It is the season finale of Bitten and I am SO FRUSTRATED!
This finale pretty much sums up everything about this series
that has annoyed me. We see glimpses of the storyline I would love to see
developed, that would be so much more interesting that would lead to so much
more character growth – but instead we get a lot of rushing and fight scenes
and the interesting elements feel completely unsupported and falling apart
because there isn’t enough plot there to make them believable.
So, let’s rush past the action. The
Assassin-who-is-called-Albino-despite-that-being-super-offensive decides to
take Jeremy out in the woods to kill him and, after a little eye stabbing, he’s
killed by Clay and Alexei who is awesome at knife throwing and it would have
been nice if he’d used that skill a little before. Close this storyline! Y’know
I kind of question why the assassin had to have a twin if he was just going to
lurk around for a couple more episodes, doing nothing before also being killed.
The Russians and the show belatedly remember baby Rocco
and Rachel and decide to send some wolves to be killed by Nick using Rachel’s
creative home defences and Rachel using lethal neck snappy magic
Did I mention under-developed? Well here’s exhibit A.
This seasons only real POC character who has been appallingly underused all
season. She disappeared for episodes at a time despite having a fascinating
story of the human who knew about werewolves and then the witch going through a
grand discovery of her powers. What a waste of an interesting character! What a
waste of the only POC on the show!
Unfortunately all of the extras in the pack are being
hunted by Konstantin’s Russians (he’s the new Russian alpha), he wants to
conquer all the werewolves in the world which he may be able to do as his pack
seems to have 8 gajillion red shirts. They go hunting Karl Marsden and Extra
Dude and Extra Dude #2 all of whom are literally willing to DIE rather than
betray Elena since she has been Alpha for, what, a day? Maybe 2? This is what I
mean by under developed storyline. We could have had some episodes looking at
Elena becoming the beloved knew alpha, we could have seen her earning their
respect, their loyalty, winning them all over and creating this pack of extras
willing to die for her.
Faced with complete annihilation and with Konstantin demanding
she turn up, Elena decides to go for her master plan. A plan which also covers her
ongoing concern with how werewolf society works and how much they’re all
suffering because of the secret they all have to keep. So she launches her
master plan – with Sasha volunteering to take her place to save her life since
she can’t shapeshift at the moment after her injuries last episode
Now, when they said that to her last episode I was
surprised because, as I said, absolutely no-one on this show is shapeshifting.
Seriously, season 3 could have been about the mob for all the wolfiness we saw.
But no, this matters
Because as Elena is taken in front of Konstantin and
demanding he back down or she nukes them all, Sasha and Paige go to a town
meeting – called because of the recent deaths in the county (including the ex-police
chief), all killed to try and keep the werewolf secret
In the middle of that, Sasha turns into a wolf
Ok, I get that Elena’s back is somewhat to the wall here –
but can we examine the timing of this? The whole meeting is about the mysterious
deaths CAUSED BY WEREWOLVES and now is the time you want to show your wolfy
selves to the world
Crowd: We have a lot of mysterious deaths and vanishings
here
Pack: Werewolves exist!
Mayor: There is no way these two facts could be
connected!
I mean, Elena even says that Konstantin better let her go
because he’ll be tried as a human now if he murders her – what, those same
humans who are now going to investigate your pack for the many many many
murders?
And what’s this “you will be tried as a human?” What nonsense is this? It’s not like he had werewolf immunity before! The reason he got away with his many many murders before was because they hid the bodies! They didn’t even kill people in wolf form, it was guns, knives, stranglings and neck snapping. Being a werewolf had absolutely nothing to do with how they hid the bodies, how the people were killed or anything similar. Knowing about werewolves is not going to make it any easier to investigate the murders!
Now the threat to reveal every member of the Russian pack
to Moscow may be more powerful – but why hasn’t the Russian pack established more
ties and connections in Russian than the American pack?
Add to this we then have the mayor reaching out to touch
the sweet little wolfy… I mean even if he has never ever seen a werewolf movie
he should still know this is a bad idea. Never mind werewolf, it’s a WOLF, not
a stray chihuahua trembling in the corner! I get we’re supposed to see a
contrast between the mayor wanting to hug an apex predator while the suspicious
police officer shooting him (Sasha dies… in the mayor’s arms. Seriously the
mayor acts like Sasha is his best friend from childhood or even his husband
there’s so much emotion there).
It all seems more than a little bizarre… this whole plot
line could be fascinating and I’d love to actually see more of how werewolves
adapt to this new world. In fact, scratch the last 3 season – Bitten’s story starts NOW! The plot
lines for this are far more fascinating than we’ve seen so far! But Elena and
Clay are treating this as a happily ever after, everything is resolved. She
burns down the house to hide all he werewolf records from the authorities (and
maybe their murderous legacy. Behold, prophecy fulfilled. The prophecy is
awful). We have some radio news vaguely telling us about what is happening in
the world but no real touching on this huge societal change. How can the story
end here? This is when things should epicly change! We get this now after
wasting so many episodes on the damn Assassin?
I don’t think there is a season 4 so this really has
ended, that’s just kind of sad really. Also sad is the terrible lack of
diversity – the only Black character, the only POC, is Rachel who spent most of
her life in the plot box. Paige and Rachel, when they first managed to show
themselves, were only very briefly appearing before vanishing again and leaving
Elena I an almost all male team. Oh there’s Katja who dies, of course. And
there are no LGBT people.
All in all, I’m sad. This could have been so much better
than it was.
