Wednesday, July 1, 2015

Teen Wolf, Season 5, Episode 1: Creatures of the Night



Eichen House asylum – who’s even in here any more? A lady apparently with a bruise on her hip who is showering watched by a very unsympathetic nurse. The woman turns out to be Lydia, and catatonic.

She’s led through the grimmest of grim tunnels  and drugged to the eyeballs, encouraged by evil nurse who is joined by super super creepy nurse who likes needles. Thankfully she unleashes a banshee scream and comes to herself, kicking the arses of the orderlies with a whole new lot of fighting skills and some awesome new banshee powers. But before she can leave she is overwhelmed when she pauses because surprise Aiden arrives to say her treatment isn’t finished. Not bad when you consider he’s actually dead

Before she falls unconscious she says all her friends are going to die.



Scott and Stiles are talking college, in particular Stiles’s desperate hope that they can all go to college in the same place and stick together. Scott is fretting that everything has gone fairly well for 6 months which means pretty soon someone’s going to try to kill them. They also have Liam tied up in case he loses control (again) on full moon but he seems to have it fairly together and isn’t trying to run through the streets naked. Except he’s clenching his fists so hard that he’s actually bloodying his hands.

At the police station, Parrish (our apparently immortal police officer who has no idea what he is) and Sheriff Stilinski (who, after 5 seasons, still does not have a first name but is still awesome and long suffering) are dealing with power outages due to a storm. Parrish is also kind of annoyed because, for some reason, Sheriff Stilinski has benched him. So he gets a case… a noise complaint.

During a thunder storm. Really? Who can even make enough noise to be registered during a thunderstorm

Parrish checks it out but it involves the creepiest of creepy houses (and this is in a town with Eichmen House, a building where the architect sat down and tried to make the damn place as creepy as possible) which is all creepy and dark and abandoned. Having never watched a horror movie in his life, he goes into the basement and DOESN’T run when he hears creepy noises of someone bricked up behind the walls. No he decides to rescue them.

Parrish! This is Beacon Hills! If someone is walled up you leave them there. If they are making noises you BUILD A THICKER WALL.

He hits the wall a couple of time and the wall bleeds. Whyyyy is he not running?! Whyyyyy? The wall explodes outwards and he is grabbed by a bloody, fanged monster that promptly stabs him with big claws. Well that’ll teach you Parrish, next time you’ll just burn down the creepy house (it’s a good thing he has immortality). Parrish’s eyes gleam gold while said toughness kicks in – and so do the eyes of the creature holding him. The bloodied guy is surprised – he says that Parrish isn’t a werewolf, not an ordinary creature – but then nor is he given his blue glowing claws. He wants to find Scott – and Parrish naturally denies all knowledge and gets mauled.

This may be why eerily close lightning strikes and spooky electrical shenanigans affect the jeep with Scott, Stiles and Liam in it. It doesn’t stop them so they pick up Malia (who, with her dad, is moving whole trees out of the road with her super duper strength). Stiles kissing Malie means her dad has to threaten him with firearms. Can we not? They also discuss Malia going to summer school to try and drag her grades up.

Melissa has to work extra shifts at the hospital because, she remains, the only medical professional in that place. I love Melissa as she yells out several failed instructions to an absent Scott (there’s a big senior party thing at the highschool) – but electro-wolf is there and hears Melissa talk about the senior party thing.


Cell phones being down and huge traffic means Kira can’t get in touch with Scott, even standing on her parents’ car (their looks of stressed, resigned tolerance remind me of parents everywhere). She does see a guy in the traffic jam who, I assume, will be relevant.  Kira’s parents also take the time to tell Kira about the Wild Hunt which I’m sure will totally be relevant at some point because this show won’t waste perfectly good foreshadowing

Scott has a little moment with Liam – he noticed his bloody hands. He’s supportive and kind and points out while Liam’s control isn’t perfect, it is working – he’s learning. Awww he’s growing into a real alpha. As he dumps Liam at the hospital since he’s not invited to the senior party, not being a senior. Personally I think leaving a werewolf in a hospital with his less-than-perfect-control is not a good thing even if you do give him a pep talk as well

Stiles and Scott also talk his relationship with Kira since it’s apparently been a while since Scott and Kira spoke and Scott maaaaay have put his foot in it. They also learn of the traffic jam that has delayed Kira. Scott runs to get his bike – and finds his party note with claw holes in it and all the fridge magnets are having some pretty weird magnetic affects… which isn’t quite as spooky as the earthquake.

Back to Parrish who manages to call for help even with huge ragged holes in his chest – but the radio doesn’t work. Lydia comes for him instead and gropes his wounds… ew? She also almost kisses him before the whole hallucination fades as Sherriff Stilinski finds him. He takes the deputy to the hospital where Melissa points out the sheriff was supposed to be keeping him on desk duty (she’s in on this as well? This may be due to him being set on fire last season and not being overly bothered by it). Parrish wakes up with ominous glowing yellow eyes – and his wounds all sealed – Melissa eases down the Sheriff’s gun arm because she’s totally used to all this by now and is awesome.

Parrish describes the ominous life-draining werewolf which means he may actually be able to steal a True Alpha’s powers (apparently, known for REASONS, True Alpha powers are non transferrable usually- which makes me wonder how non-true-alphas even come about). This is all conveniently overheard by Liam.

Anyway Scott gets his bike and goes to collect Kira in the rain so they can make out in the middle of the traffic jam (and be watched by ominous guy Kira already saw who is definitely going to be relevant). Their make out move to a covered bridge – and is interrupted by new werewolf guy.

Stiles and Malia look at the party and Malia is far too stressed about maybe not passing summer school and Stiles is totally stressed because he’s really concerned about losing all his high school friends since he spoke to his dad and he’d lost touch with all his highschool friends and Stiles is terrifid of doing the same, especially given Stiles’s habit of obsessively overthinking things. Stiles wants to keep his friends because they’re the best people he’d ever meet. Liam arrives now (and is put on the floor by Kira) to warn them about Scott

Who is fighting new werewolf with Kira (who has an awesome new belt katana) who hilariously finds the ONE PATCH under the bridge that lets in water to stand in and look dramatic (I can only assume the director didn’t expect that wide angle shot to show that). Super wolf knocks Kira aside and challenges Scott – but despite all this supposed True Alpha power, Scott and Kira are pretty helpless and needs rescuing by another wolf – the guy from the traffic jam. He does a little better before also being knocked aside and Scott gets those electro-claws stabbed into him.

Scott falls to his knees while everyone… poses dramatically around him (seriously, Malia, Liam and Stiles have just arrived as well. There are now 2 werewolves, a werecoyote and a kitsune there and they’re all kind of watching and looking dramatic while the music swells). This is, of course, so Scott can stand up and be epic (good guy rule – no good guy can win a fight without being beaten up in the first half. It’s like all good guys have Final Fantasy VII style limit-breaks), breaking electrowolf’s arm and ripping out his claws. Scott tells him to run away little wolfy – he decides to do that.

Of course now we have a new wolf to introduce- the guy is Theo and apparently an old friend of Scott’s since the 4th grade. He wants to join the pack. There is no way this is going to be that simple. Stiles is, of course, super suspicious (because he’s feeling all insecure about the friend thing) when Malia has the news she passed summer school – she is a senior! Celebrations – and Lydia joins them

The whole event involves initially and signing the shelves on the library – which gies Malia a moment where she decides what surname initial to use (she goes with T – Tate). Scott also adds AA – for Alison (hey someone remembered her!). We don't get to see Stiles's initials because they're still being cagey with his name - but he does stare moodily at "DH" Yes Derek Hale. Yes even when he's not on the show any more, Teen Wolf will keep poking their slashbaiting nonsense

At the police station a guy is brought in that the Sheriff recognises – he’s been in trouble before and the Sheriff tells him he’ll be looking at gaol time. He screams threats at the Sheriff who seems quite sad more than worried.

Electro wolf staggers away and begs some entity in a creepy lab for another chance for more power. People in ominous rubber coats and metal masks arrive looking all steampunk and scary. Really really scary in fact. I approve of these bioshock villains. One of them says, all robotic “your condition worsens” and that they’re under some kind of time limit They robotically repeat “no second chances” before stabbing him. Which causes ravens to fluy from his chest

Ok, maximum creepy has been achieved.

Back to the future and Lydia recounting all this to Aiden – who is a hallucination for a guy really trying to remember what happened: and we have more images of werewolves fighting each other (Liam and Scott?) and Melissa slapping Sheriff Stilinski and Kira driving away leaving Scott behind and Parrish walking through flames and Malia cowering from the desert wolf – and Stiles unconscious after a car accident

This is all very very ominous and the ominous doctor plans to drill into her skull.



  





Apparently the entirety of season 5A (yes this season will be split in two) is a flashback – the present is Lydia in Eichmen house – now we’re going back in time to see what led to her being there and declaring all her friends are going to die.

After several seasons of screaming and hiding, it looks like we’re continuing with Lydia being tortured/damselled/having her own head turn against her – but this time some skills and powers have been dropped on her.

I know this is supposed to be a cute joke, but can we not have Malia’s dad threaten Stiles with a gun for kissing his daughter? His daughter is a very capable and dangerous werecoyote who is quite quite capable of ripping Stiles into teeny tiny pieces, the already patronising protective dad act is even more ridiculous here.

I am glad to see Scott stepping into the Alpha role more both in terms of power and support for his pack mates – it’s nice to see the Alpha-label being meaningful in several ways (and, yes, he does need to kick arse as well).

I also really like Stiles's worry because it is very in character and it is nice to have some human worries among the supernatural drama

Do I even have to snark that one of the twins returns but the show actually finds it easier to bring the straight twin back from the dead then have Ethan, the gay twin return? And what does it say about my expectations for this season that I was totally unshocked by this?


This looks to be a good start for drama purpose….