Each week the mysteries of Teen Wolf continue to build and develop in so many interesting ways, with this week culminating in a mess of reasons to shout: “What the heck is going on!?” Mysteries are always a plus when they leave room for extrapolation, but this episode might have missed the mark as Lydia’s situation is revealed (maybe…), Jackson continues to fall deeper into the role of the Kanima as his past has light shone on it, and new characters don’t even last long enough to explain who they are. Let’s see if we can figure this out together.
Trailer Terror
No time is wasted in getting to the murders of the night as the episode opens on a trailer in the middle of the woods. I will never stop wondering why people go into these woods in general considering what happens to those that do, but what are these two doing here? The woman mentions that she hates being terrified all the time, so this could be more than just desperate poverty in the sense that they could be in these living conditions because they are running from something.
More importantly, who are they? Right before the Kanima drags Sean up into the tree we see him conversing with a hooded figure (presumably the master) through the window, which unfortunately mars any hope of hearing the tone and content of the conversation, as well as the ability to read facial features. Was Sean confused about what this guy was doing out in the middle of the woods by their trailer? Was he accusing the stranger of messing with their generator? Or did he know that they were in trouble and this was the man who was seeking to harm them (Maybe it’s just me, but the woman didn’t seem as terrified as she should have been with the Kanima)? In the context of the story on the whole for the season, and just because it is a far more interesting option in my eyes, I’d go for the last option.
The woman makes it out of this scene alive, but unfortunately for her she was only being spared till her baby was born (seriously, does no one pay attention in this hospital because so much goes on unnoticed!). I guess while in the womb the kid didn’t have a chance to murder anyone yet, if there is still a code being followed, that is. (Tip for all the Beacon Hills girls: Go get pregnant right away).
The Snoop
Scott’s mom doing the dance of indecision in his bedroom door while deciding if she should snoop through it was a highlight for this topic for sure, but Matt is actually the reason for it. First Allison may have accidentally agreed to a date when she said yes to the party/rave Matt invited her to, but after she heard him say “Kanima” while looking at his stolen Intel she may need to go simply to see what he knows and throw him off the trail. And maybe while he’s there Jackson can slice him in the back of the neck again. I’d be ok with that.
The Master
If you remember when the Kanima crawled up to the car in a previous episode, there was a bumper sticker of an Einstein quote, and we see it again when Mr. Harris goes into his car. What is his role in all of this? This sign points to him being the master, but he could still be a peripheral character like he was before to the Hale family fire (if you remember in season one he reveals that he had a conversation with Kate involving how to set a fire and make it look like an accident). Maybe he is just another pawn to Gerard and he is the true master behind it all (it did look like he reacted to something in his rearview mirror. Was there someone sitting in the back seat?). All I know is that now with the sticker and his decision to leave detention right before Jackson turns means that his name can be written in pen as a connection to the lizard.
One other thing of note: Jackson writes, “Stay out of my way or I’ll kill all of you,” so whoever we’re dealing with we at least know that he/she knows that Scott and the rest are more than just simple teenagers, meaning that it can’t just be a random person coming to town. This is another reason to consider Gerard considering his knowledge about what’s going on with the teenagers in this town, as well as take Matt of the table for those keeping an eye on him because he is still trying to piece together the clues to figure out what is going on with this group of people.
Split Personalities
Jackson has always had a temper, but things get much worse as he starts experiencing his own version of a fugue state (like Lydia had with disappearing into the woods with no memory of what happened). This would explain the moments when he is a human but doesn’t seem like himself, such as the shower scene where he is calmly washing the blood off his arms, his ability to nonchalantly swallow a snake (how the heck did this snake, that seemed to volunteer for this journey, go from this system to his ocular hole in a latter scene? These two orifices aren’t connected!), and oh yeah, aggressively, though just verbally, attack Allison in the locker room when he was naked.
So what is this fugue state exactly? In the locker room situation it seems like it is just his bottled up rage bursting free, but there has to be much more to this than just a personality shift because I don’t care how mad I get, I don’t eat living animals. Which leads to the possibility that he is still being controlled in his human form as well. It does seem contradictory that a week or so before it was made a point that Jackson isn’t the Kanima when he is Jackson (they used this to explain why he was still affected by the poison), yet here while he is Jackson he clearly isn’t Jackson. In other words, if the creature half and the human half are separate, then why is he still acting this way when he is no longer the lizard? Is he being controlled, is it Jackson’s rage incarnate, or was a bridge formed between the two sides when Stiles told Jackson what he was?
A Confluence of Events
There are a lot of facts about the Kanima coming out that really seem to be forcing the story more than it should, rather than making sense when thought out. For starters, the translation states that the Kanima is supposed to be a werewolf, but can’t be because of some unresolved issues. These issues could be his adoption and/or dead birth parents (he was pulled from his dead mother hours after she died, though he wouldn’t have any memory of this), but it just seems to add up rather forcefully. This makes it seem like a random occurrence in which one is created, so it cannot be through genetics or planned unless maybe the werewolf who bites the individual somehow knows the person will become a Kanima. So how did the master and Kanima find each other in the first place? And can this still have something to do with his parents in the sense of the Kanima being a weapon of vengeance?
Peter’s Plan
Tonight one wish was granted with creeper guy going away so he wouldn’t be a new possible love interest for Lydia, but I am not sure if this is better for anyone. It turns out that he was simply a hallucination as well. More importantly, he is a hallucination of a younger version of Peter (hallucination Peter led her from the bathroom to the picture that showed what he looked like in high school, and now young Peter leads Lydia to the burned down house). So what does this mean? I wish I could tell you, but honestly it’s pretty confusing. I said before that there is no way for Lydia to know that Peter looked like this because she was already in a coma when he was burned, so he shouldn’t appear like this if he is solely a figment of her imagination. Which only leaves one possible explanation: he’s somehow still alive and the bite created a connection between their cognitive processes (we already know Peter could share memories this way as he did with Scott, so this isn’t a far jump). The image was too dark to be distinguishable, but I am assuming the camera panned down to his body when it went under the floorboards, especially when considering the time she saw him under the ice. These were all hints: being buried alive, young Peter leading her to him, the wolfsbane, etc. Now we just wait and see what he expects her to do with them (and her immunity).
Final Thoughts
With so much going on in this episode, it is easily the most confusing hour of Teen Wolf yet. So I turn to you for answers to the mysteries I talked about above.
So what’d you think of the episode? How are Isaac and Erica able to pull their claws out at will and all that jazz if according to what Isaac says to Derek they’re still unable to bring about the change whenever they want? Where is Boyd!? How was there no blood around Jackson’s eye when the snake slithered out of it considering how much was in the sink? Was this the first time you felt bad for Erica? It sure was for me post becoming a werewolf, especially when she tells Stiles he makes a good Batman (possible love triangle in the making considering the past crush too). Doesn’t Mrs. Argent know that sharpening pencils is way scarier to a vampire? Let me know what you thought!
