With the recent announcement that Teen Wolf has been renewed for a third season (of double the episodes!), it’s hard not to be overly excited about the show. Thankfully this week is back up to fan expectations following a shaky episode last week of mass confusion, as the Kanima continues to run through the list of murderers needing to be brought to justice. Plus a main player might have been taken out of the game for good.
“I’m not mad…”
If there were a parenting handbook for those with teenage and older children, it would include a chapter on the mastering of the saying: “I’m not mad, I’m disappointed.” Something about that is so much worse because it is no longer about them and their emotions, but you and how you have failed them as their child and as a decent human being. This is bad enough, but somehow Stiles’ father figured out a way to take it one step further when he basically says: “I’m not mad, I’m not even disappointed, I’m just past the point of wanting to react to what you’ve done,” after he tells Stiles that his badge was taken from him. How is a kid supposed to survive a blow like this!? Whatever Stiles does decide to do, the only way to ever completely rectify this situation is to tell his dad everything; and if this brings on more father/son time in which they act as a crime solving team then I am more than ok with bringing another Stilinski into the fold.
Side note – Big props to Stiles for not mentioning this to Scott just yet considering Scott would have most likely felt to blame for this.
The Replacement Librarian
If there is one thing to know about high schoolers, it’s that they are integral in the fight against paranormal evil. Just ask Buffy. However, guidance never hurt anyone, and in this episode we see the vet step even more so into the Giles’ shoes. In other words, the kids are more than capable of getting things done and should not be underestimated, but sometimes they need to be pointed in the right direction. High school is a time of learning after all, and obviously they don’t have any role models in the school authority figure department.
With that said, the vet is making a major mistake in keeping whatever is coming from the kids (who is this guidance counselor, what does she know, and was that totally an act about not knowing what the Kanima was when she was reading about it for Allison!?). Hey “Giles!” Remember when Buffy isn’t told about the rite of passage she has to go through when her powers are taken away and she is thrown in with a vampire? Yeah, that went swimmingly. Really leads to trust.
The downfall from that withheld information is not yet here, and thankfully for now he is at least helping with the problem at hand. Including giving Stiles a necessary pep talk about the power of imagination. Somehow Stiles is able to complete the circle around the premises of ash even though he was about to run out, furthering my fear that magic might be coming into play.
From The Grave
This may be a reach for magic, but one thing that might not be is whatever is going on with Jackson. In this episode Jackson is full-blown scary, look through his brows Jackson, meaning that he is not his usual self. Matter of fact, there doesn’t seem to be any moments of recognition of the “normal” Jackson in this episode like there was last week, meaning that the bond between puppet and puppeteer is even stronger than imagined, possibly magically strong.
After all, there are only so many explanations that can go into Jackson speaking for someone else. When he first says, “He belongs to me,” when Isaac and Erica try to dose him I assumed that this meant that the master was somehow speaking through Jackson, possibly seeing what he sees and controlling his body completely, as if the master’s mind is wearing Jackson like a meat suit. But the more Jackson talks, the more things seem to be even more complicated.
This is a stretch, but bear with me as I work this out (and tell me what you think in the comments! Just don’t call me stupid. I have overactive tear ducts). When Stiles, Erica, and Isaac are with “confined” Jackson, he says “Us. We’re all here.” This could just mean Jackson/Kanima and the master as the “we,” but a guess would be that this word choice actually implies more than the two of them. After this, Jackson responds “me” to the Stile’s question about who the murderers killed. Unless there is another Peter situation going on in which a dead body is wreaking havoc with one of our characters then this onion has a few more layers to it, possibly involving the victims themselves. In other words, the master controls the Kanima, but what if he controls something much more? What if the Kanima isn’t just a creature of vengeance, but is actually containing the spirits/minds/memories of the victims themselves?
This theory is in its early stages, but one thing that supports it is that Jackson didn’t kill the pregnant woman. It was mentioned that maybe it was Jackson’s consciousness sinking through and he was unable to kill this woman because his mom died (or possibly was murdered) while she was pregnant with him. But what if it is more than that? What if it is the spirit, or what have you, of his mom who made the choice? Like the fear of water possibly coming from the master, maybe all the people making up the Kanima have some influence on how the creature behaves, and the puppeteer somehow acts as a wrangler to them all.
The Pattern
No matter how many consciences are within the Kanima, the pattern connecting the victims is finally starting to be pieced together. Other than the Kanima saying that they were all murderers, they all just so happen to be in the same graduating class from Beacon Hills, having Mr. Harris at the same time (all except Isaac’s father, though he is assumed to be the replacement of his other son, who died in combat). Seriously, what is wrong with this skeevy teacher!? Now it’s just a question of figuring out who they murdered, possibly leading there after figuring out the how. My guess is an accident, and knowing high school students it is likely something along the lines of drunk driving.
The problem with this is that the ages don’t exactly line up to any events that we know of yet, the major one being the death of Jackson’s parents. Last week we learned that they died in 1995, and that year these 24 year olds would have only been 7, hardly the age of coming together with your fellow classmates and murdering people. With that said, I’m not willing to stop looking for connections between these murderers and Jackson’s birth parents.
The Pack
With Boyd making an appearance this week it must mean that there is far too much for Isaac and Erica to do that he had to actually show up for his wolfly duties in the pack. Long story short Boyd fights the hunters alongside Derek, but let’s face it, we only care about what the other two are up to as they work to stop Jackson alongside Scott. Erica does her usual promiscuous thing (a welcome trait this week as she briefly distracts Jackson, though I am wanting more of the “You are a good Batman” Erica we finally saw last week), but Isaac is actually the far more interesting werewolf this time around. When Boyd is first turned I thought he would be the one most willing to work with Scott because he doesn’t want to be just another underling to Derek, but maybe it will actually be Isaac who allies himself with Scott based on a reaction he gives to Scott telling him to be careful (not that he leaves Derek). When Scott specifies that he doesn’t want Isaac getting hurt, his reaction seemed like one of shock. Not a major reaction of shock, mind you, just a very human reaction in the sense that this wasn’t something he ever expected to hear before, as if no one has ever really thought about his wellbeing before. We sure know his dad didn’t.
Derek also shows some major signs that he hasn’t completely changed into a stone cold Alpha when Scott is in danger, but more on that later.
On A Break
Throughout the season it has become more and more of a challenge for Scott and Allison to see each other because of all the watching eyes, and things came to a head with Mrs. Argent’s chat with Scott last week. In order to work on their cover story of being broken up, Scott suggests that they see other people, which feeds into my fear of Matt becoming a love interest. Blegh. To end this scene Scott tells Allison that he loves her, and she responds “you too.” What the heck kind of foreboding response is that!? Reading into this too much or not, that is no way to respond to someone saying, “I love you” unless you put the “I love” in front of the “you too.” Bad Allison. Prior to the end of the episode we had their kiss to remind us of the strength of their relationship, but then Scott had to go and yell at her for her part in the hunters’ plan. And now with what happened to her mom, it is time to start worrying for our main couple.
Ding-Dong! The Witch is Dead?
From the first moment Mrs. Argent showed her true colors she took her place as my least favorite character in the show. That’s right, she’s even worse than Mr. Harris! With all the torture and self mutilation, there were always signs that she was going to go too far (yes even farther than that), and tonight she makes her move after seeing that Allison and Scott are still together with her own eyes. Seriously, I could have sworn I saw an aneurism exploding behind her eyes as she looked through the window into the classroom. Taking a cue from her husband by running Scott down with her car, she then takes him to a torture chamber where she can slowly kill him with a pot pipe. That was what that was, right? I don’t really know my drug paraphernalia all that well, and I’ve never seen that version before in TV or film, where I get all my drug knowledge.
But the props are beside the point; what is important is that Derek saves Scott from his “fatal asthma attack” after fighting with Mrs. Argent (who holds her own). But no matter her fighting skills, Derek managed to sneak a bite in. The likelihood of another immune human is rather slim, so whether she turns or dies (is it bad that I’m rather partial to the latter option?), things are never going to be the same between the werewolves and hunters. Not that they were civil now, but this just became a whole lot more personal, especially when taken into consideration that Derek most likely bit her intentionally. It could have been in the heat of the moment considering he was reacting to what she did to Scott, but bites come with intent in my eyes, as in he knew what he was doing when he sank his fangs into her shoulder.
Before your cheers for Mrs. Argent’s demise grow too loud, just know that this is going to put a wedge between Scott and Allison. Allison might not have the best relationship with her mother, but she is still her mom, and even if Scott wasn’t the one to bite her, it was a werewolf.
Final Thoughts
Can you believe this episode!? Even with the horrible implications for the relationship between Scott and Allison, this is easily one of the better episodes of the season in my opinion thanks in large part to where they’re taking the Kanima. As you can tell from my paragraphs above I am still guessing as to what the heck is going on with Jackson, and I’m having a lot of fun letting my mind run wild (sorry I wrote so much).
So what did you guys think? How devastated were you by Mr. Stilinski? How weirded out were you about Mr. Harris being at the party? Would you pay 75 bucks to go? Do you think the scene where Gerard puts his hand over the line of ash is to add to the pile of hints that he’s the master, or is it just to continue to throw us off the true scent? Were you disappointed that Lydia didn’t make an appearance? Do you think Scott will tell Allison about what his mom did to him? He never told her about seeing her grandpa slice a werewolf in half or stabbing him in the gut, after all. Let me know your thoughts in the comment section!
