in THAT OUTFIT live inside a Victoria’s Secret catalog .. .
Maybe that’s why Lydia was screaming at them, and not the whole, “Derek’s dying. This is a family show. Therefore, I’m not going to let you two screw tonight . . .”
Perhaps, she was saying . . .
“FASHION POLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICE!”
Meanwhile, in a more G-rated section of town . . .
Nightmare on Liam’s Street . . .
Poor Liam. Sometimes I get the impression that the character thought he was going to be cast as one of The Warblers on Glee . . .
Or Matty’s nemesis on Awkward . . .
And he simply stumbled onto the wrong television set!
Now, he’s growing hair in weird places, and being dreamstalked by what kind of looks like Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and all he’s thinking about is whether all this murder and wolf metamorphosis is going to interfere with his dream to win Sectionals and/or finally summon the courage to ask Emo Senior Jenna to prom . . .
Now, I like the refreshing realism of having a character like Liam, actually experience the effects of being slightly traumatized by the types of horrific events the rest of the Scoobies seem to shrug off every day . . .
“Hey there, Lonely Boy. I’ll sleep over and play video games with you.”
I also like how Scott noticed Liam was dissing his bromantic buddy, Mason (Who still doesn’t seem to get that Liam and his new friends are supernatural, despite that whole “saving the werewolves from the dog whistle music” thing last week.), and cautiously instructed him against being a “lone wolf,” as the little tween is likely going to need his friends more than ever in the coming seasons . . .
“Need a spotter, Liam?”
Part of me just wishes Liam’s Berserker hallucinations this week, had a bit more of a payoff . . .
Like, for example, the writers could have blessed the Berserkers with Freddie Krueger-type powers, whereby if they succeeded in killing Liam in the dream, he’d also die in real life. So, then, Liam would be forced to become addicted to caffeine pills, so that he wouldn’t fall asleep, and those pills had the unintended impact of turning him into SPEEDHEAD I.E.D WOLF. . .
Hey, it could happen. . .
In other unrelated news, guess who has two hands and is no longer poor . . .
This guy!
It turns out Eichen House has given the Stilinskis the old One of Our Staff Members Tried to Murder You discount on their insane asylum bills . . .HOORAY!
It’s been forever, since Stiles and his dad, and the girl Stiles is currently shagging got to share a nice meal together . . .
Papa Stilinski is ready to go all out. He even asks Malia about her favorite food . . .
“Bambi’s Mother . . .”
Why so judgy, Stilinskis? Venison is actually considered a delicacy in many parts of the world . . .
But hey, pizza is good too . . .
The date to end all dates, literally. . .
Correct me, if I’m wrong, but I thought Scott and Kira already had a few first dates. . .
Like the time they road tandem on Scott’s motorcycle . . .
Or the time they slow-danced at Lydia’s grandma’s lake house . . .
Both of those things seem way more romantic than “Sitting in the dark, poorly furnished place where Boyd bit it . . . which still smells like Derek and Braeden Sex . . .”
I also liked how Scott, tried to pump some romance into the fact that, just like the McCalls, Derek was actually too cheap to pay for his electric bills . . .
He strings the whole place up with candles, and makes Kira use her electric powers to get them to run . . .
“There’s also an exercise bike in the corner of the room, you can peddle to make the air conditioner work. Starting riding!”
Beware, Kira! These are the kind of guys that mysteriously seem to have “left their wallet at home,” every time the two of you go out for Valentine’s Day Dinner . . .
The type of guys who convince you to help them pay for medical school, only to ditch you less than a year later for the hot nurse, they met while doing their internship . . .
(On the other hand, from the looks of it, there’s a good chance neither of you are going to live to see college, let alone medical school . So, carpe diem! You go kids! Watch that Star Wars DVD, knowing full well that you are going to be kidnapped AGAIN, before they even finish those black moving screen opening credits . . .)
“Now your balls match my face, Scott.”
In which everyone gets pep talks . . .
“Hey Liam! This is crazy.”
“I know you and I used to beat the crap out of one another on the lacrosse field, because I you totally ruined my coaches’ car.”
“But, we are both secret teen wolves with anger issues, and I have a massive man-crush on your Alpha.”
“So, let’s be friends, maybe?”
Awww, Buddhist Wolf is so sweet! Can we adopt him, Werebangers? Can we?
Meanwhile in the stands of yet another lacrosse game, Papa Peter comes to Daughter Malia with a proposition.
“Kill Kate for me, and I will introduce you to your mother . . . the Desert Wolf . . . who may or may not be Kate.”
“I think I liked it better when my father was just a random redneck, and I’d eaten the rest of my family.”
Hey, has anyone seen Scott? Or Kira? Uh-oh!
Speaking of Peter . . .
It sounds like the beginning of a joke . . . a hunter, a werewolf, and a berserker walk into a sewer . . .
But then, suddenly, this happens . . .
. . . and this happens . . .
. . . and Chris Argent isn’t laughing anymore.
There’s nothing like being bested by a moron in a bear costume and his metrosexual pal to lower one’s self esteem . . .
(By the way, since when do the Berserkers work for Peter too? I thought they were Kate’s pets.)
But then Deputy Parrish comes to save the day . . .
He starts by un-boning Argent (Re-virginizing?)
And then he tells him, “Hey remember that time those Samurai things murdered your daughter? You should be kind of pissed about that, and use that anger to drive you, and make you kill yourself slightly less.” (“You might also consider making some friends your own age, like those douchebags you used to hang out with in Season 1, who seemed to magically disappear after a couple of episodes.”)
“Thank you for reminding me,” Chris Argent replies. “I was starting to think she was just away on a study abroad program, because no one seemed to notice that she and her boyfriend are MIA. I AM really pissed about it! In fact, I’m so pissed, I’m going to be much less of a pussy from now on.”
“Sounds good,” replies Deputy Parrish.
“Thanks sexy Phoenix guy,” Argent replies . . .
“No prob, seemingly normal human who hangs out with so many teenagers that it’s slightly disturbing . . .”
And they all live happily ever after . .. at least once they get out of the nasty sewer . . .
Living slightly less happily ever after? Scott . . .
Rise Darth Berserker!
Having awoken in a bed of bones, Scott and Kira know that their not-so-hot date is about to get a lot not-so-hotter . . .
OK, Kate. You’ve gotten our attention. Care to explain the motive for your madness? (Please make it better than Meredith’s. Please make it better than Meredith’s . . .)
“I hate Scott, basically. He gets all the screentime on the show. His being turned into a werewolf coincided with my niece and my sister-in-law biting it in short order, my father going wacky, and my brother totally losing his nerve to fight. They call him the true Alpha. But I think he’d be better known as the True Life Ruiner. What’s worse, I don’t really get the boner everyone has for this guy? He’s crap at fighting. I just handed his ass to him a few moments ago, again! He can’t even turn into a gorilla. What good is he?”
Not going to lie. As far as motives go, Kate’s is pretty darn rock solid. It’s more sane than Meredith’s, “Peter made me do it in his coma,” motive. And more sympathetic than the assassins “It would make me $25 million richer, motive. And Peter’s egomaniacal, “He’s the only thing that stands between me and world domination” motive.
That said, making Scott wear an ugly Halloween costume is humiliating, but I don’t think it rises to the level of a good vengeance plan . . .
Wait . .. what’s that you say? Kate’s going to make Scott a Berserker? So, he is finally forced to become the heartless monster he always feared becoming? And his friends wouldn’t recognize him, would plot his demise, and might (but wouldn’t likely) succeed?
“Hey, check it out! Matching hats! We’re twinsies!”
Oooooh . . . that’s cold.
Until next time Berserk-bangers . . . er, I mean, Werebangers!
Question: What valuable life lesson can be gleaned from both the adorkable mid-nineties romantic coma comedy While You Were Sleeping and this past week’s installment of Teen Wolf?
Answer: They both teach us that comatose thirty-somethings named Peter with disturbingly expressive (sometimes frightening) eyebrows have the power to provide purpose in the lives of shy, socially awkward girls, who make questionable hair care choices . . .
. . . but only while mid-coma.
Poor Meredith Walker! If she had only shared her hospital room with The Dad from The O.C. instead of The Gorilla thing from Season 1, her life would be so much less complicated right now . . .
This week’s installment of Teen Wolf was equal parts satisfying and frustrating . . .
Satisfying, because our oddly loveable Benefactor has finally revealed her motivations for mass murder, and they are, if not entirely understandable (Who recorded all those tapes? How exactly did Meredith manage to control a 70’s era computer program WITH HER MIND?), at least weirdly sympathetic. (If we had to listen 24-7 to the dream-state ramblings of a scarfaced wackadoo with seemingly czarists designs on his easily extorted upper class town, we’d want some heads to roll too . . . )
Frustrating because . . . HUH?
I mean talk about a Deus Ex Machina! This was literally a case where there appeared to be an actual ghost in the machine . . .
. . . who pretty much controlled everything bad that happened to the characters throughout the entire season. . .
Our heroes then discovered that ghost almost entirely by accident . . .
. . . and then, sometime around the 50 minute mark of the episode, that ghost just got tired and went home.
But hey, at least Scott’s Wolf Facelift looked cool, right?
Let’s review shall we?
[As always a big hearty thanks to my screencapping pal Andre, who is 100% immune to the charms of the sometimes naked (always sexy) Deputy Parrish (WHY? HOW?), but always screencaps him faithfully for me anyway, because he’s just cool like that.]
Mama Said There’d Be Days Like This . . .
Don’t you just hate it when it’s pouring buckets of CGI-perfected rain outside, and you just so happened to leave the house/cave (?) without your umbrella?
“My perm is ruined!”
Don’t you also hate it when it’s raining, and you are being hunted by an army of black suited militia types with laser guns?
“Think anyone will see us?”
“There’s no place like cave . . . there’s no place like cave.”
I know I do . . .
That’s why I always make sure to have my own personal pocket ninja available to defend my honor at a moment’s notice . . .
Hiiiiyaaa!
(Also, I never leave home without my umbrella . . . well . . . almost never.)
Speaking of pocket-sized things one should never leave home without . . .
The Trials and Tribulations of Teeny Wolf
I think a part of Scott assumed that the second he turned Liam (accidental or not), the latter would immediately become his fashionable accessory for always . . . not unlike one of Paris Hilton’s purse dogs . . .
“Yo quiero ser Scrappy Doo . . .
. . . a permanent guest on the back of his motorcycle . . .
. . . the permanent squire to his knight, during Weekly Werewolf Fight Time . . .
. . . a permanent awkward third wheel on his kissy face dates with Kira . . .
Unfortunately for Scott, Liam doesn’t seem to really be feeling his purse dog status. (Though he’s sure got those puppy dog eyes down pat.)
The thing about supernatural TV shows is that they tend to require an Audience Surrogate character to keep things grounded . . . someone with the ability to say the type of things you or I would say when placed in the ridiculous supernatural situations the Scooby Gang gets placed in each week . . .
Someone to say things like, “Isn’t it kind of weird how so many of our friends die, and the following week we just seem to forget they even existed?”
And, “This whole Werewolf Curse Thing doesn’t seem like anything that a really good razor, a cough drop, and some Visine couldn’t cure.”
And, “Where the heck is that really bad techno fight music coming from?”
Up until around Season 3, that person for Teen Wolf was Stiles . . .
But, while the Scooby Gang’s Resident Human is still just as relatable, clever and wisecracking as he ever was . . .you’ve got to admit he’s gotten a wee bit blasé about the whole Mass Murder Thing of late . . .
. . . (maybe it has something to do with all that time he spent as an Evil Japanese Spirit, with a face wrapped in Charmin Extra Soft)
“Don’t squeeze the Charmin.”
Enter Liam . . .
He’s new to the Werewolf Game . . .
. . . he finds being almost brutally killed week after week a teensy bit traumatizing . . .
. . . he believes becoming Lacrosse Team Captain is a bit more reasonable of a goal then Rescuing The World From Evil . . .
In other words, he’s just like us . . .
(Only slightly younger and much, much prettier . . .)
Anyway, Liam earns some major points cool points from me this week for getting Scott to acknowledge the existence of all his instantly forgotten Dead Friends . . .
Bravo, Little Guy . . .
Psycho Killer (Que’st-ce que c’est!)
Ahhhh, Meredith, faking your own death, and then casually admitting to singlehandedly orchestrating the systematic Mass Murder for Hire of what seems like three-quarters of the town of Beacon Hills has lost you a few popularity points with Everyone’s Favorite Authority Figure . . .
“I’m definitely selling my Team Meredith t-shirt on E-bay!”
Now, they are never going to let you date Isaac . . . assuming he ever returns . . . and/or anyone decides to remember that he exists . . .
When Sheriff Stilinski’s and Lydia’s feeble attempts to glean from Zany Meredith something resembling a motive fail miserably, they decide to call for reinforcements . . . Deep V-Neck reinforcements . . .
Shame on you Meredith! Peter is pretty much old enough to be your FATHER . . . or, at least, her father . . .
But hey, you know what they say . . . a lid for every pot . . . even if that lid is a full-on sociopath with a possible furry fetish . . .
Help is on the way . . .
Remember all those Buddhist werewolves who went out into a forest, got poisoned by canine distemper and died?
They’re baaaaaackkk . . .
“We’re going to need a bigger bathroom.”
Well, some of them, anyway . . .
Scott and Co. somehow locate the surviving members of Satomi’s pack. (It probably helps that they hide in completely inauspicious places . . . like in the center of high school football field.)
But where to put them all?
I know! How about that adorable hotel the gang stayed at a couple seasons back? That place was swanky!
Scott, being Scott, decides on a spectacular hiding place for his furry friends . . . a place that no one would ever think to look . . . unless they were a werewolf hunter . . .
. . . or a Werejaguar . . .
. . . or a gang of trained assassins . . .
. . . or Peter Hale . . .
OK, on second thought, maybe this wasn’t the best hiding place for a family of werewolves (or the second best, or the third best, or the fourth best, or the twenty ninth). But hey, at least they didn’t use the Hale Vault again . . .
Of course, Scott has barely had enough time to show his new roommates the Argent Arms bathroom when company arrived . . .
. . . and then . . . even worse company . . .
Tongue Tied . . .
Meanwhile, back in Death Trap hospital, Stiles is nursing a possible concussion from his most recent Brush With Death . . .
Mama McCall asks everyone’s favorite human if he has any dying requests . . .
He does. He wants a tape player . . .
. . . or, as Mama McCall knows them, cassette player.
And so tapes cassettes and the record player make yet another cameo appearance on this season of Teen Wolf.
Next season, phone booths . . .
. . . Oregon Trail . . .
. . . and that asshat dog from Duck Hunt . . .
But Mama McCall has other ideas, apart from archaic technological devices, to aid Stiles on his road to recovery . . .
How about, conjugal visits?
That’s right, boys and girls. Stiles and Malia are back together . . . and all it took was a few minutes in an antiseptic hospital room . . . possibly reminding them of that time they took one another’s virginity in the basement of another wellness institution . . . The Nuthouse . . . shortly before a possessed Stiles went on a murderous rampage and attempted to assassinate all of his friends . . .
. . . aka . . . the Good Ole Days . . .
Mystery Date
Back at the Beacon Hills PD, the moment we’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived . . .
FRO . . .
Meets . . .
DUDEBRO . . .
It’s a showdown of epic proportions. They meet. They exchange pleasantries . . .
BRO RAPES FRO’S NECK WITH HIS GROSS NAILS . . .
Perhaps, I should backtrack a bit . . .
You see, Uncle Peter doesn’t seem to remember Meredith at all. (And that fro and those Massive Googly Eyes are not the kind of things a guy like Peter quickly forgets.)
And yet, Meredith remembers Peter VERY well. It seems she knew him back in the day . . . you know . . . before the magical werewolf plastic surgery . . . and the gorilla thing . . . and the whole rising from the dead thing . . .
In fact, Meredith knew Peter VERY well . . . so well, in fact, that she was willing to orchestrate a Mass Murder Deadpool, using his money . . . because he ASKED HER TO DO IT!!
*record scratch*
Yup, that’s right . . . Peter Hale arranged for the theft of his own money. He is literally the benefactor of The Benefactor . . .
. . . and he doesn’t remember one minute of it . . .
The Smoking Gun . . .
Back at Stiles’ house (I guess tonguing Malia cured his concussion after all), Stiles and Malia play around with a tape cassette player to determine whether any additional information about the Benefactor’s source of funds distribution can be gleaned from Lydia’s grandma’s Death Tape.
Guess what? It can! Somehow Malia discovers that the tape in question was actually made at Lydia’s grandmother’s lake house . . . i.e. the creepy place with the white walls and the Really Rickety Tape Recorder.
So, Little Red Riding Stiles and the Big Bad Werecoyote take a nice little trip to grandma’s house, where they proceed to listen to the same record player Lydia’s been staring stonily at just about all season. Only this time, they hear something different . . . something Lydia apparently missed . ..
“You had ONE job, Lydia! One job!”
There’s something in the wall!
I wonder what it could be?
Is it? (A) The cast from Sixth Sense?
(B) A band of vengeful Oompa Loompas
(C) The set piece for every movie involving computers that took place between around 1975 and 1988.
If you guessed (C) you get a cookie.
Ladies and gentlemen, I proudly present the source of the Deadpool . . .
But how did it get there? How did the Benefactor access it? How does it work / distribute funds?
Well, Werebangers, hold on to your hats. Because you are about to get the answers to allsome almost one of those questions . . .
Pillow Talk
So, here’s how it all went down . . .
Apparently, Peter and Meredith were coma bed buddies, back when Peter was suffering third degree burns from the Hale House Fire, and Meredith was suffering from . . . really bad music?
Also during that time, Banshee Meredith’s I See Dead People’s powers apparently magically expanded to I Talk To Coma Patients . . .
And Peter . . . well, he was the chattiest coma patient ever . . .
So, chatty, in fact, that he basically wrote the entire plot for Season 4 of Teen Wolf . . . a plot that Meredith wrote down faithfully in her mind.
You see, Coma Peter was MAD about the Hale Fire . . . mad about what it said about his werewolf heritage, how it made them seem weak and helpless.
And so, Coma Peter devised a plan in his mind . . . a sort of Darwin Survival of the Hairiest Plan . . . a Noah’s Arc for Were Things plan to rebuild the supernatural nation, by murdering every supernatural being that couldn’t fend for themselves, and (presumably) having the surviving supernaturals engage in a LOT of sex and repopulation pronto . . .
And then, Meredith, being industrious and only slightly psychotic, immediately upon getting out of the hospital, used her heretofore nonexistence Berserker contacts to steal $170 million from Peter’s Hale vault, her heretofore unused computer knowledge to arrange for a complex wire transfer system to be run out of the heretofore unseen computer in Dead Grandma Lorraine Martin’s wall, and her heretofore unseen anger against “wimpy” supernaturals to arrange for the murders of an entire truckload of them.
When Peter learns about this, he’s of course, wryly amused and slightly smug, as he is when he learns pretty much every piece of information on the show.
He’s also, as it appears, entirely innocent. Because, if thinking bad thoughts was a crime we’d all be guilty. And if wearing Deep V-Neck shirts was a crime . . . well . . . that’s another story . . .
So, Sheriff Stilinski pulls a gun on Mr. I’m Always the Alpha . . .
. . . snorts and stirs for a bit . . .
. . . and ultimately lets him live to aimlessly plot the murder of Scott McCall another day . . .
. . . And plot the murder of Scott McCall, Peter does . . . big time . . . again . . .
Fight Fight Fight . . .
Meanwhile, a team of trained assassins ambush the Scooby Gang at Argent Arms . . .
And Scott gets MAD! SUPER MAD!
Almost Gorilla Thing Mad . . . or Gargoyle Smurf Mad . . .
Maybe even Darach mad . . .
Except not quite . . .
And then, just when things start to get really Alpha-y . . .
Stiles and Malia shut down the deadpool by . . . wait for it . . . turning off the computer . . .
No seriously, they found a key in some wine bottle and . . . turned it to off . . .
Just think, an entire season worth of murders . . . and they all could have been avoided in the same way you fix your laptop when it freezes . . .
As for Alpha Scott . . . well, better luck next season.
You can’t judge a book by its cover. This isn’t exactly new information. We’ve known this since we were little kids . . . since back when people still read actual books.
Of course, not judging a book by its cover is easier said than done. For better or worse, most of us have been raised to make certain assumptions about people, based on limited information. Subconsciously we are taught to believe that pretty people are good, and ugly people are evil. Loud people are strong and confident, and quiet people are meek and submissive. Hot guys with good bodies look good naked . . .
Well, that last one happens to be true . . .
Teen Wolf has always been a show that tried to shock its viewers, by flying in the face of these assumptions. But because its viewers are pretty savvy, it has met with limited success in doing so. Most of us pegged Lydia as the banshee, from the first time she opened her mouth to scream.
Photographer Matt was so gosh darn creepy, we pretty much pegged him a kanaima master from day 1.
And “adorkable” English teacher Jennifer fooled positively no one but Derek into thinking she was anything but a Darach in 50’s housewife clothing . . .
I can honestly say that Teen Wolf only legitimately shocked me with its choice of big bad twice in its series run, so far. The first was way back in Season 1 . . .
Coma Guy was the one running around in the Gorilla Suit the whole time?
I mean, that was pretty friggin brilliant!
The second time Teen Wolf tricked me . . . this past week, in a twist that, if you think about, largely mirrors the Uncle Peter as Alpha reveal of Season 1 . . .
You would think I would have learned by now . . .
Let’s review, shall we?
[As always, a big hearty banshee scream of thanks to my pack pal Andre for providing all the glorious screencaps you see here. This is a guy you can trust. I guy you’d be proud to have alongside you in battle. A guy who would never douse your car in kerosene and watch you burn alive, while casually listening to Jock Jams on his iPod . . .]
“Who let the dogs out? Woof! Woof-woof-woof-woof!”
Kill Not Confirmed
In a season of Teen Wolf that has been positively packed with douchebags, I’d hereby like to nominate This Guy as Douchebag Numero Uno . . .
Murdering complete strangers to become a millionaire is one thing. Murdering your friends and colleagues is quite another . . .
Even Evil!Macauley held off on trying to whack fake friend Liam, until he had already dispatched of most of the more anonymous targets on the list. . .
But not Officer Hank . . . I mean, this guy is just stone cold . . .
. . . stupid. No wonder he’s at the bottom of the payroll at the Beacon Hills PD . . .
First, before murdering a supernatural creature, it might be wise to . . . I don’t know . . . figure out what kind of creature he is first. This way you can avoid amateur mistakes like . . . TRYING TO BURN TO DEATH THE CREATURE WHOSE SOLE MAGICAL POWER IS THE ABILITY TO RISE FROM THE ASHES . . .
“Bored now . . .”
Also, avoid leaving evidence that can be traced back to you, such as, the gas station attendant who saw you purchase FOUR GALLONS OF GASOLINE, moments before that police car burst into flames in an empty parking lot for no reason whatsoever . . . because no one in a small town being overrun by contract killers is going to notice that . . .
And while we are on the subject . . . twist ties? Really?
“All this trouble just to remind me to put out my recycling tomorrow morning? It’s a little much, don’t you think?”
Nonetheless, I’m actually really happy that Hank did what he did. After all, if it weren’t for this schmucko, us Teen Wolf fans would never have been blessed with the glory of getting to see this . . .
Let’s watch that again . . .
Now, for the most part, our Deputy Parrish has always been a pretty zen guy. But you could understand why Sheriff Stilinski’s stalwart sidekick is feeling a bit grumpy, after having had to suffer the pain of being burned alive, followed by the humiliation of having to walk back to the office in his now soot-colored birthday suit . . .
Plus, he’s barefoot, and who knows what kind of fetid crap ends up on those Beacon Hills PD floors?
Athlete’s foot is no picnic!
And so, for the first time this season, we get to meet . . . Hulk Parrish!
“Parrish . . . smash!”
Mommy like . . . a lot.
I hope you like cold prison showers, Hank!
You can’t handle the truth.
Scott and Lydia immediately bring Parrish to Derek’s and Peter’s apartment, probably because Parrish needs clothes, and what the Hales lack in furniture, they make up for in a lifetime supply of deep v-neck muscle tees in every color imaginable . . .
Scott hopes Derek can tell them all what kind of creature Parrish might be. (Hint: PHOENIX! HE’S A PHOENIX!)
Unfortunately, Derek’s knowledge of supernatural creatures is limited to were-stuff . . . like
Werecoyotes . ..
Werefoxes . ..
Werelizards . ..
Werejaguars . ..
Werebears . ..
And Popples . . . lots and lots of Popples . . .
And so, Deputy Parrish’s moment of supernatural self discovery is going to have to be put on hold for at least another episode . But on the bright side, wintergreen is a really great color on him . . .
Speaking of hidden truths, over at the hospital, a doctor, who I am pretty sure was murdered on the show last season (maybe he’s a Phoenix too?), is not so gently reminding Papa Stilinski, who took a bullet during the whole Parrish/Hank fracas, may have to pay some of his medical bills out-of-pocket.
“Pretty sure I was murdered last season by a guy with bugs crawling out of his stomach. But papa needs a new button down business shirt, so continuity be damned!”
Stiles is furious with his father for hiding the family’s money troubles from him. “We are supposed to take care of each other,” he pleads with his father.
Here’s hoping when this is all over Derek shares some of the Hale $117 million with the poor little pack friends who saved his ass from death more times than he could count . . .
Spray and Pray
Clearly, the Benefactor has been unimpressed up to this point with the assassins she selected to rid Beacon Hills of its supernatural population. She needs to expand her horizons. She considers creating a Deadpool Fans Facebook page, but realize that this guy already has one . . .
She considers tweeting about it, but sadly remembers that “Dead Girls Can’t Tweet.”
And so, she is forced to settle for good-old fashioned printer bombing . . .
At least, this way, what she can’t deliver in Dead Supes, she makes up for in Murdered Trees . . .
Banshee People Problems . . .
Like Grandmother like daughter. Apparently, Lydia’s grandmother Lorraine, not only was a banshee like Lydia. She also looked like Lydia . . .
Was smart like Lydia (for a female to have a job at a place like IBM back then, must have been a HUGE deal) . . .
Had an athletic best friend who looked like Allison . . . like Lydia . . .
Predicted, but couldn’t prevent that friend’s death . . . like Lydia . . .
And apparently, played a part in making Meredith more bonkers than she was originally . . . like Lydia.
“No more Justin Bieber, pleeeeeassse!”
Banshees Don’t Predict Danger . . .
Elsewhere in town, Derek breaks the news to Scott that he’s more-or-less a born again human. It must be tough for people like Derek to go from a supernatural hot guy who occasionally sprouts unattractive hair from his ears, to a garden variety hot guy . . .
“I wonder if this will impact my sexual performance . . .”
On the positive side, Derek being human means he’s no longer worth as much money dead! YAYYY!
“Let’s go test out that whole sexual prowess theory. What do you say?”
The bad news is that the price on his head got transferred wholesale to Liam . . .
“Doesn’t murdering the virgin first violate major movie logic?”
. . .which seems kind of unfair. I mean, how about spreading the wealth, Benefactor? Have you seen Parrish naked? (Clearly you have. I’m starting to think that Banshees get 24-7 live feed access to all murders happening everywhere. It’s like a really morbid version of Big Brother).
That bod’s got to be worth at least another two mil! Am I right?
In even worse news, Derek just learned he was the cipher key to open 1/3 of the deadpool. Scott, having an uncharacteristic burst of social awareness, tactfully explains what this might mean for our brooding lone wolf. “You . . . um . . . may be in . . . er . . . danger?”
(This is basically like telling someone who is about to have their leg amputated, that the doctor is going to have to make a small incision on their kneecap.)
But Derek has never been one to mince words. “Screw danger. A banshee thinks I’m going to die = I’m worm food.”
The Grandma Code
What was your THING with your grandmother? My grandma was awesome, not going to lie. She took me to the aquarium to see the sea lions (so cute), road roller coasters with me on family vacations, let me stay up late watching TV and eating Tootsie Rolls when she babysat. She rocked.
Apparently, Lydia’s thing with her grandma was reading The Little Mermaid . . . the original one, which actually had a really sad ending. (Spoiler alert: The Little Mermaid dies.)
But maybe Grandma Martin edited that part out. In fact, I think she probably did, or she wouldn’t be so cool with Lydia calling herself “Ariel” all the time, even though she kind of does look like Ariel. Don’t you think?
(Slight nitpick . . . Lydia claims she read the Hans Christian Anderson version of the Little Mermaid with her grandmother, not a book adaptation of the Disney film, as Stiles suggested. And yet, actually the name Ariel is exclusively a Disney name. The Hans Christian Andersen book doesn’t bother giving the Little Mermaid a name . . .also coincidentally, it has no Sebastian.
How on Earth can you have a Little Mermaid without that adorable Jamaican-accented crab? No wonder the story was so depressing!)
Anywhoo, that’s the key to grandma’s cipher code: Ariel . . .
More names . . . but no dollar amounts attached to these . . . why? Because they are all banshees, and . . . wait for it. They are all already DEAD!
By suicide, no less . . .
Suicide . . . DON’T DO IT!
Stiles and Lydia pay a visit to our old friend Brunski to get a look at the supposed Banshee Suicide Files. Lydia pays a cool $500 for the privilege. (Did you / do you carry around $500 in your purse in high school? I didn’t. Heck, I don’t carry $500 in my purse now! That’s what credit cards are for!)
“Smells like early retirement . . . or a date with a hooker . . . probably the hooker.”
$500. That’s a high price to pay for a tazing . . .
Around this time, honorary pack member Parrish figures out that, considering Brunski was the sole witness of all of these supposed suicides, there is a good chance they were less “suicides” and more “murders,” which is super bad news for Stiles, whose name Lydia subconsciously added to her banshee Already Dead Pool just moments earlier . . .
Totally Random Dancing
If watching the above-video gave you a headache, congratulations, you’re OLD!
Death by Dubstep. Well . . . this is new. Back a few seasons ago, only a few select people in Beacon Hills knew that supernatural creatures existed. Now, random cops, security, guards, DJs and other people we’ve never met, are not only aware of, and trying to murder Beacon Hills’ supernatural population, they are also coming up with new and inventive ways to do so that work by culling supernatural creatures out of a crowd . . .
See The Chemist . . .
And . . . the Really Bad High School Bonfire D.J. . . .
You know how they have these dog whistles that emit a sound that has such a high pitched frequency that humans can’t detect it, but it drive canines practically bonkers?
Or that, apparently after you reach around age 20, your ear stops recording high frequency sounds?
Add to this the idea of a dog whistle that can make werewolves intoxicated, and you have the conceit for this week’s Creative Assassin on Teen Wolf . . .
Think about how much money you’d save at the bar if it all it took to get drunk was listening to a few minutes of Really Bad Techno?
That would be enough dough to pay for Stiles Eichen House bills AND buy him an entire wardrobe of Sarcastic Phrase t-shirts . . .
It doesn’t take long for Scott, Malia and Liam to begin feeling the effects of the crappy Dog Whistle Music. Enter the Security Squad, who decide that the best way to murder unconscious Scott, Malia and Liam is to light them on fire during a very populated bonfire, right in the center of the high school hallway.
Riiiiight, because lighting supernatural creatures on fire worked so well for their friend Hank . . .
Speaking of Hank . . .
How’s your nose buddy?
Looks like someone got themselves a free nosejob.
Fortunately, Gay Best Friend Mason and New Human Derek become an unlikely duo in this week’s Rescue the Main Characters from Danger Challenge . . .
Unfortunately, Stiles and Lydia are going to have to wait a bit longer for their Knight and Shining Sexy Pants . . .
Revelations
Hello Brunski, it’s time for Lessons in Villainy 101. When you are trying to murder the witnesses to your crimes through lethal drug injection, (1) it helps not to play a slow five-minute long tape evidencing your guilt in the murder of one of the witness’ grandmothers . . .
(2) It helps not to HAVE evidence of your guilt on a mixtape, helpfully labeled with the victim’s name on the front. (Seriously, who supplied the Teen Wolf set with so many mix tapes . . . 1992?)
(3) Try to lethally inject your victims outright, rather than babbling on about how and why you’re going to do it, thus giving the hot deputy time to shoot you in the neck . . .
Silly Dead Brunski. You don’t deserve to be the Big Bad. Clearly you are just a hater of banshees. You aren’t smart enough to orchestrate an entire deadpool. For that, we would need someone a bit more subtle in their villainy than you . . .
Someone awkward . . . someone weird . . . and oddly charming in a freaky sort of way . . . someone who everyone thought was dead, and hence, no one suspected at all . . . someone like . . . .
MEREDITH WALKER????!!
Now, this, I admit, was a genuine shock. Who exactly is Meredith Walker? Why does she hate supernaturals, considering she is one? Why did Brunski say she was controlling him? And is she working with/ or for anyone else?
So, many questions. And so little time until they are answered. Teen Wolf is set to air in just a few hours, so there’s barely enough to speculate. Only enough time to show you this . . .
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