Teen Wolf Season 4, Episode 2: "117" Recap/Review
So, was this a hilarious and entertaining hour of television, or what? I thoroughly enjoyed "117," you guys, although I will admit that I'm still not 100% sure that I understand what happened (I'm hoping that puzzling it out while I write this recap will probably help.) Regardless, we did manage to get some answers about what the fuck is happening, and also quite a bit of set-up for a couple of issues that I'm sure are going to become a problem in the near future. But really, the best part was just all the bantering, the hilarious explanations, and adorably endearing character interactions that make this show so addicting. Seriously, as long as all of the pack mates are constantly sassing each other in the most loving ways possible, I will continue to watch this show.
So, enough with the chit chat, yeah? Let's talk about Teen Wolf!
Previously, on Teen Wolf: Scott found a bunch of shell casings carved with a skull at Derek's loft, indicating he had been attacked and captured by the Calavera hunter family (whose members include Araya and Severo.) In an effort to figure out why they would want him, Scott, Stiles, Lydia, Kira and Malia made the trek down to Mexico to find them, where they were ultimately overpowered and temporarily captured. While being held in their home, the kids eventually learned that the Calaveras didn't actually have Derek, and Araya ended up torturing Scott with electricity until he somehow had a flashback that led him to the realization that Kate Argent is actually alive and well! Araya then let the kids loose so they could go with Braedon to go find Derek and hopefully also find Kate. Unfortunately, while they did TECHNICALLY find Derek, it was quickly made obvious that something was outrageously wrong-- somehow, Kate worked some magical werejaguar mojo to de-age Derek into his baby-faced teenage self. Whoops!
Our cold open this week begins outside of Beacon Hills High School, which NEVER bodes well. Making matters even worse, it's a full moon, which made me super happy at first, considering we haven't had a full moon since "Lunar Ellipse," which feels like a year ago (because it almost WAS a year ago!) Unfortunately, it's a flashback, you guys, so it doesn't really count. In case you need more proof that we've gone back in time a bit, we enter the school to see the BHHS basketball team filing out of the locker room as they whoop down the halls in anticipation for their game. BASKETBALL? Coming down the hall from the opposite direction is a tall, thin young man who is rocking a leather jacket and walking through the crowd of basketball players shoving their way toward the courts. The man eventually makes his way into the locker room, where he heads straight for the nearest shower only to find none other than Bb Derek, partially wolfed-out in his basketball uniform, clearly having a hard time keeping control over the wolf on this full moon. He's crouched down on the floor as cold water pours from the shower, soaking him.
The man, who turns out to be Bb Peter, just smirks at him in amused annoyance and leans over to shut the water off before he picks him up by the back of his shirt to look him in the face. Derek has finally put the blue eyes and fangs away, and swears that he thought he could keep his cool tonight, but Peter isn't impressed. "All this risk, just for a basketball game?" Hey, wasn't Peter a basketball star in his day? Shouldn't he be a little more sympathetic? Oh, what am I saying, this is Peter we're talking about. Derek argues that it's the playoffs and they need him, so DUH, he has to play, fuck the consequences. Now, THAT sounds pretty familiar, don't you think? Maybe Adult!Peter's comparison of Bb Derek to Season 1 Scott were more accurate than I thought. Bb Peter points out that his team certainly doesn't need him wolfing out and ripping the throats out of all the players on the court if he loses control, but Derek, silent, just shoves himself against a row of lockers, still tense and trying to keep a lid on his temper and his shift.
"Even born wolves have to learn control on a full moon, Derek," Peter reasons, but Derek just cries that it's supposed to be easier for them, so why is it hurting him so bad? Peter asks him if he brought "it," and Derek confirms that he did, but insists that it's not working. He pulls what looks like a heavy metal coin out of his pocket that has a triskele stamped on it, the coin roughly the size of his bb palm, but Derek maintains that it's not working. Peter's not really feeling his nephew' excuses though, so he orders him to go ahead and "do it." Derek sighs, and holds the coin in his hand as he says "Alpha, beta, omega." Peter instructs him to repeat it, so he does, over and over again, but it's not helping him gain control-- the more frantically Derek says it, the more his blue eyes and fangs come out, until finally his arms are raised and his roaring in pain at the top of his lungs. :( Pobrecito!
Cut to the present-day! (I think?) We're now at that shady gas station where Chris Argent kidnapped his own daughter to initiate her into her hunter training in "Ice Pick." Do you remember that? When he had her tied to a chair in the burnt out Hale house, and scared her into believing they had both been kidnapped before more-or-less telling her that if she was bitten they would have to kill her? And then forcing her to break herself out of her restraints while they timed her, which ended up taking almost three hours? I sometimes forget just how fucked up Chris Argent used to be back in the day. ANYWAY, I digress, not for the first time, nor the last. The gas station attendant on duty notices that there's a car with it's emergency lights, which appears to have been sitting there a while, despite the fact that the station is otherwise vacant. He goes out into the pouring rain to investigate, and after a moment, he see him become visibly nervous, probably because he lives in Beacon Hills and he knows that this is definitely a bad sign. Just as he's considering what to do, he hears a loud growl coming from the general direction of the restrooms, and despite his anxiety, goes to investigate.
The closer he gets to the door to the restroom, the more it sounds like a bunch of cats are fighting behind the closed door, with tons of growling and grunting. He bangs on the door and asks if whoever is inside is okay, but he gets no response and leans his ear against the door to try to hear better. Inside the locked restroom is a soaking wet and bedraggled KATE ARGENT, who is clearly having much difficulty holding back her own jaguar transformation, though it's anyone's guess what triggered it. She leans against the sink, trying to take deep calming breaths, which ultimately do nothing to soothe her, because she's suddenly overwhelmed by spasms as a result of her efforts to stay human and clenches her teeth together to stop herself from roaring in pain. The attendant, super alarmed by the inexplicable noises he's hearing from inside the room, once again asks if she's okay, so she forces herself to stay calm long enough to grunt that she'll be out in a minute.
The guy isn't really appreciating her excuses/lack of explanation for what the fuck she's doing, and continues to pound on the door, which does absolutely nothing to help Kate's current issues. If anything, it's kind of a hindrance. Kate snarls loudly, so the gas station attendant loses the rest of his patience and tells her if she won't come out, he'll use the key and come in, assuming that she's on drugs or something and is freaking the hell out. Unfortunately for him, Kate seems to have planned for that, because she broke the lock so that he can't unlock it with the key. Getting pissed, the dude continues to pound on the door before he threatens to call the cops. Suddenly, the noises stop, and the door opens a crack, which seems to give the poor, stupid attendant a brief amount of relief.
...At least, until he walks into the restroom, where he finds Kate facing the mirror. He hesitantly asks if she's okay, but when she turns around, she's in FULL jaguar form: blue skin with black patches, huge fangs, and blazing green eyes. As you could probably guess, it takes all of about two seconds before she has completely torn him to shreds, rabid-Deucalion-styles. OH SHIT. She has worse control over her inner werecreature than the large pack of newbie teenagers in Beacon Hills! That's actually kind of funny, although it's a deadly problem, judging from the guy she just slaughtered. I'm sure her homicidal tendencies probably and poor impulse control don't really help her control over her transformation. TITLE CARD!
Scott, Stiles, and Lydia, have finally made it back to Beacon Hills, where, of course, their first stop is Dr. Deaton's animal clinic, to see if he has any answers or words of wisdom about their current predicament with Derek and Kate. Well, I guess it must have been their second stop, since at some point they must have dropped Malia and Kira off at home or something, because those girls are no where to be found. Once inside the clinic, Deaton immediately clears off a table, which the gang uses as a gurney for Derek's unconscious body. Deaton is visibly affected by the sight of poor Bb Derek's teenage face, given his close relationship with Talia; it makes me wish we had more knowledge of Deaton and his relationship to the Hales back then. Anyway, Deaton's surprised, "Wow" does nothing to inspire confidence in Stiles. "Wow? Wow, as in, 'I've seen this before and I know exactly what to do'-kinda 'Wow?' Because that's kinda what we're hoping for." BAHAHA. Funny joke, Stiles! Of course, as usual, Deaton insists that they're overestimating his abilities, which NO. THEY'RE NOT. Remember that time Deaton forced Kali to change back from wolf to human with just a stare? WHY CAN'T HE ALWAYS PULL THOSE TRICKS?
Lydia grips onto Bb Derek's hand comfortingly and is startled to find that his body is freezing cold. Deaton gets right to taking his pulse and other vital signs, and seems so shocked by this revelation that even Scott starts to more anxious that he might not be able to help them at all. When he asks Deaton if he thinks it's permanent, Deaton is almost exasperated as he admits that this is way outside his expertise as a medical professional. THEY DIDN'T BRING HIM HERE BECAUSE YOU'RE A VET, DUDE, THEY BROUGHT HIM HERE BECAUSE YOU'RE A DRUID WHO KNOWS EVERYTHING ALWAYS. I still don't understand why he's still playing so dumb after allllll this time. I don't want him to be shady, but it's not doing much to prove his case otherwise, you know? Stiles is like, "So what the fuck are we supposed to do with him?" but Deaton's at a loss-- his only suggestion is that, for now, they should just let Bb Derek sleep it off at the clinic, since the mountain ash built into the building will keep him safe from Kate. Lydia is still confused as to why she'd want to do this to him, but all Deaton can say for certain is that if it's Kate's plan, then it's probably only going to benefit herself, which will likely just fuck everyone else over. Sounds about right to me! Fantastic.
Deaton notices that the kids look absolutely wrecked with sleep deprivation, and suggests that since Derek is stable, they just leave him with him and go get some sleep for school the next day. "You all need to start taking care of your own lives again." Scott understandably doesn't want to leave either of them alone, but Lydia offers to stay with them, since she always has perfect grades, so it's not like the absence will hurt her, plus Bb Derek is still gripping onto her hand while he sleeps. Stiles does NOT want to leave Lydia alone with Bb Derek, either, at least not until they know what's up, and starts to argue back and forth with Lydia a bit about it. Scott, who was Team Stiles initially, is so tired by this point that he's not really in the mood to fight about it, so he grabs Stiles by the collar and pulls him out the door. Before the two leave, Scott instructs Lydia to call or text them if anything changes or happens, with the promise that they'll be there in a jiffy. Stiles' annoyed, "Just because you're stronger--" protest as he gets yanked out the door is my favorite. I LOVE EVERYONE AND THEIR PROTECTIVENESS SO MUCH.
It's still pouring down rain when Scott finally makes it home, and when he walks in the front door, he finds an assortments of soup pans and buckets in various areas in the room in order to catch the rain that is leaking through the ceiling. Scott quietly tiptoes through the door before he shuts it behind him, and turns back around to find his dad sprawled out on the couch in the living room, fast asleep. Unfortunately for Scott, all his effort to stay quiet is totally wasted when he totally trips over the huge toolbox that lays open in the middle of the floor, which instantly awakens his dad. Agent Douchenozzle gets off the couch to greet him, and Scott, knowing his dad is about to ask a lot of questions, immediately tries to change the topic to the load of tools just chilling in the living room. His dad briefly mentions he's getting started on the list of what my dad affectionately refers to as "honey-do's," AKA household repairs that wives make their handy-man husbands do. The fact that Melissa is having ADN do them makes my inner Melissa/Sheriff shipper heart MUY TRISTE. Get outta here, dude!
Of course, Agent Douchenozzle wastes no time returning the topic of conversation to Scott, and asks him what time it is. Scott glances at the nearby clock, which reads 04:05AM, and quickly turns the clock the other direction before lying, "Uh, midnight!" LOL! Such a teenager trick. I remember pulling the same thing on my dad when I was his age, taking advantage of the fact that my dad was way too tired to check the clock when I came home way early in the morning. "We were supposed to have dinner!" ADN whines. "We had a deal! When your mom has a night shift, we have dinner." Scott deftly spins a web of lies about how as soon as they got back late from their "camping trip," he had to go straight to work at the animal clinic, so it just slipped his mind, of course! Stupidly, ADN, who, might I remind you, is an investigative agent of the FBI, buys this 100% without question, though he still insists that they do dinner tomorrow night instead to make up for it. Scott proclaims this to be great, since it gives him an out to go to bed, and heads toward the stairs just as his dad asks him if he got something to eat before he got home. "Yeah," Scott mutters, as he walks toward his room. "Mexican." HAHAHAHA. Oh god, you guys, I miss Isaac so much. :(
It's morning now, and Lydia is dozing like a baby angel in a chair in the back room of the clinic. She stirs and awakens when she hears Deaton rechecking Derek's vitals, and immediately asks him how their bb patient is doing. Deaton frowns as he takes Bb Derek's carotid pulse, and admits that Derek's heart rate is "alarmingly high." Lydia stands up and joins him at Derek's bedside and reflexively grabs hold of his hand again. She remarks that at least he's returned to a somewhat-normal body temperature, which is reassuring, and which also gives Deaton an idea. He tells her that he wants to try something, and asks her if she could continue to hold Derek's hand while he does it. Lydia nods, so Deaton goes and grabs a scalpel and quickly uses it make a long cut on Derek's arm, which heals almost instantly, way too fast for even a werewolf's magical healing abilities to accomplish. YIKES, what if it DIDN'T heal? I'm pretty sure I saw, like, slit-open blood vessels and muscles and stuff. Pretty big gamble, dude.
Anyway, this leads Deaton to want to try another experiment, so he instructs Lydia to grab him a 5mL syringe, even though he's way closer to the cabinet than she is. They both get so wrapped up in their search for more implements for their next test that they don't even notice that Bb Derek has awoken and sat up, confused and wolfing out.. They turn around just in time to see Derek stand, panting anxiously and clearly freaked out. In Derek's wolf vision, Lydia and Deaton look like terrifying black plumes of smoke with bright yellow glowing eyes. Is this just because they're both kind of magical? I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone, human or supernatural, look this demonic in wolf-vision before, but my memory isn't always the best. Either way, Bb Derek clearly doesn't recognize them at all, and their chorus of "Derek? Derek, are you alright? Derek? Can you hear us?" just overwhelms him to the point of panic. He grips his hands over his ears for a moment to block out the sound, and just as Deaton is trying to assure him that he's safe, Derek gets pushed into fight-or-flight mode and quickly lashes out and full-out SMACKS Deaton so hard that he flies into his side table and bangs his arm up pretty badly. Lydia rushes to his aid, which allows Derek the opportunity to flee the clinic. WONDERFUL! A de-aged werewolf Derek who doesn't seem to have any of his adult control or memories has been let out in a town of clueless people. Fantastic!
Meanwhile, HOLYCHILD's "Happy With Me" plays as we cut to the school, where Stiles and Scott have just arrived, fresh as daisies. Stiles is in the middle of regaling his bro with the developments in his relationship with Malia. "Alright, so it's like two in the morning, and I wake up, and she's just lying right next to me! She just sneaks in! This is like, five times a week." That is actually kind of an adorable visual, to be honest, although if it were anyone other than our wild coyote Malia I would think it was really creepy. Scott is intrigued, too, so he asks what happens next. Stiles replies, "This--" as he lifts up the back of his shirt. We can't see it, but judging by Scott's face I'm guessing there's some serious claw marks going on back there. Scott is still gaping, so Stiles is like, "Yeah, right on, right? After that, we spent the rest of the night spooning." Scott proclaims this to be pretty sweet, but Stiles isn't done yet. "Yeah, but I'm always the little spoon! Always!" Stiles whines, as he demonstrates hilariously with his fingers. Yeah, Stiles, you need to just embrace that you're ALWAYS gonna be the little spoon, biscuit.
(via melissamccall)
Scott figures this means that Stiles and Malia are together, like, f'realsies, but Stiles isn't so sure; plus, he's got this weird feeling that she knows he's keeping something from her. The topic then turns to exposition about Peter being Malia's dad, and Malia still not knowing it yet. For once, Stiles is the one who argues they need to just tell her the truth, while Scott is the hesitant one, because he has no idea how you tell a friend something like that. I can't say that I blame him-- how would YOU tell your new friend/packmate that not only are the parents that they have known of their entire life NOT their biological parents, but that their real father is none other than Peter Hale, the man who cannot create a child or a supernatural progeny without them being something OTHER than normal werewolves?
Our boys finally make it to history class, where Mr. Yukimura is giving a history lecture about some of the great failures on the part of the world's leaders, and brings up their reading from last night. He begins to talk about one of the people mentioned in the reading-- a former US president who failed at business, who had a nervous breakdown, who was defeated for both houses of Congress, and who ALSO lost his bid as vice-president before becoming one of the country's greatest presidents. When he asks who the man he's talking about was, a handful of people raise their hands to answer, including Stiles, who winks at Scott playfully. Of course, Mr. Yukimura can't call on any of those students, because they actually WANT to answer his question, and know the answer; who he needs is a student in his class who is way too insecure and uncomfortable to answer. He spots Malia frantically underlining a bunch of points in her textbook, and determines that calling on the girl who is desperately trying to catch up after spending half of her life as a forest animal is the best course of action. Dick move, Papa Yukimura! He has to know her background, right? It's not as if he doesn't know about the supernatural, he's married to a fucking kitsune, and has a kitsune child.
Malia's eyes grow wide when he calls on her, a highlighter gripped tightly in her teeth, and Scott and Stiles anxiously turn around in their seats to give her some moral support. Mr. Yukimura gives her a look, like, "So? What's the answer?" just as Scott's phone starts to ring, earning him a scolding from his teacher. "Malia? One of our greatest presidents?" Mr. Y asks helpfully. "Gettysburg Address?" Malia adorably puts her pen in her mouth as well as she nods and shuffles through her notes. Stiles tries to whisper the answer (Abraham Lincoln) to her, but she doesn't see it. On Malia's other side, Kira is desperately waving her hand in the air in order to get her dad's attention and deflect some of the focus from her new friend, shooting Papa Yukimura tons of stink-eyed glares for being a jerk. Stiles' phone goes off next, so Papa Yukimura once again orders all of the class to turn their phones off.
(via malihales)
Malia's still digging in her notes, so Mr. Yukimura finally just sighs and asks if anyone else knows the answer. The entire rest of the class raises their hands, and poor Malia looks so sad that she couldn't answer his question. Aw, Malia! :( Another phone goes off, causing Mr. Y to yell, "PHONES. OFF!" That's when his daughter kindly points out that it was actually HIS phone that just rang, so he just kind of embarrassedly shuffles off to follow his own rules by switching his phone off, too. "Scott?" Papa Yukimura says with confusion, as he reads the text he just received aloud. "Call Lydia?" Good thing he knows that his daughter and her pack are the resident supernatural heroes of Beacon Hills, yeah? That should help them get out of class with few difficulties.
We return to the animal clinic, where Lydia is bandaging up Deaton's busted arm as they fill Scott and Stiles in on what went down. "I don't think he's just younger in body," Deaton admits somberly. "I think he's younger in his mind, too." Lydia agrees, and informs them that it seemed pretty clear that he didn't recognize either of them, which would explain why he was absolutely terrified. Stiles asks where a scared teenage werewolf would go, so Scott's mind immediately goes to "his den," which he figured would mean Derek's loft, but Stiles reminds him that he's a teenager, so he wouldn't know that he even had his own loft. Lydia realizes he would go to the Hale house, which is a problem, since Bb Derek wouldn't know about the fire, because it happened when he was a little older than he is currently aged. NOOOOO, THIS IS SO BAD.
Sure enough, Bb Derek has arrived at the Hale house, which, unfortunately for him, has recently been demolished and is surrounded by a chain-link construction fence. I just remembered that we've only seen the Hale house once since Teen Wolf moved its filming from Atlanta to Los Angeles, in "Tattoo," so I'm guessing the reason for the "demolition" is really that it just too much hassle to recreate it on a set now. Anyway, Derek uses his strength to break through the fence, but the sight of his face when he realizes his house is gone is absolutely HEARTWRENCHING, oh my god. Looking like he's about to cry, he falls to his knees next to the pile of rubble that used to his old house, once upon a time, and starts to dig through the pieces of wood. OUCH, MY HEART.
"Hold on," Lydia says to Scott and Stiles, stopping them as they head toward the door to leave the animal clinic. "Say you do manage to catch up to him. What are you going to say to him? That his whole family is dead?" Scott, clearly not looking forward to that, still states that he's probably going to have to, which just makes Lydia scoff, "Ohh, good luck with that." Stiles is on Team Lydia, and suggests that maybe they at least hold off until they can figure out if and/or how they can turn him back, but Scott argues that he can't lie to him, because he's still a born werewolf and will be able to tell by listening to his heartbeat. Scott the Alpha insists that they have tell him the truth when they see him, but Deaton makes an excellent point-- if Bb Derek gets to the Hale house ruins before they find him, then it won't matter, because he'll already know something terrible happened the second he sees it.
Bb Derek is still staring at what remains of his childhood home, trying to swallow down his tears of confusion, when a Sheriff's deputy cruiser drives up to the lot. Of course, because this de-aged-Derek shit-show wasn't complicated enough already without a bunch of cops who have absolutely no idea of exactly what kind of horrifying shit goes down in their town on the regular. Deputy Parrish (whose hair is much darker than I remember, and who seems to have put on, like, 15lbs of muscle since the last time we saw him) approaches the lot with his partner, who will henceforth be known as the not-at-all-clever Deputy Dickweed on this blog, though apparently his name is Deputy Hague. The two walk into the lot, where Parrish sees Bb Derek still kneeling mournfully beside the rubble, and calls out, "Excuse me, young man!" Deputy Dickweed gives our young and handsome Deputy Parrish some crap for his lingo, and is quickly told to shut up before Parrish returns his attention to our poor Bb Derek and informs him that he's not allowed to be in there.
When this doesn't work, Deputy Dickweed tries another tactic. "Hey, dumbass! You ever hear of 'No Tresspassing?'" Awesome use of kid-gloves there, champ. Bb Derek, of course, has no idea why everyone is being such a dick to him, because as far as he knows, this is HIS HOUSE and they should be telling him what the fuck happened. So, he tells DD that it's actually his house, and naturally, nobody's buying it, because the house burnt down, like, seven years ago and no one has lived there ever since (that they know of, anyway.) DD tells him as much, and orders him to get the hell out, but Parrish is (or, at least, is super good at pretending to be) a kind soul who can tell that this kid is clearly scared, so he tells his asshole partner to shut up and let the grown-up handle it. "Are you alright? We can help you if something's wrong," Parrish states calmly. Derek asks him what the fuck happened to his house, and his family, and particularly his mother, which just causes DD to roll his eyes before grabbing Derek roughly by the arm.
Of course, Derek is FREAKED THE FUCK OUT, and nobody is listening to him, and he has only passable control over his werewolfiness, so he grabs DD by the arm and twists. Parrish orders BOTH of them to calm down and take it easy, an order to which Derek complies immediately, but Deputy Dickweed got his nickname for a reason, you guys, and that reason is that he pulls out a taser and instantly tazes Bb Derek several times in the gut, even after Parrish yelled at him to stop and stand down. Now, one could say that since being a Sheriff's deputy in this town is basically a death sentence, clearly these cops are going to have to be a little more proactive in order to stay alive, and I don't even really disagree with that, but COME ON, he's a sixteen-year-old boy who is scared and trying to understand what the fuck is happening to him.
Anyway, over at the station, Parrish approaches Bb Derek, who is hilariously handcuffed to the same bench that Adult Derek and Chris Argent were just handcuffed to only a few episodes ago. (God, I miss Chris Argent. And Allison. AND ISAAC.) Parrish, ever the nice guy, drops a clipboard off to DD before grabbing the handcuff key from his pocket and heading toward Derek. "The other deputy thinks I'm an idiot for even asking," Parrish begins, as he kneels in front of Derek to look at him at eye-level. "But, I have a feeling if I take these cuffs off, you're gonna be okay? And, I think you'll help us figure out what happened to your family so we can get you out of here. Am I right?" You guys, Parrish is TOO PERFECT TO BE REAL. Like, forget being suspicious about Malia, I'm suspicious about PARRISH because he is literally TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. I'm desperately hoping I'm just being paranoid. Anyway, Derek nods shyly, and when Parrish unlocks his handcuffs, Derek mutters, "That other deputy's an idiot." LOL! Parrish just laughs and smiles the most perfect smile and replies that he can hardly disagree with that. Aw, MY HEART. Why/how is Deputy Parrish so perfect? I seriously don't understand.
Deputy Dickweed calls Parrish over, because he's having difficulties with running Derek's fingerprints. Namely, that the only hit he's getting is for Derek Hale, a man who is easily ten years older than the kid sitting on the bench. I'd like to make a few notes on the information on his record: first, Jeff Davis is such a troll that he didn't include a fucking birth date, so we still have NO IDEA just how old he is; second, his middle name begins with an "S" (any guesses on what that could be?), and his stats are supposedly 6'0" and 171 lbs; and third, the address listed (which is super blurry) seems to read "19284 Boulder Street, Beacon Hills, CA," so would that be his loft? I'm confused. I can't make out any of the phone numbers aand they don't seem to have any criminal history that we can see, either. Interesting.
ANYWAY, Sheriff Stilinski just so happens to be walking past them when he hears the name "Derek Hale," and immediately stops, because he and Derek are bros now, if you recall. He looks at the criminal record on the screen, and then looks at the baby-faced kid sitting on the bench. He double-takes, like, five times in a row, as you would do if you were in that position, before finally going up to Derek and squinting/staring at him, while Derek just stares back in confusion. POOR SHERIFF'S MIND IS BLOWN. Finally, just when he's starting to see the similarities, Stiles and Scott come running into the sheriff's department, and Sheriff Stilinski immediately put the clues together and realizes that once again, magic and supernatural nonsense is going down in his damn county.
Sheriff promises the deputies that he'll take care of it, and then ushers his unruly children into his office for what is probably the most hilarious conversation in the entire episode. Seriously, I am SO THRILLED that Sheriff is finally in the know, because his reactions to all of this shit is seriously priceless and I cannot get enough. "I want you to be honest with me," Sheriff begins, as calmly as he can muster. "Absolutely and completely honest." Stiles seems a little uneasy, but Scott, of course, shrugs in agreement, since it's a pretty reasonable request. "Have you been time-traveling?" Sheriff finally blurts out, with absolutely no irony or sarcasm, as he's clearly out of his mind with confusion. It seems that was not at all what either of the boys were expecting, but before Stiles can sputter out a response, Sheriff plows onward. "Because if time-traveling is REAL-- you know what? I'm done! I'm out! You're gonna be driving ME to Eichen House!" Lolololollllll! Scott, hilariously, argues that they found Derek like that, as if that excuses everything else, but Sheriff is still just way overwhelmed. "WHERE? Swimming in the fountain of YOUTH?" HAHAHA. Never change, Sheriff Stilinski.
(via peetahales)
Stiles, bless his heart, tries to explain it all in that rambly, hilarious way that he does so well. "No! We found him...buried in a tomb of wolfsbane, in an Aztec temple in Mexico, underneath a church in the middle of a town that was destroyed by an earthquake," he explains, with the requisite eye-twitch and the end that Stiles does when he knows that what he's just said is absolutely insane. Scott, too, realizes that this is probably the must ridiculous thing they've ever said, just does that closed-eyes/deep-sigh combo thing he does so often in response. So, the tomb WAS full of wolfsbane? Good to know! I really hope that doesn't have any lasting effects. :/ Sheriff, even more hilariously, disregards all of that craziness and focuses on the most normal part-- that they were in Mexico. "YOU TOLD ME YOU WERE CAMPING!" Sheriff whisper-yells exasperatedly, but Stiles insisted that they DID go camping, just in Mexico.
(via stilinskis)
I especially love that they're conveniently leaving out the fact that the five of them got captured by hunters, two of them were threatened with torture, and one of them actually WAS tortured. Probably not the best thing to tell a sheriff-- although, really, it was a pretty bad idea to capture a sheriff's kid in the first place. Anyway, before either of them can get in trouble for lying, Scott gets back to the real problem-- Derek has been aged backwards, which means he doesn't remember anything that happened AFTER the age of, like, sixteen, including the fire that killed his parents, not to mention all of the identities of the members of the Beacon Hills pack and its allies. Stiles gets serious with his dad, and insists that they need to talk to Derek and explain what they can about what's going on, but Sheriff points out that he's not talking to anyone. However, Scott is sure that he'll talk to him.
In Sheriff's office, Derek has been brought in to talk to Scott and Stiles, while Sheriff waits out in the bullpen. I love how easily Sheriff is able to just let his kid/his kid's friends do his work for him. I mean, it's for the best, because when it comes to this stuff they're way more qualified, but you would think there would be more deputies who are SUPER suspicious of all of them, tbh. ANYWAY, Derek doesn't get why he should go anywhere with a pair of complete strangers, but Scott not-quite-lies that there was an accident that caused Derek to lose his memories, and they're just trying to help him get them back. Stiles starts to tune Derek out when he asks Scott how much of his memory he lost, because he notices a stack of mail on his dad's desk, which includes what looks like a bill from Beacon Memorial Hospital's ER as well as one from Eichen House, the latter of which has a stamp that say "Second Notice" on the bottom. NO BUENO. NOT AT ALL.
Scott replies that Derek did, in fact, lose quite a bit of his memories, which again, isn't really a lie, but he insists that Derek can trust them, and kneels down in front of him so he can flash his red eyes. Derek realizes that he's a werewolf, too, and an alpha at that, and asks him who he is, and who Stiles is, which manages to break Stiles away from stressing about his medical bills for a moment. "We're the guys keeping you out of jail," Stiles replies drolly, as Scott pleads with Bb Derek to let them help him. Of course, he's Bb Derek, so he doesn't know that he can trust Scott, and by extension, Stiles, so he just shakes his head.
"Okay, dude, you almost tore apart two cops back there! You need to listen to us, and that starts with no fangs, no claws, no wolf man! You got that?" Stiles rambles, clearly not at all comforted by Teenage!Derek's inability to control himself, but Bb Derek claims as long as it's not a full moon, he's groovy. This shocks Scott, naturally, since Derek has always been totally in control, and was the person who help HIM gain control, so it's definitely a weird role-switch. Stiles stands up and asks if this means he'll come with them, but Derek is still not exactly inclined to trust either of them. "Where's my family?" Derek demands. Scott looks at Stiles for some kind of instruction, but Stiles has got nothing, so Scott just takes a deep breath and prepares to drop some hard truths. "There was a fire..." he begins nervously. "And..." Scott trails off when he sees the devastated look on Derek's face, and immediately switches to a lie before he can tell the difference. "...They're not here anymore. They're fine! They just had to move out of Beacon Hills. And, we're gonna take you to them, as soon as we figure out how to get your memories back." Practically in tears, Derek takes a deep breath to compose himself before nodding and agreeing to leave with them.
While Bb Derek's filling out paperwork to be released, Scott and Stiles are hanging around nearby, where Scott laments the fact that he "lied his ass off" to Derek, even after he had vowed to be honest and tell the truth. "Your ass is FINE," Stiles replies, verbatim, just in case there were people out there who still believe that Skittles/Sciles could never be a real pairing if their characters weren't straight (I actually like to think that Scott and Stiles both are bi, but that's probably just because I'm a bi lady myself who doesn't see nearly enough bisexual characters in television, especially not male characters-- though Posey has admitted he would be love to play Scott as a bi character, especially to have a relationship with Stiles or Isaac, but Dylan has always said that Stiles is straight, so I doubt it'll ever happen for real) and insists that he just saved Derek a whole bunch of heartbreak and pain. "We'll figure this out in a day or two, he goes back to being old-Derek, everyone's happy!" Stiles whispers. "...Except for Derek, who's NEVER happy," he adds as an afterthought. LOL! Well, they don't call him Sourwolf for no reason, but Derek seemed to be a lot happier in 3B, don't you think? And I mean, for once, everything WASN'T his fault, so he could just help the pack out, guilt-free, without having to worry about the pressure of being in charge of a bunch of teenagers. Let's be real, Derek's life is much better now, aside from the fact that he's been de-aged like a decade.
Scott points out that Bb Derek is just one of a growing number of people to whom they're constantly lying. "It's just-- I always feel like it's better when you tell the truth. With Lydia, my mom, your dad..." Finally, Scott goes into alpha-mode and instructs Stiles to take him back to the McCall house, and to NOT take his eyes off of him until he gets back. When Stiles asks him where he's going, Scott informs him that he's going to talk to the person they should have gone to from the very beginning. OH SHIT, I know what he's suggesting, and that never ends well. Stiles agrees, and watches as Scott leaves the station. "Uhhh, yeah, I hate that guy!" Stiles feebly shouts behind him, as he watches his best bro head for Derek's loft.
Meanwhile, Lydia and Kira have pulled up in Lydia's car to that infernal gas station where we saw Kate jaguar-ing out the previous night, while Meg Myers' "Make a Shadow" plays on the radio. I have to say, I'm really enjoying the fact that Lydia, Malia and Kira are hanging out and becoming friends (although it seems Lydia and Malia have kind of gotten off to a rough start). With Allison gone, Lydia needs some good girlfriends to help keep her sane. I don't see it as Kira and Malia taking Allison's place, because Allison fucking Argent is irreplaceable. Still, making new friends is definitely going to do a lot to help ease her grief, and it seemed like Allison was very fond of Kira before she died, so I'd like to think that Allison would want them to become friends. ANYWAY, I digress once again. Kira has just gotten off the phone with Scott, who has given her a heads up that he's going to find Peter, and who has instructed them to go meet Stiles at Scott's house. "That sounds like a HORRIBLE plan," Lydia replies, as she unbuckles her seatbelt. She notices Kira's sheepish-looking face and clarifies, "Oh, we've had worse! Like yesterday...Mexico..."
Kira takes advantage of the topic change, and asks, "About that... uh, remember how we were in the club, and you and Scott were tied up to electrified cables?" Lydia hilariously responds, "Vividly," so Kira nervously gets to her point--if Kira was forced to put her hand on the dial and turn it up to ten on Lydia, would Lydia be pissed about it? The answer is yes, Lydia would be pissed, but not at Kira, because she knows if Kira did it, it would be because she didn't have a choice. She also correctly guesses that this is about Scott, and assures her that Scott wouldn't blame her, either, for the same reason. "And, if you're worried about it," Lydia says kindly. "Just remember--you're a katana-wielding, badass kitsune! And [Scott] couldn't be more into you." These are exactly the right words that Kira needed to hear, and the kindness and sweetness of this conversation suddenly made me start shipping Kira/Lydia together. What is their ship name, anyway? Kydia? Lyra? I'm going with Lyra, because it's also my niece's name and it is super cute. Speaking of cute, Lydia looks GORGEOUS, by the way-- I have never been more attracted to Holland Roden than I have in this episode. Her hair is up in a high bun, with little wisps flying out, and her make-up makes her eyes look SO GREEN, especially with the color scheme of her very cute and floral, 90s-grunge-style dress. I am so badly coveting this outfit!
(via tylersposey)
ANYWAY, Lydia opens the door, and heads toward the gas station's shop to, I don't know, buy a drink or a snack or something, and instructs Kira to take one of many credit and debit cards that are quite unwisely kept in a weird billfold-thing that is attached to the driver's side visor to pay for gas. Why would you keep your huge collection of credit cards in your car like that? That's basically ASKING to get your car broken into, you know? Lydia the Genius is way smarter than that. Anyway, Kira reaches up to look for the Beacon Hills Credit Union card that Lydia specified, and absentmindedly asks, "Does this many cards mean you have good credit, or bad?" before noticing that Lydia's tank is completely full of gas. OH SHIT, BANSHEE FUGUE STATE ALERT. This should be fun for Kira, I'm not sure she's ever seen Lydia's banshee skills in action before.
She looks toward the station's store, which looks completely empty, and immediately gets nervous. Kira gets out of the car and walks around the building, eventually finding Lydia standing and staring at a wall, completely blank-faced. She quickly approaches Lydia, clearly concerned for her, and asks her if she's okay. Lydia quietly orders her not to look, but, of course, that's basically like telling someone TO look, so she does. It turns out, Lydia wasn't staring at the wall, she was staring into the station's restroom, whose door is wide open, revealing what looks like a disemboweled man lying face down in a pool of his own blood. To make matters worse, the walls and mirror and sink are ALL covered in spatters and smears of blood. JESUS H, THAT IS INTENSE. Poor girls! Poor Lydia, especially. Worst supernatural power EVER, am I right? You can tell that this is becoming business as usual for her, because she's just staring blankly, like, "AGAIN? REALLY?" She's not as much scared or stressed as she is sad that the person died and pissed that once again, she had to find it. Kira, on the other hand, is horrified, and is staring in horror with wide-open eyes as her mouth just gapes at the carnage. YIKES. Lydia didn't wail, though-- what does that mean?
Scott pulls up outside Derek's apartment building on his bike, only to find Malia standing outside waiting for him. He takes off his helmet and asks what she's doing here, so she awesomely replies, "I heard you were coming to talk to Peter, and since Lydia tells me he's basically Satan in a v-neck, I figured you shouldn't be alone!" That is seriously the best description of Peter I've ever seen, not to mention super sweet that Malia wants to help protect her friends and be useful. I know so many people are suspicious of her, but I don't really think we've been given much reason to be so far. She seems like she is just trying really hard to get used to being a human again, and is still working to become closer to everyone. The people she does know well now, like Stiles and Scott, are those to whom she seems super loyal and very protective. I know she's Peter's spawn, but she also appears to already be super integrated into the pack. Plus, she's officially in the main cast, now, and since female villains nearly always die on this show (Kate being the exception) I really don't see how she could be that bad AND stick around. If she was going to fuck everyone over, wouldn't she be a recurring character? /steps off soapbox. ANYWAY, Scott is clearly nervous about this, since he still hasn't told her about her connection to Peter, and doesn't seem to be keen on her finding out about it right this second, but she rebuffs his insistence that he can handle Peter on his own and follows him on up to the loft.
Across town, Stiles and Bb Derek have just arrived to the McCall house, where Stiles is quickly giving him a rundown about what they'll be doing until Scott returns-- basically, they're gonna sit quietly and wait for Scott to come back, and until that happens, Derek isn't going to talk to anyone about anything. Derek asks him if he can talk to Stiles, and when Stiles annoyedly tells him no, he's just, like, "Fine, I'm going to talk to this guy, then," as he points to Agent Douchenozzle, who is standing in the kitchen with a bag full of takeout. Stiles is so startled by his presence that he flails about and exclaims, "Ah! Are you getting TALLER?" to his best friend's father whom Stiles has a history of hating openly. ADN curiously asks them what they're doing there, so Derek politely replies that they're waiting for Scott. ADN proclaims this a coincidence, because he's doing the same, since Scott promised him early this morning that they were going to have dinner. You can see Stiles angrily cursing Scott's forgetfulness in his head, but ADN distracts him from it by holding up his bag of food and informing them that he bought extra, if they're interested in eating with him. That seems a little uncharacteristically kind of him, don't you think? Maybe he's just trying to actually learn something about his son's friends? He IS a federal agent, so he's probably just trying to take advantage of the opportunity to get some intel from Scott's friends.
Anyway, Derek is starving, of course, but Stiles cuts him off and insists that neither of them are hungry. ADN tries to make up for Stiles' obvious rudeness by pointing out that "his friend" can still eat with him, if he's hungry. He asks Derek what his name is, and Derek is just about to answer truthfully when once again, Stiles cuts him off. "Miguel!" Stiles shouts loudly, as a hilarious and awesome call-back to season 1. Derek just gapes at him in confusion as Stiles wraps an arm around his shoulder and adds, "He's my cousin, Miguel, from México," with full-Spanish pronunciation and everything. "Es usted natural de México, Miguel?" ["Are you native to Mexico, Miguel?"] Agent Douchenozzle asks, in a super bizarre speech organization that doesn't sound at all like anything a native Spanish speaker, or even someone who learned it as a second language. Thankfully for Stiles, Derek is a polyglot, although his reply is just as stilted and weird, tbh. "No soy nativo, sino que pasé un montón de tiempo allá." ["I'm not native, but I spent a lot of time there."] ADN is visibly impressed by his Spanish skills, and asks him if he wants an eggroll. "Hell yeah!" Bb Derek crows, as he walks toward the table, while Stiles, on the other hand, is clearly ready to just die right there from anxiety.
Back at the apartment building, Scott pulls the loft door open and ushers Malia inside. Malia can tell something is up, and asks Scott about it, citing his pounding heartbeat as proof that he's nervous. "He's just bad at introductions," Peter drawls from the couch, where he's reading one of Derek's ancient looking books. Scott jumps a little, having not noticed him when they walked in, and greets Peter before awkwardly introducing him to Malia. Peter, despite his earlier greeting, did not seem to realize that he would be meeting his daughter this evening, and immediately drops his book and stands to introduce himself properly, while Malia stares at him with confusion and a bit of judgment. He looks her up and down and immediately compliments her on her beautiful eyes, and asks her if she takes after her father as a way to suss out if she knows about his paternity or not. "Mother," Malia replies curtly, still giving him some confused side-eye. Peter declares this to be interesting, and I totally agree, because if it's NOT important, than why bother bringing it up? IS KATE MALIA'S MOTHER? God, I hope so! That would be ridiculously amazing.
(via braedensderek)
After a moment more of staring at her, Peter realizes just how creepy he's being, and decides to turn the topic of the conversation back to himself by assuming that Scott has told her all about him. "The homicidal killing spree came up!" Malia replies sweetly, in such a way that it reminds me of Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl, which makes me so happy that my heart grows at least one size. Peter retorts that they're all works in progress, which, LOLLLLLL, but Malia isn't really amused. "Well, when you progress to your next killing spree, why don't you try to make sure they ALL stay dead?" Now it's Peter who is confused, so Scott asks him what he knows about people being turned by a scratch, clearly a little nervous to actually say her actual name. Peter figures he means that SCOTT scratched someone, and replies, "Don't worry about it! Claws have to go pretty deep."
Scott takes that to mean that it's possible, like, for example, if you clawed someone's throat out, but while Peter does concede that it's POSSIBLE, he swears up and down that it's super rare. Then, he cuts himself off, having realized what must have happened after connecting Malia's earlier comment with what Scott has just said, and MAN, is he pissed! ALTHOUGH, Kate was hardly the ONLY person who had their throats ripped out by Peter, was she? I mean, Jennifer Blake was killed much the same way (and, if we're being honest, I would be thrilled to learn she was still alive, too)
Back at Casa McCall, ADN, Bb Derek, and Stiles are all sitting around the kitchen table, where ADN is still clearly poking around for more information about the kids. "Hey Miguel, what did you say your last name was?" he asks, even though Derek never actually said it in the first place, so Stiles interrupts and answers that his last name is Juárez Sinqua Diágo, which earns him a stink-eye from Derek. Honestly, I feel like Stiles constantly answering for him is way more suspicious than Derek actually answering himself, but what do I know? Agent Douchenozzle proclaims that to be a mouthful, and Stiles nods in agreement. God, these Teen Wolf mixed-family dinners just get more and more awkward as the seasons go on, don't they?
Bb Derek notices ADN's FBI badge and correctly guesses that he's a special agent, which ADN confirms, though Stiles insists that he's a "lower-level" agent, HAHAHAHA. Probably true, am I right? I mean, dude got stabbed by an oni's sword and was in the room when his son and his friends wolfed out and fought them, and yet he STILL has not put it together yet. (Or, if he has, he's REALLY good at playing dumb.) Derek asks him if he ever investigates murders, and ADN admits that he does on occasion, when it's a federal crime. So, Derek then asks him if he ever investigates fires, so Stiles immediately blurts out that Scott should have been home by then, around a mouthful of Chinese food, and loudly narrates as he pulls out his phone and tries to text him. ADN just ignores him, and asks Derek what kind of fires to which he's referring, so Derek brings up the Hale fire, which seems to ping ADN's radar a little bit. This scene was REALLY fishy to me, but I'll talk about that later.
"Can't SOMEONE in this town stay dead?" Peter screeches as he paces around Derek's loft. Malia speaks for all of us when she replies, "I think they were hoping YOU would." I LOVE MALIA TATE-HALE-WHATEVER, SHE IS THE BEST. Scott returns us to the major question, which is-- WHY would Kate turn Derek back into a teenager? Peter immediately asks them what color his eyes were, and when he's told they were blue, he reminds us that it was after Paige died, which could have been around the time Derek first met Kate. Scott apparently wasn't listening to Stiles when he was yelling at Derek about his penchant for psychotic girlfriends in "The Overlooked," because Scott is dumbfounded. "Derek and Kate knew each other?" he asks incredulously, to which Peter smirks and dramatically responds, "Biblically." Noticing Scott's shocked face, Peter adds that Scott wasn't the first (nor the last, probably) to climb into a hunter's bed. Scott sighs and rolls his eyes as he begins to process the implications.
Meanwhile, in Scott's bedroom, Bb Derek has grabbed Stiles by the back of the neck and shoved him into the door, just as Adult!Derek did to Stiles all the way back in season 1. Stiles is terrified of this Derek, probably moreso than his usual form, and confesses that yes, he definitely lied by omission, which was clearly a bad move. Derek is annoyed, and lets him go before insisting that he doesn't want to talk to Stiles. "I wanna talk to the alpha! I'll talk to Scott!" Derek argues. EVEN TEENAGE!DEREK IS PRESIDENT OF THE SCOTT MCCALL FAN CLUB, YOU GUYS. Stiles, relieved to have been released from his backwards choke-hold, quickly throws his hands up defensively and swears that he's going to go find Scott so he can talk to him, taking great care to make sure that Derek knows to STAY RIGHT THERE and not go anywhere, to which Stiles gets yet another side-eye.
Peter is still pacing around the loft while he, Scott, and Malia try to figure out what exactly Kate's motives are, at least where Derek is concerned. Since Bb Derek went to the old Hale house site, thinking it would still be there, which Scott points out means that he remembers nothing about the fire. Peter reminds him that if he doesn't remember that the fire happened, then he CERTAINLY doesn't know that it was Kate who set the fire in the first place. When Malia asks him what this means, Peter starts working through it aloud. "Kate didn't just take him back to being a teenager..." His face once again gets a dawning realization of her motives, a feeling that I'm pretty sure Peter gets off on, because he loves being a professional mastermind-schemer type. "She took him back to the age where he still knew her! When he still TRUSTED her." Scott's eyes widen in alarm at this revelation...
...and sure enough, Scott's bedroom door at the McCall House swings open to reveal Kate standing in the doorway. Derek, who was sitting alone on Scott's bed, instantly stands up at the sight of her, but he's still clearly confused about her presence, probably because she's like ten years older than how he remembers her. If you were wondering if she managed to give him a satisfactory explanation for this, the answer is no, because Teen Wolf. Bb Derek greets her by name as she seductively leans against the door frame. "Hey, handsome," Kate purrs. "It's been a long time." She chuckles as she struts toward him, all angles in her tight skinny jeans and shoulder-padded black leather jacket. "Longer than you think," she adds, as she stands face-to-face with her. NO NO NO NO NO RUN FOR YOUR LIFE DERDER. The worst part about this is that, after the confusing and kind of terrifying day he's had, surrounded by these strangers who he's never met but yet still know all about him and insist that they're friends he can trust, of COURSE he's going to be thrilled to see a familiar face, for once, especially since he doesn't remember why he hates her. Plus, he's a teenage boy and she's a pretty older lady who calls him handsome and makes him feel special, so why wouldn't he go with her instead of staying put? GAH.
When we return from the break, Stiles is on the phone with Scott, who must be updating him on what they figured out from talking to Peter. He promises that Derek is still in Scott's bedroom where he left him, and then jokes that Bb Derek is kind of making him miss the old Derek, probably just because that Derek was smart enough not to blab all kinds of information about himself to people like Agent Douchenozzle. Stiles is just in the middle of asking Scott if he's sure that Kate's gonna try to come after Derek when he walks in the door to find Kate slinking out the window. If her abilities are anything like those of a werewolf, I'm gonna guess she at least heard Stiles' half of the conversation, and when Stiles stops and gapes at her, she flips her hair with a turn of her head and smirks an evil smirk before hopping off the windowsill. Stiles, naturally, is both terrified and pissed and worried at this development, because he's smart enough to know that whatever Kate is up to is likely not good at all. So, he immediately fills Scott in on what just happened-- luckily for them, they caught on quickly, so she doesn't have much of a head start.
Malia and Peter are both sprinting to the loft door, ready to just jump head-first into the Kate scenario without even thinking about what could possibly be awaiting them, in a way that is SO characteristic of the Hales we know that it makes me laugh. We've been here many times before, including watching both Derek and Cora do the same thing-- shoot first, ask questions later. Scott, ever the voice of reason, calls after them to wait, much to Peter's annoyance. "For what? Kate's out there twisting her way into Derek's head yet again! We need to FIND her." Malia agrees with him, surprisingly, and points out that all they need is a scent. Still, Scott points out that it could take hours for them to find it, which reminds me of one of the many reasons why I really enjoy watching him grow up as a leader-- he's not impulsive unless it's necessary, otherwise he feels it's best to figure out a game plan before starting anything. Risk vs reward.
Which makes sense, when you think about it and remember all the times they thought they knew what they were doing and immediately jumped in, only to find out that it was a trap of some kind (ex: their rescue mission to save Boyd and Cora/Erica from the bank vault; Scott's attempt to diplomatically deal with the Alpha Pack that ended in everyone being super injured and one of them almost dying; their various different plans to deal with the nogitsune, just to name a few) "If we want to get ahead of her, we need to figure out where she's going!" Scott argues reasonably. Peter's response is pretty comical, although untrue, because none of them are unintelligent, and all of them have a lot of knowledge of their various talents. "Not to underestimate my own cognitive faculties, buuuuuut we're not exactly a brain-trust of geniuses here." Scott pulls his phone out of his pocket and retorts that maybe they should call one, then. YES YES YES.
Lydia and Kira are still at the gas station, where they're both taking little hops to make their way into the bloodied, guts-covered restroom to avoid stepping in blood pools and compromising the evidence. The body is even more gruesome up close, as you can imagine, and Lydia groans quite a bit in disgust while she and Kira try to squeeze into the small space on the floor that doesn't have tons of blood on it. Lydia is on the phone with Scott, whom she informs that she called Sheriff and are waiting for he and his deputies to show up. Scott asks her what the body looks like, and if she would mind sending pictures, so Lydia sighs and demonstrates how, with her silver Nokia Lumia or whichever super-new smart phone Teen Wolf is promoting this season, she can both talk on the phone AND do other stuff, like send photos and video.
"Uh, okay," Lydia says reluctantly, as she holds her phone up to start snapping. "But, to be honest, I have a 4.0 in AP Biology, and there are parts of the human anatomy that I have never seen before on these walls." She then tries to will herself to step over the body so she can get a good shot of its wounds, and squeaks in horror and disgust while she does it; Kira, being the good friend that she is, does the same to make her feel better.
Once she's taken the photo, she sends it to Scott and then presumably gets the hell out of Dodge; over at the loft, Scott gets the message and shows the photo to Peter and Malia, and they quickly get to brainstorming again as to why Kate did what she did, so they can figure out what she's doing next.
OH SHIT, so that's what Derek had earlier in that flashback. INTERESTING. Also, I kind of love that Peter was like, "It's not a murder, it's a symptom!" Yeah, I have a feeling the guy she disemboweled in the gas station restroom would probably disagree with you, muchacho. Still, part of me was really surprised to learn that Kate didn't have control over her shifts yet, but at the same time, it does make a lot of sense-- Kate is reckless and impulsive and way too impatient to want to try to do it all on her own, at least not for very long. I could totally see her having an easy time bringing out her inner jaguar, but having a much harder time keeping it in check when she needs to be relying on her human side. I guess I was just so used to werewolves being bitten and then gaining control within two or three full moons, like Scott and Isaac, that it never really occurred to me that it could work differently for everyone.
Bb Derek and Kate are walking through that weird tunnel thing near the high school, where Derek seems to finally be processing the fact that things are totally weird right now, because Kate is saying things he doesn't remember telling her, and Scott and Stiles DID tell him earlier that he lost some memories, which is pretty alarming, and then there's the fact that Kate is way older than he remembers and never gets any explanation for it. So, he stops, and tells her he has a bad feeling about this, because he's not allowed to show "the vault" to anyone who isn't in the family. Kate reminds him that they already talked about this, but he's still stuck on the fact that he has no idea how she even knows it exists.
"Because you told me!" Kate insists in a super fake-nice voice. "Don't you remember?" Derek shakes his head, because, uh, NO, he doesn't. Then, the show grosses me out worse than it's ever grossed me out before, even more than the flies in "De-Void," even more than when Deucalion squashed Ennis' head like a melon. Kate looks at him in the eyes, and when she realizes that he's seriously cramping her plan, she gets even closer to him before she asks if he remembers THIS, before diving in and making out with him. I know that Ian Nelson is actually 19 years old and thus an actual adult, but he LOOKS like a 15 year old making out with someone who is at least twice his age, and it just squicks me out hardcore. So, yeah, that's all I'm gonna say about it. MOVING ON. Afterward, Kate whispers in his ear, "We get inside the vault, get the triskelion, and then everything goes back to normal." Of course, poor Bb Derek SERIOUSLY wants everything to get back to normal, because this day has just been horrifyingly bizarre for him, so when he confirms that this is all Kate wants, he reluctantly agrees and heads for the vault.
He leads her to the Beacon Hills High School sign, so Kate asks why the fuck their vault would be underneath the high school for the audience's benefit. Apparently, it's been there way longer than the high school has, which gives credence to the speculation that the Hale family goes back centuries, too, much like the Argents. He whips out his claws, which he inserts into what looks like a metal Celtic knot, allowing him to turn the knot like a dial. Kate's just watching him, like, "HOLY SHIT THIS IS WAY MORE NUTS THAN I WAS EXPECTING." Finally, once he's done turning the knot, it magically sucks itself into the stone, as the school sign pivots and reveals a set of stairs leading to underneath the school grounds.
This is seriously so ridiculous that it swings all the way around to being awesome again. Derek follows Kate down the stairs, into a seriously HUGE vault full of, like, safes and boxes full of heirlooms and what looks like files, maybe historical records or information on hunters or something. It's actually really impressive. In the middle of the room is a HUGE safe that has the same Celtic knot that was on the lock to the vault itself. Naturally, Kate heads right for it, while Derek started digging around the various boxes on the shelves lining the walls.
Peter, Scott, and Malia, meanwhile, are running up the steps of the school, when Malia immediately stops in her tracks. Scott turns around and asks her if she caught a scent, and she did, just not Derek's-- it's the scent of death that Malia caught in Mexico of the bone creatures that were chasing her around. Peter is like, "Uh, what now?" so Scott briefly explains the creatures who went after them when they broke down in Mexico/in the church ruins when they were looking for Derek. Malia doesn't understand how they could have followed them all the way back from Mexico, but Scott figures it's more likely that Kate brought them WITH her. Suddenly, they hear a loud growling/grunting noise behind them, which brings Malia to attention, and which causes Peter to immediately look like he's about to shit his pants in fear.
"Oh, I've heard that sound before," Peter mutters, before asking Malia if the creature looked like a human wearing an animal skull over their face. She concedes that it's definitely possible, and Scott asks him what they are. "Berserkers," Peter says in his dramatic, old-school-movie-villain voice, as he notices the big bony creature walking through the tunnel toward them. Upon closer look, it DOES look like a mostly-naked human man wearing tons of animal skins and bones-- you can even see their abs, in true Teen Wolf fashion. Back in "Echo House," Chris told Derek that he hunted a berserker once, and that it took all of their ammunition to kill it, so that definitely does NOT bode well for any of our heroes. Malia's animal-side kicks in and she gets ready to get into fight-mode, but in an uncharacteristically paternal gesture, he grabs her by the arm to hold her back.
"Are you CRAZY?" Peter asks, which, LOL, she's a Hale, so yeah, I'd say she inherited her cousins' impulsiveness. Malia is sure they can take them, because there's only one, but Peter points out that actually, the fact that there's only one means that if they run now, they MIGHT actually survive the evening. Then, in much more characteristic Peter-fashion, he immediately leaves both his bitten and biological progeny as he runs for his life away from the berserker. It's hilarious in a very depressing kind of way, y'know? Scott looks at Malia in alarm, and Malia abandons her intention to fight the berserker as the two run for it as well. The berserker continues to growl menacingly and stalk it's newest prey. Malia reminds me so much of Isaac in that "We can take them!"-way and it makes me smile (and also SUPER miss Isaac. GAH.)
Back in the vault, which is super leaky, thanks to the huge number of severe thunderstorms Beacon Hills seems to have been experiencing over the last handful of episodes or so, Derek is still searching through various boxes. He finally finds the box he's looking for and turns around to find Kate reaching toward the handle of the big safe, so he tells her to keep her paws off of it, because he found what she's looking for. He walks over to her and opens the wooden box to reveal the same large coin with the triskelion stamped into it from the earlier flashbacks.
Malia and Scott are still running the hell away from the berserker in slow motion, with Peter nowhere to be found. Suddenly, Malia's eyes grow wide as she throws her arms out to her sides and stops dead in her tracks, stopping Scott from passing her. As expected, the berserker is waiting for them, and its clawed, bone-covered hands twitch in anticipation for what is sure to be an intense ass-kicking. Scott grabs Malia's arm as they both turn and rush toward the side to avoid it, only to have the ANOTHER berserker sneak up on them and follow them up the stairs. "Scott!" Malia calls out frantically. "It's both of them, they're both here!" Scott quite understandably asks where the fuck Peter is, but Malia has no idea, she just knows he took off running for his life like a coward. They turn around to sprint up the rest of the stairs, only to find one of the berserkers jumping down in front of them, blocking their way. They desperately turn to look behind them, and are disappointed and terrified to see that the other berserker is behind them, trapping them. SHIT.
Kate grabs the triskelion out of the box, and asks Derek if he's sure this is it. "It doesn't look like much," she admits, as she turns the coin around in her hand. "That's 'cause it isn't," Peter pipes up from the doorway. Derek is clearly confused, because in his mind, Peter should have Michael Fjordbak's face, but Kate visibly tenses up when she spots the guy who totally killed her and turned her into a nagual. "It's quite the elaborate scheme you have here, Kate," Peter drawls. "Two countries, Aztec temples, Derek returned to a teenager... one that trusted you. One that loved you." Kate, for what it's worth, does look like she feels the slightest bit guilty, but for the most part she's just pissed. "All this complication, just to get into our vault," Peter continues, as he gestures around at the vault's contents. "Just to get to get your hands on that little piece of junk."
He's finally approached her, so he can see her clearly, and can't help but continue to rub it in. "Go ahead, turn it over! There's a scrape on the back where it used to say 'Made in China.'" Kate is sure that he's lying--or at least doesn't want to believe that he's right-- but Peter replies that while he is prone to lying on occasion when it suits him, in this case he just gets way more glee from telling her the truth. "Oh, I'm sorry, sweetheart," Peter coos, as Kate flips the coin over in her hand. "That little pendant is just a physical object to focus on. It's training wheels." Derek looks at Peter, like, "Uh, the fuck you say?" but Peter is on a roll, and you know how he loves his speeches. "Talia used it to teach Laura, and tried to use it to teach Derek." He's cut off by a roar that both Hales immediately recognize as Scott calling out for help from the rest of his pack, which, for all intents and purposes, includes Bb Derek, even if he doesn't 100% know it yet.
Scott has finally wolfed out, now that he's got no choice but to fight a little, and does some sweet parkour moves off of the railing to jump around the berserker, and when he lands on the ground next to Malia, his eyes are blazing red and his fangs are out and ready to go. Malia takes her cue from her new alpha and the two whip their claws out and go to town as they claw at the berserkers' chests. Unfortunately, now that we can see them better, since they're not moving around so fast that you can't see them, it's clear that the boniness is actually armor made of tons of animal bones that look like they're bound together by leather straps, some of which seem to be beaded. Their chest plates are made out of a huge bear sternum and ribcage, and, like Peter said, they seem to be wearing a bear skull over their faces. They're SCARY and huuuuuuuge, even without all the armor. So, naturally, Scott and Malia can barely even leave a scratch on them, and if they can, it doesn't seem to be slowing them down a bit. One of the berserkers growls before taking Scott's head in its clawed hands and slamming it multiple times into one of the columns. YEOWTCH. Malia was at least able to fight back at least, but ends up getting clawed really deep, just like the first time she saw them, right on her thigh. The berserker picks her up and throws her up against the wall, so between the impact and the huge gash in her leg, she's having quite a bit of trouble getting away.
Down in the vault, Kate grabs Derek roughly by the back of the head and pulls him close as she angrily demands to know if the triskelion is real. "Didn't you hear that?" Derek shouts in frustration. "That was Scott, I just heard Scott--" She interrupts him and screams, "TELL ME!!!" but that does nothing to endear herself to him. He quickly insists that he has no clue if what they just heard is true, and he doesn't care either way; he pulls out of her grip and rushes toward the door to go help Scott. YESSSSS! Peter is just staring at her, arms folded across his chest, clearly amused by Kate's desperation.
Stiles and Lydia have just now arrived to the school, the former with his trusty aluminum baseball bat in his hand, which makes Lydia roll her eyes. "You SERIOUSLY need to find something better than a baseball bat!" Lydia snits, and Stiles just kind of glances down at his favorite weapon, and seems to question his decision to bring it in the first place. Turn around and go home, humans! Unless Lydia can figure out how to use her banshee wail as a weapon against specific people without hurting anyone else within earshot, they're probably just going to get hurt by those damn berserkers!
Malia's still pretty badly wounded, and unable to pull herself to her feet, thanks to her injured leg, she determinedly crawls backwards, taking care to keep an eye on the berserker as he stalks toward her. The other berserker lets go of Scott and throws him to the floor beside his injured pack mate, and he's clearly not in much better shape than she is. They both trying to back away as quickly as their injured limbs can propel them, while the two berserkers rejoin each other in front of them, presumably ready to finish our heroes off. Then, out of nowhere, our kitsune queen Kira jumps down, her katana in hand, and goes to TOWN on those berserkers. It is seriously amazing, and even Malia, who I'm not sure has actually seen Kira's sword-fighting skills in actual combat yet, looks super impressed. Unfortunately, she takes one moment too long to smirk at Scott, and though he shouts out a warning, she ends up getting quickly disarmed and totally backhanded by one of the berserkers. Brutal! At least she can heal, too. She might not have all the strength of a werewolf/coyote, but she is not at all without her talents. I really want her to get better at using her foxfire as a weapon, too, although I would hate for the wolfies to be negatively affected by it.
Kira lands right next to Scott in the pile of McCall pack members that seems to be growing higher by the minute, and they're all three pretty visibly nervous about how this is going to ultimately turn out. The two berserkers start walking toward them again, and in the light, you can see that one of them has a very badly scarred abdomen. I'm not sure if that's important or not (I'll get into that more later) but it seems worth noting just in case! Anyway, luckily for them, they have a secret weapon that they didn't even know they had--namely, a Derek Hale who can actually fight! WHAT?! I know! I was shocked too, actually. I think back when he was a teenager, before the fire and being manipulated by Kate to the point where his family was killed in the process, he had a lot more swagger and confidence, which is why he's fighting the berserkers in a way we've never seen him fight before. It's AWESOME. He comes up out of nowhere, running down the hall, and starts flipping and kicking and punching the berserkers, while the rest of the pack just stares at him in shock.
Meanwhile, in the vault, Peter and Kate are circling around each other like their respective animals, while Peter is continuing his monologye, which is actually pretty interesting and enlightening. "Derek gave up on [the triskelion] back when he learned another way to control the shift," Peter explains, as we turn to brief cuts of flashbacks-- Bb Derek being lectured by Bb Peter on how to control the shift in the locker room, and every other time Derek pulled out his wolf (or, conversely, kept it locked inside during a full moon) to fight. "When I taught him. Taught him to use emotion. To use anger, and to focus on it. To feel every ounce of rage and hatred that he could summon-- and it was the anger that taught him control." Yeah, and how healthy is THAT, Peter? Lord knows how Peter might have used this to his advantage as well.
Kate continues to glare at Peter, who surprisingly, comes up with a pretty good idea, one that would be a decent outlet for both of them, if they had actually been able to execute it. "So, you wanna learn control. You wanna get angry, Kate? LET'S GET ANGRY!" His eyes glow blue as he whips out his claws and fangs, and he roars right in her face; in response, Kate flashes her own green eyes and fangs as she braces to lunge for him. Unfortunately, their thunderdome-death-match in the Hale vault is interrupted when several smoke bombs tumble down the steps, which Kate immediately recognizes because they're awfully similar to those her own family uses in the hunter trade (a similarity that I'm hoping is merely a coincidence :/) The smoke might even be wolfsbane, judging by how disoriented Peter and Kate seemed to be upon inhaling it, and there seems to be electricity or fire involved as well, you can see the sparks in the fog. Maybe flash-bang grenades?
Scott, Malia, and Kira are still trying to pick themselves off of the floor as they watch Bb Derek skillfully fight against the two berserkers. He gets smacked into a row of lockers, and the impact seems to shake something within him, because his face morphs quickly into Adult!Derek's face from the eyes-down, before quickly morphing back into Bb Derek's face. He narrowly dodges a hit to the face, only to be pushed to his knees when the other berserker elbows him in the back, which once again seems to knock Adult!Derek's body out from inside him for a moment before returning to normal and morphing back once more. Derek then flip-kicks the nearest monster while Scott and the girls watch in awe, unsure of what exactly they're witnessing, and so confused that they've completely forgotten about the fact that they could be helping him.
Down in the vault, the smoke has knocked Peter down to the floor, and though he scrambles to get to his feet, he's too weak and disoriented to manage it. Kate seems only slightly less affected by it, and is able to pull herself up off the floor, doubling over in a coughing fit from the smoke. She takes one last look behind her and slips out the door; whether she just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or whether she was involved in what happens next, I'm not sure, but I'll get more into that in a bit.
Derek is still fighting the berserkers, who seem to both be losing steam. Just as Derek was able to flip around one of them, a loud roar (presumably Kate) is heard from nearby, and the two berserker lackeys immediately run away from their fight and rush to join their leader. Derek is still crouched in a three-point stance, facing in the opposite direction of Scott, Malia, and Kira, but it's clear from the thicker physique that Adult!Derek seems to have pushed himself free at last. (Or maybe Kate lost control over the spell in the chaos, or perhaps it was only allotted for a certain amount of time. Who knows? I hope we'll learn eventually, though I'm doubtful.) Scott obviously knows something is up, because his mouth gapes when he catches sight of Derek watching the berserkers run away.
Peter is still stumbling around in the smoke-filled vault, his vision blurring as he looks around in hopes of finding the source of the racket. Just as he's noticing that his crisp-white v-neck is covered in mud, he sees a set of men's feet walking past him, wearing what looks to be a super-shiny pair of men's dress shoes suit pants with a black leather jacket and matching gloves. Despite Peter's protests, the man (or who I'm assuming is a man) walks toward the big safe in the middle of the vault, somehow breaks open the locked door, and grabs a huuuuuge briefcase out from inside it. Peter clumsily reaches out for the man's legs, trying to stop him, but it does nothing to stop him from walking out of the vault with whatever he came for. YIKES! I have so many questions already, jfc. Peter manages to crawl over to the safe, and looks devastated when he sees that it's empty.
Back outside, Derek has finally stood up, and it's obvious now that he's back to his Tyler Hoechlin-shaped form, which is both relieving and sad. I like Ian Nelson, he's a cutie and watching him play Bb Derek is a delight because he is SUCH a mini-Hoechlin, but he is not the Derek we signed up for, you know? I'm happy to see good old Heckles is back, although I'm also super nervous, given the rumors I've heard of what is to come for his character. ANYWAY, Scott and the girls manage to finally get to their feet, and Scott squints as he tries to determine who exactly is standing in front of him. "Derek?" he calls out, blood still trickling from his nose and mouth from his beating from earlier. Derek is panting, clearly a little winded from giving everything in that fight, and when he turns around to face his friends, it's clear that something is up with him. Scott's face when he finally sees Derek's grown up self is so precious, you can tell he's THRILLED to have his amigo back, you know? What is different about Derek becomes obvious when he looks up at Scott, and his werewolf eyes pop out again. However, they're not the ones we're used to-- instead of his usual blue beta eyes, his eyes are GOLD, a color we haven't seen since the flashbacks from "Visionary." HOLY. SHIT. WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?
(via teenwolf)
Somehow, Stiles and Lydia have missed the berserker fight entirely, and rush down the steps to the vault, where they find Peter hysterically babbling to himself as he kneels before the recently-burgled safe. "It was--it was NEVER about the triskelion," Peter mumbles, practically laughing from despair, just as our favorite detective twosome approaches him. "They took it! They took it while I was blind." Lydia asks him what who took, which causes Peter to clench his teeth and rise to his feet to talk to his nephew's little friends. "Bonds," Peter replies reluctantly. "Bearer bonds, and they took them all." Stiles' face has pure glee for the first time in a LONG time when he laughs and asks if he seriously just got robbed, but Peter corrects him-- it was a HEIST. "Somebody PLANNED this," Peter exclaims, getting even more hysterical the longer he thinks about it. Lydia is seriously unnerved by just how upset Peter is, and asks him just how much they took from him. "117," Peter replies, which Stiles assumes to mean $117,000, as in thousands, but nope. Not even close. "[117] million," Peter replies mournfully, as the entire Teen Wolf fandom yells, "WHAT? Then why the fuck was Derek living in a burnt-out house/abandoned subway station/a bare-bones loft?" THE HALES ARE RIDICULOUSLY WEALTHY. Or, at least, they were.
Next week, according to the promo: Honestly, the promo went so fast that I have no idea what exactly to expect for next week, aside for the introduction of new lacrosse player and freshman Liam, and a mouthless man (supposedly known as the Mute) who will be threatening and/or killing some guy named Sean and his family. Eep!
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[screencaps via Screencapped]
NOTES/SPECULATION/QUESTIONS/MISC. (SPOILERS BELOW, INCLUDING STUFF JEFF DAVIS TALKED ABOUT IN INTERVIEW. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK)
-Wardrobe repeats: Lydia is still wearing the same fab high-heeled boots that she wore in "Echo House" and "The Dark Moon." She also later wears the same brown leather jacket she has worn in Season 2's "Shape-Shifted," and 3A's "Insatiable." I'm also fairly certain that Scott is wearing the same dark teal hoodie he wore in "Echo House." Also, Stiles is rewearing that damn white shirt with the navy blue trim around the collar and sleeves that he wore countless times last season, which I have to guess is because he bought like twenty of those Hanes 5-packs at Target or something. Derek, in both his adult and baby-faced forms, was wearing the same short-sleeved, gray-green henley that Derek wore in "Master Plan."
-What's Peter's angle? He seemed intent on finding and saving Derek from Kate, but is it genuine? I think Peter would always choose power over everything, including his family, but we've also seen many instances where he's seemed very concerned about his only living family's well-being, like insisting that Cora and Derek run away so as to not be killed by the Alpha Pack, and standing vigil at Cora's bedside when she was at the hospital. So, I think in the end, he's happy that Derek is no longer an alpha because that means that he no longer has to consider the possibility of killing him to get his power. So, what's his endgame? Will he ever go after Scott to take his true alpha powers? I highly doubt killing a true alpha would give a werewolf the same abilities that the true alpha had, if said extra abilities exist (and I think that that they do, because we've seen Scott do a lot of things that we've never seen regular alphas do, but that's another topic for another time.) Still, I think just being an alpha would be enough for him, at least to start off.
-Just how involved do you think Kate was in the heist? Like, upon first glance I feel like we're supposed to believe that Kate helped out, if not organized the whole thing, since it was her idea to go into the vault in the first place, but I'm not so sure. We DID see her struggle with control over her inner jaguar, so much so that she savagely tore apart an innocent gas station attendant, an act that would have gotten her killed by her former Hunter Code (not that she ever really followed it in the first place, though), so I doubt that was made up just so she would have an excuse to go into the vault by needing the triskelion. Plus, when Peter informed her that the triskelion really was just a worthless trinket that Talia used to help Laura/Derek gain control, rather than a magical artifact that could give her control with no effort on her part, she seemed legitimately shocked and angry. So, not only does that make me think that Kate legitimately wanted the triskelion, but that she also legitimately believed that it would actually be able to help her. SO, unless she's a really, REALLY good actress, I have a hard time buying that she was only trying to get into the vault to help rob them. However, if that's true, then was it just a coincidence that she was there at all? Or was she LED to believe that it would help her by somebody else who wanted to use her as a way to get in? I can definitely see that going either way-- she seems to be not dealing well with her random jaguar-outbursts, but I could also see whoever it is who robbed the Hale vault having set up surveillance somehow nearby, and just waited until someone opened it so they could do what they needed to do.
Also, how did they even get INTO that safe? Derek never opened it, and he stopped Kate before she could even touch it. Did the thief know the combination, and just needed help getting into the vault itself? Or did they use some kind of technology or tool to break it open? Because if it's the former, that would suggest that the thief (or person orchestrating the robbery) knew the Hales well enough to be privvy to something like that.
-Which leads me to my next point: who stole the bonds? I'm assuming it's either this mysterious person called the Benefactor who Jeff has discussed in interviews, or someone who is working for them. Judging by the trailers for this season, there's a "deadpool" of supernatural creatures, basically a hit list, and it's been speculated that not only are all of our heroes and villians seemingly on it, but the Benefactor appears to be paying a bounty to whomever can kill them. Such a plan requires money to pay these freelance assassins off, right? So why not steal $117 million USD to fund your supernatural genocide? As much as one would assume this "Benefactor" would be unwilling to do his own dirty work at all times, when it comes to THAT much money, wouldn't you want to do it in person to make sure that it went how it was supposed to? It's that whole "The only way to get something done right is to do it yourself"-type thing.
While on the topic of the Benefactor, we also got a couple glimpses of the financial statuses of some of our favorites, and it's not looking good-- Stiles seems to have quite a few medical bills from his time in the hospital/Eichen House last season, and Scott's house is still a mess from the oni fight and needs a bunch of repairs, so as much as I hate to even consider the thought, what if they end up being tempted into taking someone out who is on the hit list? Not to mention Derek and Peter, who have just lost an enormous amount of money-- they could definitely be motivated to earn some of it back by killing someone (or several someones) on the list. At least Lydia seems to be well-off enough to not have to worry about that sort of thing.
-So, what's up with that Hale money, anyway? Are we supposed to assume that it's inheritance? I can see now why Derek and Peter don't seem to need jobs, but I still don't exactly understand why Derek has seemed to be living like a squatter when he has had more than enough money to live comfortably. The huge fortune also seems to suggest, again, that the Hale family goes back centuries, and they've probably just been living on it forever, which makes it even more painful that they lost it, although a vault underneath where they eventually built a school seems like a weird place to keep your money. I guess Beacon Hills' major bank has been closed forever, maybe that's why. The economy seems pretty rough in their hometown, to be honest.
-What is Agent McCall's deal? He's been around since the end of season 3A, and yet he's served no real purpose since he's arrived, other than to stress Sheriff Stilinski out way more than he already was in the first place, to annoy Scott, and to generally just be useless because he) has no idea what is actually going on in this town, or his son's role in it (OR he's at least very, very good at pretending that he's clueless) It's making me super paranoid that he's involved in something sinister and shady. Time will tell, I imagine. We both have a theory that he could be the Benefactor, or maybe working for him. Think about it-- that dinner with Stiles and Derek was awkward, sure, but what was the point of Derek bringing up the fire to him? ADN seemed pretty interested when Derek mentioned it, but the scene cut before they could talk about it, and when we returned, Stiles and Derek had run upstairs and ADN was nowhere to be seen. Where did he go/what was he doing? Plus, he was dressed in a suit for work, wasn't he? It wasn't very long between when dinner ended and when Kate came to take Derek to the school, so could he have followed them? Something to think about, I guess.
-WHAT DO DEREK'S NEWLY-GOLDEN EYES MEAN? I'm hoping it's just an indication that he's been alleviated from a lot of his guilt w/r/t Paige and Kate and what Kate ultimately did to his family and has officially bound himself to Scott's pack somehow, but idk.
A lot of people have been suggesting that perhaps Derek is heading towards becoming a true alpha too, but I'm sorry, that seems like such a dumb idea to me for so many reasons. 1) True alphas are supposed to be a rare thing, like once-every-century-MAYBE rare, so to have Scott earn that power and responsibility, only to have someone else get it, too (regardless of how deserving you find Scott or Derek of being a true alpha) would just cheapen the honor for both of them. 2) It would ruin all of the amazing character development that both Scott and Derek have made over the last couple seasons as they've finally found themselves and figured out their roles in this world, and 3) DEREK SO CLEARLY HATES BEING AN ALPHA. That was basically Derek's thesis statement for the entirety of 3B-- he was more content and happy than we've ever seen him, and that was because he no longer had the responsibility of making sure that everyone stayed safe and alive; he could just help with rescues, give whatever information he knew that could help, which I think helped give him a lot of his confidence back. I also think that the fact that he talked to his mother helped him accept his new role, too.
Derek is a great werewolf, but he's not a great leader, and I think he would be the first to admit it; he's much more suited to be a mentor than he is an alpha, because while his knowledge of mythology and werewolf culture is unparalleled, aside for maybe Peter and Deaton, he doesn't have the power to bring people together like Scott does, nor did he naturally have the inclination to keep fighting until miracles happen, at least not until he learned it from him. I love Derek dearly, and I understand to an extent why people want him to be an alpha again so badly, but I feel like the pack is FINALLY starting to feel like a real, cohesive unit full of people who care for each other and who want to protect their loved ones from the danger that Beacon Hills constantly attracts. I don't think making Derek a true alpha adds anything good to the story; in fact, in my opinion, it would hinder it.
So, enough with the chit chat, yeah? Let's talk about Teen Wolf!
Previously, on Teen Wolf: Scott found a bunch of shell casings carved with a skull at Derek's loft, indicating he had been attacked and captured by the Calavera hunter family (whose members include Araya and Severo.) In an effort to figure out why they would want him, Scott, Stiles, Lydia, Kira and Malia made the trek down to Mexico to find them, where they were ultimately overpowered and temporarily captured. While being held in their home, the kids eventually learned that the Calaveras didn't actually have Derek, and Araya ended up torturing Scott with electricity until he somehow had a flashback that led him to the realization that Kate Argent is actually alive and well! Araya then let the kids loose so they could go with Braedon to go find Derek and hopefully also find Kate. Unfortunately, while they did TECHNICALLY find Derek, it was quickly made obvious that something was outrageously wrong-- somehow, Kate worked some magical werejaguar mojo to de-age Derek into his baby-faced teenage self. Whoops!
Our cold open this week begins outside of Beacon Hills High School, which NEVER bodes well. Making matters even worse, it's a full moon, which made me super happy at first, considering we haven't had a full moon since "Lunar Ellipse," which feels like a year ago (because it almost WAS a year ago!) Unfortunately, it's a flashback, you guys, so it doesn't really count. In case you need more proof that we've gone back in time a bit, we enter the school to see the BHHS basketball team filing out of the locker room as they whoop down the halls in anticipation for their game. BASKETBALL? Coming down the hall from the opposite direction is a tall, thin young man who is rocking a leather jacket and walking through the crowd of basketball players shoving their way toward the courts. The man eventually makes his way into the locker room, where he heads straight for the nearest shower only to find none other than Bb Derek, partially wolfed-out in his basketball uniform, clearly having a hard time keeping control over the wolf on this full moon. He's crouched down on the floor as cold water pours from the shower, soaking him.
The man, who turns out to be Bb Peter, just smirks at him in amused annoyance and leans over to shut the water off before he picks him up by the back of his shirt to look him in the face. Derek has finally put the blue eyes and fangs away, and swears that he thought he could keep his cool tonight, but Peter isn't impressed. "All this risk, just for a basketball game?" Hey, wasn't Peter a basketball star in his day? Shouldn't he be a little more sympathetic? Oh, what am I saying, this is Peter we're talking about. Derek argues that it's the playoffs and they need him, so DUH, he has to play, fuck the consequences. Now, THAT sounds pretty familiar, don't you think? Maybe Adult!Peter's comparison of Bb Derek to Season 1 Scott were more accurate than I thought. Bb Peter points out that his team certainly doesn't need him wolfing out and ripping the throats out of all the players on the court if he loses control, but Derek, silent, just shoves himself against a row of lockers, still tense and trying to keep a lid on his temper and his shift.
"Even born wolves have to learn control on a full moon, Derek," Peter reasons, but Derek just cries that it's supposed to be easier for them, so why is it hurting him so bad? Peter asks him if he brought "it," and Derek confirms that he did, but insists that it's not working. He pulls what looks like a heavy metal coin out of his pocket that has a triskele stamped on it, the coin roughly the size of his bb palm, but Derek maintains that it's not working. Peter's not really feeling his nephew' excuses though, so he orders him to go ahead and "do it." Derek sighs, and holds the coin in his hand as he says "Alpha, beta, omega." Peter instructs him to repeat it, so he does, over and over again, but it's not helping him gain control-- the more frantically Derek says it, the more his blue eyes and fangs come out, until finally his arms are raised and his roaring in pain at the top of his lungs. :( Pobrecito!
Cut to the present-day! (I think?) We're now at that shady gas station where Chris Argent kidnapped his own daughter to initiate her into her hunter training in "Ice Pick." Do you remember that? When he had her tied to a chair in the burnt out Hale house, and scared her into believing they had both been kidnapped before more-or-less telling her that if she was bitten they would have to kill her? And then forcing her to break herself out of her restraints while they timed her, which ended up taking almost three hours? I sometimes forget just how fucked up Chris Argent used to be back in the day. ANYWAY, I digress, not for the first time, nor the last. The gas station attendant on duty notices that there's a car with it's emergency lights, which appears to have been sitting there a while, despite the fact that the station is otherwise vacant. He goes out into the pouring rain to investigate, and after a moment, he see him become visibly nervous, probably because he lives in Beacon Hills and he knows that this is definitely a bad sign. Just as he's considering what to do, he hears a loud growl coming from the general direction of the restrooms, and despite his anxiety, goes to investigate.
The closer he gets to the door to the restroom, the more it sounds like a bunch of cats are fighting behind the closed door, with tons of growling and grunting. He bangs on the door and asks if whoever is inside is okay, but he gets no response and leans his ear against the door to try to hear better. Inside the locked restroom is a soaking wet and bedraggled KATE ARGENT, who is clearly having much difficulty holding back her own jaguar transformation, though it's anyone's guess what triggered it. She leans against the sink, trying to take deep calming breaths, which ultimately do nothing to soothe her, because she's suddenly overwhelmed by spasms as a result of her efforts to stay human and clenches her teeth together to stop herself from roaring in pain. The attendant, super alarmed by the inexplicable noises he's hearing from inside the room, once again asks if she's okay, so she forces herself to stay calm long enough to grunt that she'll be out in a minute.
The guy isn't really appreciating her excuses/lack of explanation for what the fuck she's doing, and continues to pound on the door, which does absolutely nothing to help Kate's current issues. If anything, it's kind of a hindrance. Kate snarls loudly, so the gas station attendant loses the rest of his patience and tells her if she won't come out, he'll use the key and come in, assuming that she's on drugs or something and is freaking the hell out. Unfortunately for him, Kate seems to have planned for that, because she broke the lock so that he can't unlock it with the key. Getting pissed, the dude continues to pound on the door before he threatens to call the cops. Suddenly, the noises stop, and the door opens a crack, which seems to give the poor, stupid attendant a brief amount of relief.
...At least, until he walks into the restroom, where he finds Kate facing the mirror. He hesitantly asks if she's okay, but when she turns around, she's in FULL jaguar form: blue skin with black patches, huge fangs, and blazing green eyes. As you could probably guess, it takes all of about two seconds before she has completely torn him to shreds, rabid-Deucalion-styles. OH SHIT. She has worse control over her inner werecreature than the large pack of newbie teenagers in Beacon Hills! That's actually kind of funny, although it's a deadly problem, judging from the guy she just slaughtered. I'm sure her homicidal tendencies probably and poor impulse control don't really help her control over her transformation. TITLE CARD!
Scott, Stiles, and Lydia, have finally made it back to Beacon Hills, where, of course, their first stop is Dr. Deaton's animal clinic, to see if he has any answers or words of wisdom about their current predicament with Derek and Kate. Well, I guess it must have been their second stop, since at some point they must have dropped Malia and Kira off at home or something, because those girls are no where to be found. Once inside the clinic, Deaton immediately clears off a table, which the gang uses as a gurney for Derek's unconscious body. Deaton is visibly affected by the sight of poor Bb Derek's teenage face, given his close relationship with Talia; it makes me wish we had more knowledge of Deaton and his relationship to the Hales back then. Anyway, Deaton's surprised, "Wow" does nothing to inspire confidence in Stiles. "Wow? Wow, as in, 'I've seen this before and I know exactly what to do'-kinda 'Wow?' Because that's kinda what we're hoping for." BAHAHA. Funny joke, Stiles! Of course, as usual, Deaton insists that they're overestimating his abilities, which NO. THEY'RE NOT. Remember that time Deaton forced Kali to change back from wolf to human with just a stare? WHY CAN'T HE ALWAYS PULL THOSE TRICKS?
Lydia grips onto Bb Derek's hand comfortingly and is startled to find that his body is freezing cold. Deaton gets right to taking his pulse and other vital signs, and seems so shocked by this revelation that even Scott starts to more anxious that he might not be able to help them at all. When he asks Deaton if he thinks it's permanent, Deaton is almost exasperated as he admits that this is way outside his expertise as a medical professional. THEY DIDN'T BRING HIM HERE BECAUSE YOU'RE A VET, DUDE, THEY BROUGHT HIM HERE BECAUSE YOU'RE A DRUID WHO KNOWS EVERYTHING ALWAYS. I still don't understand why he's still playing so dumb after allllll this time. I don't want him to be shady, but it's not doing much to prove his case otherwise, you know? Stiles is like, "So what the fuck are we supposed to do with him?" but Deaton's at a loss-- his only suggestion is that, for now, they should just let Bb Derek sleep it off at the clinic, since the mountain ash built into the building will keep him safe from Kate. Lydia is still confused as to why she'd want to do this to him, but all Deaton can say for certain is that if it's Kate's plan, then it's probably only going to benefit herself, which will likely just fuck everyone else over. Sounds about right to me! Fantastic.
Deaton notices that the kids look absolutely wrecked with sleep deprivation, and suggests that since Derek is stable, they just leave him with him and go get some sleep for school the next day. "You all need to start taking care of your own lives again." Scott understandably doesn't want to leave either of them alone, but Lydia offers to stay with them, since she always has perfect grades, so it's not like the absence will hurt her, plus Bb Derek is still gripping onto her hand while he sleeps. Stiles does NOT want to leave Lydia alone with Bb Derek, either, at least not until they know what's up, and starts to argue back and forth with Lydia a bit about it. Scott, who was Team Stiles initially, is so tired by this point that he's not really in the mood to fight about it, so he grabs Stiles by the collar and pulls him out the door. Before the two leave, Scott instructs Lydia to call or text them if anything changes or happens, with the promise that they'll be there in a jiffy. Stiles' annoyed, "Just because you're stronger--" protest as he gets yanked out the door is my favorite. I LOVE EVERYONE AND THEIR PROTECTIVENESS SO MUCH.
It's still pouring down rain when Scott finally makes it home, and when he walks in the front door, he finds an assortments of soup pans and buckets in various areas in the room in order to catch the rain that is leaking through the ceiling. Scott quietly tiptoes through the door before he shuts it behind him, and turns back around to find his dad sprawled out on the couch in the living room, fast asleep. Unfortunately for Scott, all his effort to stay quiet is totally wasted when he totally trips over the huge toolbox that lays open in the middle of the floor, which instantly awakens his dad. Agent Douchenozzle gets off the couch to greet him, and Scott, knowing his dad is about to ask a lot of questions, immediately tries to change the topic to the load of tools just chilling in the living room. His dad briefly mentions he's getting started on the list of what my dad affectionately refers to as "honey-do's," AKA household repairs that wives make their handy-man husbands do. The fact that Melissa is having ADN do them makes my inner Melissa/Sheriff shipper heart MUY TRISTE. Get outta here, dude!
Of course, Agent Douchenozzle wastes no time returning the topic of conversation to Scott, and asks him what time it is. Scott glances at the nearby clock, which reads 04:05AM, and quickly turns the clock the other direction before lying, "Uh, midnight!" LOL! Such a teenager trick. I remember pulling the same thing on my dad when I was his age, taking advantage of the fact that my dad was way too tired to check the clock when I came home way early in the morning. "We were supposed to have dinner!" ADN whines. "We had a deal! When your mom has a night shift, we have dinner." Scott deftly spins a web of lies about how as soon as they got back late from their "camping trip," he had to go straight to work at the animal clinic, so it just slipped his mind, of course! Stupidly, ADN, who, might I remind you, is an investigative agent of the FBI, buys this 100% without question, though he still insists that they do dinner tomorrow night instead to make up for it. Scott proclaims this to be great, since it gives him an out to go to bed, and heads toward the stairs just as his dad asks him if he got something to eat before he got home. "Yeah," Scott mutters, as he walks toward his room. "Mexican." HAHAHAHA. Oh god, you guys, I miss Isaac so much. :(
It's morning now, and Lydia is dozing like a baby angel in a chair in the back room of the clinic. She stirs and awakens when she hears Deaton rechecking Derek's vitals, and immediately asks him how their bb patient is doing. Deaton frowns as he takes Bb Derek's carotid pulse, and admits that Derek's heart rate is "alarmingly high." Lydia stands up and joins him at Derek's bedside and reflexively grabs hold of his hand again. She remarks that at least he's returned to a somewhat-normal body temperature, which is reassuring, and which also gives Deaton an idea. He tells her that he wants to try something, and asks her if she could continue to hold Derek's hand while he does it. Lydia nods, so Deaton goes and grabs a scalpel and quickly uses it make a long cut on Derek's arm, which heals almost instantly, way too fast for even a werewolf's magical healing abilities to accomplish. YIKES, what if it DIDN'T heal? I'm pretty sure I saw, like, slit-open blood vessels and muscles and stuff. Pretty big gamble, dude.
Anyway, this leads Deaton to want to try another experiment, so he instructs Lydia to grab him a 5mL syringe, even though he's way closer to the cabinet than she is. They both get so wrapped up in their search for more implements for their next test that they don't even notice that Bb Derek has awoken and sat up, confused and wolfing out.. They turn around just in time to see Derek stand, panting anxiously and clearly freaked out. In Derek's wolf vision, Lydia and Deaton look like terrifying black plumes of smoke with bright yellow glowing eyes. Is this just because they're both kind of magical? I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone, human or supernatural, look this demonic in wolf-vision before, but my memory isn't always the best. Either way, Bb Derek clearly doesn't recognize them at all, and their chorus of "Derek? Derek, are you alright? Derek? Can you hear us?" just overwhelms him to the point of panic. He grips his hands over his ears for a moment to block out the sound, and just as Deaton is trying to assure him that he's safe, Derek gets pushed into fight-or-flight mode and quickly lashes out and full-out SMACKS Deaton so hard that he flies into his side table and bangs his arm up pretty badly. Lydia rushes to his aid, which allows Derek the opportunity to flee the clinic. WONDERFUL! A de-aged werewolf Derek who doesn't seem to have any of his adult control or memories has been let out in a town of clueless people. Fantastic!
Meanwhile, HOLYCHILD's "Happy With Me" plays as we cut to the school, where Stiles and Scott have just arrived, fresh as daisies. Stiles is in the middle of regaling his bro with the developments in his relationship with Malia. "Alright, so it's like two in the morning, and I wake up, and she's just lying right next to me! She just sneaks in! This is like, five times a week." That is actually kind of an adorable visual, to be honest, although if it were anyone other than our wild coyote Malia I would think it was really creepy. Scott is intrigued, too, so he asks what happens next. Stiles replies, "This--" as he lifts up the back of his shirt. We can't see it, but judging by Scott's face I'm guessing there's some serious claw marks going on back there. Scott is still gaping, so Stiles is like, "Yeah, right on, right? After that, we spent the rest of the night spooning." Scott proclaims this to be pretty sweet, but Stiles isn't done yet. "Yeah, but I'm always the little spoon! Always!" Stiles whines, as he demonstrates hilariously with his fingers. Yeah, Stiles, you need to just embrace that you're ALWAYS gonna be the little spoon, biscuit.
(via melissamccall)
Scott figures this means that Stiles and Malia are together, like, f'realsies, but Stiles isn't so sure; plus, he's got this weird feeling that she knows he's keeping something from her. The topic then turns to exposition about Peter being Malia's dad, and Malia still not knowing it yet. For once, Stiles is the one who argues they need to just tell her the truth, while Scott is the hesitant one, because he has no idea how you tell a friend something like that. I can't say that I blame him-- how would YOU tell your new friend/packmate that not only are the parents that they have known of their entire life NOT their biological parents, but that their real father is none other than Peter Hale, the man who cannot create a child or a supernatural progeny without them being something OTHER than normal werewolves?
Our boys finally make it to history class, where Mr. Yukimura is giving a history lecture about some of the great failures on the part of the world's leaders, and brings up their reading from last night. He begins to talk about one of the people mentioned in the reading-- a former US president who failed at business, who had a nervous breakdown, who was defeated for both houses of Congress, and who ALSO lost his bid as vice-president before becoming one of the country's greatest presidents. When he asks who the man he's talking about was, a handful of people raise their hands to answer, including Stiles, who winks at Scott playfully. Of course, Mr. Yukimura can't call on any of those students, because they actually WANT to answer his question, and know the answer; who he needs is a student in his class who is way too insecure and uncomfortable to answer. He spots Malia frantically underlining a bunch of points in her textbook, and determines that calling on the girl who is desperately trying to catch up after spending half of her life as a forest animal is the best course of action. Dick move, Papa Yukimura! He has to know her background, right? It's not as if he doesn't know about the supernatural, he's married to a fucking kitsune, and has a kitsune child.
Malia's eyes grow wide when he calls on her, a highlighter gripped tightly in her teeth, and Scott and Stiles anxiously turn around in their seats to give her some moral support. Mr. Yukimura gives her a look, like, "So? What's the answer?" just as Scott's phone starts to ring, earning him a scolding from his teacher. "Malia? One of our greatest presidents?" Mr. Y asks helpfully. "Gettysburg Address?" Malia adorably puts her pen in her mouth as well as she nods and shuffles through her notes. Stiles tries to whisper the answer (Abraham Lincoln) to her, but she doesn't see it. On Malia's other side, Kira is desperately waving her hand in the air in order to get her dad's attention and deflect some of the focus from her new friend, shooting Papa Yukimura tons of stink-eyed glares for being a jerk. Stiles' phone goes off next, so Papa Yukimura once again orders all of the class to turn their phones off.
(via malihales)
Malia's still digging in her notes, so Mr. Yukimura finally just sighs and asks if anyone else knows the answer. The entire rest of the class raises their hands, and poor Malia looks so sad that she couldn't answer his question. Aw, Malia! :( Another phone goes off, causing Mr. Y to yell, "PHONES. OFF!" That's when his daughter kindly points out that it was actually HIS phone that just rang, so he just kind of embarrassedly shuffles off to follow his own rules by switching his phone off, too. "Scott?" Papa Yukimura says with confusion, as he reads the text he just received aloud. "Call Lydia?" Good thing he knows that his daughter and her pack are the resident supernatural heroes of Beacon Hills, yeah? That should help them get out of class with few difficulties.
We return to the animal clinic, where Lydia is bandaging up Deaton's busted arm as they fill Scott and Stiles in on what went down. "I don't think he's just younger in body," Deaton admits somberly. "I think he's younger in his mind, too." Lydia agrees, and informs them that it seemed pretty clear that he didn't recognize either of them, which would explain why he was absolutely terrified. Stiles asks where a scared teenage werewolf would go, so Scott's mind immediately goes to "his den," which he figured would mean Derek's loft, but Stiles reminds him that he's a teenager, so he wouldn't know that he even had his own loft. Lydia realizes he would go to the Hale house, which is a problem, since Bb Derek wouldn't know about the fire, because it happened when he was a little older than he is currently aged. NOOOOO, THIS IS SO BAD.
Sure enough, Bb Derek has arrived at the Hale house, which, unfortunately for him, has recently been demolished and is surrounded by a chain-link construction fence. I just remembered that we've only seen the Hale house once since Teen Wolf moved its filming from Atlanta to Los Angeles, in "Tattoo," so I'm guessing the reason for the "demolition" is really that it just too much hassle to recreate it on a set now. Anyway, Derek uses his strength to break through the fence, but the sight of his face when he realizes his house is gone is absolutely HEARTWRENCHING, oh my god. Looking like he's about to cry, he falls to his knees next to the pile of rubble that used to his old house, once upon a time, and starts to dig through the pieces of wood. OUCH, MY HEART.
"Hold on," Lydia says to Scott and Stiles, stopping them as they head toward the door to leave the animal clinic. "Say you do manage to catch up to him. What are you going to say to him? That his whole family is dead?" Scott, clearly not looking forward to that, still states that he's probably going to have to, which just makes Lydia scoff, "Ohh, good luck with that." Stiles is on Team Lydia, and suggests that maybe they at least hold off until they can figure out if and/or how they can turn him back, but Scott argues that he can't lie to him, because he's still a born werewolf and will be able to tell by listening to his heartbeat. Scott the Alpha insists that they have tell him the truth when they see him, but Deaton makes an excellent point-- if Bb Derek gets to the Hale house ruins before they find him, then it won't matter, because he'll already know something terrible happened the second he sees it.
Bb Derek is still staring at what remains of his childhood home, trying to swallow down his tears of confusion, when a Sheriff's deputy cruiser drives up to the lot. Of course, because this de-aged-Derek shit-show wasn't complicated enough already without a bunch of cops who have absolutely no idea of exactly what kind of horrifying shit goes down in their town on the regular. Deputy Parrish (whose hair is much darker than I remember, and who seems to have put on, like, 15lbs of muscle since the last time we saw him) approaches the lot with his partner, who will henceforth be known as the not-at-all-clever Deputy Dickweed on this blog, though apparently his name is Deputy Hague. The two walk into the lot, where Parrish sees Bb Derek still kneeling mournfully beside the rubble, and calls out, "Excuse me, young man!" Deputy Dickweed gives our young and handsome Deputy Parrish some crap for his lingo, and is quickly told to shut up before Parrish returns his attention to our poor Bb Derek and informs him that he's not allowed to be in there.
When this doesn't work, Deputy Dickweed tries another tactic. "Hey, dumbass! You ever hear of 'No Tresspassing?'" Awesome use of kid-gloves there, champ. Bb Derek, of course, has no idea why everyone is being such a dick to him, because as far as he knows, this is HIS HOUSE and they should be telling him what the fuck happened. So, he tells DD that it's actually his house, and naturally, nobody's buying it, because the house burnt down, like, seven years ago and no one has lived there ever since (that they know of, anyway.) DD tells him as much, and orders him to get the hell out, but Parrish is (or, at least, is super good at pretending to be) a kind soul who can tell that this kid is clearly scared, so he tells his asshole partner to shut up and let the grown-up handle it. "Are you alright? We can help you if something's wrong," Parrish states calmly. Derek asks him what the fuck happened to his house, and his family, and particularly his mother, which just causes DD to roll his eyes before grabbing Derek roughly by the arm.
Of course, Derek is FREAKED THE FUCK OUT, and nobody is listening to him, and he has only passable control over his werewolfiness, so he grabs DD by the arm and twists. Parrish orders BOTH of them to calm down and take it easy, an order to which Derek complies immediately, but Deputy Dickweed got his nickname for a reason, you guys, and that reason is that he pulls out a taser and instantly tazes Bb Derek several times in the gut, even after Parrish yelled at him to stop and stand down. Now, one could say that since being a Sheriff's deputy in this town is basically a death sentence, clearly these cops are going to have to be a little more proactive in order to stay alive, and I don't even really disagree with that, but COME ON, he's a sixteen-year-old boy who is scared and trying to understand what the fuck is happening to him.
Anyway, over at the station, Parrish approaches Bb Derek, who is hilariously handcuffed to the same bench that Adult Derek and Chris Argent were just handcuffed to only a few episodes ago. (God, I miss Chris Argent. And Allison. AND ISAAC.) Parrish, ever the nice guy, drops a clipboard off to DD before grabbing the handcuff key from his pocket and heading toward Derek. "The other deputy thinks I'm an idiot for even asking," Parrish begins, as he kneels in front of Derek to look at him at eye-level. "But, I have a feeling if I take these cuffs off, you're gonna be okay? And, I think you'll help us figure out what happened to your family so we can get you out of here. Am I right?" You guys, Parrish is TOO PERFECT TO BE REAL. Like, forget being suspicious about Malia, I'm suspicious about PARRISH because he is literally TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. I'm desperately hoping I'm just being paranoid. Anyway, Derek nods shyly, and when Parrish unlocks his handcuffs, Derek mutters, "That other deputy's an idiot." LOL! Parrish just laughs and smiles the most perfect smile and replies that he can hardly disagree with that. Aw, MY HEART. Why/how is Deputy Parrish so perfect? I seriously don't understand.
Deputy Dickweed calls Parrish over, because he's having difficulties with running Derek's fingerprints. Namely, that the only hit he's getting is for Derek Hale, a man who is easily ten years older than the kid sitting on the bench. I'd like to make a few notes on the information on his record: first, Jeff Davis is such a troll that he didn't include a fucking birth date, so we still have NO IDEA just how old he is; second, his middle name begins with an "S" (any guesses on what that could be?), and his stats are supposedly 6'0" and 171 lbs; and third, the address listed (which is super blurry) seems to read "19284 Boulder Street, Beacon Hills, CA," so would that be his loft? I'm confused. I can't make out any of the phone numbers aand they don't seem to have any criminal history that we can see, either. Interesting.
ANYWAY, Sheriff Stilinski just so happens to be walking past them when he hears the name "Derek Hale," and immediately stops, because he and Derek are bros now, if you recall. He looks at the criminal record on the screen, and then looks at the baby-faced kid sitting on the bench. He double-takes, like, five times in a row, as you would do if you were in that position, before finally going up to Derek and squinting/staring at him, while Derek just stares back in confusion. POOR SHERIFF'S MIND IS BLOWN. Finally, just when he's starting to see the similarities, Stiles and Scott come running into the sheriff's department, and Sheriff Stilinski immediately put the clues together and realizes that once again, magic and supernatural nonsense is going down in his damn county.
Sheriff promises the deputies that he'll take care of it, and then ushers his unruly children into his office for what is probably the most hilarious conversation in the entire episode. Seriously, I am SO THRILLED that Sheriff is finally in the know, because his reactions to all of this shit is seriously priceless and I cannot get enough. "I want you to be honest with me," Sheriff begins, as calmly as he can muster. "Absolutely and completely honest." Stiles seems a little uneasy, but Scott, of course, shrugs in agreement, since it's a pretty reasonable request. "Have you been time-traveling?" Sheriff finally blurts out, with absolutely no irony or sarcasm, as he's clearly out of his mind with confusion. It seems that was not at all what either of the boys were expecting, but before Stiles can sputter out a response, Sheriff plows onward. "Because if time-traveling is REAL-- you know what? I'm done! I'm out! You're gonna be driving ME to Eichen House!" Lolololollllll! Scott, hilariously, argues that they found Derek like that, as if that excuses everything else, but Sheriff is still just way overwhelmed. "WHERE? Swimming in the fountain of YOUTH?" HAHAHA. Never change, Sheriff Stilinski.
(via peetahales)
Stiles, bless his heart, tries to explain it all in that rambly, hilarious way that he does so well. "No! We found him...buried in a tomb of wolfsbane, in an Aztec temple in Mexico, underneath a church in the middle of a town that was destroyed by an earthquake," he explains, with the requisite eye-twitch and the end that Stiles does when he knows that what he's just said is absolutely insane. Scott, too, realizes that this is probably the must ridiculous thing they've ever said, just does that closed-eyes/deep-sigh combo thing he does so often in response. So, the tomb WAS full of wolfsbane? Good to know! I really hope that doesn't have any lasting effects. :/ Sheriff, even more hilariously, disregards all of that craziness and focuses on the most normal part-- that they were in Mexico. "YOU TOLD ME YOU WERE CAMPING!" Sheriff whisper-yells exasperatedly, but Stiles insisted that they DID go camping, just in Mexico.
(via stilinskis)
I especially love that they're conveniently leaving out the fact that the five of them got captured by hunters, two of them were threatened with torture, and one of them actually WAS tortured. Probably not the best thing to tell a sheriff-- although, really, it was a pretty bad idea to capture a sheriff's kid in the first place. Anyway, before either of them can get in trouble for lying, Scott gets back to the real problem-- Derek has been aged backwards, which means he doesn't remember anything that happened AFTER the age of, like, sixteen, including the fire that killed his parents, not to mention all of the identities of the members of the Beacon Hills pack and its allies. Stiles gets serious with his dad, and insists that they need to talk to Derek and explain what they can about what's going on, but Sheriff points out that he's not talking to anyone. However, Scott is sure that he'll talk to him.
In Sheriff's office, Derek has been brought in to talk to Scott and Stiles, while Sheriff waits out in the bullpen. I love how easily Sheriff is able to just let his kid/his kid's friends do his work for him. I mean, it's for the best, because when it comes to this stuff they're way more qualified, but you would think there would be more deputies who are SUPER suspicious of all of them, tbh. ANYWAY, Derek doesn't get why he should go anywhere with a pair of complete strangers, but Scott not-quite-lies that there was an accident that caused Derek to lose his memories, and they're just trying to help him get them back. Stiles starts to tune Derek out when he asks Scott how much of his memory he lost, because he notices a stack of mail on his dad's desk, which includes what looks like a bill from Beacon Memorial Hospital's ER as well as one from Eichen House, the latter of which has a stamp that say "Second Notice" on the bottom. NO BUENO. NOT AT ALL.
Scott replies that Derek did, in fact, lose quite a bit of his memories, which again, isn't really a lie, but he insists that Derek can trust them, and kneels down in front of him so he can flash his red eyes. Derek realizes that he's a werewolf, too, and an alpha at that, and asks him who he is, and who Stiles is, which manages to break Stiles away from stressing about his medical bills for a moment. "We're the guys keeping you out of jail," Stiles replies drolly, as Scott pleads with Bb Derek to let them help him. Of course, he's Bb Derek, so he doesn't know that he can trust Scott, and by extension, Stiles, so he just shakes his head.
"Okay, dude, you almost tore apart two cops back there! You need to listen to us, and that starts with no fangs, no claws, no wolf man! You got that?" Stiles rambles, clearly not at all comforted by Teenage!Derek's inability to control himself, but Bb Derek claims as long as it's not a full moon, he's groovy. This shocks Scott, naturally, since Derek has always been totally in control, and was the person who help HIM gain control, so it's definitely a weird role-switch. Stiles stands up and asks if this means he'll come with them, but Derek is still not exactly inclined to trust either of them. "Where's my family?" Derek demands. Scott looks at Stiles for some kind of instruction, but Stiles has got nothing, so Scott just takes a deep breath and prepares to drop some hard truths. "There was a fire..." he begins nervously. "And..." Scott trails off when he sees the devastated look on Derek's face, and immediately switches to a lie before he can tell the difference. "...They're not here anymore. They're fine! They just had to move out of Beacon Hills. And, we're gonna take you to them, as soon as we figure out how to get your memories back." Practically in tears, Derek takes a deep breath to compose himself before nodding and agreeing to leave with them.
While Bb Derek's filling out paperwork to be released, Scott and Stiles are hanging around nearby, where Scott laments the fact that he "lied his ass off" to Derek, even after he had vowed to be honest and tell the truth. "Your ass is FINE," Stiles replies, verbatim, just in case there were people out there who still believe that Skittles/Sciles could never be a real pairing if their characters weren't straight (I actually like to think that Scott and Stiles both are bi, but that's probably just because I'm a bi lady myself who doesn't see nearly enough bisexual characters in television, especially not male characters-- though Posey has admitted he would be love to play Scott as a bi character, especially to have a relationship with Stiles or Isaac, but Dylan has always said that Stiles is straight, so I doubt it'll ever happen for real) and insists that he just saved Derek a whole bunch of heartbreak and pain. "We'll figure this out in a day or two, he goes back to being old-Derek, everyone's happy!" Stiles whispers. "...Except for Derek, who's NEVER happy," he adds as an afterthought. LOL! Well, they don't call him Sourwolf for no reason, but Derek seemed to be a lot happier in 3B, don't you think? And I mean, for once, everything WASN'T his fault, so he could just help the pack out, guilt-free, without having to worry about the pressure of being in charge of a bunch of teenagers. Let's be real, Derek's life is much better now, aside from the fact that he's been de-aged like a decade.
Scott points out that Bb Derek is just one of a growing number of people to whom they're constantly lying. "It's just-- I always feel like it's better when you tell the truth. With Lydia, my mom, your dad..." Finally, Scott goes into alpha-mode and instructs Stiles to take him back to the McCall house, and to NOT take his eyes off of him until he gets back. When Stiles asks him where he's going, Scott informs him that he's going to talk to the person they should have gone to from the very beginning. OH SHIT, I know what he's suggesting, and that never ends well. Stiles agrees, and watches as Scott leaves the station. "Uhhh, yeah, I hate that guy!" Stiles feebly shouts behind him, as he watches his best bro head for Derek's loft.
Meanwhile, Lydia and Kira have pulled up in Lydia's car to that infernal gas station where we saw Kate jaguar-ing out the previous night, while Meg Myers' "Make a Shadow" plays on the radio. I have to say, I'm really enjoying the fact that Lydia, Malia and Kira are hanging out and becoming friends (although it seems Lydia and Malia have kind of gotten off to a rough start). With Allison gone, Lydia needs some good girlfriends to help keep her sane. I don't see it as Kira and Malia taking Allison's place, because Allison fucking Argent is irreplaceable. Still, making new friends is definitely going to do a lot to help ease her grief, and it seemed like Allison was very fond of Kira before she died, so I'd like to think that Allison would want them to become friends. ANYWAY, I digress once again. Kira has just gotten off the phone with Scott, who has given her a heads up that he's going to find Peter, and who has instructed them to go meet Stiles at Scott's house. "That sounds like a HORRIBLE plan," Lydia replies, as she unbuckles her seatbelt. She notices Kira's sheepish-looking face and clarifies, "Oh, we've had worse! Like yesterday...Mexico..."
Kira takes advantage of the topic change, and asks, "About that... uh, remember how we were in the club, and you and Scott were tied up to electrified cables?" Lydia hilariously responds, "Vividly," so Kira nervously gets to her point--if Kira was forced to put her hand on the dial and turn it up to ten on Lydia, would Lydia be pissed about it? The answer is yes, Lydia would be pissed, but not at Kira, because she knows if Kira did it, it would be because she didn't have a choice. She also correctly guesses that this is about Scott, and assures her that Scott wouldn't blame her, either, for the same reason. "And, if you're worried about it," Lydia says kindly. "Just remember--you're a katana-wielding, badass kitsune! And [Scott] couldn't be more into you." These are exactly the right words that Kira needed to hear, and the kindness and sweetness of this conversation suddenly made me start shipping Kira/Lydia together. What is their ship name, anyway? Kydia? Lyra? I'm going with Lyra, because it's also my niece's name and it is super cute. Speaking of cute, Lydia looks GORGEOUS, by the way-- I have never been more attracted to Holland Roden than I have in this episode. Her hair is up in a high bun, with little wisps flying out, and her make-up makes her eyes look SO GREEN, especially with the color scheme of her very cute and floral, 90s-grunge-style dress. I am so badly coveting this outfit!
(via tylersposey)
ANYWAY, Lydia opens the door, and heads toward the gas station's shop to, I don't know, buy a drink or a snack or something, and instructs Kira to take one of many credit and debit cards that are quite unwisely kept in a weird billfold-thing that is attached to the driver's side visor to pay for gas. Why would you keep your huge collection of credit cards in your car like that? That's basically ASKING to get your car broken into, you know? Lydia the Genius is way smarter than that. Anyway, Kira reaches up to look for the Beacon Hills Credit Union card that Lydia specified, and absentmindedly asks, "Does this many cards mean you have good credit, or bad?" before noticing that Lydia's tank is completely full of gas. OH SHIT, BANSHEE FUGUE STATE ALERT. This should be fun for Kira, I'm not sure she's ever seen Lydia's banshee skills in action before.
She looks toward the station's store, which looks completely empty, and immediately gets nervous. Kira gets out of the car and walks around the building, eventually finding Lydia standing and staring at a wall, completely blank-faced. She quickly approaches Lydia, clearly concerned for her, and asks her if she's okay. Lydia quietly orders her not to look, but, of course, that's basically like telling someone TO look, so she does. It turns out, Lydia wasn't staring at the wall, she was staring into the station's restroom, whose door is wide open, revealing what looks like a disemboweled man lying face down in a pool of his own blood. To make matters worse, the walls and mirror and sink are ALL covered in spatters and smears of blood. JESUS H, THAT IS INTENSE. Poor girls! Poor Lydia, especially. Worst supernatural power EVER, am I right? You can tell that this is becoming business as usual for her, because she's just staring blankly, like, "AGAIN? REALLY?" She's not as much scared or stressed as she is sad that the person died and pissed that once again, she had to find it. Kira, on the other hand, is horrified, and is staring in horror with wide-open eyes as her mouth just gapes at the carnage. YIKES. Lydia didn't wail, though-- what does that mean?
Scott pulls up outside Derek's apartment building on his bike, only to find Malia standing outside waiting for him. He takes off his helmet and asks what she's doing here, so she awesomely replies, "I heard you were coming to talk to Peter, and since Lydia tells me he's basically Satan in a v-neck, I figured you shouldn't be alone!" That is seriously the best description of Peter I've ever seen, not to mention super sweet that Malia wants to help protect her friends and be useful. I know so many people are suspicious of her, but I don't really think we've been given much reason to be so far. She seems like she is just trying really hard to get used to being a human again, and is still working to become closer to everyone. The people she does know well now, like Stiles and Scott, are those to whom she seems super loyal and very protective. I know she's Peter's spawn, but she also appears to already be super integrated into the pack. Plus, she's officially in the main cast, now, and since female villains nearly always die on this show (Kate being the exception) I really don't see how she could be that bad AND stick around. If she was going to fuck everyone over, wouldn't she be a recurring character? /steps off soapbox. ANYWAY, Scott is clearly nervous about this, since he still hasn't told her about her connection to Peter, and doesn't seem to be keen on her finding out about it right this second, but she rebuffs his insistence that he can handle Peter on his own and follows him on up to the loft.
Across town, Stiles and Bb Derek have just arrived to the McCall house, where Stiles is quickly giving him a rundown about what they'll be doing until Scott returns-- basically, they're gonna sit quietly and wait for Scott to come back, and until that happens, Derek isn't going to talk to anyone about anything. Derek asks him if he can talk to Stiles, and when Stiles annoyedly tells him no, he's just, like, "Fine, I'm going to talk to this guy, then," as he points to Agent Douchenozzle, who is standing in the kitchen with a bag full of takeout. Stiles is so startled by his presence that he flails about and exclaims, "Ah! Are you getting TALLER?" to his best friend's father whom Stiles has a history of hating openly. ADN curiously asks them what they're doing there, so Derek politely replies that they're waiting for Scott. ADN proclaims this a coincidence, because he's doing the same, since Scott promised him early this morning that they were going to have dinner. You can see Stiles angrily cursing Scott's forgetfulness in his head, but ADN distracts him from it by holding up his bag of food and informing them that he bought extra, if they're interested in eating with him. That seems a little uncharacteristically kind of him, don't you think? Maybe he's just trying to actually learn something about his son's friends? He IS a federal agent, so he's probably just trying to take advantage of the opportunity to get some intel from Scott's friends.
Anyway, Derek is starving, of course, but Stiles cuts him off and insists that neither of them are hungry. ADN tries to make up for Stiles' obvious rudeness by pointing out that "his friend" can still eat with him, if he's hungry. He asks Derek what his name is, and Derek is just about to answer truthfully when once again, Stiles cuts him off. "Miguel!" Stiles shouts loudly, as a hilarious and awesome call-back to season 1. Derek just gapes at him in confusion as Stiles wraps an arm around his shoulder and adds, "He's my cousin, Miguel, from México," with full-Spanish pronunciation and everything. "Es usted natural de México, Miguel?" ["Are you native to Mexico, Miguel?"] Agent Douchenozzle asks, in a super bizarre speech organization that doesn't sound at all like anything a native Spanish speaker, or even someone who learned it as a second language. Thankfully for Stiles, Derek is a polyglot, although his reply is just as stilted and weird, tbh. "No soy nativo, sino que pasé un montón de tiempo allá." ["I'm not native, but I spent a lot of time there."] ADN is visibly impressed by his Spanish skills, and asks him if he wants an eggroll. "Hell yeah!" Bb Derek crows, as he walks toward the table, while Stiles, on the other hand, is clearly ready to just die right there from anxiety.
Back at the apartment building, Scott pulls the loft door open and ushers Malia inside. Malia can tell something is up, and asks Scott about it, citing his pounding heartbeat as proof that he's nervous. "He's just bad at introductions," Peter drawls from the couch, where he's reading one of Derek's ancient looking books. Scott jumps a little, having not noticed him when they walked in, and greets Peter before awkwardly introducing him to Malia. Peter, despite his earlier greeting, did not seem to realize that he would be meeting his daughter this evening, and immediately drops his book and stands to introduce himself properly, while Malia stares at him with confusion and a bit of judgment. He looks her up and down and immediately compliments her on her beautiful eyes, and asks her if she takes after her father as a way to suss out if she knows about his paternity or not. "Mother," Malia replies curtly, still giving him some confused side-eye. Peter declares this to be interesting, and I totally agree, because if it's NOT important, than why bother bringing it up? IS KATE MALIA'S MOTHER? God, I hope so! That would be ridiculously amazing.
(via braedensderek)
After a moment more of staring at her, Peter realizes just how creepy he's being, and decides to turn the topic of the conversation back to himself by assuming that Scott has told her all about him. "The homicidal killing spree came up!" Malia replies sweetly, in such a way that it reminds me of Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl, which makes me so happy that my heart grows at least one size. Peter retorts that they're all works in progress, which, LOLLLLLL, but Malia isn't really amused. "Well, when you progress to your next killing spree, why don't you try to make sure they ALL stay dead?" Now it's Peter who is confused, so Scott asks him what he knows about people being turned by a scratch, clearly a little nervous to actually say her actual name. Peter figures he means that SCOTT scratched someone, and replies, "Don't worry about it! Claws have to go pretty deep."
Scott takes that to mean that it's possible, like, for example, if you clawed someone's throat out, but while Peter does concede that it's POSSIBLE, he swears up and down that it's super rare. Then, he cuts himself off, having realized what must have happened after connecting Malia's earlier comment with what Scott has just said, and MAN, is he pissed! ALTHOUGH, Kate was hardly the ONLY person who had their throats ripped out by Peter, was she? I mean, Jennifer Blake was killed much the same way (and, if we're being honest, I would be thrilled to learn she was still alive, too)
Back at Casa McCall, ADN, Bb Derek, and Stiles are all sitting around the kitchen table, where ADN is still clearly poking around for more information about the kids. "Hey Miguel, what did you say your last name was?" he asks, even though Derek never actually said it in the first place, so Stiles interrupts and answers that his last name is Juárez Sinqua Diágo, which earns him a stink-eye from Derek. Honestly, I feel like Stiles constantly answering for him is way more suspicious than Derek actually answering himself, but what do I know? Agent Douchenozzle proclaims that to be a mouthful, and Stiles nods in agreement. God, these Teen Wolf mixed-family dinners just get more and more awkward as the seasons go on, don't they?
Bb Derek notices ADN's FBI badge and correctly guesses that he's a special agent, which ADN confirms, though Stiles insists that he's a "lower-level" agent, HAHAHAHA. Probably true, am I right? I mean, dude got stabbed by an oni's sword and was in the room when his son and his friends wolfed out and fought them, and yet he STILL has not put it together yet. (Or, if he has, he's REALLY good at playing dumb.) Derek asks him if he ever investigates murders, and ADN admits that he does on occasion, when it's a federal crime. So, Derek then asks him if he ever investigates fires, so Stiles immediately blurts out that Scott should have been home by then, around a mouthful of Chinese food, and loudly narrates as he pulls out his phone and tries to text him. ADN just ignores him, and asks Derek what kind of fires to which he's referring, so Derek brings up the Hale fire, which seems to ping ADN's radar a little bit. This scene was REALLY fishy to me, but I'll talk about that later.
"Can't SOMEONE in this town stay dead?" Peter screeches as he paces around Derek's loft. Malia speaks for all of us when she replies, "I think they were hoping YOU would." I LOVE MALIA TATE-HALE-WHATEVER, SHE IS THE BEST. Scott returns us to the major question, which is-- WHY would Kate turn Derek back into a teenager? Peter immediately asks them what color his eyes were, and when he's told they were blue, he reminds us that it was after Paige died, which could have been around the time Derek first met Kate. Scott apparently wasn't listening to Stiles when he was yelling at Derek about his penchant for psychotic girlfriends in "The Overlooked," because Scott is dumbfounded. "Derek and Kate knew each other?" he asks incredulously, to which Peter smirks and dramatically responds, "Biblically." Noticing Scott's shocked face, Peter adds that Scott wasn't the first (nor the last, probably) to climb into a hunter's bed. Scott sighs and rolls his eyes as he begins to process the implications.
Meanwhile, in Scott's bedroom, Bb Derek has grabbed Stiles by the back of the neck and shoved him into the door, just as Adult!Derek did to Stiles all the way back in season 1. Stiles is terrified of this Derek, probably moreso than his usual form, and confesses that yes, he definitely lied by omission, which was clearly a bad move. Derek is annoyed, and lets him go before insisting that he doesn't want to talk to Stiles. "I wanna talk to the alpha! I'll talk to Scott!" Derek argues. EVEN TEENAGE!DEREK IS PRESIDENT OF THE SCOTT MCCALL FAN CLUB, YOU GUYS. Stiles, relieved to have been released from his backwards choke-hold, quickly throws his hands up defensively and swears that he's going to go find Scott so he can talk to him, taking great care to make sure that Derek knows to STAY RIGHT THERE and not go anywhere, to which Stiles gets yet another side-eye.
Peter is still pacing around the loft while he, Scott, and Malia try to figure out what exactly Kate's motives are, at least where Derek is concerned. Since Bb Derek went to the old Hale house site, thinking it would still be there, which Scott points out means that he remembers nothing about the fire. Peter reminds him that if he doesn't remember that the fire happened, then he CERTAINLY doesn't know that it was Kate who set the fire in the first place. When Malia asks him what this means, Peter starts working through it aloud. "Kate didn't just take him back to being a teenager..." His face once again gets a dawning realization of her motives, a feeling that I'm pretty sure Peter gets off on, because he loves being a professional mastermind-schemer type. "She took him back to the age where he still knew her! When he still TRUSTED her." Scott's eyes widen in alarm at this revelation...
...and sure enough, Scott's bedroom door at the McCall House swings open to reveal Kate standing in the doorway. Derek, who was sitting alone on Scott's bed, instantly stands up at the sight of her, but he's still clearly confused about her presence, probably because she's like ten years older than how he remembers her. If you were wondering if she managed to give him a satisfactory explanation for this, the answer is no, because Teen Wolf. Bb Derek greets her by name as she seductively leans against the door frame. "Hey, handsome," Kate purrs. "It's been a long time." She chuckles as she struts toward him, all angles in her tight skinny jeans and shoulder-padded black leather jacket. "Longer than you think," she adds, as she stands face-to-face with her. NO NO NO NO NO RUN FOR YOUR LIFE DERDER. The worst part about this is that, after the confusing and kind of terrifying day he's had, surrounded by these strangers who he's never met but yet still know all about him and insist that they're friends he can trust, of COURSE he's going to be thrilled to see a familiar face, for once, especially since he doesn't remember why he hates her. Plus, he's a teenage boy and she's a pretty older lady who calls him handsome and makes him feel special, so why wouldn't he go with her instead of staying put? GAH.
When we return from the break, Stiles is on the phone with Scott, who must be updating him on what they figured out from talking to Peter. He promises that Derek is still in Scott's bedroom where he left him, and then jokes that Bb Derek is kind of making him miss the old Derek, probably just because that Derek was smart enough not to blab all kinds of information about himself to people like Agent Douchenozzle. Stiles is just in the middle of asking Scott if he's sure that Kate's gonna try to come after Derek when he walks in the door to find Kate slinking out the window. If her abilities are anything like those of a werewolf, I'm gonna guess she at least heard Stiles' half of the conversation, and when Stiles stops and gapes at her, she flips her hair with a turn of her head and smirks an evil smirk before hopping off the windowsill. Stiles, naturally, is both terrified and pissed and worried at this development, because he's smart enough to know that whatever Kate is up to is likely not good at all. So, he immediately fills Scott in on what just happened-- luckily for them, they caught on quickly, so she doesn't have much of a head start.
Malia and Peter are both sprinting to the loft door, ready to just jump head-first into the Kate scenario without even thinking about what could possibly be awaiting them, in a way that is SO characteristic of the Hales we know that it makes me laugh. We've been here many times before, including watching both Derek and Cora do the same thing-- shoot first, ask questions later. Scott, ever the voice of reason, calls after them to wait, much to Peter's annoyance. "For what? Kate's out there twisting her way into Derek's head yet again! We need to FIND her." Malia agrees with him, surprisingly, and points out that all they need is a scent. Still, Scott points out that it could take hours for them to find it, which reminds me of one of the many reasons why I really enjoy watching him grow up as a leader-- he's not impulsive unless it's necessary, otherwise he feels it's best to figure out a game plan before starting anything. Risk vs reward.
Which makes sense, when you think about it and remember all the times they thought they knew what they were doing and immediately jumped in, only to find out that it was a trap of some kind (ex: their rescue mission to save Boyd and Cora/Erica from the bank vault; Scott's attempt to diplomatically deal with the Alpha Pack that ended in everyone being super injured and one of them almost dying; their various different plans to deal with the nogitsune, just to name a few) "If we want to get ahead of her, we need to figure out where she's going!" Scott argues reasonably. Peter's response is pretty comical, although untrue, because none of them are unintelligent, and all of them have a lot of knowledge of their various talents. "Not to underestimate my own cognitive faculties, buuuuuut we're not exactly a brain-trust of geniuses here." Scott pulls his phone out of his pocket and retorts that maybe they should call one, then. YES YES YES.
Lydia and Kira are still at the gas station, where they're both taking little hops to make their way into the bloodied, guts-covered restroom to avoid stepping in blood pools and compromising the evidence. The body is even more gruesome up close, as you can imagine, and Lydia groans quite a bit in disgust while she and Kira try to squeeze into the small space on the floor that doesn't have tons of blood on it. Lydia is on the phone with Scott, whom she informs that she called Sheriff and are waiting for he and his deputies to show up. Scott asks her what the body looks like, and if she would mind sending pictures, so Lydia sighs and demonstrates how, with her silver Nokia Lumia or whichever super-new smart phone Teen Wolf is promoting this season, she can both talk on the phone AND do other stuff, like send photos and video.
"Uh, okay," Lydia says reluctantly, as she holds her phone up to start snapping. "But, to be honest, I have a 4.0 in AP Biology, and there are parts of the human anatomy that I have never seen before on these walls." She then tries to will herself to step over the body so she can get a good shot of its wounds, and squeaks in horror and disgust while she does it; Kira, being the good friend that she is, does the same to make her feel better.
Once she's taken the photo, she sends it to Scott and then presumably gets the hell out of Dodge; over at the loft, Scott gets the message and shows the photo to Peter and Malia, and they quickly get to brainstorming again as to why Kate did what she did, so they can figure out what she's doing next.
MALIA: "Why would she want to kill a gas station attendant?"
PETER: "I don't think she could help it. This was done in a frenzy-- it's not a murder, it's a symptom."
SCOTT: [confused] "Of what?"
PETER: "She can't control the shift!"
SCOTT: "Derek said he had the same issue on the full moon-- that he's still learning."
MALIA: [confused] "Kate's still learning?"
PETER: "Kate WANTS to learn."
MALIA: "So, she wants Derek to teach her?"
PETER: [figures it out & smiles] "No... she wants the triskelion."
OH SHIT, so that's what Derek had earlier in that flashback. INTERESTING. Also, I kind of love that Peter was like, "It's not a murder, it's a symptom!" Yeah, I have a feeling the guy she disemboweled in the gas station restroom would probably disagree with you, muchacho. Still, part of me was really surprised to learn that Kate didn't have control over her shifts yet, but at the same time, it does make a lot of sense-- Kate is reckless and impulsive and way too impatient to want to try to do it all on her own, at least not for very long. I could totally see her having an easy time bringing out her inner jaguar, but having a much harder time keeping it in check when she needs to be relying on her human side. I guess I was just so used to werewolves being bitten and then gaining control within two or three full moons, like Scott and Isaac, that it never really occurred to me that it could work differently for everyone.
Bb Derek and Kate are walking through that weird tunnel thing near the high school, where Derek seems to finally be processing the fact that things are totally weird right now, because Kate is saying things he doesn't remember telling her, and Scott and Stiles DID tell him earlier that he lost some memories, which is pretty alarming, and then there's the fact that Kate is way older than he remembers and never gets any explanation for it. So, he stops, and tells her he has a bad feeling about this, because he's not allowed to show "the vault" to anyone who isn't in the family. Kate reminds him that they already talked about this, but he's still stuck on the fact that he has no idea how she even knows it exists.
"Because you told me!" Kate insists in a super fake-nice voice. "Don't you remember?" Derek shakes his head, because, uh, NO, he doesn't. Then, the show grosses me out worse than it's ever grossed me out before, even more than the flies in "De-Void," even more than when Deucalion squashed Ennis' head like a melon. Kate looks at him in the eyes, and when she realizes that he's seriously cramping her plan, she gets even closer to him before she asks if he remembers THIS, before diving in and making out with him. I know that Ian Nelson is actually 19 years old and thus an actual adult, but he LOOKS like a 15 year old making out with someone who is at least twice his age, and it just squicks me out hardcore. So, yeah, that's all I'm gonna say about it. MOVING ON. Afterward, Kate whispers in his ear, "We get inside the vault, get the triskelion, and then everything goes back to normal." Of course, poor Bb Derek SERIOUSLY wants everything to get back to normal, because this day has just been horrifyingly bizarre for him, so when he confirms that this is all Kate wants, he reluctantly agrees and heads for the vault.
He leads her to the Beacon Hills High School sign, so Kate asks why the fuck their vault would be underneath the high school for the audience's benefit. Apparently, it's been there way longer than the high school has, which gives credence to the speculation that the Hale family goes back centuries, too, much like the Argents. He whips out his claws, which he inserts into what looks like a metal Celtic knot, allowing him to turn the knot like a dial. Kate's just watching him, like, "HOLY SHIT THIS IS WAY MORE NUTS THAN I WAS EXPECTING." Finally, once he's done turning the knot, it magically sucks itself into the stone, as the school sign pivots and reveals a set of stairs leading to underneath the school grounds.
This is seriously so ridiculous that it swings all the way around to being awesome again. Derek follows Kate down the stairs, into a seriously HUGE vault full of, like, safes and boxes full of heirlooms and what looks like files, maybe historical records or information on hunters or something. It's actually really impressive. In the middle of the room is a HUGE safe that has the same Celtic knot that was on the lock to the vault itself. Naturally, Kate heads right for it, while Derek started digging around the various boxes on the shelves lining the walls.
Peter, Scott, and Malia, meanwhile, are running up the steps of the school, when Malia immediately stops in her tracks. Scott turns around and asks her if she caught a scent, and she did, just not Derek's-- it's the scent of death that Malia caught in Mexico of the bone creatures that were chasing her around. Peter is like, "Uh, what now?" so Scott briefly explains the creatures who went after them when they broke down in Mexico/in the church ruins when they were looking for Derek. Malia doesn't understand how they could have followed them all the way back from Mexico, but Scott figures it's more likely that Kate brought them WITH her. Suddenly, they hear a loud growling/grunting noise behind them, which brings Malia to attention, and which causes Peter to immediately look like he's about to shit his pants in fear.
"Oh, I've heard that sound before," Peter mutters, before asking Malia if the creature looked like a human wearing an animal skull over their face. She concedes that it's definitely possible, and Scott asks him what they are. "Berserkers," Peter says in his dramatic, old-school-movie-villain voice, as he notices the big bony creature walking through the tunnel toward them. Upon closer look, it DOES look like a mostly-naked human man wearing tons of animal skins and bones-- you can even see their abs, in true Teen Wolf fashion. Back in "Echo House," Chris told Derek that he hunted a berserker once, and that it took all of their ammunition to kill it, so that definitely does NOT bode well for any of our heroes. Malia's animal-side kicks in and she gets ready to get into fight-mode, but in an uncharacteristically paternal gesture, he grabs her by the arm to hold her back.
"Are you CRAZY?" Peter asks, which, LOL, she's a Hale, so yeah, I'd say she inherited her cousins' impulsiveness. Malia is sure they can take them, because there's only one, but Peter points out that actually, the fact that there's only one means that if they run now, they MIGHT actually survive the evening. Then, in much more characteristic Peter-fashion, he immediately leaves both his bitten and biological progeny as he runs for his life away from the berserker. It's hilarious in a very depressing kind of way, y'know? Scott looks at Malia in alarm, and Malia abandons her intention to fight the berserker as the two run for it as well. The berserker continues to growl menacingly and stalk it's newest prey. Malia reminds me so much of Isaac in that "We can take them!"-way and it makes me smile (and also SUPER miss Isaac. GAH.)
Back in the vault, which is super leaky, thanks to the huge number of severe thunderstorms Beacon Hills seems to have been experiencing over the last handful of episodes or so, Derek is still searching through various boxes. He finally finds the box he's looking for and turns around to find Kate reaching toward the handle of the big safe, so he tells her to keep her paws off of it, because he found what she's looking for. He walks over to her and opens the wooden box to reveal the same large coin with the triskelion stamped into it from the earlier flashbacks.
Malia and Scott are still running the hell away from the berserker in slow motion, with Peter nowhere to be found. Suddenly, Malia's eyes grow wide as she throws her arms out to her sides and stops dead in her tracks, stopping Scott from passing her. As expected, the berserker is waiting for them, and its clawed, bone-covered hands twitch in anticipation for what is sure to be an intense ass-kicking. Scott grabs Malia's arm as they both turn and rush toward the side to avoid it, only to have the ANOTHER berserker sneak up on them and follow them up the stairs. "Scott!" Malia calls out frantically. "It's both of them, they're both here!" Scott quite understandably asks where the fuck Peter is, but Malia has no idea, she just knows he took off running for his life like a coward. They turn around to sprint up the rest of the stairs, only to find one of the berserkers jumping down in front of them, blocking their way. They desperately turn to look behind them, and are disappointed and terrified to see that the other berserker is behind them, trapping them. SHIT.
Kate grabs the triskelion out of the box, and asks Derek if he's sure this is it. "It doesn't look like much," she admits, as she turns the coin around in her hand. "That's 'cause it isn't," Peter pipes up from the doorway. Derek is clearly confused, because in his mind, Peter should have Michael Fjordbak's face, but Kate visibly tenses up when she spots the guy who totally killed her and turned her into a nagual. "It's quite the elaborate scheme you have here, Kate," Peter drawls. "Two countries, Aztec temples, Derek returned to a teenager... one that trusted you. One that loved you." Kate, for what it's worth, does look like she feels the slightest bit guilty, but for the most part she's just pissed. "All this complication, just to get into our vault," Peter continues, as he gestures around at the vault's contents. "Just to get to get your hands on that little piece of junk."
He's finally approached her, so he can see her clearly, and can't help but continue to rub it in. "Go ahead, turn it over! There's a scrape on the back where it used to say 'Made in China.'" Kate is sure that he's lying--or at least doesn't want to believe that he's right-- but Peter replies that while he is prone to lying on occasion when it suits him, in this case he just gets way more glee from telling her the truth. "Oh, I'm sorry, sweetheart," Peter coos, as Kate flips the coin over in her hand. "That little pendant is just a physical object to focus on. It's training wheels." Derek looks at Peter, like, "Uh, the fuck you say?" but Peter is on a roll, and you know how he loves his speeches. "Talia used it to teach Laura, and tried to use it to teach Derek." He's cut off by a roar that both Hales immediately recognize as Scott calling out for help from the rest of his pack, which, for all intents and purposes, includes Bb Derek, even if he doesn't 100% know it yet.
Scott has finally wolfed out, now that he's got no choice but to fight a little, and does some sweet parkour moves off of the railing to jump around the berserker, and when he lands on the ground next to Malia, his eyes are blazing red and his fangs are out and ready to go. Malia takes her cue from her new alpha and the two whip their claws out and go to town as they claw at the berserkers' chests. Unfortunately, now that we can see them better, since they're not moving around so fast that you can't see them, it's clear that the boniness is actually armor made of tons of animal bones that look like they're bound together by leather straps, some of which seem to be beaded. Their chest plates are made out of a huge bear sternum and ribcage, and, like Peter said, they seem to be wearing a bear skull over their faces. They're SCARY and huuuuuuuge, even without all the armor. So, naturally, Scott and Malia can barely even leave a scratch on them, and if they can, it doesn't seem to be slowing them down a bit. One of the berserkers growls before taking Scott's head in its clawed hands and slamming it multiple times into one of the columns. YEOWTCH. Malia was at least able to fight back at least, but ends up getting clawed really deep, just like the first time she saw them, right on her thigh. The berserker picks her up and throws her up against the wall, so between the impact and the huge gash in her leg, she's having quite a bit of trouble getting away.
Down in the vault, Kate grabs Derek roughly by the back of the head and pulls him close as she angrily demands to know if the triskelion is real. "Didn't you hear that?" Derek shouts in frustration. "That was Scott, I just heard Scott--" She interrupts him and screams, "TELL ME!!!" but that does nothing to endear herself to him. He quickly insists that he has no clue if what they just heard is true, and he doesn't care either way; he pulls out of her grip and rushes toward the door to go help Scott. YESSSSS! Peter is just staring at her, arms folded across his chest, clearly amused by Kate's desperation.
Stiles and Lydia have just now arrived to the school, the former with his trusty aluminum baseball bat in his hand, which makes Lydia roll her eyes. "You SERIOUSLY need to find something better than a baseball bat!" Lydia snits, and Stiles just kind of glances down at his favorite weapon, and seems to question his decision to bring it in the first place. Turn around and go home, humans! Unless Lydia can figure out how to use her banshee wail as a weapon against specific people without hurting anyone else within earshot, they're probably just going to get hurt by those damn berserkers!
Malia's still pretty badly wounded, and unable to pull herself to her feet, thanks to her injured leg, she determinedly crawls backwards, taking care to keep an eye on the berserker as he stalks toward her. The other berserker lets go of Scott and throws him to the floor beside his injured pack mate, and he's clearly not in much better shape than she is. They both trying to back away as quickly as their injured limbs can propel them, while the two berserkers rejoin each other in front of them, presumably ready to finish our heroes off. Then, out of nowhere, our kitsune queen Kira jumps down, her katana in hand, and goes to TOWN on those berserkers. It is seriously amazing, and even Malia, who I'm not sure has actually seen Kira's sword-fighting skills in actual combat yet, looks super impressed. Unfortunately, she takes one moment too long to smirk at Scott, and though he shouts out a warning, she ends up getting quickly disarmed and totally backhanded by one of the berserkers. Brutal! At least she can heal, too. She might not have all the strength of a werewolf/coyote, but she is not at all without her talents. I really want her to get better at using her foxfire as a weapon, too, although I would hate for the wolfies to be negatively affected by it.
Kira lands right next to Scott in the pile of McCall pack members that seems to be growing higher by the minute, and they're all three pretty visibly nervous about how this is going to ultimately turn out. The two berserkers start walking toward them again, and in the light, you can see that one of them has a very badly scarred abdomen. I'm not sure if that's important or not (I'll get into that more later) but it seems worth noting just in case! Anyway, luckily for them, they have a secret weapon that they didn't even know they had--namely, a Derek Hale who can actually fight! WHAT?! I know! I was shocked too, actually. I think back when he was a teenager, before the fire and being manipulated by Kate to the point where his family was killed in the process, he had a lot more swagger and confidence, which is why he's fighting the berserkers in a way we've never seen him fight before. It's AWESOME. He comes up out of nowhere, running down the hall, and starts flipping and kicking and punching the berserkers, while the rest of the pack just stares at him in shock.
Meanwhile, in the vault, Peter and Kate are circling around each other like their respective animals, while Peter is continuing his monologye, which is actually pretty interesting and enlightening. "Derek gave up on [the triskelion] back when he learned another way to control the shift," Peter explains, as we turn to brief cuts of flashbacks-- Bb Derek being lectured by Bb Peter on how to control the shift in the locker room, and every other time Derek pulled out his wolf (or, conversely, kept it locked inside during a full moon) to fight. "When I taught him. Taught him to use emotion. To use anger, and to focus on it. To feel every ounce of rage and hatred that he could summon-- and it was the anger that taught him control." Yeah, and how healthy is THAT, Peter? Lord knows how Peter might have used this to his advantage as well.
Kate continues to glare at Peter, who surprisingly, comes up with a pretty good idea, one that would be a decent outlet for both of them, if they had actually been able to execute it. "So, you wanna learn control. You wanna get angry, Kate? LET'S GET ANGRY!" His eyes glow blue as he whips out his claws and fangs, and he roars right in her face; in response, Kate flashes her own green eyes and fangs as she braces to lunge for him. Unfortunately, their thunderdome-death-match in the Hale vault is interrupted when several smoke bombs tumble down the steps, which Kate immediately recognizes because they're awfully similar to those her own family uses in the hunter trade (a similarity that I'm hoping is merely a coincidence :/) The smoke might even be wolfsbane, judging by how disoriented Peter and Kate seemed to be upon inhaling it, and there seems to be electricity or fire involved as well, you can see the sparks in the fog. Maybe flash-bang grenades?
Scott, Malia, and Kira are still trying to pick themselves off of the floor as they watch Bb Derek skillfully fight against the two berserkers. He gets smacked into a row of lockers, and the impact seems to shake something within him, because his face morphs quickly into Adult!Derek's face from the eyes-down, before quickly morphing back into Bb Derek's face. He narrowly dodges a hit to the face, only to be pushed to his knees when the other berserker elbows him in the back, which once again seems to knock Adult!Derek's body out from inside him for a moment before returning to normal and morphing back once more. Derek then flip-kicks the nearest monster while Scott and the girls watch in awe, unsure of what exactly they're witnessing, and so confused that they've completely forgotten about the fact that they could be helping him.
Down in the vault, the smoke has knocked Peter down to the floor, and though he scrambles to get to his feet, he's too weak and disoriented to manage it. Kate seems only slightly less affected by it, and is able to pull herself up off the floor, doubling over in a coughing fit from the smoke. She takes one last look behind her and slips out the door; whether she just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or whether she was involved in what happens next, I'm not sure, but I'll get more into that in a bit.
Derek is still fighting the berserkers, who seem to both be losing steam. Just as Derek was able to flip around one of them, a loud roar (presumably Kate) is heard from nearby, and the two berserker lackeys immediately run away from their fight and rush to join their leader. Derek is still crouched in a three-point stance, facing in the opposite direction of Scott, Malia, and Kira, but it's clear from the thicker physique that Adult!Derek seems to have pushed himself free at last. (Or maybe Kate lost control over the spell in the chaos, or perhaps it was only allotted for a certain amount of time. Who knows? I hope we'll learn eventually, though I'm doubtful.) Scott obviously knows something is up, because his mouth gapes when he catches sight of Derek watching the berserkers run away.
Peter is still stumbling around in the smoke-filled vault, his vision blurring as he looks around in hopes of finding the source of the racket. Just as he's noticing that his crisp-white v-neck is covered in mud, he sees a set of men's feet walking past him, wearing what looks to be a super-shiny pair of men's dress shoes suit pants with a black leather jacket and matching gloves. Despite Peter's protests, the man (or who I'm assuming is a man) walks toward the big safe in the middle of the vault, somehow breaks open the locked door, and grabs a huuuuuge briefcase out from inside it. Peter clumsily reaches out for the man's legs, trying to stop him, but it does nothing to stop him from walking out of the vault with whatever he came for. YIKES! I have so many questions already, jfc. Peter manages to crawl over to the safe, and looks devastated when he sees that it's empty.
Back outside, Derek has finally stood up, and it's obvious now that he's back to his Tyler Hoechlin-shaped form, which is both relieving and sad. I like Ian Nelson, he's a cutie and watching him play Bb Derek is a delight because he is SUCH a mini-Hoechlin, but he is not the Derek we signed up for, you know? I'm happy to see good old Heckles is back, although I'm also super nervous, given the rumors I've heard of what is to come for his character. ANYWAY, Scott and the girls manage to finally get to their feet, and Scott squints as he tries to determine who exactly is standing in front of him. "Derek?" he calls out, blood still trickling from his nose and mouth from his beating from earlier. Derek is panting, clearly a little winded from giving everything in that fight, and when he turns around to face his friends, it's clear that something is up with him. Scott's face when he finally sees Derek's grown up self is so precious, you can tell he's THRILLED to have his amigo back, you know? What is different about Derek becomes obvious when he looks up at Scott, and his werewolf eyes pop out again. However, they're not the ones we're used to-- instead of his usual blue beta eyes, his eyes are GOLD, a color we haven't seen since the flashbacks from "Visionary." HOLY. SHIT. WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?
(via teenwolf)
Somehow, Stiles and Lydia have missed the berserker fight entirely, and rush down the steps to the vault, where they find Peter hysterically babbling to himself as he kneels before the recently-burgled safe. "It was--it was NEVER about the triskelion," Peter mumbles, practically laughing from despair, just as our favorite detective twosome approaches him. "They took it! They took it while I was blind." Lydia asks him what who took, which causes Peter to clench his teeth and rise to his feet to talk to his nephew's little friends. "Bonds," Peter replies reluctantly. "Bearer bonds, and they took them all." Stiles' face has pure glee for the first time in a LONG time when he laughs and asks if he seriously just got robbed, but Peter corrects him-- it was a HEIST. "Somebody PLANNED this," Peter exclaims, getting even more hysterical the longer he thinks about it. Lydia is seriously unnerved by just how upset Peter is, and asks him just how much they took from him. "117," Peter replies, which Stiles assumes to mean $117,000, as in thousands, but nope. Not even close. "[117] million," Peter replies mournfully, as the entire Teen Wolf fandom yells, "WHAT? Then why the fuck was Derek living in a burnt-out house/abandoned subway station/a bare-bones loft?" THE HALES ARE RIDICULOUSLY WEALTHY. Or, at least, they were.
Next week, according to the promo: Honestly, the promo went so fast that I have no idea what exactly to expect for next week, aside for the introduction of new lacrosse player and freshman Liam, and a mouthless man (supposedly known as the Mute) who will be threatening and/or killing some guy named Sean and his family. Eep!
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[screencaps via Screencapped]
NOTES/SPECULATION/QUESTIONS/MISC. (SPOILERS BELOW, INCLUDING STUFF JEFF DAVIS TALKED ABOUT IN INTERVIEW. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK)
-Wardrobe repeats: Lydia is still wearing the same fab high-heeled boots that she wore in "Echo House" and "The Dark Moon." She also later wears the same brown leather jacket she has worn in Season 2's "Shape-Shifted," and 3A's "Insatiable." I'm also fairly certain that Scott is wearing the same dark teal hoodie he wore in "Echo House." Also, Stiles is rewearing that damn white shirt with the navy blue trim around the collar and sleeves that he wore countless times last season, which I have to guess is because he bought like twenty of those Hanes 5-packs at Target or something. Derek, in both his adult and baby-faced forms, was wearing the same short-sleeved, gray-green henley that Derek wore in "Master Plan."
-What's Peter's angle? He seemed intent on finding and saving Derek from Kate, but is it genuine? I think Peter would always choose power over everything, including his family, but we've also seen many instances where he's seemed very concerned about his only living family's well-being, like insisting that Cora and Derek run away so as to not be killed by the Alpha Pack, and standing vigil at Cora's bedside when she was at the hospital. So, I think in the end, he's happy that Derek is no longer an alpha because that means that he no longer has to consider the possibility of killing him to get his power. So, what's his endgame? Will he ever go after Scott to take his true alpha powers? I highly doubt killing a true alpha would give a werewolf the same abilities that the true alpha had, if said extra abilities exist (and I think that that they do, because we've seen Scott do a lot of things that we've never seen regular alphas do, but that's another topic for another time.) Still, I think just being an alpha would be enough for him, at least to start off.
-Just how involved do you think Kate was in the heist? Like, upon first glance I feel like we're supposed to believe that Kate helped out, if not organized the whole thing, since it was her idea to go into the vault in the first place, but I'm not so sure. We DID see her struggle with control over her inner jaguar, so much so that she savagely tore apart an innocent gas station attendant, an act that would have gotten her killed by her former Hunter Code (not that she ever really followed it in the first place, though), so I doubt that was made up just so she would have an excuse to go into the vault by needing the triskelion. Plus, when Peter informed her that the triskelion really was just a worthless trinket that Talia used to help Laura/Derek gain control, rather than a magical artifact that could give her control with no effort on her part, she seemed legitimately shocked and angry. So, not only does that make me think that Kate legitimately wanted the triskelion, but that she also legitimately believed that it would actually be able to help her. SO, unless she's a really, REALLY good actress, I have a hard time buying that she was only trying to get into the vault to help rob them. However, if that's true, then was it just a coincidence that she was there at all? Or was she LED to believe that it would help her by somebody else who wanted to use her as a way to get in? I can definitely see that going either way-- she seems to be not dealing well with her random jaguar-outbursts, but I could also see whoever it is who robbed the Hale vault having set up surveillance somehow nearby, and just waited until someone opened it so they could do what they needed to do.
Also, how did they even get INTO that safe? Derek never opened it, and he stopped Kate before she could even touch it. Did the thief know the combination, and just needed help getting into the vault itself? Or did they use some kind of technology or tool to break it open? Because if it's the former, that would suggest that the thief (or person orchestrating the robbery) knew the Hales well enough to be privvy to something like that.
-Which leads me to my next point: who stole the bonds? I'm assuming it's either this mysterious person called the Benefactor who Jeff has discussed in interviews, or someone who is working for them. Judging by the trailers for this season, there's a "deadpool" of supernatural creatures, basically a hit list, and it's been speculated that not only are all of our heroes and villians seemingly on it, but the Benefactor appears to be paying a bounty to whomever can kill them. Such a plan requires money to pay these freelance assassins off, right? So why not steal $117 million USD to fund your supernatural genocide? As much as one would assume this "Benefactor" would be unwilling to do his own dirty work at all times, when it comes to THAT much money, wouldn't you want to do it in person to make sure that it went how it was supposed to? It's that whole "The only way to get something done right is to do it yourself"-type thing.
While on the topic of the Benefactor, we also got a couple glimpses of the financial statuses of some of our favorites, and it's not looking good-- Stiles seems to have quite a few medical bills from his time in the hospital/Eichen House last season, and Scott's house is still a mess from the oni fight and needs a bunch of repairs, so as much as I hate to even consider the thought, what if they end up being tempted into taking someone out who is on the hit list? Not to mention Derek and Peter, who have just lost an enormous amount of money-- they could definitely be motivated to earn some of it back by killing someone (or several someones) on the list. At least Lydia seems to be well-off enough to not have to worry about that sort of thing.
-So, what's up with that Hale money, anyway? Are we supposed to assume that it's inheritance? I can see now why Derek and Peter don't seem to need jobs, but I still don't exactly understand why Derek has seemed to be living like a squatter when he has had more than enough money to live comfortably. The huge fortune also seems to suggest, again, that the Hale family goes back centuries, and they've probably just been living on it forever, which makes it even more painful that they lost it, although a vault underneath where they eventually built a school seems like a weird place to keep your money. I guess Beacon Hills' major bank has been closed forever, maybe that's why. The economy seems pretty rough in their hometown, to be honest.
-What is Agent McCall's deal? He's been around since the end of season 3A, and yet he's served no real purpose since he's arrived, other than to stress Sheriff Stilinski out way more than he already was in the first place, to annoy Scott, and to generally just be useless because he) has no idea what is actually going on in this town, or his son's role in it (OR he's at least very, very good at pretending that he's clueless) It's making me super paranoid that he's involved in something sinister and shady. Time will tell, I imagine. We both have a theory that he could be the Benefactor, or maybe working for him. Think about it-- that dinner with Stiles and Derek was awkward, sure, but what was the point of Derek bringing up the fire to him? ADN seemed pretty interested when Derek mentioned it, but the scene cut before they could talk about it, and when we returned, Stiles and Derek had run upstairs and ADN was nowhere to be seen. Where did he go/what was he doing? Plus, he was dressed in a suit for work, wasn't he? It wasn't very long between when dinner ended and when Kate came to take Derek to the school, so could he have followed them? Something to think about, I guess.
-WHAT DO DEREK'S NEWLY-GOLDEN EYES MEAN? I'm hoping it's just an indication that he's been alleviated from a lot of his guilt w/r/t Paige and Kate and what Kate ultimately did to his family and has officially bound himself to Scott's pack somehow, but idk.
A lot of people have been suggesting that perhaps Derek is heading towards becoming a true alpha too, but I'm sorry, that seems like such a dumb idea to me for so many reasons. 1) True alphas are supposed to be a rare thing, like once-every-century-MAYBE rare, so to have Scott earn that power and responsibility, only to have someone else get it, too (regardless of how deserving you find Scott or Derek of being a true alpha) would just cheapen the honor for both of them. 2) It would ruin all of the amazing character development that both Scott and Derek have made over the last couple seasons as they've finally found themselves and figured out their roles in this world, and 3) DEREK SO CLEARLY HATES BEING AN ALPHA. That was basically Derek's thesis statement for the entirety of 3B-- he was more content and happy than we've ever seen him, and that was because he no longer had the responsibility of making sure that everyone stayed safe and alive; he could just help with rescues, give whatever information he knew that could help, which I think helped give him a lot of his confidence back. I also think that the fact that he talked to his mother helped him accept his new role, too.
Derek is a great werewolf, but he's not a great leader, and I think he would be the first to admit it; he's much more suited to be a mentor than he is an alpha, because while his knowledge of mythology and werewolf culture is unparalleled, aside for maybe Peter and Deaton, he doesn't have the power to bring people together like Scott does, nor did he naturally have the inclination to keep fighting until miracles happen, at least not until he learned it from him. I love Derek dearly, and I understand to an extent why people want him to be an alpha again so badly, but I feel like the pack is FINALLY starting to feel like a real, cohesive unit full of people who care for each other and who want to protect their loved ones from the danger that Beacon Hills constantly attracts. I don't think making Derek a true alpha adds anything good to the story; in fact, in my opinion, it would hinder it.
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