Flashback time! Back to when the Evil Argents, led by
Gerard and Chris were hunting down werewolves – including a young Derek Hale. The
wolfies hid – and we switch to Cora telling the story, how they hid for 2 days,
the standard time for a werewolf to rest and heal. Which is what Cora tells
Stiles and where she assumes Derek is in the present and she really doesn’t know
why Stiles cares; to which Stiles recounts everything that has happened this
season. And he’d rather like Derek to be involved in fixing some of it.
Cora doesn’t know – especially since Derek has changed,
to which Possibly Evil Uncle Peter Hale tells us Derek used to be like Scott (I
take this to mean less dark sexy brooding and more pouty teen angst. It’s the
progression of your tortured moody hero). But he changed – and when he did his
eye colour changed from blue.
Meanwhile, Allison has brought Scott to see Granddady
Argent. Why, so Scott gets to kill Gerard?
Alas no, he wants Scott to use his werewolf pain relief on him to make
him talk. Ok get him to talk THEN break his neck. Unlike usually though, this
pain relief causes black veins under Scott’s skin and his eyes to flare yellow
Time for more flashbacks of annoying teenaged Derek
annoying a teenaged girl, Paige, trying to impress her, then looking after her
with tortured soulful angst eyes.
Back to Gerard, the werewolf healy thing is finished and
another has doctor died – right after Deaton was rescued; as Gerard points out,
almost as if the Darach expected Deaton to survive. Gerard suggests that Deaton
is the Darach which no-one believes and then moans that though Scott cured his
cancer he keeps oozing black mush which is really unpleasant. No-one is that
sympathetic of his plight. Gerard says he can’t tell them how to beat him
(Deucalion? The Darach? Either? Both?) And Allison turns to leave, having no
time for the old man’s shenanigans. He throws out a crumb to stop her leaving –
Deucalion is not always blind.
Stiles really awesomely pokes Possibly-Evil Pete for
ducking questions and we continue with the completely random Derek first love
story. Can someone please explain why, with all the big bad stuff Stiles has
blatantly lampshaded, we’re tripping happily down memory lane? Admittedly,
Stiles having embarrassing teenaged stories to poke Derek with could be amusing
but it’s still not all that relevant. Anyway, Derek and Paige got all
lovey-dovey and young!Pete got all creepy watching them. But their tryst was
interrupted by a whole load of werewolves having a meeting
Gerard picks up the story – the same story – the packs
meeting were all lead by the individual Alphas – Ennis’s pack (which was
fighting the Argents after a beta killed a hunter), Deucalion’s, Kali’s – all their
packs together discussed what to do with the Argents. They’d come to consult a
local Alpha who was extremely well regarded – because she could turn into a
wolf. An actual wolf, not the fuzzy man thing the others can manage. Talia
Hale, Derek’s mother.
Deucalion urged Ennis not to go to war over the Argents
torturing and killing his Beta since they’d be no better than the Argents, but
Ennis carved the spiral into the wall – the symbol of vendetta. To the present,
Stiles comments on how vengeance based werewolves are but Cora fills him in on
what losing a pack member means. And back to the past with then Deputy
Stilinksi having to calm Ennis down at the hospital because they wouldn’t let
him have the body of his packmate – who was cut in half. Gerard’s signature.
In between the slicing and dicing, Derek and Paige were
still all goopy in love and Pete arrived to be a bit of an arsehole (not much
has changed) and poke Derek to turn her into werewolf. Even better, use one of
the Alphas visiting Talia so Derek wouldn’t have to convince her to turn Paige.
Of course, present Peter spins it as if he tried to talk
Derek out of it- even though it was clearly his idea.
Still in the past, Gerard and Chris Argent found a building
with tree roots growing into it complete with druidic symbols. It was a sacred Celtic
meeting place around a central holy tree that should not be damaged without
causing dire repercussions.
Cut to the present where the suspicious Allison wants to
know why her suspicious father has all this suspicious knowledge of druidry –
but Gerard puts it down to knowing your enemy because old timey werewolves had
a relationship with druids, calling them Emissaries – like Deaton.
Time for some a mythology lecture! Well, a bit of a
twisting of old mythys anyway: the people of Arcadia, under king Lycaon
worshipping the Titans more than the Greek gods – and caled their children
after them (hence, Deucalion). There was an unfortunate dinner party where they
tried to make Zeus eat human flesh which is a definite no-no. In response, Zeus
(never known for his moderate and calm responses) turned Lycaon and his family
into wolves. This is actually a very fitting punishment when you think about
it, which seems very unrandom for Zeus.
Apparently then Lycaon sought the druids to turn him back to human – because throwing Celts and ancient Greeks into one big pot and mixing is just funsies. Since the druids were shapeshifters, they couldn’t make Lycaon and his sons humans, but they could show them how to shift; and the druids became important advisors to be highly respected.
On to Stiles, Pete and Cora explaining the same thing and
Cora saying that the Emmisary is usually kept secret and Cora didn’t realise
that Deaton was the local Emmisary. Or that Ms. Morrel, Deaton’s sister, is the
Emmisary for the Alpha pack.
Back in time again and Deaton advised Talia and Deucalion. Deucalion wanted to extend a peace gesture to the Argents but Deaton didn’t think it should go to Gerard because the Argents are matriarchal (HAH! Please to be showing me the women leaders in this matriarchal society. Hey, show me ONE female leader!) and Talia has her own doubts because Gerard is an evil psychopath. (It runs in the family, Talia). Deucalion had faith in human nature and was sure Gerard would see sense (hey Deaton just said the society is matriarchal! Why not go above Gerard’s head? Do the writers actually KNOW what matriarchal means?) and they could find a peaceful accord. Uh-huh, Deaton and Talia knew better.
At the school, Ennis was the Alpha Derek picked to turn
Paige, but as Ennis chased Paige, Derek decided to intervene and got himself
slammed to the floor and pinned – it was too late anyway, Paige had already
been bitten.
Back to Gerard, Gerard decided that Deaton arranging a
meeting with Deucalion was a malicious evil trick because, yeah he’s Gerard.
Gerard thinks of Deucalion – or all werewolves – as scorpions. Ironic because
Deaton said the same about him, the difference being Deaton is right. They met
in the distillery – and Gerard launched his ambush (though he told Allison and
Scott that Deucalion ambushed him) and murders Deucalion’s pack members.
Deucalion crawled away, gasping that he wanted peace –
and Gerard put out his eyes with 2 arrows. His eyes flare as if he had two
sparklers in them – which rather shocked Gerard who then left him, alive and
blinded
Back to Peter who reminds them that the bite doesn’t
always work – sometimes people die rather than turning and Paige was one of
them. Derek used his pain removing wolf touch on her and she told him how she
knew there were werewolves out there – or some odd things anyway since the town
was stranger than most. Which means there was never any need to try and change
Paige. She begged him to end it and Derek killed her – and Peter buried the
body.
The grief of taken an innocent person changed Derek,
turning his golden yellow beta eyes to a “cold, steel, blue” just like Pete’s.
Back in the past, Deucalion went to Deaton who treated
his eyes but couldn’t restore his sight.
Deaton and Talia left him – but Marco, one of his betas, stayed and
tried to attack him to become Alpha. And as he was attacked, Deucalion saw him and
attacked. He sees as a wolf, he’s not always blind.
As Scott and Allison leave, Scott uses his pain killing touch on Gerard again (kill him! Kill the evil old man already!) Gerard tries to sell some regret for his actions and Scott tells Gerard his heartbeat didn’t alter all the time he told the story – Gerard holds this as proof he was telling the truth but Scott sees it as the mark of a really good liar. He grabs Gerard’s hand, possibly squeezing and warns the old man that bad things will happen to him if his lie gets anyone hurt.
Over at the Werewolf Loft, Stiles has the same doubts:
Peter is an unreliable narrator and cannot be trusted; they’re missing some of
the story.
Flashback to the past again and a grieving Derek shows
his understanding mother his new, blue eyes.
We close with present day Derek looking sadly at the
spiral that Ennis clawed.
Evil Argents are Evil. Can I be Team Deucalion now?
Well that was an epic amount of infodumping. I’m torn. On
the one side I loved it, loved the information and the world building development.
On the other I rather think some of it could have been delivered and developed
over the 3 seasons
Nah, I still loved it. MOAR worldbuilding! More Argent killing!
But I don’t like that Deucalion can see. I liked that
they had an active, capable disabled person who had super senses to help him
still be extremely dangerous – but those senses didn’t arise from his
blindness. Now they’ve added woo-woo vision.
