Teen Wolf Season 5, Episode 6: "Required Reading" Recap/Review
Well, in a sensation that is becoming quite familiar to me this season, I seriously do not understand most of what is happening in Teen Wolf right now, but nonetheless, this episode was a thrilling, visually stunning, and even sort of informative, continuing in a string of amazing episodes in Season 5. Can you guys believe we only have four more episodes until 5A is over? And, as we know, the last four episodes of a season/half-season are always when shit really starts to go down, which means all of the shocks we got this week are going to feel like pleasant dreams compared to what's coming to us. I am both super excited and ridiculously under-prepared.
Anyway, there is a lot to unpack in this recap, so I'm just going to cut to the chase and jump in so we can start discussing everything we learned. Let's talk about "Required Reading!"
Previously, on Teen Wolf: Scott, Kira, Lydia, and Stiles went to Eichen House to talk to Dr. Gabriel Valack, who wrote the Dread Doctors book that Malia found in Tracy's bedroom (which, as it turns out, was probably planted by Theo?) Scott and Kira couldn't actually go into his cell due to all the mountain ash in the building, but Lydia and Stiles managed to talk to Valack, who explained many things about the Dread Doctors-- namely, that the Doctors' own powers are based in electromagnetic fields, which gives them the power to mess with technology and electronics, extend their own lifespans, and erase the memories their test subjects have of being around them He also informed them that the book he wrote was designed to trigger the memory centers of the brain to help the Dread Doctors' victims remember what the Doctors made them forget, and insisted that anyone who could have come in contact with them read the book to regain their memories. Then, of course, the Doctors came and sucked out Valack's third eye for reasons that are still unclear at the moment. While Scott and Kira were waiting for Stiles and Lydia, Kira's foxfire started getting out of control, and her powers accidentally exploded a bunch of lights in the building because her very presence interfered with the convergence of telluric currents in Eichen House's foundation that would otherwise prevent the Doctors from entering it.
Speaking of Kira, Scott is very, very worried about her, because she nearly killed the already-neutralized Lucas with her katana after yelling "WATASHI WA SHI NO SHISHA DA!" at the top of her lungs, and probably would have, had Scott not been there to stop her. Theo was giving Malia a driving lesson that night while everyone was at Eichen House, which triggered yet another PTSD-style flashback for her, causing her to stop the car in the middle of the road and fling herself onto the ground while she experienced the rest of her resurfacing memories-- as it turns out, it wasn't Malia who killed her mom and sister (or, at the very least, it wasn't her transforming during the full moon that was the catalyst for the accident), because the Desert Wolf showed up in the middle of the road while they were driving and shot the car up with a bunch of bullets, causing Malia's adoptive mother to drive off the road and into the woods. Oh, and Theo sent the newly-chimera'd Donovan (part-wendigo, part-lamprey) after Stiles by convincing him it was the best way to get revenge against Sheriff Stilinski, so he confronted Stiles at the high school and started chomping on his shoulder and neck with his fangy-mouths on his hands. He then chased Stiles into the library, where Stiles desperately tried to climb a construction scaffolding to save himself while Donovan tried to eat his legs. Finally, he dropped a shitload of construction materials onto Donovan with the intention of incapacitating him long enough to get away, but ended up inadvertently killing him when a piece of metal ended up impaling Donovan through the chest and killing him. Whoops!
Since this season is taking the wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey, non-linear timeline first seen in Season 3A's "Frayed" and kicking it up to a million, our opening scene is a little confusing. After watching the premiere, "Creatures of the Night," we know (or are at least pretty sure) that the first and last scenes we saw with Lydia in Eichen House are most likely from the present, and everything else we've seen thus far are flashbacks to before she ended up there. Now, in this episode, we've got flashbacks within flashbacks, because the cold open is in the present-day part of the flashbacks, if that makes sense? And everything else is flashbacks to before this present-flashback. Do you guys understand? No? Me either.
Okay, so anyway, Scott is at Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital, where he's laying face-down on the floor in the hallway, in the middle of what appears to be an asthma attack. He's desperately gasping for breath as he reaches for his inhaler, which he apparently dropped onto the floor next to him, but before he can reach it, a Dread Doctor stomps on it with his boot and smashes it into pieces. (I think it's the Pathologist, anyway. If I'm remembering their characteristics correctly, the Pathologist has the solid-green mask with just two regular eye-holes, the Surgeon is the one with the red goggles and yellow monocle that flips up and down who seems to be the leader, and the Geneticist, who is played by a woman who isn't as tall as the other Doctors, has that weird flippy-flap thing on the side of her head, and her mask is like more of a bronzey-brown color than green. The more you know!) The Pathologist then makes his clanky-clockwork noises as he bends over, picks Scott up by the shirt, and pins him to the wall in a choke-hold, which does absolutely nothing to help his asthma attack whatsoever.
The Pathologist grips at Scott's neck even tighter, but before he can hurt Scott further, the elevator at the end of the hall opens to reveal our favorite Angel of the Lord Melissa and Malia, who is partially coyote-d out and is ready for a smackdown. The Pathologist turns to see them and immediately throws Scott down the hall in favor of going after Malia, probably because her fangs are out and she is growling at him menacingly. She then roars at him again and sprints down the hall and jumps to do this amazing two-legged kick to the Pathologist's chest, but as we already learned from Malia's first encounter with the Doctors in "Dreamcatchers," they are very strong, and the guy is barely even fazed by the kick whatsoever. Meanwhile, Melissa has just rushed over to Scott, who is laying flat on his back on the floor and wheezing painfully, and pulls him back into the elevator, though she doesn't close the doors yet. Malia is still fighting the Pathologist, but no matter how hard she punches, kicks, and slashes with her claws, it barely has any affect on him. I feel compelled to point out that Malia's eyes aren't glowing blue like they usually do when she has her fangs and claws out, but I'm thinking it's probably just been left out so they could save the special effects time and budget for the flashbacks later, rather than it being a hint that something is going on with her.
Back in the elevator, Melissa has a large pre-loaded syringe in her hand, which she holds up in preparation to stab it into Scott's vastus lateralis muscle, but Scott stops her for a moment to ask her what the hell she's doing. "It's a bronchodilator," Melissa explains quickly. "It'll work." She then slams the needle into his thigh and quickly injects the medication, which starts working almost immediately, much to Scott's relief. Feeling slightly contented by the fact that Scott's okay for the time being, Melissa screams for Malia to run and get into the elevator so they can get the hell out of there, but when Malia slashes at the Doctor, he grabs her by the wrist with one hand before punching her hard in the head with the other. You can tell that Malia's got little birdies floating around her head from the head injury already, and is so bleary-eyed and dazed by it that she unwittingly allows the Pathologist to easily grab her in a choke-hold as well, his hand gripping her throat so tightly that Malia literally gags from the pressure.
The Pathologist is just about to knock her out with another blow when Malia's survivor instincts kick in, and she manages to wrench herself out of his grip before he can make contact. She then realizes that, like with the berserkers last season, this is definitely more of a "flee" than "fight" situation and starts rushing toward the elevator as Melissa continues to yell at her to hurry up. Aw, Melissa! Your love for the pack kids will never cease to warm up my shriveled little heart. The Pathologist is hot on her heels, but fortunately, Melissa has been standing at the ready, and as soon as Malia is within jumping distance of the elevator, she hits the button, and with a little extra elbow grease from Melissa, they manage to close the doors before the Doctor can get in with them. Whew! That was quite a rush, and we're not even three minutes in yet. They all breathe a sigh of relief, at least until the electricity flickers, causing the elevator itself to rattle, probably due to the Pathologist's anger kicking off his EMF powers, but regardless, they all seem to be okay. As they all catch their breath, Scott looks up at Malia with panic in his eyes and exclaims, "We never should have read that book!" Imagine that! Valack gave them kind of bad advice. What a shocker! Sigh. TITLE CARD!
When we return, we catch up with Sheriff Stilinski and several other deputies, including Clarke Romero, all of whom step out of their shiny Toyota product-placement cruisers and walk toward the high school's lacrosse field, where they find an extremely alarming sight-- there are a total of eight holes in the field, all of which look like the ones Liam found in the woods, where the edges are surrounded with loose dirt where whichever chimeras were buried ended up digging themselves out. First of all, that is terrifying, because that means there are eight new chimeras out there, and though we did learn about two of them in this episode, that leaves six more that are unaccounted, plus there could be even more holes in the woods that they don't know about, not to mention the fact that the Doctors will probably be making even more while the kids are trying to figure out how to deal with the ones that already exist. Secondly, why would the Doctors bury them in the lacrosse field, where they know that it'll be found way more easily, than, say, if they did it in the middle of the ginormous nature preserve where hundreds of Beacon Hills citizens have already died without much fanfare? Are they running out of places to bury these chimeras? Do they not care if they attract attention to themselves? Also, why isn't Parrish out there? Is he still on desk duty? And how is Sheriff explaining all of this shit? Inquiring minds want to know!
It seems to be morning now, and Sheriff is in his office at the station with Stiles and Malia while he starts setting up his own crime board to keep track of everything that is happening at the moment. Aside from a few police report files, one of which seems to have fingerprints of some kind on it, the only other things of note are the photos of Tracy and Lucas side-by-side in the middle, and Sheriff uses a red Sharpie to write a large X over each of their faces to indicate that they're dead. "Chimeras," Sheriff mutters exasperatedly as he stares at the board and tries to process this new information. Stiles and Malia explain that since there are two dead chimeras, and they found eight new holes in the lacrosse field, that means that there have been ten chimeras total of which they're aware. However, Sheriff cuts in and says that he actually thinks that there are eleven before he takes out a copy of Donovan's mugshot and hangs it up on the board next to Tracy's photo. Of course, the sight of the photo immediately horrifies Stiles, because he knows so much more than he's telling anyone, and he's terrified that any speculation about Donovan is going to lead to revelations of things he doesn't want anyone to know.
"Our station tech guys confirmed something for me," Sheriff begins. "They said both the holding cell lock and cameras could have malfunctioned because of something electromagnetic." When he sees the knowing look on his children's faces at this statement, since Valack said that the Doctors' powers were electromagnetic in nature, he picks up the book Valack wrote and holds it up as he continues, "You said that, uh, these guys..." Malia interrupts him and calls them the Dread Doctors, to which Sheriff makes that hilariously exasperated face of his and replies, "Are we really calling them that?" which is so funny to me. I love that the writers keep making fun of the fact that they have the most ridiculously unimaginative names for their bad guys-- the Alpha Pack, the Orphans, the Mute, the Chemist, the Desert Wolf, and now the Dread Doctors. Anyway, back to the task at hand-- Malia asks Sheriff if he's suggesting that the Doctors broke Donovan out, which is exactly what he's thinking, considering that's also how they got into Eichen House.
Malia stares at the photo of Donovan and processes this for a moment before determining that Donovan must have been a chimera and walking toward the board so she can join Sheriff in examining it. By the way, I noticed two notable things on the crime board: the first was a police report detailing finding a body of a John Doe, who they described as "homeless" on the address section. I wasn't sure if the John Doe was a body of a chimera or one of their victims, but from what I could make out of the description of the body, it said "multiple fractures," so I'm wondering if it wasn't Belasko, since Scott snapped his arm into a bunch of little pieces? But, if that's the case, how did Scott figure out his name was Belasko (since he wrote it in his chimera notes in AP Bio in "Condition Terminal") in the first place if he was marked as a John Doe? Maybe Sheriff just wrote him off as a John Doe so no one would look into it too closely?
Secondly, Donovan's full name-- Donovan Donati-- is actually visible on the mugshot, along with his booking number, #008372782. Probably not important, but I like to be thorough. ANYWAY-- "But, is he a failure like Lucas and Tracy?" Sheriff asks worriedly, and Stiles becomes so overwhelmed with anxiety and fear that he turns away from them and walks to the other side of the room as he screams internally and tries to stop himself from having a panic attack in front of everyone. Fortunately for him, Sheriff and Malia are too wrapped up in brainstorming to notice right away. Malia figures that if Donovan is a failure like the others, he's probably dead now, but when she reaches out to put an X over Donovan's photo, Sheriff reaches out and grabs her hand to stop her and insists that they're not going to declare him dead until they find his body.
That's when they both realize that they haven't heard a peep from Stiles in quite a while, and they turn around to find him standing with his back to them, nervously wringing his hands and gnawing on his lips and doing all of his other little nervous quirks while he thinks about just how fucked he totally is. Sheriff points out that he's being uncharacteristically quiet, so Stiles sighs for a long moment before he finally turns around, clearly still anxious as hell, and tries to deflect the topic to something much safer. "Yeah..." Stiles begins in a shaky voice, as he tries to muster up some fake okay-ness to reassure them. "Sorry, I'm, uh... I'm just trying to think about it."
At first, Wendy and I thought that everyone was acting so "off" because the Dread Doctors' presence was maybe unconsciously amping everyone up? Increasing the intensity of Tracy's night terrors, making Stiles' anxiety, paranoia, and general irritability even worse, increasing Scott's self-doubt, making Kira's powers out of control, causing Malia to experience way more flashbacks, etc, and I do think this still might be the case, but now I'm also wondering if maybe the Doctors aren't purposely seeking out people with certain medical or psychological conditions or illnesses that could be "fixed" by the supernatural. I can pretty much make a case for 90% of the known chimeras and the pack members (With the exception of Belasko, Lucas, and the club kid test subject we meet later--who we know little to nothing about and don't have much basis for speculation-- and Kira, who doesn't fit the profile because her kitsune powers have made it so she has never been sick a day in her life except that one time she was exposed to canine distemper and is generally psychologically healthy as well) being targets of the Doctors due to something in their family or personal medical histories that might makes them want to try science-y supernatural treatments.
It's also possible that they're just seeking out supernaturals, or people with dormant supernatural genes, possibly like Hayden or Belasko, the latter of whom I assumed was already a werewolf before he got modified, since he was dialed into the supernatural gossip scene to know about Scott/the pack's battles against the Alpha Pack and the fall of the Argent hunter family-- someone who only recently became supernatural wouldn't likely give a shit about anything like that. Plus, the fandom has long debated in meta and even fan fiction about whether or not there's something special in someone's genes that determines whether or not the bite of an Alpha turns them or kills them. So, if there's maybe something like that going on, they could be seeking out those who have this special gene or whatever, since they would be more likely to survive their experiments and become a "successful" chimera, although we still have no idea what exactly makes a chimera a success or a failure yet, but I'll be getting into that in a little while. For now, I just have a couple theory fragments, as usual! Feel free to tell me what you're thinking about this, because my mind is churning with possibilities and I'm really interested to hear other theories!
Meanwhile, over at Parrish's apartment, he and Lydia are decked out in workout clothes while they do a little close-quarters combat training. Jordan is obviously going easy on her, since she's still a novice, but she does a great job blocking his kicks and punches. His main instruction is a reminder to keep her hands up in front of her face, which not only protects her head from attacks, but also ensures that she's always got her eyes on the enemy. When they start again, Lydia proficiently blocks his shots for a bit, but Jordan manages to gently knee her in the leg before getting in a shot just centimeters from her face, which makes her groan in frustration. He assures her that it's okay, and obviously she's not going to be perfect after like two lessons, but you know how much of a perfectionist Lydia can be, so she just shrugs it off and insists that she's fine before instructing him to start again. Jordan looks at her a little warily and points out that maybe they should take a break, since he doesn't want her stitches to pop, so she rolls her eyes in exasperation before unzipping her jacket and showing him the bandage that covers the skin between the band of her sports bra and the high waistband of her running shorts.
Our favorite deputy gets a little too dazed at the sight of so much of her bare skin, which both amuses and frustrates Lydia enough to just strip the jacket off entirely to get back into practice. Jordan follows her lead, taking off his own hoodie to reveal the sleeveless jersey he's wearing underneath before the two start to spar again. Like the first couple rounds, Lydia does well in blocking the shots, but she gets a little overzealous in trying to grab Jordan's arm and twist in behind his back with one hand while using the other to swing a punch at his head, but he easily ducks to miss it and takes advantage of Lydia leaving her front vulnerable, allowing him to grab her arm and use it to pin her against his front. Lydia is embarrassed to have been beaten again and she winces in pain when she stretches her injured side a liiiiittle too far. While we're on the topic of "Frayed," this scene is giving me major flashbacks to when Allison acted much the same way after sparring with Scott in her room after he let her know what was going on with the Alpha Pack. So many parallels! Somebody make a gifset of it, please and thank you.
Anyway, when Jordan asks her what she did wrong, Lydia admits that she once again forgot to keep her hands up, which Jordan confirms. "But don't worry," he adds. "Your muscles have memory. With enough practice, they'll remember for you." Lydia sighs and leans her head back against his chest, and it takes a moment for them both to realize how close they're standing to each other, and how several minutes have passed with Jordan still holding onto her tightly. Breathing heavily, Lydia looks forward, where her bag-- which has a xerox'd copy of the Dread Doctors book shoved into it-- catches her eye and triggers a hallucination that involves one of the Doctors' clockwork-y hands clenching around Lydia's elbow. Just then, she's briefly transported back to her surgery, when the Doctors all surrounded her and did Gods know what to her. She whimpers in pain and jerks away from his touch for a moment before realizing that it wasn't real and getting embarrassed. Jordan, now worried he did something to offend her, asks her what's wrong, but all Lydia will say is, "Muscle memory." This totally bodes well for the rest of the episode, right? Also, what the fuck has Jordan been up to the last few episodes, besides training Lydia to fight and unconsciously carrying dead bodies to the Nemeton to be burned? I NEED TO KNOW. Also also, shouldn't they be having Jordan read the book, too?
Over at the school, Scott is standing on one of the catwalk balconies on campus with Theo while holding the copy of the Dread Doctors book in his hands, and they're looking down upon all of the students walking into the school while they discuss their current situation. "So, basically, we're looking for abnormal behavior?" Theo asks in confusion, but when Scott confirms it and adds that they need to keep an eye out for anyone acting "a little off" or "a little weird," Theo states the obvious by pointing out that all high schoolers are more than a little weird, so they do not have an easy job ahead of them by any means. The two then start to walk down the steps toward the main building as Theo brings up the book again, and emphasizes the fact that Tracy went off on a killing spree after she read the book, which means this is probably pretty dangerous.
That's kind of an interesting point that I hadn't considered, honestly-- I was under the impression that the Doctors planted the book in Tracy's room so that the pack would find it, but it would also make sense that Tracy had read it around the time that she was having all of those intense night terrors during the day. On the other hand, I don't trust Theo whatsoever, and him saying this could just as easily be him trying to 1) make it seem like he's concerned for their safety by insisting that it's a bad idea, despite the fact that he clearly wants them to read it and knows they'll end up doing it anyway, and/or 2) manipulate Scott into thinking that reading the book as a group will make it safer, plus having them do it in his presence means he can spy on them while they're reading/sleeping. Most likely, it's a combination of both of these, I'd guess.
Anyway, Scott takes this observation as Theo saying he thinks it's a bad idea, but Theo points out that yeah, Malia having some kind of hallucination-induced fugue state while she was driving definitely could have ended badly, and figures that Scott must at partially agree, otherwise they all would have finished the book by now. Scott insists that they're eventually going to read the rest, which is when Theo's perfect facade starts to crack a little bit. "Scott, I came here hoping to find a pack. I wasn't planning on watching one fall apart." Ummm, what the hell is that supposed to mean? Regardless, it's shady as hell, but I just need to know what Theo is after, here. Is he trying to break the pack apart? If so, is it due to his own goals, or is he a puppet of the Doctors? Or is he secretly pulling a Kol Mikaelson and is only with the Doctors so far because he owes them, but doesn't really care for being controlled by them to the point that he could even be genuinely trying to get into the pack so they can all take down the Doctors together? I AM SO CONFUSED. But, I am too smart to be seduced by you, Theo! Even if you do have "a face made in God's own atelier," as my favorite former Teen Wolf recapper used to say, and glorious abs for days. I AM NOT BUYING WHAT YOU'RE SELLING.
*clears throat* Ahem. Anyway, between Scott not seeming the least bit fazed by Theo's statement, and what he says about Kira later, I'm just going to hope and assume that Wendy's theory that Scott is compromised by some kind of Doctor weirdness is true, especially considering how stressed everyone is becoming over this situation, because I can't think of any other reasons why Scott would be acting so out of character. He knows better than to trust Theo! He knows better than to doubt his friends! What the hell is wrong with you, baby? Anyway, Scott argues that the book is the only clue they have as to what is going on with the Dread Doctors, so Theo replies, "Then I'll read it, too." HOW CONVENIENT. Gods, he is so transparent.
I don't know if we just skipped past a whole school day, or if they just decided they wanted to skip school in favor of going on another adventure to Nightmare-Acid-Trip-Land, just like in "Party Guessed," and "Motel California," and "Lunar Ellipse," and "De-Void," and "Time of Death." Scott, Stiles, Malia, Kira, Lydia, and Theo are all standing around the coffee table in the McCall house's living room, where they're staring at the stack of copies of the Dread Doctors book. "My mom's book club usually has more wine," Lydia chirps hilariously, to which Stiles snits, "Well, they also probably didn't read books that cause violent hallucinations." Kira assures them that this is why they brought Malia, who has already suffered through her bout of book-induced hallucinations (which we still need to talk about, but I'll be getting into that in the notes)-- so none of them go running into oncoming traffic, or killing their parents, or anything like that. "Like what happened to Judy," Malia responds with a wise nod, and when everyone looks at her with a blank look, she explains that it happens in Chapter 14. Aw, Malia pretty much has the book memorized now, doesn't she? She works so hard, it kills me.
Lydia suggests that perhaps she should have her mother read it, since she'll probably remember a girl with a tail walking on the walls and ceiling and paralyzing everyone within arm's reach, which seems like such a weird comment to me-- is Lydia suggesting that Natalie doesn't remember what happened with Tracy? Did the Dread Doctors make her forget? Am I reading too much into this again? It worries me. Stiles still isn't sure the book is going to work, but Lydia insists that it has to, and she has a pretty good reason to want it to, as we well know. "I think I saw them during my surgery," she admits, in yet another now-uncharacteristic bit of honesty in this season full of lying and hiding stuff that should be confessed the second it happens. "When I look at the cover of the book, it's almost like..." Theo, who has been silent during this entire conversation, pipes up, "A memory trying to surface?" which is of course what Lydia meant, and which gains him confused and suspicious looks from pretty much everyone in attendance. Theo would totally know, too, since he's definitely a Dread Doctor minion and probably a successful chimera at that.
Kira points out that Valack seemed to suggest that the whole point of the book is to make you remember, which is why Lydia is so adamant about reading the book-- if the Doctors did something to her, she wants to know what it is, and I can't blame her for being worried about it, considering what we know about them! So, everyone sighs and reaches for their own copy of the book before settling down in various pieces of furniture in the living room and kitchen and starting to fully read it together. Question-- where the hell is Liam? And Mason and Brett?Shouldn't he be reading this, too? He had a run-in with a chimera, and considering the chimeras keep coming after them (Tracy going after Hayden/Lydia/Natalie and fighting with Malia, Donovan going after Stiles, Lucas going after Mason and fighting Brett/Liam/Scott/Kira, etc) they should probably all read the book, just to be safe. I mean, I know for time's sake, they can't just have everyone reading it at once, especially if many of them have been messed with-- that's a lot of hallucinations of memories to cover, and we barely had enough time to get into the ones we had as it is. Still, I hope they eventually have the others read the book or something, because I'm afraid the characters who have been left out may be affected as well and just don't know it.
After the break, we come back to find everyone slowly getting bored/antsy/sleepy from slowly making their way through the book. Scott is blinking and generally trying to keep himself focused on the pages, and in this moment, I can sympathize with him a lot-- in general, I'm a great reader, and pretty much my only valuable skill is reading things very quickly when it's something I like (for example, I read the entire Mara Dyer Trilogy in 2.5 days a couple months ago), but if it's something boring, like the life-draining ethics class I took last semester, I literally just daydream and read the same sentence over and over without absorbing it, and it's excruciatingly boring. I did manage to catch the page Scott was reading though, so I have lovingly transcribed it for you below in case you're a nerd like me and are into that sort of thing. and in case it actually means something. (Though, knowing the reliability of the props in this show, I'm not quite convinced it does. Oh, well. Better safe than sorry.)
We then cut into the kitchen, where Stiles is reading all by himself at the kitchen table, for whatever reason. Malia comes in and reaches straight for the pot of coffee on the counter, since babysitting your packmates who may start hallucinating at any moment is hard work. She takes notice of Stiles anxiously rubbing the shoulder Donovan bit in the previous episode, and after a moment, her face becomes concerned as she asks him what happened to it. Stiles immediately panics yet again and asks her what she's talking about as we cut briefly to the living room, where Theo is clearly eavesdropping on their conversation. "I can smell the blood," Malia replies exasperatedly. "What happened?"
Wait, is Stiles still bleeding? That can't be good, unless all his nervous fidgeting is just causing his wounds to break open again. Of course, we'll never know, because Jeff Davis would never, ever, ever give us shirtless!Stiles, because he's the biggest troll of us all. This direct call-out on Malia's part causes Stiles' heart starts to race, and he quickly he lies and says that his Jeep died on him again, and when he went to check the engine, the hood just fell on his shoulder. Obviously, Malia and Theo can both hear his heart pounding and know he's lying, but Malia doesn't say anything for reasons I still don't quite understand, and Theo just files that shit away with all the other observations and secrets he's been building up since he started hanging out with them.
Stiles then turns the subject to Malia's book-induced memories the night before, and asks her how much she remembers about it. When she gives him a blank, confused look, he clarifies, "With the accident. Did it play like a movie in your head, or was it like being completely in it again?" Malia curtly replies that it was like being in it again, but when Stiles asks her if she just saw the crash, or if there was other stuff, too, Malia briefly recalls her flashback, where the Desert Wolf fired a gun at their car and caused it to run off the road. Once she's returned to the present, Malia stammers, "Nothing," since she knows Stiles is hiding stuff from her, and we all know dishonesty puts Malia on edge, especially when it's Stiles himself who is doing the lying. WHYYY ARE YOU GUYS KEEPING SUCH MAJOR SECRETS? YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE IN A RELATIONSHIP. I literally am about to drive my ass to fictional Beacon Hills and shake the lot of them until they start talking to each other about what's going on, because this is not only just ridiculous, but it's also dangerous for all of them-- especially considering Theo is totally just collecting their secrets like Pokémon so he can use the information against them later as part of whatever nefarious plans he has cooking. Fortunately, Malia does seem to notice Theo eavesdropping, so at least someone seems to be paying attention.
Back in the living room, Kira sighs in annoyance and puts her copy of the book on the end table before leaning back against the pillows and closing her eyes. Scott stops reading for a moment and looks over at her with concern before murmuring, "You're not giving up, are you?" Kira weakly insists that she isn't and says she's just resting her eyes and turns out the lamp next to her, but we all know how that is going to end-- whenever my dad claims he's "just resting his eyes," it means he's going to be asleep on the couch for a minimum of three hours, and I have no doubt Kira is intending to sleep for the rest of the night. I wonder if the sleepiness is a side effect of the book? Research has shown that sleep is necessary to help your brain process what it's learned, which is why all-nighters aren't really an effective way of studying for exams-- you need the sleep to synthesize it and store it for later use. So, maybe the book is doing the same thing, and the sleep will help the brain work through what it learned so it can be triggered later by whatever will activate the memories they've had repressed? SCIENCE!
Just as I was about to wonder where the hell the younger McCall Pack kids were this evening, we cut over to Sinema to find Hayden once again at work, only instead of glowing body shots, she's selling actual glow sticks. A club kid who seems to have killed way too many of his brain cells rolling on ecstasy at numerous raves rushes up to Hayden and informs her that the glow stick he bought is broken, to which she just rolls her eyes and replies, "No, it ran out of glow. They don't last forever!" The dude dully asks her if that means he can have his money back, which is suuuuuch a dumb question it kills me, but Hayden is clearly eager to get the hell away from him and instead just hands him a new glow stick and walks away. "God, I hate all-ages night," Hayden mutters under her breath, just as our tiny wolf prince Liam shows up in his nice club clothes with a handful of cash in his hands. "Forty-three dollars!" Liam exclaims brightly, but Hayden reminds him that she told him she doesn't want his money. Did we see that happen? I'm pretty sure it must have happened off-screen or something.
Anyway, Liam points out that actually, she said he owes her two hundred dollars, to which he has already put down twelve dollars, but Hayden just groans in frustration and tells him to forget about it, just as the power goes out. This only makes her more overwhelmed, but naturally, all the kids in the club are thrilled, and just wave all their glow sticks in the air in what is a very visually stunning shot. I know I talk a lot about how much I love the cinematography of this show, with it's very interesting shots and transitions and super-saturated colors, but this episode is especially gorgeous, with all the club scenes and the hallucinations and everything. Way to go, Teen Wolf directors and editors! So, Hayden declares this power outage to be perfect and rushes away to deal with it. Unfortunately for her, Liam is very eager to make up for the past, and follows after her to try to get her to take his money.
Once they're outside next to the switch to the external generator, Hayden turns around to face Liam and snaps, "I gotta be honest, Liam-- if you're trying to be a good guy, I really don't care." Liam looks hurt at this remark and insists that he's just trying to make up for what happened in the sixth grade, but she assures him that literally nothing will ever make up for that. Uh-oh! She turns her back to him and tries to push up the lever to the generator to turn it on, but for whatever reason, she's not strong enough to do it, which may be a hint as to any potential abilities that I'll get into more later. When Liam sees her struggling with it, he walks up behind her and gently puts his hand over hers before using his mega-werewolf-strength to push up the lever and turn the power back on.
Like Jordan with Lydia earlier, he lingers a liiiiiittle too long behind her, but eventually backs up so she can turn around to face him. "You want to keep hating me?" Liam asks in a not-unkind voice. "Go for it. You said I owe you two hundred. So, here's forty-three more." He holds the folded bills out toward her, and after a long moment, she huffs a small laugh and takes it from him before he turns and walks away, leaving a very surprised Hayden in his wake. Aw, Liam! I love this repentant side of him, it is so damn adorable and endearing. I'm also torn between thinking that the bite healed Liam of most of his anger issues, or if it's just the Scott McCall effect at work again that is keeping his emotions in check, but regardless, I adore Liam so much, and the fact that he's working so hard to pay Hayden back is just endlessly amazing to me. Plus, from the looks of things-- and the tiny impressed smile on her face as he leaves-- he seems to be growing on Hayden as well.
Back at the McCall house, we find the entirety of the McCall Pack (Theo isn't pack so he doesn't count) snoozing away in the living room. Lydia is passed out in the armchair in which she was reading, covered up in a blanket with the Dread Doctors book laying dog-eared on her lap. Stiles is on the floor and leaning back against the couch with his head propped up on a pillow that is resting on the legs of Malia, who is curled up next to Scott on the couch itself while he dozes on the end. Of course, Theo, being the creeper he is, is standing in the middle of the living room in his dumb cowl-neck sweater and looking at the sleeping sort-of friends scattered across the room. Kira, for whatever reason, has apparently moved upstairs to sleep in Scott's bed all by her lonesome, so once Theo is done snooping around downstairs, he walks up there to see what's going on with her. To further solidify the running joke that Theo is ready to snatch all of the pack girlfriends, he stands over Scott's bed and stares at Kira as she lays sprawled on her back. When he realizes she's muttering in her sleep, he looks even more intrigued, and kneels next to the bed so he can listen closer. "Watashi... wa shi... no shisha... da," Kira murmurs quietly. "Watashi... wa shi no shisha da."
Theo, who has slowly started picking up on everyone's secrets to, I presume, eventually use in order to break the pack apart, pulls out his cell phone so he can record audio of her sleep-talk and figure out what it means. On the one hand, it's smart, because Scott's mostly just been trying to protect Kira from the knowledge that something is clearly up with her, and it's about time someone looked into it. On the other hand, CREEPY, THEO. The way he just looks attracted to everybody was an endearing quality when it was Isaac leering at everyone-- and I still maintain that Liam still has low-key crushes on all the McCall Pack girls and Scott-- but with Theo it just comes off creepy because I assume that anything he learns about the group will ultimately be used against them, I just don't know how, and it's frustrating me.
Once again, we've skipped through a bunch of time to the next morning, which really hasn't happened much this season-- I feel like every episode picks up right where the last one leaves off, so it's so weird jumping through time like this, even if it does make sense to do so, since they were all pretty much sleeping anyway. So, Scott, Stiles, and Kira have just arrived at school, and they walk down the main hall while they discuss what a total bust reading that book was. "What if we need some kind of trigger?" Scott asks, which is an excellent question. "Wasn't Malia driving when she remembered the crash?" Stiles brings up another good question, which is: how are they supposed to trigger a memory when they have no idea what it's about to begin with? Scott figures it's a delayed thing anyway, and suggests that maybe it'll take a couple of hours for the effects to kick in, which is kind of unfortunate, given that they're at school with a ton of civilians who have little to no clue what is really going on in their town.
Just then, the fluorescent lights start to flicker around them, and all three frown in confusion before the boys turn back toward Kira with hilariously accusing looks on their faces, assuming that it was some of her kitsune trickery afoot. "That wasn't me, I swear," Kira insists with wide-eyes, and not for the first time today. Given how many electricity outages Beacon Hills deals with on a regular basis, Kira is going to have to deal with a lot of suspicion, I'm guessing. Before they split up for their respective classes, Scott instructs them to all look out for each other today to make sure they're okay in case of any impromptu hallucinations. "Yes, and keep an eye out for eight other potentially homicidal chimeras," Stiles adds, before Kira finishes up the statement by stating, "And keep an eye out for the Dread Doctors." All great ideas, for sure, though each one is more terrifying to consider than the one before it. Just as Scott and Kira duck into their AP Bio class, Stiles yells after them, "Starting to see the appeal of a third eye!" Yeah, please don't let that be foreshadowing. I'm not sure my poor little heart could handle Stiles being Valack 2.0. (Not to mention we already saw Valack threatening to drill a hole in Lydia's head, which is even more terrifying.)
In AP Bio, Mrs. Finch is once again lecturing on a topic that has tons of relevance to the supernatural craziness that is going down in their city. "So, while introducing the African Cane Toad sounded like a good way to deal with Australia's infestation of the gray-backed beetle, unfortunately, the toad also decided to eat everything else in sight." Lydia is sitting behind Sydney today instead of next to her as she usually does, probably so Lydia can see Sydney anxiously touching her hair. After a moment, she notices that Theo is staring at her and gives him a look, so gestures to Sydney with his head and gives her a knowing look. "And, everything that tried to eat the toad, from crocodiles to household pets, quickly died from the poison they excreted," Mrs. Finch continues, as Lydia pulls out her phone and quickly texts "Chimera?" to Theo. Wait, how did Lydia get his number already? They've barely interacted, aside from Theo putting the tourniquet on Lydia when Tracy attacked her. Shady Theo is shady. "A perfect example of an invasive species. One hundred and two toads introduced in 1935 became 1.5 billion by 2010. Once an invasive species is introduced, everything changes," lectures the teacher, which is a pretty great analogy to the Doctors and the chimeras, which are fucking with everything in town.
Just then, Lydia gets a text message back from Theo that says, "Look at her hair." When Lydia looks back over at Sydney, she sees that a thick tuft of hair she was anxiously fiddling with has completely fallen out, and she becomes so distraught that tears begin to fill her eyes. Clearly on the verge of a breakdown, Sydney clenches the strand of hair in her hand before grabbing her drop form and her bag, slamming the former on Mrs. Finch's desk as she rushes out the door. "Wise decision, Sydney," Mrs. Finch calls out as she leaves, because she is literally the worst, and when Lydia immediately stands up, grabs her bag (but not her books?) and goes to follow her, the teacher adds, "Lydia, you know it's for the best." SO DAMN GROSS. Why would you talk about a student's performance to another student? If that isn't illegal, it's definitely unethical as fuck at the very least. No wonder high-schoolers are always miserable. Lydia gives her one of her best scathing eye rolls, which before scampering out the door to look for Sydney. Across the room, Scott turns to Kira, and both of them share a worried look before Kira shrugs, all, "What can we do?" Scott then glances down at his notebook, on top of which is his own drop form that he has already filled out in anticipation of dropping AP Bio, and looks stressed and frustrated as he considers his own options.
She finds her in the guidance office lobby, where she's sitting at a small table and looking seriously upset. When she sees Lydia, she tearfully explains that she was just looking for Lydia's mother, which just seriously breaks Lydia's heart. Don't you love how supportive Lydia has become of other girls since joining the McCall Pack? Whenever I compare Season 1-2 Lydia to Season 3-5 Lydia, I am just so damn impressed, because she has grown into such an amazing person. LOVE IT. THE SCOTT MCCALL EFFECT IS REAL, though I think being friends with Allison, Kira, and Malia has also helped fuel her girl-power attitude. Anyway, Lydia kindly asks her if she's okay, but Sydney just opens up her clenched fist to show her the hair that fell out before asking her if it looks okay. When Lydia asks her how long this has been going on, Sydney admits she's been dealing with it for three years. "It's stress," she explains with a bitter laugh. "I've tried everything. Medication, acupuncture, hypnosis..." Lydia gently asks her if she's tried not taking the hardest classes at school, Sydney actually lets out a genuine laugh and seems to feel a little better, especially when Lydia offers to help her cover it up.
Unfortunately for Lydia, she's about to inadvertently make Sydney feel even worse, because as soon as Sydney tucks a strand of hair back to reveal a red, raw bald patch behind her ear, Lydia's Dread Docter book-induced memory retrieval is triggered, and she suddenly hallucinates that Sydney has an actual hole drilled into that space behind her ear. She gasps in horror and staggers backward before falling flat on her back on the floor while she experiences auditory hallucinations of her mother frantically yelling, "I told you to stay in the car! Lydia, I told you to stay in the car!" Poor Sydney! She probably thinks Lydia was so horrified by her hair issues that she passed out, and now I bet she feels even worse. :( Also, what are the odds that Sydney is or will be a Dread Doctor test subject? This issue seems to fit my "the DDs are going after people with health issues that could be treated with man-made supernatural treatments" theory, but not so much my "the DDs are going after people who are supernatural or have dormant supernatural genes" theory. I'm still keeping an eye on this girl, though.
Anyway, after a moment, Lydia wakes up on the floor of a hallway in Eichen House, and has this weird out-of-body experience when she sees her much younger self, clad in a blue and white striped dress, white tights, and bright red patent-leather shoes, walking toward the room. Lydia, looking confused and more than a little anxious, slowly follows her younger self until they make it to the shower room, where they find the water running red with blood down the drain in the floor, where an electric drill (not a medical one, but one used for like woodworking and stuff) is laying next to it. When she looks up, she finds a nurse and Natalie looking panicked and kneeling beside a big, white, blood-stained bathtub surrounded by an even bigger puddle of blood and water, where Lorraine is laying motionless over the side. On the side of her head, right behind her ear, is a big, rough-looking hole that was apparently drilled using that bloody drill on the floor. Natalie, clearly horrified, cries, "What have you done to yourself?" to her mother-in-law (Wait, where is Papa Martin in all this? Isn't this his mother?) before she glances at the door, sees Lydia standing there. She gasps in shock before yelling at her again that she was supposed to stay in the car, just like earlier. However, what Lorraine has to say (in a super-creepy robotic voice, no less) is much more chilling-- "They're coming, Lydia. They're coming for all of us."
This is where stuff gets confusing, because I'm not sure if we're supposed to believe that Lorraine did this herself, or if it was the Dread Doctors, or what. My current working theory is that Lorraine got some banshee vision of some kind of the Dread Doctors experimenting on someone that scared her so much she tried to give herself a lobotomy so she wouldn't have to deal with seeing/hearing that kind of thing anymore? Or, she knew that they would be coming after supernaturals and tried to give herself a lobotomy so she wouldn't be essentially tortured like the other experiments were, hence the "They're coming for all of us," warning, which we also heard Tracy tell Hayden, Scott, Liam, and Ken in "Dreamcatchers." Lorraine is too old to be a Dread Doctor test subject herself, if the whole teenager rule we've heard is actually true, so I'm still a little confused as to why she would drill her own head. But, the memories are supposed to relate to the Doctors, and even though the memories we saw surface in Scott, Lydia, and Stiles didn't have the Doctors in them/didn't explicitly mention them, it doesn't mean that they weren't still related somehow. I'll get into this more in a bit, though.
Anyway, back to the scene! Natalie's still crying "Lydia!" in the hallucination, but after a moment, her voice starts morphing into a familiar male voice instead, and when Lydia finally snaps out of the hallucination, she finds Scott kneeling right in front of her where he's propped her body against the wall, with Theo lurking just behind him. Scott looks seriously concerned and asks her if she's okay, and though she insists that she's fine, her hand is shaking so severely that Scott covers it with her own and squeezes it comfortingly. MY SCYDIA FEELS <3 Theo, who knows how the book works thanks to working with the Doctors themselves, points out that she clearly remembered something, but Lydia assures them that it had nothing to do with the Dread Doctors or her surgery as the two boys help her to her feet and into a nearby chair-- instead, it was just about her grandmother giving herself a DYI lobotomy at Eichen House. I don't understand how she doesn't connect it to the DDs, but I guess she wasn't in the room when Tracy said almost the same thing, and considering the pack's record for full disclosure, it's possible that nobody told her, which is really too bad-- if the kids would just talk to each other about everything that is happening, they'd probably figure all this stuff out way sooner than they would otherwise.
Just then, Natalie rushes on in, having heard what happened to Lydia from poor Sydney, and immediately kneels next to her to see if she's alright. Lydia again insists that she's just fine and that nothing happened, but Natalie is pretty alarmed, and understandably so. "Was it a blackout? Did you faint?" This seems like just a weird line of questioning, honestly-- why would she immediately assume Lydia blacked out? Is she thinking about Lydia's Season 2 issues? Does she even know anything about Lydia being supernatural (and inheriting it from Lorraine)? Was Lydia's comment about having Natalie read the book really a hint that the Dread Doctors made her forget everything that happened with Tracy at the Sheriff's station? I'M SO CONFUSED ABOUT NATALIE MARTIN, YOU GUYS. Anyway, Lydia realizes that her mother just gave her an easy out of this, so she's all, "Yup, totally fainted, you're exactly right, Mama," before insisting she's totally fine now, which seems to be enough to convince everyone to stop hovering.
Meanwhile, over in the library, Kira is sitting on the floor in between two bookshelves with her copy of the Dread Doctors book, but once again, she seems to be having a seriously difficult time getting through it. After a moment, she flips to the cover and slams the stapled photocopy of the book closed as she sighs in frustration. Just then, Mason appears out of nowhere and decides to see how Kira's doing. "Not into sci-fi?" he asks quietly, and when Kira just smiles weakly at him, he adds, "That's the book, isn't it? I thought you guys were supposed to finish it last night?" Kira sighs again and replies that she hasn't managed to finish it yet, before then admitting that she has no idea what is wrong with her, because for whatever reason, she can barely read it. Fortunately for her, Mason is not only a super-loyal and supportive friend, but he's also so obsessed with the supernatural world now that he's been read in to just how much of the weirdo stuff in town can be explained by it that he's pretty much consumed every bestiary and book on myths and folklore that he can get his hands on.
"This is gonna sound weird, but... do you speak Japanese?" Mason asks as he sits down on the floor next to her. Kira shakes her head in the negatory-- even though we have seen her speak Japanese on numerous occasions now, which makes me wonder if she's even aware she's doing it-- and admits that she doesn't speak Korean, either, even though she's half-Korean on her dad's side. After a beat, she adds, "And, I'm pushing a C- average in English." Mason smiles sympathetically and clarifies that he's asking because he's been doing some research on kitsunes, which seems to surprise Kira quite a bit. When she asks him why, he just gives her a confused look and replies, "'Cause I've met one?", as if to say, "Uh, duh, I just learned that 95% of my friends are various supernatural creatures, so of course I read up on what you all are, especially since none of you seem to do your own research anymore?" I already said this on Tumblr, but I'm just waiting for Mason to figure out what Jordan is before anyone else, all, "It only took a couple all-nighters, a gallon of coffee, and a date with a stack of tomes of Celtic folklore! You're welcome."
Gods, I just love Mason so much, you guys! In fanon, everyone paints Stiles as the one who knows everything about everything, and who is constantly doing research on various supernaturals, but in actual canon, he's not actually that way at all. He's absolutely the detective of the pack (with major assists from Malia and Lydia) due to his father being the sheriff and all, but he's not usually the one who is filling everyone in on the supernatural creatures they're dealing with-- that role is usually filled by Derek, or, on occasion, Deaton. So, now that Derek is gone, Mason is the perfect person to take over as folklore expert, because he's friendly, supportive, and eager to learn. Go Mason! So, Kira is clearly flattered that Mason is psyched enough about knowing her that he actually researched kitsunes, so Mason excitedly starts to outline what he's learned.
Meanwhile, Scott has just dropped by the AP Bio classroom, where Mrs. Finch is quietly grading papers, so he can hand in his drop form in person. She's visibly surprised that he's choosing to drop the class, and Scott just gives her a rueful smile before he turns to leave. Um, what was she even expecting, after she's literally spent the entirety of the first two weeks of the semester berating all of her students-- especially Scott-- and insinuating that none of them were smart enough to be there? And even went so far as to praise a student-- who not only is known for being a high achiever but was also clearly in the middle of a meltdown-- for having the good sense to realize that she wasn't meant to be there? UGH.
Anyway, before Scott can reach the door, she calls out to him that he forgot to sign it, which, let's be real, is probably a sign that he doesn't really want to drop it at all. He sighs and turns back around to sign it, but before he can do so, she asks, "Are you going to tell me why you're dropping?" Scott vaguely responds that it's a scheduling thing, but she replies to that with another question. "Why did you take this class to begin with? Isn't it a prerequisite for the college you want?" Our precious sunshine prince does not seem at all happy about any of the multitude of bad things going on in his life right now, so he clears his throat anxiously and mutters, "It just doesn't matter. It's too much time, too much work." Did you hear that? That's the sound of my heart breaking in response to Scott being willing to give up his dream future of becoming a veterinarian (especially in light of what we're about to learn) in favor of focusing his efforts on protecting the town from the supernatural, and they don't even know he's basically a super-secret Captain America! So, people who aren't in the know, like Mrs. Finch, and that asshole Mr. Harris (Whatever happened with his disappearance, anyway? Did they find the body?) just keep giving him shit for not working hard enough in school/life/etc.
When she brings up the fact that she knows he wants to be a veterinarian, the word itself starts to trigger Scott's repressed memories, and he's quickly overwhelmed by panic, though Mrs. Finch doesn't realize what's going on right away. "I don't think you should drop," she continues, as Scott starts gasping and wheezing and leans against the desk while he's overwhelmed by flashes of his memory-- the sound of a young child gasping for breath; a small, bloody hand holding a leash; a gurney being pushed down the hallway of a hospital; and a large German Shepard viciously mauling a smaller dog attached to the same brown leather leash. NOOOO, I DON'T LIKE ANY OF THIS! In the present, Mrs. Finch finally realizes that Scott is clearly in distress and asks him what is happening, but Scott just barely manages to rasp, "I think... I'm having an asthma attack." Not knowing that Scott is a powerful True Alpha werewolf who shouldn't even be having an asthma attack, she starts shouting to any nearby students who can hear her to call the nurse while Scott gets pulled into a full-scale Dread Doctors book-induced hallucination.
When we return from the break, we are in the midst of Scott's full repressed memory-- present-day Scott is standing outside the elevator on the first floor at the hospital, now, and is still clearly wheezing and gasping for breath as he watches his mother walking alongside a stretcher that is holding his eight-ish year old self, who looks scared and confused as to what is happening. The casting for the baby version of Scott is seriously so perfect, you guys-- Steele Gagnon looks exactly like the photos of Scott/Tyler Posey as a child that we've seen. The casting department of this show is so good at picking actors who look just like the present-day versions of their characters, like Ian Nelson as young Derek, and Michael Fjordbak as young Peter.
Anyway, Bb!Scott is also in the middle of a bad asthma attack, which is probably why Scott is having one despite the fact that he no longer has asthma. Poor Bb!Scott's hand is covered in blood, and he's still clutching the leash in his little hand as Melissa assures him that he's okay and insists that he needs to keep breathing. Bb!Scott asks in the smallest, saddest voice, "Where's Roxy?", and I swear, Melissa's heart breaks right there in front of us as she reaches down and gently removes the leash from Bb!Scott's hand. "Sweetheart, she didn't make it," Melissa explains quietly, and when Bb!Scott once again asks where she is, Melissa instructs him not to talk and to instead try to keep breathing. Present-day Scott is so overwhelmed by the memory and the asthma attack he's having that he desperately clutches his chest as he stumbles backward into the wall, his back sliding down against it as he slowly falls to the floor, wheezing and gasping and choking to the point where my chest hurts just watching it.
THIS WHOLE SITUATION IS JUST KILLING ME SO MUCH.. Bb!Scott couldn't save his dog Roxy, so he wanted to be a veterinarian so he could save everyone else's dogs instead! Now everything we've seen from Scott throughout the series-- from the pilot episode "Wolf Moon," where Allison accidentally ran over a dog and Scott was insistent on patching it up despite it being after-hours, to learning how to take pain from Deaton by practicing on dogs, to all of the additional instruction Deaton has been giving him, such as giving injections and running tests-- not only makes so much sense, but it also adds yet another layer of complexity to his character. It makes me love him even more, and is also breaking my heart into a thousand itty-bitty pieces. Excuse me while I go sob forever, drive my ass to the fictional town of Beacon Hills, and bring Scott back to Ohio to wrap him in blankets and cuddle with him and watch Netflix and generally keeping him safe from any and all dangers.
Anyway, the scene flashes back and forth from the flashback, where Scott is still freaking out in the hallway of the hospital while his mother tells his kid-self to keep breathing, and reality, where Mrs. Finch is freaking out and trying to get a dazed and Scott's attention. To make matters even more stressful, Scott has now fallen into an almost catatonic-like state, where he's completely zoned out mentally to the point where he doesn't seem to be aware of what is going on whatsoever-- he's just slowly and quietly taking shallow, wheezing breaths as he stares off into space. "Scott? Scott, look at me," Mrs. Finch says loudly and urgently. "I need to know where your inhaler is. Is it in your locker?" No, it isn't, because Scott hasn't had an asthma attack in almost two years, except for that one time in Season One's "Lunatic" when he had a panic attack and thought it was an asthma attack, so Stiles gave him his inhaler to help him get through it. She then sees a bunch of students in the hallway and asks them if any of them have inhalers that they can use before sending one of the kids off to look for them. It would probably be easier to find one of his friends to help them out, but whatever, she's panicked and not thinking, it happens.
I honestly have no idea what the timeline is now-- is it after school now? Or do they have like open-campus policies where they can practice on the fields and stuff during free periods? I don't know. What I do know is that there are a bunch of students out on the field, where the boys (including Liam) are playing lacrosse on one half while the girls (including Hayden) are playing soccer on the other. Liam spins his lacrosse stick in his hands and looks backward to see Hayden, in a very cute oversized gray Nike crop-top with black leggings, bending over to pick up a soccer ball. She glances over and sees Liam checking her out, and gives him a look before dropping the ball on the ground and kicking it straight into the goal in the start of what becomes a flirty one-upping sports match, which is as entertaining as you would expect.
Before we get into that, though, we cut over to the bleachers, where Mason is sitting with Brett, who is wearing his Devenford Prep uniform (white button up, purple sweater-vest with the school seal on in green, a matching purple-and-white striped tie, and khaki pants) and has apparently cut the rest of his classes or something to chill with his public school frands, I don't know. The space-time continuum is so weird in Beacon Hills, much like it was in Gossip Girl, when half the kids would be having an extended breakfast with their families, a few others were at school, and several others still were in, like, Paris or something, and yet they were still somehow all in the same timezone. Regardless of this show's completely unplottable timeline, I'm loving Brett and Mason's budding friendship, so I'll let all this slide for now. So, Mason and Brett are discussing their friend-group's little chimera problem, and, much like Theo earlier, Brett remarks that he has no idea if any of his fellow prep-school students have been affected by the Dread Doctors' return to town, since it's already been established that all high schoolers are weirdos who do weirdo things.
This competition continues on, with Hayden successfully kicking another great goal, so Liam starts to rage out a little in his intent to one-up her. He scowls and he jumps up and down on the balls of his feet to psych himself up before launching himself toward the goal to get a running start. He stops just short of the line and throws the ball with his stick so hard that the ball hits the goalie square in the chest with enough force to throw him backward into the net. Holy shit, Liam! He's lucky he didn't shatter that kid's sternum, yikes! Embarrassed, Liam blushes and immediately apologizes to the dude he just injured before running over to check on him while Hayden watches him with interest. (Wait, does she know that she's kind-of supernatural now? Did that make her realize that Liam has powers, too? I WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT HER.)
Brett and Mason have both watching Liam and Hayden's cute little flirt-off, which leads Brett asks his new bud what their deal is. Mason is hilariously like, "SO GLAD YOU ASKED, AMIGO" and starts explaining the story while simultaneously clicking around on his phone for the yearbook photos you just know he's been storing just in case this should ever come up in conversation. "Sixth grade," Mason begins. "Not the best year for Liam's anger management issues. There was, uh... this fight in the hallway, Liam and this other guy. Hayden sort of accidentally walked into it. And this is her yearbook photo." He zooms into the yearbook page to show him Hayden's sixth grade yearbook photo, which has a very adorable photo of a young Victoria Moroles (the actress who plays Hayden) with a big bandage over the bridge of her nose and two big black eyes.
Shocked by the photo, Brett cutely replies, "Aw, damn! What'd she do to him?" so Mason swipes left to show him an equally cute photo of young Liam/Dylan Sprayberry, whose nose is also broken and bandaged over Liam's own double-shiners. Liam's bruises are actually way worse than Hayden's, which makes it even better, if you ask me! Girlfriend doesn't mess around! The sight of both of these photos causes both Mason and Brett to dissolve into giggles, which is endlessly adorable to me. LOVE IT. LOVE THEM. I don't know what kind of witchcraft Teen Wolf/Cody Saintgnue has done to make me like Brett as a character, but it's totally working. Anyway, their fun is quickly cut off when another dude-- who I think is the club kid who whined about his glow stick running out and the new chimera, whose name is Josh-- runs out onto the field and asks if anyone there has asthma/an inhaler. Liam looks over at him and somehow senses through his connection to his Alpha that Scott is in trouble, leading him to instantly rush toward the school to save him. <3<3<3 SCIAM <3<3<3 THEY ARE THE BEST.
I'm a little confused about this next part, though, because after Scott's asthma attack is taken care of, he hangs onto the inhaler Liam gives him, so either 1) whoever gave it up to help Scott ended up letting him keep it (unlikely, since inhalers are expensive and sharing medications with someone is risky), 2) Scott already had an inhaler and Liam got it from his locker for him (also unlikely, since Scott has complained about how expensive inhalers are since the beginning, and he hasn't had a true asthma attack since Season 1, so Scott likely wouldn't be filling his scripts anymore, I imagine, or 3) Liam just happened to have an inhaler in case Scott had an asthma attack and grabbed it for him. I doubt Liam had asthma, too, so I'm just going to go ahead and assume that Liam learned that Scott has asthma and got his dad to fill a script for an inhaler just in case, because that's super cute and I love Scott and Liam's relationship so much. OKAY! Moving on.
So, Scott is still zoned out and wheezing weakly on the floor, where his back is propped up against Mrs. Finch's desk and the teacher herself is kneeling in front of him. A moment later, Liam is running down the hallway with the inhaler in hand, still in his workout clothes and adorably dorky calf-length tube socks and yelling that he has the inhaler Scott needs. He shoves his way through all of the bystanders and Mrs. Finch so he can kneel in front of Scott himself. "Scott!" Liam says loudly, as he places the inhaler in Scott's right hand and wraps his fingers around it before squeezing his shoulder comfortingly, but when Scott still continues to stare past him with unfocused eyes, Liam starts to panic and shakes him by the shoulders to try to snap him out of it. "Scott, come on!" Of course, that doesn't work either, so Liam, desperate at this point, firmly grips onto his shoulder as he stares Scott in the eyes, flashes his golden irises at him, and uses his wolf-voice to growl, "SCOTT!", which finally does the trick. Aw, like a reverse-Alpha roar! I dig it so much.
When Scott regains awareness with a deep, rasping gasp, he remembers what is going on and realizes he has an inhaler in his hand before reflexively shaking it, putting the inhaler to his mouth, and inhaling deeply as he presses down on the canister. With the broncodilator now circulating through his lungs (I'm going to guess it was albuterol), Scott is finally lucid enough to look over at his werewolf son with wide-eyed gratitude and thanks him for saving him in between gasps as he tries to catch his breath. Liam just sighs in relief and nods in response, and gods, I love them so much it kills me. Yayyyy, Liam! Good work, my smol wolf prince. Out in the hallway, Hayden is among the bystanders who were rubbernecking as Scott was in the middle of a respiratory crisis, and when she turns to walk away, she smiles at the thought of Liam being such a hero. LIAYDEN IS HAPPENING. Liayden? Hayam? What is their ship name?
We then cut to the hospital, where Lydia and Stiles have just parked Lydia's car into the lot and are now walking toward the front entrance while they discuss the day's events. "Okay, then what are we doing here, if you've already had your suppressed memory?" Stiles asks, clearly anxious about the entire situation, but Lydia reminds him that it wasn't the right memory-- it neither involved her surgery, nor the Dread Doctors (that they know of, anyway, even though I'm still not convinced that the Dread Doctors weren't involved with what happened to Lorraine). "So, if I've read the book, why don't I have the full memory of my experience with them?" Lydia asks in frustration. When Stiles quips that he's not supposed to know the answer to that, Lydia reminds him that something did happen during her surgery, but now that she's thinking about it, she's wondering if maybe it wasn't Dread Doctor-related, but banshee-related, and after a moment of silent brainstorming, she finally realizes what's really going on with her. "It's not my memory, Stiles," Lydia concludes. "It's somebody else's." UH-OH. I'm not liking the sound of that.
Back at the school, we're getting the first weight room scene of the season when we catch up with Theo, who is in his sweats and is doing chin-ups on a bar near the machines. After a moment, he stops when he hears a creaking noise, but once he's processed all of the sensory information, he realizes who it is and smiles before moving across the room and stripping off his hoodie to reveal his bare torso underneath. Just then, the door opens, and Malia comes walking in, though she immediately stops in her tracks when she sees that Theo is half-naked. When she doesn't say anything, Theo just smirks and walks over to pick up a large barbell to do arm curls while Malia continues to stand silently and awkwardly in the doorway and watches him.
After a moment, Malia finally starts off the conversation by asking, "Why haven't you said anything?" Theo asks her what she's talking about, so Malia reminds him about the whole Desert Wolf part of her hallucination two days ago and asks him why he didn't tell Scott. Wait, does Theo even know who the Desert Wolf is? Did they talk about it afterward? Is Theo just playing dumb? Cody Christian has suggested that Theo and Malia have a (non-romantic) connection, so I'm wondering if maybe isn't involved in the Desert Wolf's story line, too? Or maybe they're both connected to the Dread Doctors? Regardless, the fandom has been talking about how similar Cody and Shelley Hennig look, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if they ended up being siblings or something, though that does take the whole "Theo low-key flirting with Malia constantly" thing a very awkward direction, like Clary and her brother Jonathan/Sebastian in The Mortal Instruments series.
Anyway, Theo points out that he figured she didn't want Scott to know, which is true, and Malia tells him as much before asking him another question, which is "Are you going to want to know why?" Theo, who has abandoned the barbell in favor of sitting down at this weird arm-workout machine (whose name I don't know, because the most athletic thing I do is my two-to-three mile walk with my dog every night and the occasional yoga session when I'm really bored), replies, "Not really," and starts to do his arm reps. Anyone with actual athletic prowess and knows what this machine is should definitely tell me in the comments, because it's driving me crazy. Speaking of being driven crazy, Malia, Theo's complete (and obviously fake) disinterest in Malia's issues is clearly annoying the hell out of her because she can't figure out what the fuck his agenda is, which pretty much speaks for the entirety of the fandom at this point.
So, after spending a long moment trying not to look at him as he flexes all of his muscles while he works, she lunges for him and grabs each arm of the machine he's using so that he can't move them in any way. Ooh, is this a hint that Malia is way stronger than Theo? If so, I'm going to take that as a clue that Theo is a successful Dread Doctor chimera. "You think you're doing me a favor?" Malia growls suspiciously, while Theo struggles to break the bars out of Malia's grip with no success. "Like I'm going to owe you now?" Yeah, pretty much! At the very least, he'll be holding onto that until he can leverage it into something else. Theo sighs and instead insists that he doesn't need any favors. Malia's not buying it, though, but when she asks him what it is that he wants, if not favors, Theo breaks out the same answer he's given since he got back to Beacon Hills-- he wants into the pack. Malia states the obvious by reminding him that his entry into the pack isn't up to her, but instead of responding to that, Theo decides that he's done playing games.
"If you want to tell Scott what you saw, tell him," he says with a sigh. "If you've got something else in mind? I'm okay with that, too." WHAT IS YOUR ANGLE, DUDE? We still know literally nothing about Theo despite being 60% of the way through Season 5A, and the fact that I still can't figure out what the hell it is he wants is making the insufferable know-it-all in me wound-up as fuck. GIVE ME ANSWERS, JEFF. Malia finally lets go of the bars and turns to leave, and since Theo has spent all this time fighting against her, it causes the arms of the machine to clank together loudly as Theo's own arms spring toward each other. He looks a little alarmed by this encounter at first, especially when he lets go of the arms of the machine and rubs his left bicep as though he pulled it in the struggle, but once she has left, he actually laughs to himself in a smug way that suggests everything is going according to plan, though, as I said earlier, I still have no ideas to what that plan might be, and I can't even really come up with any especially interesting theories because of the lack of information on him.
Outside on the catwalk, Hayden has her books and bookbag in hand and is walking past a row of lockers when her older sister, Clarke Romero, who we know as one of Sheriff Stilinski's new deputies and possibly Jordan's new partner now that Haigh was presumably fired, comes up behind her and taps her on the shoulder. Hayden gets a little flustered when she sees her and tells her she was supposed to wait for her in the parking lot, but Clarke just laughs and retorts that she's supposed to be embarrassed by her parents, not her sister, which leads me to wonder what the deal with their parents is? When Hayden and Liam talk later, she makes it sound like her sister is raising her, so I don't know if they're dead or just deadbeats or what. Hopefully we'll learn more soon! Anyway, Clarke pulls out a prescription bottle of pills and hands it to her little sister before adding, "By the way, guess where I found this? In your jeans, about to go into the laundry."
Right as she's reminding her that the medication costs $200 dollars a bottle, Liam passes past them, accidentally nudging her with his shoulder in his attempt to walk around her and totally overhearing their conversation. When he realizes this is probably why Hayden has been so stressed out about money, he stops to keep listening, only for Hayden to catch him in the act. When she snaps, "What?", Liam wisely replies, "Nothing" and scampers away. Clarke takes notice of him as he leaves and gives Hayden a look before remarking, "Is that Liam Dunbar? He got cute." Of course, Liam was still eavesdropping with his werewolf hearing, and he totally smiles the cutest smile ever as he walks away. Their little puppy love story is so damn cute, not that it's hard-- Liam has quickly become one of my favorite characters on this show, and Hayden has the sassiness of Lydia with the sweetness and stubbornness of Allison, and I really like her a lot. If she dies, I am going to have words with old Jeffy boy.
Meanwhile, in the locker room, Scott is sitting on a bench with the inhaler he got from Liam in his hands, and is in the middle of staring at it when Theo joins him after his post-workout shower and asks him if he's going to be okay. Scott, of course, answers that he'll be fine, because that is literally the only answer to that question that he knows anymore, and adds that he's pretty sure the asthma attack was a psychosomatic thing in response to the memory resurfacing. Theo seems only marginally relieved to hear this, and when Scott asks him if he had something he wanted to talk about, Theo insists that it can wait, though it's obvious that he's just saying that because he knows Scott will be all, "No, it's okay, what's going on?" which is exactly what he does. Scott, quite letting Theo play you like a fiddle! It's not going to end well. :( Anyway, Theo clears his throat and explains what he witnessed from Kira the previous night. "Last night, you guys all fell asleep. I went upstairs to check on Kira. She was sleeping, but..." Scott immediately knows what he's about to say and replies, "You heard her speaking Japanese."
Theo admits that he didn't just hear it, and pulls out his phone so he can play the audio he recorded of her saying "Watashi wa shi no shisha da." Instead of being suspicious as to why Theo is so interested in what Kira is mumbling in her sleep, Scott tells him that he recognizes the phrase as what Kira said at the club before she went after Lucas. Theo continues on to say that he went to a translator website, which told him that what she said roughly translates to "I am the messenger of death," just as the fandom expected when we first heard her say it. Theo sees the concern on Scott's face at this statement and asks him if it gets worse, so Scott decides to tell him what he's been noticing about her instead of just telling Kira herself. "Yeah..." Scott says with a weary sigh. "Something is-- Something's happening to her. She's got this aura all around her... It's hard to explain. Well, I guess it's supposed to be part of her. But now, it looks... different. Almost like it's taking over. I don't know. Something's happening. And, to be honest..." Scott trails off, clearly worried about the situation and not knowing what to say, but when Theo prods him to go on, Scott adds, "I don't know if I can trust her anymore."
UM, I BEG YOUR FUCKING PARDON? Are they really trying to suggest that Scott would ever say that about anyone, let alone the girlfriend he loves? Scott, whose first instinct is always to help people, especially supernaturals who aren't in control of their abilities? Scott, who wouldn't let Derek kill Lydia or Jackson when they were suspected of being the kanima? Who refused to even consider the possibility of killing Boyd and Cora when they were full-moon-crazy, or Malia when she was a coyote, even though it would have been the easier route to take? Who wouldn't allow Noshiko, Chris, or anyone kill Stiles to kill the nogitsune, even though he had contributed to the injury and deaths of dozens? Who suggested in th season premiere that even Peter, of all people, might still have some good in him? Who literally told Stiles not even one full episode ago, "We shouldn't kill people that we're trying to save?"
I'm sorry, but the Scott McCall I know would never, ever, ever, ever say that he didn't trust Kira, not when he knows that whatever is happening to her isn't her fault, because he, along with Stiles, Malia, Lydia, and Liam, know exactly what it's like to not be able to control the supernatural changes happening to you. For now, I'm choosing to believe Wendy's theory that Scott has been compromised, either by exposure to Dread Doctor test subject body fluids (being stabbed with Belasko's black-goop-covered claws, getting Tracy's tail-goop in his mouth and eyes, etc) or actually being a test subject of theirs, or both, rather than it just being poor writing, but ARGH! Anyway, just then, the lights above them flicker on and off, and both boys stand to their feet to try to figure out what's going on. When they focus their hearing, they're able to catch the sounds of electricity crackling down in the basement, and though I think we're supposed to believe that they think it's Kira, it's most certainly not.
Back at the hospital, Lydia and Stiles have just made it into the operating room where Lydia had her surgery. She asks him if he can turn on the lights, but for some reason, they won't go on, so she exasperatedly orders him to go ask someone to figure it out. Stiles, clearly on edge, replies, "Hey, I thought this was more of an auditory thing?" and though he's not wrong, Lydia insists that she still wants to be able to see what she's hearing, whatever that means. Stiles declares that to be a legitimate point and heads out the door to to track someone down to fix the lights so Lydia can do some proper banshee sleuthing.
Up on the second floor, we see that Stiles has found Melissa, who is giving him a rundown of what's happening at the hospital-- namely, that the hospital has been having electrical issues for the last hour, and though maintenance has been dispatched to check it out, the floor with the operating room is down to backup lighting only. "I thought you said this was more of a hearing thing?" Melissa asks in confusion, and Stiles, being the smart-ass that he is, immediately corrects her ("Auditory") before reminding her that it's also a Lydia thing, which means you really never know what the hell is going to happen with her.
Melissa leaves to get back to work, and Stiles heads to the elevator to meet back up with Lydia. Once he gets in and hits the button for the first floor, the doors close, and despite the fact that the elevator was empty when he entered it, he can see in the reflection of the doors that a woman with wild, dark hair that is hanging in front of her face and dressed in an oversized hospital gown is standing in the left-hand corner. Not wanting to stare, Stiles just barely tilts his head to the side to try to see her in his peripheral vision before the elevator doors open again (on the second floor, no less, which is exactly where Stiles just was-- I don't know if this is just part of the hallucination or what, but I felt compelled to mention it). Stiles is too dazed to move, so the woman ducks around him and walks down the hall, and it's only when Stiles watches her walk in front of him that something sparks recognition in his eyes, and he decides to follow her. UH-OH. MOMMY ISSUES AHOY.
Over at the school, Scott and Theo have just made it down into the basement to find that a ton of electrical cables have been roughly sawed through, leaving a bunch of exposed, sparking wires in its place. "Well, this definitely isn't Kira," Scott remarks warily, and Theo gulps nervously before realizing that it's a chimera. Oh shit! So, is this guy like Blackout from The Flash, kind of like a vampire who feeds on electricity or something? I want to know more! Where is Deaton or Mason when you need some supernatural/folkloric information?
Lydia is still in the operating room, but the camera has that fish-eye quality to it that makes the room look much bigger than it really is and that indicates there is some sort of hallucination or vision going on. She starts to hear the EKG monitor start to beep at a slow, steady pace, and walks over to examine it more closely and try to get some kind of banshee information from it. Just like when she plucks strings, or listens to the banshee records, or drops a handful of bullet casings onto a metal table to listen to the reverberations, Lydia is able to hear clues that comes from the echoing of the beeping heart monitor-- it's a Dread Doctor's robotic-sounding voice, which is saying one word, over and over and over: Hayden.
Upstairs, Stiles is still following the mystery lady, although we all already know who she is. As he shoves past various nurses and other health care professionals, the woman in front of him flickers in ad out of focus and jumps forward several feet as she turns the corner, kind of like a ghost, or, more accurately, a hallucination, because Stiles has finally triggered his repressed memory. "Mom?" Stiles whispers in disbelief as he follows CLAUDIA FUCKING STILINSKI down the hallway.
Cut to the school again, where Malia is quickly rushing down the stairs to meet Scott and Theo so they can figure out what the hell is going on. When Scott asks where Kira is, she informs him that she's still at the library before adding that Stiles and Lydia are at the hospital so that Lydia can figure out what happened during her surgery. Scott then asks how long they're going to be there, and when Malia repeats what she was told-- that they were waiting for the power to come back on so they could try to get some banshee-answers-- Scott and Theo realize that the new chimera probably has something to do with the hospital's electricity problems and immediately rush over there without even telling Malia what's going on. Rude, you guys! What the hell?
Sure enough, on the hospital's roof, the chimera-- who is, in fact, Josh, that same club kid who wanted a refund on his burned-out glow-stick, and who ran onto the field to find someone with an inhaler to find Scott-- is standing on top of the hospital's generator and is chewing the hell out of the electrical wires like they're beef jerky. WHAT THE HELL KIND OF CREATURE IS THIS KID? We know that all the chimeras we've seen thus far have been hybrids of usually two different supernatural creatures: Belasko was a werewolf/garuda, Tracy was a werewolf/kanima, Donovan was a wendigo/lamprey, Lucas was a werewolf/scorpion/maybe a manticore, I don't know, so Josh is probably no exception, but there are few identifying characteristics-- he has teeth that are kind of like a werewolf's, only they're all thin and long, and he has claws like a werewolf and apparently an immunity to electricity, or maybe even the ability to siphon it into himself. So, possibly a werewolf-something hybrid, I don't know. Maybe we'll learn this week. Also, how many times is that generator going to get fucked with on this show? Nogitsune!Stiles sabotaged it in "Riddled," which caused tons of people to get electrocuted in "Letharia Vulpina," and then Kate's berserkers messed with it again in "Time of Death," which forced Kira and Liam to fight against it. That thing should probably be moved somewhere else, at the very least.
Meanwhile, at Sinema, Hayden's creepy boss, Phil, is interviewing a new go-go boy and explaining that though their base-pay is crap, good-looking dancers can make up to 1,000 dollars a night in tips. When he asks the applicant to see what he's working with, the guy unbuttons his flannel to reveal a very nice body that is covered in tattoos over his chest and side. "...Maybe less," Douchey Boss says after checking the guy out. Rude! Hayden walks up to the bar to grab a tray full of lit votive candles in red glass holders that she needs to set up around the club in anticipation for the night's customers while Liam follows her around and insists that he has brought her another twenty-five more dollars, brings him up to seventy dollars of the two-hundred total he owes her for the spilled drinks. Hayden is clearly touched by the effort he's going to in order to pay her back, but she just sighs and orders him to stop with the money thing, but Liam insists that he promised to pay her back. "It doesn't matter now," Hayden replies kindly. "Besides, Phil takes half anyway."
She continues scattering the candles around the room, and finally, Liam blurts out, "I know it's for your medication, so please, just take the money." Hayden continues to refuse and reminds him that it wasn't his fault, but Liam scurries around her so he can look her in the face and points out that he totally punched her in the face, which gets a laugh out of her. "...I meant the shots," Hayden replies with an amused smile, and Liam just looks a little awkward until Hayden finally throws him a bone. "It's for mycophenolate," she explains. "It's for a kidney transplant I had a few years ago. I work here so my sister doesn't have to pay for all of it. Now, can you just forget about it? I'll make it back somehow." Aw, Hayden! Also, we have Sydney, who has been dealing with some stress-induced form of alopecia for three years, and now we have Hayden, who had a kidney transplant "a few" years ago, which means Hayden's health issues could be another tally mark in the PRO column for the theory that the Dread Doctors are targeting kids with health problems. Yikes yikes yikes yikes! Anyway, Liam seems to be more at ease now that Hayden isn't being fully antagonistic to him, and he follows her into the next room as he asks her if Douchey-Phil really does take half her money. "And never stops bragging about it," Hayden replies with a sigh. "Just listen to him."
Liam does what he's told and very un-subtly uses his wolf-hearing to eavesdrop on Phil, just as he says the the applicant, "It's not like they're going to do anything. They're all under the table and too young to be selling alcohol." Welp, there's our answer as to how a sophomore in high school is able to work at an LGBT night club full of booze and dudes rolling on MDMA-- her boss knows she's underage and is purposely allowing her to work for cash (so neither of them are paying taxes on the money she earns) so he can rip her off. Ugh, this guy is literal garbage, and you can tell Liam isn't thrilled about it either. He then gets an idea, and rushes over to Hayden to ask her if she can do something for him. When she frowns in confusion and asks what he wants, Liam asks her to close her eyes.
One of the Doctors' robotic voices says "Hayden" once again before we cut back to the hospital, where Lydia is gaping in shock at the revelation that Hayden is a chimera as she grips the plugs to the EKG machine in her hand. Suddenly, she's transported to the Doctors' creepy lab, where one of the tanks with the bloated body inside that is wearing the scuba mask is right behind her. In front of her is the exam table, where poor Josh is strapped down just like Donovan was as the Doctors surround him and examine him following what I assume is one of their "treatments." Wait, how is Lydia seeing this? Was she there, and she's just triggered another memory that has been repressed? Is the fact that she can get visual banshee hints as well as auditory ones an advancement of her existing powers, or is it part of the new powers she may have received after being experimented on? I AM SO CONFUSED AND HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS.
The Surgeon, holding a pair of forceps, leans over Josh's body as he begs them not to hurt him. I start thanking any god who is listening for not having them pull out this guy's teeth too, because that seriously traumatized me, but instead, the Surgeon takes his forceps and uses them to peel a huuuuge flap of skin that covers the right side of his ribs, revealing glowing bluish-purple flesh underneath. When I looked at it closer, you can see that his entire torso is glowing the same bluish-purple color under his skin, and not just the part that is exposed. Is that part of the electrical thing? Does anyone have any idea what the hell this kid is? "Your condition worsens," the Surgeon says in his robotic voice as he and the Geneticist start to glitch in that flickering manner of theirs-- as we know, "Your condition worsens" is just one step away from "His condition is terminal," which means instant death, so this doesn't bode well for him whatsoever. While this is going down, Lydia continues to stand behind them with her mouth agape and is visibly terrified and horrified by what she's seeing-- it's one thing to know that the Dread Doctors are making chimeras, but it's another thing all together to actually see their experiments for themselves, so hopefully this will end up helping them figure out what the hell is going on. You know, if Lydia actually tells everyone what she saw, which could go either way, considering the pack's tendency toward lies of omission these days. (Coincidentally, I just saw that S05E09 is titled "Lies of Omission," so I'm guessing that's when everyone's secrets come out and the drama really starts to go down. I'M NOT AT ALL READY.
Anyway, Stiles has finally made it to the roof after following the hallucination of his mother there, which, as we know, is very poor timing, considering the electricity-eating chimera is probably still up there. When he sees his mother standing on the edge of the roof, he walks towards her and calls out, "Mom? Mom, what are you doing?", only for Sheriff to appear behind him and walk past Stiles as though he's not even there. Instead of the out-of-body-esque experience Lydia and Scott had, where they saw themselves as children during their hallucinations, present-day Stiles is actually in the place of his younger self, much like how Malia didn't see her eight-nine year old self in her own hallucination, either. Anyway, Sheriff walks up to where Claudia is standing and asks her what she's doing up there, so she sighs in relief at the sight of him and replies, "I couldn't stand to be in that room anymore. Not with him looking at me like that." NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE, I HATE WHERE THIS IS GOING. Sheriff cuts in and tries to talk her down, but Claudia ignores him. "He's trying to hurt me," Claudia continues, her voice getting louder and more hysterical the more she talks. "I don't care if you don't believe me, but he is. He's trying to kill me!"
Sheriff looks heartbroken and assures her that it isn't true, and eventually convinces her to step down from the edge so he can hug her tightly and comfort her. "You have to remind yourself it's the disease," Sheriff explains gently. "Remember what the dementia does? It gives you delusions. It makes you think that people are out to get you." Stiles' eyes widen when he realizes what they're talking about, and it actually made me worried that maybe Stiles is concerned that he could actually have frontotemporal dementia like they thought in 3B-- we've all noticed and talked about how increasingly paranoid Stiles has been this season, especially with regards to Theo (and though he's right that Theo is untrustworthy, he doesn't actually have any real proof to back it up, he's just accusing Theo of being shady because he assumes every new person is shady, and it only ends up being right correct, like, 40% of the time), plus you know the disappearance of Donovan's body after he accidentally killed him has been fucking with him, too, which made me wonder last week if he didn't think he had imagined the entire thing. I DON'T LIKE ANY OF THIS TO BE HONEST, IT'S TOO MUCH.
Claudia starts to cry and insists that Sheriff doesn't see the way "he" (meaning Stiles, of course) looks at her, and when Sheriff argues that he's just a ten-year-old boy, Claudia begins to sob even harder and cries that Stiles is trying to kill her. And, since this is an actual memory that Stiles has that resurfaced thanks to reading the book, Stiles' hallucination about his dad blaming him for Claudia's death in Season 2 suddenly makes a lot more sense, too, and I'm dying. THIS EPISODE IS TOO MUCH. To make this situation even creepier and harder to watch, Stiles looks down at the ground to find that his shadow is that of a young child, which is right when Claudia spots Stiles staring at her with tears in his eyes over Sheriff's shoulder and starts to yell at him. "Stop looking at me like that!" she screeches. "Stop it!" She breaks out of Sheriff's grip and rushes toward Stiles, and though Sheriff tries to stop him, she's too fast and too strong. When she makes it to him, she starts slapping him violently with so much force that Stiles falls backwards onto the ground and covers his face with his arms in an attempt to block her blows. NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE. However, after a moment, reality breaks through to him, and he realizes that it's actually the chimera who has tackled him, not his mother! The generator that Josh chewed through is shooting up huge bursts of sparks as he violently claws at Stiles with his hands. SHIT!
Scott, Malia and Theo have just arrived at the hospital, and Scott instructs the other two to go find Stiles and Lydia while he finds his mother. Unfortunately, splitting up ends up being a very bad idea, because as soon as Scott reaches the fourth floor and exits the elevator (Don't they ever use the stairs? The hospital's elevators are bad news), he's immediately confronted by the Pathologist, who grabs Scott in a choke-hold against the wall with one hand. Scott desperately tries to fight against his grip, but the Doctor is not only supernaturally strong and gods know how old, but he's wearing about a hundred pounds of clunky metal reinforcements, so even Scott's heightened strength isn't a match for him. Once Scott is immobile against the wall, the Pathologist reaches out his hand and causes the tips to glow with a whitish-blue electromagnetic light before placing his hand on Scott's chest and electrocuting him as if it was a defibrillator.
This ends very badly, as you can probably guess, when the shock triggers yet another respiratory crisis, likely because the electricity was powerful enough to nullify Scott's healing and cause him to have a stress-induced asthma attack. WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT TO HIM? Is this punishment for reading the book and/or getting away from them when they went to Eichen House? Does this mean Scott really is a DD test subject, and this is some kind of test? I AM SO WORRIED ABOUT SCOTT. As Scott wheezes, he fumbles into his pocket to pull out his inhaler, but ends up dropping it onto the floor before he can use it.
Meanwhile, on the roof, Stiles has just managed to get away from Josh the chimera, though he's quickly cornered once again and is forced to keep his arms up in front of his face, just like Jordan taught Lydia earlier, to ensure that Josh's blows and swipes don't give him a head injury. Just when things are starting to look really bleak for Stiles, Theo arrives, fully wolfed-out and growling up a storm, to yank Josh off of him. They get into a bit of a tussle before Theo shoves him so hard that he flies across the roof, leaving Stiles to gape in horror at his unlikely savior. Theo leaps across the roof and lunges for Josh, and when he swipes at him with his long claws, Theo grabs his arm with one hand while using the other to punch him in the face multiple times to disorient him. He's definitely showing better fighting skills here than he did against Belasko, and I'm not sure if that's intentional or not. Anyway, Stiles is ducking behind some piece of machinery to shield him from all the sparks still coming off of the generator, and Theo uses his arms to spin Josh in the air before slamming him onto the ground and jumping backward several feet to keep him from grabbing at his ankles. When Theo goes to pull him off the ground by his shirt, Josh kicks him in the chest and sends him flying backward, giving Josh the time to catch back up with him and shove him against the fence that surrounds the generator. Theo then gets kicked on the ground and his wrist stomped on by Josh's foot, so all in all, things do not look good for him.
Back downstairs, we return to Scott's fight with the Pathologist right where we initially started at the beginning of the episode-- the Pathologist stomps on Scott's inhaler and turns it into a pile of tiny pieces of plastic and albuterol particles, leaving Scott gasping for breath as he lays face-down on the floor. Just when the Doctor grabs Scott in another choke-hold, the elevator doors open to reveal Melissa and Malia, the latter of whom has her claws and fangs out and growls at the Pathologist menacingly, causing him to throw Scott down the hallway in favor of fighting against Malia instead.
While they're fighting, Melissa runs past them, drags Scott back into the elevator, and injects him with a bronchodilator, just like before. Malia kicks, punches, and swipes at the Doctor with her claws, but, like Scott, her supernatural strength is inferior to his. Once Scott is mostly stable, Melissa yells at Malia to get the hell in the elevator already, but Malia is so dazed by the punch to the head that she's pulled into a choke-hold. The Pathologist raises his fist to hit Malia again, only for her to break out of his grip and make a mad dash to the elevator, only just making it through the doors before they close, leaving the Doctor furious in the hallway. "We never should have read that book," Scott whimpers as he pants for breath and gives Malia a terrified look.
On the roof, Theo has managed to get the upper-hand in the fight and throws Josh across the floor near where Stiles is still hiding out from all the flying sparks from the destroyed generator. When Josh lunges for him, Theo grabs his arm and wrenches it backward, breaking it at the shoulder joint and taking advantage of this vulnerability to punch him in the stomach multiple times. Finally, Theo wraps his right hand around Josh's throat and squeezes it tightly, causing the guy to gag and gasp for breath as Stiles slowly pops out from behind the machinery, just in time to see Theo FULLY RIP JOSH'S THROAT OUT WITH HIS CLAWS! HOLY SHIT! Josh falls to the ground tries to gasp for breath through his shredded throat while Theo lowers his hand, which is now covered in Josh's blood and is dripping from his claws onto the ground. After a few more rasping breaths, Josh dies, and Stiles gapes at Theo in horror at having killed him. I mean, Theo's situation and Stiles' aren't exactly the same-- Stiles was most certainly going to be grievously injured by Donovan, and he's not a supernatural as far as we know, so there would be no healing for that. Theo, on the other hand, is a supernatural (or supernatural-ish, depending on whether or not the theory that Theo is a successful chimera is true) who can heal, and Theo was more on the offensive end of the fight rather than the defensive.
So, yeah, Theo probably could have incapacitated the guy somehow instead of killing him, and I think Theo knows it, because when he catches a glance of Stiles' horrified face, he immediately pleads, "Stiles... You can't say anything." Stiles is still stunned into silence, and Theo starts to panic even more. "Please, don't say anything," Theo repeats worriedly, and when Stiles asks him why he shouldn't, Theo pauses for dramatic effect before bringing out the big guns-- "Because I never said anything about Donovan." OHHHHHH SHIT! I knew he knew about that! I'm just wondering how. Also, I CAN'T BELIEVE IT ENDED RIGHT THERE.
Next episode: The pack uses Hayden as bait in a trap meant to lure at least one of the Dread Doctors to the high school so they can be captured, and I'm going to go on ahead and assume that it fails in an epic fashion.
NOTES/SPECULATION/QUESTIONS:
-In the fashion rerun department, we have Stiles borrowing Scott's red hoodie with white strings that Scott first wore at the end of "Orphaned" and the beginning of "Weaponized," which is just endlessly precious to me, I don't know why. Maybe because this isn't even the first time Stiles has borrowed Scott's clothes? Oh, Skittles.
-Okay, so how does Theo know about Donovan? Did the Doctors see the fight? I'm pretty sure he was at the hospital after Lydia was hurt when this all went down, so unless he and the Doctors have something to do with Jordan's extracurricular activities (PLEASE DON'T BE SO), I don't think he could have been there when it happened. It also could have just been an assumption based on the fact that he was the one who sent Donovan after Stiles in the first place, and he knew Stiles was lying about getting hurt, so he could have possibly just put the pieces together. Who knows, maybe if he's a chimera, his other creature is something with clairvoyance or something! Anything can happen at this point.
-I'm also wondering if some of the chimeras who have gotten involved with the pack in various fights aren't meant either as a test to see how the pack will react, or as a way to help Theo convince the pack that he's trustworthy and help him gain membership? Like, if Theo is working for the Doctors, then why would he fight against Belasko to protect Scott, unless he wanted to ensure that he wasn't involved with them AND show that he cared enough to fight for them? That would also likely mean that Belasko was actually already determined to be a failure, and the only reason why the Doctors killed him in the first place was because Theo didn't get a chance to, which is probably for the best for his cover, since Scott is very anti-murder. With regards to Donovan, Theo could have sent him to Stiles on the Doctors' orders in hopes that doing so would either get rid of Stiles and destabilize the pack to make it easier for Theo to get into it, or would get rid of Donovan and give Theo dirt on Stiles to use against him to destabilize the pack. Then, with Josh, Theo could have been sent to kill him to save another one of the pack members, knowing that one of them would end up there once they realized a chimera was messing with the electricity-- that's also how they knew Scott would be there so they could shock him. Plus, the Doctors already said that his condition was worsening, which seems to suggest that he would have been killed by them sooner or later anyway.
-Okay, so what do the hallucinations mean? I'm still not quite sure yet, but I'm cooking up a theory-- which assumes that the Doctors are treating people with medical and/or psychological conditions using supernatural serums that turn them into chimeras-- that the Doctors were drawn to at least Scott, Stiles, and Lydia from a young age. I mean, all three of their hallucinations dealt with real memories that happened in medical facilities-- Lydia's at Eichen House with her grandmother, Scott at the hospital during an asthma attack following the traumatic mauling of his puppy, and Stiles at the hospital with his very sick mother. In the case of Stiles and Lydia, it's possible that the Dread Doctors were involved with Claudia and Lorraine, respectively, because they were both dealing with (what were believed to be) delusions and other mental illnesses (for Claudia, as a result of dementia, and for Lorraine, as a result of her banshee nature). These hallucinations, along with other information we've learned throughout the series thus far, show us the family and personal history of health issues (or what would be believed to be health issues):
-This week's music is below!
"Attack" by Conway (Lydia and Parrish spar at his apartment)
"Famous & Rich" by Naught Queen, Sebastian Ingrosso & Steve Angello (Liam gives Hayden $43 dollars at Sinema and helps her turn the electricity back on)
"Bust One" by Proper Villains ft Metric Man (Liam and Hayden practice lacrosse and soccer on the field)
"Freaks" by Timmy Trumpet ft Savage (Liam and Hayden try to one up each other until Liam accidentally gets carried away and hits the goalie)
"Ghost Dance" by The Bright Light Social Hour (Malia confronts Theo in the weight room about the Desert Wolf part of her hallucination)
"It's Good" by Ethel and the Chordtones ft Ryan Levine of Wildling (Liam comes to Sinema again to give Hayden more money, and eventually learns she's a chimera when her eyes reflect the light of his glow stick.) --> I cannot for the life of me find a link to this song, sorry guys!
What are you guys thinking? I want to know!
Anyway, there is a lot to unpack in this recap, so I'm just going to cut to the chase and jump in so we can start discussing everything we learned. Let's talk about "Required Reading!"
Previously, on Teen Wolf: Scott, Kira, Lydia, and Stiles went to Eichen House to talk to Dr. Gabriel Valack, who wrote the Dread Doctors book that Malia found in Tracy's bedroom (which, as it turns out, was probably planted by Theo?) Scott and Kira couldn't actually go into his cell due to all the mountain ash in the building, but Lydia and Stiles managed to talk to Valack, who explained many things about the Dread Doctors-- namely, that the Doctors' own powers are based in electromagnetic fields, which gives them the power to mess with technology and electronics, extend their own lifespans, and erase the memories their test subjects have of being around them He also informed them that the book he wrote was designed to trigger the memory centers of the brain to help the Dread Doctors' victims remember what the Doctors made them forget, and insisted that anyone who could have come in contact with them read the book to regain their memories. Then, of course, the Doctors came and sucked out Valack's third eye for reasons that are still unclear at the moment. While Scott and Kira were waiting for Stiles and Lydia, Kira's foxfire started getting out of control, and her powers accidentally exploded a bunch of lights in the building because her very presence interfered with the convergence of telluric currents in Eichen House's foundation that would otherwise prevent the Doctors from entering it.
Speaking of Kira, Scott is very, very worried about her, because she nearly killed the already-neutralized Lucas with her katana after yelling "WATASHI WA SHI NO SHISHA DA!" at the top of her lungs, and probably would have, had Scott not been there to stop her. Theo was giving Malia a driving lesson that night while everyone was at Eichen House, which triggered yet another PTSD-style flashback for her, causing her to stop the car in the middle of the road and fling herself onto the ground while she experienced the rest of her resurfacing memories-- as it turns out, it wasn't Malia who killed her mom and sister (or, at the very least, it wasn't her transforming during the full moon that was the catalyst for the accident), because the Desert Wolf showed up in the middle of the road while they were driving and shot the car up with a bunch of bullets, causing Malia's adoptive mother to drive off the road and into the woods. Oh, and Theo sent the newly-chimera'd Donovan (part-wendigo, part-lamprey) after Stiles by convincing him it was the best way to get revenge against Sheriff Stilinski, so he confronted Stiles at the high school and started chomping on his shoulder and neck with his fangy-mouths on his hands. He then chased Stiles into the library, where Stiles desperately tried to climb a construction scaffolding to save himself while Donovan tried to eat his legs. Finally, he dropped a shitload of construction materials onto Donovan with the intention of incapacitating him long enough to get away, but ended up inadvertently killing him when a piece of metal ended up impaling Donovan through the chest and killing him. Whoops!
Since this season is taking the wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey, non-linear timeline first seen in Season 3A's "Frayed" and kicking it up to a million, our opening scene is a little confusing. After watching the premiere, "Creatures of the Night," we know (or are at least pretty sure) that the first and last scenes we saw with Lydia in Eichen House are most likely from the present, and everything else we've seen thus far are flashbacks to before she ended up there. Now, in this episode, we've got flashbacks within flashbacks, because the cold open is in the present-day part of the flashbacks, if that makes sense? And everything else is flashbacks to before this present-flashback. Do you guys understand? No? Me either.
Okay, so anyway, Scott is at Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital, where he's laying face-down on the floor in the hallway, in the middle of what appears to be an asthma attack. He's desperately gasping for breath as he reaches for his inhaler, which he apparently dropped onto the floor next to him, but before he can reach it, a Dread Doctor stomps on it with his boot and smashes it into pieces. (I think it's the Pathologist, anyway. If I'm remembering their characteristics correctly, the Pathologist has the solid-green mask with just two regular eye-holes, the Surgeon is the one with the red goggles and yellow monocle that flips up and down who seems to be the leader, and the Geneticist, who is played by a woman who isn't as tall as the other Doctors, has that weird flippy-flap thing on the side of her head, and her mask is like more of a bronzey-brown color than green. The more you know!) The Pathologist then makes his clanky-clockwork noises as he bends over, picks Scott up by the shirt, and pins him to the wall in a choke-hold, which does absolutely nothing to help his asthma attack whatsoever.
The Pathologist grips at Scott's neck even tighter, but before he can hurt Scott further, the elevator at the end of the hall opens to reveal our favorite Angel of the Lord Melissa and Malia, who is partially coyote-d out and is ready for a smackdown. The Pathologist turns to see them and immediately throws Scott down the hall in favor of going after Malia, probably because her fangs are out and she is growling at him menacingly. She then roars at him again and sprints down the hall and jumps to do this amazing two-legged kick to the Pathologist's chest, but as we already learned from Malia's first encounter with the Doctors in "Dreamcatchers," they are very strong, and the guy is barely even fazed by the kick whatsoever. Meanwhile, Melissa has just rushed over to Scott, who is laying flat on his back on the floor and wheezing painfully, and pulls him back into the elevator, though she doesn't close the doors yet. Malia is still fighting the Pathologist, but no matter how hard she punches, kicks, and slashes with her claws, it barely has any affect on him. I feel compelled to point out that Malia's eyes aren't glowing blue like they usually do when she has her fangs and claws out, but I'm thinking it's probably just been left out so they could save the special effects time and budget for the flashbacks later, rather than it being a hint that something is going on with her.
Back in the elevator, Melissa has a large pre-loaded syringe in her hand, which she holds up in preparation to stab it into Scott's vastus lateralis muscle, but Scott stops her for a moment to ask her what the hell she's doing. "It's a bronchodilator," Melissa explains quickly. "It'll work." She then slams the needle into his thigh and quickly injects the medication, which starts working almost immediately, much to Scott's relief. Feeling slightly contented by the fact that Scott's okay for the time being, Melissa screams for Malia to run and get into the elevator so they can get the hell out of there, but when Malia slashes at the Doctor, he grabs her by the wrist with one hand before punching her hard in the head with the other. You can tell that Malia's got little birdies floating around her head from the head injury already, and is so bleary-eyed and dazed by it that she unwittingly allows the Pathologist to easily grab her in a choke-hold as well, his hand gripping her throat so tightly that Malia literally gags from the pressure.
The Pathologist is just about to knock her out with another blow when Malia's survivor instincts kick in, and she manages to wrench herself out of his grip before he can make contact. She then realizes that, like with the berserkers last season, this is definitely more of a "flee" than "fight" situation and starts rushing toward the elevator as Melissa continues to yell at her to hurry up. Aw, Melissa! Your love for the pack kids will never cease to warm up my shriveled little heart. The Pathologist is hot on her heels, but fortunately, Melissa has been standing at the ready, and as soon as Malia is within jumping distance of the elevator, she hits the button, and with a little extra elbow grease from Melissa, they manage to close the doors before the Doctor can get in with them. Whew! That was quite a rush, and we're not even three minutes in yet. They all breathe a sigh of relief, at least until the electricity flickers, causing the elevator itself to rattle, probably due to the Pathologist's anger kicking off his EMF powers, but regardless, they all seem to be okay. As they all catch their breath, Scott looks up at Malia with panic in his eyes and exclaims, "We never should have read that book!" Imagine that! Valack gave them kind of bad advice. What a shocker! Sigh. TITLE CARD!
When we return, we catch up with Sheriff Stilinski and several other deputies, including Clarke Romero, all of whom step out of their shiny Toyota product-placement cruisers and walk toward the high school's lacrosse field, where they find an extremely alarming sight-- there are a total of eight holes in the field, all of which look like the ones Liam found in the woods, where the edges are surrounded with loose dirt where whichever chimeras were buried ended up digging themselves out. First of all, that is terrifying, because that means there are eight new chimeras out there, and though we did learn about two of them in this episode, that leaves six more that are unaccounted, plus there could be even more holes in the woods that they don't know about, not to mention the fact that the Doctors will probably be making even more while the kids are trying to figure out how to deal with the ones that already exist. Secondly, why would the Doctors bury them in the lacrosse field, where they know that it'll be found way more easily, than, say, if they did it in the middle of the ginormous nature preserve where hundreds of Beacon Hills citizens have already died without much fanfare? Are they running out of places to bury these chimeras? Do they not care if they attract attention to themselves? Also, why isn't Parrish out there? Is he still on desk duty? And how is Sheriff explaining all of this shit? Inquiring minds want to know!
It seems to be morning now, and Sheriff is in his office at the station with Stiles and Malia while he starts setting up his own crime board to keep track of everything that is happening at the moment. Aside from a few police report files, one of which seems to have fingerprints of some kind on it, the only other things of note are the photos of Tracy and Lucas side-by-side in the middle, and Sheriff uses a red Sharpie to write a large X over each of their faces to indicate that they're dead. "Chimeras," Sheriff mutters exasperatedly as he stares at the board and tries to process this new information. Stiles and Malia explain that since there are two dead chimeras, and they found eight new holes in the lacrosse field, that means that there have been ten chimeras total of which they're aware. However, Sheriff cuts in and says that he actually thinks that there are eleven before he takes out a copy of Donovan's mugshot and hangs it up on the board next to Tracy's photo. Of course, the sight of the photo immediately horrifies Stiles, because he knows so much more than he's telling anyone, and he's terrified that any speculation about Donovan is going to lead to revelations of things he doesn't want anyone to know.
"Our station tech guys confirmed something for me," Sheriff begins. "They said both the holding cell lock and cameras could have malfunctioned because of something electromagnetic." When he sees the knowing look on his children's faces at this statement, since Valack said that the Doctors' powers were electromagnetic in nature, he picks up the book Valack wrote and holds it up as he continues, "You said that, uh, these guys..." Malia interrupts him and calls them the Dread Doctors, to which Sheriff makes that hilariously exasperated face of his and replies, "Are we really calling them that?" which is so funny to me. I love that the writers keep making fun of the fact that they have the most ridiculously unimaginative names for their bad guys-- the Alpha Pack, the Orphans, the Mute, the Chemist, the Desert Wolf, and now the Dread Doctors. Anyway, back to the task at hand-- Malia asks Sheriff if he's suggesting that the Doctors broke Donovan out, which is exactly what he's thinking, considering that's also how they got into Eichen House.
Malia stares at the photo of Donovan and processes this for a moment before determining that Donovan must have been a chimera and walking toward the board so she can join Sheriff in examining it. By the way, I noticed two notable things on the crime board: the first was a police report detailing finding a body of a John Doe, who they described as "homeless" on the address section. I wasn't sure if the John Doe was a body of a chimera or one of their victims, but from what I could make out of the description of the body, it said "multiple fractures," so I'm wondering if it wasn't Belasko, since Scott snapped his arm into a bunch of little pieces? But, if that's the case, how did Scott figure out his name was Belasko (since he wrote it in his chimera notes in AP Bio in "Condition Terminal") in the first place if he was marked as a John Doe? Maybe Sheriff just wrote him off as a John Doe so no one would look into it too closely?
Secondly, Donovan's full name-- Donovan Donati-- is actually visible on the mugshot, along with his booking number, #008372782. Probably not important, but I like to be thorough. ANYWAY-- "But, is he a failure like Lucas and Tracy?" Sheriff asks worriedly, and Stiles becomes so overwhelmed with anxiety and fear that he turns away from them and walks to the other side of the room as he screams internally and tries to stop himself from having a panic attack in front of everyone. Fortunately for him, Sheriff and Malia are too wrapped up in brainstorming to notice right away. Malia figures that if Donovan is a failure like the others, he's probably dead now, but when she reaches out to put an X over Donovan's photo, Sheriff reaches out and grabs her hand to stop her and insists that they're not going to declare him dead until they find his body.
That's when they both realize that they haven't heard a peep from Stiles in quite a while, and they turn around to find him standing with his back to them, nervously wringing his hands and gnawing on his lips and doing all of his other little nervous quirks while he thinks about just how fucked he totally is. Sheriff points out that he's being uncharacteristically quiet, so Stiles sighs for a long moment before he finally turns around, clearly still anxious as hell, and tries to deflect the topic to something much safer. "Yeah..." Stiles begins in a shaky voice, as he tries to muster up some fake okay-ness to reassure them. "Sorry, I'm, uh... I'm just trying to think about it."
STILES: "Uh, these are all teenagers right? So, now, shouldn't we be trying to figure out why these teenagers? If the Dread Doctors, if they went through all that-- burying them, killing them, breaking one of them out of jail..."
SHERIFF: "...They couldn't have just been chosen at random."
MALIA: "They had to have something in common!"
SHERIFF: "Something that made them right for this experiment."
STILES: "Something that made them special."Look at that teamwork! And also, finally someone is asking one of the millions of questions I want answered, because SERIOUSLY, WHY ARE THESE KIDS CHOSEN? Now, all Stiles has to do is come clean about Donovan, and all will be groovy. (Seriously, kid has been hiding it for at least three days, at my count, which will be more like five days by the time this episode is over.)
At first, Wendy and I thought that everyone was acting so "off" because the Dread Doctors' presence was maybe unconsciously amping everyone up? Increasing the intensity of Tracy's night terrors, making Stiles' anxiety, paranoia, and general irritability even worse, increasing Scott's self-doubt, making Kira's powers out of control, causing Malia to experience way more flashbacks, etc, and I do think this still might be the case, but now I'm also wondering if maybe the Doctors aren't purposely seeking out people with certain medical or psychological conditions or illnesses that could be "fixed" by the supernatural. I can pretty much make a case for 90% of the known chimeras and the pack members (With the exception of Belasko, Lucas, and the club kid test subject we meet later--who we know little to nothing about and don't have much basis for speculation-- and Kira, who doesn't fit the profile because her kitsune powers have made it so she has never been sick a day in her life except that one time she was exposed to canine distemper and is generally psychologically healthy as well) being targets of the Doctors due to something in their family or personal medical histories that might makes them want to try science-y supernatural treatments.
It's also possible that they're just seeking out supernaturals, or people with dormant supernatural genes, possibly like Hayden or Belasko, the latter of whom I assumed was already a werewolf before he got modified, since he was dialed into the supernatural gossip scene to know about Scott/the pack's battles against the Alpha Pack and the fall of the Argent hunter family-- someone who only recently became supernatural wouldn't likely give a shit about anything like that. Plus, the fandom has long debated in meta and even fan fiction about whether or not there's something special in someone's genes that determines whether or not the bite of an Alpha turns them or kills them. So, if there's maybe something like that going on, they could be seeking out those who have this special gene or whatever, since they would be more likely to survive their experiments and become a "successful" chimera, although we still have no idea what exactly makes a chimera a success or a failure yet, but I'll be getting into that in a little while. For now, I just have a couple theory fragments, as usual! Feel free to tell me what you're thinking about this, because my mind is churning with possibilities and I'm really interested to hear other theories!
Meanwhile, over at Parrish's apartment, he and Lydia are decked out in workout clothes while they do a little close-quarters combat training. Jordan is obviously going easy on her, since she's still a novice, but she does a great job blocking his kicks and punches. His main instruction is a reminder to keep her hands up in front of her face, which not only protects her head from attacks, but also ensures that she's always got her eyes on the enemy. When they start again, Lydia proficiently blocks his shots for a bit, but Jordan manages to gently knee her in the leg before getting in a shot just centimeters from her face, which makes her groan in frustration. He assures her that it's okay, and obviously she's not going to be perfect after like two lessons, but you know how much of a perfectionist Lydia can be, so she just shrugs it off and insists that she's fine before instructing him to start again. Jordan looks at her a little warily and points out that maybe they should take a break, since he doesn't want her stitches to pop, so she rolls her eyes in exasperation before unzipping her jacket and showing him the bandage that covers the skin between the band of her sports bra and the high waistband of her running shorts.
Our favorite deputy gets a little too dazed at the sight of so much of her bare skin, which both amuses and frustrates Lydia enough to just strip the jacket off entirely to get back into practice. Jordan follows her lead, taking off his own hoodie to reveal the sleeveless jersey he's wearing underneath before the two start to spar again. Like the first couple rounds, Lydia does well in blocking the shots, but she gets a little overzealous in trying to grab Jordan's arm and twist in behind his back with one hand while using the other to swing a punch at his head, but he easily ducks to miss it and takes advantage of Lydia leaving her front vulnerable, allowing him to grab her arm and use it to pin her against his front. Lydia is embarrassed to have been beaten again and she winces in pain when she stretches her injured side a liiiiittle too far. While we're on the topic of "Frayed," this scene is giving me major flashbacks to when Allison acted much the same way after sparring with Scott in her room after he let her know what was going on with the Alpha Pack. So many parallels! Somebody make a gifset of it, please and thank you.
Anyway, when Jordan asks her what she did wrong, Lydia admits that she once again forgot to keep her hands up, which Jordan confirms. "But don't worry," he adds. "Your muscles have memory. With enough practice, they'll remember for you." Lydia sighs and leans her head back against his chest, and it takes a moment for them both to realize how close they're standing to each other, and how several minutes have passed with Jordan still holding onto her tightly. Breathing heavily, Lydia looks forward, where her bag-- which has a xerox'd copy of the Dread Doctors book shoved into it-- catches her eye and triggers a hallucination that involves one of the Doctors' clockwork-y hands clenching around Lydia's elbow. Just then, she's briefly transported back to her surgery, when the Doctors all surrounded her and did Gods know what to her. She whimpers in pain and jerks away from his touch for a moment before realizing that it wasn't real and getting embarrassed. Jordan, now worried he did something to offend her, asks her what's wrong, but all Lydia will say is, "Muscle memory." This totally bodes well for the rest of the episode, right? Also, what the fuck has Jordan been up to the last few episodes, besides training Lydia to fight and unconsciously carrying dead bodies to the Nemeton to be burned? I NEED TO KNOW. Also also, shouldn't they be having Jordan read the book, too?
Over at the school, Scott is standing on one of the catwalk balconies on campus with Theo while holding the copy of the Dread Doctors book in his hands, and they're looking down upon all of the students walking into the school while they discuss their current situation. "So, basically, we're looking for abnormal behavior?" Theo asks in confusion, but when Scott confirms it and adds that they need to keep an eye out for anyone acting "a little off" or "a little weird," Theo states the obvious by pointing out that all high schoolers are more than a little weird, so they do not have an easy job ahead of them by any means. The two then start to walk down the steps toward the main building as Theo brings up the book again, and emphasizes the fact that Tracy went off on a killing spree after she read the book, which means this is probably pretty dangerous.
That's kind of an interesting point that I hadn't considered, honestly-- I was under the impression that the Doctors planted the book in Tracy's room so that the pack would find it, but it would also make sense that Tracy had read it around the time that she was having all of those intense night terrors during the day. On the other hand, I don't trust Theo whatsoever, and him saying this could just as easily be him trying to 1) make it seem like he's concerned for their safety by insisting that it's a bad idea, despite the fact that he clearly wants them to read it and knows they'll end up doing it anyway, and/or 2) manipulate Scott into thinking that reading the book as a group will make it safer, plus having them do it in his presence means he can spy on them while they're reading/sleeping. Most likely, it's a combination of both of these, I'd guess.
Anyway, Scott takes this observation as Theo saying he thinks it's a bad idea, but Theo points out that yeah, Malia having some kind of hallucination-induced fugue state while she was driving definitely could have ended badly, and figures that Scott must at partially agree, otherwise they all would have finished the book by now. Scott insists that they're eventually going to read the rest, which is when Theo's perfect facade starts to crack a little bit. "Scott, I came here hoping to find a pack. I wasn't planning on watching one fall apart." Ummm, what the hell is that supposed to mean? Regardless, it's shady as hell, but I just need to know what Theo is after, here. Is he trying to break the pack apart? If so, is it due to his own goals, or is he a puppet of the Doctors? Or is he secretly pulling a Kol Mikaelson and is only with the Doctors so far because he owes them, but doesn't really care for being controlled by them to the point that he could even be genuinely trying to get into the pack so they can all take down the Doctors together? I AM SO CONFUSED. But, I am too smart to be seduced by you, Theo! Even if you do have "a face made in God's own atelier," as my favorite former Teen Wolf recapper used to say, and glorious abs for days. I AM NOT BUYING WHAT YOU'RE SELLING.
*clears throat* Ahem. Anyway, between Scott not seeming the least bit fazed by Theo's statement, and what he says about Kira later, I'm just going to hope and assume that Wendy's theory that Scott is compromised by some kind of Doctor weirdness is true, especially considering how stressed everyone is becoming over this situation, because I can't think of any other reasons why Scott would be acting so out of character. He knows better than to trust Theo! He knows better than to doubt his friends! What the hell is wrong with you, baby? Anyway, Scott argues that the book is the only clue they have as to what is going on with the Dread Doctors, so Theo replies, "Then I'll read it, too." HOW CONVENIENT. Gods, he is so transparent.
I don't know if we just skipped past a whole school day, or if they just decided they wanted to skip school in favor of going on another adventure to Nightmare-Acid-Trip-Land, just like in "Party Guessed," and "Motel California," and "Lunar Ellipse," and "De-Void," and "Time of Death." Scott, Stiles, Malia, Kira, Lydia, and Theo are all standing around the coffee table in the McCall house's living room, where they're staring at the stack of copies of the Dread Doctors book. "My mom's book club usually has more wine," Lydia chirps hilariously, to which Stiles snits, "Well, they also probably didn't read books that cause violent hallucinations." Kira assures them that this is why they brought Malia, who has already suffered through her bout of book-induced hallucinations (which we still need to talk about, but I'll be getting into that in the notes)-- so none of them go running into oncoming traffic, or killing their parents, or anything like that. "Like what happened to Judy," Malia responds with a wise nod, and when everyone looks at her with a blank look, she explains that it happens in Chapter 14. Aw, Malia pretty much has the book memorized now, doesn't she? She works so hard, it kills me.
Lydia suggests that perhaps she should have her mother read it, since she'll probably remember a girl with a tail walking on the walls and ceiling and paralyzing everyone within arm's reach, which seems like such a weird comment to me-- is Lydia suggesting that Natalie doesn't remember what happened with Tracy? Did the Dread Doctors make her forget? Am I reading too much into this again? It worries me. Stiles still isn't sure the book is going to work, but Lydia insists that it has to, and she has a pretty good reason to want it to, as we well know. "I think I saw them during my surgery," she admits, in yet another now-uncharacteristic bit of honesty in this season full of lying and hiding stuff that should be confessed the second it happens. "When I look at the cover of the book, it's almost like..." Theo, who has been silent during this entire conversation, pipes up, "A memory trying to surface?" which is of course what Lydia meant, and which gains him confused and suspicious looks from pretty much everyone in attendance. Theo would totally know, too, since he's definitely a Dread Doctor minion and probably a successful chimera at that.
Kira points out that Valack seemed to suggest that the whole point of the book is to make you remember, which is why Lydia is so adamant about reading the book-- if the Doctors did something to her, she wants to know what it is, and I can't blame her for being worried about it, considering what we know about them! So, everyone sighs and reaches for their own copy of the book before settling down in various pieces of furniture in the living room and kitchen and starting to fully read it together. Question-- where the hell is Liam? And Mason and Brett?Shouldn't he be reading this, too? He had a run-in with a chimera, and considering the chimeras keep coming after them (Tracy going after Hayden/Lydia/Natalie and fighting with Malia, Donovan going after Stiles, Lucas going after Mason and fighting Brett/Liam/Scott/Kira, etc) they should probably all read the book, just to be safe. I mean, I know for time's sake, they can't just have everyone reading it at once, especially if many of them have been messed with-- that's a lot of hallucinations of memories to cover, and we barely had enough time to get into the ones we had as it is. Still, I hope they eventually have the others read the book or something, because I'm afraid the characters who have been left out may be affected as well and just don't know it.
After the break, we come back to find everyone slowly getting bored/antsy/sleepy from slowly making their way through the book. Scott is blinking and generally trying to keep himself focused on the pages, and in this moment, I can sympathize with him a lot-- in general, I'm a great reader, and pretty much my only valuable skill is reading things very quickly when it's something I like (for example, I read the entire Mara Dyer Trilogy in 2.5 days a couple months ago), but if it's something boring, like the life-draining ethics class I took last semester, I literally just daydream and read the same sentence over and over without absorbing it, and it's excruciatingly boring. I did manage to catch the page Scott was reading though, so I have lovingly transcribed it for you below in case you're a nerd like me and are into that sort of thing. and in case it actually means something. (Though, knowing the reliability of the props in this show, I'm not quite convinced it does. Oh, well. Better safe than sorry.)
"...the floor and roll away. Her chest rose and fell again and again as she sucked air into her lungs. As the adrenaline began to wear off, Judy felt her eyes sting with tears. She looked away from the twisted remains of the creature that was once her friend as a wail escaped her lips.
With a labored step, Judy turned toward the open door at the end of the walkway. Blood pounded in her ears every step of the way like the droning of a great cloud of bees.
She pushed the door open until it clanged against the outside wall. Night air filled her lungs and for the first time in weeks Judy felt like everything was going to be all right. She stepped out into the darkness. [...] And ran like hell.
The peculiar V-shaped mouth with [...] the absence of brow ridges, [...] beneath the wedgelike [...] of this mouth [...] tumultuous..."So, I'm guessing that's Chapter 14, since Malia mentioned Judy earlier. Anyway, take from that what you will. Meanwhile, Theo has flipped to the next page, but he's clearly not reading it at all, he's just trying to watch the others and see what they do. When we pan over to Kira, we see she's having the same problem as Scott, only worse, because the print on the pages starts to warp right before her eyes, making the font look as though its being stretched up and down and generally shaking too much to be read at all, though I have managed to make out that she's reading the same pages as Scott, because we manage to see most of the preceding page before everything gets blurry.
"... It was her salvation.
As if she knew what Judy was thinking, Amy keened and hissed a challenge. Her jaw expanded impossibly low, revealing rows of deadly fangs.
With a roar, Amy charge her friend. Judy swung the bat as hard as she could and connected with the side of Amy's head. The creature went down, but was up again before Judy could react. In an instant the bat was out of her hands and clattering at her feet. Amy swiped her taloned hands, ripping Judy's shirt and the skin beneath.
Judy cried out as she collapsed to the floor.
Before she knew it Amy was on top of her, but not before Judy could get her foot up and under Amy's chest. Amy snarled and squirmed, gnashing her teeth inches from Judy's face. With all of her might, Judy kicked as hard as she could, sending Amy backwards against the concrete wall.
Amy righted herself, looked back to Judy, and--
Crack! Judy smashed the bat across Amy's face..."Oh my gods, is Judy Stiles in this scenario? I kind of want to read this book, to be honest, terrifying hallucinations or no. Anyway, sensing Kira's frustration, Scott looks over at her before addressing the rest of the room and asking them if any of them are feeling anything. "Tired," Kira says with another frustrated sigh, and Lydia rolls her eyes before adding, "Hungry." Theo points out that he's pretty sure Scott's talking about book-related hallucinations, but Lydia and Kira just shrug, as though they have nothing else to say.
We then cut into the kitchen, where Stiles is reading all by himself at the kitchen table, for whatever reason. Malia comes in and reaches straight for the pot of coffee on the counter, since babysitting your packmates who may start hallucinating at any moment is hard work. She takes notice of Stiles anxiously rubbing the shoulder Donovan bit in the previous episode, and after a moment, her face becomes concerned as she asks him what happened to it. Stiles immediately panics yet again and asks her what she's talking about as we cut briefly to the living room, where Theo is clearly eavesdropping on their conversation. "I can smell the blood," Malia replies exasperatedly. "What happened?"
Wait, is Stiles still bleeding? That can't be good, unless all his nervous fidgeting is just causing his wounds to break open again. Of course, we'll never know, because Jeff Davis would never, ever, ever give us shirtless!Stiles, because he's the biggest troll of us all. This direct call-out on Malia's part causes Stiles' heart starts to race, and he quickly he lies and says that his Jeep died on him again, and when he went to check the engine, the hood just fell on his shoulder. Obviously, Malia and Theo can both hear his heart pounding and know he's lying, but Malia doesn't say anything for reasons I still don't quite understand, and Theo just files that shit away with all the other observations and secrets he's been building up since he started hanging out with them.
Stiles then turns the subject to Malia's book-induced memories the night before, and asks her how much she remembers about it. When she gives him a blank, confused look, he clarifies, "With the accident. Did it play like a movie in your head, or was it like being completely in it again?" Malia curtly replies that it was like being in it again, but when Stiles asks her if she just saw the crash, or if there was other stuff, too, Malia briefly recalls her flashback, where the Desert Wolf fired a gun at their car and caused it to run off the road. Once she's returned to the present, Malia stammers, "Nothing," since she knows Stiles is hiding stuff from her, and we all know dishonesty puts Malia on edge, especially when it's Stiles himself who is doing the lying. WHYYY ARE YOU GUYS KEEPING SUCH MAJOR SECRETS? YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE IN A RELATIONSHIP. I literally am about to drive my ass to fictional Beacon Hills and shake the lot of them until they start talking to each other about what's going on, because this is not only just ridiculous, but it's also dangerous for all of them-- especially considering Theo is totally just collecting their secrets like Pokémon so he can use the information against them later as part of whatever nefarious plans he has cooking. Fortunately, Malia does seem to notice Theo eavesdropping, so at least someone seems to be paying attention.
Back in the living room, Kira sighs in annoyance and puts her copy of the book on the end table before leaning back against the pillows and closing her eyes. Scott stops reading for a moment and looks over at her with concern before murmuring, "You're not giving up, are you?" Kira weakly insists that she isn't and says she's just resting her eyes and turns out the lamp next to her, but we all know how that is going to end-- whenever my dad claims he's "just resting his eyes," it means he's going to be asleep on the couch for a minimum of three hours, and I have no doubt Kira is intending to sleep for the rest of the night. I wonder if the sleepiness is a side effect of the book? Research has shown that sleep is necessary to help your brain process what it's learned, which is why all-nighters aren't really an effective way of studying for exams-- you need the sleep to synthesize it and store it for later use. So, maybe the book is doing the same thing, and the sleep will help the brain work through what it learned so it can be triggered later by whatever will activate the memories they've had repressed? SCIENCE!
Just as I was about to wonder where the hell the younger McCall Pack kids were this evening, we cut over to Sinema to find Hayden once again at work, only instead of glowing body shots, she's selling actual glow sticks. A club kid who seems to have killed way too many of his brain cells rolling on ecstasy at numerous raves rushes up to Hayden and informs her that the glow stick he bought is broken, to which she just rolls her eyes and replies, "No, it ran out of glow. They don't last forever!" The dude dully asks her if that means he can have his money back, which is suuuuuch a dumb question it kills me, but Hayden is clearly eager to get the hell away from him and instead just hands him a new glow stick and walks away. "God, I hate all-ages night," Hayden mutters under her breath, just as our tiny wolf prince Liam shows up in his nice club clothes with a handful of cash in his hands. "Forty-three dollars!" Liam exclaims brightly, but Hayden reminds him that she told him she doesn't want his money. Did we see that happen? I'm pretty sure it must have happened off-screen or something.
Anyway, Liam points out that actually, she said he owes her two hundred dollars, to which he has already put down twelve dollars, but Hayden just groans in frustration and tells him to forget about it, just as the power goes out. This only makes her more overwhelmed, but naturally, all the kids in the club are thrilled, and just wave all their glow sticks in the air in what is a very visually stunning shot. I know I talk a lot about how much I love the cinematography of this show, with it's very interesting shots and transitions and super-saturated colors, but this episode is especially gorgeous, with all the club scenes and the hallucinations and everything. Way to go, Teen Wolf directors and editors! So, Hayden declares this power outage to be perfect and rushes away to deal with it. Unfortunately for her, Liam is very eager to make up for the past, and follows after her to try to get her to take his money.
Once they're outside next to the switch to the external generator, Hayden turns around to face Liam and snaps, "I gotta be honest, Liam-- if you're trying to be a good guy, I really don't care." Liam looks hurt at this remark and insists that he's just trying to make up for what happened in the sixth grade, but she assures him that literally nothing will ever make up for that. Uh-oh! She turns her back to him and tries to push up the lever to the generator to turn it on, but for whatever reason, she's not strong enough to do it, which may be a hint as to any potential abilities that I'll get into more later. When Liam sees her struggling with it, he walks up behind her and gently puts his hand over hers before using his mega-werewolf-strength to push up the lever and turn the power back on.
Like Jordan with Lydia earlier, he lingers a liiiiiittle too long behind her, but eventually backs up so she can turn around to face him. "You want to keep hating me?" Liam asks in a not-unkind voice. "Go for it. You said I owe you two hundred. So, here's forty-three more." He holds the folded bills out toward her, and after a long moment, she huffs a small laugh and takes it from him before he turns and walks away, leaving a very surprised Hayden in his wake. Aw, Liam! I love this repentant side of him, it is so damn adorable and endearing. I'm also torn between thinking that the bite healed Liam of most of his anger issues, or if it's just the Scott McCall effect at work again that is keeping his emotions in check, but regardless, I adore Liam so much, and the fact that he's working so hard to pay Hayden back is just endlessly amazing to me. Plus, from the looks of things-- and the tiny impressed smile on her face as he leaves-- he seems to be growing on Hayden as well.
Back at the McCall house, we find the entirety of the McCall Pack (Theo isn't pack so he doesn't count) snoozing away in the living room. Lydia is passed out in the armchair in which she was reading, covered up in a blanket with the Dread Doctors book laying dog-eared on her lap. Stiles is on the floor and leaning back against the couch with his head propped up on a pillow that is resting on the legs of Malia, who is curled up next to Scott on the couch itself while he dozes on the end. Of course, Theo, being the creeper he is, is standing in the middle of the living room in his dumb cowl-neck sweater and looking at the sleeping sort-of friends scattered across the room. Kira, for whatever reason, has apparently moved upstairs to sleep in Scott's bed all by her lonesome, so once Theo is done snooping around downstairs, he walks up there to see what's going on with her. To further solidify the running joke that Theo is ready to snatch all of the pack girlfriends, he stands over Scott's bed and stares at Kira as she lays sprawled on her back. When he realizes she's muttering in her sleep, he looks even more intrigued, and kneels next to the bed so he can listen closer. "Watashi... wa shi... no shisha... da," Kira murmurs quietly. "Watashi... wa shi no shisha da."
Theo, who has slowly started picking up on everyone's secrets to, I presume, eventually use in order to break the pack apart, pulls out his cell phone so he can record audio of her sleep-talk and figure out what it means. On the one hand, it's smart, because Scott's mostly just been trying to protect Kira from the knowledge that something is clearly up with her, and it's about time someone looked into it. On the other hand, CREEPY, THEO. The way he just looks attracted to everybody was an endearing quality when it was Isaac leering at everyone-- and I still maintain that Liam still has low-key crushes on all the McCall Pack girls and Scott-- but with Theo it just comes off creepy because I assume that anything he learns about the group will ultimately be used against them, I just don't know how, and it's frustrating me.
Once again, we've skipped through a bunch of time to the next morning, which really hasn't happened much this season-- I feel like every episode picks up right where the last one leaves off, so it's so weird jumping through time like this, even if it does make sense to do so, since they were all pretty much sleeping anyway. So, Scott, Stiles, and Kira have just arrived at school, and they walk down the main hall while they discuss what a total bust reading that book was. "What if we need some kind of trigger?" Scott asks, which is an excellent question. "Wasn't Malia driving when she remembered the crash?" Stiles brings up another good question, which is: how are they supposed to trigger a memory when they have no idea what it's about to begin with? Scott figures it's a delayed thing anyway, and suggests that maybe it'll take a couple of hours for the effects to kick in, which is kind of unfortunate, given that they're at school with a ton of civilians who have little to no clue what is really going on in their town.
Just then, the fluorescent lights start to flicker around them, and all three frown in confusion before the boys turn back toward Kira with hilariously accusing looks on their faces, assuming that it was some of her kitsune trickery afoot. "That wasn't me, I swear," Kira insists with wide-eyes, and not for the first time today. Given how many electricity outages Beacon Hills deals with on a regular basis, Kira is going to have to deal with a lot of suspicion, I'm guessing. Before they split up for their respective classes, Scott instructs them to all look out for each other today to make sure they're okay in case of any impromptu hallucinations. "Yes, and keep an eye out for eight other potentially homicidal chimeras," Stiles adds, before Kira finishes up the statement by stating, "And keep an eye out for the Dread Doctors." All great ideas, for sure, though each one is more terrifying to consider than the one before it. Just as Scott and Kira duck into their AP Bio class, Stiles yells after them, "Starting to see the appeal of a third eye!" Yeah, please don't let that be foreshadowing. I'm not sure my poor little heart could handle Stiles being Valack 2.0. (Not to mention we already saw Valack threatening to drill a hole in Lydia's head, which is even more terrifying.)
In AP Bio, Mrs. Finch is once again lecturing on a topic that has tons of relevance to the supernatural craziness that is going down in their city. "So, while introducing the African Cane Toad sounded like a good way to deal with Australia's infestation of the gray-backed beetle, unfortunately, the toad also decided to eat everything else in sight." Lydia is sitting behind Sydney today instead of next to her as she usually does, probably so Lydia can see Sydney anxiously touching her hair. After a moment, she notices that Theo is staring at her and gives him a look, so gestures to Sydney with his head and gives her a knowing look. "And, everything that tried to eat the toad, from crocodiles to household pets, quickly died from the poison they excreted," Mrs. Finch continues, as Lydia pulls out her phone and quickly texts "Chimera?" to Theo. Wait, how did Lydia get his number already? They've barely interacted, aside from Theo putting the tourniquet on Lydia when Tracy attacked her. Shady Theo is shady. "A perfect example of an invasive species. One hundred and two toads introduced in 1935 became 1.5 billion by 2010. Once an invasive species is introduced, everything changes," lectures the teacher, which is a pretty great analogy to the Doctors and the chimeras, which are fucking with everything in town.
Just then, Lydia gets a text message back from Theo that says, "Look at her hair." When Lydia looks back over at Sydney, she sees that a thick tuft of hair she was anxiously fiddling with has completely fallen out, and she becomes so distraught that tears begin to fill her eyes. Clearly on the verge of a breakdown, Sydney clenches the strand of hair in her hand before grabbing her drop form and her bag, slamming the former on Mrs. Finch's desk as she rushes out the door. "Wise decision, Sydney," Mrs. Finch calls out as she leaves, because she is literally the worst, and when Lydia immediately stands up, grabs her bag (but not her books?) and goes to follow her, the teacher adds, "Lydia, you know it's for the best." SO DAMN GROSS. Why would you talk about a student's performance to another student? If that isn't illegal, it's definitely unethical as fuck at the very least. No wonder high-schoolers are always miserable. Lydia gives her one of her best scathing eye rolls, which before scampering out the door to look for Sydney. Across the room, Scott turns to Kira, and both of them share a worried look before Kira shrugs, all, "What can we do?" Scott then glances down at his notebook, on top of which is his own drop form that he has already filled out in anticipation of dropping AP Bio, and looks stressed and frustrated as he considers his own options.
She finds her in the guidance office lobby, where she's sitting at a small table and looking seriously upset. When she sees Lydia, she tearfully explains that she was just looking for Lydia's mother, which just seriously breaks Lydia's heart. Don't you love how supportive Lydia has become of other girls since joining the McCall Pack? Whenever I compare Season 1-2 Lydia to Season 3-5 Lydia, I am just so damn impressed, because she has grown into such an amazing person. LOVE IT. THE SCOTT MCCALL EFFECT IS REAL, though I think being friends with Allison, Kira, and Malia has also helped fuel her girl-power attitude. Anyway, Lydia kindly asks her if she's okay, but Sydney just opens up her clenched fist to show her the hair that fell out before asking her if it looks okay. When Lydia asks her how long this has been going on, Sydney admits she's been dealing with it for three years. "It's stress," she explains with a bitter laugh. "I've tried everything. Medication, acupuncture, hypnosis..." Lydia gently asks her if she's tried not taking the hardest classes at school, Sydney actually lets out a genuine laugh and seems to feel a little better, especially when Lydia offers to help her cover it up.
Unfortunately for Lydia, she's about to inadvertently make Sydney feel even worse, because as soon as Sydney tucks a strand of hair back to reveal a red, raw bald patch behind her ear, Lydia's Dread Docter book-induced memory retrieval is triggered, and she suddenly hallucinates that Sydney has an actual hole drilled into that space behind her ear. She gasps in horror and staggers backward before falling flat on her back on the floor while she experiences auditory hallucinations of her mother frantically yelling, "I told you to stay in the car! Lydia, I told you to stay in the car!" Poor Sydney! She probably thinks Lydia was so horrified by her hair issues that she passed out, and now I bet she feels even worse. :( Also, what are the odds that Sydney is or will be a Dread Doctor test subject? This issue seems to fit my "the DDs are going after people with health issues that could be treated with man-made supernatural treatments" theory, but not so much my "the DDs are going after people who are supernatural or have dormant supernatural genes" theory. I'm still keeping an eye on this girl, though.
Anyway, after a moment, Lydia wakes up on the floor of a hallway in Eichen House, and has this weird out-of-body experience when she sees her much younger self, clad in a blue and white striped dress, white tights, and bright red patent-leather shoes, walking toward the room. Lydia, looking confused and more than a little anxious, slowly follows her younger self until they make it to the shower room, where they find the water running red with blood down the drain in the floor, where an electric drill (not a medical one, but one used for like woodworking and stuff) is laying next to it. When she looks up, she finds a nurse and Natalie looking panicked and kneeling beside a big, white, blood-stained bathtub surrounded by an even bigger puddle of blood and water, where Lorraine is laying motionless over the side. On the side of her head, right behind her ear, is a big, rough-looking hole that was apparently drilled using that bloody drill on the floor. Natalie, clearly horrified, cries, "What have you done to yourself?" to her mother-in-law (Wait, where is Papa Martin in all this? Isn't this his mother?) before she glances at the door, sees Lydia standing there. She gasps in shock before yelling at her again that she was supposed to stay in the car, just like earlier. However, what Lorraine has to say (in a super-creepy robotic voice, no less) is much more chilling-- "They're coming, Lydia. They're coming for all of us."
This is where stuff gets confusing, because I'm not sure if we're supposed to believe that Lorraine did this herself, or if it was the Dread Doctors, or what. My current working theory is that Lorraine got some banshee vision of some kind of the Dread Doctors experimenting on someone that scared her so much she tried to give herself a lobotomy so she wouldn't have to deal with seeing/hearing that kind of thing anymore? Or, she knew that they would be coming after supernaturals and tried to give herself a lobotomy so she wouldn't be essentially tortured like the other experiments were, hence the "They're coming for all of us," warning, which we also heard Tracy tell Hayden, Scott, Liam, and Ken in "Dreamcatchers." Lorraine is too old to be a Dread Doctor test subject herself, if the whole teenager rule we've heard is actually true, so I'm still a little confused as to why she would drill her own head. But, the memories are supposed to relate to the Doctors, and even though the memories we saw surface in Scott, Lydia, and Stiles didn't have the Doctors in them/didn't explicitly mention them, it doesn't mean that they weren't still related somehow. I'll get into this more in a bit, though.
Anyway, back to the scene! Natalie's still crying "Lydia!" in the hallucination, but after a moment, her voice starts morphing into a familiar male voice instead, and when Lydia finally snaps out of the hallucination, she finds Scott kneeling right in front of her where he's propped her body against the wall, with Theo lurking just behind him. Scott looks seriously concerned and asks her if she's okay, and though she insists that she's fine, her hand is shaking so severely that Scott covers it with her own and squeezes it comfortingly. MY SCYDIA FEELS <3 Theo, who knows how the book works thanks to working with the Doctors themselves, points out that she clearly remembered something, but Lydia assures them that it had nothing to do with the Dread Doctors or her surgery as the two boys help her to her feet and into a nearby chair-- instead, it was just about her grandmother giving herself a DYI lobotomy at Eichen House. I don't understand how she doesn't connect it to the DDs, but I guess she wasn't in the room when Tracy said almost the same thing, and considering the pack's record for full disclosure, it's possible that nobody told her, which is really too bad-- if the kids would just talk to each other about everything that is happening, they'd probably figure all this stuff out way sooner than they would otherwise.
Just then, Natalie rushes on in, having heard what happened to Lydia from poor Sydney, and immediately kneels next to her to see if she's alright. Lydia again insists that she's just fine and that nothing happened, but Natalie is pretty alarmed, and understandably so. "Was it a blackout? Did you faint?" This seems like just a weird line of questioning, honestly-- why would she immediately assume Lydia blacked out? Is she thinking about Lydia's Season 2 issues? Does she even know anything about Lydia being supernatural (and inheriting it from Lorraine)? Was Lydia's comment about having Natalie read the book really a hint that the Dread Doctors made her forget everything that happened with Tracy at the Sheriff's station? I'M SO CONFUSED ABOUT NATALIE MARTIN, YOU GUYS. Anyway, Lydia realizes that her mother just gave her an easy out of this, so she's all, "Yup, totally fainted, you're exactly right, Mama," before insisting she's totally fine now, which seems to be enough to convince everyone to stop hovering.
Meanwhile, over in the library, Kira is sitting on the floor in between two bookshelves with her copy of the Dread Doctors book, but once again, she seems to be having a seriously difficult time getting through it. After a moment, she flips to the cover and slams the stapled photocopy of the book closed as she sighs in frustration. Just then, Mason appears out of nowhere and decides to see how Kira's doing. "Not into sci-fi?" he asks quietly, and when Kira just smiles weakly at him, he adds, "That's the book, isn't it? I thought you guys were supposed to finish it last night?" Kira sighs again and replies that she hasn't managed to finish it yet, before then admitting that she has no idea what is wrong with her, because for whatever reason, she can barely read it. Fortunately for her, Mason is not only a super-loyal and supportive friend, but he's also so obsessed with the supernatural world now that he's been read in to just how much of the weirdo stuff in town can be explained by it that he's pretty much consumed every bestiary and book on myths and folklore that he can get his hands on.
"This is gonna sound weird, but... do you speak Japanese?" Mason asks as he sits down on the floor next to her. Kira shakes her head in the negatory-- even though we have seen her speak Japanese on numerous occasions now, which makes me wonder if she's even aware she's doing it-- and admits that she doesn't speak Korean, either, even though she's half-Korean on her dad's side. After a beat, she adds, "And, I'm pushing a C- average in English." Mason smiles sympathetically and clarifies that he's asking because he's been doing some research on kitsunes, which seems to surprise Kira quite a bit. When she asks him why, he just gives her a confused look and replies, "'Cause I've met one?", as if to say, "Uh, duh, I just learned that 95% of my friends are various supernatural creatures, so of course I read up on what you all are, especially since none of you seem to do your own research anymore?" I already said this on Tumblr, but I'm just waiting for Mason to figure out what Jordan is before anyone else, all, "It only took a couple all-nighters, a gallon of coffee, and a date with a stack of tomes of Celtic folklore! You're welcome."
Gods, I just love Mason so much, you guys! In fanon, everyone paints Stiles as the one who knows everything about everything, and who is constantly doing research on various supernaturals, but in actual canon, he's not actually that way at all. He's absolutely the detective of the pack (with major assists from Malia and Lydia) due to his father being the sheriff and all, but he's not usually the one who is filling everyone in on the supernatural creatures they're dealing with-- that role is usually filled by Derek, or, on occasion, Deaton. So, now that Derek is gone, Mason is the perfect person to take over as folklore expert, because he's friendly, supportive, and eager to learn. Go Mason! So, Kira is clearly flattered that Mason is psyched enough about knowing her that he actually researched kitsunes, so Mason excitedly starts to outline what he's learned.
MASON: "Do you know why people in Japan answer the phone 'Moshi moshi?'"
KIRA: [confused about where this is going] "'...Moshi' means 'hello.'"
MASON: "Yeah, but there's a reason why you have to say it twice on the phone-- because, according to Japanese folklore, fox spirits have difficulty with language. And, the way that you prove that you're not a fox when you answer the phone? You say 'moshi' twice. The important part is, 'Moshi moshi' confuses kitsunes because it's a language trick. So is the book-- you know, it's just one long language trick."
KIRA: [gapes in realization] "That's why I can't read it?"
MASON: [smiles] "It's affecting the fox part of you. Confusing it."Aw, Mason, you are the best friend ever! Part of me thinks he should just read the book aloud to Kira, though I'm not sure that hearing it has the same effect in triggering repressed memories as reading it yourself does. Anyway, just then, the lights start flickering in the library again, and Mason looks over at Kira in alarm before she exclaims, "I swear that wasn't me!" with wide eyes. Aw, Kira! She should really just be singing Shaggy every time someone gives her the side-eye during a power flicker, like the rest of the fandom has been saying all week. Poor girl!
Meanwhile, Scott has just dropped by the AP Bio classroom, where Mrs. Finch is quietly grading papers, so he can hand in his drop form in person. She's visibly surprised that he's choosing to drop the class, and Scott just gives her a rueful smile before he turns to leave. Um, what was she even expecting, after she's literally spent the entirety of the first two weeks of the semester berating all of her students-- especially Scott-- and insinuating that none of them were smart enough to be there? And even went so far as to praise a student-- who not only is known for being a high achiever but was also clearly in the middle of a meltdown-- for having the good sense to realize that she wasn't meant to be there? UGH.
Anyway, before Scott can reach the door, she calls out to him that he forgot to sign it, which, let's be real, is probably a sign that he doesn't really want to drop it at all. He sighs and turns back around to sign it, but before he can do so, she asks, "Are you going to tell me why you're dropping?" Scott vaguely responds that it's a scheduling thing, but she replies to that with another question. "Why did you take this class to begin with? Isn't it a prerequisite for the college you want?" Our precious sunshine prince does not seem at all happy about any of the multitude of bad things going on in his life right now, so he clears his throat anxiously and mutters, "It just doesn't matter. It's too much time, too much work." Did you hear that? That's the sound of my heart breaking in response to Scott being willing to give up his dream future of becoming a veterinarian (especially in light of what we're about to learn) in favor of focusing his efforts on protecting the town from the supernatural, and they don't even know he's basically a super-secret Captain America! So, people who aren't in the know, like Mrs. Finch, and that asshole Mr. Harris (Whatever happened with his disappearance, anyway? Did they find the body?) just keep giving him shit for not working hard enough in school/life/etc.
When she brings up the fact that she knows he wants to be a veterinarian, the word itself starts to trigger Scott's repressed memories, and he's quickly overwhelmed by panic, though Mrs. Finch doesn't realize what's going on right away. "I don't think you should drop," she continues, as Scott starts gasping and wheezing and leans against the desk while he's overwhelmed by flashes of his memory-- the sound of a young child gasping for breath; a small, bloody hand holding a leash; a gurney being pushed down the hallway of a hospital; and a large German Shepard viciously mauling a smaller dog attached to the same brown leather leash. NOOOO, I DON'T LIKE ANY OF THIS! In the present, Mrs. Finch finally realizes that Scott is clearly in distress and asks him what is happening, but Scott just barely manages to rasp, "I think... I'm having an asthma attack." Not knowing that Scott is a powerful True Alpha werewolf who shouldn't even be having an asthma attack, she starts shouting to any nearby students who can hear her to call the nurse while Scott gets pulled into a full-scale Dread Doctors book-induced hallucination.
When we return from the break, we are in the midst of Scott's full repressed memory-- present-day Scott is standing outside the elevator on the first floor at the hospital, now, and is still clearly wheezing and gasping for breath as he watches his mother walking alongside a stretcher that is holding his eight-ish year old self, who looks scared and confused as to what is happening. The casting for the baby version of Scott is seriously so perfect, you guys-- Steele Gagnon looks exactly like the photos of Scott/Tyler Posey as a child that we've seen. The casting department of this show is so good at picking actors who look just like the present-day versions of their characters, like Ian Nelson as young Derek, and Michael Fjordbak as young Peter.
Anyway, Bb!Scott is also in the middle of a bad asthma attack, which is probably why Scott is having one despite the fact that he no longer has asthma. Poor Bb!Scott's hand is covered in blood, and he's still clutching the leash in his little hand as Melissa assures him that he's okay and insists that he needs to keep breathing. Bb!Scott asks in the smallest, saddest voice, "Where's Roxy?", and I swear, Melissa's heart breaks right there in front of us as she reaches down and gently removes the leash from Bb!Scott's hand. "Sweetheart, she didn't make it," Melissa explains quietly, and when Bb!Scott once again asks where she is, Melissa instructs him not to talk and to instead try to keep breathing. Present-day Scott is so overwhelmed by the memory and the asthma attack he's having that he desperately clutches his chest as he stumbles backward into the wall, his back sliding down against it as he slowly falls to the floor, wheezing and gasping and choking to the point where my chest hurts just watching it.
THIS WHOLE SITUATION IS JUST KILLING ME SO MUCH.. Bb!Scott couldn't save his dog Roxy, so he wanted to be a veterinarian so he could save everyone else's dogs instead! Now everything we've seen from Scott throughout the series-- from the pilot episode "Wolf Moon," where Allison accidentally ran over a dog and Scott was insistent on patching it up despite it being after-hours, to learning how to take pain from Deaton by practicing on dogs, to all of the additional instruction Deaton has been giving him, such as giving injections and running tests-- not only makes so much sense, but it also adds yet another layer of complexity to his character. It makes me love him even more, and is also breaking my heart into a thousand itty-bitty pieces. Excuse me while I go sob forever, drive my ass to the fictional town of Beacon Hills, and bring Scott back to Ohio to wrap him in blankets and cuddle with him and watch Netflix and generally keeping him safe from any and all dangers.
Anyway, the scene flashes back and forth from the flashback, where Scott is still freaking out in the hallway of the hospital while his mother tells his kid-self to keep breathing, and reality, where Mrs. Finch is freaking out and trying to get a dazed and Scott's attention. To make matters even more stressful, Scott has now fallen into an almost catatonic-like state, where he's completely zoned out mentally to the point where he doesn't seem to be aware of what is going on whatsoever-- he's just slowly and quietly taking shallow, wheezing breaths as he stares off into space. "Scott? Scott, look at me," Mrs. Finch says loudly and urgently. "I need to know where your inhaler is. Is it in your locker?" No, it isn't, because Scott hasn't had an asthma attack in almost two years, except for that one time in Season One's "Lunatic" when he had a panic attack and thought it was an asthma attack, so Stiles gave him his inhaler to help him get through it. She then sees a bunch of students in the hallway and asks them if any of them have inhalers that they can use before sending one of the kids off to look for them. It would probably be easier to find one of his friends to help them out, but whatever, she's panicked and not thinking, it happens.
I honestly have no idea what the timeline is now-- is it after school now? Or do they have like open-campus policies where they can practice on the fields and stuff during free periods? I don't know. What I do know is that there are a bunch of students out on the field, where the boys (including Liam) are playing lacrosse on one half while the girls (including Hayden) are playing soccer on the other. Liam spins his lacrosse stick in his hands and looks backward to see Hayden, in a very cute oversized gray Nike crop-top with black leggings, bending over to pick up a soccer ball. She glances over and sees Liam checking her out, and gives him a look before dropping the ball on the ground and kicking it straight into the goal in the start of what becomes a flirty one-upping sports match, which is as entertaining as you would expect.
Before we get into that, though, we cut over to the bleachers, where Mason is sitting with Brett, who is wearing his Devenford Prep uniform (white button up, purple sweater-vest with the school seal on in green, a matching purple-and-white striped tie, and khaki pants) and has apparently cut the rest of his classes or something to chill with his public school frands, I don't know. The space-time continuum is so weird in Beacon Hills, much like it was in Gossip Girl, when half the kids would be having an extended breakfast with their families, a few others were at school, and several others still were in, like, Paris or something, and yet they were still somehow all in the same timezone. Regardless of this show's completely unplottable timeline, I'm loving Brett and Mason's budding friendship, so I'll let all this slide for now. So, Mason and Brett are discussing their friend-group's little chimera problem, and, much like Theo earlier, Brett remarks that he has no idea if any of his fellow prep-school students have been affected by the Dread Doctors' return to town, since it's already been established that all high schoolers are weirdos who do weirdo things.
MASON: [sighs] "Alright. What else is there to look for? There's heightened strength, smell, hearing, speed..."
BRETT: "Uh, able to see in the dark..."
MASON: "Glowing eyes..."
BRETT: "Eyes that reflect the light..."
MASON: [gestures expressivelyy] "Visible scorpion stingers protruding out of limbs?"
BRETT: [nods] "Yeah. Or three-foot lizard tails."Ha! And they never even met Donovan, who could make fangy-mouths appear out of pretty much anywhere on his body! Which is probably for the best, because I'm still having nightmares about it, to be honest. Back on the field, Liam is still running around and practicing, but when he goes to make his shot, he basically morphs into Scott in "Muted" and completely misses it. Of course, Hayden was totally watching him the whole time, and when he realizes it, he groans in frustration and turns around just in time to see Hayden kick yet another perfect goal. When she's done, she turns to look at Liam and shoots him a smug smirk, which kicks the competitive side of Liam into high gear, so he bends over to scoop up another ball with his lacrosse stick and gets ready to shoot again. He rushes toward the goal with intense determination while Hayden stealthily watches him from afar, and finally, he actually makes the goal. He licks his lips seductively and turns to smirk back at Hayden, but she's not only a pro at soccer, she's also an expert at teasing boys, because she's already turned back to the goal to make it look like she was never watching in the first place, which is some seriously impressive skills. Yeah, girl! Use those feminine wiles to mess with boys!
This competition continues on, with Hayden successfully kicking another great goal, so Liam starts to rage out a little in his intent to one-up her. He scowls and he jumps up and down on the balls of his feet to psych himself up before launching himself toward the goal to get a running start. He stops just short of the line and throws the ball with his stick so hard that the ball hits the goalie square in the chest with enough force to throw him backward into the net. Holy shit, Liam! He's lucky he didn't shatter that kid's sternum, yikes! Embarrassed, Liam blushes and immediately apologizes to the dude he just injured before running over to check on him while Hayden watches him with interest. (Wait, does she know that she's kind-of supernatural now? Did that make her realize that Liam has powers, too? I WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT HER.)
Brett and Mason have both watching Liam and Hayden's cute little flirt-off, which leads Brett asks his new bud what their deal is. Mason is hilariously like, "SO GLAD YOU ASKED, AMIGO" and starts explaining the story while simultaneously clicking around on his phone for the yearbook photos you just know he's been storing just in case this should ever come up in conversation. "Sixth grade," Mason begins. "Not the best year for Liam's anger management issues. There was, uh... this fight in the hallway, Liam and this other guy. Hayden sort of accidentally walked into it. And this is her yearbook photo." He zooms into the yearbook page to show him Hayden's sixth grade yearbook photo, which has a very adorable photo of a young Victoria Moroles (the actress who plays Hayden) with a big bandage over the bridge of her nose and two big black eyes.
Shocked by the photo, Brett cutely replies, "Aw, damn! What'd she do to him?" so Mason swipes left to show him an equally cute photo of young Liam/Dylan Sprayberry, whose nose is also broken and bandaged over Liam's own double-shiners. Liam's bruises are actually way worse than Hayden's, which makes it even better, if you ask me! Girlfriend doesn't mess around! The sight of both of these photos causes both Mason and Brett to dissolve into giggles, which is endlessly adorable to me. LOVE IT. LOVE THEM. I don't know what kind of witchcraft Teen Wolf/Cody Saintgnue has done to make me like Brett as a character, but it's totally working. Anyway, their fun is quickly cut off when another dude-- who I think is the club kid who whined about his glow stick running out and the new chimera, whose name is Josh-- runs out onto the field and asks if anyone there has asthma/an inhaler. Liam looks over at him and somehow senses through his connection to his Alpha that Scott is in trouble, leading him to instantly rush toward the school to save him. <3<3<3 SCIAM <3<3<3 THEY ARE THE BEST.
I'm a little confused about this next part, though, because after Scott's asthma attack is taken care of, he hangs onto the inhaler Liam gives him, so either 1) whoever gave it up to help Scott ended up letting him keep it (unlikely, since inhalers are expensive and sharing medications with someone is risky), 2) Scott already had an inhaler and Liam got it from his locker for him (also unlikely, since Scott has complained about how expensive inhalers are since the beginning, and he hasn't had a true asthma attack since Season 1, so Scott likely wouldn't be filling his scripts anymore, I imagine, or 3) Liam just happened to have an inhaler in case Scott had an asthma attack and grabbed it for him. I doubt Liam had asthma, too, so I'm just going to go ahead and assume that Liam learned that Scott has asthma and got his dad to fill a script for an inhaler just in case, because that's super cute and I love Scott and Liam's relationship so much. OKAY! Moving on.
So, Scott is still zoned out and wheezing weakly on the floor, where his back is propped up against Mrs. Finch's desk and the teacher herself is kneeling in front of him. A moment later, Liam is running down the hallway with the inhaler in hand, still in his workout clothes and adorably dorky calf-length tube socks and yelling that he has the inhaler Scott needs. He shoves his way through all of the bystanders and Mrs. Finch so he can kneel in front of Scott himself. "Scott!" Liam says loudly, as he places the inhaler in Scott's right hand and wraps his fingers around it before squeezing his shoulder comfortingly, but when Scott still continues to stare past him with unfocused eyes, Liam starts to panic and shakes him by the shoulders to try to snap him out of it. "Scott, come on!" Of course, that doesn't work either, so Liam, desperate at this point, firmly grips onto his shoulder as he stares Scott in the eyes, flashes his golden irises at him, and uses his wolf-voice to growl, "SCOTT!", which finally does the trick. Aw, like a reverse-Alpha roar! I dig it so much.
When Scott regains awareness with a deep, rasping gasp, he remembers what is going on and realizes he has an inhaler in his hand before reflexively shaking it, putting the inhaler to his mouth, and inhaling deeply as he presses down on the canister. With the broncodilator now circulating through his lungs (I'm going to guess it was albuterol), Scott is finally lucid enough to look over at his werewolf son with wide-eyed gratitude and thanks him for saving him in between gasps as he tries to catch his breath. Liam just sighs in relief and nods in response, and gods, I love them so much it kills me. Yayyyy, Liam! Good work, my smol wolf prince. Out in the hallway, Hayden is among the bystanders who were rubbernecking as Scott was in the middle of a respiratory crisis, and when she turns to walk away, she smiles at the thought of Liam being such a hero. LIAYDEN IS HAPPENING. Liayden? Hayam? What is their ship name?
We then cut to the hospital, where Lydia and Stiles have just parked Lydia's car into the lot and are now walking toward the front entrance while they discuss the day's events. "Okay, then what are we doing here, if you've already had your suppressed memory?" Stiles asks, clearly anxious about the entire situation, but Lydia reminds him that it wasn't the right memory-- it neither involved her surgery, nor the Dread Doctors (that they know of, anyway, even though I'm still not convinced that the Dread Doctors weren't involved with what happened to Lorraine). "So, if I've read the book, why don't I have the full memory of my experience with them?" Lydia asks in frustration. When Stiles quips that he's not supposed to know the answer to that, Lydia reminds him that something did happen during her surgery, but now that she's thinking about it, she's wondering if maybe it wasn't Dread Doctor-related, but banshee-related, and after a moment of silent brainstorming, she finally realizes what's really going on with her. "It's not my memory, Stiles," Lydia concludes. "It's somebody else's." UH-OH. I'm not liking the sound of that.
Back at the school, we're getting the first weight room scene of the season when we catch up with Theo, who is in his sweats and is doing chin-ups on a bar near the machines. After a moment, he stops when he hears a creaking noise, but once he's processed all of the sensory information, he realizes who it is and smiles before moving across the room and stripping off his hoodie to reveal his bare torso underneath. Just then, the door opens, and Malia comes walking in, though she immediately stops in her tracks when she sees that Theo is half-naked. When she doesn't say anything, Theo just smirks and walks over to pick up a large barbell to do arm curls while Malia continues to stand silently and awkwardly in the doorway and watches him.
After a moment, Malia finally starts off the conversation by asking, "Why haven't you said anything?" Theo asks her what she's talking about, so Malia reminds him about the whole Desert Wolf part of her hallucination two days ago and asks him why he didn't tell Scott. Wait, does Theo even know who the Desert Wolf is? Did they talk about it afterward? Is Theo just playing dumb? Cody Christian has suggested that Theo and Malia have a (non-romantic) connection, so I'm wondering if maybe isn't involved in the Desert Wolf's story line, too? Or maybe they're both connected to the Dread Doctors? Regardless, the fandom has been talking about how similar Cody and Shelley Hennig look, so I wouldn't be at all surprised if they ended up being siblings or something, though that does take the whole "Theo low-key flirting with Malia constantly" thing a very awkward direction, like Clary and her brother Jonathan/Sebastian in The Mortal Instruments series.
Anyway, Theo points out that he figured she didn't want Scott to know, which is true, and Malia tells him as much before asking him another question, which is "Are you going to want to know why?" Theo, who has abandoned the barbell in favor of sitting down at this weird arm-workout machine (whose name I don't know, because the most athletic thing I do is my two-to-three mile walk with my dog every night and the occasional yoga session when I'm really bored), replies, "Not really," and starts to do his arm reps. Anyone with actual athletic prowess and knows what this machine is should definitely tell me in the comments, because it's driving me crazy. Speaking of being driven crazy, Malia, Theo's complete (and obviously fake) disinterest in Malia's issues is clearly annoying the hell out of her because she can't figure out what the fuck his agenda is, which pretty much speaks for the entirety of the fandom at this point.
So, after spending a long moment trying not to look at him as he flexes all of his muscles while he works, she lunges for him and grabs each arm of the machine he's using so that he can't move them in any way. Ooh, is this a hint that Malia is way stronger than Theo? If so, I'm going to take that as a clue that Theo is a successful Dread Doctor chimera. "You think you're doing me a favor?" Malia growls suspiciously, while Theo struggles to break the bars out of Malia's grip with no success. "Like I'm going to owe you now?" Yeah, pretty much! At the very least, he'll be holding onto that until he can leverage it into something else. Theo sighs and instead insists that he doesn't need any favors. Malia's not buying it, though, but when she asks him what it is that he wants, if not favors, Theo breaks out the same answer he's given since he got back to Beacon Hills-- he wants into the pack. Malia states the obvious by reminding him that his entry into the pack isn't up to her, but instead of responding to that, Theo decides that he's done playing games.
"If you want to tell Scott what you saw, tell him," he says with a sigh. "If you've got something else in mind? I'm okay with that, too." WHAT IS YOUR ANGLE, DUDE? We still know literally nothing about Theo despite being 60% of the way through Season 5A, and the fact that I still can't figure out what the hell it is he wants is making the insufferable know-it-all in me wound-up as fuck. GIVE ME ANSWERS, JEFF. Malia finally lets go of the bars and turns to leave, and since Theo has spent all this time fighting against her, it causes the arms of the machine to clank together loudly as Theo's own arms spring toward each other. He looks a little alarmed by this encounter at first, especially when he lets go of the arms of the machine and rubs his left bicep as though he pulled it in the struggle, but once she has left, he actually laughs to himself in a smug way that suggests everything is going according to plan, though, as I said earlier, I still have no ideas to what that plan might be, and I can't even really come up with any especially interesting theories because of the lack of information on him.
Outside on the catwalk, Hayden has her books and bookbag in hand and is walking past a row of lockers when her older sister, Clarke Romero, who we know as one of Sheriff Stilinski's new deputies and possibly Jordan's new partner now that Haigh was presumably fired, comes up behind her and taps her on the shoulder. Hayden gets a little flustered when she sees her and tells her she was supposed to wait for her in the parking lot, but Clarke just laughs and retorts that she's supposed to be embarrassed by her parents, not her sister, which leads me to wonder what the deal with their parents is? When Hayden and Liam talk later, she makes it sound like her sister is raising her, so I don't know if they're dead or just deadbeats or what. Hopefully we'll learn more soon! Anyway, Clarke pulls out a prescription bottle of pills and hands it to her little sister before adding, "By the way, guess where I found this? In your jeans, about to go into the laundry."
Right as she's reminding her that the medication costs $200 dollars a bottle, Liam passes past them, accidentally nudging her with his shoulder in his attempt to walk around her and totally overhearing their conversation. When he realizes this is probably why Hayden has been so stressed out about money, he stops to keep listening, only for Hayden to catch him in the act. When she snaps, "What?", Liam wisely replies, "Nothing" and scampers away. Clarke takes notice of him as he leaves and gives Hayden a look before remarking, "Is that Liam Dunbar? He got cute." Of course, Liam was still eavesdropping with his werewolf hearing, and he totally smiles the cutest smile ever as he walks away. Their little puppy love story is so damn cute, not that it's hard-- Liam has quickly become one of my favorite characters on this show, and Hayden has the sassiness of Lydia with the sweetness and stubbornness of Allison, and I really like her a lot. If she dies, I am going to have words with old Jeffy boy.
Meanwhile, in the locker room, Scott is sitting on a bench with the inhaler he got from Liam in his hands, and is in the middle of staring at it when Theo joins him after his post-workout shower and asks him if he's going to be okay. Scott, of course, answers that he'll be fine, because that is literally the only answer to that question that he knows anymore, and adds that he's pretty sure the asthma attack was a psychosomatic thing in response to the memory resurfacing. Theo seems only marginally relieved to hear this, and when Scott asks him if he had something he wanted to talk about, Theo insists that it can wait, though it's obvious that he's just saying that because he knows Scott will be all, "No, it's okay, what's going on?" which is exactly what he does. Scott, quite letting Theo play you like a fiddle! It's not going to end well. :( Anyway, Theo clears his throat and explains what he witnessed from Kira the previous night. "Last night, you guys all fell asleep. I went upstairs to check on Kira. She was sleeping, but..." Scott immediately knows what he's about to say and replies, "You heard her speaking Japanese."
Theo admits that he didn't just hear it, and pulls out his phone so he can play the audio he recorded of her saying "Watashi wa shi no shisha da." Instead of being suspicious as to why Theo is so interested in what Kira is mumbling in her sleep, Scott tells him that he recognizes the phrase as what Kira said at the club before she went after Lucas. Theo continues on to say that he went to a translator website, which told him that what she said roughly translates to "I am the messenger of death," just as the fandom expected when we first heard her say it. Theo sees the concern on Scott's face at this statement and asks him if it gets worse, so Scott decides to tell him what he's been noticing about her instead of just telling Kira herself. "Yeah..." Scott says with a weary sigh. "Something is-- Something's happening to her. She's got this aura all around her... It's hard to explain. Well, I guess it's supposed to be part of her. But now, it looks... different. Almost like it's taking over. I don't know. Something's happening. And, to be honest..." Scott trails off, clearly worried about the situation and not knowing what to say, but when Theo prods him to go on, Scott adds, "I don't know if I can trust her anymore."
UM, I BEG YOUR FUCKING PARDON? Are they really trying to suggest that Scott would ever say that about anyone, let alone the girlfriend he loves? Scott, whose first instinct is always to help people, especially supernaturals who aren't in control of their abilities? Scott, who wouldn't let Derek kill Lydia or Jackson when they were suspected of being the kanima? Who refused to even consider the possibility of killing Boyd and Cora when they were full-moon-crazy, or Malia when she was a coyote, even though it would have been the easier route to take? Who wouldn't allow Noshiko, Chris, or anyone kill Stiles to kill the nogitsune, even though he had contributed to the injury and deaths of dozens? Who suggested in th season premiere that even Peter, of all people, might still have some good in him? Who literally told Stiles not even one full episode ago, "We shouldn't kill people that we're trying to save?"
I'm sorry, but the Scott McCall I know would never, ever, ever, ever say that he didn't trust Kira, not when he knows that whatever is happening to her isn't her fault, because he, along with Stiles, Malia, Lydia, and Liam, know exactly what it's like to not be able to control the supernatural changes happening to you. For now, I'm choosing to believe Wendy's theory that Scott has been compromised, either by exposure to Dread Doctor test subject body fluids (being stabbed with Belasko's black-goop-covered claws, getting Tracy's tail-goop in his mouth and eyes, etc) or actually being a test subject of theirs, or both, rather than it just being poor writing, but ARGH! Anyway, just then, the lights above them flicker on and off, and both boys stand to their feet to try to figure out what's going on. When they focus their hearing, they're able to catch the sounds of electricity crackling down in the basement, and though I think we're supposed to believe that they think it's Kira, it's most certainly not.
Back at the hospital, Lydia and Stiles have just made it into the operating room where Lydia had her surgery. She asks him if he can turn on the lights, but for some reason, they won't go on, so she exasperatedly orders him to go ask someone to figure it out. Stiles, clearly on edge, replies, "Hey, I thought this was more of an auditory thing?" and though he's not wrong, Lydia insists that she still wants to be able to see what she's hearing, whatever that means. Stiles declares that to be a legitimate point and heads out the door to to track someone down to fix the lights so Lydia can do some proper banshee sleuthing.
Up on the second floor, we see that Stiles has found Melissa, who is giving him a rundown of what's happening at the hospital-- namely, that the hospital has been having electrical issues for the last hour, and though maintenance has been dispatched to check it out, the floor with the operating room is down to backup lighting only. "I thought you said this was more of a hearing thing?" Melissa asks in confusion, and Stiles, being the smart-ass that he is, immediately corrects her ("Auditory") before reminding her that it's also a Lydia thing, which means you really never know what the hell is going to happen with her.
Melissa leaves to get back to work, and Stiles heads to the elevator to meet back up with Lydia. Once he gets in and hits the button for the first floor, the doors close, and despite the fact that the elevator was empty when he entered it, he can see in the reflection of the doors that a woman with wild, dark hair that is hanging in front of her face and dressed in an oversized hospital gown is standing in the left-hand corner. Not wanting to stare, Stiles just barely tilts his head to the side to try to see her in his peripheral vision before the elevator doors open again (on the second floor, no less, which is exactly where Stiles just was-- I don't know if this is just part of the hallucination or what, but I felt compelled to mention it). Stiles is too dazed to move, so the woman ducks around him and walks down the hall, and it's only when Stiles watches her walk in front of him that something sparks recognition in his eyes, and he decides to follow her. UH-OH. MOMMY ISSUES AHOY.
Over at the school, Scott and Theo have just made it down into the basement to find that a ton of electrical cables have been roughly sawed through, leaving a bunch of exposed, sparking wires in its place. "Well, this definitely isn't Kira," Scott remarks warily, and Theo gulps nervously before realizing that it's a chimera. Oh shit! So, is this guy like Blackout from The Flash, kind of like a vampire who feeds on electricity or something? I want to know more! Where is Deaton or Mason when you need some supernatural/folkloric information?
Lydia is still in the operating room, but the camera has that fish-eye quality to it that makes the room look much bigger than it really is and that indicates there is some sort of hallucination or vision going on. She starts to hear the EKG monitor start to beep at a slow, steady pace, and walks over to examine it more closely and try to get some kind of banshee information from it. Just like when she plucks strings, or listens to the banshee records, or drops a handful of bullet casings onto a metal table to listen to the reverberations, Lydia is able to hear clues that comes from the echoing of the beeping heart monitor-- it's a Dread Doctor's robotic-sounding voice, which is saying one word, over and over and over: Hayden.
Upstairs, Stiles is still following the mystery lady, although we all already know who she is. As he shoves past various nurses and other health care professionals, the woman in front of him flickers in ad out of focus and jumps forward several feet as she turns the corner, kind of like a ghost, or, more accurately, a hallucination, because Stiles has finally triggered his repressed memory. "Mom?" Stiles whispers in disbelief as he follows CLAUDIA FUCKING STILINSKI down the hallway.
Cut to the school again, where Malia is quickly rushing down the stairs to meet Scott and Theo so they can figure out what the hell is going on. When Scott asks where Kira is, she informs him that she's still at the library before adding that Stiles and Lydia are at the hospital so that Lydia can figure out what happened during her surgery. Scott then asks how long they're going to be there, and when Malia repeats what she was told-- that they were waiting for the power to come back on so they could try to get some banshee-answers-- Scott and Theo realize that the new chimera probably has something to do with the hospital's electricity problems and immediately rush over there without even telling Malia what's going on. Rude, you guys! What the hell?
Sure enough, on the hospital's roof, the chimera-- who is, in fact, Josh, that same club kid who wanted a refund on his burned-out glow-stick, and who ran onto the field to find someone with an inhaler to find Scott-- is standing on top of the hospital's generator and is chewing the hell out of the electrical wires like they're beef jerky. WHAT THE HELL KIND OF CREATURE IS THIS KID? We know that all the chimeras we've seen thus far have been hybrids of usually two different supernatural creatures: Belasko was a werewolf/garuda, Tracy was a werewolf/kanima, Donovan was a wendigo/lamprey, Lucas was a werewolf/scorpion/maybe a manticore, I don't know, so Josh is probably no exception, but there are few identifying characteristics-- he has teeth that are kind of like a werewolf's, only they're all thin and long, and he has claws like a werewolf and apparently an immunity to electricity, or maybe even the ability to siphon it into himself. So, possibly a werewolf-something hybrid, I don't know. Maybe we'll learn this week. Also, how many times is that generator going to get fucked with on this show? Nogitsune!Stiles sabotaged it in "Riddled," which caused tons of people to get electrocuted in "Letharia Vulpina," and then Kate's berserkers messed with it again in "Time of Death," which forced Kira and Liam to fight against it. That thing should probably be moved somewhere else, at the very least.
Meanwhile, at Sinema, Hayden's creepy boss, Phil, is interviewing a new go-go boy and explaining that though their base-pay is crap, good-looking dancers can make up to 1,000 dollars a night in tips. When he asks the applicant to see what he's working with, the guy unbuttons his flannel to reveal a very nice body that is covered in tattoos over his chest and side. "...Maybe less," Douchey Boss says after checking the guy out. Rude! Hayden walks up to the bar to grab a tray full of lit votive candles in red glass holders that she needs to set up around the club in anticipation for the night's customers while Liam follows her around and insists that he has brought her another twenty-five more dollars, brings him up to seventy dollars of the two-hundred total he owes her for the spilled drinks. Hayden is clearly touched by the effort he's going to in order to pay her back, but she just sighs and orders him to stop with the money thing, but Liam insists that he promised to pay her back. "It doesn't matter now," Hayden replies kindly. "Besides, Phil takes half anyway."
She continues scattering the candles around the room, and finally, Liam blurts out, "I know it's for your medication, so please, just take the money." Hayden continues to refuse and reminds him that it wasn't his fault, but Liam scurries around her so he can look her in the face and points out that he totally punched her in the face, which gets a laugh out of her. "...I meant the shots," Hayden replies with an amused smile, and Liam just looks a little awkward until Hayden finally throws him a bone. "It's for mycophenolate," she explains. "It's for a kidney transplant I had a few years ago. I work here so my sister doesn't have to pay for all of it. Now, can you just forget about it? I'll make it back somehow." Aw, Hayden! Also, we have Sydney, who has been dealing with some stress-induced form of alopecia for three years, and now we have Hayden, who had a kidney transplant "a few" years ago, which means Hayden's health issues could be another tally mark in the PRO column for the theory that the Dread Doctors are targeting kids with health problems. Yikes yikes yikes yikes! Anyway, Liam seems to be more at ease now that Hayden isn't being fully antagonistic to him, and he follows her into the next room as he asks her if Douchey-Phil really does take half her money. "And never stops bragging about it," Hayden replies with a sigh. "Just listen to him."
Liam does what he's told and very un-subtly uses his wolf-hearing to eavesdrop on Phil, just as he says the the applicant, "It's not like they're going to do anything. They're all under the table and too young to be selling alcohol." Welp, there's our answer as to how a sophomore in high school is able to work at an LGBT night club full of booze and dudes rolling on MDMA-- her boss knows she's underage and is purposely allowing her to work for cash (so neither of them are paying taxes on the money she earns) so he can rip her off. Ugh, this guy is literal garbage, and you can tell Liam isn't thrilled about it either. He then gets an idea, and rushes over to Hayden to ask her if she can do something for him. When she frowns in confusion and asks what he wants, Liam asks her to close her eyes.
HAYDEN: [looks at him suspiciously] "Are you kidding?"
LIAM: "Please?"
HAYDEN: [scoffs] "No!"
LIAM: "Just two seconds! I swear I'm not gonna do anything."
HAYDEN: [still suspicious] "Why?"
LIAM: [sighs] "All you have to do is close your eyes for three seconds."
HAYDEN: [gives him a look] "...You said two."
LIAM: "Okay, well, three. Three at the most."Hayden still seems confused and a little wary about this request, but she ultimately closes her eyes, though she does mutter under her breath that this is totally stupid. Liam assures her that she only needs to wait one more second and grabs one of the glow sticks from the nearby table so he can break it and cause it to glow neon green. He's definitely anxious about what he's about to do, and takes a deep breath before holding it up to Hayden's face and telling her she can open her eyes now. When she does, the green glow is reflected back, making her normally-brown eyes look like they're glowing teal and confirming that Hayden is, indeed, a chimera. NOOOOO! Hayden doesn't say anything whatsoever, just stands there with her reflective eyes as Liam anxiously sighs, knowing that nothing good can come of this. On a happier note, it looks like Liam was totally eavesdropping on Mason and Brett's conversation earlier about characteristics of supernaturals/chimeras, otherwise I'm not sure how he would have known to try that. I'm also curious as to how Liam became suspicious enough to test her in the first place-- am I missing something, here?
One of the Doctors' robotic voices says "Hayden" once again before we cut back to the hospital, where Lydia is gaping in shock at the revelation that Hayden is a chimera as she grips the plugs to the EKG machine in her hand. Suddenly, she's transported to the Doctors' creepy lab, where one of the tanks with the bloated body inside that is wearing the scuba mask is right behind her. In front of her is the exam table, where poor Josh is strapped down just like Donovan was as the Doctors surround him and examine him following what I assume is one of their "treatments." Wait, how is Lydia seeing this? Was she there, and she's just triggered another memory that has been repressed? Is the fact that she can get visual banshee hints as well as auditory ones an advancement of her existing powers, or is it part of the new powers she may have received after being experimented on? I AM SO CONFUSED AND HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS.
The Surgeon, holding a pair of forceps, leans over Josh's body as he begs them not to hurt him. I start thanking any god who is listening for not having them pull out this guy's teeth too, because that seriously traumatized me, but instead, the Surgeon takes his forceps and uses them to peel a huuuuge flap of skin that covers the right side of his ribs, revealing glowing bluish-purple flesh underneath. When I looked at it closer, you can see that his entire torso is glowing the same bluish-purple color under his skin, and not just the part that is exposed. Is that part of the electrical thing? Does anyone have any idea what the hell this kid is? "Your condition worsens," the Surgeon says in his robotic voice as he and the Geneticist start to glitch in that flickering manner of theirs-- as we know, "Your condition worsens" is just one step away from "His condition is terminal," which means instant death, so this doesn't bode well for him whatsoever. While this is going down, Lydia continues to stand behind them with her mouth agape and is visibly terrified and horrified by what she's seeing-- it's one thing to know that the Dread Doctors are making chimeras, but it's another thing all together to actually see their experiments for themselves, so hopefully this will end up helping them figure out what the hell is going on. You know, if Lydia actually tells everyone what she saw, which could go either way, considering the pack's tendency toward lies of omission these days. (Coincidentally, I just saw that S05E09 is titled "Lies of Omission," so I'm guessing that's when everyone's secrets come out and the drama really starts to go down. I'M NOT AT ALL READY.
Anyway, Stiles has finally made it to the roof after following the hallucination of his mother there, which, as we know, is very poor timing, considering the electricity-eating chimera is probably still up there. When he sees his mother standing on the edge of the roof, he walks towards her and calls out, "Mom? Mom, what are you doing?", only for Sheriff to appear behind him and walk past Stiles as though he's not even there. Instead of the out-of-body-esque experience Lydia and Scott had, where they saw themselves as children during their hallucinations, present-day Stiles is actually in the place of his younger self, much like how Malia didn't see her eight-nine year old self in her own hallucination, either. Anyway, Sheriff walks up to where Claudia is standing and asks her what she's doing up there, so she sighs in relief at the sight of him and replies, "I couldn't stand to be in that room anymore. Not with him looking at me like that." NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE, I HATE WHERE THIS IS GOING. Sheriff cuts in and tries to talk her down, but Claudia ignores him. "He's trying to hurt me," Claudia continues, her voice getting louder and more hysterical the more she talks. "I don't care if you don't believe me, but he is. He's trying to kill me!"
Sheriff looks heartbroken and assures her that it isn't true, and eventually convinces her to step down from the edge so he can hug her tightly and comfort her. "You have to remind yourself it's the disease," Sheriff explains gently. "Remember what the dementia does? It gives you delusions. It makes you think that people are out to get you." Stiles' eyes widen when he realizes what they're talking about, and it actually made me worried that maybe Stiles is concerned that he could actually have frontotemporal dementia like they thought in 3B-- we've all noticed and talked about how increasingly paranoid Stiles has been this season, especially with regards to Theo (and though he's right that Theo is untrustworthy, he doesn't actually have any real proof to back it up, he's just accusing Theo of being shady because he assumes every new person is shady, and it only ends up being right correct, like, 40% of the time), plus you know the disappearance of Donovan's body after he accidentally killed him has been fucking with him, too, which made me wonder last week if he didn't think he had imagined the entire thing. I DON'T LIKE ANY OF THIS TO BE HONEST, IT'S TOO MUCH.
Claudia starts to cry and insists that Sheriff doesn't see the way "he" (meaning Stiles, of course) looks at her, and when Sheriff argues that he's just a ten-year-old boy, Claudia begins to sob even harder and cries that Stiles is trying to kill her. And, since this is an actual memory that Stiles has that resurfaced thanks to reading the book, Stiles' hallucination about his dad blaming him for Claudia's death in Season 2 suddenly makes a lot more sense, too, and I'm dying. THIS EPISODE IS TOO MUCH. To make this situation even creepier and harder to watch, Stiles looks down at the ground to find that his shadow is that of a young child, which is right when Claudia spots Stiles staring at her with tears in his eyes over Sheriff's shoulder and starts to yell at him. "Stop looking at me like that!" she screeches. "Stop it!" She breaks out of Sheriff's grip and rushes toward Stiles, and though Sheriff tries to stop him, she's too fast and too strong. When she makes it to him, she starts slapping him violently with so much force that Stiles falls backwards onto the ground and covers his face with his arms in an attempt to block her blows. NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE. However, after a moment, reality breaks through to him, and he realizes that it's actually the chimera who has tackled him, not his mother! The generator that Josh chewed through is shooting up huge bursts of sparks as he violently claws at Stiles with his hands. SHIT!
Scott, Malia and Theo have just arrived at the hospital, and Scott instructs the other two to go find Stiles and Lydia while he finds his mother. Unfortunately, splitting up ends up being a very bad idea, because as soon as Scott reaches the fourth floor and exits the elevator (Don't they ever use the stairs? The hospital's elevators are bad news), he's immediately confronted by the Pathologist, who grabs Scott in a choke-hold against the wall with one hand. Scott desperately tries to fight against his grip, but the Doctor is not only supernaturally strong and gods know how old, but he's wearing about a hundred pounds of clunky metal reinforcements, so even Scott's heightened strength isn't a match for him. Once Scott is immobile against the wall, the Pathologist reaches out his hand and causes the tips to glow with a whitish-blue electromagnetic light before placing his hand on Scott's chest and electrocuting him as if it was a defibrillator.
This ends very badly, as you can probably guess, when the shock triggers yet another respiratory crisis, likely because the electricity was powerful enough to nullify Scott's healing and cause him to have a stress-induced asthma attack. WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT TO HIM? Is this punishment for reading the book and/or getting away from them when they went to Eichen House? Does this mean Scott really is a DD test subject, and this is some kind of test? I AM SO WORRIED ABOUT SCOTT. As Scott wheezes, he fumbles into his pocket to pull out his inhaler, but ends up dropping it onto the floor before he can use it.
Meanwhile, on the roof, Stiles has just managed to get away from Josh the chimera, though he's quickly cornered once again and is forced to keep his arms up in front of his face, just like Jordan taught Lydia earlier, to ensure that Josh's blows and swipes don't give him a head injury. Just when things are starting to look really bleak for Stiles, Theo arrives, fully wolfed-out and growling up a storm, to yank Josh off of him. They get into a bit of a tussle before Theo shoves him so hard that he flies across the roof, leaving Stiles to gape in horror at his unlikely savior. Theo leaps across the roof and lunges for Josh, and when he swipes at him with his long claws, Theo grabs his arm with one hand while using the other to punch him in the face multiple times to disorient him. He's definitely showing better fighting skills here than he did against Belasko, and I'm not sure if that's intentional or not. Anyway, Stiles is ducking behind some piece of machinery to shield him from all the sparks still coming off of the generator, and Theo uses his arms to spin Josh in the air before slamming him onto the ground and jumping backward several feet to keep him from grabbing at his ankles. When Theo goes to pull him off the ground by his shirt, Josh kicks him in the chest and sends him flying backward, giving Josh the time to catch back up with him and shove him against the fence that surrounds the generator. Theo then gets kicked on the ground and his wrist stomped on by Josh's foot, so all in all, things do not look good for him.
Back downstairs, we return to Scott's fight with the Pathologist right where we initially started at the beginning of the episode-- the Pathologist stomps on Scott's inhaler and turns it into a pile of tiny pieces of plastic and albuterol particles, leaving Scott gasping for breath as he lays face-down on the floor. Just when the Doctor grabs Scott in another choke-hold, the elevator doors open to reveal Melissa and Malia, the latter of whom has her claws and fangs out and growls at the Pathologist menacingly, causing him to throw Scott down the hallway in favor of fighting against Malia instead.
While they're fighting, Melissa runs past them, drags Scott back into the elevator, and injects him with a bronchodilator, just like before. Malia kicks, punches, and swipes at the Doctor with her claws, but, like Scott, her supernatural strength is inferior to his. Once Scott is mostly stable, Melissa yells at Malia to get the hell in the elevator already, but Malia is so dazed by the punch to the head that she's pulled into a choke-hold. The Pathologist raises his fist to hit Malia again, only for her to break out of his grip and make a mad dash to the elevator, only just making it through the doors before they close, leaving the Doctor furious in the hallway. "We never should have read that book," Scott whimpers as he pants for breath and gives Malia a terrified look.
On the roof, Theo has managed to get the upper-hand in the fight and throws Josh across the floor near where Stiles is still hiding out from all the flying sparks from the destroyed generator. When Josh lunges for him, Theo grabs his arm and wrenches it backward, breaking it at the shoulder joint and taking advantage of this vulnerability to punch him in the stomach multiple times. Finally, Theo wraps his right hand around Josh's throat and squeezes it tightly, causing the guy to gag and gasp for breath as Stiles slowly pops out from behind the machinery, just in time to see Theo FULLY RIP JOSH'S THROAT OUT WITH HIS CLAWS! HOLY SHIT! Josh falls to the ground tries to gasp for breath through his shredded throat while Theo lowers his hand, which is now covered in Josh's blood and is dripping from his claws onto the ground. After a few more rasping breaths, Josh dies, and Stiles gapes at Theo in horror at having killed him. I mean, Theo's situation and Stiles' aren't exactly the same-- Stiles was most certainly going to be grievously injured by Donovan, and he's not a supernatural as far as we know, so there would be no healing for that. Theo, on the other hand, is a supernatural (or supernatural-ish, depending on whether or not the theory that Theo is a successful chimera is true) who can heal, and Theo was more on the offensive end of the fight rather than the defensive.
So, yeah, Theo probably could have incapacitated the guy somehow instead of killing him, and I think Theo knows it, because when he catches a glance of Stiles' horrified face, he immediately pleads, "Stiles... You can't say anything." Stiles is still stunned into silence, and Theo starts to panic even more. "Please, don't say anything," Theo repeats worriedly, and when Stiles asks him why he shouldn't, Theo pauses for dramatic effect before bringing out the big guns-- "Because I never said anything about Donovan." OHHHHHH SHIT! I knew he knew about that! I'm just wondering how. Also, I CAN'T BELIEVE IT ENDED RIGHT THERE.
Next episode: The pack uses Hayden as bait in a trap meant to lure at least one of the Dread Doctors to the high school so they can be captured, and I'm going to go on ahead and assume that it fails in an epic fashion.
NOTES/SPECULATION/QUESTIONS:
-In the fashion rerun department, we have Stiles borrowing Scott's red hoodie with white strings that Scott first wore at the end of "Orphaned" and the beginning of "Weaponized," which is just endlessly precious to me, I don't know why. Maybe because this isn't even the first time Stiles has borrowed Scott's clothes? Oh, Skittles.
-Okay, so how does Theo know about Donovan? Did the Doctors see the fight? I'm pretty sure he was at the hospital after Lydia was hurt when this all went down, so unless he and the Doctors have something to do with Jordan's extracurricular activities (PLEASE DON'T BE SO), I don't think he could have been there when it happened. It also could have just been an assumption based on the fact that he was the one who sent Donovan after Stiles in the first place, and he knew Stiles was lying about getting hurt, so he could have possibly just put the pieces together. Who knows, maybe if he's a chimera, his other creature is something with clairvoyance or something! Anything can happen at this point.
-I'm also wondering if some of the chimeras who have gotten involved with the pack in various fights aren't meant either as a test to see how the pack will react, or as a way to help Theo convince the pack that he's trustworthy and help him gain membership? Like, if Theo is working for the Doctors, then why would he fight against Belasko to protect Scott, unless he wanted to ensure that he wasn't involved with them AND show that he cared enough to fight for them? That would also likely mean that Belasko was actually already determined to be a failure, and the only reason why the Doctors killed him in the first place was because Theo didn't get a chance to, which is probably for the best for his cover, since Scott is very anti-murder. With regards to Donovan, Theo could have sent him to Stiles on the Doctors' orders in hopes that doing so would either get rid of Stiles and destabilize the pack to make it easier for Theo to get into it, or would get rid of Donovan and give Theo dirt on Stiles to use against him to destabilize the pack. Then, with Josh, Theo could have been sent to kill him to save another one of the pack members, knowing that one of them would end up there once they realized a chimera was messing with the electricity-- that's also how they knew Scott would be there so they could shock him. Plus, the Doctors already said that his condition was worsening, which seems to suggest that he would have been killed by them sooner or later anyway.
-Okay, so what do the hallucinations mean? I'm still not quite sure yet, but I'm cooking up a theory-- which assumes that the Doctors are treating people with medical and/or psychological conditions using supernatural serums that turn them into chimeras-- that the Doctors were drawn to at least Scott, Stiles, and Lydia from a young age. I mean, all three of their hallucinations dealt with real memories that happened in medical facilities-- Lydia's at Eichen House with her grandmother, Scott at the hospital during an asthma attack following the traumatic mauling of his puppy, and Stiles at the hospital with his very sick mother. In the case of Stiles and Lydia, it's possible that the Dread Doctors were involved with Claudia and Lorraine, respectively, because they were both dealing with (what were believed to be) delusions and other mental illnesses (for Claudia, as a result of dementia, and for Lorraine, as a result of her banshee nature). These hallucinations, along with other information we've learned throughout the series thus far, show us the family and personal history of health issues (or what would be believed to be health issues):
Scott: personal history of asthma (until he was bitten), depression, generalized anxiety from supernatural stressors
Stiles: family history of frontotemporal dementia, personal history of ADHD, generalized/social anxiety, stay in Eichen House (due to the nogitsune, obviously, but it still looks like mental illness to outsiders)
Lydia: personal history of auditory/visual hallucinations, fugue states, self-harm (punched through a mirror), family history of mental illness (the former due to Lydia being a banshee and being possessed by Peter's spirit, the latter due to Lorraine being a banshee)The rest of the pack (excluding Kira, as I said earlier in the recap) has medical or psychological issues that could be appealing to the Doctors as well, if that's what they're looking for (Malia's obvious PTSD from the crash and her time in Eichen House after she became human again, Liam's intermittent explosive disorder and possible lingering PTSD from the berserkers, since he was having hallucinations) not to mention Sydney's alopecia and Hayden's kidney disease or injury and subsequent transplant. I don't know-- like I've said before, all my theories are just fragments, and a lot of them conflict with each other, and nothing is really fully fleshed out.
-This week's music is below!
"Attack" by Conway (Lydia and Parrish spar at his apartment)
"Famous & Rich" by Naught Queen, Sebastian Ingrosso & Steve Angello (Liam gives Hayden $43 dollars at Sinema and helps her turn the electricity back on)
"Bust One" by Proper Villains ft Metric Man (Liam and Hayden practice lacrosse and soccer on the field)
"Freaks" by Timmy Trumpet ft Savage (Liam and Hayden try to one up each other until Liam accidentally gets carried away and hits the goalie)
"Ghost Dance" by The Bright Light Social Hour (Malia confronts Theo in the weight room about the Desert Wolf part of her hallucination)
"It's Good" by Ethel and the Chordtones ft Ryan Levine of Wildling (Liam comes to Sinema again to give Hayden more money, and eventually learns she's a chimera when her eyes reflect the light of his glow stick.) --> I cannot for the life of me find a link to this song, sorry guys!
What are you guys thinking? I want to know!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBelasko: I think they either cut dialogue where he introduced himself, or they really, really wanted us to know the name, since it's a pun (it means raven or little crow).
ReplyDeleteI'm also wondering why nobody has remarked on the differences between him and the teen chimeras yet, but maybe they kind of... forgot about these aspects with all the strange stuff going on? I'm expecting Stiles to get back to it eventually, he saw the guy after all. (Scott and Kira are now too occupied, Theo not trustworthy, and I don't know if Malia and Liam really got much of a look.)
But thanks for reminding me of the body - now I really want someone to check if it was stolen, too, because I bet it was - and you know that I believe this one wasn't burned.
(More later.)