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

Teen Wolf, Season 6, Episode 6: Ghosted

Last episode Stiles managed to communicate to the gang to check out the town of Canaan. Of course this also means confirming that Stiles existed – and prompting everyone’s memory to come back.

Being not terrible, Scott tries to tell the Sherriff (who, in the grand tradition of the Stalinski family has no firstname) that he has a son.

It’s a hard sell, but he can hardly not try can he?

Just in case people weren’t listening to Stiles, Lydia has some Banshee visions about a woman in the town of Canaan in the 80s. Canaan was inflicted with a terrible scourge – 80s fashions. Oh and the Wild Hunt attacking and making everyone disappear into puffs of green smoke. Except this woman who I wish to point out I totally called as a Banshee even before the screaming started.

Malia does some impressive research (but being so disconnected from, well, everything, doesn’t realise it) and it’s time for a road trip to a ghost town with convenient discarded, well preserved newspaper with the date 04/08/1987 which, given USians unique way of writing dates, means 8^th April 1987

Lots of spooky effects with some spooky hallucinations for everyone (I vote gas leak) which seem to be kind of sort of prophetic in some very not useful or defined ways.

In case the spooky deserted town isn’t spooky enough, the gang stumbles across Lenore, the woman from Lydia’s vision, the woman who wasn’t claimed by the wild hunt. She is super creepy and invites them all in for toxic lemonade which may date back to the 1980s (Malia drinks it, of course she does). She gets very excitable and the floor starts shaking every time someone tries to talk about the disappearing people which makes interviewing her somewhat awkward. Especially since Malia has her usual tact

She also has a small son, Caleb, who entertains them with home videos and obvious proof that he is waay waaaay waaaaaay too old to be this creepy little child. Why is it children are the creepiest thing ever? It probably says something disturbing about our species that children have the power to freak us out so completely. Is any species this scared of their offspring?

Anyway creepy child and/or his mother has the power to seal doors, stop werewolves from ripping off heads and even drown people – because that was how the kid died.

The kid is a ghost, his mother a banshee and Lydia manages to get through Lenore’s detachment by having a competitive screaming match. At the end of which Lenore realises she has been in a kind of limbo for 30 years

Teen Wolf, Season 6, Episode 3: Sundowning

The Wild Hunt is still up to their shenanigans, making another student disappear. Phoebe is gone and no-one remembers she ever existed except her sister – Gwen. Her sister who saw the Wild Hunt.

Which means she is next – unless the gang manages to save her. Which isn’t especially easily to do because even though Gwen lives in Beacon Hills she doesn’t believe in the supernatural and certainly not invisible memory erasing hunters.

How do they keep her safe? Follow her around constantly. And the people doing the following is the B team – Hayden, Liam, Mason and Corey. This will definitely not end well. Malia suggests they kidnap her. Scott says no. She insists. Scott says no. Scott ruins all her fun.

So why does this poor woman’s life rest on the B team? Because everyone else is much more involved with Stiles. His absence continues to leave ripples – especially as Malia is increasingly losing control and turns into a werecoyote during a test, much to poor Natalie’s concern who is so very much trying with all this supernatural stuff. Sherriff Stilinski deals with a coyote at school by encouraging Scott to growl at her. While Lydia much more sensibly suggests they get out of her territory and giving her chance to turn back. Lydia always talk sense

As they talk about Stiles in front of Sheriff Stilinsky, he fills in some gaps. Stiles is a family nickname, last used by the Sheriff’s dad. Of course, Scott & co want to speak to him and the Sheriff is vehemently opposed. Viciously, furiously opposed, quite surprisingly so.

Despite the normally very calm sheriff’s vehemence and talk about the fact he hasn’t even seen his dad in years, of course the gang decides to break in. And Malia decides to punch a nurse

Because she’s Malia. And so much fun.

They do find Stilinski senior who has advance dementia. And isn’t that nice. Questioning him isn’t very productive but Lydia pulls some useful tricks which if they were this consistently useful would be revolutionary for all the people suffering from this terrible condition. Using this very convenient clarity they discover… that Stilinski senior is actually a really really really really horrible person.