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 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 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 4: Relics

Melissa joins Chris Argent hunting in the middle of the night. And it’s a silly idea. It’s silly because she’s not a hunter, has no experience in this kind of thing and really can only be a liability without some more experience

And the show knows it’s silly. Openly acknowledges it – but neither the objective writing nor Chris belittle for this – while at the same time we’re nicely reminded of her medical skills to affirm that she DOES contribute to the group. But may be more involved this season – which can also be a good thing

Also Melissa and Chris are definitely on the way to a romance.

Less importantly, they find more bodies – and Malia. She didn’t cause the bodies but she is definitely continuing to have control issues. Something Chris decides to work on – and interestingly not linking it to her werecoyoteness; but to bloodlust. A bloodlust he remembers so well from his sister Kate who became such an utter monster: this is a nice twist because one of my many many many many loathings of the Argents for so long, including Alison, was how they bought into the idea of werewolves as monsters so completely. Nice call back Teen Wolf.

He recruits her to help defend the whole gang of teenagers who saw the Wild Hunt last episode and are now slated to vanish as well because of that. With Mason getting the idea that the Wild Hunt travels by lightning, during the next storm they gather nearly all the survivors in the Argent bunker, underground and warded, to be safe.

Sadly it’s almost all because some people won’t listen – including Gwen who is a POC in Teen Wolf and should really know better than to risk vanishing so much. Leaving Malia and Chris to guard the annoying teens (preferably without shooting them or tasing them, Malia), Scott and the B Team go to save the others who aren’t in the bunker

And end up playing Lacrosse. Because Teen Wolf

Teen Wolf, Season 6, Episode 2: Superposition

Stiles has disappeared for all of the feels – but you can’t just erase someone without leaving ripples

And this episode has a whole lot of excellent moments with the characters realising someone is missing

With Lydia this comes in the form of a whole lot of excellent woo-woo as her banshee powers continue to try and remember Stiles. She has lots of visions (including the weird image of a doctor in class so who even knows what that’s about) and memories and not-dreams since she keeps having them while she’s awake.

Malia is missing her boyfriend (and this is going to be just a bit shaky with Stiles and Lydia declaring their love for each other). The relationships – or sex life – she’s having is not nearly as satisfying for her and disturbs her sex partner with chains she has lying around. She’s also having real problem trying to control her werecoyote-ness (which, again, is going to be shaky with Stiles and Lydia love affair. Is Malia’s self control shaky because she has lost memory of all the moment with Stiles where she learned control – or is it based on their relationship?)

She also sees holes in her history. She remembers being chained up on the full moon – which she still does – but she knows Lydia didn’t do it. She knows Scott didn’t do it. So… who did it? She knows someone did.

Which brings us to Scott who has vast vast vast holes in his memory. From training with Liam to finding pictures with big holes in them. Culminating in him remembering the defining moment of the series – the night he was bitten. The night he and Stiles went amateur investigating in the woods.

Except without Stiles, why would Scott be there- with no interest in crime and no inside knowledge about them? And how would he get there? He doesn’t drive, he doesn’t have a car? There’s a great big hole in their lives

Between the three of them they realise someone is missing and turn to Deacon as the wonderful Mystical Black Oracle he is there with some woo-woo to tap into Lydia’s powers to have her write the name Stiles (by writing a collage of “mischief”).

Teen Wolf, Season 6, Episode 1: Memory Lost

Teen Wolf is back for a final season – so this had better bring the epic.

We begin with a continuation of the theme of Stiles from last season. He’s afraid of what he’s losing. College is looming, everyone is preparing to move on – and he’s going to be left behind. I think this is not just a comment on his insecurity and dependence on his friends but also worth noting that he’s the only non-supernatural there. If he’s separated from his friends by college he also very much faces being separated from the supernatural world, from supernatural reality

Which is probably why Stiles is super super desperate to try and stop supernatural threats in Beacon Hills… when, for one, there really isn’t one. He’s slightly irritating his friends though

Teen Wolf is also filling in time with lots of super dramatic slow motion reveals of supernaturalness.

Of course despite this, the supernatural is definitely real. Liam and Hayden discover a spooky car on a spooky road in the middle of a spooky night and they DON’T run for the hills

Really, some people are positively inviting serial killers to murder them

Instead they find a kid, Alex, in a car with a shattered windscreen and his parents missing. They call the police and Sheriff Stilinski, being a resourceful fellow, decides the best way to help the forgetful urchin be a useful witness is by stabbing him in the neck with werewolf claws

Not just for odd kiddy torture – remember one of the more unusual werewolf abilities on this show is for Alphas to be able to read your memories and risk complete paralysis by stabbing you in the spine. Could you at least wait an hour or two for the forensics to come back before we stab kiddies?

Reading memories Scott sees a horseman with a gun that shatters windscreens and enough strength to rip off a car door. He took Alex’s parents

Yet, all Scott seems to report from this memory is that a horseman with a gun took Alex’s parents. Which sounds very mundane to everyone…

Except Stiles, of course, who finds enough little clues to convince the rest of the gang who are trying to pursue some level of normality that something is afoot: namely that the shot windscreen shattered entirely from a bullet (unlike other examples of shot windscreens) and turned the glass green… which is not normal bullet behaviour

So time to examine Alex’s house (after school as Natalie, teacher and Lydia’s mother and made of awesome) won’t let Scott skip more class.

And it’s spooky. Very very spooky. So very spooky. Entire rooms are entirely empty, completely devoid of furnishings

Scott: Want to split up

Stiles: Absolutely not

Except on room – Alex’s room. Every room in the house but Alex’s own room. Yes it’s creepy. Pictures of the family only show Alex – his parents have been erased. So. Very. Creepy. They’re also joined by Mason and Liam who are following some weirdly acting compasses that are no longer pointing north – but to this house.

Sleepy Hollow, Season 3, Episode 15: Incommunicado

At the end of last episode the Hidden One decided he was officially done with everyone and he was going to take matters into his own hands – but killing the Witnesses himself.

So he attacks Ichabod – and Ichabod is completely helpless in the face of him. Y’know this would have been a much shorter season if the Hidden One had done this around episode 3.

However, it turns out the nifty little symbol Abbie has been loving is called the Emblem of Thura and it has the shiny ability to absorb evil god powers and create a prison to lock them up

That sounds good to be but there’s two down sides. 1) Crane is locked up with the Hidden One (where they then talk about Ichabod’s feelings, art, theology, Ichabod’s insecurities and the fact that being a Witness is hereditary. This is news to Ichabod. This is news to Ichabod despite him having found a Witness artefact in his family crypt. I mean, Witness paraphernalia being family heirlooms suggests a level of inheritance to me). And 2) The Hidden One is officially Not Pleased about being locked up and may nuke all the things to try and get free. Since no-one wants to be nuked this means we’re going to have an… unlikely alliance between Abbie and Pandora.

It’s tense to say the least, but the plan is to get Pandora to use magic from a dark monster of some kind and then direct it at the prison and open it up. The one snag is that when Sophie, Joe and Jenny go to capture a passing banshee, they end up having to kill it. Oopsie

Luckily they do have a second option – Joe has been having Wendigo issues. He’s very worried about becoming all monstery and hurting Jenny (not entirely unreasonable, though I think it’s equally likely he will go monstery and Jenny will have to kill him). This means he’s willing to volunteer to be the monster battery for Pandora – even if it means he may die. (Who here actually thought he might die? Nah, the plot armour is strong with this one).

Teen Wolf, Season 5, Episode 20: Apotheosis

 It is time for the Teen Wolf season finale, with the Beast running amok as Sebastian and everyone plotting to find a way to defeat him. Actually, it’s a little confused since it seems to bring together every plot line from every direction and I’m not super sure they all make sense, but hold on and we’ll try to grab them all.

The Argents have found the pike that Marie-Jeanne used to kill the Beast the first time (owned by one of the Dread Doctors who turns out to have been Marcus, Sebastian’s long lost friend which, I suppose, finally gives them a motivation for what they’ve done), now in nifty and portable sword-cane form. They have all their bags of tricks to stalk the Beast and give it a good stabbing

Scott & co are less willing to just murder Mason and want to bring him back – which they think they can do because they’ve dragged up some werewolf lore where you can make a werewolf turn human by saying it’s given name (wouldn’t that have been useful at some point in the last five seasons? Or this season). The only snag is a banshee has to do it. This out is brought to you from the department of ideas-pulled-out-of-writer’s-arses-at-the-11^th-hour.

The downside to that is one of Beastie Sebastien’s attacks hit Lydia and badly hurt her throat. No banshee powers for you! He also mauled Hayden’s abdomen because why not?

So they’re down one Lydia, but luckily Melissa steps up with cortisone which, in Beacon Hills, magically cures gaping neck wounds! Yay, Banshee is dragged out of her near death bed to be a weapon! Go Lydia! You already spent most of the season locked in Eichen House, we can’t bench you for the season finale as well.

So good plan? No, because Theo. Theo has decided to try and be relevant by killing Vicky, one of his extra-chimeras with chimera powers, to steal her abilities while Deucalion snarks on. Now powered up by all his chimera’s, Theo decides to interfere – his getting involved gets Scott Kanima’d (only the venom only lasts a few minutes which I’ll out down to Scott getting more powerful), Lydia gets dropped in a pit and Parrish the Hellhound, distracted by Lydia, gets knocked aside by the Beast

Which promptly slaps Theo aside – turns out Deucalion has been working for Scott all along and isn’t really blind (because of course the one actual disabled character in this show is going to be magically cured) and totally lied to Theo about stealing beast powers. He snaps Theo’s neck. No-one was sad.

Can we have a screeching halt here to examine this? Deucalion has been working with Scott all along? Since when? I mean, did he really recruit Deucalion (who has no reason at all to like Scott) to infiltrate Theo’s gang (remembering he didn’t even know Theo was an enemy for a long time) to lie to him about Belasco’s talons not working before Scott even knew they were a thing?

Teen Wolf, Season 5, Episode 17: A Credible Threat

So everyone is all worried about the Beast and not knowing what to do about it, especially since they don’t know how to find the beast. What they do know is the Beast is getting smarter, stronger and more powerful with each transformation. As Gerard points out, the Beast will get more powerful until it completely forgets whatever Chimera teenager it and becomes a monster through and through

Corey wants to run (which is pretty smart since he only cowers or gets terribly injured) but Mason wants him to stay because he doesn’t want to have to get to know the next replaceable gay token. He wants Corey to protect him (I’d laugh if this weren’t so very very sad). But Mason has a logic leap – the Beast appears near transmissions every time, the Dread Doctors are controlling the beast and summoning it with broadcasts. By making it transform more and more and more they are encouraging to become the super powerful monster.

Mason having an idea – excellent, maybe he is going to be around more than 2 seconds every three episodes? Nope, because Liam gets to explain this idea to the gang. Really, you couldn’t have Mason explain his own idea? A straight white guy had to present it to the group for more brainstorming? They can’t have him silently in the back of the room or something?

Anyway, having come to all these conclusions the then realise there’s a charity lacrosse match coming up which is going to be heavily televised. A crowd of people for the Beast to slaughter

Surprisingly they actually make the sensible decision and decide the match needs to be cancelled rather than insisting the game has to go off (honestly so many teen drama would have had the match go on no matter what). Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any sensible way to actually cancel the match, the Sheriff certainly can’t without a reason

The idea they come up with is, sadly, to rely on Coach Finstock to forfeit the match. The problem with this is a) I don’t see how forfeiting at the last minute will work since the crowd will be there and the media. And B) it relies on the random coach Finstock doing what they want.

Teen Wolf, Season 5, Episode 15: Lie Ability

So, last week, Theo decided it was a greater idea to lure in Parrish the Hellhound and his fireproof shorts. This plan has a terrible flaw – his little pack of chimeras has absolutely no way of stopping Parrish. Pretty much no-one has no way of stopping a Hellhound. The crew gets badly batted around though one does manage to briefly incapacitate him: leaving Valack free to run off with Lydia

Everyone’s plan is kind of falling apart now and we get a lot of desperate teaming up. Malia and Kira team up with  and Corey to help each other: Kira needs Josh to drain out all her excess voltage while Cory needs Malia to stop his pain so he can heal from his terrible Hellhound burns (is anyone even slightly surprised that Corey is, again, the most ineffective and pointless Chimera? This show hates gay people being actual useful integral parts of the plot).

Stiles and Theo, able to get past the Mountain Ash, work together to chase after Valack through the tunnels under Eichenn House, snarking along the way about what a terrible person Theo is while tracking Lydia’s screams.

Scott and Liam want to follow but there’s that pesky Ash everywhere – so Scott decides to seek an expert: Meredith (in a catatonic state). Always ready to be a useful, sacrificing tool (she so deserves better), she has Scott stab her neck with the memory claws so he can see Lydia about to pop and scream everyone to death and that the key to that is Parrish (why this need any advice

While doing this Liam fights off several orderlies including one big guy who is supposed to be scary because he’s big never mind Liam being a werewolf. Well, we have to give the werepuppy something to do.

Parrish can’t just yell “flame on” and charge into action – but a little homespun flamethrower and he’s good to go. Among the many many things that don’t stop a Hellhound we can also add Mountain Ash.

Valack has Lydia because he wants her to use her super scream to discern the name of the Beast so they can catch him while he’s still a teenager – and not transformed into his full and deadly power. He wants to do this by making her wear a Dread Doctor’s mask which tends to kill people – which is a bad idea. He misjudges Lydia’s screams though and ends up with his head rather gruesomely squished by banshee decibels – bye bye Valack.

Teen Wolf, Season 5, Episode 15: Amplification

We have the Beastie running amok and attacking the hospital and generally causing havoc with only one thing stopping him. Parrish. Ok Parrish doesn’t exactly WIN but since he apparently wounds the monster and turns it back human I think a case can be made for a strong draw.

The pack’s plan is to finally unite by rescuing their missing member – Lydia. She’s locked up in Eichmen house being tormented by Dr. Valack

Recap on Valack – Valack is the guy who was once imprisoned in Eichmen House with a hole drilled in his head who tended to terrify people by making them stare at the hole in his head. He now runs the place and he loves drilling holes in lots of skulls. This isn’t just a fun hobby, he does this to try and enhance the power of supernaturals. The weird part is that it actually works – yes supernatural beings all get super charged with a hole in their heads; now there’s a weird quirk, Of course that usually goes wrong (beyond, y’know, the whole hole in their head) and will go super wrong with Lydia – since she’s already damn powerful already. Supercharging Lydia will mean she hears all the deaths ever – which will be agonisingly painful causing her to unleash her Banshee scream at Adele-eclipsing volumes and melt everyone’s brain.

So it’s rescue time – which leads to a nifty plan involving the whole pack with little gems like Melissa still hating Liam because of the whole trying to kill Scott thing (hah, in line Melissa, I hated Liam before it was cool) and Malia’s awesome/terrible encouragement of Kira. I do like Malia’s complete social ineptitude and ferocious dedication.

I also have to kind of smile at the lampshading of Kira getting all her skills just magically dropped on her. Self-awareness like that can really work for a show’s cheese

They also get Parrish to play driver for both his authority and because he’s the only one who can actually go toe-on-toe with the beast.

The plan pretty much works out… sort of – except Theo and his Chimera gang also move in and they’re not stopped by Black Ash. They reach Lydia first – not that they care about Lydia but because they want Parrish and want to lure him in. Well... it works. And burny hellhounds also don’t care about Black ash. Or walls. Or doors. Now, Theo’s lured him I do wonder what he intends to do with him.

Supernatural, Season 11, Episode 11: Into The Mystery

This week we had a monster of the week episode which was kind of fun. I think that Supernatural does well to have some of these on a regular basis even if I would call it filler on most other series. Supernatural is so damn long – 11 seasons now – and so often uses GREAT BIG META that it really needs these random monster missions in order to remind us that the brothers are hunters, to hold on to the core of the show. They are hunters, not people who come back from the dead so often they could start a thousand new religions in between saving and imperilling the world. These stories remind us they are hunters, they are doing good things and are generally out there fighting the good fight

It leaves me little to say about the plot – the standard happens: monster, red herring, research, kill.

The introduction of Eileen was good – she’s a deaf hunter who wants to bring down the Banshee who killer her parents (with requisite “revenge won’t save you” speech which we always always always got. Seriously the genre needs to just copy and paste that and stop pretending it’s new). She is physically capable (unusual for any representation of disabled characters), she is knowledgeable about Banshee ways (she is not only equipped but shows Sam and Dean some of the skills she has for taking down the Banshee) and she (aided by Mildred) is the one who actually kills the Banshee. It was also nice to see a capable, skilled female character who didn’t need to be taught by Sam and Dean

And she lives. Yes I did expect her to become a corpse. She was a good character, capable and on part with Sam and Dean.

I think Mildred was interesting. In general the media doesn’t do well with the depiction of a sexual older woman: they’re often shown as pathetic or comic relief. While I think Mildred was meant to be FUNNY, I don’t think she was meant to be comic – she was meant to be fun. If we laughed it would be with her, if she was funny it because she was playing and having fun; and while Dean started out obviously uncomfortable to begin with, he warmed into it without him being repelled or horrified.

But the flip side and why I’m uncertain is would this be seen as fun and cute if she WEREN’T seen as inherently sexless and completely non-sexually-threatening. If she was seen as a valid sexual person making advances on someone who was uninterested would it be seen as cute?