Teen Wolf, Season 3, Episode 11: Alpha Pact

Stiles desperately wakes Derek up where he’s passed out in the lift after the Darach, Jennifer Blake, escaped. They quickly leave (Stiles holding the fort at the hospital) and meet up with the Argents and Isaac (Peter decides to leave because of his unpleasant history with the Argents – them with the murdering and the torturing and him killing the malicious murdering torturer, Kate). Everyone recaps everyone else

Poor Stiles gets to explain to the hostile FBI agent and cover up everything as much as possible. Preferably with extra sarcasm. And for someone reason someone has written “Argent” in red on the lift doors.

Maybe he’s the third “Guardian?”

Derek takes Cora home so he can stare mournfully at her; he doesn’t know what to do. Isaac has a rant at him since Scot and Stiles have been out and about looking for the Darach but no-one thought to check Derek’s bed for her. And now Derek’s going to just sit and stare into space while everyone else fights? Isaac asks why Derek even changed them all in the first place (a direct swipe at his role as Alpha). Derek says he’ll help the others once he’s figured out how to help Cora. Isaac leaves in a rage to let Derek get on with his moping.

Peter, having heard all that, drops in to twist the knife in. Oh, Isaac didn’t mean it – he’s only being all angry because it helps him justify following Alpha Scott rather than Alpha Derek. Scott continues to use his pain-killing were-wolfy ability to help Cora while Peter warns him not to go too far. Rather than just snarking, Peter has heard of another ability – an Alpha can do more than just stop pain, they can actually heal someone – using their super Alphaness, though, of course, it could kill him.  Even if it doesn’t kill him, it will drain away his alphaness and turn him into a beta. Which may be a bad idea with Kali’s promise to kill him and all the next day (like he ever did any good against her with Alpha powers). Peter also warns Derek about Machiavellian plotting (which is kinda rich coming from him, really) and maybe Jennifer planned all this to make Derek her ally – since he’d need her power to fight the Alphas as a beta.

And it’s a lunar eclipse, so they’ll all be powerless. Actually that sounds like a good reason not to care whether you’re Alpha or Beta.

At Argent HQ, Chris thinks his awful parenting disqualifies him from being a Guardian (true – working with granddaddy to raise a torturer and having a family tradition of massacres isn’t exactly wholesome) but Stiles and Allison doesn’t buy it – and Allison thinks they need to talk to Ms Morrel. She may be the Alpha Emissary but she knows a lot and is randomly helpful. Argent wants to keep looking for Melissa and Sherriff Stilinski and, besides, he has a big gun – can she heal her face being blown off. Hmmm… maybe.

I still want to know why they’re all looking but haven’t checked the most obvious place yet

No-one’s figured that out, so they think of using Lydia and her body-finding talent. The Argents get out all their dangerous toys and Isaac joins them – he comes with his own weapons.

Lydia, meanwhile is having a bonding moment with her mother – her actual mother is here. Have we ever seen her before? She’s helping Lydia cover up the mark of Jennifer trying to strangle her and generally seems to be a pretty good person and they definitely have a good relationship – why keep her hidden so long?

The Argents and Isaac go check the bank vault where Deaton was held captive – and Chris Argent tases Isaac (see, Isaac? Don’t trust the Argents!) and handcuffs Allison to the wall of the vault. He tells Allison to trust him - and drops his gun and just stand there when Jennifer comes to claim him.

With Argent gone Allison is stunned and tearful and Isaac is there to comfort her (I still can dredge no pity up for the torturers)

Stiles goes to see Lydia and after mutual disbelief over Scott joining the Alphas, Lydia tells Stiles about Jennifer calling her a Bean Sidhe. But Jennifer was surprised that Lydia was a Bean Sidhe – so she must have wanted to kill Lydia for another reason. They head off – but Stiles gets a text from Isaac about Chris’s capture – and he has a panic attack. Unable to breath Lydia flails around for a cure and then kisses him. That works. After the awkward “oh yes this relationship is so happening” moment, they decide to go talk to Ms. Morel.

At the Darach’s extremely obvious prison that no-one is bothering to search because REASONS, Chris wakes up all tied up and Melissa and Sheriff Stilinski (does this man have a name? Is there a rule in the Stilinski family about first names) tell Chris about all the weapons Jennifer took off him. Jennifer arrives, reminding us that werewolves feared “silver” not because of the metal but because of the “Argent” family – how the Argents “hunt those who hunt us”. She thinks they have a common cause but Chris protests! He doesn’t kill innocent people…

…Excuse me? Oh no, wait, Chris is right. He just kind of stood in the background wringing his little hands while his sister and his father and his wife and his daughter and his minions killed and tortured people regardless of whether they were innocent or not. And I think the only reason he hasn’t killed Derek is failure not for lack of trying. This attempted re-writing of the evil of the Argents is not impressing me at all.

Was this Chris’s master plan? Because it’s rather lacking. Step 1: disable people who could help me. Step 2: get captures. Step 3: be sacrificed… hey wait? Maybe wait for rescue? Step 4: uh… win?

Stiles and Lydia hurry to Morel’s office and fine Morel missing – just someone (Danielle, the sassy Black woman) waiting to see her. And Morel is never late. They rifle through her drawers and find Lydia’s file – which, of course, Lydia goes through and finds a picture of a tree. Lydia doesn’t find it significant, she’s always drawing trees, she likes drawing trees. But Stiles points out she always draws the same tree and pulls out one of her notebooks where an identical tree is drawn. Over and over and over again, every time identical. Seeing this, Danielle decides Lydia can have her session, Lydia has bigger issues. Stiles turns the picture upside down and it shows not a tree – but a root system. Stiles has finally figured out the very obvious hiding place! To be fair on Stiles, it was Chris and ALL THE DRUIDS who should have know this. Oh and Derek. And Peter. Oh and Peter told his story of the Nemeton to Stiles and Cora. And Gerard told it to Scot and Allison. Actually I’m not being fair on anyone here, she might as well have sign posted her murder cave with big neon lights.

Out of the office Stiles tells Lydia that she must be keeping them at the Nemeton (and these two are supposed to be the smart ones!) but he gets delayed by the annoying FBI agent – so sends Lydia to Derek with the news. Stiles and the agent spend some more time bandying words (when will people learn the only one who can successfully bandy words with Stiles is Lydia). Until Deaton arrives and tells the FBI agent that Stiles is with him

Meanwhile Ms. Morrel is running through the woods being chased by the Alpha Twins. I wonder if she has any tricks up her sleeves

Scott and Deucalion are out walking through the night, talking about a firefly and how all the wildlife is acting odd because of Jennifer and her supernatural disaster. Deucalion is all concerned about her killing innocent people but then he admits he’ll kill anyone that gets in his way.

The whole Alpha pack – including Scott – catches up with Morel when she hides behind a circle of Black Ash. She knew they were coming for her because “Jennifer and she are the same” apparently. They’ve always been “suspicious of what we can do”. Turns out the nameless woman in the first episode was sent by Morel. Apparently her name was Brayden (at last a name!) and Morel sent her to maintain balance – what she’s already done. She urges Scott to return to his friends, that Deucalion continues to pile up bodies to form his perfect pack –including Ennis; which is news to the other pack members, especially Kali. Deucalion accuses her of lying and when she tells the others to ask him he throws his stick at her, knocking her out the circle. But it’s Scott who rushes to her and gets the others to back off. Wounded, she tells Scott to find the Nemeton to find Jennifer

Lydia arrives at the werewolf loft to meet Peter. Awkward. They have history. Anyway, apparently Talia, Derek’s mother, decided to remove the location of the Nemeton from their memories because many people had died there (desperate plot patching?). How can they find it now? Well, if Chris hadn’t decided to give himself up, he knew where it was as well.

Back at the Nemeton and Sheriff Stilinski is fully brought up to date on all the supernatural – and how Sherriff Stilinski had always known about the supernatural on some level, but he’d been in denial for a long time, refusing to accept – and tells a story of the supernatural when he was given a chance to be with his wife when she died, but his refusal to believe meant he couldn’t be there – and Stiles was wife her alone.

Group meeting of everyone not imprisoned to brainstorm where the Nemeton is now that Chris isn’t around, the werewolves have amnesia and Deaton… just doesn’t know. Apparently. For Reasons. Instead he has a dangerous method of finding it that, of course, needs Scott.

So meeting with Scott (who can just wander away from the Alphas) to deliver the master plan – Allison, Stiles and Scott will die in place of their parents. But come back to life (honest) which will power up the Nemeton. Down side is the Nemeton will then start being all shiny and powerful and attract all kinds of supernatural gribble. Stiles lampshades this – between Alpha packs, werewolves, Kanima, druids it’s not like Beacon Hills can get more supernatural. Also the sacrifices will have a permanent darkness scar around their hearts. Which is probably bad.

In the Nemeton Chris reveals he has a shred of a plan left! While Jennifer found and removed every weapon hidden in the most obscure of people, she completely missed his little ultra-sonic werewolf-hearing noise maker. He turns it on in the hope it’ll annoy enough werewolves that one will come and check it out.

It’s ice bath time again! The surrogate sacrifices all have an item that’s important to their parents. They all have to be held under water by someone who they have a strong connection to – someone who can bring them back, an emotional tether. Lydia starts to walk to Allison, her best friend, but Deaton says who goes with who and he’s a damnsite better at reading subtext – Lydia gets to hold Stiles down. Allison gets Isaac – and there’s an awkward moment where Scott says “it’s ok” where the whole Allison/Isaac thing is acknowledged. Scott gets Deaton – and hopefully he has some druid tricks to hold down a werewolf. Before they go under, Stiles takes the chance to warn Scott that his dad’s in town.

Wait, what?! Who? The FBI agent? – Yes, the FBI agent is Scott’s dad, looking all tearful and lost in Scott’s bedroom.

Derek cures Cora – and his red eyes fade back to blue.

And the three sacrifices are pushed under the water

According to the legends on Teen Wolf, the druids taught the werewolves how to shapeshift… so can they shapeshift? Other than sacrificing people and going all evil, what can Deaton and Morel do? What could the other Emissaries have done? C’mon where’s the power

Is Morel dead? Because one minute Scott insists that he won't let her die and then he teleports over for a clandestine meeting with Deaton and no-one mentions what happened to her. You're going to leave this up in the air? No, really, are you serious? And really, she needs to be not dead. Really really does. Between Boyd, nameless-woman-at-the-beginning (yes she has a name now – but it took a helleciously long time to name Brayden –and who was she anyway) it’s not like you have a lot of Black people to kill off here. Danielle better be watching her back! And why, after all the druids were murdered, did Morel even stay with the Alpha Pack? And where’s this druid power they should have? And no-one thought to tell Deaton his sister just got impaled? And how is she like Jennifer? AND WHY CAN DRUIDS NOT COMMUNICATE?! Seriously is it an upbringing thing? Do their parents scream at them if they make a non-cryptic statement or something?

There’s some ongoing commentary I have on character changes this season (I think Derek has been pushed into the beta role by some pretty railroaded writing this season for one – and the Argents, how I hate them, for another) but better left for the mid season hiatus next week.