Teen Wolf Season 3, Episode 24: "The Divine Move" Recap/Review
I know that it is several weeks after the fact, but I still can't believe we have to wait two more months before we get more Teen Wolf! I feel like 3B really flew, and though The Originals is cranking up in intensity, and though even TVD has me hooked again, I'm still feeling a little bored without it, you know? However, this tiny vacation from teenage werewolves & friends should hopefully give me some time to attend to the ginormous backlog of TVD recaps sitting in my drafts folder, so that could be a little silver lining!
Anyway, despite the huge chunk of my heart that is still missing from the loss of my beauteous warrior goddess Allison, "The Divine Move" was still a wonderful, yet heartbreaking, end to what was an excellent horror-movie half-season. So, enough of the jibber-jabber, time to dig in!
Previously, on Teen Wolf: The Golden Trio (Scott, Allison and Stiles) temporarily sacrificed their lives to save their parents (by ritual suicide, natch), which accidentally resulted in the three leaving the doors to their minds open and gave them all horrifying hallucinations and nightmares. A nogitsune broke out of the Nemeton and exploited that weakness in order to hitch a ride in Stiles' body and start all kinds of trouble in town. Using another ritual led by Peter, Scott and Lydia hopped into Stiles' brain and guided him out of his subconscious and back into his body, so the nogitsune violently ejected himself out of Stiles and now has his own body that looks just like Dylan O'Brien. The nogitsune ran off ti Oak Creek with Lydia, whom he used to alert him when he was about to die, so he could break Noshiko's last kaiken and steal her oni right under her nose. Allison died a hero's death as she tried to protect Isaac, and even managed to somehow kill an oni before she left. Which is where we pick up!
We open at the Sheriff's station, where Lydia, Scott, and Isaac are sitting on a bench as they wait to be interviewed by the police. As you can imagine, they all look devastated, shell-shocked, and just generally numb to everything. I want to hug ALL OF THEM.
As Scott stares off into space, he flashes back to Allison, right before she died. Her face is snow-white, and blood drips from her lips as she looks at him and takes her last breaths. He then flashes forward a tiny bit to what came afterwards, probably an hour so earlier at Oak Creek. Chris has taken him aside in one of the tunnels and is urging him to look at him as he tries to coach him on what to say to the police. It's obvious that Chris desperately needs to focus on this so he doesn't think about the fact that his daughter is dead, and he pushes Scott to listen to him. "Scott! Look at me! You HAVE to remember. You called me first, okay? Say it. You called me first." Scott grips the bars helplessly and starts to repeat back to him, but Chris corrects him. "What else? What happened?" Scott starts to recount the story they must have already agreed upon--there were two guys, they tried to steal Allison's car, they wore masks, and one of them had a knife. Chris corrects him again, and tells him not to get specific.
"What do you say next?" Chris continues. "If you get confused, what do you always repeat?" Scott takes a deep breath, and stammers, "It happened so fast." This seems to satisfy him, but he continues to push harder and harder, until finally Scott just can't deal with it anymore. "How are you doing this?" Chris freezes for a long moment, and he looks like he's just about to break down before he steels himself and reminds him that he's an Argent. "It's what we do." It's what he's already done, with Kate, and his wife, uncle Alexander, and god knows how many other fellow hunters who went after the wrong creatures. He rubs Scott's shoulder comfortingly for a minute, and repeats, "It's what we do," before walking away.
In the present, Isaac is in Sheriff Stilinski's office with Deputy Parrish, who is doing the interview. "Can you remember anything else?" Deputy Parrish prods, but Isaac is still shivering and way too emotionally and physically exhausted to function at this point. "I'm sorry," Isaac whispers quietly, as Sheriff puts a soothing hand on his shoulder. "It--it happened so fast." I think it's easy to forget how much loss Isaac has felt, too. His mom, his brother, even his DAD, who was hardly the best family. Then Erica, and Boyd, his pack. He finally started to put the pieces of a family together again, with Scott and Melissa, Allison and Chris, and now things are just starting to fracture for him all over again. (I try not to get too spoilery outside of my notes section, but it seems to be common knowledge at this point that Daniel Sharman isn't coming back to Season 4. :/ No Allison AND no Isaac?! I know he can always come back, but for now, this is just double shitty.)
Kira and Noshiko took Stiles to their house, presumably to make sure no one thinks Stiles had any part in Allison's death, after the shit the nogitsune has pulled lately while wearing his face. Stiles is looking worse by the minute--he's even more pale than before, the shadows under his eyes way more pronounced, and he's shivering pretty severely. Noshiko pours him a cup of tea, and encourages him to drink it so it can calm him down. He's understandably suspicious, as I was, and asks her if it's "magic tea," but no worries, it's just plain old chamomile. Papa Yukimura walks in and reminds them all that Stiles isn't safe at their house, but Noshiko argues that he's not exactly safe ANYWHERE, so does it really matter at this point? "But Allison killed one of them," Kira pipes up. "Doesn't that mean something? She killed an ONI." YES! Sing her praises, Kira! This is just fueling all of my (now AU) Allison/Kira BFF headcanons. Papa Y wonders if that's even possible, and Noshiko herself admits she has never heard of such a thing before.
"But she did it!" Kira insists. "She killed one of them." Stiles doesn't seem to think it matters. "Yeah, and then they killed her," he mutters, which causes all the Yukimuras to remember that these kids just lost their good friend. "Allison's dead," Stiles continues sadly. "And now, I guess the only good thing is it looks like I'm dying too." STILES, BB, NO. Noshiko shocks me by sitting down next to him and actually empathizing with him, instead of being on her whole "STILES MUST DIE" crusade. "He made a powerful move by splitting the two of you," she says quietly. Kira grabs one of the stones from the Go board still sitting on the coffee table, and asks what THEIR next move is. Papa Yukimura, who seems to be a pretty skilled Go player himself, admits that at this point, their only recourse is what is called "a divine move."
When Stiles asks what it is, Noshiko exposits that a divine move in Go is a "truly inspired" or out-of-the-box move, one that turns the tides of the game. Since the nogitsune has had the upper-hand, or "senten," they need a move which will turn the game in their favor. Stiles asks if anyone is feeling divinely inspired, which reminds Kira of something--back in 1943, Noshiko trapped the nogitsune in a glass jar. Noshiko confirms that she did, but points out that it wasn't the jar itself that trapped the nogitsune, it was the place where she buried it, in the roots of the Nemeton, which is what contained it. Unfortunately, all Noshiko knew about the Nemeton was that it was powerful, so she can't really give them any information on why exactly it worked. Luckily, Stiles knows someone who happens to know a lot about it! DEATON.
Isaac caught up with Chris at some point, and went with him back to the Argent Abode. He follows Chris in through the front door, and it's obvious by Chris' face that he's barely holding it together, and kind of wants to be alone. They're both sniffling and shivering as Chris informs his surrogate son that he doesn't have to stay with him. "I'll be alright. I've dealt with this before," he begins, as he walks over to the front door and opens it for Isaac. "I, uh, I have the capacity and an ability to compartmentalize my emotions." There's two problems with this--1) compartmentalizing your emotions only works as long as you have bigger fish to fry, like protecting yourself and your loved ones from the ancient demon fox that indirectly killed your daughter. But, when that's over? It's gonna be hard not to deal with those emotions. And 2) Isaac has never been taught how to even really healthily deal with these kinds of traumatic situations, and needs to be with someone who knows what it's like to lose someone you love. Isaac and Chris both loved Allison, so them grieving together just seems natural. Which is why Isaac turns to him and replies, "I don't," before dissolving into tears. Chris grabs him into a Stilinski-men-style hug, and they just stand there together for a long moment. GOD I AM TOO EMOTIONALLY VULNERABLE FOR THIS KIND OF TORTURE. MAKE IT STOP. Also, Isaac is still wearing the clothes he was wearing in the fight, with his jacket, shirt and jeans all cut up from the swords and blood soaking all of it. How did nobody notice that he's covered in blood but not injured?
(via teenwolf)
Back at the Sheriff's office, Deputy Parrish is sitting at his desk, yawning, as he works on paperwork. Sheriff approaches him as he puts on his gun holster-belt, and instructs Parrish to keep Allison's death on the D/L for as long as possible, because as soon as the story hits the news, reporters are going to descend upon the kids and they're SO not ready for that. Parrish asks him if he wants a deputy stationed outside his house, just to be on the safe side, which Sheriff decides is probably a good idea. What story are they feeding to the cops about all this stuff? I really want to know how Stiles hasn't managed to get arrested yet or something. Parrish's eye go wide as he notices a black cloud of smoke in the bullpen, which, of course, materializes into an oni, and he instinctively reaches for his side-arm, which makes Sheriff understandably confused and nervous. However, once the oni slices one of the deputies across the back with his sword, Sheriff immediately realizes what is happening, and jumps behind Parrish's desk as the two shoot at them. Behind them on the wall is one of the wanted posters they put up to mock Agent Douchenozzle after his run-in with the oni, which is all kinds of hilarious. TITLE CARD!
Over at Derek's loft, he's using that Zippo lighter he loves so much to cauterize the twins' wolfsbane-bullet holes. If you can remember all the way back to Season 1's "Magic Bullet," Derek got shot with one of Kate Argent's sniper rifle rounds that had wolfsbane in it, and in order to heal it before he died of wolfsbane poisoning, he made Scott steal ANOTHER one of her bullets so he could burn the wolfsbane inside into ash and push it in the wound. I'm guessing since it wasn't so much a bullet full of wolfsbane as it was a buckshot coated in it, I guess cauterizing the wound is enough? Once Derek's finished, he assures the twins that they should be fully healed in a few hours, so long as they don't have any more run-ins with whoever it is who is after them. As Ethan gets dressed, Aiden gets a text alerting him to the fact that Lydia is still with Scott, and insists that the two of them need to leave to go find her and Danny.
Derek is not really surprised that the twins would want to convince their significant others to take off, but still asks them anyway if that's their plan. "I'm going to try and convince her to run and hide, like any sane person would do!" Aiden snaps in response. "Allison's dead," Etha adds sadly. "Stiles is dying. What do you think?" That's when Derek gets AMAZING and I just want to ruffle his hair and pinch his cheeks and give him a Scott McCall Stan Club button.
DAMN. I SAID DAMN! Like, first of all, truer words have never been spoken. Despite Scott's flaws, despite the sometimes not-so-awesome things he's been forced to do, Scott's intention has always been to save people. People he loves, people he doesn't even know, even people who quite frankly should die for their actions--to him, they're all people who deserve to be saved. And he's shown time and time again that he doesn't believe in no-win scenarios. He refused to believe that Jackson had to die. He refused to cave in to Gerard's threats. When he was told if he didn't kill someone and join the Alpha Pack, he and everyone he loves would die, he found another way out. And best of all, he's shown that he thinks everyone deserves a second chance.
Ethan already gave Aiden this speech earlier in the season, but it still bears repeating--Scott McCall doesn't care about power, he cares about people. It's why he's a true alpha, and it's why everyone that surrounds him has become a better person as a result of his influence. Look at Derek, who has been like, 500% more chill since Scott became and alpha and allowed him to step back and be a mentor? Where would Allison be, without Scott's unconditional love after she went dark? Would Lydia be constantly throwing herself into danger like she is today if Scott (and Stiles, and Allison) hadn't shown her that she was more than just a pretty, popular face? Would Isaac be as loyal and protective had he only ever been in Derek's pack? Hell, even Stiles has become much more altruistic and heroic since Scott was turned and decided that protecting the town was his responsibility. Watching all of this progress happen over the last three seasons has been a joy to behold, seriously. I just do not understand how some people can't stand Scott, especially considering every other character LOVES Scott--if Stiles or Derek is your favorite character, then you should love Scott, because Stiles and Derek love Scott. That's just how life works.
Meanwhile, Scott and Lydia have arrived at Deaton's clinic, to get some answers about the nogitsune. "Stiles and Kira said it was the Nemeton that kept it trapped--" Scott explains, but Deaton cuts him off and reminds him of the fact that they're not actually fighting a person--the nogitsune is a SPIRIT who just so happened to take the shape of a human. Scott, in turn, reminds him that this particular spirit took the shape of his best friend. Lydia, who, as always, is Team Scott, points out that since the nogitsune was caught once, it stands to reason that he could be caught again. "I don't know," Deaton admits frantically. "This thing was trapped a long time ago, before the Nemeton was cut down. It doesn't have the same power anymore."
OH SHIT! Okay, so we know that the reason the Nemeton has been basically dead this whole time was because it was cut down, and we know that it was whole in 1943 but was cut down in the flashbacks in "Visionary," which occurred around 8-10 years before the pilot, which was 2011. So, sometime between 1943 and 2001-2003, the Nemeton was cut down. I still wholeheartedly believe that Gerard did it, and I'm going to keep believing it until canon tells me otherwise. Scott asks Deaton if there is anything that does have that kind of power, and after a moment of considering it, thinks there might be. "When the tree was whole, its wood was sometimes used to contain powerful objects. [beat] But, those objects are very rare." Lydia's eyes grow wide as she realizes she knows of such a container. "Wait a second... powerful objects? ...Like, an alphas claws?" Deaton frowns in confusion and asks her which alpha to whom she's referring. "Talia Hale," Lydia replies quietly, and Scott and Deaton's eyes widen in shock. "Peter had them in this wooden box with a triskele carved in the lid. What if it was made from the Nemeton?" Deaton gulps nervously and confesses that it was, which he knows, because it's the one who made the box! OH SHIT. I have so many questions, starting with "Why did Deaton make the box?", "Who put the claws in the box in the first place, and how did Araya and her hunters get ahold of it?" and ending with "Why did Peter want them in the first place," and "Why does Deaton seem so intrigued by them?"
Nogitstiles is wandering the halls of Beacon Memorial Hospital, decked out in a black hoodie with a gray jacket over top, just so we know it's not Real!Stiles, because he hardly ever wears dark colors like that. He's more of a red and blue kind of person, you know? He passes by numerous doctors and visitors on his way to the nurse's station, where he approaches a nurse and asks him to page Melissa McCall for him. The nurse just kind of rolls his eyes at first, because he probably figures he's just some strung-out teenager, but when two oni materialize behind him, he becomes understandably terrified. Before he can do anything, though, one of the oni jabs his sword through the reception desk and into the nurse's gut. Which seems kind of counterproductive, because now the nurse can't page Melissa! As the dude falls to the ground, Nogitstiles just side-eyes his oni minions and snarks, "Well, I guess I'll just find her myself." So sassy, Nogitstiles.
What comes next is probably the best slow-mo fight scene this show has EVER had. Mourning Ritual's "Bad Moon Rising" plays as the oni make their way through the hospital, mowing down every single person in their path with their swords. Strangely, not all of them were fatal blows, although many of them were--the oni's intention really seemed to be just to slice every single person they saw with the sword, whether it killed them immediately or not. Doctors, nurses, orderlies, patients, visitors, no one in the halls were spared. Behind the oni, Nogitstiles just stands and marinates in all of the chaos, strife, and pain that surrounded him. DAMN. How the fuck are the police supposed to hand wave this away? People being ritualistically sacrificed in groups of three to a tree stump is one thing, but masked samurai ninjas razing an entire hospital is another situation entirely.
Meanwhile, at the sheriff's station, Sheriff, Parrish, and a couple other deputies are seeking shelter behind their desks, with their guns at the ready. Somehow, they managed to incapacitate one of the oni (who isn't at the hospital slaughtering people) with their guns, so Sheriff makes his way to the door to peep at the oni's body, which is laying on the floor next to the deputy it stabbed to death. Once Sheriff makes it to the door to the bullpen, Parrish stands up to back him up, but Sheriff gestures toward him to stand down. Unfortunately, when Sheriff turns back around to check the status of the oni, it's healing from its injury and rising back to it's feet. Parrish yells at Sheriff, who turns around to find ANOTHER oni has appeared right behind him, and he barely is able to duck in order to miss the sword that just about decapitated him. The other deputies start shooting at the two oni, but as we already know, guns barely slow them down unless shot in specific weak spots, like their masks. They continue to shoot, but the bullets just ricochet right off of them, which seems pretty dangerous to me, tbh. What if they get hit by their own fire?
We cut back to the hospital, where we meet up with Agent Douchenozzle and Melissa mid-conversation. Wherever they are, it appears the oni haven't quite made it to them yet. "I just think it would be better if it came from you," ADN insists, as the lights start to flicker. For whatever reason, this doesn't seem to faze Melissa, even though historically, power surges/outages in this town tend to go awfully. She's too busy explaining to her ex-husband how he's a ginormous asshat. "So, I tell Scott that his dad went back to San Francisco, says he's sorry, but that he didn't have time to say goodbye?" ADN doesn't realize that she's mocking him, so he confirms that she should tell him that, and assures her that he'll send Scott a follow-up email later. "You're an IDIOT," Melissa replies, but ADN doesn't get why his plan is a problem, which is just more proof that he's a pretty shitty dad.
They both enter the elevator (Which, hello! Power surges! Elevators are a BAD IDEA, remember what happened to Derek last time?), and Melissa decides it's time to drop some true facts on his dumbass-self. "Rafe? You want a relationship with your son? You can't just bail after one fight." ADN claims that Scott hates him, which is probably pretty true, but it's HIS fault, and thus his responsibility to try to fix it. Ditching him again is definitely NOT going to make Scott hate him less. Melissa totally agrees. "He doesn't hate you! He just...wants you to try harder." DING DING DING! These are easy observations you can make when you're actually parenting your children, like Melissa. Take notes, Blobfish! ANYWAY, the lights start to flicker again, which finally starts to alarm ADN and Melissa, and when the elevator doors open, they're finally exposed to the carnage the two oni have wrought thus far. ADN recognizes the oni from when they stabbed him and he immediately reaches for his side-arm and pushes Melissa behind him. The oni swing at them, and ADN starts shooting with one hand while he frantically pushes the button to close the elevator door again. Once the doors close, he takes a deep breath in relief, only to start panicking again when he sees that Melissa's left thigh was sliced deeply by their swords and is bleeding all over the elevator floor. NOOOO MELISSA MY QUEEN.
Isaac is sitting on the edge of Allison's bed, holding one of her Chinese ring daggers in his hand as he runs his fingertips over the edge and thinks about her. Chris walks in and smiles when he sees it, and advises him to be careful with them, because they take practice. Yeah, it's not like this is his first time with one of those near his body. I don't think he has much to worry about. Wait, how awesome would it be if Chris trained Isaac to hunt/fight? I mean, he's got the werewolf strength and reflexes, but no form or precision, as we've seen, so he would definitely benefit from some training. If he ever comes back, I hope he comes back with more skills. ANYWAY, Isaac sighs and hands him the dagger as Chris paces around the room. "When Allison was learning, she had to bandage her fingers because they got so raw. She wouldn't give up on it, though." No, she wouldn't, because that's not her style. And as we've seen, she eventually came to be pretty damn lethal with those things.
"She kept trying to say something," Isaac whispers, barely holding back tears again. Chris asks him what he means, so he recalls what she said before she died, leaving out the part about loving Scott, of course. "She was trying to say something, to Scott. 'You have to tell him,' she said. 'You have to tell my father.' She didn't get a chance to finish it, but I'm sure it was just that she loved you." Isaac and Chris are both on the verge of sobbing, again, but Chris pulls himself together and assures him that Allison made a point of telling him that before she left. "There's a tradition we have--" Chris begins, but Isaac already knows of the silver bullet tradition, back in "Alpha Pact," when Allison was explaining the silver bullet she used as a talisman during the sacrifice ritual. "She was making a silver arrowhead," Chris replies, as he hands Isaac the dagger again and pats him on the back before he goes to leave.
Isaac's brain starts processing that new information, though, so he stops Chris before he leaves. "Where is it? The arrowhead?" Chris doesn't understand why that's relevant, and assumes that it's downstairs in their weapons lair. Isaac stands up and informs him that he needs to see it, and starts to walk out into the hallway. When Chris asks him why, Isaac responds, "Because I have a feeling it isn't there." YES! I'm so glad that he is the one who put it together. Scott wasn't there for the full fight, so he would have been too overwhelmed by Allison's death to notice the oni was killed, but Isaac was the one who was about to be killed when Allison shot that last arrow, and the oni was right in front of him when it was killed. Plus, you know Isaac was listening to Scott and Allison's entire conversation in her last moments, and probably has had it on a loop in his brain since it happened. ISAAC BB LET ME LOVE YOU.
Melissa groans loudly as she tries to pull herself into a seated position, and ADN kneels beside her and examines her wound, which is gushing blood EVERYWHERE, as well as this cloud of black smoke. Naturally, ADN is like, "WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT," but Melissa keeps Scott's secret, and simply groans that it's poison and that it hurts like hell. He finds a pair of conveniently-located scrubs and rips them into a makeshift tourniquet, which he wraps around the top of her thigh. She yells in agony as he tightens it, just as the lights start to flicker again, and the elevator starts moving. ADN tells her he needs to get them out of thre, and Melissa sighs, like, "How the fuck am I gonna explain this shit, especially if I'm dying?"
Over at the sheriff's station, Parrish is all alone in the office, for whatever reason, and hides behind a desk as he shoots at the lone oni. As expected, the bullets just fly right off his mask and armored duster. He runs out of bullets, and right as he's reloading, Sheriff comes out with a huge-ass shotgun and quips, "You're going to need a bigger gun," before cocking the gun and shooting the oni right in the chest with it. Surprisingly, there's enough force behind it that it knocks it right off it's feet and lands flat on it's back. He cocks the gun again, and his confidence gives Parrish and the other deputy (Cortez, maybe? Manning? Hell if I know) the second wind they need to fight them. The oni slashes Cortez/Manning across the abdomen before setting his sights on Parrish. Parrish backs up as the oni descends upon him, but Sheriff jumps in front of him, using the gun as a shield of sorts. Unfortunately, he gets slashed across the arm for his trouble, forcing Parrish to pull him behind him as Parrish fruitlessly tries to shoot at the oni. The oni swings his sword around, and uses the blade to block all the bullets and ricochet them back towards him. NOOO! That face is too sweet to die!
(via teenwolf)
Time to catch back up with Scott and Lydia, who are still at the animal clinic with Deaton. Scott has just gotten off the phone with Derek, who informed him that he has the triskele box, and that he's going to meet them with it. Deaton nods, just as Lydia hears a whispering noise and momentarily grows weak and loses her balance. Scott just barely manages to catch her before she falls to the floor, and a concerned Deaton asks her what's wrong. Lydia admits that she thinks something bad is happening, because she just got this "rushing feeling," which I'm guessing is probably the banshee spirits warning her of all the people who are dead/dying as a result of the oni. She interprets this as meaning that they're running out of time, just as Stiles, who looks dead on his feet, and who is being half-carried by Kira, shows up to tell them that he also has a similar feeling. NO NO NO NO.
Down in the Argent's weapons lair, Chris turns on the light and leads Isaac into the room, where they find a folded up piece of cloth. When Chris uncovers it, he finds four silver arrowheads laying side-by-side in a row. Chris asks Isaac why she would make four of them, but Isaac is already putting the pieces together. "She didn't," he informs him. "She made five. She made the first one, and then she figured it out." We flashback to Allison in "Insatiable," when she held up her silver arrowhead against her dad's silver bullet, and asks "What am I missing?" Isaac even has the ghost of a smile on his face as he explains the rest. "She used the first silver arrowhead to kill one of the oni. We saw her do it!" We flashback again to the fight, where one of the oni is about to give Isaac the killing blow, and she shot it right in the heart. In the present day, Chris asked him how it's possible that she did it.
"The same way you almost did," Isaac reminds him. "Do you remember when you told us about one of your first gun deals, the Yakuza?" We flashback to "Silverfinger," when Baby Chris watched the oni appear and take out nearly all of the Yakuza with whom he was meeting in order to kill the nogitsune possessing the kumicho*. Present-day Chris points out that that meeting wasn't just one of his first gun deals, it was his FIRST gun deal. In the flashback, we see Baby Chris dropping all six of his silver bullets onto the ground before he laid down in the grass and played dead, and picking one up to load in his gun. "The bullet that you used to shoot the oni, was that a silver bullet?" Isaac asks, and Chris confirms that it was. However, the bullet didn't kill the oni, if you recall--it just shattered its mask. "Probably went straight through," Isaac says, as he brainstorms a bit more. "What if silver is like a poison to them? What if it needs to stay in the body?"
We flashback to right after Allison shot the oni, and how the light burst out of its chest before it exploded. "What if that's what she was trying to tell Scott?" Isaac asks, suddenly full of hope. "What if that's what she was trying to tell YOU? That she'd figured it out?" Chris figures that the arrowheads were still setting when she left, but Isaac is sure that this means they can stop them. "No," Chris growls. "We can KILL them." YES! Bless your glorious light, Allison Argent. Seriously. And if there is a version of the Other Side for badass warrior goddesses, I'd like to think Allison is standing around watching them, super proud that they managed to figure it out without her help. Whoops, and I'm crying again.
(via teenwolf)
*(Did Noshiko have something to do with this, I wonder? We never saw the fly leaving the Kumicho, so was that nogitsune really killed? Was that nogitsune the same one as the one they're fighting now? And if it was, how did it get out of the Nemeton? That would have been 1987, so I don't see how that's possible, but I want to know how these stories are connected! Especially since Noshiko claimed she tried to stop a nogitsune without killing the host seven years prior [which would have been 2003, which we already know was a BIG year in the TW timeline])
At the sheriff's station, Sheriff is half-nodding off at this point, which seems to be a result of the poison from the oni's swords. Parrish slumps down and sits next to him, which startles Sheriff for a moment, because he accidentally aims his gun at Parrish until he realizes he's not an oni. It seems that Parrish has been slashed across his torso, too, because his bleeding through the front of his uniform. Sheriff asks Parrish what the fuck just happened, but Parrish has even less knowledge than Sheriff does at this point, and says that the oni just kind of disappeared. He looks over at the other deputy, who looks just as bad off as they do, before lifting up his shirt to reveal some glorious abs and a nasty gash that is bleeding and leaking out black smoke. Parrish gasps in pain and asks, "Why did they let us live?" Sheriff lifts up his arm and examines the pretty deep gash in his own arm, which is also bleeding and leaking puffs of poisonous smoke. "I'm not so sure they did," Sheriff confesses.
Scott has driven himself, Stiles, Lydia and Kira to the school in Stiles' Jeep, and they all pile out and head for the school. Lydia wraps an arm around the rapidly-weakening Stiles as they approach the entrance, but before they walk through the front doors, Stiles stops them. "Scott, hold on. I know what you're all thinking, that if this works, it might kill me, too. But, even if it does...you have to go through with it." Stiles looks his brother right in the eyes, and adds, "Stick with the plan, alright?" As we already discussed, though, Scott will not accept that there is a no-win scenario, and goddamnit, he's going to figure out a way out of this that doesn't involve losing his best friend in addition to his first love. "The plan is to save you," Scott reminds him. "That's the plan I'm going with."
He takes a deep breath and opens the door, which leads the foursome into the exact same garden from Chris' flashbacks to his gun deal with the Yakuza, only here, there's snow. OKAY, so if the nogitsune knew about this place, does that mean he WAS the nogitsune that was possessing the kumicho? And if so, how the fuck did he get out of the Nemeton? Is that a clue that he was actually released way earlier, perhaps when the Nemeton was cut down, rather than when the kids did their sacrifice? I NEED TO KNOW EVERYTHING. The kids slowly walk into this new scene, and the garden doors slam shut behind them. "Well, this is definitely not part of the plan," Stiles admits, as he takes a look around. SHIT! What kind of Kill Bill realness?
ADN and Melissa are still holed up in the hospital's elevator, where Melissa is starting to nod off from the poison in her gaping thigh-wound. ADN is understandably panicking and leaving a voicemail for Sheriff Stilinski. "It's me, again. I'm getting nothing from dispatch, no one's on the line. Call me back, Stilinski! Call me as soon as you get this!" I wonder if they're ignoring the calls because they their own disaster to deal with, or if the nogitsune is just messing with the phones so no one can call for help? Not that anyone except for the McCall Pack has the ability to fight against them, anyway, but whatever. Once he gets off the phone, he realizes his ex-wife is fading fast, and immediately shakes her awake. Melissa tries to pulls herself together and orders ADN to call Scott, but since he doesn't know Scott's role in all of this stuff, he figures she just thinks she's dying and wants to say goodbye, rather than her trying to get his help.
He promises her that she's going to be okay, and though she cuts him off and says, "That's not what I mean," he ignores her and reminds her that he needs to get her out of there. He tries to lift her to her feet. Frustrated, Melissa finally is like, LISTEN HERE BUCKO, and insists that if something happens to her, ADN needs to man up and make things right with Scott. He argues that he's already tried to apologize, but Melissa is NOT here to listen to his excuses. "He's a teenage boy, he doesn't care about apologies, you know? He wants you to do better. He probably wants you to suffer a little," she adds with a weak smile. Before she'll let him help her up, she makes him swear that he'll make it work after this is all over. He nods, just as the elevator doors open. He reflexively aims his gun through the doors, but thankfully, the oni are already gone. UNFORTUNATELY, they left a hospital full of employees, patients, and visitors with various injuries ranging from superficial lacerations to fatal stabbings. HOW THE FUCK IS THIS TOWN GOING TO DEAL WITH THIS? Like, there have to be at least a couple dozen people involved just in the hospital massacre alone, not even including the sheriff's station. This isn't something the police will be able to cover up, so I'm legitimately concerned with how this is going to affect the town at large.
Outside the school, a fully-wolfed-out Derek strolls up to the entrance, carrying the triskele box, and stops right in front of where Nogitstiles and two of his oni are waiting for him. "Did you bring us a present?" Nogitstiles snarks, but Derek retorts that he brought him two, just as similarly-wolfed-out Ethan and Aiden join him. "I've heard of an alpha pack, Derek" Nogitstiles sneers. "But not a pack of FORMER alphas. It's a little sad, isn't it?" Seriously, though, how does the nogitsune know all of this stuff? Unfortunately, as sassy as Derek can be, he's never quite been good at comebacks, so when he says, "I might not be an alpha anymore, but I can still fight like one," I couldn't help but laugh. Derek has become an awesome person/character, but come on, now, guys--when has Derek EVER won a fight that wasn't against newbie werewolves? Still, Derek rolls his neck and roars before he and the twins lunge toward them. The fact that the pack is still so fractured made me EXTREMELY nervous when I was watching this, because how can Scott draw on his pack's strength (and vice versa) if they're all scattered?
(via teenwolf)
Inside the school, the kids are still examining their new scenery and trying to figure out what to do next. Kira holds out her hand, and catches snowflakes in it, but they don't melt, which is their first clue that this isn't quite reality. I also reallllly want to know how the nogitsune can trap them in this scene while still controlling the oni in various places and keeping himself out of trouble. You gotta admire his hustle, you know? The gang is startled when they hear footsteps, and guess who it is? The nogitsune, in the horrifying, bandaged-Rhys form from Stiles' nightmares! He's made slightly less terrifying by the stilted way that he walks--it's like he's trying to run through jello or something. Either way, Kira grabs her katana from her back and pulls in out, ready to fight at a moment's notice, as the nogitsune greets them. "Like I promised, Stiles, we're going to kill all of them!" he growls, as he fist-pumps the air. "One. By. ONE!" Out of nowhere, two oni appear and immediately get ready for yet another throwdown.
After the break, the oni surround Kira, Scott, Stiles, and Lydia as they try to back away from the nogitsune. Scott asks him what the fuck this is, and where the fuck they are, so the nogitsune admits that they're between life and death. "Bardo," Lydia says aloud, as she remembers what Kira told them allllll the way back in "Anchors." The nogitsune doesn't confirm that she's right, but he DOES say that there are no "peaceful deities" where they're currently standing. "You're dying, Stiles," he hisses. "And now, everyone you care about is dying, too!" Stiles is both extremely worried AND confused, and demands to know what he's talking about. "I've captured almost all of the territories on the board, Stiles! The hospital, the sheriff station...[beat] And now, the animal clinic!" OH SHIT! I was hoping they would elaborate more on the Go game Stiles and the nogitsune were playing in his brain, but I hadn't considered the fact that the game was still going on!
Scott's face looks concerned, as we cut over to Deaton's clinic, where he's just been ambushed by two oni. Fortunately, Deaton is a secret BADASS and we finally get to see it in action! The oni corner him in the back room, and he pushes a table at them to distract them. One of the oni swings his sword at him, but Deaton manages to dodge every blow! Even more impressively, when the other oni joins in, Deaton is able to grab one of the oni's swords and use it against the other, while also using it to block blows against him! It is so cool, and it makes me want to see him in the fray more often. Plus, he's got to be able to do SOME magic, right? Deaton slams one of the oni down onto the table, which ultimately was a mistake, because it leaves his back wide open to be slashed with the other oni's sword. When he turns to fight back after the first blow, he gets cut again across the chest, the force of which knocks him flat on the ground. After a moment, he groans and flips himself over, only to find that the oni had already left. He winces as he touches the wound on his chest, which bleeds all over his hands. NOOO! Supervet! EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE.
"Do you know the ritual of seppuku, Stiles?" The nogitsune asks, as he circles around the gang menacingly. Stiles grips Lydia tightly and turns them so he never takes his eye off the nogitsune, and snits that he doesn't really want to know, thanks. "When the samurai disembowels himself with his own sword to maintain his honor!" Oh, so basically what the nogitsune did to Stiles when he was still in his body? Wonderful. He goes on to explain that in seppuku, the samurai doesn't actually die from disemboweling himself--he stays alive until his superior, or kaishakunin decapitates him with his own katana. I totally wiki'd "seppuku" JUST so I would know how to spell "kaishakunin" correctly, and I really, REALLY, wish I hadn't now. Samurai are INTENSE. ANYWAY, the nogitsune insists that Scott act as Stiles' kaishakunin and chop his head off after Stiles disembowels himself (for the second time).
"I'm going to make your best friend kill you, Stiles. And you're going to let him, because just like you, they're ALL going to die--everyone touched by an oni's blade. Unless...Scott kills you first." As you can probably imagine, Scott is just about at nuclear-levels of rage, but Stiles is just so physically and mentally exhausted that all he can do is whisper, "Why? Why are you doing this?" The nogitsune's answer, "To win the game," seems to be a cue for the oni to go into battle-mode, forcing Kira and Scott to jump into the fight in order to keep Stiles and Lydia out of harms way. When this is all over, can SOMEONE teach Lydia and Stiles to fight, already? Even just having basic weapon and self-defense skills would be better than nothing, at this point. Still, Kira and Scott fight like PROS.
Back at the station, Sheriff is still on the floor next to Parrish, both of whom are looking pretty bad. Sheriff urges Parrish to stay awake, and when that doesn't work, he yells at him to startle him back into consciousness. Parrish lifts his shirt again to check on his bleeding wound on those glorious abs of his, and when he sees the black smoke seeping out of it, he asks Sheriff if it's poison. Sheriff, of course, has no idea what it is, other than it's supernatural, and figures that poison is probably the closest thing to the truth that he can admit to, so he dances around the question. "Whatever it is, it's working fast," Sheriff admits as he grimaces in pain. I wonder what it is exactly on those swords that is making these wounds way more painful? It's gotta take some tricky magic to make even superficial wounds eventually become fatal, after enough time has passed.
Over at the hospital, Melissa is laying on a gurney in the hallway, with ADN at her bedside, holding her hand. Around them, the few uninjured doctors and nurses are working on treating the victims of the oni's slaughtering-spree. Melissa is fading fast, and she whispers, "Don't leave him again," to her ex, who is trying to hold himself together. "Promise me." ADN can't help but continue to argue with her, even despite the fact that she could be dying, and he claims that SHE was the one who kicked him out in the first place. "I told a drunk to get out of the house. I didn't tell his father to get out of his life." TELL HIM! ADN is the one with the defeatist attitude who gave up when it got a little tough. What he needs to realize is that sometimes, you have to work hard for the things you want or need, even if there is a risk that your work will be for naught. He can't just sit and hope things will change, he has to get up and make a move in order for change to happen. "You came back to make it up to him, right?" Melissa asks matter-of-factly. ADN's response actually surprised me. "I came back to make it up to both of you." UGH PLEASE DON'T TELL ME THEY'RE MAKING ADN/MELISSA A THING. NOOOOO! Sheriff/Melissa 5EVA.
Inside the school, Lydia and Stiles are hiding behind a row of bushes as Scott and Kira fiercely fight against the oni. Kira is AMAZING to watch, all that sword-training Arden Cho did before starting this season was seriously worth every second! Scott has become a much better fighter, too, and kicks the shit out of one of the oni before standing back to back with Kira. "How is this happening, how are we in this place?" Scott asks frantically. Kira's reply cracked me the fuck up. "You're asking me? A month ago, I'd never even TOUCHED a sword!" It's so easy to forget what a complete newbie she is in the supernatural game, especially considering how quickly she adapted, thanks to her kitsune intelligence, reflexes, and healing. It's only been about a year since the beginning of the series, when Scott got bitten and everyone was thrown into this new world of magic and mayhem, but it still seems like Scott and the rest of them are seasoned pros in comparison to her.
The next scene cuts back and forth between Scott and Kira's battle with the oni in the snowy garden, and Derek and the twins' battle outside, where they are currently not having much more luck with the oni than the former group. As usual, the Nogitstiles is hiding and letting his goons do all the heavy lifting, but they're still giving the boys a run for their money. Aiden asks where the rest of the pack is as he battles an oni, but Ethan shouts back that since the Jeep is in the parking lot, they have to be nearby. Derek gets knocked against the stairs and yells that Scott and Co. are inside the school...
...where the war is still totally raging on, with the nogitsune standing in the shadows, watching it all go down. Kira is spining in the air and grunting and yelling as she cuts the oni down, and Scott is doing his usual acrobatics to dodge the oni's ninjadas. Lydia is completely overwhelmed just watching them, and states that there's no way this can be real, but Stiles is like, "Yeah, tell that to them!"
As Derek fights his own oni, he notices that the triskele box is still sitting where he put it before the fight started, and orders Aiden to go grab it and take it inside to Scott. Of course, Aiden being able to just go pick it up is WAY too easy, so Nogitstiles sends two of his oni to materialize between Aiden and the box, blocking him from grabbing it without a fight. PERFECT. "I hate ninjas," Aiden growls, before roaring in their direction and lunging for them, which earns him a slash to the back.
Kira gets in a standoff with oni of the oni, who hits her katana with such force that it knocks it straight out of her hand and into the snow on the ground. The oni all stop fighting and aim their swords at her, cornering her. NOOO! Not my thunder princess!
ADN is still angsting it up at Melissa's bedside, thinking about what a douchenozzle he is, when he hears Melissa groan. When he looks down at her, he realizes that blood is dripping out of her mouth, which to a normal person, would indicate that things are VERY VERY BAD. Unfortunately, he didn't learn that over at FLETC, so he turns to the health care professionals in the hall and yells, "Hey! HEY! There's blood on her lips, what does that mean?" A nurse, or an orderly, or someone in scrubs runs down the hallway, completely ignoring his pleas. "What does it mean? There's BLOOD, WHAT DOES IT MEAN?" he shouts, but the guy just waves at him sympathetically as he rushes off to some other medical emergency that must be going down. Where did everyone else go? I would assume most of them would be sent to other hospitals, since I imagine many of the health care professionals are probably victims, yeah? And we learned in "The Overlooked" that there ARE other hospitals in the area. So why wasn't Melissa taken there?
Meanwhile, katana-less Kira is still trying to back away from the two oni who are holding her at ninjada-point, while Scott continues to fight the remaining one. That's when Stiles decides he's tired of watching his friends fight for him, and crawls across the ground from his hiding place to where Kira's sword lays. Lydia chases after him as he gets up to his feet and points the katana at his gut. Scott stops fighting long enough to notice what Stiles is doing, and wastes no time to urge him not to give in to the nogitsune. "What if it saves you? What if it saves all of you?" Stiles asks anxiously, but Lydia brings up an excellent point--What if it's just another trick? "No more tricks, Lydia," the nogitsune growls in response. "End it, Scott. Let your friend fall on his own sword. Do for him what he cannot do for himself! DO IT, SCOTT." I'm sorry, but if ANY villain actually believes that Scott McCall would kill ANYONE, especially his best friend/brother, they honestly don't know anything about anything whatsoever.
Stiles points the sword at his stomach and tries to muster up the nerve to actually stab himself with it while the nogitsune continues to try to make his case. "Be his kaishakunin! Give up the game!" Stiles takes a deep breath, and though I ALMOST thought he'd actually do it (just like Scott, whose facial expression KILLS ME), he instead notices an anomaly in the reflection of Kira's sword and stops cold. It's a school textbook, laying on the ground, covered in a light layer of snow. Confused, Stiles turns around to see the business textbook with his own eyes, which leads him to notice other parts of the scene that don't fit, like a school desk sitting a couple yards away. THAT'S IT BB, IT'S AN ILLUSION, SEE THROUGH IT. Realizing that he's quickly losing his advantage, the nogitsune gets desperate. "You have no moves left," he argues, but Stiles begs to differ. "I do," he retorts, as he tosses Kira her katana. He gathers up all of his courage, and looks the nogitsune right in the eye as he states, "A divine move." YES YES YES YES YES!
The outdoor battle with the oni is waging on--Aiden grabs one by the coat and knocks it flat on its back, Ethan gets sliced on the arm by another. Aiden's oni quickly gets back up, so he shouts, "We can't do this! We can't beat them!" through a mouthful of blood. Ethan clutches at his bleeding deltoid and orders him to take the box to them while he and Derek hold them off. Ethan about gets cut again by the oni as he speaks, but Derek jumps in at the last moment and throws the oni down the stairs. As it picks itself back up and swings its sword around menacingly, Derek roars and is about to lunge at it when an arrow whizzes in out of nowhere and lodges itself into it's chest. Since neither of the boys were there when Allison killed the first oni, they can't believe their eyes as the oni completely explodes. Cue the joyous Indiana Jones-style music as Chris Motherfucking Argent steps out on the edge of the staircase with Allison's cross-bow. Isaac runs, flips into the air, and lands on the ground next to Derek, all, "Oh, did I miss anything?" GOD, THEY ARE THE BEST. "What was that?" Ethan asks. "SILVER," Chris replies with enormous pride. Nogitstiles, who is hiding on the other side of the staircase, is like "OH FUCK" and immediately scampers away. Derek sees it, and orders Isaac to grab the box and take it to Scott, which he does.
The snow is continuing to pour as Lydia rushes over to grab hold of Stiles and keep him upright. "Stop fighting them!" Stiles shouts, which causes both the oni and Scott to stand still in shock. "It's an illusion! You have to stop fighting them. It looks real, and it feels real, but Scott, you've gotta trust me, it's an illusion." DUH, you guys! Like, how else do you think you walked in the doors to the school and ended up in in the backyard of a Japanese Yakuza mobster? The four of them band together tightly and glare at the nogitsune, who just growls at them. The four oni arrange themselves in a square in front of the nogitsune, and when Scott leads them through the two columns of them, the oni start to slash at his stomach. Scott groans in pain, but continues to make his way, one step after another. Kira starts to get cut up by the oni's ninjadas, too, but conveniently for them, they leave Stiles and Lydia alone, which is for the best, thanks to their lack of a supernatural healing ability. Still, our humans seem very distraught at seeing their friends get cut up, but Scott would happily walk through an infinite amount of swords if it meant his best friend was alive and well, and this just serves to prove it. And, the fact that Kira is willing to do this for people she barely knows just goes to show that she is going to make an excellent friend and packmate to these heroes.
Once they make it through the oni, Scott tackles the nogitsune, and the four of them fall into the front doors to the school and enter the main hallway. So, that whole garden scene happened in that random lobby-space between the outside doors and inside doors? That's so crazy! Scott and Kira look down at their torsos to find that they were never actually sliced up at all, it just FELT like it! Woot? "We're okay," Scott mutters in disbelief. "We're all--" Unfortunately, he doesn't get to finish that sentence, because Nogitstiles appears and throws Scott against a row of lockers! NOO! Then, he appears behind Kira, and smiles fakely before backhanding her across the face, which results in her katana getting tossed down the hall. "This was my game," Nogitstiles snits, before turning toward Stiles and Lydia and descending upon them. "You think you can beat me at my own game?"
Outside, Derek, Ethan, and Aiden have been tasked with holding the oni still so Chris can shoot them with Allison's special silver arrowheads. Derek grabs one and twists its arm behind its back, allowing Chris to get it right in the heart. There's only one oni left, but when Chris shoots the last arrow, the oni stops it by cutting it in half mid-air with its sword. The arrow falls to the ground in pieces, and Chris, worried, shouts at one of the boys to grab the arrow and use it, because it's the last one they have. Aiden and the last oni rush toward it at the same time from different directions, and Aiden is able to duck under its swinging sword, grab the arrow from the ground, and plunge it into the oni's heart. Unfortunately, like with Allison, the oni managed to get in one last move before it died, which was impaling Aiden through the chest with the ninjada. Black blood starts to drip from Aiden's mouth, and Ethan's plaintive cry, "Aiden!" literally broke my heart. Aiden pulls the sword from his body and drops it on the ground, before falling to his knees.
"A divine move," Nogitstiles growls as he marches toward Stiles and Lydia, who are backing away from him as quickly as they can in their weakened states. "A divine move? You think you have any moves at all? You can kill the oni, but me? ME? I'm a thousand years old, YOU CAN'T KILL ME!" Wow, that is a Klaus Mikaelson speech if I ever heard one, isn't it? Actually, it's kind of worse, because I don't think even Klaus would be THAT pathetic about it. Still, the nogitsune seems to have forgotten some facts. "But, we can change you!" Lydia stammers nervously. The nogi stops in his tracks, and must have an idea of what they're alluding to, judging by his almost-scared, "What?" Stiles reminds him about the Shugendu scroll, which the pack carefully stole from an armored vehicle in "Silverfinger." The little color Nogitstiles had in his face immediately drains out as he realizes the rule he had forgotten. "Change the host," he whispers. "You can't be a fox AND a wolf," Stiles says, with as much glee and pride as he can muster under the current circumstances. Out of nowhere, Scott jumps onto Nogitstiles's shoulders and bites him right on the arm. YES YES YES YES YES!
(via teenwolf)
Nogitstiles screams in agony until Scott finally lets go of him, and he convulses quite a bit before Kira stabs him right through the chest with her katana! Which, strangely, doesn't shatter like it did when Noshiko used it on Rhys. Is this a hint for what's to come, or is it an oversight by the writers/directors? WHO KNOWS. OH NO! The lights flicker above them as Nogitstiles falls to his knees and COUGHS UP A FLY! SHIT! The fly buzzes down the hallway, and I was so sure it was going to actually get away, but nope! Isaac arrives just in the nick of time, and is able to easily trap and lock the fly in the magical triskele box! HOORAY! McCall Pack: 1, Nogitsune: 0. The gang just stares at each other, like, "Is this seriously fucking over now???" Then, Nogitstiles convulses a bit more before turning into stone, which then cracks and dissolves into dust that is somehow absorbed by the floor? HOLY SHIT.
(via teenwolf)
Melissa wakes up on the gurney with a gasp, and manages to push herself up onto her elbows to try to remember what the fuck just happened to her. The walls in the hallway are seriously just COVERED in splatters of blood, it's really gruesome. What is NOT gruesome, though, is Melissa's wound, which, thanks to the death of the nogitsune and whatever magic was put in the oni swords, is now almost completely healed. She looks at the healing scab on her thigh, and then looks over at ADN, who looks just as confused as you would expect. Instead of telling him what's up, she just tiredly leans her head against his chest. So, he's probably going to have to be read in on the situation, right? Or, maybe not. He was such an idiot about the oni, he may just be dumb enough to buy whatever bullshit story they feed him.
Over at the animal clinic, Deaton checks his own wound to find that it's starting to heal, as well. He leans back against his examination table and sighs in relief. Over at the sheriff's station, Parrish helps Sheriff up off the floor, and they stare at the mess of dead bodies, blood, gun rounds, and paperwork scattered across the office and sigh at the mess they have to clean up. Do you guys think Parrish will be read into the supernatural happenings? Or has he been already, and we just don't know it yet? At this point, I'm actually leaning toward him being a hunter, which makes me really, really nervous.
Inside the school, Scott, Kira, Isaac, Stiles, and Lydia are still processing what the fuck just happened. As you can imagine, it was very weird for Stiles to see his own self die, desiccate and calcify into stone before blowing away into dust. So weird, in fact, that his body just can't handle it anymore, and he just collapses right on the floor. NOO!
After the break, they're all standing around Stiles when he wakes up. After a moment of trying to figure out what happened, he gets embarrassed when he sees just how worried everyone (ESPECIALLY Lydia) was when they were waiting. "Oh god, I fainted, didn't I?" They all giggle at him, and Lydia gives him the sweetest smile, and I love them all so fucking much. Then, my heart bites the dust completely, because Stiles asks, "We're alive, we're all alive?" Because OUCH OUCH OUCH. The fact that Stiles said it, and the face Scott makes when they all remember that no, they didn't, because their warrior goddess of a packmate is very obviously missing. Still, Scott forces himself to smile and assure him that they made it. "Yeah, we're okay." That's when Lydia's banshee senses start to tingle, and everyone realizes that it's not over yet.
Outside, Derek is kneeling next to Aiden when Chris and Ethan join them. Ethan is distraught, as anyone would be when their twin is dying. "Does it hurt you as much as it hurts me?" Aiden stammers through a mouthful of blood. Ethan laughs through his tears and assures him that it does. They lean together, forehead to forehead, as Aiden admits that Lydia never believed they were the good guys anyway. Derek winces a little, because you can tell he feels a little guilty for pushing them so hard to help out, now that he knows Aiden gave up his life to help them. "She'll believe me," Derek promises him, and I pretty much start sobbing again. DAMN YOU TEENAGE WEREWOLVES. Ethan hugs his bro as he coughs, and after soothing him for a few seconds, Aiden takes his last breath. Ethan pretty much loses it completely, and starts to sob over his body. My indifference to Aiden is pretty well-documented, but this really was a sad scene. I'm still pissed at the twins for Boyd, but they did do a good thing for the group in the end, and they both sacrificed a lot as a result.
Lydia can tell something happened, and runs outside to find out. When she sees Ethan crying over his brother's body, and Chris and Derek watching over them nearby, she stops dead in her tracks and just gapes at the scene. Stiles (followed shortly by Scott and Isaac) chases after her, and when he finally catches up, Lydia turns and throws herself into his arms. Stiles doesn't understand why she's being so affectionate at first, but when he sees for himself, you can see the change in his demeanor that indicates he's feeling it pretty hard as well. Behind him, Scott and Isaac look on sadly. They may have won the war, but there were way more casualties than they had ever intended--and now that the war is over, they have nothing else to use to channel all their rage and grief. Now, they're going to actually have to FEEL it, and deal with it, and that's the worst part.
Ending montage (set to Whitaker's "My Own"): Noshiko and Papa Yukimura pick up their Go stones and board off of the coffee table and smile at each other. Scott sits at his dining room table, thinking about Allison, and Aiden, and everything else that has happened during the last month/year. Melissa sits next to him and gives him a hug, which causes him to break down into tears. :( Scott bb! Chris and Isaac, who is still carrying the triskele box with the nogitsune inside and some duffel bags, walks out of the Argent Abode. They stop in the doorway and each take one last look back at Allison's bedroom, whose door is ajar. They sigh, and both take off for who knows where. (SPOILER ALERT: I presume they are headed for France, if what Jeff Davis said in an interview is accurate.) Scott and Melissa continue to comfort each other.
Over at the school, Kira is standing at Lydia's locker. "I wish I could say something to him. I wish I could say something to all of them. But I don't know how much space or how much time I'm supposed to give them. I don't know, I'm still just the new girl at school." Lydia closes her locker, and sees Malia walking down the stairs with Coach Finstock, who is blatantly checking out her body and trying to get her to try out for track in the spring. "Not for long," Lydia replies. She smiles at Malia as she passes them, and Malia smiles back. Lydia's face is heartbreaking here, because you can tell that she's totally getting flashbacks to a year ago, when a cute, porcelain-skinned brunette moved to Beacon Hills, right before everything changed for all of them. When Coach asks Malia if she has any experience with track, she jokes, "I sometimes ran from cougars trying to eat me?" which goes right over Coach's head, naturally. He assures her that they'll start her off slow, with just a few classes, but tells her he knows she'll learn quickly. "I intend to," she declares.
Over at Scott's house, Stiles is sitting on Scott's bed, watching as Scott is demonstrating how to turn at will. He flicks his claws out at her, and encourages her to try it. Of course, the first time, it doesn't work. "It's okay!" Scott insists. "Don't think about it too much, just try to let it happen." Malia glances at Stiles before closing her eyes and focusing. When she flicks her fingers out again, her claws come out! Yay! She's so excited that she almost swipes Stiles across the face, which startles him in that full-body way that makes me so happy, because Real-Stiles is back! She giggles and apologizes, which makes Stiles and Scott laugh, and then jumps up in down in happiness, now that she's finally learning how to control her coyote-side again.
Then the BEST PART HAPPENS! Back at the school, Ethan and Danny are sitting on a staircase, where Ethan is trying to break up with him. He apologizes to Danny right away, but admits that after everything that's happened, and losing his brother, he doesn't feel like he can stay in Beacon Hills anymore. (It definitely has NOTHING to do with Max and Charlie getting cast in a HBO show or anything, right?) Danny just chuckles, and assures him that it's okay. Ethan can barely hold in his laughter as he deadpans, "You're breaking up with ME?" Danny just grins, and makes his confession. "I like you. A lot! You're...incredibly good-looking. [beat] And smart! And sweet, and...I...I just don't think I can do it." He rests his hand affectionately on Ethan's knee, as Ethan tries to understand what he means. "Date me?" Ethan offers helpfully, but that's not what Danny was implying! "Date a WEREWOLF!" Danny replies, as he tries to keep a straight face. Ethan astounded, naturally, that he knew this whole time, but when Ethan asks him how he found out, Danny's answer explains it all. "Dude, it's Beacon Hills!" Ethan just can't help himself, so he grabs Danny's face and smooches away.
(via teenwolf)
I hate to be that person, but...I TOLD YOU GUYS. All the way back in Season 2, there was this throwaway line that Danny had where he made some comment to Jackson that he might be able to life a lot on a full moon, but not any other time, and ever since, I have been SURE that Danny has been quietly in-the-know the entire time, and just shaking his head, all "Psh, amateurs" as he watches the pack run around like crazy. Plus, all that business with Harris and his paper on the telluric currents happened in 3A, so he has to have a bigger understanding of what's been going down than we've been led to believe. I hope this means that he'll have a bigger role in season 4, because he deserves it! MORE DANNY, ALWAYS.
Meanwhile, at the Stilinski residence, Stiles is finally taking down his crime board--the photos, the newspaper clippings, yarn, all of it. Sheriff (in a dashing and snug gray henley, I might add) hangs out in the doorway, and asks his son what he's up to this afternoon. "Uhh," Stiles stammers, as he continues to rip pages off of his walls. "Just, uh, clearing my head." You can tell Sheriff is still VERY concerned about Stiles' psychological well-being after being possessed by a demon fox, but he doesn't push it. Instead, he just smiles, and leaves his son to think in peace. Stiles turns back to his wall to continue cleaning, and though he's back to his rosy-cheeked, spastic self, you can still see in his face that he's got a LOT of emotional baggage to sort through for the next while. If we learned anything from this episode, it's that the wounds that were inflicted on them during 3B are definitely going to linger for a while, and honestly, I feel like that's the way it should be. On the other hand, did you guys notice Stiles is wearing a green t-shirt? Try to remember all the way back to "Galvanize"--"Green is 'solved,' yellow is 'to be determined,' blue's just pretty."
Scott is working quietly at the animal clinic when Deaton, sensing his heavy heart, comes to share some words of wisdom. "Have you ever heard the term, 'regression to the mean?'" Deaton asks. He hasn't, but Scott loves learning, so Deaton gives him the scoop. "It's a bit of a technical way of saying that things will always even out." Scott assumes he's talking about a "It gets better" mantra, but Deaton's is a little more realistic versus optimistic. "More like, things can't ALWAYS be bad," he says with a smile. Scott realizes that he means no matter how bad things get, (or, conversely, how good things get) they always find a way to meet back in the middle. Although it's not exactly the most hopeful statement, it does make Scott feel a little better. After all the bad stuff they've gone through lately, they're due a little goodness. You know, before this inevitably get bad again. I'm guessing all the good stuff will happen during the time jump between seasons, so we arrive just as the tables are turning to the bad side again. Still, Scott jokes, "I don't think that applies to a town like this," to which Deaton's just, like, "Touché."
This is where shit gets SUPER confusing. Stiles is in the school's locker room with a VERY strung-out looking Derek. And, just like the last time Derek looked this bad, he's wearing a dark red shirt. Color analysis buffs, what does this tell us?
We cut to his dream, where the Latino hunter from "More Bad Than Good," Severo, punches Derek in the face so hard that he falls back against his table. Derek picks himself back up and wipes the blood from his lip as Severo cocks his shotgun and aims it at him. "Now, my friend, you are going to tell us about La Loba," Severo sneers. "Where's the She-Wolf?" Derek may be friends with Chris now, but that doesn't mean he likes hunters, so Derek refuses to play their game. "You should just go ahead and kill me, because you're never going to find Cora." Severo frowns in confusion, and after a moment, snaps, "Cora? Who the hell is Cora?" HOLY SHIT, so La Loba ISN'T Cora? Probably a good thing, since she's currently in 16th century France running Scotland from the French Court, but then who is the She-Wolf?! Before we can find out, someone throws a smoke grenade into the loft, and Derek immediately ducks for cover.
It's obvious by the fear shown by Severo and his men that this attack was not orchestrated by his people. As the men are turning side to side, trying to see who is after them through the thick haze of smoke, a growl is heard, which both confuses and alarms Derek. Suddenly, a shadowy figure runs around the loft so fast that they're a blur, and easily beats the shit out of the various hunters, one by one. Severo orders his men to "Light 'em up," but it's futile--the mysterious person is too agile and strong to be affected by their gunfire. Eventually, all the hunters are beaten down, and cowardly Severo crawls across the room to take cover behind Derek's table. Derek stands up as the smoke starts to dissipate, only to find a shotgun aimed at him. He's so shocked at the sight that he doesn't move fast enough to avoid getting shot.
Back in the locker room, Stiles asks who the mysterious shooter was, but Derek needs to exposit a little more before that reveal can happen.
We already know Stiles knows about Derek's history with Kate, so he understands why Derek would be freaked out about having a dream of her. What he DOESN'T understand is why Derek is so worried about it, if it was just a dream. Come on, Stiles. You of all people should NOT be questioning someone who is having vivid dreams that he can't tell from reality. "Because I don't remember waking up!" Derek shrieks. "So-so tell me! How do you know? How do you know if you're still dreaming?" Stiles informs him of the whole having-extra-fingers thing, which I'm still not sure is legit. Derek, panicking, grabs Stiles' wrist and holds it up, and sure enough, he's got six fingers. TOTALLY A DREAM. There is so much I don't understand about this, but I'm saving it for the end, so stay tuned.
Derek gapes at Stiles' hand for a moment, before we cut back to his loft, where he has fallen to his knees. A shotgun blast, just like the ones used against the twins in the last episode, has been shot right through his chest. He stares at his wound, and realizes that what he thought was a dream was actually REAL, and what he thought was real life was apparently a hallucination that he came up with as a pleasant alternative to reality? I DON'T GET IT AT ALL. "It's real," Derek stammers to our mysterious shooter, as they approach him through the cloud of fog. "You're real." Our mystery person is, as expected, KATE FUCKING ARGENT, strutting toward him like she's a model in a runway, carrying a shotgun in one hand. "That's right, Derek," Kate coos, just like old times. "And if seeing ME is a surprise, watch THIS," she adds with a smirk. She roars, and her skin turns blue with black patches, as her eyes glow BRIGHT GREEN and her teeth elongate into blindingly white, long fangs. WHAT. THE. FUCK? Is it June 24 yet?
(via teenwolf)
Next season, supposedly: Central/South American mythology, more hunters, more Kate, and the (hopefully) best part--MORE BANSHEE MYTHOLOGY
Click HERE to read my recap of the next episode of Teen Wolf!
[screencaps via KissThemGoodbye]
NOTES/QUESTIONS/SPECULATION:
-Alright guys, let's get the Kate Argent talk out of the way, eh? I have to say, while I love myself a lady villain, and while I am actually really excited to see where her storyline goes, as well as what her personality is like now versus when we met her, I still do not really like Kate at all. She's a great villain, but to me, she's like Gerard--ruthless, brutal, with no redeeming qualities. STILL, I have some theories I've been thinking about regarding Kate and what she is/what she's been up to this whole year since she's been dead.
**1) Jill Wagner did say on Twitter that Kate is a werejaguar, so I'm thinking that next season, we will learn that Kate is basically the other version of a kanima that we first learned about in season 2. If you recall, the kanima was first described as a "werepanther" in the Argent bestiary, but the thing that Jackson turned into was more reptilian than a panther/jaguar, right? As it turns out, there are two different kinds in the kanima mythology--the reptilian kind, like Jackson turned into, as a result of having unresolved identity issues, and the jaguar kind, which is a more spiritual form that acts as a weapon of vengeance, much like Jackson was described by Gerard. SO, naturally, I'm very curious as to how much knowledge Gerard has about Kate's new identity. Do you guys think they're working together? I wouldn't be at all surprised, Gerard has been on the sidelines for WAY too long. Plus, now that Allison is dead, and Victoria too, perhaps Kate's mission will be to avenge them?
**2) BUT, here's the thing that's stumping me: Was Kate never actually dead this whole time, or did she die and then come back to life? I'm leaning toward the latter--I'm wondering if maybe the scratch just took a long time to kick in the supernatural aspect? Like, when Scott was bitten, he was wounded for like, 24 hours before the bite healed and his supernatural senses started to kick in. I would guess that turning by scratch would take a little longer, because the magic is probably less potent, right? So, maybe she did technically die, or come so close to death that they figured she WAS dead, and then was "brought back" by the magic after it had finally finished healing her? In Season 2's "Omega," Kate's grave was dug up by what we assumed was the omega, but when the camera zoomed in on her gravestone, the clawed hand that was gripping it was very feminine-looking. So, maybe she dug HERSELF out of her grave and it was just blamed on the omega because he happened to be there and they would never consider the fact that she would come back to life? I mean, Chris was downright SHOCKED when he saw the buckshot shell Derek found, so I highly doubt he had any idea Kate was alive (and a supernatural to boot), regardless of whether or not Gerard knows.
**3) Still, I am very excited to see how her morals have changed now that she's a supernatural creature. Is she going to be like Gerard was, just using his extra strength and senses to be a better hunter? I'd say it's probably pretty likely
-I love Kira SO, SO much, but I have to say it--that last scene with her and Lydia kind of bothered me. On one hand, I can totally empathize with her situation; even though she has totally just gone through a life-changing series of events with them, she's still the new girl, who doesn't have the history with them to fully appreciate Allison's loss like they do. And I mean, I'd like to think that she and Allison came to like and respect each other during 3B, especially when they fought the boys together, so to say that Kira isn't grieving over the loss of her new friend would definitely be untrue. Plus, it makes perfect sense that she would still feel a lot like an outsider, and that, as a result, she's having a hard time knowing what is the appropriate way to help them.
On the other hand, though, I feel like this episode really emphasized Scott, Chris, and Isaac's loss without at all showing us how much LYDIA was struggling. Allison was Lydia's best friend, her sister in arms. Allison was the Scott to Lydia's Stiles, they were each other's rocks through all of the ridiculous supernatural drama they've gone through together. Not to mention, her boyfriend died, too! But Kira's lines, "I wish I could say something to him. I wish I could say something to all of them. But I don't know how much space or how much time I'm supposed to give them," just rubbed me the wrong way, because the phrasing suggests that Lydia isn't included in the people who are grieving right now. I don't know, am I being too hard on the writers? I just wish the episode could have shown us more about Lydia's perspective, because she was hit as hard as everyone, if not moreso--it's easy to forget the implications of Lydia being a banshee.
She knew Allison was going to die before it even happened, and she tried her hardest to prevent it by sending warnings in as many different ways as she could--the note on her car window, the message to Meredith. And then, when Allison died anyway, despite her best efforts, she FELT it, reverberating through her bones until it was released in the form of the most heart-shattering, soul-crushing banshee wail of all time. And if that weren't hard enough, after fighting against the nogitsune one last time with Stiles, Scott, and Kira, and finally ending it once and for all, she felt the boy with whom she had become very close over the last few months die in the exact same way. It brings to mind that line that Stiles said in "Master Plan," before he even knew what she was, or how true this statement would come to be--"Death doesn't happen to you, Lydia; it happens to everyone around you." As the banshee, she will always be surrounded by death, and she never even gets the opportunity to properly mourn everyone she's lost.
-To be honest with you, I'm kind of nervous about Derek. First, we didn't see him de-flied, which at first I thought was just an oversight or something, but now, I'm afraid it's a red flag. Then, he gets shot by Kate Argent and has some random day-time hallucination about Stiles? Is it possible that the effects of the nogitsune are going to linger into next season? Or is this just something new entirely? Hell, for all we know, one of Kate's powers could be giving visions. Still, I'm very worried about Derek and what's in store for him. Since Isaac is outie (SAD FACE FOREVER) Derek's the only punching bag Jeff Davis has left.
As of today, we have 52 more days until this fantastic thrill-ride of a show returns to us, so I want to hear your thoughts about 3B, your thoughts and speculation about season 4, and how much you love/miss Allison and Isaac already! Tell me what you're thinking. :)
Anyway, despite the huge chunk of my heart that is still missing from the loss of my beauteous warrior goddess Allison, "The Divine Move" was still a wonderful, yet heartbreaking, end to what was an excellent horror-movie half-season. So, enough of the jibber-jabber, time to dig in!
Previously, on Teen Wolf: The Golden Trio (Scott, Allison and Stiles) temporarily sacrificed their lives to save their parents (by ritual suicide, natch), which accidentally resulted in the three leaving the doors to their minds open and gave them all horrifying hallucinations and nightmares. A nogitsune broke out of the Nemeton and exploited that weakness in order to hitch a ride in Stiles' body and start all kinds of trouble in town. Using another ritual led by Peter, Scott and Lydia hopped into Stiles' brain and guided him out of his subconscious and back into his body, so the nogitsune violently ejected himself out of Stiles and now has his own body that looks just like Dylan O'Brien. The nogitsune ran off ti Oak Creek with Lydia, whom he used to alert him when he was about to die, so he could break Noshiko's last kaiken and steal her oni right under her nose. Allison died a hero's death as she tried to protect Isaac, and even managed to somehow kill an oni before she left. Which is where we pick up!
We open at the Sheriff's station, where Lydia, Scott, and Isaac are sitting on a bench as they wait to be interviewed by the police. As you can imagine, they all look devastated, shell-shocked, and just generally numb to everything. I want to hug ALL OF THEM.
As Scott stares off into space, he flashes back to Allison, right before she died. Her face is snow-white, and blood drips from her lips as she looks at him and takes her last breaths. He then flashes forward a tiny bit to what came afterwards, probably an hour so earlier at Oak Creek. Chris has taken him aside in one of the tunnels and is urging him to look at him as he tries to coach him on what to say to the police. It's obvious that Chris desperately needs to focus on this so he doesn't think about the fact that his daughter is dead, and he pushes Scott to listen to him. "Scott! Look at me! You HAVE to remember. You called me first, okay? Say it. You called me first." Scott grips the bars helplessly and starts to repeat back to him, but Chris corrects him. "What else? What happened?" Scott starts to recount the story they must have already agreed upon--there were two guys, they tried to steal Allison's car, they wore masks, and one of them had a knife. Chris corrects him again, and tells him not to get specific.
"What do you say next?" Chris continues. "If you get confused, what do you always repeat?" Scott takes a deep breath, and stammers, "It happened so fast." This seems to satisfy him, but he continues to push harder and harder, until finally Scott just can't deal with it anymore. "How are you doing this?" Chris freezes for a long moment, and he looks like he's just about to break down before he steels himself and reminds him that he's an Argent. "It's what we do." It's what he's already done, with Kate, and his wife, uncle Alexander, and god knows how many other fellow hunters who went after the wrong creatures. He rubs Scott's shoulder comfortingly for a minute, and repeats, "It's what we do," before walking away.
In the present, Isaac is in Sheriff Stilinski's office with Deputy Parrish, who is doing the interview. "Can you remember anything else?" Deputy Parrish prods, but Isaac is still shivering and way too emotionally and physically exhausted to function at this point. "I'm sorry," Isaac whispers quietly, as Sheriff puts a soothing hand on his shoulder. "It--it happened so fast." I think it's easy to forget how much loss Isaac has felt, too. His mom, his brother, even his DAD, who was hardly the best family. Then Erica, and Boyd, his pack. He finally started to put the pieces of a family together again, with Scott and Melissa, Allison and Chris, and now things are just starting to fracture for him all over again. (I try not to get too spoilery outside of my notes section, but it seems to be common knowledge at this point that Daniel Sharman isn't coming back to Season 4. :/ No Allison AND no Isaac?! I know he can always come back, but for now, this is just double shitty.)
Kira and Noshiko took Stiles to their house, presumably to make sure no one thinks Stiles had any part in Allison's death, after the shit the nogitsune has pulled lately while wearing his face. Stiles is looking worse by the minute--he's even more pale than before, the shadows under his eyes way more pronounced, and he's shivering pretty severely. Noshiko pours him a cup of tea, and encourages him to drink it so it can calm him down. He's understandably suspicious, as I was, and asks her if it's "magic tea," but no worries, it's just plain old chamomile. Papa Yukimura walks in and reminds them all that Stiles isn't safe at their house, but Noshiko argues that he's not exactly safe ANYWHERE, so does it really matter at this point? "But Allison killed one of them," Kira pipes up. "Doesn't that mean something? She killed an ONI." YES! Sing her praises, Kira! This is just fueling all of my (now AU) Allison/Kira BFF headcanons. Papa Y wonders if that's even possible, and Noshiko herself admits she has never heard of such a thing before.
"But she did it!" Kira insists. "She killed one of them." Stiles doesn't seem to think it matters. "Yeah, and then they killed her," he mutters, which causes all the Yukimuras to remember that these kids just lost their good friend. "Allison's dead," Stiles continues sadly. "And now, I guess the only good thing is it looks like I'm dying too." STILES, BB, NO. Noshiko shocks me by sitting down next to him and actually empathizing with him, instead of being on her whole "STILES MUST DIE" crusade. "He made a powerful move by splitting the two of you," she says quietly. Kira grabs one of the stones from the Go board still sitting on the coffee table, and asks what THEIR next move is. Papa Yukimura, who seems to be a pretty skilled Go player himself, admits that at this point, their only recourse is what is called "a divine move."
When Stiles asks what it is, Noshiko exposits that a divine move in Go is a "truly inspired" or out-of-the-box move, one that turns the tides of the game. Since the nogitsune has had the upper-hand, or "senten," they need a move which will turn the game in their favor. Stiles asks if anyone is feeling divinely inspired, which reminds Kira of something--back in 1943, Noshiko trapped the nogitsune in a glass jar. Noshiko confirms that she did, but points out that it wasn't the jar itself that trapped the nogitsune, it was the place where she buried it, in the roots of the Nemeton, which is what contained it. Unfortunately, all Noshiko knew about the Nemeton was that it was powerful, so she can't really give them any information on why exactly it worked. Luckily, Stiles knows someone who happens to know a lot about it! DEATON.
Isaac caught up with Chris at some point, and went with him back to the Argent Abode. He follows Chris in through the front door, and it's obvious by Chris' face that he's barely holding it together, and kind of wants to be alone. They're both sniffling and shivering as Chris informs his surrogate son that he doesn't have to stay with him. "I'll be alright. I've dealt with this before," he begins, as he walks over to the front door and opens it for Isaac. "I, uh, I have the capacity and an ability to compartmentalize my emotions." There's two problems with this--1) compartmentalizing your emotions only works as long as you have bigger fish to fry, like protecting yourself and your loved ones from the ancient demon fox that indirectly killed your daughter. But, when that's over? It's gonna be hard not to deal with those emotions. And 2) Isaac has never been taught how to even really healthily deal with these kinds of traumatic situations, and needs to be with someone who knows what it's like to lose someone you love. Isaac and Chris both loved Allison, so them grieving together just seems natural. Which is why Isaac turns to him and replies, "I don't," before dissolving into tears. Chris grabs him into a Stilinski-men-style hug, and they just stand there together for a long moment. GOD I AM TOO EMOTIONALLY VULNERABLE FOR THIS KIND OF TORTURE. MAKE IT STOP. Also, Isaac is still wearing the clothes he was wearing in the fight, with his jacket, shirt and jeans all cut up from the swords and blood soaking all of it. How did nobody notice that he's covered in blood but not injured?
(via teenwolf)
Back at the Sheriff's office, Deputy Parrish is sitting at his desk, yawning, as he works on paperwork. Sheriff approaches him as he puts on his gun holster-belt, and instructs Parrish to keep Allison's death on the D/L for as long as possible, because as soon as the story hits the news, reporters are going to descend upon the kids and they're SO not ready for that. Parrish asks him if he wants a deputy stationed outside his house, just to be on the safe side, which Sheriff decides is probably a good idea. What story are they feeding to the cops about all this stuff? I really want to know how Stiles hasn't managed to get arrested yet or something. Parrish's eye go wide as he notices a black cloud of smoke in the bullpen, which, of course, materializes into an oni, and he instinctively reaches for his side-arm, which makes Sheriff understandably confused and nervous. However, once the oni slices one of the deputies across the back with his sword, Sheriff immediately realizes what is happening, and jumps behind Parrish's desk as the two shoot at them. Behind them on the wall is one of the wanted posters they put up to mock Agent Douchenozzle after his run-in with the oni, which is all kinds of hilarious. TITLE CARD!
Over at Derek's loft, he's using that Zippo lighter he loves so much to cauterize the twins' wolfsbane-bullet holes. If you can remember all the way back to Season 1's "Magic Bullet," Derek got shot with one of Kate Argent's sniper rifle rounds that had wolfsbane in it, and in order to heal it before he died of wolfsbane poisoning, he made Scott steal ANOTHER one of her bullets so he could burn the wolfsbane inside into ash and push it in the wound. I'm guessing since it wasn't so much a bullet full of wolfsbane as it was a buckshot coated in it, I guess cauterizing the wound is enough? Once Derek's finished, he assures the twins that they should be fully healed in a few hours, so long as they don't have any more run-ins with whoever it is who is after them. As Ethan gets dressed, Aiden gets a text alerting him to the fact that Lydia is still with Scott, and insists that the two of them need to leave to go find her and Danny.
Derek is not really surprised that the twins would want to convince their significant others to take off, but still asks them anyway if that's their plan. "I'm going to try and convince her to run and hide, like any sane person would do!" Aiden snaps in response. "Allison's dead," Etha adds sadly. "Stiles is dying. What do you think?" That's when Derek gets AMAZING and I just want to ruffle his hair and pinch his cheeks and give him a Scott McCall Stan Club button.
DEREK: "I think Danny won't believe you. And Lydia would never run and hide!"
AIDEN: [sneers condescendingly] "Because of Stiles?"
DEREK: [raises voice] "Because of Scott. [beat] You've been trying to find a way into his pack. Trying to earn his trust, trying to fight for him. But, you've had it wrong the whole time! You don't fight for a leader. You fight for a leader's cause."
AIDEN: [annoyed] "What cause?"
DEREK: "Scott's always been about one thing--saving his friends. He will do anything and everything to save the people he cares about. When there's no chance of winning? He keeps fighting. When all hope is lost? He finds another way. And, when he's beaten down? He stands up again! You wanna earn a place in his pack? You want redemption? Find another way to STAND and FIGHT."
DAMN. I SAID DAMN! Like, first of all, truer words have never been spoken. Despite Scott's flaws, despite the sometimes not-so-awesome things he's been forced to do, Scott's intention has always been to save people. People he loves, people he doesn't even know, even people who quite frankly should die for their actions--to him, they're all people who deserve to be saved. And he's shown time and time again that he doesn't believe in no-win scenarios. He refused to believe that Jackson had to die. He refused to cave in to Gerard's threats. When he was told if he didn't kill someone and join the Alpha Pack, he and everyone he loves would die, he found another way out. And best of all, he's shown that he thinks everyone deserves a second chance.
Ethan already gave Aiden this speech earlier in the season, but it still bears repeating--Scott McCall doesn't care about power, he cares about people. It's why he's a true alpha, and it's why everyone that surrounds him has become a better person as a result of his influence. Look at Derek, who has been like, 500% more chill since Scott became and alpha and allowed him to step back and be a mentor? Where would Allison be, without Scott's unconditional love after she went dark? Would Lydia be constantly throwing herself into danger like she is today if Scott (and Stiles, and Allison) hadn't shown her that she was more than just a pretty, popular face? Would Isaac be as loyal and protective had he only ever been in Derek's pack? Hell, even Stiles has become much more altruistic and heroic since Scott was turned and decided that protecting the town was his responsibility. Watching all of this progress happen over the last three seasons has been a joy to behold, seriously. I just do not understand how some people can't stand Scott, especially considering every other character LOVES Scott--if Stiles or Derek is your favorite character, then you should love Scott, because Stiles and Derek love Scott. That's just how life works.
Meanwhile, Scott and Lydia have arrived at Deaton's clinic, to get some answers about the nogitsune. "Stiles and Kira said it was the Nemeton that kept it trapped--" Scott explains, but Deaton cuts him off and reminds him of the fact that they're not actually fighting a person--the nogitsune is a SPIRIT who just so happened to take the shape of a human. Scott, in turn, reminds him that this particular spirit took the shape of his best friend. Lydia, who, as always, is Team Scott, points out that since the nogitsune was caught once, it stands to reason that he could be caught again. "I don't know," Deaton admits frantically. "This thing was trapped a long time ago, before the Nemeton was cut down. It doesn't have the same power anymore."
OH SHIT! Okay, so we know that the reason the Nemeton has been basically dead this whole time was because it was cut down, and we know that it was whole in 1943 but was cut down in the flashbacks in "Visionary," which occurred around 8-10 years before the pilot, which was 2011. So, sometime between 1943 and 2001-2003, the Nemeton was cut down. I still wholeheartedly believe that Gerard did it, and I'm going to keep believing it until canon tells me otherwise. Scott asks Deaton if there is anything that does have that kind of power, and after a moment of considering it, thinks there might be. "When the tree was whole, its wood was sometimes used to contain powerful objects. [beat] But, those objects are very rare." Lydia's eyes grow wide as she realizes she knows of such a container. "Wait a second... powerful objects? ...Like, an alphas claws?" Deaton frowns in confusion and asks her which alpha to whom she's referring. "Talia Hale," Lydia replies quietly, and Scott and Deaton's eyes widen in shock. "Peter had them in this wooden box with a triskele carved in the lid. What if it was made from the Nemeton?" Deaton gulps nervously and confesses that it was, which he knows, because it's the one who made the box! OH SHIT. I have so many questions, starting with "Why did Deaton make the box?", "Who put the claws in the box in the first place, and how did Araya and her hunters get ahold of it?" and ending with "Why did Peter want them in the first place," and "Why does Deaton seem so intrigued by them?"
Nogitstiles is wandering the halls of Beacon Memorial Hospital, decked out in a black hoodie with a gray jacket over top, just so we know it's not Real!Stiles, because he hardly ever wears dark colors like that. He's more of a red and blue kind of person, you know? He passes by numerous doctors and visitors on his way to the nurse's station, where he approaches a nurse and asks him to page Melissa McCall for him. The nurse just kind of rolls his eyes at first, because he probably figures he's just some strung-out teenager, but when two oni materialize behind him, he becomes understandably terrified. Before he can do anything, though, one of the oni jabs his sword through the reception desk and into the nurse's gut. Which seems kind of counterproductive, because now the nurse can't page Melissa! As the dude falls to the ground, Nogitstiles just side-eyes his oni minions and snarks, "Well, I guess I'll just find her myself." So sassy, Nogitstiles.
What comes next is probably the best slow-mo fight scene this show has EVER had. Mourning Ritual's "Bad Moon Rising" plays as the oni make their way through the hospital, mowing down every single person in their path with their swords. Strangely, not all of them were fatal blows, although many of them were--the oni's intention really seemed to be just to slice every single person they saw with the sword, whether it killed them immediately or not. Doctors, nurses, orderlies, patients, visitors, no one in the halls were spared. Behind the oni, Nogitstiles just stands and marinates in all of the chaos, strife, and pain that surrounded him. DAMN. How the fuck are the police supposed to hand wave this away? People being ritualistically sacrificed in groups of three to a tree stump is one thing, but masked samurai ninjas razing an entire hospital is another situation entirely.
Meanwhile, at the sheriff's station, Sheriff, Parrish, and a couple other deputies are seeking shelter behind their desks, with their guns at the ready. Somehow, they managed to incapacitate one of the oni (who isn't at the hospital slaughtering people) with their guns, so Sheriff makes his way to the door to peep at the oni's body, which is laying on the floor next to the deputy it stabbed to death. Once Sheriff makes it to the door to the bullpen, Parrish stands up to back him up, but Sheriff gestures toward him to stand down. Unfortunately, when Sheriff turns back around to check the status of the oni, it's healing from its injury and rising back to it's feet. Parrish yells at Sheriff, who turns around to find ANOTHER oni has appeared right behind him, and he barely is able to duck in order to miss the sword that just about decapitated him. The other deputies start shooting at the two oni, but as we already know, guns barely slow them down unless shot in specific weak spots, like their masks. They continue to shoot, but the bullets just ricochet right off of them, which seems pretty dangerous to me, tbh. What if they get hit by their own fire?
We cut back to the hospital, where we meet up with Agent Douchenozzle and Melissa mid-conversation. Wherever they are, it appears the oni haven't quite made it to them yet. "I just think it would be better if it came from you," ADN insists, as the lights start to flicker. For whatever reason, this doesn't seem to faze Melissa, even though historically, power surges/outages in this town tend to go awfully. She's too busy explaining to her ex-husband how he's a ginormous asshat. "So, I tell Scott that his dad went back to San Francisco, says he's sorry, but that he didn't have time to say goodbye?" ADN doesn't realize that she's mocking him, so he confirms that she should tell him that, and assures her that he'll send Scott a follow-up email later. "You're an IDIOT," Melissa replies, but ADN doesn't get why his plan is a problem, which is just more proof that he's a pretty shitty dad.
They both enter the elevator (Which, hello! Power surges! Elevators are a BAD IDEA, remember what happened to Derek last time?), and Melissa decides it's time to drop some true facts on his dumbass-self. "Rafe? You want a relationship with your son? You can't just bail after one fight." ADN claims that Scott hates him, which is probably pretty true, but it's HIS fault, and thus his responsibility to try to fix it. Ditching him again is definitely NOT going to make Scott hate him less. Melissa totally agrees. "He doesn't hate you! He just...wants you to try harder." DING DING DING! These are easy observations you can make when you're actually parenting your children, like Melissa. Take notes, Blobfish! ANYWAY, the lights start to flicker again, which finally starts to alarm ADN and Melissa, and when the elevator doors open, they're finally exposed to the carnage the two oni have wrought thus far. ADN recognizes the oni from when they stabbed him and he immediately reaches for his side-arm and pushes Melissa behind him. The oni swing at them, and ADN starts shooting with one hand while he frantically pushes the button to close the elevator door again. Once the doors close, he takes a deep breath in relief, only to start panicking again when he sees that Melissa's left thigh was sliced deeply by their swords and is bleeding all over the elevator floor. NOOOO MELISSA MY QUEEN.
Isaac is sitting on the edge of Allison's bed, holding one of her Chinese ring daggers in his hand as he runs his fingertips over the edge and thinks about her. Chris walks in and smiles when he sees it, and advises him to be careful with them, because they take practice. Yeah, it's not like this is his first time with one of those near his body. I don't think he has much to worry about. Wait, how awesome would it be if Chris trained Isaac to hunt/fight? I mean, he's got the werewolf strength and reflexes, but no form or precision, as we've seen, so he would definitely benefit from some training. If he ever comes back, I hope he comes back with more skills. ANYWAY, Isaac sighs and hands him the dagger as Chris paces around the room. "When Allison was learning, she had to bandage her fingers because they got so raw. She wouldn't give up on it, though." No, she wouldn't, because that's not her style. And as we've seen, she eventually came to be pretty damn lethal with those things.
"She kept trying to say something," Isaac whispers, barely holding back tears again. Chris asks him what he means, so he recalls what she said before she died, leaving out the part about loving Scott, of course. "She was trying to say something, to Scott. 'You have to tell him,' she said. 'You have to tell my father.' She didn't get a chance to finish it, but I'm sure it was just that she loved you." Isaac and Chris are both on the verge of sobbing, again, but Chris pulls himself together and assures him that Allison made a point of telling him that before she left. "There's a tradition we have--" Chris begins, but Isaac already knows of the silver bullet tradition, back in "Alpha Pact," when Allison was explaining the silver bullet she used as a talisman during the sacrifice ritual. "She was making a silver arrowhead," Chris replies, as he hands Isaac the dagger again and pats him on the back before he goes to leave.
Isaac's brain starts processing that new information, though, so he stops Chris before he leaves. "Where is it? The arrowhead?" Chris doesn't understand why that's relevant, and assumes that it's downstairs in their weapons lair. Isaac stands up and informs him that he needs to see it, and starts to walk out into the hallway. When Chris asks him why, Isaac responds, "Because I have a feeling it isn't there." YES! I'm so glad that he is the one who put it together. Scott wasn't there for the full fight, so he would have been too overwhelmed by Allison's death to notice the oni was killed, but Isaac was the one who was about to be killed when Allison shot that last arrow, and the oni was right in front of him when it was killed. Plus, you know Isaac was listening to Scott and Allison's entire conversation in her last moments, and probably has had it on a loop in his brain since it happened. ISAAC BB LET ME LOVE YOU.
Melissa groans loudly as she tries to pull herself into a seated position, and ADN kneels beside her and examines her wound, which is gushing blood EVERYWHERE, as well as this cloud of black smoke. Naturally, ADN is like, "WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT," but Melissa keeps Scott's secret, and simply groans that it's poison and that it hurts like hell. He finds a pair of conveniently-located scrubs and rips them into a makeshift tourniquet, which he wraps around the top of her thigh. She yells in agony as he tightens it, just as the lights start to flicker again, and the elevator starts moving. ADN tells her he needs to get them out of thre, and Melissa sighs, like, "How the fuck am I gonna explain this shit, especially if I'm dying?"
Over at the sheriff's station, Parrish is all alone in the office, for whatever reason, and hides behind a desk as he shoots at the lone oni. As expected, the bullets just fly right off his mask and armored duster. He runs out of bullets, and right as he's reloading, Sheriff comes out with a huge-ass shotgun and quips, "You're going to need a bigger gun," before cocking the gun and shooting the oni right in the chest with it. Surprisingly, there's enough force behind it that it knocks it right off it's feet and lands flat on it's back. He cocks the gun again, and his confidence gives Parrish and the other deputy (Cortez, maybe? Manning? Hell if I know) the second wind they need to fight them. The oni slashes Cortez/Manning across the abdomen before setting his sights on Parrish. Parrish backs up as the oni descends upon him, but Sheriff jumps in front of him, using the gun as a shield of sorts. Unfortunately, he gets slashed across the arm for his trouble, forcing Parrish to pull him behind him as Parrish fruitlessly tries to shoot at the oni. The oni swings his sword around, and uses the blade to block all the bullets and ricochet them back towards him. NOOO! That face is too sweet to die!
(via teenwolf)
Time to catch back up with Scott and Lydia, who are still at the animal clinic with Deaton. Scott has just gotten off the phone with Derek, who informed him that he has the triskele box, and that he's going to meet them with it. Deaton nods, just as Lydia hears a whispering noise and momentarily grows weak and loses her balance. Scott just barely manages to catch her before she falls to the floor, and a concerned Deaton asks her what's wrong. Lydia admits that she thinks something bad is happening, because she just got this "rushing feeling," which I'm guessing is probably the banshee spirits warning her of all the people who are dead/dying as a result of the oni. She interprets this as meaning that they're running out of time, just as Stiles, who looks dead on his feet, and who is being half-carried by Kira, shows up to tell them that he also has a similar feeling. NO NO NO NO.
Down in the Argent's weapons lair, Chris turns on the light and leads Isaac into the room, where they find a folded up piece of cloth. When Chris uncovers it, he finds four silver arrowheads laying side-by-side in a row. Chris asks Isaac why she would make four of them, but Isaac is already putting the pieces together. "She didn't," he informs him. "She made five. She made the first one, and then she figured it out." We flashback to Allison in "Insatiable," when she held up her silver arrowhead against her dad's silver bullet, and asks "What am I missing?" Isaac even has the ghost of a smile on his face as he explains the rest. "She used the first silver arrowhead to kill one of the oni. We saw her do it!" We flashback again to the fight, where one of the oni is about to give Isaac the killing blow, and she shot it right in the heart. In the present day, Chris asked him how it's possible that she did it.
"The same way you almost did," Isaac reminds him. "Do you remember when you told us about one of your first gun deals, the Yakuza?" We flashback to "Silverfinger," when Baby Chris watched the oni appear and take out nearly all of the Yakuza with whom he was meeting in order to kill the nogitsune possessing the kumicho*. Present-day Chris points out that that meeting wasn't just one of his first gun deals, it was his FIRST gun deal. In the flashback, we see Baby Chris dropping all six of his silver bullets onto the ground before he laid down in the grass and played dead, and picking one up to load in his gun. "The bullet that you used to shoot the oni, was that a silver bullet?" Isaac asks, and Chris confirms that it was. However, the bullet didn't kill the oni, if you recall--it just shattered its mask. "Probably went straight through," Isaac says, as he brainstorms a bit more. "What if silver is like a poison to them? What if it needs to stay in the body?"
We flashback to right after Allison shot the oni, and how the light burst out of its chest before it exploded. "What if that's what she was trying to tell Scott?" Isaac asks, suddenly full of hope. "What if that's what she was trying to tell YOU? That she'd figured it out?" Chris figures that the arrowheads were still setting when she left, but Isaac is sure that this means they can stop them. "No," Chris growls. "We can KILL them." YES! Bless your glorious light, Allison Argent. Seriously. And if there is a version of the Other Side for badass warrior goddesses, I'd like to think Allison is standing around watching them, super proud that they managed to figure it out without her help. Whoops, and I'm crying again.
(via teenwolf)
*(Did Noshiko have something to do with this, I wonder? We never saw the fly leaving the Kumicho, so was that nogitsune really killed? Was that nogitsune the same one as the one they're fighting now? And if it was, how did it get out of the Nemeton? That would have been 1987, so I don't see how that's possible, but I want to know how these stories are connected! Especially since Noshiko claimed she tried to stop a nogitsune without killing the host seven years prior [which would have been 2003, which we already know was a BIG year in the TW timeline])
At the sheriff's station, Sheriff is half-nodding off at this point, which seems to be a result of the poison from the oni's swords. Parrish slumps down and sits next to him, which startles Sheriff for a moment, because he accidentally aims his gun at Parrish until he realizes he's not an oni. It seems that Parrish has been slashed across his torso, too, because his bleeding through the front of his uniform. Sheriff asks Parrish what the fuck just happened, but Parrish has even less knowledge than Sheriff does at this point, and says that the oni just kind of disappeared. He looks over at the other deputy, who looks just as bad off as they do, before lifting up his shirt to reveal some glorious abs and a nasty gash that is bleeding and leaking out black smoke. Parrish gasps in pain and asks, "Why did they let us live?" Sheriff lifts up his arm and examines the pretty deep gash in his own arm, which is also bleeding and leaking puffs of poisonous smoke. "I'm not so sure they did," Sheriff confesses.
Scott has driven himself, Stiles, Lydia and Kira to the school in Stiles' Jeep, and they all pile out and head for the school. Lydia wraps an arm around the rapidly-weakening Stiles as they approach the entrance, but before they walk through the front doors, Stiles stops them. "Scott, hold on. I know what you're all thinking, that if this works, it might kill me, too. But, even if it does...you have to go through with it." Stiles looks his brother right in the eyes, and adds, "Stick with the plan, alright?" As we already discussed, though, Scott will not accept that there is a no-win scenario, and goddamnit, he's going to figure out a way out of this that doesn't involve losing his best friend in addition to his first love. "The plan is to save you," Scott reminds him. "That's the plan I'm going with."
He takes a deep breath and opens the door, which leads the foursome into the exact same garden from Chris' flashbacks to his gun deal with the Yakuza, only here, there's snow. OKAY, so if the nogitsune knew about this place, does that mean he WAS the nogitsune that was possessing the kumicho? And if so, how the fuck did he get out of the Nemeton? Is that a clue that he was actually released way earlier, perhaps when the Nemeton was cut down, rather than when the kids did their sacrifice? I NEED TO KNOW EVERYTHING. The kids slowly walk into this new scene, and the garden doors slam shut behind them. "Well, this is definitely not part of the plan," Stiles admits, as he takes a look around. SHIT! What kind of Kill Bill realness?
ADN and Melissa are still holed up in the hospital's elevator, where Melissa is starting to nod off from the poison in her gaping thigh-wound. ADN is understandably panicking and leaving a voicemail for Sheriff Stilinski. "It's me, again. I'm getting nothing from dispatch, no one's on the line. Call me back, Stilinski! Call me as soon as you get this!" I wonder if they're ignoring the calls because they their own disaster to deal with, or if the nogitsune is just messing with the phones so no one can call for help? Not that anyone except for the McCall Pack has the ability to fight against them, anyway, but whatever. Once he gets off the phone, he realizes his ex-wife is fading fast, and immediately shakes her awake. Melissa tries to pulls herself together and orders ADN to call Scott, but since he doesn't know Scott's role in all of this stuff, he figures she just thinks she's dying and wants to say goodbye, rather than her trying to get his help.
He promises her that she's going to be okay, and though she cuts him off and says, "That's not what I mean," he ignores her and reminds her that he needs to get her out of there. He tries to lift her to her feet. Frustrated, Melissa finally is like, LISTEN HERE BUCKO, and insists that if something happens to her, ADN needs to man up and make things right with Scott. He argues that he's already tried to apologize, but Melissa is NOT here to listen to his excuses. "He's a teenage boy, he doesn't care about apologies, you know? He wants you to do better. He probably wants you to suffer a little," she adds with a weak smile. Before she'll let him help her up, she makes him swear that he'll make it work after this is all over. He nods, just as the elevator doors open. He reflexively aims his gun through the doors, but thankfully, the oni are already gone. UNFORTUNATELY, they left a hospital full of employees, patients, and visitors with various injuries ranging from superficial lacerations to fatal stabbings. HOW THE FUCK IS THIS TOWN GOING TO DEAL WITH THIS? Like, there have to be at least a couple dozen people involved just in the hospital massacre alone, not even including the sheriff's station. This isn't something the police will be able to cover up, so I'm legitimately concerned with how this is going to affect the town at large.
Outside the school, a fully-wolfed-out Derek strolls up to the entrance, carrying the triskele box, and stops right in front of where Nogitstiles and two of his oni are waiting for him. "Did you bring us a present?" Nogitstiles snarks, but Derek retorts that he brought him two, just as similarly-wolfed-out Ethan and Aiden join him. "I've heard of an alpha pack, Derek" Nogitstiles sneers. "But not a pack of FORMER alphas. It's a little sad, isn't it?" Seriously, though, how does the nogitsune know all of this stuff? Unfortunately, as sassy as Derek can be, he's never quite been good at comebacks, so when he says, "I might not be an alpha anymore, but I can still fight like one," I couldn't help but laugh. Derek has become an awesome person/character, but come on, now, guys--when has Derek EVER won a fight that wasn't against newbie werewolves? Still, Derek rolls his neck and roars before he and the twins lunge toward them. The fact that the pack is still so fractured made me EXTREMELY nervous when I was watching this, because how can Scott draw on his pack's strength (and vice versa) if they're all scattered?
(via teenwolf)
Inside the school, the kids are still examining their new scenery and trying to figure out what to do next. Kira holds out her hand, and catches snowflakes in it, but they don't melt, which is their first clue that this isn't quite reality. I also reallllly want to know how the nogitsune can trap them in this scene while still controlling the oni in various places and keeping himself out of trouble. You gotta admire his hustle, you know? The gang is startled when they hear footsteps, and guess who it is? The nogitsune, in the horrifying, bandaged-Rhys form from Stiles' nightmares! He's made slightly less terrifying by the stilted way that he walks--it's like he's trying to run through jello or something. Either way, Kira grabs her katana from her back and pulls in out, ready to fight at a moment's notice, as the nogitsune greets them. "Like I promised, Stiles, we're going to kill all of them!" he growls, as he fist-pumps the air. "One. By. ONE!" Out of nowhere, two oni appear and immediately get ready for yet another throwdown.
After the break, the oni surround Kira, Scott, Stiles, and Lydia as they try to back away from the nogitsune. Scott asks him what the fuck this is, and where the fuck they are, so the nogitsune admits that they're between life and death. "Bardo," Lydia says aloud, as she remembers what Kira told them allllll the way back in "Anchors." The nogitsune doesn't confirm that she's right, but he DOES say that there are no "peaceful deities" where they're currently standing. "You're dying, Stiles," he hisses. "And now, everyone you care about is dying, too!" Stiles is both extremely worried AND confused, and demands to know what he's talking about. "I've captured almost all of the territories on the board, Stiles! The hospital, the sheriff station...[beat] And now, the animal clinic!" OH SHIT! I was hoping they would elaborate more on the Go game Stiles and the nogitsune were playing in his brain, but I hadn't considered the fact that the game was still going on!
Scott's face looks concerned, as we cut over to Deaton's clinic, where he's just been ambushed by two oni. Fortunately, Deaton is a secret BADASS and we finally get to see it in action! The oni corner him in the back room, and he pushes a table at them to distract them. One of the oni swings his sword at him, but Deaton manages to dodge every blow! Even more impressively, when the other oni joins in, Deaton is able to grab one of the oni's swords and use it against the other, while also using it to block blows against him! It is so cool, and it makes me want to see him in the fray more often. Plus, he's got to be able to do SOME magic, right? Deaton slams one of the oni down onto the table, which ultimately was a mistake, because it leaves his back wide open to be slashed with the other oni's sword. When he turns to fight back after the first blow, he gets cut again across the chest, the force of which knocks him flat on the ground. After a moment, he groans and flips himself over, only to find that the oni had already left. He winces as he touches the wound on his chest, which bleeds all over his hands. NOOO! Supervet! EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE.
"Do you know the ritual of seppuku, Stiles?" The nogitsune asks, as he circles around the gang menacingly. Stiles grips Lydia tightly and turns them so he never takes his eye off the nogitsune, and snits that he doesn't really want to know, thanks. "When the samurai disembowels himself with his own sword to maintain his honor!" Oh, so basically what the nogitsune did to Stiles when he was still in his body? Wonderful. He goes on to explain that in seppuku, the samurai doesn't actually die from disemboweling himself--he stays alive until his superior, or kaishakunin decapitates him with his own katana. I totally wiki'd "seppuku" JUST so I would know how to spell "kaishakunin" correctly, and I really, REALLY, wish I hadn't now. Samurai are INTENSE. ANYWAY, the nogitsune insists that Scott act as Stiles' kaishakunin and chop his head off after Stiles disembowels himself (for the second time).
"I'm going to make your best friend kill you, Stiles. And you're going to let him, because just like you, they're ALL going to die--everyone touched by an oni's blade. Unless...Scott kills you first." As you can probably imagine, Scott is just about at nuclear-levels of rage, but Stiles is just so physically and mentally exhausted that all he can do is whisper, "Why? Why are you doing this?" The nogitsune's answer, "To win the game," seems to be a cue for the oni to go into battle-mode, forcing Kira and Scott to jump into the fight in order to keep Stiles and Lydia out of harms way. When this is all over, can SOMEONE teach Lydia and Stiles to fight, already? Even just having basic weapon and self-defense skills would be better than nothing, at this point. Still, Kira and Scott fight like PROS.
Back at the station, Sheriff is still on the floor next to Parrish, both of whom are looking pretty bad. Sheriff urges Parrish to stay awake, and when that doesn't work, he yells at him to startle him back into consciousness. Parrish lifts his shirt again to check on his bleeding wound on those glorious abs of his, and when he sees the black smoke seeping out of it, he asks Sheriff if it's poison. Sheriff, of course, has no idea what it is, other than it's supernatural, and figures that poison is probably the closest thing to the truth that he can admit to, so he dances around the question. "Whatever it is, it's working fast," Sheriff admits as he grimaces in pain. I wonder what it is exactly on those swords that is making these wounds way more painful? It's gotta take some tricky magic to make even superficial wounds eventually become fatal, after enough time has passed.
Over at the hospital, Melissa is laying on a gurney in the hallway, with ADN at her bedside, holding her hand. Around them, the few uninjured doctors and nurses are working on treating the victims of the oni's slaughtering-spree. Melissa is fading fast, and she whispers, "Don't leave him again," to her ex, who is trying to hold himself together. "Promise me." ADN can't help but continue to argue with her, even despite the fact that she could be dying, and he claims that SHE was the one who kicked him out in the first place. "I told a drunk to get out of the house. I didn't tell his father to get out of his life." TELL HIM! ADN is the one with the defeatist attitude who gave up when it got a little tough. What he needs to realize is that sometimes, you have to work hard for the things you want or need, even if there is a risk that your work will be for naught. He can't just sit and hope things will change, he has to get up and make a move in order for change to happen. "You came back to make it up to him, right?" Melissa asks matter-of-factly. ADN's response actually surprised me. "I came back to make it up to both of you." UGH PLEASE DON'T TELL ME THEY'RE MAKING ADN/MELISSA A THING. NOOOOO! Sheriff/Melissa 5EVA.
Inside the school, Lydia and Stiles are hiding behind a row of bushes as Scott and Kira fiercely fight against the oni. Kira is AMAZING to watch, all that sword-training Arden Cho did before starting this season was seriously worth every second! Scott has become a much better fighter, too, and kicks the shit out of one of the oni before standing back to back with Kira. "How is this happening, how are we in this place?" Scott asks frantically. Kira's reply cracked me the fuck up. "You're asking me? A month ago, I'd never even TOUCHED a sword!" It's so easy to forget what a complete newbie she is in the supernatural game, especially considering how quickly she adapted, thanks to her kitsune intelligence, reflexes, and healing. It's only been about a year since the beginning of the series, when Scott got bitten and everyone was thrown into this new world of magic and mayhem, but it still seems like Scott and the rest of them are seasoned pros in comparison to her.
The next scene cuts back and forth between Scott and Kira's battle with the oni in the snowy garden, and Derek and the twins' battle outside, where they are currently not having much more luck with the oni than the former group. As usual, the Nogitstiles is hiding and letting his goons do all the heavy lifting, but they're still giving the boys a run for their money. Aiden asks where the rest of the pack is as he battles an oni, but Ethan shouts back that since the Jeep is in the parking lot, they have to be nearby. Derek gets knocked against the stairs and yells that Scott and Co. are inside the school...
...where the war is still totally raging on, with the nogitsune standing in the shadows, watching it all go down. Kira is spining in the air and grunting and yelling as she cuts the oni down, and Scott is doing his usual acrobatics to dodge the oni's ninjadas. Lydia is completely overwhelmed just watching them, and states that there's no way this can be real, but Stiles is like, "Yeah, tell that to them!"
As Derek fights his own oni, he notices that the triskele box is still sitting where he put it before the fight started, and orders Aiden to go grab it and take it inside to Scott. Of course, Aiden being able to just go pick it up is WAY too easy, so Nogitstiles sends two of his oni to materialize between Aiden and the box, blocking him from grabbing it without a fight. PERFECT. "I hate ninjas," Aiden growls, before roaring in their direction and lunging for them, which earns him a slash to the back.
Kira gets in a standoff with oni of the oni, who hits her katana with such force that it knocks it straight out of her hand and into the snow on the ground. The oni all stop fighting and aim their swords at her, cornering her. NOOO! Not my thunder princess!
ADN is still angsting it up at Melissa's bedside, thinking about what a douchenozzle he is, when he hears Melissa groan. When he looks down at her, he realizes that blood is dripping out of her mouth, which to a normal person, would indicate that things are VERY VERY BAD. Unfortunately, he didn't learn that over at FLETC, so he turns to the health care professionals in the hall and yells, "Hey! HEY! There's blood on her lips, what does that mean?" A nurse, or an orderly, or someone in scrubs runs down the hallway, completely ignoring his pleas. "What does it mean? There's BLOOD, WHAT DOES IT MEAN?" he shouts, but the guy just waves at him sympathetically as he rushes off to some other medical emergency that must be going down. Where did everyone else go? I would assume most of them would be sent to other hospitals, since I imagine many of the health care professionals are probably victims, yeah? And we learned in "The Overlooked" that there ARE other hospitals in the area. So why wasn't Melissa taken there?
Meanwhile, katana-less Kira is still trying to back away from the two oni who are holding her at ninjada-point, while Scott continues to fight the remaining one. That's when Stiles decides he's tired of watching his friends fight for him, and crawls across the ground from his hiding place to where Kira's sword lays. Lydia chases after him as he gets up to his feet and points the katana at his gut. Scott stops fighting long enough to notice what Stiles is doing, and wastes no time to urge him not to give in to the nogitsune. "What if it saves you? What if it saves all of you?" Stiles asks anxiously, but Lydia brings up an excellent point--What if it's just another trick? "No more tricks, Lydia," the nogitsune growls in response. "End it, Scott. Let your friend fall on his own sword. Do for him what he cannot do for himself! DO IT, SCOTT." I'm sorry, but if ANY villain actually believes that Scott McCall would kill ANYONE, especially his best friend/brother, they honestly don't know anything about anything whatsoever.
Stiles points the sword at his stomach and tries to muster up the nerve to actually stab himself with it while the nogitsune continues to try to make his case. "Be his kaishakunin! Give up the game!" Stiles takes a deep breath, and though I ALMOST thought he'd actually do it (just like Scott, whose facial expression KILLS ME), he instead notices an anomaly in the reflection of Kira's sword and stops cold. It's a school textbook, laying on the ground, covered in a light layer of snow. Confused, Stiles turns around to see the business textbook with his own eyes, which leads him to notice other parts of the scene that don't fit, like a school desk sitting a couple yards away. THAT'S IT BB, IT'S AN ILLUSION, SEE THROUGH IT. Realizing that he's quickly losing his advantage, the nogitsune gets desperate. "You have no moves left," he argues, but Stiles begs to differ. "I do," he retorts, as he tosses Kira her katana. He gathers up all of his courage, and looks the nogitsune right in the eye as he states, "A divine move." YES YES YES YES YES!
The outdoor battle with the oni is waging on--Aiden grabs one by the coat and knocks it flat on its back, Ethan gets sliced on the arm by another. Aiden's oni quickly gets back up, so he shouts, "We can't do this! We can't beat them!" through a mouthful of blood. Ethan clutches at his bleeding deltoid and orders him to take the box to them while he and Derek hold them off. Ethan about gets cut again by the oni as he speaks, but Derek jumps in at the last moment and throws the oni down the stairs. As it picks itself back up and swings its sword around menacingly, Derek roars and is about to lunge at it when an arrow whizzes in out of nowhere and lodges itself into it's chest. Since neither of the boys were there when Allison killed the first oni, they can't believe their eyes as the oni completely explodes. Cue the joyous Indiana Jones-style music as Chris Motherfucking Argent steps out on the edge of the staircase with Allison's cross-bow. Isaac runs, flips into the air, and lands on the ground next to Derek, all, "Oh, did I miss anything?" GOD, THEY ARE THE BEST. "What was that?" Ethan asks. "SILVER," Chris replies with enormous pride. Nogitstiles, who is hiding on the other side of the staircase, is like "OH FUCK" and immediately scampers away. Derek sees it, and orders Isaac to grab the box and take it to Scott, which he does.
The snow is continuing to pour as Lydia rushes over to grab hold of Stiles and keep him upright. "Stop fighting them!" Stiles shouts, which causes both the oni and Scott to stand still in shock. "It's an illusion! You have to stop fighting them. It looks real, and it feels real, but Scott, you've gotta trust me, it's an illusion." DUH, you guys! Like, how else do you think you walked in the doors to the school and ended up in in the backyard of a Japanese Yakuza mobster? The four of them band together tightly and glare at the nogitsune, who just growls at them. The four oni arrange themselves in a square in front of the nogitsune, and when Scott leads them through the two columns of them, the oni start to slash at his stomach. Scott groans in pain, but continues to make his way, one step after another. Kira starts to get cut up by the oni's ninjadas, too, but conveniently for them, they leave Stiles and Lydia alone, which is for the best, thanks to their lack of a supernatural healing ability. Still, our humans seem very distraught at seeing their friends get cut up, but Scott would happily walk through an infinite amount of swords if it meant his best friend was alive and well, and this just serves to prove it. And, the fact that Kira is willing to do this for people she barely knows just goes to show that she is going to make an excellent friend and packmate to these heroes.
Once they make it through the oni, Scott tackles the nogitsune, and the four of them fall into the front doors to the school and enter the main hallway. So, that whole garden scene happened in that random lobby-space between the outside doors and inside doors? That's so crazy! Scott and Kira look down at their torsos to find that they were never actually sliced up at all, it just FELT like it! Woot? "We're okay," Scott mutters in disbelief. "We're all--" Unfortunately, he doesn't get to finish that sentence, because Nogitstiles appears and throws Scott against a row of lockers! NOO! Then, he appears behind Kira, and smiles fakely before backhanding her across the face, which results in her katana getting tossed down the hall. "This was my game," Nogitstiles snits, before turning toward Stiles and Lydia and descending upon them. "You think you can beat me at my own game?"
Outside, Derek, Ethan, and Aiden have been tasked with holding the oni still so Chris can shoot them with Allison's special silver arrowheads. Derek grabs one and twists its arm behind its back, allowing Chris to get it right in the heart. There's only one oni left, but when Chris shoots the last arrow, the oni stops it by cutting it in half mid-air with its sword. The arrow falls to the ground in pieces, and Chris, worried, shouts at one of the boys to grab the arrow and use it, because it's the last one they have. Aiden and the last oni rush toward it at the same time from different directions, and Aiden is able to duck under its swinging sword, grab the arrow from the ground, and plunge it into the oni's heart. Unfortunately, like with Allison, the oni managed to get in one last move before it died, which was impaling Aiden through the chest with the ninjada. Black blood starts to drip from Aiden's mouth, and Ethan's plaintive cry, "Aiden!" literally broke my heart. Aiden pulls the sword from his body and drops it on the ground, before falling to his knees.
"A divine move," Nogitstiles growls as he marches toward Stiles and Lydia, who are backing away from him as quickly as they can in their weakened states. "A divine move? You think you have any moves at all? You can kill the oni, but me? ME? I'm a thousand years old, YOU CAN'T KILL ME!" Wow, that is a Klaus Mikaelson speech if I ever heard one, isn't it? Actually, it's kind of worse, because I don't think even Klaus would be THAT pathetic about it. Still, the nogitsune seems to have forgotten some facts. "But, we can change you!" Lydia stammers nervously. The nogi stops in his tracks, and must have an idea of what they're alluding to, judging by his almost-scared, "What?" Stiles reminds him about the Shugendu scroll, which the pack carefully stole from an armored vehicle in "Silverfinger." The little color Nogitstiles had in his face immediately drains out as he realizes the rule he had forgotten. "Change the host," he whispers. "You can't be a fox AND a wolf," Stiles says, with as much glee and pride as he can muster under the current circumstances. Out of nowhere, Scott jumps onto Nogitstiles's shoulders and bites him right on the arm. YES YES YES YES YES!
(via teenwolf)
Nogitstiles screams in agony until Scott finally lets go of him, and he convulses quite a bit before Kira stabs him right through the chest with her katana! Which, strangely, doesn't shatter like it did when Noshiko used it on Rhys. Is this a hint for what's to come, or is it an oversight by the writers/directors? WHO KNOWS. OH NO! The lights flicker above them as Nogitstiles falls to his knees and COUGHS UP A FLY! SHIT! The fly buzzes down the hallway, and I was so sure it was going to actually get away, but nope! Isaac arrives just in the nick of time, and is able to easily trap and lock the fly in the magical triskele box! HOORAY! McCall Pack: 1, Nogitsune: 0. The gang just stares at each other, like, "Is this seriously fucking over now???" Then, Nogitstiles convulses a bit more before turning into stone, which then cracks and dissolves into dust that is somehow absorbed by the floor? HOLY SHIT.
(via teenwolf)
Melissa wakes up on the gurney with a gasp, and manages to push herself up onto her elbows to try to remember what the fuck just happened to her. The walls in the hallway are seriously just COVERED in splatters of blood, it's really gruesome. What is NOT gruesome, though, is Melissa's wound, which, thanks to the death of the nogitsune and whatever magic was put in the oni swords, is now almost completely healed. She looks at the healing scab on her thigh, and then looks over at ADN, who looks just as confused as you would expect. Instead of telling him what's up, she just tiredly leans her head against his chest. So, he's probably going to have to be read in on the situation, right? Or, maybe not. He was such an idiot about the oni, he may just be dumb enough to buy whatever bullshit story they feed him.
Over at the animal clinic, Deaton checks his own wound to find that it's starting to heal, as well. He leans back against his examination table and sighs in relief. Over at the sheriff's station, Parrish helps Sheriff up off the floor, and they stare at the mess of dead bodies, blood, gun rounds, and paperwork scattered across the office and sigh at the mess they have to clean up. Do you guys think Parrish will be read into the supernatural happenings? Or has he been already, and we just don't know it yet? At this point, I'm actually leaning toward him being a hunter, which makes me really, really nervous.
Inside the school, Scott, Kira, Isaac, Stiles, and Lydia are still processing what the fuck just happened. As you can imagine, it was very weird for Stiles to see his own self die, desiccate and calcify into stone before blowing away into dust. So weird, in fact, that his body just can't handle it anymore, and he just collapses right on the floor. NOO!
After the break, they're all standing around Stiles when he wakes up. After a moment of trying to figure out what happened, he gets embarrassed when he sees just how worried everyone (ESPECIALLY Lydia) was when they were waiting. "Oh god, I fainted, didn't I?" They all giggle at him, and Lydia gives him the sweetest smile, and I love them all so fucking much. Then, my heart bites the dust completely, because Stiles asks, "We're alive, we're all alive?" Because OUCH OUCH OUCH. The fact that Stiles said it, and the face Scott makes when they all remember that no, they didn't, because their warrior goddess of a packmate is very obviously missing. Still, Scott forces himself to smile and assure him that they made it. "Yeah, we're okay." That's when Lydia's banshee senses start to tingle, and everyone realizes that it's not over yet.
Outside, Derek is kneeling next to Aiden when Chris and Ethan join them. Ethan is distraught, as anyone would be when their twin is dying. "Does it hurt you as much as it hurts me?" Aiden stammers through a mouthful of blood. Ethan laughs through his tears and assures him that it does. They lean together, forehead to forehead, as Aiden admits that Lydia never believed they were the good guys anyway. Derek winces a little, because you can tell he feels a little guilty for pushing them so hard to help out, now that he knows Aiden gave up his life to help them. "She'll believe me," Derek promises him, and I pretty much start sobbing again. DAMN YOU TEENAGE WEREWOLVES. Ethan hugs his bro as he coughs, and after soothing him for a few seconds, Aiden takes his last breath. Ethan pretty much loses it completely, and starts to sob over his body. My indifference to Aiden is pretty well-documented, but this really was a sad scene. I'm still pissed at the twins for Boyd, but they did do a good thing for the group in the end, and they both sacrificed a lot as a result.
Lydia can tell something happened, and runs outside to find out. When she sees Ethan crying over his brother's body, and Chris and Derek watching over them nearby, she stops dead in her tracks and just gapes at the scene. Stiles (followed shortly by Scott and Isaac) chases after her, and when he finally catches up, Lydia turns and throws herself into his arms. Stiles doesn't understand why she's being so affectionate at first, but when he sees for himself, you can see the change in his demeanor that indicates he's feeling it pretty hard as well. Behind him, Scott and Isaac look on sadly. They may have won the war, but there were way more casualties than they had ever intended--and now that the war is over, they have nothing else to use to channel all their rage and grief. Now, they're going to actually have to FEEL it, and deal with it, and that's the worst part.
Ending montage (set to Whitaker's "My Own"): Noshiko and Papa Yukimura pick up their Go stones and board off of the coffee table and smile at each other. Scott sits at his dining room table, thinking about Allison, and Aiden, and everything else that has happened during the last month/year. Melissa sits next to him and gives him a hug, which causes him to break down into tears. :( Scott bb! Chris and Isaac, who is still carrying the triskele box with the nogitsune inside and some duffel bags, walks out of the Argent Abode. They stop in the doorway and each take one last look back at Allison's bedroom, whose door is ajar. They sigh, and both take off for who knows where. (SPOILER ALERT: I presume they are headed for France, if what Jeff Davis said in an interview is accurate.) Scott and Melissa continue to comfort each other.
Over at the school, Kira is standing at Lydia's locker. "I wish I could say something to him. I wish I could say something to all of them. But I don't know how much space or how much time I'm supposed to give them. I don't know, I'm still just the new girl at school." Lydia closes her locker, and sees Malia walking down the stairs with Coach Finstock, who is blatantly checking out her body and trying to get her to try out for track in the spring. "Not for long," Lydia replies. She smiles at Malia as she passes them, and Malia smiles back. Lydia's face is heartbreaking here, because you can tell that she's totally getting flashbacks to a year ago, when a cute, porcelain-skinned brunette moved to Beacon Hills, right before everything changed for all of them. When Coach asks Malia if she has any experience with track, she jokes, "I sometimes ran from cougars trying to eat me?" which goes right over Coach's head, naturally. He assures her that they'll start her off slow, with just a few classes, but tells her he knows she'll learn quickly. "I intend to," she declares.
Over at Scott's house, Stiles is sitting on Scott's bed, watching as Scott is demonstrating how to turn at will. He flicks his claws out at her, and encourages her to try it. Of course, the first time, it doesn't work. "It's okay!" Scott insists. "Don't think about it too much, just try to let it happen." Malia glances at Stiles before closing her eyes and focusing. When she flicks her fingers out again, her claws come out! Yay! She's so excited that she almost swipes Stiles across the face, which startles him in that full-body way that makes me so happy, because Real-Stiles is back! She giggles and apologizes, which makes Stiles and Scott laugh, and then jumps up in down in happiness, now that she's finally learning how to control her coyote-side again.
Then the BEST PART HAPPENS! Back at the school, Ethan and Danny are sitting on a staircase, where Ethan is trying to break up with him. He apologizes to Danny right away, but admits that after everything that's happened, and losing his brother, he doesn't feel like he can stay in Beacon Hills anymore. (It definitely has NOTHING to do with Max and Charlie getting cast in a HBO show or anything, right?) Danny just chuckles, and assures him that it's okay. Ethan can barely hold in his laughter as he deadpans, "You're breaking up with ME?" Danny just grins, and makes his confession. "I like you. A lot! You're...incredibly good-looking. [beat] And smart! And sweet, and...I...I just don't think I can do it." He rests his hand affectionately on Ethan's knee, as Ethan tries to understand what he means. "Date me?" Ethan offers helpfully, but that's not what Danny was implying! "Date a WEREWOLF!" Danny replies, as he tries to keep a straight face. Ethan astounded, naturally, that he knew this whole time, but when Ethan asks him how he found out, Danny's answer explains it all. "Dude, it's Beacon Hills!" Ethan just can't help himself, so he grabs Danny's face and smooches away.
(via teenwolf)
I hate to be that person, but...I TOLD YOU GUYS. All the way back in Season 2, there was this throwaway line that Danny had where he made some comment to Jackson that he might be able to life a lot on a full moon, but not any other time, and ever since, I have been SURE that Danny has been quietly in-the-know the entire time, and just shaking his head, all "Psh, amateurs" as he watches the pack run around like crazy. Plus, all that business with Harris and his paper on the telluric currents happened in 3A, so he has to have a bigger understanding of what's been going down than we've been led to believe. I hope this means that he'll have a bigger role in season 4, because he deserves it! MORE DANNY, ALWAYS.
Meanwhile, at the Stilinski residence, Stiles is finally taking down his crime board--the photos, the newspaper clippings, yarn, all of it. Sheriff (in a dashing and snug gray henley, I might add) hangs out in the doorway, and asks his son what he's up to this afternoon. "Uhh," Stiles stammers, as he continues to rip pages off of his walls. "Just, uh, clearing my head." You can tell Sheriff is still VERY concerned about Stiles' psychological well-being after being possessed by a demon fox, but he doesn't push it. Instead, he just smiles, and leaves his son to think in peace. Stiles turns back to his wall to continue cleaning, and though he's back to his rosy-cheeked, spastic self, you can still see in his face that he's got a LOT of emotional baggage to sort through for the next while. If we learned anything from this episode, it's that the wounds that were inflicted on them during 3B are definitely going to linger for a while, and honestly, I feel like that's the way it should be. On the other hand, did you guys notice Stiles is wearing a green t-shirt? Try to remember all the way back to "Galvanize"--"Green is 'solved,' yellow is 'to be determined,' blue's just pretty."
Scott is working quietly at the animal clinic when Deaton, sensing his heavy heart, comes to share some words of wisdom. "Have you ever heard the term, 'regression to the mean?'" Deaton asks. He hasn't, but Scott loves learning, so Deaton gives him the scoop. "It's a bit of a technical way of saying that things will always even out." Scott assumes he's talking about a "It gets better" mantra, but Deaton's is a little more realistic versus optimistic. "More like, things can't ALWAYS be bad," he says with a smile. Scott realizes that he means no matter how bad things get, (or, conversely, how good things get) they always find a way to meet back in the middle. Although it's not exactly the most hopeful statement, it does make Scott feel a little better. After all the bad stuff they've gone through lately, they're due a little goodness. You know, before this inevitably get bad again. I'm guessing all the good stuff will happen during the time jump between seasons, so we arrive just as the tables are turning to the bad side again. Still, Scott jokes, "I don't think that applies to a town like this," to which Deaton's just, like, "Touché."
This is where shit gets SUPER confusing. Stiles is in the school's locker room with a VERY strung-out looking Derek. And, just like the last time Derek looked this bad, he's wearing a dark red shirt. Color analysis buffs, what does this tell us?
DEREK: "It was a dream. It was actually more like a nightmare."
STILES: "Okay. What happened?"
DEREK: "It started with these hunters who caught Peter and me after we left Cora. There's a family of them led by a guy named Severo. They broke into my loft..."
We cut to his dream, where the Latino hunter from "More Bad Than Good," Severo, punches Derek in the face so hard that he falls back against his table. Derek picks himself back up and wipes the blood from his lip as Severo cocks his shotgun and aims it at him. "Now, my friend, you are going to tell us about La Loba," Severo sneers. "Where's the She-Wolf?" Derek may be friends with Chris now, but that doesn't mean he likes hunters, so Derek refuses to play their game. "You should just go ahead and kill me, because you're never going to find Cora." Severo frowns in confusion, and after a moment, snaps, "Cora? Who the hell is Cora?" HOLY SHIT, so La Loba ISN'T Cora? Probably a good thing, since she's currently in 16th century France running Scotland from the French Court, but then who is the She-Wolf?! Before we can find out, someone throws a smoke grenade into the loft, and Derek immediately ducks for cover.
It's obvious by the fear shown by Severo and his men that this attack was not orchestrated by his people. As the men are turning side to side, trying to see who is after them through the thick haze of smoke, a growl is heard, which both confuses and alarms Derek. Suddenly, a shadowy figure runs around the loft so fast that they're a blur, and easily beats the shit out of the various hunters, one by one. Severo orders his men to "Light 'em up," but it's futile--the mysterious person is too agile and strong to be affected by their gunfire. Eventually, all the hunters are beaten down, and cowardly Severo crawls across the room to take cover behind Derek's table. Derek stands up as the smoke starts to dissipate, only to find a shotgun aimed at him. He's so shocked at the sight that he doesn't move fast enough to avoid getting shot.
DEREK: "There are a lot of myths about how people can be turned into a werewolf. Usually, a bite. And, there's one about rainwater--"
STILES: "--Drinking rainwater out of the puddle of a werewolf's print..."
DEREK: "There's another one..."We flashback to Season 1's "Wolf's Bane," where Kate and Chris attended the high school lacrosse game in an attempt to figure out who the second beta was. We already knew it was Scott, but Kate wondered if it could be Jackson, because she noticed the claw marks Derek accidentally put on the back of his neck. "Can you get turned by a scratch?" Kate asked Chris. Chris considered it for a moment, and replied, "Well, if the claws go deep enough, maybe." OH NO. OH NO NO NO NO NO I DON'T LIKE WHERE THIS IS GOING. THEN, we flashback to the Season 1 finale, "Code Breaker," where Peter killed Kate by SLITTING HER THROAT WITH HIS CLAWS. OH GOD.
We already know Stiles knows about Derek's history with Kate, so he understands why Derek would be freaked out about having a dream of her. What he DOESN'T understand is why Derek is so worried about it, if it was just a dream. Come on, Stiles. You of all people should NOT be questioning someone who is having vivid dreams that he can't tell from reality. "Because I don't remember waking up!" Derek shrieks. "So-so tell me! How do you know? How do you know if you're still dreaming?" Stiles informs him of the whole having-extra-fingers thing, which I'm still not sure is legit. Derek, panicking, grabs Stiles' wrist and holds it up, and sure enough, he's got six fingers. TOTALLY A DREAM. There is so much I don't understand about this, but I'm saving it for the end, so stay tuned.
Derek gapes at Stiles' hand for a moment, before we cut back to his loft, where he has fallen to his knees. A shotgun blast, just like the ones used against the twins in the last episode, has been shot right through his chest. He stares at his wound, and realizes that what he thought was a dream was actually REAL, and what he thought was real life was apparently a hallucination that he came up with as a pleasant alternative to reality? I DON'T GET IT AT ALL. "It's real," Derek stammers to our mysterious shooter, as they approach him through the cloud of fog. "You're real." Our mystery person is, as expected, KATE FUCKING ARGENT, strutting toward him like she's a model in a runway, carrying a shotgun in one hand. "That's right, Derek," Kate coos, just like old times. "And if seeing ME is a surprise, watch THIS," she adds with a smirk. She roars, and her skin turns blue with black patches, as her eyes glow BRIGHT GREEN and her teeth elongate into blindingly white, long fangs. WHAT. THE. FUCK? Is it June 24 yet?
(via teenwolf)
Next season, supposedly: Central/South American mythology, more hunters, more Kate, and the (hopefully) best part--MORE BANSHEE MYTHOLOGY
Click HERE to read my recap of the next episode of Teen Wolf!
[screencaps via KissThemGoodbye]
NOTES/QUESTIONS/SPECULATION:
-Alright guys, let's get the Kate Argent talk out of the way, eh? I have to say, while I love myself a lady villain, and while I am actually really excited to see where her storyline goes, as well as what her personality is like now versus when we met her, I still do not really like Kate at all. She's a great villain, but to me, she's like Gerard--ruthless, brutal, with no redeeming qualities. STILL, I have some theories I've been thinking about regarding Kate and what she is/what she's been up to this whole year since she's been dead.
**1) Jill Wagner did say on Twitter that Kate is a werejaguar, so I'm thinking that next season, we will learn that Kate is basically the other version of a kanima that we first learned about in season 2. If you recall, the kanima was first described as a "werepanther" in the Argent bestiary, but the thing that Jackson turned into was more reptilian than a panther/jaguar, right? As it turns out, there are two different kinds in the kanima mythology--the reptilian kind, like Jackson turned into, as a result of having unresolved identity issues, and the jaguar kind, which is a more spiritual form that acts as a weapon of vengeance, much like Jackson was described by Gerard. SO, naturally, I'm very curious as to how much knowledge Gerard has about Kate's new identity. Do you guys think they're working together? I wouldn't be at all surprised, Gerard has been on the sidelines for WAY too long. Plus, now that Allison is dead, and Victoria too, perhaps Kate's mission will be to avenge them?
**2) BUT, here's the thing that's stumping me: Was Kate never actually dead this whole time, or did she die and then come back to life? I'm leaning toward the latter--I'm wondering if maybe the scratch just took a long time to kick in the supernatural aspect? Like, when Scott was bitten, he was wounded for like, 24 hours before the bite healed and his supernatural senses started to kick in. I would guess that turning by scratch would take a little longer, because the magic is probably less potent, right? So, maybe she did technically die, or come so close to death that they figured she WAS dead, and then was "brought back" by the magic after it had finally finished healing her? In Season 2's "Omega," Kate's grave was dug up by what we assumed was the omega, but when the camera zoomed in on her gravestone, the clawed hand that was gripping it was very feminine-looking. So, maybe she dug HERSELF out of her grave and it was just blamed on the omega because he happened to be there and they would never consider the fact that she would come back to life? I mean, Chris was downright SHOCKED when he saw the buckshot shell Derek found, so I highly doubt he had any idea Kate was alive (and a supernatural to boot), regardless of whether or not Gerard knows.
**3) Still, I am very excited to see how her morals have changed now that she's a supernatural creature. Is she going to be like Gerard was, just using his extra strength and senses to be a better hunter? I'd say it's probably pretty likely
-I love Kira SO, SO much, but I have to say it--that last scene with her and Lydia kind of bothered me. On one hand, I can totally empathize with her situation; even though she has totally just gone through a life-changing series of events with them, she's still the new girl, who doesn't have the history with them to fully appreciate Allison's loss like they do. And I mean, I'd like to think that she and Allison came to like and respect each other during 3B, especially when they fought the boys together, so to say that Kira isn't grieving over the loss of her new friend would definitely be untrue. Plus, it makes perfect sense that she would still feel a lot like an outsider, and that, as a result, she's having a hard time knowing what is the appropriate way to help them.
On the other hand, though, I feel like this episode really emphasized Scott, Chris, and Isaac's loss without at all showing us how much LYDIA was struggling. Allison was Lydia's best friend, her sister in arms. Allison was the Scott to Lydia's Stiles, they were each other's rocks through all of the ridiculous supernatural drama they've gone through together. Not to mention, her boyfriend died, too! But Kira's lines, "I wish I could say something to him. I wish I could say something to all of them. But I don't know how much space or how much time I'm supposed to give them," just rubbed me the wrong way, because the phrasing suggests that Lydia isn't included in the people who are grieving right now. I don't know, am I being too hard on the writers? I just wish the episode could have shown us more about Lydia's perspective, because she was hit as hard as everyone, if not moreso--it's easy to forget the implications of Lydia being a banshee.
She knew Allison was going to die before it even happened, and she tried her hardest to prevent it by sending warnings in as many different ways as she could--the note on her car window, the message to Meredith. And then, when Allison died anyway, despite her best efforts, she FELT it, reverberating through her bones until it was released in the form of the most heart-shattering, soul-crushing banshee wail of all time. And if that weren't hard enough, after fighting against the nogitsune one last time with Stiles, Scott, and Kira, and finally ending it once and for all, she felt the boy with whom she had become very close over the last few months die in the exact same way. It brings to mind that line that Stiles said in "Master Plan," before he even knew what she was, or how true this statement would come to be--"Death doesn't happen to you, Lydia; it happens to everyone around you." As the banshee, she will always be surrounded by death, and she never even gets the opportunity to properly mourn everyone she's lost.
-To be honest with you, I'm kind of nervous about Derek. First, we didn't see him de-flied, which at first I thought was just an oversight or something, but now, I'm afraid it's a red flag. Then, he gets shot by Kate Argent and has some random day-time hallucination about Stiles? Is it possible that the effects of the nogitsune are going to linger into next season? Or is this just something new entirely? Hell, for all we know, one of Kate's powers could be giving visions. Still, I'm very worried about Derek and what's in store for him. Since Isaac is outie (SAD FACE FOREVER) Derek's the only punching bag Jeff Davis has left.
As of today, we have 52 more days until this fantastic thrill-ride of a show returns to us, so I want to hear your thoughts about 3B, your thoughts and speculation about season 4, and how much you love/miss Allison and Isaac already! Tell me what you're thinking. :)
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