Teen Wolf Season 3, Episode 21: "The Fox and the Wolf" Recap/Review
Flashback episodes are tricky, because it's hard to give the flashbacks relevance to the present-day story line. Making good flashback episodes is actually something that The Originals does REALLY well, because the characters are ancient monsters who have made a shitload of enemies over the centuries, so the events that happened in the past always end up having bearing on what's going on in the modern day.
Unfortunately, "The Fox and the Wolf," which is not a BAD episode, kind of went the way of season 3A's "Visionary," in the way that as interesting as the flashbacks were, and as much as it made the current events make sense, it ultimately didn't do much to further the plot. However, we did learn quite a bit about Kira's family, and the flashbacks were seriously gorgeous, so it ended up being quite a nice break from the life-and-death drama before we end up exploding from the nonstop horror that will be the last three episodes.
Also, I am always happy to see television and films delve into historical events that aren't so well known, and the Japanese internment during World War II is an event that is tragically absent from most high school history classes, so I am thrilled to see a show with such a young demographic getting into it. It wasn't until I was in college and taking an African American Studies class called "History of Injustice in the United States" that I actually learned about what happened to Japanese-Americans during that time period. My professor, who was hands down my favorite and most memorable professor in my entire, long college career, made the importance of always remembering history VERY clear during that class, and I seriously believe that I'm a better person for it. So seriously, if you're out there, and don't know much about this subject, PLEASE research it! Hell, go to Wikipedia or something, even. As sad as the story is, you'll be better off for knowing it!
Anyway, enough of the lecturing, I'm gonna get off my soapbox and dig into this fine episode about foxes and wolves, okay? Let's do this!
Previously, on Teen Wolf: Stiles checked himself into Eichen House after the nogitsune took control over his body and tried to kill Scott. He also had MRIs done at the hospital that suggested that Stiles was developing frontotemporal dementia, which is the same chronic illness that killed his mother, which Sheriff took very hard. In Eichen House, Stiles met up with Malia and found the body of the nogitsune chilling in a sealed wall of the basement. Malia found a photo that seemed to be able to shed some light on the situation. Since the nogitsune feeds off of chaos, strife, and pain, he caused quite a bit of all three by getting Isaac electrocuted, torturing Scott with a ninjada, framing Derek and Chris for murder so they can't help the pack, and just generally being a shitstirrer. Also, Kira's mom suggested that the nogitune knows her, and informed Nogitstiles that if the oni couldn't kill him, she knows someone else who will, which probably means she's going to make Kira do it.
In the cold open, we begin with a flashback to 1943, where a huge military truck is driving out into the middle of the Californian desert. Two Army MPs hop out of the trunk once it's parked, and one of them immediately starts telling riddles to the other. "What gets broken without being held?" the brown-haired MP, whose name is Merrick, asks. The blonde MP, whose name is Hayes, doesn't give a fuck, but Merrick doesn't give a fuck about his not giving a fuck. "A promise! Get it?" Merrick sneers, as the two pull down the door to the trunk of the truck, and immediately start pulling dead bodies out of the cab to be placed in a pile a few yards away. "No, I don't," Hayes snits back. "It's stupid, and it's not funny. None of this is funny." He gestures to all of the dead bodies in the cab, but Merrick doesn't seem to be too disturbed by it. Spoiler alert: it's because he's a huge dick.
They continue to pile up the bodies outside the truck, as Merrick continues to tell Hayes riddles. "What has teeth, but doesn't bite?" (Answer: a comb). Hayes tells him his jokes are stupid, but they're not jokes, they're riddles, and Merrick claims his "girl back home" loves them. They start pulling out jugs of gasoline as Merrick asks, "What has a neck, but no head?" "Your mother," Hayes retorts, but the answer is actually "a bottle." Just as they're about to take the gasoline and cover the bodies with it, they see a bandaged body stand up on top of the pile. It's the nogitsune! Or at least, the form of it that has been harassing Stiles all this time. The MPs are naturally in shock as to how that could be possible, and when the nogitsune starts to walk toward them, Hayes takes out his gun and starts to shoot at him.
As you can guess, the bullets don't actually slow him down a bit, and it takes no time or energy for the nogitsune to catch up with him, turn Hayes's own gun on him, and shoot the remaining bullets into his gut. Then, he moves onto Merrick, who is desperately trying to get into the locked doors of the truck. The nogitsune grabs him on either side of his face, and growls, "What has a neck, but no head?" The answer to THIS one is Merrick, because the nogitsune fully PULLS HIS HEAD RIGHT OFF HIS NECK and casually throws his head aside before growling at the top of his lungs. Oh shiiiiiit! TITLE CARD!
We return to Beacon Hills High School, where Mr. Yukimura is in his empty classroom, presumably to get prepared for his upcoming classes. After he finishes writing notes on the chalkboard, he consults his own notes on his desk. He's distracted when he hears a fly buzzing around, and when it lands on his desk, he picks up a textbook and slams it down on the fly. Before he can get back to his classwork, a voice calls out, "Coming in on a Saturday? That's dedication!" It's Nogitstiles, who saunters in like he owns the place, and starts looking around the classroom. He seriously looks he hasn't slept in months, which is pretty accurate, really. Mr. Yukimura immediately tenses up, so it seems pretty safe to say that his wife has filled him in on the particulars of what's going on with Stiles right now. "Where is she hiding them?" Nogitstiles asks, but Papa Yukimura is pretty good at playing dumb.
"I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about," he replies calmly, as he watches Nogitstiles flip through various books on his bookshelf. "Her little knives," Nogitstiles purrs, as he throws a book onto the floor and grabs a new one. "The daggers? I know what they are. Physical representations of her tails." He flips another book onto the ground, and walks toward him. "However the hell THAT works," he adds as an afterthought. Papa Yukimura suggests that perhaps he'd like to do some research on Japanese mythology in the library, which is hilarious and ballsy, but Nogitstiles just shakes his head and says he'd rather talk to him. He continues to approach Mr. Yukimura, and playfully taps on the desks with his fingertips as he passes them. Lovers of Dylan O'Brien hand porn on Tumblr immediately lose their mind.
"The older the tail, the stronger the oni," Nogitstiles explains, mostly for our benefit. "Am I right? I know there's one left, and I know it's the strongest." Wait, I thought she had two left? When we first were introduced to the tails in "Letharia Vulpina," Mr. Yukimura exposited that Mrs. Yukimura (whose first name, Noshiko, I'm going to use for the rest of the recaps) had already sacrificed five tails before we even saw them. Then, we watched her break two more, to replace the oni that Nogitstiles already killed. That means there should be two tails left of the nine total she had, right? Unless she broke another one off-screen, which is always a possibility.
(via garfinski)
Anyway, Papa Yukimura insists that he has no idea what Nogitstiles is referring to, which ends up being a bad move. Nogitstiles just frowns, and replies, "You'll talk," as he lifts up the textbook Mr. Yukimura used to smash the fly. The fly seems completely unharmed, and flies right into Mr. Yukimura's agape mouth and down his throat. As Papa Yukimura coughs on the fly and falls to his knees, Nogitstiles adds, "They always talk." YIKES! So, that's how he's been controlling everyone, yeah? With the flies? That explains why Oliver was acting like the nogitsune's thrall in "Echo House."
(via garfinski)
Meanwhile, Scott is over at Kira's house, where the two of them are sitting on Kira's bed. He shows her the picture that Malia and Stiles found at Eichen House, which is of a girl that looks EXACTLY like Kira, standing in front of a military truck with what looks like another Army MP, who is also wearing a medic cuff on his sleeve. Kira is stunned that the girl looks just like her, and turns over the photo to see that it's dated 1943 on the back. She figures it has to be her grandmother, judging by the date. "Remember I told you about Malia?" Scott begins. "She's the last one who saw Stiles at Eichen House." He picks up a sword, the one Malia was carrying out of Eichen House when she checked out, and adds that the photo and the sword were found on a body that Stiles and Malia found in a crawlspace, with the same kanji the oni tattooed on all of them carved into the wall. Wait, so we don't even get to SEE Malia in this episode? Why did this exchange have to happen off-screen? Couldn't we have cut like 20 seconds of Noshiko's romantic interludes to wedge that scene in? ANYWAY. "This sounds like it all goes back to your family," Scott admits carefully. "Your grandmother, your mom..." They're interrupted when Kira gets a text message on her phone. Scott immediately notices the worry on her face, and asks her what's going now, but Kira just states, "My dad."
Scott and Kira run into the school as quickly as they can, carrying the sword and the photo with them. When they make it to Kira's dad's classroom, they see that Noshiko is already there, kneeling beside her husband, who is still coughing and hacking everywhere. Noshiko asks her if she brought "it," and Kira hands her a small bottle before asking her what the fuck it is. "Raishi," is what I'm pretty sure Noshi answered, and Kira incredulously asks, "Mom, you are not seriously giving dad magic mushrooms?" Is "raishi" right? Japanese speakers, help a girl out! Anyway, Noshiko just side-eyes her daughter as she starts feeding Mr. Yukimura the mushrooms, which he struggles to keep down. Eventually, he coughs what looks like the same black snotty shit that Gerard is constantly sputtering into a handkerchief. They all help him to his feet, and when his wife asks if he's okay, he nods his head in relief. How is he not like, tripping balls this entire episode? Or maybe he is and just really good and riding through it.
Scott is SO troubled by this sight, and sighs as he asks her if Stiles really did this. "He wanted the last kaiken," Noshiko responds, as she pulls a black dagger out of her jacket. As you can probably guess, "kaiken" is Japanese for "dagger." "I've kept this near me ever since your FRIEND disappeared." Kira insists that her mom needs to tell them everything she knows, and Mr. Yukimura sighs, as if he's anticipated this for a while. Noshiko kind of gives her a look, like, "Don't you boss me around, missy," but Scott hands her the photo from the nogitsune's jacket. She automatically asks them where they found it, but Kira doesn't answer. "Is it grandma?" Kira asks, but Noshiko just frowns. "No. It's me," she confesses, as we're launched into ANOTHER flashback.
It's still 1943, and a bunch of Army soldiers are unloading a truck at a camp. We meet back up with Merrick, who is unloading wooden crates off the truck. He sees Hayes just standing there, throwing a baseball lazily into the air and catching it, and orders him to help him out. A super-gorgeous soldier, Corporal Rhys, asks Merrick for the inventory on the crates of apples. Merrick tells him there were five, but Rhys only sees four crates on the shelf, so Merrick figures he must have miscounted. Nearby, a very feminine set of hands with painted red nails quickly snatches a bag of something and several cans of food from the crates. Merrick, annoyed, yells at Hayes to quit his slacking and help them, so he reluctantly sets down his baseball and goes to assist them. The hands reach for the baseball, and we see that it was actually NOSHIKO who was stealing all the stuff! She holds the baseball in front of her face and smirks a mischievous little smile before taking off. Damn, Arden Cho is so fucking beautiful, it kills me. I am completely in awe of the attractiveness of this cast.
In the present-day, Scott and Kira are stunned at this information. "If that's you, you'd have to be, like, ninety years old," Scott argues, but Noshiko just smiles. "Closer to nine hundred," she admits. HOLY SHIT, I KNEW IT! A nine-tailed kitsune would have to be super ancient, according to Japanese lore. Kira is in shock, and is only able to snark, "Okay! Sure. Why not?" She turns to her dad and asks him how old he is. "Forty-three. But, I've been told I look mid-thirties!" Bahahaha, I love him! Kira looks like she's about to have a panic attack, but forces herself to return to the task at hand, and grabs the katana and holds it out to her mother. She smiles as she takes it, and holds it over the desk. They all watch as she pulls on the handle, and dumps dozens of little pieces of metal onto the desktop. "The blade was shattered the last time it was used," Noshiko explains. When Kira asks her when that was, Noshiko replies, "1943. [beat] Against a nogitsune."
Scott realizes that this whole thing with the nogitsune is NOT happening for the first time, and Noshiko is forced to admit that once again, history is repeating itself in Beacon Hills. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," Mr. Yukimura adds, and it just so happens that that quote is already written on the chalkboard, just in case we all forget. Kira asks where the nogitsune came from, so Noshiko begins the story. "It was a Japanese internment camp during World War II, in Oak Creek, not too far from here." Scott and Kira look at each other in surprise, and Scott brings up the fact that Mr. Yukimura told Isaac and Allison that there was no Oak Creek internment camp, when they came to him for help in translating those crazy voicemails she got. Mr. Yukimura points out that the Argents have a very long history of violence towards supernaturals, so he wasn't sure he could trust Allison not to send her family his way. I can see why he would think that, given Gerard and Kate alone, but I hope they eventually realize that Allison and Chris can be trusted.
"There was a camp, yes," Mr. Yukimura continues. "But all the records were erased." Noshiko is clearly very emotionally involved in this situation, angrily adds, "They covered it up." Papa Yukimura digs around in his desk for a leather bound journal that is stuffed with photos. Once he finds it, he explains to the kids that when he was in grad school, he started researching the Japanese internment during WWII and became obsessed with the Oak Creek camp. His goal was to prove the Oak Creek camp's existence, and it was during this research that Mr. Yukimura met Noshiko! Kira picks up one of the photos that her dad has laid on the desk, and we see that it's of a man whose face and body is completely covered in burns, laying in a hospital bed. She sighs, and asks her mother from where the nogitsune came. "Isn't it obvious yet?" Noshiko snaps rudely. "It came from me!" Hey lady, I appreciate you for your ancient badassery, but you don't have to be mean to your daughter, whom you've been keeping in the dark all this time.
After the break, we return to more 1943 flashbacks. Another military truck drives through the front gates to Oak Creek internment camp (whose front gates look suspiciously similar to Eichen House's), and a young Japanese-American boy chases after it as it drives past various buildings. Inside one of the barracks, a young internee woman passes out apples from a crate. "Guys, keep your voices down. There's plenty for everyone, but if the MPs hear, no one gets anything." The young boy from outside, Mitchio, joins the crowd in the barracks, and when Noshiko, who is sprawled on her top bunk, sees him, she throws him the baseball she stole from Hayes. The girl passing out food (whose name is Meiko) is not thrilled to see the gift she gave him. "A baseball, Noshiko? Did you manage to steal any firecrackers? A machine gun, maybe?"
Noshiko just sighs and rolls her eyes, and turns around to face an older woman who is sitting at a table, giving her a huge side-eye. Noshiko walks over and sits down with the woman, whose name is Satomi, and jokes that she can feel the power of her stare from across the room. Satomi just purses her lips, and points out that she steals too much, and too often, which seems to make her afraid they'll get caught. Noshiko just rolls her eyes and sarcastically asks if she should give some back, as she sets a bottle of aspirin on the table and slides it toward her. She knows Satomi gets migraines once a month, so she stole her some medicine to help. Satomi just smiles and slides the bottle back toward her, as she claims she prefers to suffer. As they speak, Satomi plays a Japanese strategy game called Go by herself, which, according to the Google machine, involves using white and black pebbles to create territories on a board that is sort of similar to a chessboard.
"I know what you think of me, Noshiko," Satomi whines, as Noshiko sits and pouts stubbornly. "You think I am weak because I follow the rules. You think rules are for the obedience of fools and cowards. The young fox always knows the rules so she can break them. The older, wiser animal learns the exceptions to the rules." She sets a black stone on the board, and picks up a white one, as Meiko comes over and reminds them that all they need to do to avoid trouble is to stay quiet. Of course, that lasted all of about a half-second, before the ball Michio was playing with accidentally flies through one of the windows of the building. Michio stands agape as he stares at the open window, and his father quickly pulls him toward their beds. The rest of the internees all quickly begin to hide their contraband in various hidey-holes before the MPs show up.
After a moment, Merrick, Hayes, and Corporal Rhys all come in to find the internees waiting for them silently, each of them standing at attention next to their beds except for Satomi, who is still playing Go at the table. Corporal Rhys holds up the baseball, and asks the internees if they're missing something. Merrick announces that supplies went missing off the trucks, and asks if anyone knows anything about it. He gets all up in Meiko's face, so Hayes does the same toward a group of men across the aisle before starting to search a bed for contraband. Merrick starts groping Meiko under the guise of looking for stolen supplies, sealing his fate as a disgusting prick with no redeeming qualities, until Rhys finally orders him to cut it out. "Just doing my patriotic duty, Corporal," Merrick sneers. Meiko looks like she wants to kick him in the balls, and rightly so.
Corporal Rhys instructs Merrick and Hayes to fix the window, and informs the internees that there will be an inspection in the morning. "We better not find anything that shouldn't be here," Rhys adds. Hayes starts whining about the fact that they're not searching them now, but Rhys is adamant about waiting. "This is a relocation center," Rhys argues. "Not a prison." Merrick laughs condescendingly at him, and snarks that he could call this place a summer camp, if it makes him feel better. HE IS SO GROSS. Merrick and Hayes leave the barracks, and Rhys catches Noshiko's eye before he does the same. He stops before he's out the door, and tosses the baseball back to Michio, who is standing by the door. Michio smiles, and Noshiko seems to be the tiniest bit impressed. Satomi says something in Japanese that I cannot understand, and then adds, "Or, as the Americans say, 'You reap what you sow.'" She places another black stone on her Go board, and picks up another white one.
In the present day, Noshiko is poring over the broken pieces of the sword, and trying to put them back in the correct order. She insists that she needs Kira's help to do it, because this is something that needs to be done in the daytime. Kira is still pissed about her mom hiding all of this from her, and refuses to help until she tells them everything. Mr. Yukimura sighs, and sides with the kids on this argument, and urges her to tell them what they need to know. Noshiko sends a death-glare Scott's way, and snits, "Wolves and foxes tend not to get along, and not just in fables and stories." Mr. Yukimura cuts in. "BUT, allies, however unlikely, should be welcomed. Especially in times of war," he argues. You tell her, Papa Yukimura! Noshiko looks pretty pissed at him for defending them, and slams one of the pieces of metal onto the desktop.
We haven't checked into the Good Broship Cherek/Hargent in a while, have we? At the sheriff's station, Chris and Derek are getting their belongings back from Deputy Parrish. He gets to Chris' cattle-prod taser-wand thing, and tells Chris that he can't allow him to have it back, because it's way over the legal voltage limit. "I only use it for hunting," Chris argues, and Derek gives him the most hilarious and well-deserved side-eye for it. Seriously, he's probably been on the wrong end of one of those bad boys a dozen times by now. "Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure you could use it to jump start a 747," Parrish retorts. Chris reminds him that it's his property, and that the charges against him have been dropped, although he admits that he has no idea how that happened. Sheriff Stilinski appears behind him, and informs him that HE was the one who dropped the charges, and tells Parrish he'll take care of the taser-wand thing. "Sheriff, I'm not kidding," Parrish says with concern. "This thing is a few watts away from being a lightsaber." Hahahaha, I am DYING. Sheriff maintains that he's got it covered, and takes the taser from Parrish before asking to see Derek and Chris in his office. YES! I love this trio so much already.
(via garfinski)
Stilinski gathers them around his desk, and explains that he saw a specialist in Los Angeles the other day, and that the doctor pretty much said, "We can't say for sure," when asked about his son's condition. So, he had Melissa look at Stiles' MRIs and compare them to his wife's, because hey, she may be a nurse, but in this world she is more qualified than any medical professional anywhere. He pulls them out of a file, and shows them that one is of Stiles' brain, and the other is of his wife Claudia's. "I knew they were similar, but those are the same. Exactly the same." Chris takes the two scans and lays them on top of each other, and it's clear to everyone that he's right--they are duplicates of each other. Derek figures the chances of them both having the exact same damage to the exact same parts of their brain isn't possible, and Sheriff confirms that it's not possible, whatsoever. YAY! So Stiles ISN'T sick! I'm so glad that I refused to believe it in the first place. Chris determines that the nogitsune is still playing tricks on them, and Derek asks, "But, why THIS trick?"
Sheriff, who is brainstorming aloud, tells them that when he was in the army, his commanding officer told him that in order to beat their enemy, they don't take their courage, they take their hope. Chris points out that Sheriff isn't one to give up hope easily, but Sheriff is concerned that Stiles IS. "If this thing inside of him, if it's trying to use his mother's disease as some kind of psychological trick, then this isn't just a fight for his body--it's also a fight for his mind, right?" I LOVE that despite being in this supernatural game such a short amount of time, he already has a very impressive understanding about how everything works. Man, he should have been brought in from the very beginning!
Chris points out that Nogitstiles' actions have left a lot of people severely injured, and Derek adds, "And others severely DEAD." Sheriff maintains that this is the reason why he needs Chris and Derek's help, because they have way more experience with supernatural creatures than him, so they can assist him in stopping him. Chris correctly deduces that by "stopping him," Sheriff means "TRAPPING him," and Sheriff nods sheepishly in confirmation. He hands Chris his taser as a gesture of good faith, and Chris takes it, though Sheriff holds onto it for a beat and gives him a look, like, "Don't make me regret this, amigo." YES! Time for the McCall pack (and related parents) to save the day once again!
We transition back into a 1943 flashback, where Noshiko is running down a small passage between barracks. At the end of the passage, Rhys is standing around on guard. When she makes it to him, she pulls him into the passage by the back of his shirt, and pushes him against the wall. They glare at each other for a moment, before smiling and kissing each other. AW YISS, get it Noshiko! Rhys is SO CUTE. "Why do I like you when you're acting tough?" she asks. He jokes that it's because she wants him to be a strong fighter, but she insists that she loves her handsome medic instead. He points out that her handsome medic is a little concerned about all of the stuff she's been stealing off the trucks, particularly medical supplies, because people are starting to catch on. She doesn't really care if they do, so he drops some Japanese on her. "Deru kui wa utareru," he says, though she calls him out on using Japanese proverbs against her. "The stake that sticks out gets hammered down! That's a good proverb!" he insists, but she just rolls her eyes.
He won't let it go, though, and reminds her of what the military tends to do to people who break the rules. Namely, they just take back all the contraband and harass and threaten everyone until someone rats out the culprit, who is then punished severely. Noshiko is tired of arguing, and says if a few bottles of missing aspirin is really that big of a deal, she'll sneak them back into the inventory. That's not exactly what he meant, though, and he sighs. "Let me help! I can get stuff too. I can be pretty sly myself," he says with a smile, as he reaches into his pocket. He pulls out a chocolate bar, and she immediately grins and pulls out the grabby hands, but he pulls it away from her just to be a tease. "I thought you liked it when I'm tough," he grins, but she retorts that she likes chocolate more, and grabs the candy bar from him. Instead of eating it, though, they just start making out again.
In the present day, Kira cuts off the flashback by screeching, "Okay, stop! Just stop! We don't wanna hear your Casablanca story, we wanna know how to save Stiles." Noshiko insists that she's trying to tell them, but Scott correctly assumes that she's just trying to stall until it's night time, so the oni will come out and go after Nogitstiles again. Papa Yukimura tries to break the news that Stiles is gone, f'reals, but you know that Scott won't buy that shit EVER. "I don't think you know that for sure! You brought the oni. Can you call them off?" Kira angrily adds that it isn't Stiles' fault, which is absolutely true, but that's not what Noshiko wants to hear either. "Stiles may be your best friend, he may be like a brother to you, but he's nogitsune now. He is void!" Noshiko exclaims. Scott angrily asks her once more if she can call them off, but she claims that once they hear the rest of the story, they won't want her to do it. Yeah, I highly doubt that, lady.
(via lydiasgotstiles)
We cut quickly to another 1943 flashback, where Noshiko is stuck in what looks like a dark hallway, where she's desperately trying to fight against the nogitsune with her katana. We're not quite there yet, though, so we'll come back to this in a bit.
After the commercial, we meet up with Allison, Chris, Sheriff and Derek in Chris' study. On his desk are tons of chains, ropes, zipties, tasers, handcuffs, tranquilizer darts, and smoke bombs. Allison explains that these were all the non-lethal weapons and tools she could round up, and Chris suggests that she pack them all up. Sheriff asks them what the plan is going to be, so Chris suggests they start with sending Derek to Eichen House to try to catch Stiles scent and track him. Sheriff wonders if it's a good idea for them to all be going there, so they start trying to think of where else Stiles has been popping up lately, like the hospital and the school. "Hold on," Derek pipes up. "We did this already. He disappeared, we started looking for him, and then walked right into a trap at the hospital." Chris realizes he's trying to get them to repeat all the same mistakes they made the first time, and wonders if maybe waiting for him to come to them would be a better idea. Unfortunately, as Derek points out, they have to find him before the sun goes down, or the oni could find him first.
Sheriff informs them that Scott and Kira are currently working on trying to talk Mama Yukimura into calling off the oni. Chris says the problem is that they're trying to out-trick the trickster spirit, and the gravity of the situation causes them all to fall quiet. Sheriff looks like he feels really guilty for talking them all into this (although I have no doubt that they would all help even if he hadn't asked), and assures them that if they want to back out, there will be no hard feelings on his end. They all think about this for a moment, and Derek quips, "Well, I'm not going to be the first wolf to run from a fox," which totally made me crack up for some reason. He starts packing up the bag full of supplies, and Chris cracks, "Apparently, I'm carrying a lightsaber," as he helps him pack, which just made me laugh even more. I LOVE THIS PACK SO MUCH.
Allison, the hunter matriarch, decide that they'll all split up--Derek and her dad will go to Eichen House, she and the Sheriff will go to the hospital, and they'll meet up at the school. I love that she took charge, and I love even more that they actually listened to her. Besides, it's good advice, you know? One hunter on each side, plus Derek has his werewolf abilities and Sheriff is as good with guns as any of them, so it's not like they won't have backup. BEAUTIFUL TEAM IS BEAUTIFUL. Chris waits for Sheriff and Allison to leave the room before he grabs one of his guns from a hollowed-out book, to which Derek sarcastically asks, "Making sure you have a few lethal options, just in case?" Chris loads the gun and cocks it before responding, "I like to prepare for the worst." NO THE WORST WILL NOT BE HAPPENING.
Back at the school, Kira and Scott are listening to Noshiko as she continues to tell her story. "Rhys and I found ways to see each other. Sometimes at the barracks...sometimes at the bunkers, where they parked military vehicles." We flashback to 1943, where she and Rhys are cuddled up in one of the trucks, as Noshiko eats candies out of a glass mason jar. "He was being transferred to North Africa in a few weeks. I was teaching him some French." Rhys is reading out of a book, and completely butchers the pronunciations of the words. "Coo-day frah? Coo-day foo-dray?" She informs him that it's actually "coup de foudre," so he tries it again. "Not bad!" Noshiko praises with a smile. "It's an idiom, but the literal translation is 'bolt of lightning.'" He gets a sly look on his face as he closes the book, and cutely replies, "Embrasse-moi [Kiss me]." She smiles and jokes that she didn't teach him that, but he claims he learned it on his own, and they kiss and are in general just super adorable.
They're startled when they hear a vehicle door slamming nearby, and they reflexively duck down so they're not seen. Noshiko's voiceover explains the situation as her young self and Rhys watch a doctor talking to Merrick and Hayes a couple yards away. "We watched Merrick and Hayes talking with the camp doctor. They were whispering, talking quickly." The doctor pulls a huge wad of cash out of his pocket, and starts counting it out before handing some over to the MPs.
In the present-day, Mr. Yukimura notices that Noshiko is getting so emotional that she started gripping a piece of the sword tightly enough to cut her hand. Kira sees the blood dripping on the desk, but Noshiko just smiles as her husband hands her a tissue, and wipes the blood from her hand. When she opens her hand again, there is no wound. Kira is stunned, although I don't know why, because she's already seen Scott, Derek, Isaac, an the twins heal from way worse injuries already. She asks how she did it, but Noshiko just tells her that it's one of the kitsune's talents. "You should have noticed by now that you never get sick? Ever? You'll never experience anything as simple as a common cold, something as bad as the flu...or something like pneumonia."
We cut to another flashback to the internment camp, where the camp doctor has just diagnosed Michio with pneumonia, just like many of the other internees in the camp. Michio's dad sits at his bedside, blotting at his brow with a washcloth, as Noshiko checks on Meiko, who standing by his bed and bent over in the midst of a coughing fit. She claims that it's not as bad as it sounds, and walks away to check on another patient in the camp infirmary. Noshiko can see Rhys arguing with the doctor nearby, and waits for him to finish.
She can tell he's stressed, so she runs over to him when Dr. Listen walks away, where he admits that he's totally fucked, because everyone is coming down with pneumonia, and the camp is out of M&B, which is the Army shorthand for May & Baker Pharmaceuticals' sulfadiazine antibiotic that they use to treat bacterial pneumonia. Noshiko remembers seeing three crates of it on the truck the last time she went on a pilfering spree, though Rhys says they only have record of one. She swears she didn't touch any of it, and she helps him look through his records in hopes of figuring this out. In present day, Noshiko explains, "Rhys checked the log, but we already knew what was happening. Doctor Listen was using Merrick and Hayes to sell medicine on the black market." We flashback to where she and Rhys were poring over the logs. In the nearby hospital bed, Michio's dad starts to panic when his son stops breathing. He shakes Michio, but he won't wake up, and eventually he starts to cry as he clutches his son's body as the baseball he was holding falls to the floor.
In the barracks, a crowd of angry internees are gathered around Meiko and Noshiko, who must have told the rest of them what is going on with the medications and the camp doctor. Meiko tries to calm them down. "Listen! All we have to do is go to the administration and issue a formal complaint." Behind them, Satomi is at that damn Go game once again, as she listens to them speak. Michio's dad is understandably skeptical that doing that will end up helping anything.
Ugh, everything is terrible! Michio's dad finds a bottle of whiskey in his stash of contraband, and quickly uses a handkerchief to turn it into a Molotov cocktail before insisting to the rest of the internees that he's going to make the powers that be listen to them. In the present day, Noshiko is examining one of the broken pieces of the sword's blade. "I had realized the mistake I had made by speaking too soon," she admits sadly. "I wasn't helping anyone, I was inciting a riot."
1943--Merrick is driving a car with Hayes riding shotgun, and Dr. Listen in the backseat, and they're just about to leave the camp when the internees start to surround the car in a huge mob. The MPs start to aim their guns at them in an effort to disperse the crowd, but Rhys jumps in front of them and holds up his hands as he orders them all to NOT shoot anyone. Michio's dad, with his unlit Molotov cocktail in hand, shouts out that they want the doctor NOW, as Dr. Listen starts to panic from inside the car when he realizes the jig is up.
Once the internees start pounding on the car with their fists and trying to tip it over, Dr. Listen shouts, "Those people, if they manage to drag me out of this car, do you know what's going to happen? They are gonna put a NOOSE around my neck! And MAYBE they'll be polite enough to ask me if I have any last words. You know what those last words are gonna be? 'I. Had. Help.'" Merrick, who, as expected, is only looking out for himself, suggests they throw him out there in an effort to distract them, but Dr. Listen furiously reminds them that though the mob has rocks and sticks as their weapons, THEY have guns, and orders them to use them.
In the present day, Noshiko claims she tried to get them to stop, but too many people were sick and dying to not be furious. "I've never seen anger like that," Noshiko confesses in voiceover, as we see the internees continue to yell as they mob the car. "It was a living, breathing thing." Rhys struggles to push his way through the crowd so he can get to the car, but he's eventually able to help Hayes out of the car for backup. Rhys is trying to push the protesters away from the car, and glances around to find Michio's dad lighting the Molotov cocktail. His eyes widen in terror as he holds up his hands and tries to talk him out of using it, which eventually ends up working.
He hangs his head in shame, and is about to walk away when Merrick pushes his way out of the car and immediately aims his gun at the crowd as he makes his way through all the people. Naturally, they all back away from the loaded gun being pointed at them, except for Satomi, who stands tall and confident in front of him. Noshiko sees her from a couple feet away, and tries to stop her, but before he can, Merrick hauls off and pistol-whips Satomi right in the face. The crowd instantly starts mobbing him as she falls to the ground, but when she lifts up her head to glare at him, we (and Noshiko) realize that her eyes are GLOWING GOLD, and the wound on her head is quickly healing. OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD.
"Now I knew why Satomi was always trying to keep quiet," Noshiko reveals in voiceover. "Why she got migraines once a month, and why she was always at the game of Go. It kept her calm." In the present day, a shocked Scott realizes that Satomi was bitten while she was at the camp, which Noshiko confirms grimly. "Bitten werewolves have a harder time suppressing their anger. One unexpected flare-up, and they can lose all control." Hey girl, you don't have to remind him--he LIVED it, and is now a pretty shining example of how to stay in control as a bitten werewolf. Back in flashback, Satomi is fully wolfed-out, and angrily grabs the Molotov cocktail from Michio's dad and hurls it at the car, which lands right on Rhys and immediately sets him ablaze. "Noooooo!" Noshiko wails in horror, and everyone just stares as he is devoured by flames.
Hey, let's catch back up with the pack, eh? Allison and Sheriff get into the elevator of the hospital, and have probably my favorite scene of this entire episode. Seriously, Crystal Reed and Linden Ashby NAILED it. As they're waiting, Sheriff is just thinking about their entire situation, and admits he has no idea how they do it. "You're all so strong. You're fearless. Hell, you even manage to keep your grades up!" Allison's nerves are just so clearly frayed right now, and she just barely manages to admits that she's failing econ without breaking into tears. Sheriff just kind of awkwardly shrugs and assures her he'll talk to Coach about it to help her out, which is just the nicest thing ever, so nice that whatever it was that was holding Allison together immediately crumbles, and she starts to cry. Sheriff shuts off the elevator so they can have some privacy, and asks her if she's okay. The answer is, she's really not, and can you really blame her?
(via teenwolf)
Damn, that hit me riiiiiight in the feels, you guys. Her Argent-hunter instincts always push her to be stoic and strong and to look at everything clinically and unemotionally, but you can't do that forever. Sometimes it's just too much to ignore. Sheriff, bless him, wastes no time pulling her into a hug, and just rocks her for a second as she cries. "You know what's funny?" Sheriff whispers to Allison as she tries to calm herself down. "You sound just like a cop." This makes Allison laugh through her tears, and OH MY GOD YOU GUYS I JUST CAN'T WITH THESE CHARACTERS IT'S TOO MUCH. They finally pull away, and once Sheriff assures her once more that Allison is going to be okay, he gives her the sweetest, most understanding smile, and flips the switch to restart the elevator. His phone buzzes, and he frowns in confusion when he reads the alert on his phone. Allison asks him what's up, so he admits that he thinks someone is breaking into his house, and starts to access an app on his phone. "After Stiles started sleepwalking, I had some security precautions put in. Motion sensors, cameras." They manage to access the camera that caught the footage, and Allison squints as she tries to focus on the video. She asks if it's Stiles' room, and when he zooms in, we see that Nogitstiles is sitting on Stiles' bed, and creepily waving at the camera. NOOOO.
Back to 1943--the rioting is continuing, even after Rhys has been severely injured by the Molotov cocktail. Merrick manages to push his way through the crowd to join the rest of the MPs with rifles who are stationed around the perimeter. A few of the protesters chase after him, so Merrick starts taking shots at them with his handgun, which leads the rest of the MPs to follow suit with their own guns. Noshiko watches in shock as her fellow internees get shot down by the soldiers, and it doesn't take long before she's shot herself. She falls to her knees as she gets shot several more times, before eventually collapsing on the ground next to fellow injured protesters. After a few moments, only the MPs who were guarding the front gates to the camp, including Merrick and Hayes, were left standing--the rest of the internees in the crowd, and several other soldiers, all lay on the ground, either dead or critically wounded.
In present day, they've almost finished putting the katana blade back together as Noshiko finishes up her story. "The gunfire nearly killed me," she admits, as Kira looks at her with sympathy. "I don't know how many bullets made their way into my body, but I fought every one of them." We flashback to the aftermath of the riot, where Dr. Listen is examining Noshiko's body, and she continues in voiceover. "It left my body so weak, my heartbeat so slow, it appeared as though I was dead." Dr. Listen looks around at the mess he made and looks supremely guilty, as he should. We cut back to present day, where they're still working on the sword. "But even then, I was still better off than Rhys." We cut again back to Rhys, who was taken to Eichen House, which I imagine was the camp's hospital at the time. He's got burns over what looks like the entirety of his body, and he's crying out in agony as the nurses try to bandage his wounds. Noshiko describes how his screams could be heard all through Eichen House, and says he eventually died in agony, because to literally add insult to injury, Dr. Listen ALSO sold all the morphine. Wonderful.
As it turns out, Merrick and Hayes ended up being put in charge of disposing of all of the bodies, which included both the Japanese-American internees and the American soldiers at the camp who were killed in the riot. Dr. Listen was to be transferred to another camp, and everything else was going to be covered up so that no one could ever find out what really happened. We can see Noshiko's blood-spattered body laying on top of the pile in the back of the military truck that Merrick and Hayes were taking to dump the bodies, as she gets to the worst part of her story. "The doctor, Merrick, Hayes, and all of the others, they were going to get away with murder." In the truck, Noshiko's eyes open as her body begins to heal itself. "By chance, I guess, Rhys' body had been put next to mine." Noshiko slowly reaches over and grabs Rhys' heavily-bandaged hand as she looks over at him, and she remembers all of the happy times they had, laughing and kissing and being in love. Noshiko begins to cry, and when she opens her eyes, they're glowing that kitsune gold-orange-pink.
Present-Day Noshiko angrily recounts her thought processes during that moment. "I wanted the soldiers and the administration of the camp to pay for their crime, but I knew the clock was ticking. I was going to lose my chance," she explains, as she starts to tear up. You can tell that this story has been haunting her ever since. "They were going to burn me with the others. I couldn't fight back with my body weakened and still healing. I could barely move. I was going to die. With time slipping through my fingers, I knew I was making a terrible decision, but I could not die knowing that they would get away." In flashback, Noshiko is still crying angrily as she lays in the back of the truck, struggling with the decision she knew she had to make. "So, I called out to our ancestors for kitsunetsuki, possession by a fox spirit. For a powerful nogitsune, one that feeds off of chaos, strife and pain to take control of my weakened body, imbue it with power, and use it as a weapon."
DAMN, Noshiko! That is so intense! Like, I totally understand why she would want retribution, because that is a pretty fucking terrible event, from what Dr. Listen did to how the administration dealt with it. But clearly this did not end up working out in her favor, as Noshiko admits herself. "But calling on a trickster spirit is a dangerous thing. They can have a very dark sense of humor. Because, while the nogitsune did come to possess someone, it wasn't me." Out in the Californian desert, Merrick and Hayes have almost finished piling up all of the bodies to be incinerated, and are just grabbing the cans of gasoline when they see Rhys' bandaged body standing up on top of the pile. OH SHIT, THE NOGITSUNE POSSESSED RHYS AND THAT'S WHY HE'S ALL BANDAGED WHEN HE FUCKS WITH STILES. Rhysitsune growls and bares those crazy silver lamprey fangs before running towards them in that weird, disjointed way that it moves. Noshiko wakes up and manages to roll over just in time to see Hayes shooting at Rhysitune.
In the present day, Scott asks Noshiko what happened, so she gives them the deets. "My body was beginning to heal, and I managed to pull myself up off the ground, but it was too late." In the flashback, Noshiko starts to cry out for Rhys as Rhysitune goes to decapitate Merrick. Afterward, he hops into the military truck, dons the leather military jacket he finds in the passenger seat, and takes off with the vehicle, despite her desperate pleas. How does an ancient fox spirit know how to drive one of those huge trucks? Are they like, all-knowing or something? Back in the classroom, Scott asks what happened next, but we already know the answer. "He brought chaos, strife, and more pain than you can imagine."
1943--Meiko leads a group of internees through a small tunnel in the camp, but when they finally make it to a gate, it's locked, as well as another gate down a nearby set of stairs. She pushes her way through the crowd to lead them to another possible exit, but she stops when she sees Rhysitsune standing in the middle of the staircase, growling at them. She shrieks in terror when she sees him, and I assume that they were all slaughtered by it.
When Noshiko was finally healed enough to move, she made her way back to Eichen House, where she found dozens of dead bodies littering the front yard. Dr. Listen, some nurses, some internees, the nogitsune did not seem to discriminate at all when it came to deciding who to kill. Horrified, Noshiko runs over to her bed in the barracks, and grabs her katana from under the bed and unsheathing it.
Present day--Noshiko and Kira are almost finished putting the katana pieces back in order, and Noshiko urges her daughter to hurry up, because it's almost sundown.
1943--Remember that scene where she was fighting the nogitsune with her sword in a hallway? We're finally there now, and man, Noshiko has SKILLS. She's just going to town on him, swiping and jabbing and grunting, and it's truly a sight to behold. Unfortunately, the nogitsune grabs hold of her katana and yanks her toward him as he growls in her face, and she growls right back, until Satomi, still wolfed-out, appears out of nowhere and claws Rhysitsune right in the spine! She snarls at Noshiko in a gesture to indicate she should go for it, so she drives her sword right through the nogitsune (and her boyfriend, unfortunately). When she pulls the blade out of him, it shatters into all of those itty-bitty pieces we've seen all episode. with a blue puff of magic.
Rhysitsune collapses onto the ground, and Noshiko falls to her knees next to him, devastated to have to see Rhys die for a second time. A fly squeezes its way out of Rhys' agape mouth, so Noshiko quickly catches it in her hand, and sighs. Somehow, Rhys is still alive enough to say one last thing to Noshiko--"Coup de foudre." I have a theory as to how this could be, but I'll get into that later. Noshiko starts to cry in the hallway, as Satomi recovers from the stress of the day.
Kira puts the last piece of the katana in place as her mom wraps up the story. "The literal translation is 'bolt of lightning.' In French, it can also mean, 'love at first sight.'" Kira looks over at Scott, because that seems like a very literal translation of how Scott and Kira came to fall for each other, considering it was when she literally lit up the power substation with her foxfire. Noshiko cuts into their thoughts, and reveals that a bolt of lightning is what they all really need right now. When Kira asks why, Noshiko explains that the force of excising the nogitsune from Rhys' is what shattered the katana, but that Kira has the power to fix it herself. Kira is still very wary about this whole "being a supernatural creature thing," and asks her mom why she can't just do it herself. "Because I'm not a thunder kitsune," Noshiko argues. WHAT KIND OF KITSUNE IS SHE? Celestial? To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if she were a nogitsune, but that is also something I'll talk about in a bit. Also, how do you think kitsune genetics work? Is it just a random thing, or is it based on your true nature, kind of like the rest of the shapeshifters?
Noshiko notices Kira staring at the katana in confusion, and asks if she trusts her. Understandably, Kira's like, "I just found out that you've been alive longer than everyone in this room combined, and that you're some super-powerful mystical fox who basically caused all this bullshit, so no, I don't really feel much like I can trust you right now, nor am I sure I'll ever be able to." Noshiko takes that pretty hard, but since she knows that time is of the essence, she compartmentalizes those emotions for the moment and asks her to trust that she knows what she's doing regarding her powers. She takes Kira's hand, and holds it over the katana, and almost immediately, an ice-blue haze of electricity lights up the katana. Scott and Mr. Yukimura just gape at her in awe, and honestly, Kira seems pretty in awe of herself as well. The pieces clink together as the lightning from Kira's body fuses the pieces into one whole katana blade. HOLY SHIT! Kira is AMAZING.
(via teenwolf)
We cut over to the Stilinski residence, where they've found Stiles' chessboard all laid out on his desk, with the various little post-its indicating the werewolves, hunters, druids, and kanimas in Beacon Hills. I'm not going to really get into the pieces or what they mean, because there's about a bazillion metas on tumblr that go into it way better than I ever could. I would like to point out that Kate is on the board, as well as Jackson, even though neither are around to have any bearing on the story, which I found interesting. Chris asks what the board is, so Sheriff has to explain how Stiles used it to introduce him to the supernaturals, back when he didn't believe. Allison suggests that the board was a message from Stiles, the real Stiles, in a lone moment of lucidity or something. Chris picks up the piece labelled "Isaac," which worried a shitload of people, because that means he's no longer in the game, but I'm guessing it's just because he's still in the hospital and currently not "active."
Derek notices that his name is on the king, and asks what that means, but Sheriff doesn't really see anything notable about the current state of the board except for the fact that Derek is heavily guarded (by Ethan and Aiden, surprisingly enough), and that he is also one move away from checkmate. "It's not a message from Stiles," Chris determines. "It's a threat from the nogitsune." Allison agrees with him, and informs him that she believes the nogitsune is trying to tell them that he's at Derek's loft. Chris figures he wants them to COME there, and Derek brings up the fact that it's almost dark, which means the oni are going to be coming for him. "This couldn't feel any more like a trap," Chris reasons to Sheriff, but naturally, Sheriff is hesitant to believe that it is. Chris suggests that maybe Sheriff is just a little biased, considering it's his son who's being possessed by the nogitsune, but Sheriff actually has a very legit explanation.
"Here me out," Sheriff argues. "What we're dealing with is basically someone who LACKS motive. No rhyme, no reason, right? [...] Our enemy's not a killer. It's a trickster! The killing is just the byproduct." Derek isn't very confident that Nogitstiles WON'T kill them, but Sheriff disagrees. "It won't! It wants irony. It wants to play a trick, it wants a joke. All we need to do is come up with a new punchline." That is such a Harvey Specter way of thinking, I dig it! Chris asks him what he has in mind, since the sun is setting and they need to get moving ASAP, so he sighs as he glances at the chalkboard.
(via teenwolf)
Back at the school, Kira is practically giggling from the fact that she just melted a sword back together with her foxfire, and Scott is looking at her like he's just SO INTO HER. His complete awe at the amazingness of the women around him will never, ever, ever get old to me. Noshiko picks the sword up carefully and examines it before holding it out for Kira to take. "Go ahead. It's yours, now." Kira hesitates, for a moment, and quietly asks what happens if she doesn't want it. Noshiko gives her another one of her patented side-eyes, before pointing out that she needs it. She tosses it to Kira, and when she catches it, her hands start to spin the sword around of it's own accord, and she huffs a sigh of "HOLY SHIT WHAT DID I DO." Noshiko just chuckles. "You see? It gives you balance. My power is yours now, Kira. If the oni cannot stop Stiles, YOU have to, the same as I did." She glances over at Scott for a moment before adding, "And maybe seek out a wolf to help you."
(via teenwolf)
Scott is quite rightly pissed at what he sees as a waste of time. "You didn't tell us anything," Scott argues. Noshiko maintains what she has already said--if they want to save Stiles, they have to kill him. It's the only way. Scott can't believe she would even say that, and turns to Kira's dad for backup, but he takes her side.
Then, a song begins that I haven't heard in SO LONG--THE DARACH THEME SONG, YOU GUYS! Which is also the de facto theme of the Nemeton. Don't you miss it? That bass line, and those chants! It literally gives me chills upon chills as I watch the last 1943 flashback of the evening. After the nogitsune was expelled from Rhys, Noshiko put it in the glass mason jar she used to hold her candies, and is running through the nature preserve as the sounds of what seem to be hunting dogs bark behind her.
In the present day, Noshiko pulls out the (allegedly) sole remaining kaiken, and promises she'll put it someplace safe. Mr. Yukimura (I really wish we knew his name!) replies that the kaiken is not what he's worried about. "History has not done well with making children into killers," he reminds her, but Noshiko doesn't seem at all bothered about it. "These children played their part long before we moved back to Beacon Hills," she argues. In flashback, 1943-Noshiko eventually stumbles upon the Nemeton, which was not a tree stump back then, but instead a majestically humongous and ancient tree that sparkles with power. Noshiko stares at it in awe as Noshiko makes the last big reveal. "I buried the jar deep within the roots of the Nemeton. It was their sacrifice that brought it's power back."
(via teenwolf)
OH MY GOD. We flashback to "Lunar Ellipse," when Allison, Scott and Stiles have just reawakened after committing ritual suicide via drowning in a tub of water and mistletoe. We cut to the scene of the earth shifting around the Nemeton's stump in the same episode, when Jennifer's connection to the telluric currents caused all the natural disaster that destroyed that root cellar and almost killed many of our heroes. "They let the demon out of its cage." Wait, so is she really blaming them for this? Because it wasn't really their fault that their parents were about to ALSO be ritually sacrificed and they were forced to perform a dangerous ritual in a last-ditch effort to locate them before they died. And I mean, it's not like they haven't already felt the consequences, both from the hearts of darkness and the non-stop supernatural creature beacon they reignited. Besides, they're not the one who unleashed the so-called demon on the world in the first place, no matter how well-intentioned Noshiko's reasons were for doing so. If anyone deserves the blame for what the nogitsune has done, it's definitely her.
The Sheriff opens up Derek's loft door, and stands in the doorway as he stares at Nogitstiles, who is standing in his typical hoodie and khakis, with his back to him, looking at the wall of windows. He turns around when he hears Sheriff walk in, and gives him a long look before sighing and whispering, "Hi, Dad." IS IT REAL STILES? I'm gonna guess not.
(via fionagallghr)
Next episode: Everyone seems to be either hallucinating or otherwise losing their damn mind, just like the rest of us viewers. Also, Nogitstiles causes wayyyyy more drama.
Click HERE to read my next recap of Teen Wolf!
[screencaps via the lovely screencappers at KissThemGoodbye]
NOTES/QUESTIONS/SPECULATION:
-Okay, so, we have a general timeline now of the Nemeton. Noshiko hid the nogitsune in the Nemeton in 1943, when the tree was still whole, which means that it was cut down at some point between then and 2003, which is the year that Paige died on top of the Nemeton, where we saw that the tree was a stump even then. (Also, keep in mind that in the TW timeline, it's still 2011. Season 1 took place over January and part of February 2011, Season 2 took place over February to May or early June 2011, and Season 3 began in the late summer/early fall of 2011, so like September. Then, 3B started just before Halloween, and will last into Novemberish, and when we return for Season 4, it'll be January 2012, apparently.)
-Also, after watching this episode a couple of times, it seems like Noshiko enjoyed kind of stirring up mischief in the internment camp, with stealing all the supplies and spreading the news of what Dr. Listen and the MPs were doing. Granted, she's a trickster who seems to have been taught about her powers her entire life, so she's probably much more in tune with that part of herself than Kira is, since she was raised as a human and had no idea of who she even was until recently. I'm still not totally convinced that she isn't also a nogitsune, but either way, I'm wondering what has happened to her powers now that she's lost almost all of her tails. Was what she said about giving her powers to Kira actually literal, and not figurative? As badass as she is in personality, we haven't really seen any evidence of any other powers of hers in her current age, other than the slight bit of foxfire from her fingertips and the healing. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want to know SO MUCH MORE ABOUT HER.
-Do you think Rhys could be a werewolf? I was really confused as to how he could still be alive enough to say his last words to Noshiko, and I started thinking about Satomi, and how she was bitten while at the camp, which means that there had to have been another one to do it. Granted, I have no explanation as to why he would want to bite one of the internees, but it would explain why he was still conscious after the nogitsune was expelled from him--like Noshiko, his body was in a lot of pain and overwhelmed with trying to heal itself, so it's possible that he just APPEARED to be dead, even if he wasn't really. Then, being possessed by the nogitsune helped him heal a little more.
-As much as I hate that the pack is going through all this bullshit, it makes me really happy to see how everyone has banded together in favor of saving Stiles. I mean, even Derek and Allison were getting along perfectly well, with no fighting or meanness or anything. True, she did admit to Sheriff that she's still not sure she can trust Derek, but I think she does acknowledge the fact that what he did to her mother was an accident, and a fate that she kind of brought on herself by trying to kill Scott and Derek, you know? I also think it's nice that Derek has some more age-appropriate friends, since he's mostly just been hanging out with teenagers this whole time. I think Sheriff and Chris would make some pretty good drinking buddies for him, and each other.
-Random question time: Why was Noshiko in the camp in the first place? Surely, couldn't she have managed to trick her way out? Also, do you think she knows Scott is a True Alpha? Is Kira different from most kitsune since she has a human parent? Whatever happened to Satomi? If any of you have any answers to these questions, or more questions, or headcanons, I would love to hear them! Please, comment away! I don't hear enough from you gentle readers. :)
-Here's the other thing that I don't understand--the nogitsune from these flashbacks seems SO DIFFERENT from the one that is possessing Stiles. Does it depend on the host? Or is something hinky happening? The one in the 1943 flashbacks barely spoke, and seemed like just a mindless killing machine. Then, the one who is possessing Stiles is snarky and wordier and puts way more thought into the tricks he's playing. So, is it writing laziness, or something else?
Unfortunately, "The Fox and the Wolf," which is not a BAD episode, kind of went the way of season 3A's "Visionary," in the way that as interesting as the flashbacks were, and as much as it made the current events make sense, it ultimately didn't do much to further the plot. However, we did learn quite a bit about Kira's family, and the flashbacks were seriously gorgeous, so it ended up being quite a nice break from the life-and-death drama before we end up exploding from the nonstop horror that will be the last three episodes.
Also, I am always happy to see television and films delve into historical events that aren't so well known, and the Japanese internment during World War II is an event that is tragically absent from most high school history classes, so I am thrilled to see a show with such a young demographic getting into it. It wasn't until I was in college and taking an African American Studies class called "History of Injustice in the United States" that I actually learned about what happened to Japanese-Americans during that time period. My professor, who was hands down my favorite and most memorable professor in my entire, long college career, made the importance of always remembering history VERY clear during that class, and I seriously believe that I'm a better person for it. So seriously, if you're out there, and don't know much about this subject, PLEASE research it! Hell, go to Wikipedia or something, even. As sad as the story is, you'll be better off for knowing it!
Anyway, enough of the lecturing, I'm gonna get off my soapbox and dig into this fine episode about foxes and wolves, okay? Let's do this!
Previously, on Teen Wolf: Stiles checked himself into Eichen House after the nogitsune took control over his body and tried to kill Scott. He also had MRIs done at the hospital that suggested that Stiles was developing frontotemporal dementia, which is the same chronic illness that killed his mother, which Sheriff took very hard. In Eichen House, Stiles met up with Malia and found the body of the nogitsune chilling in a sealed wall of the basement. Malia found a photo that seemed to be able to shed some light on the situation. Since the nogitsune feeds off of chaos, strife, and pain, he caused quite a bit of all three by getting Isaac electrocuted, torturing Scott with a ninjada, framing Derek and Chris for murder so they can't help the pack, and just generally being a shitstirrer. Also, Kira's mom suggested that the nogitune knows her, and informed Nogitstiles that if the oni couldn't kill him, she knows someone else who will, which probably means she's going to make Kira do it.
In the cold open, we begin with a flashback to 1943, where a huge military truck is driving out into the middle of the Californian desert. Two Army MPs hop out of the trunk once it's parked, and one of them immediately starts telling riddles to the other. "What gets broken without being held?" the brown-haired MP, whose name is Merrick, asks. The blonde MP, whose name is Hayes, doesn't give a fuck, but Merrick doesn't give a fuck about his not giving a fuck. "A promise! Get it?" Merrick sneers, as the two pull down the door to the trunk of the truck, and immediately start pulling dead bodies out of the cab to be placed in a pile a few yards away. "No, I don't," Hayes snits back. "It's stupid, and it's not funny. None of this is funny." He gestures to all of the dead bodies in the cab, but Merrick doesn't seem to be too disturbed by it. Spoiler alert: it's because he's a huge dick.
They continue to pile up the bodies outside the truck, as Merrick continues to tell Hayes riddles. "What has teeth, but doesn't bite?" (Answer: a comb). Hayes tells him his jokes are stupid, but they're not jokes, they're riddles, and Merrick claims his "girl back home" loves them. They start pulling out jugs of gasoline as Merrick asks, "What has a neck, but no head?" "Your mother," Hayes retorts, but the answer is actually "a bottle." Just as they're about to take the gasoline and cover the bodies with it, they see a bandaged body stand up on top of the pile. It's the nogitsune! Or at least, the form of it that has been harassing Stiles all this time. The MPs are naturally in shock as to how that could be possible, and when the nogitsune starts to walk toward them, Hayes takes out his gun and starts to shoot at him.
As you can guess, the bullets don't actually slow him down a bit, and it takes no time or energy for the nogitsune to catch up with him, turn Hayes's own gun on him, and shoot the remaining bullets into his gut. Then, he moves onto Merrick, who is desperately trying to get into the locked doors of the truck. The nogitsune grabs him on either side of his face, and growls, "What has a neck, but no head?" The answer to THIS one is Merrick, because the nogitsune fully PULLS HIS HEAD RIGHT OFF HIS NECK and casually throws his head aside before growling at the top of his lungs. Oh shiiiiiit! TITLE CARD!
We return to Beacon Hills High School, where Mr. Yukimura is in his empty classroom, presumably to get prepared for his upcoming classes. After he finishes writing notes on the chalkboard, he consults his own notes on his desk. He's distracted when he hears a fly buzzing around, and when it lands on his desk, he picks up a textbook and slams it down on the fly. Before he can get back to his classwork, a voice calls out, "Coming in on a Saturday? That's dedication!" It's Nogitstiles, who saunters in like he owns the place, and starts looking around the classroom. He seriously looks he hasn't slept in months, which is pretty accurate, really. Mr. Yukimura immediately tenses up, so it seems pretty safe to say that his wife has filled him in on the particulars of what's going on with Stiles right now. "Where is she hiding them?" Nogitstiles asks, but Papa Yukimura is pretty good at playing dumb.
"I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about," he replies calmly, as he watches Nogitstiles flip through various books on his bookshelf. "Her little knives," Nogitstiles purrs, as he throws a book onto the floor and grabs a new one. "The daggers? I know what they are. Physical representations of her tails." He flips another book onto the ground, and walks toward him. "However the hell THAT works," he adds as an afterthought. Papa Yukimura suggests that perhaps he'd like to do some research on Japanese mythology in the library, which is hilarious and ballsy, but Nogitstiles just shakes his head and says he'd rather talk to him. He continues to approach Mr. Yukimura, and playfully taps on the desks with his fingertips as he passes them. Lovers of Dylan O'Brien hand porn on Tumblr immediately lose their mind.
"The older the tail, the stronger the oni," Nogitstiles explains, mostly for our benefit. "Am I right? I know there's one left, and I know it's the strongest." Wait, I thought she had two left? When we first were introduced to the tails in "Letharia Vulpina," Mr. Yukimura exposited that Mrs. Yukimura (whose first name, Noshiko, I'm going to use for the rest of the recaps) had already sacrificed five tails before we even saw them. Then, we watched her break two more, to replace the oni that Nogitstiles already killed. That means there should be two tails left of the nine total she had, right? Unless she broke another one off-screen, which is always a possibility.
(via garfinski)
Anyway, Papa Yukimura insists that he has no idea what Nogitstiles is referring to, which ends up being a bad move. Nogitstiles just frowns, and replies, "You'll talk," as he lifts up the textbook Mr. Yukimura used to smash the fly. The fly seems completely unharmed, and flies right into Mr. Yukimura's agape mouth and down his throat. As Papa Yukimura coughs on the fly and falls to his knees, Nogitstiles adds, "They always talk." YIKES! So, that's how he's been controlling everyone, yeah? With the flies? That explains why Oliver was acting like the nogitsune's thrall in "Echo House."
(via garfinski)
Meanwhile, Scott is over at Kira's house, where the two of them are sitting on Kira's bed. He shows her the picture that Malia and Stiles found at Eichen House, which is of a girl that looks EXACTLY like Kira, standing in front of a military truck with what looks like another Army MP, who is also wearing a medic cuff on his sleeve. Kira is stunned that the girl looks just like her, and turns over the photo to see that it's dated 1943 on the back. She figures it has to be her grandmother, judging by the date. "Remember I told you about Malia?" Scott begins. "She's the last one who saw Stiles at Eichen House." He picks up a sword, the one Malia was carrying out of Eichen House when she checked out, and adds that the photo and the sword were found on a body that Stiles and Malia found in a crawlspace, with the same kanji the oni tattooed on all of them carved into the wall. Wait, so we don't even get to SEE Malia in this episode? Why did this exchange have to happen off-screen? Couldn't we have cut like 20 seconds of Noshiko's romantic interludes to wedge that scene in? ANYWAY. "This sounds like it all goes back to your family," Scott admits carefully. "Your grandmother, your mom..." They're interrupted when Kira gets a text message on her phone. Scott immediately notices the worry on her face, and asks her what's going now, but Kira just states, "My dad."
Scott and Kira run into the school as quickly as they can, carrying the sword and the photo with them. When they make it to Kira's dad's classroom, they see that Noshiko is already there, kneeling beside her husband, who is still coughing and hacking everywhere. Noshiko asks her if she brought "it," and Kira hands her a small bottle before asking her what the fuck it is. "Raishi," is what I'm pretty sure Noshi answered, and Kira incredulously asks, "Mom, you are not seriously giving dad magic mushrooms?" Is "raishi" right? Japanese speakers, help a girl out! Anyway, Noshiko just side-eyes her daughter as she starts feeding Mr. Yukimura the mushrooms, which he struggles to keep down. Eventually, he coughs what looks like the same black snotty shit that Gerard is constantly sputtering into a handkerchief. They all help him to his feet, and when his wife asks if he's okay, he nods his head in relief. How is he not like, tripping balls this entire episode? Or maybe he is and just really good and riding through it.
Scott is SO troubled by this sight, and sighs as he asks her if Stiles really did this. "He wanted the last kaiken," Noshiko responds, as she pulls a black dagger out of her jacket. As you can probably guess, "kaiken" is Japanese for "dagger." "I've kept this near me ever since your FRIEND disappeared." Kira insists that her mom needs to tell them everything she knows, and Mr. Yukimura sighs, as if he's anticipated this for a while. Noshiko kind of gives her a look, like, "Don't you boss me around, missy," but Scott hands her the photo from the nogitsune's jacket. She automatically asks them where they found it, but Kira doesn't answer. "Is it grandma?" Kira asks, but Noshiko just frowns. "No. It's me," she confesses, as we're launched into ANOTHER flashback.
It's still 1943, and a bunch of Army soldiers are unloading a truck at a camp. We meet back up with Merrick, who is unloading wooden crates off the truck. He sees Hayes just standing there, throwing a baseball lazily into the air and catching it, and orders him to help him out. A super-gorgeous soldier, Corporal Rhys, asks Merrick for the inventory on the crates of apples. Merrick tells him there were five, but Rhys only sees four crates on the shelf, so Merrick figures he must have miscounted. Nearby, a very feminine set of hands with painted red nails quickly snatches a bag of something and several cans of food from the crates. Merrick, annoyed, yells at Hayes to quit his slacking and help them, so he reluctantly sets down his baseball and goes to assist them. The hands reach for the baseball, and we see that it was actually NOSHIKO who was stealing all the stuff! She holds the baseball in front of her face and smirks a mischievous little smile before taking off. Damn, Arden Cho is so fucking beautiful, it kills me. I am completely in awe of the attractiveness of this cast.
In the present-day, Scott and Kira are stunned at this information. "If that's you, you'd have to be, like, ninety years old," Scott argues, but Noshiko just smiles. "Closer to nine hundred," she admits. HOLY SHIT, I KNEW IT! A nine-tailed kitsune would have to be super ancient, according to Japanese lore. Kira is in shock, and is only able to snark, "Okay! Sure. Why not?" She turns to her dad and asks him how old he is. "Forty-three. But, I've been told I look mid-thirties!" Bahahaha, I love him! Kira looks like she's about to have a panic attack, but forces herself to return to the task at hand, and grabs the katana and holds it out to her mother. She smiles as she takes it, and holds it over the desk. They all watch as she pulls on the handle, and dumps dozens of little pieces of metal onto the desktop. "The blade was shattered the last time it was used," Noshiko explains. When Kira asks her when that was, Noshiko replies, "1943. [beat] Against a nogitsune."
Scott realizes that this whole thing with the nogitsune is NOT happening for the first time, and Noshiko is forced to admit that once again, history is repeating itself in Beacon Hills. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," Mr. Yukimura adds, and it just so happens that that quote is already written on the chalkboard, just in case we all forget. Kira asks where the nogitsune came from, so Noshiko begins the story. "It was a Japanese internment camp during World War II, in Oak Creek, not too far from here." Scott and Kira look at each other in surprise, and Scott brings up the fact that Mr. Yukimura told Isaac and Allison that there was no Oak Creek internment camp, when they came to him for help in translating those crazy voicemails she got. Mr. Yukimura points out that the Argents have a very long history of violence towards supernaturals, so he wasn't sure he could trust Allison not to send her family his way. I can see why he would think that, given Gerard and Kate alone, but I hope they eventually realize that Allison and Chris can be trusted.
"There was a camp, yes," Mr. Yukimura continues. "But all the records were erased." Noshiko is clearly very emotionally involved in this situation, angrily adds, "They covered it up." Papa Yukimura digs around in his desk for a leather bound journal that is stuffed with photos. Once he finds it, he explains to the kids that when he was in grad school, he started researching the Japanese internment during WWII and became obsessed with the Oak Creek camp. His goal was to prove the Oak Creek camp's existence, and it was during this research that Mr. Yukimura met Noshiko! Kira picks up one of the photos that her dad has laid on the desk, and we see that it's of a man whose face and body is completely covered in burns, laying in a hospital bed. She sighs, and asks her mother from where the nogitsune came. "Isn't it obvious yet?" Noshiko snaps rudely. "It came from me!" Hey lady, I appreciate you for your ancient badassery, but you don't have to be mean to your daughter, whom you've been keeping in the dark all this time.
After the break, we return to more 1943 flashbacks. Another military truck drives through the front gates to Oak Creek internment camp (whose front gates look suspiciously similar to Eichen House's), and a young Japanese-American boy chases after it as it drives past various buildings. Inside one of the barracks, a young internee woman passes out apples from a crate. "Guys, keep your voices down. There's plenty for everyone, but if the MPs hear, no one gets anything." The young boy from outside, Mitchio, joins the crowd in the barracks, and when Noshiko, who is sprawled on her top bunk, sees him, she throws him the baseball she stole from Hayes. The girl passing out food (whose name is Meiko) is not thrilled to see the gift she gave him. "A baseball, Noshiko? Did you manage to steal any firecrackers? A machine gun, maybe?"
Noshiko just sighs and rolls her eyes, and turns around to face an older woman who is sitting at a table, giving her a huge side-eye. Noshiko walks over and sits down with the woman, whose name is Satomi, and jokes that she can feel the power of her stare from across the room. Satomi just purses her lips, and points out that she steals too much, and too often, which seems to make her afraid they'll get caught. Noshiko just rolls her eyes and sarcastically asks if she should give some back, as she sets a bottle of aspirin on the table and slides it toward her. She knows Satomi gets migraines once a month, so she stole her some medicine to help. Satomi just smiles and slides the bottle back toward her, as she claims she prefers to suffer. As they speak, Satomi plays a Japanese strategy game called Go by herself, which, according to the Google machine, involves using white and black pebbles to create territories on a board that is sort of similar to a chessboard.
"I know what you think of me, Noshiko," Satomi whines, as Noshiko sits and pouts stubbornly. "You think I am weak because I follow the rules. You think rules are for the obedience of fools and cowards. The young fox always knows the rules so she can break them. The older, wiser animal learns the exceptions to the rules." She sets a black stone on the board, and picks up a white one, as Meiko comes over and reminds them that all they need to do to avoid trouble is to stay quiet. Of course, that lasted all of about a half-second, before the ball Michio was playing with accidentally flies through one of the windows of the building. Michio stands agape as he stares at the open window, and his father quickly pulls him toward their beds. The rest of the internees all quickly begin to hide their contraband in various hidey-holes before the MPs show up.
After a moment, Merrick, Hayes, and Corporal Rhys all come in to find the internees waiting for them silently, each of them standing at attention next to their beds except for Satomi, who is still playing Go at the table. Corporal Rhys holds up the baseball, and asks the internees if they're missing something. Merrick announces that supplies went missing off the trucks, and asks if anyone knows anything about it. He gets all up in Meiko's face, so Hayes does the same toward a group of men across the aisle before starting to search a bed for contraband. Merrick starts groping Meiko under the guise of looking for stolen supplies, sealing his fate as a disgusting prick with no redeeming qualities, until Rhys finally orders him to cut it out. "Just doing my patriotic duty, Corporal," Merrick sneers. Meiko looks like she wants to kick him in the balls, and rightly so.
Corporal Rhys instructs Merrick and Hayes to fix the window, and informs the internees that there will be an inspection in the morning. "We better not find anything that shouldn't be here," Rhys adds. Hayes starts whining about the fact that they're not searching them now, but Rhys is adamant about waiting. "This is a relocation center," Rhys argues. "Not a prison." Merrick laughs condescendingly at him, and snarks that he could call this place a summer camp, if it makes him feel better. HE IS SO GROSS. Merrick and Hayes leave the barracks, and Rhys catches Noshiko's eye before he does the same. He stops before he's out the door, and tosses the baseball back to Michio, who is standing by the door. Michio smiles, and Noshiko seems to be the tiniest bit impressed. Satomi says something in Japanese that I cannot understand, and then adds, "Or, as the Americans say, 'You reap what you sow.'" She places another black stone on her Go board, and picks up another white one.
In the present day, Noshiko is poring over the broken pieces of the sword, and trying to put them back in the correct order. She insists that she needs Kira's help to do it, because this is something that needs to be done in the daytime. Kira is still pissed about her mom hiding all of this from her, and refuses to help until she tells them everything. Mr. Yukimura sighs, and sides with the kids on this argument, and urges her to tell them what they need to know. Noshiko sends a death-glare Scott's way, and snits, "Wolves and foxes tend not to get along, and not just in fables and stories." Mr. Yukimura cuts in. "BUT, allies, however unlikely, should be welcomed. Especially in times of war," he argues. You tell her, Papa Yukimura! Noshiko looks pretty pissed at him for defending them, and slams one of the pieces of metal onto the desktop.
We haven't checked into the Good Broship Cherek/Hargent in a while, have we? At the sheriff's station, Chris and Derek are getting their belongings back from Deputy Parrish. He gets to Chris' cattle-prod taser-wand thing, and tells Chris that he can't allow him to have it back, because it's way over the legal voltage limit. "I only use it for hunting," Chris argues, and Derek gives him the most hilarious and well-deserved side-eye for it. Seriously, he's probably been on the wrong end of one of those bad boys a dozen times by now. "Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure you could use it to jump start a 747," Parrish retorts. Chris reminds him that it's his property, and that the charges against him have been dropped, although he admits that he has no idea how that happened. Sheriff Stilinski appears behind him, and informs him that HE was the one who dropped the charges, and tells Parrish he'll take care of the taser-wand thing. "Sheriff, I'm not kidding," Parrish says with concern. "This thing is a few watts away from being a lightsaber." Hahahaha, I am DYING. Sheriff maintains that he's got it covered, and takes the taser from Parrish before asking to see Derek and Chris in his office. YES! I love this trio so much already.
(via garfinski)
Stilinski gathers them around his desk, and explains that he saw a specialist in Los Angeles the other day, and that the doctor pretty much said, "We can't say for sure," when asked about his son's condition. So, he had Melissa look at Stiles' MRIs and compare them to his wife's, because hey, she may be a nurse, but in this world she is more qualified than any medical professional anywhere. He pulls them out of a file, and shows them that one is of Stiles' brain, and the other is of his wife Claudia's. "I knew they were similar, but those are the same. Exactly the same." Chris takes the two scans and lays them on top of each other, and it's clear to everyone that he's right--they are duplicates of each other. Derek figures the chances of them both having the exact same damage to the exact same parts of their brain isn't possible, and Sheriff confirms that it's not possible, whatsoever. YAY! So Stiles ISN'T sick! I'm so glad that I refused to believe it in the first place. Chris determines that the nogitsune is still playing tricks on them, and Derek asks, "But, why THIS trick?"
Sheriff, who is brainstorming aloud, tells them that when he was in the army, his commanding officer told him that in order to beat their enemy, they don't take their courage, they take their hope. Chris points out that Sheriff isn't one to give up hope easily, but Sheriff is concerned that Stiles IS. "If this thing inside of him, if it's trying to use his mother's disease as some kind of psychological trick, then this isn't just a fight for his body--it's also a fight for his mind, right?" I LOVE that despite being in this supernatural game such a short amount of time, he already has a very impressive understanding about how everything works. Man, he should have been brought in from the very beginning!
Chris points out that Nogitstiles' actions have left a lot of people severely injured, and Derek adds, "And others severely DEAD." Sheriff maintains that this is the reason why he needs Chris and Derek's help, because they have way more experience with supernatural creatures than him, so they can assist him in stopping him. Chris correctly deduces that by "stopping him," Sheriff means "TRAPPING him," and Sheriff nods sheepishly in confirmation. He hands Chris his taser as a gesture of good faith, and Chris takes it, though Sheriff holds onto it for a beat and gives him a look, like, "Don't make me regret this, amigo." YES! Time for the McCall pack (and related parents) to save the day once again!
We transition back into a 1943 flashback, where Noshiko is running down a small passage between barracks. At the end of the passage, Rhys is standing around on guard. When she makes it to him, she pulls him into the passage by the back of his shirt, and pushes him against the wall. They glare at each other for a moment, before smiling and kissing each other. AW YISS, get it Noshiko! Rhys is SO CUTE. "Why do I like you when you're acting tough?" she asks. He jokes that it's because she wants him to be a strong fighter, but she insists that she loves her handsome medic instead. He points out that her handsome medic is a little concerned about all of the stuff she's been stealing off the trucks, particularly medical supplies, because people are starting to catch on. She doesn't really care if they do, so he drops some Japanese on her. "Deru kui wa utareru," he says, though she calls him out on using Japanese proverbs against her. "The stake that sticks out gets hammered down! That's a good proverb!" he insists, but she just rolls her eyes.
He won't let it go, though, and reminds her of what the military tends to do to people who break the rules. Namely, they just take back all the contraband and harass and threaten everyone until someone rats out the culprit, who is then punished severely. Noshiko is tired of arguing, and says if a few bottles of missing aspirin is really that big of a deal, she'll sneak them back into the inventory. That's not exactly what he meant, though, and he sighs. "Let me help! I can get stuff too. I can be pretty sly myself," he says with a smile, as he reaches into his pocket. He pulls out a chocolate bar, and she immediately grins and pulls out the grabby hands, but he pulls it away from her just to be a tease. "I thought you liked it when I'm tough," he grins, but she retorts that she likes chocolate more, and grabs the candy bar from him. Instead of eating it, though, they just start making out again.
In the present day, Kira cuts off the flashback by screeching, "Okay, stop! Just stop! We don't wanna hear your Casablanca story, we wanna know how to save Stiles." Noshiko insists that she's trying to tell them, but Scott correctly assumes that she's just trying to stall until it's night time, so the oni will come out and go after Nogitstiles again. Papa Yukimura tries to break the news that Stiles is gone, f'reals, but you know that Scott won't buy that shit EVER. "I don't think you know that for sure! You brought the oni. Can you call them off?" Kira angrily adds that it isn't Stiles' fault, which is absolutely true, but that's not what Noshiko wants to hear either. "Stiles may be your best friend, he may be like a brother to you, but he's nogitsune now. He is void!" Noshiko exclaims. Scott angrily asks her once more if she can call them off, but she claims that once they hear the rest of the story, they won't want her to do it. Yeah, I highly doubt that, lady.
(via lydiasgotstiles)
We cut quickly to another 1943 flashback, where Noshiko is stuck in what looks like a dark hallway, where she's desperately trying to fight against the nogitsune with her katana. We're not quite there yet, though, so we'll come back to this in a bit.
After the commercial, we meet up with Allison, Chris, Sheriff and Derek in Chris' study. On his desk are tons of chains, ropes, zipties, tasers, handcuffs, tranquilizer darts, and smoke bombs. Allison explains that these were all the non-lethal weapons and tools she could round up, and Chris suggests that she pack them all up. Sheriff asks them what the plan is going to be, so Chris suggests they start with sending Derek to Eichen House to try to catch Stiles scent and track him. Sheriff wonders if it's a good idea for them to all be going there, so they start trying to think of where else Stiles has been popping up lately, like the hospital and the school. "Hold on," Derek pipes up. "We did this already. He disappeared, we started looking for him, and then walked right into a trap at the hospital." Chris realizes he's trying to get them to repeat all the same mistakes they made the first time, and wonders if maybe waiting for him to come to them would be a better idea. Unfortunately, as Derek points out, they have to find him before the sun goes down, or the oni could find him first.
Sheriff informs them that Scott and Kira are currently working on trying to talk Mama Yukimura into calling off the oni. Chris says the problem is that they're trying to out-trick the trickster spirit, and the gravity of the situation causes them all to fall quiet. Sheriff looks like he feels really guilty for talking them all into this (although I have no doubt that they would all help even if he hadn't asked), and assures them that if they want to back out, there will be no hard feelings on his end. They all think about this for a moment, and Derek quips, "Well, I'm not going to be the first wolf to run from a fox," which totally made me crack up for some reason. He starts packing up the bag full of supplies, and Chris cracks, "Apparently, I'm carrying a lightsaber," as he helps him pack, which just made me laugh even more. I LOVE THIS PACK SO MUCH.
Allison, the hunter matriarch, decide that they'll all split up--Derek and her dad will go to Eichen House, she and the Sheriff will go to the hospital, and they'll meet up at the school. I love that she took charge, and I love even more that they actually listened to her. Besides, it's good advice, you know? One hunter on each side, plus Derek has his werewolf abilities and Sheriff is as good with guns as any of them, so it's not like they won't have backup. BEAUTIFUL TEAM IS BEAUTIFUL. Chris waits for Sheriff and Allison to leave the room before he grabs one of his guns from a hollowed-out book, to which Derek sarcastically asks, "Making sure you have a few lethal options, just in case?" Chris loads the gun and cocks it before responding, "I like to prepare for the worst." NO THE WORST WILL NOT BE HAPPENING.
Back at the school, Kira and Scott are listening to Noshiko as she continues to tell her story. "Rhys and I found ways to see each other. Sometimes at the barracks...sometimes at the bunkers, where they parked military vehicles." We flashback to 1943, where she and Rhys are cuddled up in one of the trucks, as Noshiko eats candies out of a glass mason jar. "He was being transferred to North Africa in a few weeks. I was teaching him some French." Rhys is reading out of a book, and completely butchers the pronunciations of the words. "Coo-day frah? Coo-day foo-dray?" She informs him that it's actually "coup de foudre," so he tries it again. "Not bad!" Noshiko praises with a smile. "It's an idiom, but the literal translation is 'bolt of lightning.'" He gets a sly look on his face as he closes the book, and cutely replies, "Embrasse-moi [Kiss me]." She smiles and jokes that she didn't teach him that, but he claims he learned it on his own, and they kiss and are in general just super adorable.
They're startled when they hear a vehicle door slamming nearby, and they reflexively duck down so they're not seen. Noshiko's voiceover explains the situation as her young self and Rhys watch a doctor talking to Merrick and Hayes a couple yards away. "We watched Merrick and Hayes talking with the camp doctor. They were whispering, talking quickly." The doctor pulls a huge wad of cash out of his pocket, and starts counting it out before handing some over to the MPs.
In the present-day, Mr. Yukimura notices that Noshiko is getting so emotional that she started gripping a piece of the sword tightly enough to cut her hand. Kira sees the blood dripping on the desk, but Noshiko just smiles as her husband hands her a tissue, and wipes the blood from her hand. When she opens her hand again, there is no wound. Kira is stunned, although I don't know why, because she's already seen Scott, Derek, Isaac, an the twins heal from way worse injuries already. She asks how she did it, but Noshiko just tells her that it's one of the kitsune's talents. "You should have noticed by now that you never get sick? Ever? You'll never experience anything as simple as a common cold, something as bad as the flu...or something like pneumonia."
We cut to another flashback to the internment camp, where the camp doctor has just diagnosed Michio with pneumonia, just like many of the other internees in the camp. Michio's dad sits at his bedside, blotting at his brow with a washcloth, as Noshiko checks on Meiko, who standing by his bed and bent over in the midst of a coughing fit. She claims that it's not as bad as it sounds, and walks away to check on another patient in the camp infirmary. Noshiko can see Rhys arguing with the doctor nearby, and waits for him to finish.
She can tell he's stressed, so she runs over to him when Dr. Listen walks away, where he admits that he's totally fucked, because everyone is coming down with pneumonia, and the camp is out of M&B, which is the Army shorthand for May & Baker Pharmaceuticals' sulfadiazine antibiotic that they use to treat bacterial pneumonia. Noshiko remembers seeing three crates of it on the truck the last time she went on a pilfering spree, though Rhys says they only have record of one. She swears she didn't touch any of it, and she helps him look through his records in hopes of figuring this out. In present day, Noshiko explains, "Rhys checked the log, but we already knew what was happening. Doctor Listen was using Merrick and Hayes to sell medicine on the black market." We flashback to where she and Rhys were poring over the logs. In the nearby hospital bed, Michio's dad starts to panic when his son stops breathing. He shakes Michio, but he won't wake up, and eventually he starts to cry as he clutches his son's body as the baseball he was holding falls to the floor.
In the barracks, a crowd of angry internees are gathered around Meiko and Noshiko, who must have told the rest of them what is going on with the medications and the camp doctor. Meiko tries to calm them down. "Listen! All we have to do is go to the administration and issue a formal complaint." Behind them, Satomi is at that damn Go game once again, as she listens to them speak. Michio's dad is understandably skeptical that doing that will end up helping anything.
MICHIO'S DAD: "You wanna talk to them? Let's talk to them. Let's tell them how one of their doctors was stealing medication and selling it on the black market."
MEIKO: "They'll listen! They have to!"
MICHIO'S DAD: "Oh, sure they will. They'll nod their heads with their condescending smiles. They'll say, 'A new shipment is on it's way, any day now.' But today...today, my son is dead."
MEIKO: [sympathetic] "I know how you feel--" [dissolves into another terrible coughing fit]
MICHIO'S DAD: [shakes head] "No, Meiko. I know how YOU feel. You feel sick. I'll bury you next to Michio."
SATOMI: [calls out from her table] "You want to know what I think? You won't even get a condescending smile. They won't listen to us. Why should they?"
Ugh, everything is terrible! Michio's dad finds a bottle of whiskey in his stash of contraband, and quickly uses a handkerchief to turn it into a Molotov cocktail before insisting to the rest of the internees that he's going to make the powers that be listen to them. In the present day, Noshiko is examining one of the broken pieces of the sword's blade. "I had realized the mistake I had made by speaking too soon," she admits sadly. "I wasn't helping anyone, I was inciting a riot."
1943--Merrick is driving a car with Hayes riding shotgun, and Dr. Listen in the backseat, and they're just about to leave the camp when the internees start to surround the car in a huge mob. The MPs start to aim their guns at them in an effort to disperse the crowd, but Rhys jumps in front of them and holds up his hands as he orders them all to NOT shoot anyone. Michio's dad, with his unlit Molotov cocktail in hand, shouts out that they want the doctor NOW, as Dr. Listen starts to panic from inside the car when he realizes the jig is up.
Once the internees start pounding on the car with their fists and trying to tip it over, Dr. Listen shouts, "Those people, if they manage to drag me out of this car, do you know what's going to happen? They are gonna put a NOOSE around my neck! And MAYBE they'll be polite enough to ask me if I have any last words. You know what those last words are gonna be? 'I. Had. Help.'" Merrick, who, as expected, is only looking out for himself, suggests they throw him out there in an effort to distract them, but Dr. Listen furiously reminds them that though the mob has rocks and sticks as their weapons, THEY have guns, and orders them to use them.
He hangs his head in shame, and is about to walk away when Merrick pushes his way out of the car and immediately aims his gun at the crowd as he makes his way through all the people. Naturally, they all back away from the loaded gun being pointed at them, except for Satomi, who stands tall and confident in front of him. Noshiko sees her from a couple feet away, and tries to stop her, but before he can, Merrick hauls off and pistol-whips Satomi right in the face. The crowd instantly starts mobbing him as she falls to the ground, but when she lifts up her head to glare at him, we (and Noshiko) realize that her eyes are GLOWING GOLD, and the wound on her head is quickly healing. OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD.
"Now I knew why Satomi was always trying to keep quiet," Noshiko reveals in voiceover. "Why she got migraines once a month, and why she was always at the game of Go. It kept her calm." In the present day, a shocked Scott realizes that Satomi was bitten while she was at the camp, which Noshiko confirms grimly. "Bitten werewolves have a harder time suppressing their anger. One unexpected flare-up, and they can lose all control." Hey girl, you don't have to remind him--he LIVED it, and is now a pretty shining example of how to stay in control as a bitten werewolf. Back in flashback, Satomi is fully wolfed-out, and angrily grabs the Molotov cocktail from Michio's dad and hurls it at the car, which lands right on Rhys and immediately sets him ablaze. "Noooooo!" Noshiko wails in horror, and everyone just stares as he is devoured by flames.
Hey, let's catch back up with the pack, eh? Allison and Sheriff get into the elevator of the hospital, and have probably my favorite scene of this entire episode. Seriously, Crystal Reed and Linden Ashby NAILED it. As they're waiting, Sheriff is just thinking about their entire situation, and admits he has no idea how they do it. "You're all so strong. You're fearless. Hell, you even manage to keep your grades up!" Allison's nerves are just so clearly frayed right now, and she just barely manages to admits that she's failing econ without breaking into tears. Sheriff just kind of awkwardly shrugs and assures her he'll talk to Coach about it to help her out, which is just the nicest thing ever, so nice that whatever it was that was holding Allison together immediately crumbles, and she starts to cry. Sheriff shuts off the elevator so they can have some privacy, and asks her if she's okay. The answer is, she's really not, and can you really blame her?
ALLISON: [in tears] "I'm not. Fearless. I'm-I'm terrified. I'm always terrified. I-I act like I know what I'm doing, but I don't. I-I don't know if Isaac's dying right now. I don't know if I made a mistake with Scott. I don't know what my dad is thinking. I don't know if we should trust Derek, I don't know-I don't know-I don't know anything!"
(via teenwolf)
Damn, that hit me riiiiiight in the feels, you guys. Her Argent-hunter instincts always push her to be stoic and strong and to look at everything clinically and unemotionally, but you can't do that forever. Sometimes it's just too much to ignore. Sheriff, bless him, wastes no time pulling her into a hug, and just rocks her for a second as she cries. "You know what's funny?" Sheriff whispers to Allison as she tries to calm herself down. "You sound just like a cop." This makes Allison laugh through her tears, and OH MY GOD YOU GUYS I JUST CAN'T WITH THESE CHARACTERS IT'S TOO MUCH. They finally pull away, and once Sheriff assures her once more that Allison is going to be okay, he gives her the sweetest, most understanding smile, and flips the switch to restart the elevator. His phone buzzes, and he frowns in confusion when he reads the alert on his phone. Allison asks him what's up, so he admits that he thinks someone is breaking into his house, and starts to access an app on his phone. "After Stiles started sleepwalking, I had some security precautions put in. Motion sensors, cameras." They manage to access the camera that caught the footage, and Allison squints as she tries to focus on the video. She asks if it's Stiles' room, and when he zooms in, we see that Nogitstiles is sitting on Stiles' bed, and creepily waving at the camera. NOOOO.
Back to 1943--the rioting is continuing, even after Rhys has been severely injured by the Molotov cocktail. Merrick manages to push his way through the crowd to join the rest of the MPs with rifles who are stationed around the perimeter. A few of the protesters chase after him, so Merrick starts taking shots at them with his handgun, which leads the rest of the MPs to follow suit with their own guns. Noshiko watches in shock as her fellow internees get shot down by the soldiers, and it doesn't take long before she's shot herself. She falls to her knees as she gets shot several more times, before eventually collapsing on the ground next to fellow injured protesters. After a few moments, only the MPs who were guarding the front gates to the camp, including Merrick and Hayes, were left standing--the rest of the internees in the crowd, and several other soldiers, all lay on the ground, either dead or critically wounded.
In present day, they've almost finished putting the katana blade back together as Noshiko finishes up her story. "The gunfire nearly killed me," she admits, as Kira looks at her with sympathy. "I don't know how many bullets made their way into my body, but I fought every one of them." We flashback to the aftermath of the riot, where Dr. Listen is examining Noshiko's body, and she continues in voiceover. "It left my body so weak, my heartbeat so slow, it appeared as though I was dead." Dr. Listen looks around at the mess he made and looks supremely guilty, as he should. We cut back to present day, where they're still working on the sword. "But even then, I was still better off than Rhys." We cut again back to Rhys, who was taken to Eichen House, which I imagine was the camp's hospital at the time. He's got burns over what looks like the entirety of his body, and he's crying out in agony as the nurses try to bandage his wounds. Noshiko describes how his screams could be heard all through Eichen House, and says he eventually died in agony, because to literally add insult to injury, Dr. Listen ALSO sold all the morphine. Wonderful.
As it turns out, Merrick and Hayes ended up being put in charge of disposing of all of the bodies, which included both the Japanese-American internees and the American soldiers at the camp who were killed in the riot. Dr. Listen was to be transferred to another camp, and everything else was going to be covered up so that no one could ever find out what really happened. We can see Noshiko's blood-spattered body laying on top of the pile in the back of the military truck that Merrick and Hayes were taking to dump the bodies, as she gets to the worst part of her story. "The doctor, Merrick, Hayes, and all of the others, they were going to get away with murder." In the truck, Noshiko's eyes open as her body begins to heal itself. "By chance, I guess, Rhys' body had been put next to mine." Noshiko slowly reaches over and grabs Rhys' heavily-bandaged hand as she looks over at him, and she remembers all of the happy times they had, laughing and kissing and being in love. Noshiko begins to cry, and when she opens her eyes, they're glowing that kitsune gold-orange-pink.
Present-Day Noshiko angrily recounts her thought processes during that moment. "I wanted the soldiers and the administration of the camp to pay for their crime, but I knew the clock was ticking. I was going to lose my chance," she explains, as she starts to tear up. You can tell that this story has been haunting her ever since. "They were going to burn me with the others. I couldn't fight back with my body weakened and still healing. I could barely move. I was going to die. With time slipping through my fingers, I knew I was making a terrible decision, but I could not die knowing that they would get away." In flashback, Noshiko is still crying angrily as she lays in the back of the truck, struggling with the decision she knew she had to make. "So, I called out to our ancestors for kitsunetsuki, possession by a fox spirit. For a powerful nogitsune, one that feeds off of chaos, strife and pain to take control of my weakened body, imbue it with power, and use it as a weapon."
DAMN, Noshiko! That is so intense! Like, I totally understand why she would want retribution, because that is a pretty fucking terrible event, from what Dr. Listen did to how the administration dealt with it. But clearly this did not end up working out in her favor, as Noshiko admits herself. "But calling on a trickster spirit is a dangerous thing. They can have a very dark sense of humor. Because, while the nogitsune did come to possess someone, it wasn't me." Out in the Californian desert, Merrick and Hayes have almost finished piling up all of the bodies to be incinerated, and are just grabbing the cans of gasoline when they see Rhys' bandaged body standing up on top of the pile. OH SHIT, THE NOGITSUNE POSSESSED RHYS AND THAT'S WHY HE'S ALL BANDAGED WHEN HE FUCKS WITH STILES. Rhysitsune growls and bares those crazy silver lamprey fangs before running towards them in that weird, disjointed way that it moves. Noshiko wakes up and manages to roll over just in time to see Hayes shooting at Rhysitune.
In the present day, Scott asks Noshiko what happened, so she gives them the deets. "My body was beginning to heal, and I managed to pull myself up off the ground, but it was too late." In the flashback, Noshiko starts to cry out for Rhys as Rhysitune goes to decapitate Merrick. Afterward, he hops into the military truck, dons the leather military jacket he finds in the passenger seat, and takes off with the vehicle, despite her desperate pleas. How does an ancient fox spirit know how to drive one of those huge trucks? Are they like, all-knowing or something? Back in the classroom, Scott asks what happened next, but we already know the answer. "He brought chaos, strife, and more pain than you can imagine."
1943--Meiko leads a group of internees through a small tunnel in the camp, but when they finally make it to a gate, it's locked, as well as another gate down a nearby set of stairs. She pushes her way through the crowd to lead them to another possible exit, but she stops when she sees Rhysitsune standing in the middle of the staircase, growling at them. She shrieks in terror when she sees him, and I assume that they were all slaughtered by it.
When Noshiko was finally healed enough to move, she made her way back to Eichen House, where she found dozens of dead bodies littering the front yard. Dr. Listen, some nurses, some internees, the nogitsune did not seem to discriminate at all when it came to deciding who to kill. Horrified, Noshiko runs over to her bed in the barracks, and grabs her katana from under the bed and unsheathing it.
Present day--Noshiko and Kira are almost finished putting the katana pieces back in order, and Noshiko urges her daughter to hurry up, because it's almost sundown.
1943--Remember that scene where she was fighting the nogitsune with her sword in a hallway? We're finally there now, and man, Noshiko has SKILLS. She's just going to town on him, swiping and jabbing and grunting, and it's truly a sight to behold. Unfortunately, the nogitsune grabs hold of her katana and yanks her toward him as he growls in her face, and she growls right back, until Satomi, still wolfed-out, appears out of nowhere and claws Rhysitsune right in the spine! She snarls at Noshiko in a gesture to indicate she should go for it, so she drives her sword right through the nogitsune (and her boyfriend, unfortunately). When she pulls the blade out of him, it shatters into all of those itty-bitty pieces we've seen all episode. with a blue puff of magic.
Rhysitsune collapses onto the ground, and Noshiko falls to her knees next to him, devastated to have to see Rhys die for a second time. A fly squeezes its way out of Rhys' agape mouth, so Noshiko quickly catches it in her hand, and sighs. Somehow, Rhys is still alive enough to say one last thing to Noshiko--"Coup de foudre." I have a theory as to how this could be, but I'll get into that later. Noshiko starts to cry in the hallway, as Satomi recovers from the stress of the day.
Kira puts the last piece of the katana in place as her mom wraps up the story. "The literal translation is 'bolt of lightning.' In French, it can also mean, 'love at first sight.'" Kira looks over at Scott, because that seems like a very literal translation of how Scott and Kira came to fall for each other, considering it was when she literally lit up the power substation with her foxfire. Noshiko cuts into their thoughts, and reveals that a bolt of lightning is what they all really need right now. When Kira asks why, Noshiko explains that the force of excising the nogitsune from Rhys' is what shattered the katana, but that Kira has the power to fix it herself. Kira is still very wary about this whole "being a supernatural creature thing," and asks her mom why she can't just do it herself. "Because I'm not a thunder kitsune," Noshiko argues. WHAT KIND OF KITSUNE IS SHE? Celestial? To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if she were a nogitsune, but that is also something I'll talk about in a bit. Also, how do you think kitsune genetics work? Is it just a random thing, or is it based on your true nature, kind of like the rest of the shapeshifters?
Noshiko notices Kira staring at the katana in confusion, and asks if she trusts her. Understandably, Kira's like, "I just found out that you've been alive longer than everyone in this room combined, and that you're some super-powerful mystical fox who basically caused all this bullshit, so no, I don't really feel much like I can trust you right now, nor am I sure I'll ever be able to." Noshiko takes that pretty hard, but since she knows that time is of the essence, she compartmentalizes those emotions for the moment and asks her to trust that she knows what she's doing regarding her powers. She takes Kira's hand, and holds it over the katana, and almost immediately, an ice-blue haze of electricity lights up the katana. Scott and Mr. Yukimura just gape at her in awe, and honestly, Kira seems pretty in awe of herself as well. The pieces clink together as the lightning from Kira's body fuses the pieces into one whole katana blade. HOLY SHIT! Kira is AMAZING.
(via teenwolf)
We cut over to the Stilinski residence, where they've found Stiles' chessboard all laid out on his desk, with the various little post-its indicating the werewolves, hunters, druids, and kanimas in Beacon Hills. I'm not going to really get into the pieces or what they mean, because there's about a bazillion metas on tumblr that go into it way better than I ever could. I would like to point out that Kate is on the board, as well as Jackson, even though neither are around to have any bearing on the story, which I found interesting. Chris asks what the board is, so Sheriff has to explain how Stiles used it to introduce him to the supernaturals, back when he didn't believe. Allison suggests that the board was a message from Stiles, the real Stiles, in a lone moment of lucidity or something. Chris picks up the piece labelled "Isaac," which worried a shitload of people, because that means he's no longer in the game, but I'm guessing it's just because he's still in the hospital and currently not "active."
Derek notices that his name is on the king, and asks what that means, but Sheriff doesn't really see anything notable about the current state of the board except for the fact that Derek is heavily guarded (by Ethan and Aiden, surprisingly enough), and that he is also one move away from checkmate. "It's not a message from Stiles," Chris determines. "It's a threat from the nogitsune." Allison agrees with him, and informs him that she believes the nogitsune is trying to tell them that he's at Derek's loft. Chris figures he wants them to COME there, and Derek brings up the fact that it's almost dark, which means the oni are going to be coming for him. "This couldn't feel any more like a trap," Chris reasons to Sheriff, but naturally, Sheriff is hesitant to believe that it is. Chris suggests that maybe Sheriff is just a little biased, considering it's his son who's being possessed by the nogitsune, but Sheriff actually has a very legit explanation.
"Here me out," Sheriff argues. "What we're dealing with is basically someone who LACKS motive. No rhyme, no reason, right? [...] Our enemy's not a killer. It's a trickster! The killing is just the byproduct." Derek isn't very confident that Nogitstiles WON'T kill them, but Sheriff disagrees. "It won't! It wants irony. It wants to play a trick, it wants a joke. All we need to do is come up with a new punchline." That is such a Harvey Specter way of thinking, I dig it! Chris asks him what he has in mind, since the sun is setting and they need to get moving ASAP, so he sighs as he glances at the chalkboard.
(via teenwolf)
Back at the school, Kira is practically giggling from the fact that she just melted a sword back together with her foxfire, and Scott is looking at her like he's just SO INTO HER. His complete awe at the amazingness of the women around him will never, ever, ever get old to me. Noshiko picks the sword up carefully and examines it before holding it out for Kira to take. "Go ahead. It's yours, now." Kira hesitates, for a moment, and quietly asks what happens if she doesn't want it. Noshiko gives her another one of her patented side-eyes, before pointing out that she needs it. She tosses it to Kira, and when she catches it, her hands start to spin the sword around of it's own accord, and she huffs a sigh of "HOLY SHIT WHAT DID I DO." Noshiko just chuckles. "You see? It gives you balance. My power is yours now, Kira. If the oni cannot stop Stiles, YOU have to, the same as I did." She glances over at Scott for a moment before adding, "And maybe seek out a wolf to help you."
(via teenwolf)
Scott is quite rightly pissed at what he sees as a waste of time. "You didn't tell us anything," Scott argues. Noshiko maintains what she has already said--if they want to save Stiles, they have to kill him. It's the only way. Scott can't believe she would even say that, and turns to Kira's dad for backup, but he takes her side.
MR. YUKIMURA: "Sometimes history DOES repeat itself, Scott."
SCOTT: [angry and incredulous] "Only if you don't learn!"
MR. YUKIMURA: "But even then, sometimes fate conspires against you."What the fuck does that even mean? I like Kira's parents enough, though I am a little salty at Noshiko for causing this shitshow in the first place, but anyone who knows anything about Scott McCall KNOWS that he doesn't believe in no-win situations, regardless of whether the person he's trying to save is a stranger or a friend or a family member. He refuses to believe that there is never no other solution to the problem, and he refuses to give up. He checks his phone when he hears it buzz to find that Allison has sent him a simple text--"Derek's loft." He puts his phone back in his pocket and turns to the Yukimuras as he states, "There's a way to save him. There has to be." YES KING SCOTT! SAVE OUR STILES! He turns and rushes out the door, as Kira turns to follow behind him. Noshiko stops her before she goes, and Kira literally gives her the death glare, thinking that her mom is going to try to stop her. Instead, she holds out the sheath to her katana, and Kira quickly takes it and puts it on her new sword before slinging it over her shoulder and running out the door.
In the present day, Noshiko pulls out the (allegedly) sole remaining kaiken, and promises she'll put it someplace safe. Mr. Yukimura (I really wish we knew his name!) replies that the kaiken is not what he's worried about. "History has not done well with making children into killers," he reminds her, but Noshiko doesn't seem at all bothered about it. "These children played their part long before we moved back to Beacon Hills," she argues. In flashback, 1943-Noshiko eventually stumbles upon the Nemeton, which was not a tree stump back then, but instead a majestically humongous and ancient tree that sparkles with power. Noshiko stares at it in awe as Noshiko makes the last big reveal. "I buried the jar deep within the roots of the Nemeton. It was their sacrifice that brought it's power back."
(via teenwolf)
OH MY GOD. We flashback to "Lunar Ellipse," when Allison, Scott and Stiles have just reawakened after committing ritual suicide via drowning in a tub of water and mistletoe. We cut to the scene of the earth shifting around the Nemeton's stump in the same episode, when Jennifer's connection to the telluric currents caused all the natural disaster that destroyed that root cellar and almost killed many of our heroes. "They let the demon out of its cage." Wait, so is she really blaming them for this? Because it wasn't really their fault that their parents were about to ALSO be ritually sacrificed and they were forced to perform a dangerous ritual in a last-ditch effort to locate them before they died. And I mean, it's not like they haven't already felt the consequences, both from the hearts of darkness and the non-stop supernatural creature beacon they reignited. Besides, they're not the one who unleashed the so-called demon on the world in the first place, no matter how well-intentioned Noshiko's reasons were for doing so. If anyone deserves the blame for what the nogitsune has done, it's definitely her.
The Sheriff opens up Derek's loft door, and stands in the doorway as he stares at Nogitstiles, who is standing in his typical hoodie and khakis, with his back to him, looking at the wall of windows. He turns around when he hears Sheriff walk in, and gives him a long look before sighing and whispering, "Hi, Dad." IS IT REAL STILES? I'm gonna guess not.
(via fionagallghr)
Next episode: Everyone seems to be either hallucinating or otherwise losing their damn mind, just like the rest of us viewers. Also, Nogitstiles causes wayyyyy more drama.
Click HERE to read my next recap of Teen Wolf!
[screencaps via the lovely screencappers at KissThemGoodbye]
NOTES/QUESTIONS/SPECULATION:
-Okay, so, we have a general timeline now of the Nemeton. Noshiko hid the nogitsune in the Nemeton in 1943, when the tree was still whole, which means that it was cut down at some point between then and 2003, which is the year that Paige died on top of the Nemeton, where we saw that the tree was a stump even then. (Also, keep in mind that in the TW timeline, it's still 2011. Season 1 took place over January and part of February 2011, Season 2 took place over February to May or early June 2011, and Season 3 began in the late summer/early fall of 2011, so like September. Then, 3B started just before Halloween, and will last into Novemberish, and when we return for Season 4, it'll be January 2012, apparently.)
-Also, after watching this episode a couple of times, it seems like Noshiko enjoyed kind of stirring up mischief in the internment camp, with stealing all the supplies and spreading the news of what Dr. Listen and the MPs were doing. Granted, she's a trickster who seems to have been taught about her powers her entire life, so she's probably much more in tune with that part of herself than Kira is, since she was raised as a human and had no idea of who she even was until recently. I'm still not totally convinced that she isn't also a nogitsune, but either way, I'm wondering what has happened to her powers now that she's lost almost all of her tails. Was what she said about giving her powers to Kira actually literal, and not figurative? As badass as she is in personality, we haven't really seen any evidence of any other powers of hers in her current age, other than the slight bit of foxfire from her fingertips and the healing. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want to know SO MUCH MORE ABOUT HER.
-Do you think Rhys could be a werewolf? I was really confused as to how he could still be alive enough to say his last words to Noshiko, and I started thinking about Satomi, and how she was bitten while at the camp, which means that there had to have been another one to do it. Granted, I have no explanation as to why he would want to bite one of the internees, but it would explain why he was still conscious after the nogitsune was expelled from him--like Noshiko, his body was in a lot of pain and overwhelmed with trying to heal itself, so it's possible that he just APPEARED to be dead, even if he wasn't really. Then, being possessed by the nogitsune helped him heal a little more.
-As much as I hate that the pack is going through all this bullshit, it makes me really happy to see how everyone has banded together in favor of saving Stiles. I mean, even Derek and Allison were getting along perfectly well, with no fighting or meanness or anything. True, she did admit to Sheriff that she's still not sure she can trust Derek, but I think she does acknowledge the fact that what he did to her mother was an accident, and a fate that she kind of brought on herself by trying to kill Scott and Derek, you know? I also think it's nice that Derek has some more age-appropriate friends, since he's mostly just been hanging out with teenagers this whole time. I think Sheriff and Chris would make some pretty good drinking buddies for him, and each other.
-Random question time: Why was Noshiko in the camp in the first place? Surely, couldn't she have managed to trick her way out? Also, do you think she knows Scott is a True Alpha? Is Kira different from most kitsune since she has a human parent? Whatever happened to Satomi? If any of you have any answers to these questions, or more questions, or headcanons, I would love to hear them! Please, comment away! I don't hear enough from you gentle readers. :)
-Here's the other thing that I don't understand--the nogitsune from these flashbacks seems SO DIFFERENT from the one that is possessing Stiles. Does it depend on the host? Or is something hinky happening? The one in the 1943 flashbacks barely spoke, and seemed like just a mindless killing machine. Then, the one who is possessing Stiles is snarky and wordier and puts way more thought into the tricks he's playing. So, is it writing laziness, or something else?
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