Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Teen Wolf, Season 4, Episode 10: Monstrous




It looks like another opening montage of more unknown supernaturals being hunted down by assassins. Two werewolves running through the rain (one of these is Brett, the werewolf lacrosse player), being chased down by a guy with a crossbow (really? Why are none of these hunters armed with a rifle or something?) and not shredding him – and even deciding to just stop for reasons unknown – honestly no wonder the assassins are flocking, killing these extra supernaturals is easy. But before they die like the red shirts they are, Kira steps in to save them, knocking crossbow bolts out of the air with her sword.

Kira also used the Alpha signal to call Scott who grabs a helmet and is ready to go with Liam – but baby wolf is scared and doesn’t know how they manage to live constantly looking after others. Scott takes him home before running to the rescue.

Apparently rescue is handled because Scott and Kira have a kissing reunion moment (Scott does check on Kira’s mother who was badly injured – she’s healing according to Kira). They’re at the vets and it seems Satome and all the other people who are still alive on the list have gathered. Scott realises they’re going to need help to keep them safe

Personally I think if they’re all supernaturals you have the beginning of an army.

But I assume that help is in the form of Chris Argent being badass and smacking people and invading what looks to me like a weed growing operation. Since I doubt he’s started working for an anti-drugs squad, I assume that it’s wolfsbane. He finds a yellow flower which the dramatic music thinks is super-duper important

As Chris puts his precious flower in a safe he’s joined by Scott and co and Chris nearly kills Brett in one of those little misunderstandings. Scott vouches for Chris though Satome is duly suspicious since she knows Chris – or has encountered him in the past. Scott and Kira show Chris the crossbow bolts and asks Chris if they’re from a hunter – Chris says no, if they’re killing for profit, they’re not a hunter any more. We have lots of ominous foreshadowing of a horde of hunters coming for them – and Scott in particular – they need the deadpool gone.

They fortify their position and are joined by Braeden and Derek – everyone looks nervous (seriously – you have Derek, Chris, Braden, Kira, Satome and a small army of werewolves – Godzilla would hesitate to attack that!). Derek finally suggests they slaughter the assassins to send a message back that hunting supernaturals is actually pretty dangerous

Chris and Satome have a brief moment about her little mantra and the fact she accepts werewolves are inherently violent, despite what we’ve seen this season (Hunter Chris sees this of confirmation of werewolves being dangerous but she rightly points out so is he, so are all of us).


Stiles meanwhile is stuck in the hospital waiting to have his head injury treated (I’m not even sure I remember the head injury but head injuries happen a lot so why not) and worrying about the cost of it (why does the sheriff of this town not have any health insurance at all?) Melissa won’t let him leave (and no-one argues with Melissa) but Malia visits and it’s all sweet and awkward. When she tries to leave it turns out Melissa has locked her in so Malia and Stiles actually have to resolve their drama. Which I assume is now being used instead of cat scans to analyse concussions. Does the Sheriff’s non-existent health insurance cover betrayed girlfriend reconciliation?

Now fully resolving their issues, Malia and Stiles start using Brunski’s tapes to try and follow Lorraine’s story. Listening to the tape, Malia realises that Lorraine was at the lakehouse (werecoyote hearing) and suggests that Lorraine finally predicted a death – but a lot of deaths, the deadpool list. So she tried to prevent it at the Lakehouse

This series of huge logical leaps are brought to you by, what I assume is a copious amount of booze the writers indulged in rather than following a plot through.

The Sheriff and Lydia are at the police station trying to question Meredith, trying to reconcile the fact that she’s the Benefactor (and, therefore, a criminal mastermind). They also still need to stop her because the continued activity of the assassins suggests the payments are still coming. They call in a psychologist to try and make sense of Meredith but achieve little. Lydia wants to try – why people bother arguing with her I don’t know. Lydia will get her own way which is good, because she’s nearly always right.

So Lydia questions Meredith (hah, told you) and now we seem to have a flip in the scipt of Meredith helping Brunski because she always wants to help rather than her be the instigator. And Meredith demands to talk to Peter.

Peter arrives and snarks in his normal excellent form. Her wants to know where his money is and she’s surprised that all his burns are gone (waaay back in season 1 when he was the big bad alpha that we like to forget about). After growing more and more frustrated with Meredith’s crypticness and the fact she met him but he doesn’t remember, Peter gets up, slams Parrish into a wall and plunges his claws into Meredith’s neck – that weird mind reading thing werewolves can do when it’s plot convenient.

See, this is an actual dangerous werewolf.

We get Meredith’s memories after Lorraine’s people nearly killed her trying to discover bansheeness. In her trance Meredith mutters incomprehensibly and Lydia hears every word. While Peter and Meredith were comatose in the same hospital and she heard all of Peter’s comatose thoughts  over the months they were in the hospital. And comatose, burned Peter just ranted about supernaturals being weak (And Talia the alpha) and not realising that the Argents were a threat.  Ranting about revenge he wants to slaughter all supernaturals ever and then rebuild the non-existent slaughtered ones into his own little kingdom of randomness. This makes… little sense, but I guess comatose enraged ramblings don’t need to make sense. His comatose self knows a lot about assassins though (even mentioning a few – including the Mute and the Desert Wolf which we thought was Malia’s mother). Enraged coma Peter lists out his entire dubious detailed plan to Meredith

Peter comes back to himself and protests his innocence, insisting he didn’t remember it and how can he be blamed for his “lunatic” ranting while out of his mind in a coma. Lydia desperately tries to get them to stop even as the Sheriff threatens to kill Peter, as she realises that this conflict is part of the grand plan. Whose grand plan? What grand plan?! Is there even a plan of any kind?! Peter points out that there is absolutely no legal way the Sheriff can wrangle this death – and he has to let him go.

As Peter leaves, Meredith freaks out, screaming that “it’s not finished”

At the Lakehouse Stiles gets all frustrated about not achieving anything and Malie hears computers in the walls – something no-one else has hard it seems. They’re not even small or quiet – they’re huge. They call it the deadpool… what it’s more than just a record? It’s sending out the messages and the cash payments?

They decide they need to convince the computer that it’s mission is accomplished so they conference in Lydia – who realises that the wine stain is missing. Time for some vast logic leaps – the wine wasn’t really wine (or the cleaner was really really good?) They break open the wine bottle and find a key inside – honestly, I’ve played point and click adventures with more obscure puzzle pathways.

While all this is happening, at the bunker with the supernaturals, the attack begins with cannisters of gas and men with machine guns. Lots and lots and lots and lots of gunfire (not at targets, just gunfire). Why would you throw in gas cannisters against werewolves? Why would you want to cut vision when you are the ones using ranged weapons? Do you want the werewolves with the super hearing and smell to be able to ambush you more easily? It’s pure chance that Braeden, Chris and Derek are there with guns! None of the others have ever used guns – it’s all been claws (actually, it’s all been running away).

Lots of fighting and dead and unconscious assassins and Scott getting shot but not being overly troubled by it. Scott nearly kills a cowering assassin but stops for some reason – his refusal to murder the scared assassin makes his face become a little less monstrous

Stiles then uses the key in the computer – and all the assassins get a message. Yes, in the middle of the firefight and battle against lethal supernaturals they check the message. They leave. Scott checks his beaten assassin’s phone and it says, from the Benefactor, that all contracts are terminated

So they going to let the assassin go?

The computer in the lakehouse shuts down.

Lydia tries to talk to Meredith about why she put her own name on a hitlist – because she heard Lydia’s banshee scream so knew it was time to “start over.” She calls Peter the alpha who will “make it right.” She calls them all monsters, killing people – even banshees (since when?) Lydia counters that not all monsters do monstrous things – and holds up Scott as an example and Meredith alsom realises Lydia isn’t monstrous and literally says “oh god what have I done.”

Peter meets up with Kate apparently about their nefarious plans which she thinks are going well but he’s not so sure. To no-one’s surprise he plans to kill Scott (which would let him inherit alphaness).



When did supernaturals become so fragile? Honestly we keep seeing werewolves et al running (and not even that fast) from assassins – why isn’t there a trail of dead assassins who just aren’t good enough to hunt such a lethal enemy (other than those destroyed by Our Heroes)?  Seriously, why hasn’t Derek’s dramatic message already been sent by the many failures?

And… what just happened to the plot? The Benefactor is Meredith acting because of the coma dreams of revenge that Peter doesn’t even remember having? Really? Are we going with this? Really? Because… this is ridiculous. I mean really ridiculous. This whole plot line, this whole season cannot be explained by “because Meredith was driven crazy and Peter was crazy so crazy did it!” That would be appalling on so many levels I can’t even begin to swallow it.

And this is all working with the ancient sealed computer that Lorraine had for… for… for… I… what… why?! Why was she even involved? So it’s the insane people aided and abetted by an evil computer from the 1970s?

And even if Meredith did think all monsters were monstrous – how could she possibly think that PETER would be the one to change this?! Even his rant was all about monsters not being monstrous enough?!


I have no idea how they’re going to put this wreck back together. None. I don’t even know if it’s possible.