Requiem: Teen Wolf

I will admit to not exactly being enthused when I first learned that an updated version of Teen Wolf would be hitting the airwaves. To be clear, I didn’t anything good could come of updating Michael J Fox’s cult hit Teen Wolf. Honestly before the first couple episodes aired I’m sure many had the same doubts.  Thankfully while the television series was at times filled with glorious cheese, it added a level of seriousness to the narrative and to the story in directions I could not have predicted based upon its inspiration. The characters may have been teenagers but the audience was absolutely meant to take them seriously.

The Good

Ok… I’m going to say something nearly everyone is going to call blasphemy…  but I like how Teen Wolf evolved.

I know, general commentary is how Teen Wolf was a cute, not-too-serious, campy with lots of eye candy fun show as it started in season 1 and then it went all down hill. I can’t follow that - yes, it started well - but fluff doesn’t last for 6 seasons. It would have been fun and light but it had the chance to become more and I think it actually ran with it - especially since it was backed by some really excellent acting. By moving to more than fluff we had the plot lines of the Nogitsune, the Alpha Pack. It got serious, it got dark and it even got epic and it was awesome because of that - it became way more than it originally looked and I applaud that

Of course the story wasn’t always coherent per se - but it was backed by an excellent cast and some really perfect core characters. Scott McCall, Stiles, Lydia and, as it developed, Malia and Melissa McCall were excellent characters, extremely well acted and a joy to watch. Watching Scott in particular grow through these seasons was something I loved - and why the last season annoyed me with them trying to replace the main cast with the painfully dull B team.

I liked the plot, loved the story, the cast and damn this show could sell atmosphere at times!

The Bad

Awesome characters and epic storylines are great… but the number of times those characters were dropped in the plot box, wandered off the show or never realised their potential was sadly equally common. Especially since, as we’ll get to, most of them were minorities. A lot of characters also just kind of drifted round the edges - why was Parish around when he seemed so little involved. Did we need to bring Theo back? Did Peter Hale need to return? These felt clumsy, out of place, especially since they lacked the epic character connections everyone else had. While the show developed more and more epic storylines (which, again, I say was good and really did highlight the acting chops of the cast), we lost more of the relationships between the characters. Scott and Stiles, Scott and Deaton, Melissa and Scott, Stiles and Lydia - these all became less and less important as the seasons went on. Worse from season 4 onwards we saw more and more of the show trying to push the B team: Liam, Alpha heir-apparent (for some reason never really explained). I think the writers became more obsessed with setting up a potential spin off series than actually continuing the main plot with the main characters.

Teen Wolf, Season 6, Episode 20: The Wolves of War

Opening dramatic scene: we have a teenaged werewolf called Alec fleeing hunters when Scott and Chris rescue him in order to tell this super dramatic story full of drama.

So back to the present with Deucalion just being shot by many many bullets and everyone fleeing for cover. They’re joined by: Stiles (you knew he would be back. And yes with Derek - of course with Derek, they’re not giving up on that, ever. Both of them have amusingly different versions of who saved who and who carried who out of an FBI firefight). Ultimately it turns out rank amateurs with guns, at night, don’t do all that good against werewolves et al. Alas the good guys don’t seem to be murdering the people they beat. Good guys really need to work on that

With the remaining Hunters fleeing, that leaves Deucalion to make a big inspiring speech which is just a little bit too schmoopy. I mean Deucalion being all inspiring and heart rending? It’s Deucalion after all. He’s not fluffy. But we’re on lots of drama and epic here (which is really really really well done, I’ll be honest. Everyone gets a moment and it’s all kind of awesome, I admit, I like it).

Gerard calls to mock him and call the war on (and Derek speaks up confirming his presence which is terrible strategy) and he mocks Scott with his plans: he has Parrish and Rafael (Scott’s dad) and Jackson and Ethan all captured. And Liam is stuck in the hospital and he’s about to get ambushed and murdered. MUAHAHA Gerard is going to make Scott split up all of his pack trying to rescue everyone because he’s just too good and all divided they can be murdered. He mocks Scott because Gerard has such perfect strategy compared to Scott

Yeah yeah tactics and strategy. Here’s my counter:

When your army is made up nearly entirely of completely untrained amateurs with big guns fighting people who are most certainly NOT amateurs and have supernatural physical skills (and night vision) you need 2 things to win: Range and Numbers. Arranging to fight Scott’s army at night, in a hospital, school and mental institution - places with narrow corridors restricting numbers and lots of rooms and corners and cover and no nice long fields of vision are Not. Ideal. Location. Choices. Gerard, your strategy is terrible.

And three truck loads of hunters just got their arses well and truly kicked despite all their weapons because they attacked at close range at night.

I also want to know where all the other Supernaturals of Beacon Hills are? Over 6 seasons this nemeton place has managed to show off wendigo, werewolves, kitsune, just about everything but none of them appear to be around for this grand war. Hey the sheer number of supernaturals should be able to mass kill these hunters even if they’re all angry were-chinchillas.

Anyway, Scott is still holding on to the idea that humanity is basically good and just needs the Anuk Ite to remove its evil influence and then peace will reign.

Oh sweet, Summer child, bless his heart.

Time for a lot of fighting!

At the hospital, Mason and Corey have their token cameo, kiss - then realise after a whole damn season, that invisibility is actually damn useful and manage to hit a couple of hunters. Melissa wakes up Nolan - and can someone check if he’s supernatural? Because he was punched half a dozen times or more in the face hard enough to knock him unconscious without a split lip, a black eye, a nosebleed, a single bruise? Anyway, Melissa grabs him up to his feet, and roughly drafts him into the fight for the hospital. And she has a big taser which she’s more than willing to use.

Teen Wolf, Season 6, Episode 19: Broken Glass

As we head towards the season finale, Teen Wolf is trying to bring everyone back in again. And yes I kind of like the callback to all these characters and acknowledge that they’re out there (except Danny, who, of course, doesn’t exist) but at the same time it feels… shallow considering this is now the penultimate episode (and yeah, I’m now becoming actively pissed at the Werewolves in London episode since it’s apparent that tiny cameo that was shopped so heavily around LGBT media was IT. Seriously, this gaybaiting tease that this show has been pulling for years now is past old) and there’s no chance for any of these characters to have that meaningful an input. Why did we even have Stiles’s cameo in the first episode?

So now we have Chris pursuing urban legends to find Derek. Yay Derek, always a fan favourite. I’m not entirely sure why it’s so essential to find him or why Chris needs to devote so much time when everything is so dangerous, to hunting Derek down - beyond the blatant product placement of Derek’s car (really, Teen Wolf you are the worst show for advertising ever). Apparently Derek has some special wolfsbane - yellow wolfsbane I assume.

But I can get behind Derek because he’s a definite call back. But when Kate Argent shows up, shooting people and beating Derek so she can grab that wolfsbane as part of her grand epic revenge against Scott. Which is apparently a thing? I mean we haven’t seen her since season 4 and, as Chris points out, she’s a werejaguar so Gerard totally wants her dead - but revenge fantasy! 2 episodes is not enough time to have this distraction, especially when there’s no season 7.

At Beacon Hills everything is getting super dramatic. Tamora has a big scary speech for her growing army of serial killers who are infiltrating pretty much everything, preparing lots of lists of suspected supernaturals, threatening Sheriff Stilinski to stay out of it (I’d say of course he wouldn’t but he’s kind of fallen off the radar). She also still has Aaron imprisoned and Jackson is missing. Everyone is getting their ominous on and Mason (in his super brief cameo - hey Corey’s still alive guys! He’s the one with the oh-so-appropriate invisibility powers) makes a grossly appropriative comment about it being like Krystalnacht. No. No, we won’t be doing that. We won’t be invoking the holocaust to discuss the evil of supernatural oppression

Especially since this show has brushed up on and then casually dismissed the fact that Tamora does kind of have a point. All the deaths and attacks that have been covered up or called animal attacks? There’s an issue here - doesn’t make her not evil but it does mean comparing this to the holocaust is doubly problematic.

Teen Wolf, Season 6, Episode 18: Genotype

This episode something deeply tragic and horrifying happens - Liam’s hair. Did you run over your stylist’s cat or something, Liam?

In other news, Scott, Liam & co have found the bodies from last episode and assume the faceless body has now been possessed by the Anuk Ite. Or half of it. So now they need to discover who that body was so they can then find that person and stab it in the face with things. This is Scott and Liam’s job

They already know the other half of the Anuk Ite is wearing classmate Aaron’s face because of the blatant weird acting which should have been a clue some time ago. It is Mason and Theo’s job to hunt him down and give him a good stabbing

Ok, can we talk about these teams? Scott and Liam are investigating and doing thinky stuff - which sounds like a job for Mason. Theo and Mason are hunting and killing things which doesn’t sound like a job for human Mason, especially since, as Mason makes it clear to Theo, they don’t trust Theo and he may eat Mason.

Liam recognises the voice on the dead Anuk Ite’s phone as belonging to one of his teachers so decides to return to school (witnessed by Gabe one of Tamorah’s minions who has already tried to kill him) to try and test said teacher with wolfsbane and high pitched noises to prove that she’s actually a werewolf. She shows no reaction at all… but she does feel super guilty about being the worst teacher ever and allowing fellow students to try and murder him and all. Uh-huh because her guilt helps.

Eventually Scott and Liam just confront her and she keeps denying (though points for Liam saying she turns into a wolf every full moon which is interesting because only, what, 2-3 werewolves actually do that? He certainly doesn’t) but they push and get her to admit that she was calling her daughter, Gwen. Probably the skinless body… whose face the Anuk Ite is wearing

Unfortunately like many parents she goes into full denial that her daughter is actually dead and when Gwen arrives with lots of fear woo-woo, glowing purple eyes and an angry attitude she distracts Scott and Liam so she can go to her. This… doesn’t really work well for her.

But time to catch up with Mason and Theo, who have gone to the tunnels and know they’ve found Aaron because of the spooky fear aura (and also spend time with Mason telling Theo how everyone totally hates him). They find Aaron, who knocks them both down and injures Mason (Theo can’t take Mason’s pain - because to do that you have to care. Snarky). Theo does manage to stab his claws into the Anuk Ite several times.

Teen Wolf, Season 6, Episode 17: Werewolves of London

After the hail of bullets last episode there is a definite concern as to which quasi-expendable character actually died. The good news is none of them died. But Melissa, Lydia, Mason and Rafael has all been hit and need medical attention though none seem on death’s doorstep (this may change for more pathos)

Melissa, on her hospital bed, insists that Scott needs to fight back. Malia is onside for this.

Especially since no-one else seems to be doing much. Even the sherriff’s attempt to convince Tamorah that Gerard is a bad guy fails - he shows off all of Gerard’s crimes but she only sees cover ups by the police (partially accurate but simplistic). And decides that Gerard being a ruthless monster is useful because it will mean he will win.

“Gerard is willing to sacrifice everyone” is apparently a great sales’ pitch because all the police now kick out the sheriff and are on team Tamorah

And again I ask what has happened to the greater rule of law. An FBI agent has just been shot and an entire police department just rebelled - again, don’t tell me it’s to “preserve” the secret. There’s no way larger federal bodies are going to spend one millisecond listening to stories about werewolves in between the shooting people on general principles.

Scott and Malia go on a recruitment drive… first step is Deucalian. Yes, Deucalian. Alas, Deucalian has, in Malia’s words, taken a vow of uselessness (he’s a pacificst). And neither Scott’s exhortations to protect others nor Malia’s snarky needling will convince him differently. He’s afraid of what he may become if he starts murdering again

Interesting. He’d become interesting.

He’s there just for advice. Which he doesn’t actually give beyond telling them to “lower their standards”. Scott snarks that they already did coming to him. So what’s lower?

That would be Peter. Peter is living the high life with lots of money and fancy houses and 2 big expensive cars. He doesn’t really want to sign up for a war… and as much as I hate to say it he has a point. He has a hunter imprisoned - gives said hunter a big scary gun and lets him loose. Scott disables him… without hurting him. And after trying to talk him down.

Scott cannot fight a war if he won’t kill. Scott can’t keep on keeping his hands clean like this. I agree with Peter. All these hunters happy to take down supernaturals would be a mite less happy if they started dropping in huge numbers

Teen Wolf, Season 6, Episode 15: Triggers

I hereby call this episode: For Fuck Sake Kill Them. KILL THEM

Team Good Guys get with the killing! Seriously this war would be over so quick if everyone would actually start murdering a bit more. Go more murders.

Rafael is in town but beyond making Nolan even more nervous. He doesn’t want to get the FBI involved for reasons… no don’t tell me about the FBI finding werewolves. Don’t tell me for a second the FBI are going to hear about an armed mob attacking a police station and decide that “werewolves” are what needs investigating here.

Things are still tense at school, with the students all getting more and more paranoid and everyone walking around with cut hands as proof they’re human and not supernatural since they’re not healing. Poor Edgar, the werecoyote, tries to avoid them and gets killed by the Twofaced monster guy who fills him with horrible spiders. Well, doesn’t quite kill him, but leaves him twitching until Tamorah gets minion #2 Gabe to throttle him to death. Yup, at this point Tamorah has gone beyond irredeemable. She also expects the twitchy Nolan to prove his murdery loyalty

Rafael also investigates Gerard and finds he has an armoury full of many many many many weapons - Rafael is worried and hurries to Melissa to demand to know where Scott is. Melissa perfectly snarks back - Rafael has known about the supernatural for 5 minutes, Scott and co have been saving all of them for years. Step back Rafael, trust Scott.

They do have a plan… a rather simple plan.

That involves Liam and Theo briefly using Mason to lure Nolan, and hopefully an army of hunters, to the abandoned zoo (chosen by Liam as part of his apparently nifty beta planning skills). It doesn’t quite work as the hunters don’t trust Nolan’s capacity so Theo and Liam make it sound real by fighting and screaming names. Mainly because they both hate each other. It does work and Theo and Liam should leave but don’t because Liam has Issues with Nolan and nearly kills him. Instead he breaks his hand rather than beating Nolan to death

I am unsure why beating Nolan to death would be so bad.

Theo eventually drags him out and points out that Liam has to be think more broadly if the zoo was going to trigger is rage. The fear monster is making Liam’s anger issues even worse: he needs to be better at that. I’m still kind of bored of the whole setting up Liam to be Scott’s successor.

Gerard was focused on Liam because he’s so special and a beta and super special to Scott because specialness. Yes special.

While the hunters are distracted, Chris, Lydia, Malia and Scott plan to raid the Armoury of weapons, with lots of ominous visions from Lydia of broken glass and bullets.

Scott and Malia break in - but it’s quickly clear that the whole armoury is a trap - with no guns, but an ominous map (why leave this in your trap? Whyyy?) and a lure of Jiang and Tierenen’s body parts to make sure Scott and Malia walk into it. The doors slam shut and lots of motion sensors buzz - if tripped they’ll remove all oxygen from the room. And yes, werewolves need oxygen.

Teen Wolf, Season 6, Episode 15: Pressure Test

Tension in Beacon Hills are getting higher with the fear demon fleeing from the Wild Hunt and causing all kinds of shenanigans

Firstly we get the return of an old character, Theo. Who should have been murdered by angry hockey-playing weremoose several seasons ago. He has been captured along with two other werewolves from Saotome’s pack, Jiang and Tierenan. They’ve been captured by Schrader, a former worker at Eichenn House and brutal sadist. Honestly this may have nothing to do with the fear monster since he was pretty awful to begin with. He tortures the three of them for funsies for a while - and there’s something especially creepy about a torturer who doesn’t want money or information or a confession - just torture. Of course they’re werewolves and the bonds holding them give out before they do - we can assume this is the end of this guy

This puts Theo the Awful with Jiang and Tierenan and him offering to show them to Scott’s since Soatome is dead and they have no pack. Except on the way Sheriff Stilinski stops them and arrests them all for murder.

Murder? I mean I’m not even shocked with the bodies raining down, but this whole thing is getting very public

Theo quick gets the other two to implicate themselves on camera since they did the actual killing (hunters with lots of claw marks) getting Theo released, though Jiang and Tierenan claim self-defence.

Which is when Scott and co show up to argue for their release on the grounds that, well, basically a werewolf killing hunters is kind of the hunters getting what’s coming to them. And, y’know, not entirely wrong? Of course Sheriff Stilinski makes it clear that they’re still people and murder is still murder

And then things get worse because Tamora gathers an entire mob of people with guns to lay siege to the police station. Which is a police station so is also full of people with gun. Tamora demands the police hand over Tierenan and Jiang for murder

Scott rallies his people ready for war - and the Sheriff gets in between them along with Parrish to encourage everyone to be nice and peaceful and calm - and delay until midnight.

He could call for help being police and all but that pretty much ensures exposure for the supernatural. Sheriff Stilinski is kind of awesome through this, calm, rational, careful.

Teen Wolf, Season 6, Episode 13: After Images

Let’s start with the main background menace that is underpinning this season - the essence of fear. Everyone is becoming more spooked, more freaked out. We see this first with Mason who has been hit hard hard; he keeps seeing that skinned body over and over again, like it’s literally there in front of him (some woo-woo also had Liam expressing an interest in Mason’s life - definite woo-woo).

That skinned body is now in the morgue and as Melissa tries to take samples she is overcome by terror. And things moving. And flickering lights and hellll no she’s out.

She calls Argent to do the body poking for her. I could make a comment about the problem of a woman calling a man to go in danger but hell no, I’m totally team Melissa here. In fact I wouldn’t be outside the door I’d be three towns over skyping him to guide him what fleshy bits to cut.

But even the manly man Chris Argent is overwhelmed by terror and flees the room. Together they recognise this terror is pretty supernatural and they manage to go in together with a gun and science talk to grab a sample - though it turns out that sample is nothing. No cells, no DNA - nothing… also the fear may have reduced but it’s still there

This can be cured by flirting and Melissa encouraging Chris to stay and Chris being a bit faster on the uptake

There’s also Brett on the run. He’s desperately trying to escape Tamorah and Gerard - with Gerard giving Tamorah a sadly very very very very good masterclass on becoming a monster hunter.

Brett’s sister, Lori (and am i the only one who thinks all these random extra werewolves should have been more present before now) discovers Brett’s blood stained lacrosse stick and recruits the gang to help her find her injured brother

They try Lydia to see if she can get a vision and manages to get a cryptic message of “68” not helpful psychic banshee powers - but Mason and Corey are so very irritating that she decides to wander off alone to have a vision. In the school. At night. But not alone because like half the school decides to wander around the library at night. Beacon Hills high school. Do none of these people have survival instincts?!

Mason and Corey hit the library because EVERYONE MUST HANG AROUND THE DEATH SCHOOL AT NIGHT! And there shady totally-released-by-the-hunt-guy whispers in Nolan, a student’s ear, about Corey - and how he can totally vanish and reappear. Nolan decides to weirdly join them to talk about people changing and if it’s possible. This is supposed to be some veiled reference at shapeshifting which makes Corey super nervous as it continues and Mason super bemused

I join Mason in the bemused- because Corey isn’t a shapeshifter. Except Malia and Derek, very very very few of the characters on this show actually count as shapeshifting - heavy brows, need of a shave and mega manicure are as shapeshifty as people get. And Corey doesn’t even do that much: when everyone else was getting the cool killing powers he got the “run and hide!” specialty as we noted before.

Teen Wolf, Season 6, Episode 12: Raw Talent

So we have a weird and much more depressing spiderman origin story. A super hot guy is sleeping in his car, constantly being moved on by the police day after day after day after day until he is bitten by a spider

The spider climbs under his skin - and he has to cut it out. Which is more than a little creepy - and then the police who are moving him on shoot him for no apparent reason. Before dying he considers calling Scott. I have a feeling I’m supposed to recognise him.

Mason reminds us that something scary has been released by the Wild Hunt  - which also comes with someone being covered in spiders. Icky icky icky. But also there’s lacrosse to play, a brief reminder of hot guys but mainly we’re focused Liam’s ongoing difficulty controlling himself and lots of supernatural shenanigans on the lacrosse field. One point of note is Brett telling Liam he is becoming dangerous to other people. All of this is watched by Tamorah.

Mason, Corey and Liam end up in the school in the middle of the night because everyone does. I mean, seriously, more people have died in this school than most battlefields but everyone just loves walking the halls at midnight. There they find a skinless body in the bathroom (like the fourth in this bathroom this month; they’re not even shocked any more), they assume it’s extra, Aaron, a fellow lacrosse player who is instead sat in the dark in an empty classroom thinking about tomorrow’s history test

No-one thinks this is creepy. To be fair this is Beacon Hills

Scott is having his own creepy time - finding an Argent bullet has left him jumpy, being hunted by the Argents seems to be a very real fear that has lingered with Scott - so much so that when he is found by Sheriff Stilinski and the deputies he attacks the sheriff, glowing eyes and all, before he realises what he did.

Lydia and Scott tell them about the dead hellhound (Parrish is especially disturbed that Hellhounds can be killed as this has been proven to be… challenging) but don’t mention the bullet.

This brings us one of Malia’s awesome scenes:

Lydia: you say anything about the Argent bullet

Scott: Nor did you

Malia: Neither of you did. Wait. Was I supposed to say something?

Malia is much more fun when not embroiled in a romance, her slightly alien way of thinking is really well acted.

They decide to speak to Chris Argent first - and head to his bunker. To find lots and lots and lots of bullets and a brief horror he may have started hunting again (and Malia tries to hack his laptop which is hilarious. Of course the password is Allison).

Teen Wolf, Season 6, Episode 11: Said the Spider to the Fly

Teen Wolf is back after a long hiatus and we begin the new half-season of “desperately trying to sell a spin-off”

Yup, this whole episode is covered in lots and lots of passing the baton on to Liam the oh-so-apparently-special? I don’t see it, I’ve never been a fan of the B team. I’m not saying they’re TERRIBLE, but they’re also very very very much the B team. I actually think that Liam in particular would have had a much much much better chance of being a decent, interesting character if he didn’t have more DESTINY thrust on him than a middle-rate high fantasy hero.

Which begins from the beginning at Lacross with Scott now assissatant coach with actual Coach being absolutely hilarious as ever - while Liam is moping and moping because Hayden left and everyone is leaving and going to college and waaaah. Mason and Corey are there to support him - hey did you think Mason and Corey being a couple would give them their own main presence? So far it looks more like Liam gets an extra sidekick

Liam is also having control issues, again.

There’s also an actual wolf on the pitch which Liam and Scott follow - to find an entire pack dead and infested with bugs in a total creepy kind of way

Scott isn’t particularly taking this seriously as he wants to leave town and head to college so is desperately dredging up rational explanations. Malia is even less willing to help - she is going to Paris and has no intention of being dragged into anything else.

We also have lots and lots of rats being creepy and scary and forming a rat king. Mason and Corey again take this to Malia who declares this not her problem. She’s going to France. This is THEIR problem now. They even take it to Melissa who does not want rats in her hospital very much.

Melissa is one person Scott does worry about since it’s a very very dangerous in Mystic falls and he wants her to learn the art of tasering things to defend herself

Which seems weird because the taser isn’t powerful enough to really hurt him and we’ve met at least 2 other monsters which are pretty electricity proof.

Melissa, instead, has lots of potions and herbs.

Lydia also worries about her mother, the headteacher, but she’s less worried about her safety than she is that someone be aware of the supernatural people in the world - and the supernatural kids in the school. I think this is a good insight into both Lydia’s compassion but also the nature of a Banshee - a being that is about seeing the dead and trouble other people face. But Victoria Martin is clear - with Lydia thousads of miles away, this is not her problem.

Time to visit our least favourite mental institution, Eichen house, where another supernatural has been imprisoned but not very efficiently. Bursting through the frozen cell and the volcanic stone he’s encased in, Halwyn, the Hellhound bursts free after being locked up for 100 years.

We’re also introduced to Tamora, the new guidance counsellor who seems to know a little bit about the supernatural the teens face

At the hospital there  There’s a police call and Halwyn, the hellhound has shot the dispatcher so hears where Parish is.

Another Hellhound

There’s visions and hallucinations and definite woo-woo between the two of them. It also seems to revel in the pain and heartbeats of everyone around them - but is most distracted by Liam. He hears Liam’s heart when Liam nearly loses control and tries to attack him - only a closing lift saves Liam

Back to Lydia and we have eerie Banshee visions of spider web, shadows, screams, combat and gunfire and clear words.

“You let it out”

Teen Wolf, Season 6, Episode 10: Riders on the Storm

This episode should have been epic, it has many of the elements that would make it all epic and parts of it were.

But it was also distracted as all the characters who have been disappearing kind of came back and split up into little groups and all did their own thing and sure I like most of them (but my gods why are Liam and Theo still around?) but there wasn’t a huge amount of coherent addition to the plot so it’s kind of distracted. Also, I have an utter pet hate about power fluctuations and for the whole season the Hunters have been near unassailable but now we regularly see individual cast members happily taking on small armies Hunters. It’s a real pet hate for me. If something was invulnerable you can’t just de-invulnerable it because it’s convenient.

But one of those disjointed moments? When we see Melissa and Chris. Now everyone knows I love Melissa and Chris. And Melissa and Chris kissing was awesome. But did they add anything@

Even Stiles confronting his mother’s weird mental creation thing. It was emotionally amazingly satisfying to see Noah stand up for his real son, oppose her save Stiles. But it also kind of took stiles out of the main battle to actually achieve anything and since a cornerstone of this whole plot has been, save Stiles Save the World (or something similar) it was unsatisfactory to me to have him not actually play that huge a role in this actual episode.

So, Stiles is back – pulled across with Lydia’s awesome emotional connection to and there’s a brief moment where they fear it’s all gone wrong. But Malia applies her special brand of logic: Lydia thinks it worked, Lydia isn’t wrong so it must have worked. Simple. They go looking

While Stiles escapes from the Hunt via portal and the intervention of his dad (because Noah is always awesome), he arrives at his jeep (his actual relic which makes sense). He goes looking for Scott

While Scott is dragged around by Liam the very annoying. It seems Garrett’s plan to control the hunt means merging the hunt world with this one which means the entire of Beacon Hills becomes lots of train stations with lots of tracks around. Ok this metaphor is being stretched a little…

… Garrett leaps in with backup hellhound but Stiles intervenes nicely to prevent Liam and Scott from being incinerated (can’t Liam be a little incinerated?) with some fun snark (“Bad guy, right, I didn’t misread that?”) before reaching for the liquid nitrogen to de-flame Parrish (and his damn asbestos underwear) while not causing Liam severe injury via freezing chemicals. This stops Parrish being a Garrett stooge and then he’s pushed away to parts unknown – and will someone please try to define a role for the hell hound other than “convenient plot power that does whatever we need him to”? Lazy writing guys, super lazy writing

Teen Wolf, Season 6, Episode 9: Memory Found

Confrontation time – and nearly everyone has now been disappeared to the Wild Hunt Station. Including Noah Stilinski

Yet Liam and Theo are still running around. It’s like the Hunt wants us to suffer.

They fight the hunt to keep it busy – and manage to do this all episode. All episode. Seriously the most dangerous, skilled fighters in this entire town have lasted no more than 10 seconds but Baby Wolf and Traitor Who Should be Dead manage to fight them for a whole episode?! They actually engage in wrestling.

And Theo sacrifices himself. Because of course he does. Don’t even pretend this character is good now because his murder dreams of his sister make him feel guilty.

Now to characters we care about

Last episode Scott, Malia and Lydia realised the best way to get Stiles back (and, hopefully, save the world) was to remember him as much as possible

Memories involve near death experiences. Apparently. This is how memory works now.

In this case they’re going to freeze themselves nearly to death and hope this induces a hypnotic state and allows them to then access their memories: with Lydia guiding Scott and then Malia’s memories

This leads us to a lot of powerful flashbacks to some of Teen Wolf’s past awesome emotional connections. Including that almost suicide scene. For the inevitable clip show episode it didn’t do so badly, it wasn’t that gratuitous and it was actually quite effective. They discover it’s less about memories and more about emotional connection.

Doesn’t leave me much to write given we’ve spent several years recapping Teen Wolf, though.

Teen Wolf, Season 6, Episode 8: Blitzkrieg

Time for a Garrett/Hauptman history lesson. Turns out he’s a Lowenmensch – a wolf/lion man (I wonder if this is a mistake and what they meant was just lion man?) and a Nazi – yes as in World War 2 Nazi rather than the modern Alt Right kind – who wanted to enslave the Wild Hunt to turn into an army for Hitler

Honestly, in supernatural worlds, the Nazis never had tanks – just oodles and oodles of occultists trying to summon bad things.

It didn’t go well for him or his unit which were all massacred by the annoyed hunter

Except him who was wounded by the Hunt and got one of those green-infected nasty wounds. He didn’t give up on grabbing the Hunt and went looking for some scientists to help. Unfortunately for him those scientists were the Dread Doctors who promptly put him in one of their vats to do nefarious things with him. He spent several decades gently simmering in dread doctor goo, with a base of Wild Hunt Poison and a dash of general evil turning into something super powerful and deadly. Yes a marinating Nazi recipe, I was going to make a Paula Dean quip but there was no indication of butter being added at all

How does the gang learn all this? Because of the B team showing their usual common sense. After a brief moment where Mason mourns Cody and is shocked that he only has pics of Mason in his phone (Hayden: That means he loves you Me: That means the show didn’t develop him enough to have hobbies, friends, family or be anything other than Mason’s +1 who in turn is little more than Liam’s +1 but still points for showing mourning). Most of the Town has now been taken by the Hunters now and everyone is all despairy – but Theo claims to know all this about Garrett because the script says so. Y’know, for beings that barely spoke the Dread Doctors were damn chatty behind the scenes

He is willing to divulge all of this if the B team will destroy Kira’s sword so he can’t be trapped again. I think this is a shitty thing to do without speaking to Kira or Noshiko first. I also think it’s pointless – yay they won’t trap you under the floor any more – but I’m sure Malia will happily beat you to death. Is that better?

After these revelations the Wild Hunt shows up – Mason is quickly vanished. Followed by, after a long dramatic moment in which this show insists on trying to make me care about Liam and Hayden, Hayden is also taken. Liam runs off alone.

Chris and Melissa are still trying to track down Garrett – since they’ve been on the Pineal gland murders for a while. He finds them, sadly, and all enhanced he is more than a match for an Argent. He demands to be shown where Parrish is – since he wants a Hellhound – and then Melissa and Chris are also green gassed out of there. This show’s filling up that train station. So many have gone we just know they’re all going to be rescued – there’s just too many for them not to. It kind of detracts from the tension of it – because we know these losses aren’t going to have consequences

For reasons unknown, Parrish is now a servant of Garrett. Green gassy glows may be involved. Which sounds terrible when I write it out.

Teen Wolf, Season 6, Episode 7: Heartless

So we have Theo having guilt nightmares of woman ripping out his heart over and over – his sister Tara who he kind of/sort of killed.

It goes on for a long time and would be tiresome. But I kind of hate this character and that he’s not Kira, so bring on the heart ripping! More heart ripping! More!

The downside? In TVlandia someone feeling all guilty is normally the first step to putting them on a very fast moving redemption train which will quickly have everyone accepting him as a good guy.

At least that isn’t happening just yet, because Malia is happy to beat him blood and murder him – oh lots and lots of murdering – and Scott is quite a fan of putting him back in the ground

However Liam and Hayden have decided that they totally need him because he claims to know about the Wild Hunt with little reason for them to believe it. But we’re going with it anyway because this show is determined to drag us through this whole passing-the-torch meta with Scott setting up Liam as the new leader for a new cast. I guess I could get it when they initially floated the idea that they envisaged either spin off or the whole series to kind of transform and transition

But this is dead in the water – because Liam and Hayden are just so very very very very very boring and not even remotely compelling. This is the last season of Teen Wolf, there is no indication of a spin off and if there were, a spin off of Liam and Hayden would be about as popular as whatever trainwreck Sleepy Hollow is planning for this season.

This means we have this whole episode with Liam and Hayden putting forward ideas and being present and involved when really they could just be ripped from the plot line and their parts be passed to Scott and Lydia and us not having to deal with the writers trying to make Baby Wolf not only relevant but in charge. I’m finding the whole heir apparent thing annoying especially since his ideas are not exactly special – but they’re presented as such

Also “do you have a better idea” is NOT a reason to do an absolutely stupid thing guys, it really isn’t.

Anyway, rant aside this why we have Theo around while they design their Wild Hunter trap. Which is basically exactly the same as the trap they had before only with bigger equipment. Why is Theo here again?

Surprisingly, the trap works and they manage to capture themselves a wild hunter and then have absolutely no plan on what to do with him when captured. And only belatedly remember these things tend to run in packs so it’s only a matter of time before another guy shows up to rescue it. Oh, also, it doesn’t speak English

This is not a good plan