Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Teen Wolf, Season 2, Episode 9: Party Guessed



 Poor Lydia. She’s still having nightmares and hallucinations/visions of Peter Hale, the last Alpha, who has a plan for the next full moon which will apparently make him real (on her birthday as well). All because she is immune – to what she doesn’t know because no-one’s filled her in, something Peter points out most accurately.

If only she had a good friend to confide in. Alas, all she has is Allison.

Derek and Scott are closer now Scott’s accepted being part of his pack (thankfully. I always thought the rift between them was excessive) but Scott thinks Derek is keeping secrets still about the weregecko(of course) and Derek’s all depressed because he doesn’t think they can save Jackson or kill him.

Allison has finished her Not!Date with Matt, tells him she’s Not!Dating Scott and how everything is complicated., Lots of cute flirting – but he leaves his camera behind, giving Allison a chance to go through his pictures (as you do – because I know I always go through friends’ stuff if they leave it unguarded for 10 seconds) and find that he has pictures of the sports team and class and her and her and her oh and more of her and yet a dozen more of her. His sweet little crush is upgraded to full-blown spooky stalking with a side-order of peeping Tom.

Stiles and his dad are still stuck on the case trying to put together who is controlling the weregecko – and it seems Harris, the chemistry teacher, has been taken in for questioning since his car (with its Einstein bumper sticker) has been seen at so many of the crime scenes (ok, it’s official, he’s definitely not the weregecko master). But Stiles doesn’t buy it, despite how Harris hates him – it’s not enough; and he’s determined to solve the case for the sake of his father. But flicking through the year book they find something else the victims had in common – including the latest victim – they were all in the swim team, and Isaac Lahey’s father was the coach.

Lydia invites Jackson to her party but he scares her and tells her she doesn’t want him there. He’s clearly disturbed and becoming more and more aware that something’s happening to him. Still time for Lydia’s party. Stiles brings a huge present before discussing his findings with Scott (weregecko doesn’t like water and is linked to the swim team, a connection perhaps). Unfortunately for Lydia, the party is also deserted except for Allison, Stiles and Scott because Lydia’s mental illness/haunting has turned her from the most popular girl in school to a pariah (the term they use is “nutjob” repeatedly. At length – which is both unnecessary and vexing). Allison insists they have to do something since they’ve completely ignored her for 2 weeks (just noticed, Allison? Late in the day for guilt. Though I love Scott’s come back “Lydia ignored Stiles for the last 10 years” poor Stiles). Out of guilt, Scott and Stiles pull in what contacts they have to fill the party.

Party in full swing and Stiles (who is just completely adorable, in case it’s not obvious, and should be the star of this show) tries to give Scott advice to heal his rift with Allison after last week when he was cross with her for deciding to spill all their secrets to her evil Argent family. And then Jackson shows up. Just in time to try the punch – which looks like it’s an odd mix of fruit juices, magic and wolfsbane.


Party time (and an actual gay couple in the background among all the others, yes, I’m desperate for slight crumbs of inclusion, don’t judge me) and the drink kicks in – or so I assume after Allison takes down her stalker Matt, and is then shot in the chest with a crossbow wielded by… Allison! And this Allison even lectures her about her constantly yelling for help and how pathetic it is (hey, can we keep this Allison?), alas we cannot for it’s a hallucination.

Stiles gets a far worse hallucination than Allison – he gets his drunken father trying to destroy him, accusing him of killing his mother and trying to kill him. Poor Stiles.

And Scott – what terribly traumatic thing does he see? Jackson making out with Allison. Awww, c’mon, really? Allison gets killed by herself, Stiles is utterly destroyed by his father and he worries that Allison is making out with the weregecko?

Jackson – he hallucinates his biological parents – who are disturbingly faceless. Scott goes seeking Lydia after the hallucination (and lack of any real trauma) but she’s already wandered off.

And we finally answer the “who is the weregecko’s master” question, while everyone is freaking out over the punch, Matt is thrown into the pool and completely freaks out about it. He doesn’t like water and can’t swim – and later we see him, wet with Jackson the weregecko, in full gecko form, at his feet. Ok, I did NOT see that coming, I have to admit.

On the Argent front, Granddaddy Argent, Daddy Argent and Mummy Argent are all dealing with the fact Mummy Argent has been bitten by Derek, an Alpha werewolf after she tried to murder a 16 year old boy (my only regret is he got her shoulder and not her carotid). Granddaddy Argent, being the merry murderer he is, declares her already dead, just a thing, a cocoon waiting to hatch a monster (so says the patriarch of the matriarchal Argents. And yes he calls himself a patriarch). Daddy Argent is all upset that his murderous wife is facing the consequences of her violence and worries how hard it will be for Allison to lose her murderous mother so soon after losing her murderous aunt. Oh, what’s a murderous father to do?

Needless to say, I’m not exactly empathising with the Argent’s pain. Even when they prepare Mummy Argent for suicide.  Since Mummy Argent didn’t have chance to talk to Allison about her suicide (Allison was trying on dresses with Lydia and utterly clueless to subtext) she decides she wants to commit suicide in Allison’s room… what? I thought the “I didn’t get to talk to Allison” was regret about not being able to say goodbye – not “damn now I’ve got to find another way to traumatise her”.  They have a deep, heartfelt discussion about suicide which is also full of shaming and ableism for people actually living with depression; there’s a lot of powerful emotion in the scene, it’s touching but the messages are awful (depression is weakness and shameful). As her eyes turn gold, he helps her kill herself.

Allison arrives at the hospital to see her dad – and find her mother is dead.


Meanwhile Derek and the rest of the wolfies are all preparing for full moon with lots of chains and Boyd actually being given some lines to say. It’s very very unpleasant especially the headband he has for Erica. It seems Derek’s precautions are not quite adequate and he tries to call the eternally unreachable Scott for help because the wolfies break free. After lots of confined fighting he manages to put Erica down – and Isaac grounds himself and holds back Boyd, he’s found his own anchor to keep him human. His anchor is his father – what he used to be before he was abusive.

Which is when Lydia arrives to blow some purple dust in Derek’s eyes, which knocks him unconscious and allows her to drag him (she’s stronger than she looks!) to the old Hale house (former werewolf central). Some blood, some moonlight – and Peter Hale is reborn.


Wow… there’s a lot going on there – how they’re going to keep up with all of this is going to be an interesting question.