The middle of the night and Scott gets a call from Stiles
– a staticy panicked call because Stiles has no idea where he is or how he got
there. He’s cut off after he says an ominous “there’s something wrong with my…”
Scott manages to reconnect to learn Stiles is somewhere dark and he can’t move
his leg – which is also bleeding. Stiles begs Scott not to tell his dad who is
already so worried
When Stiles hangs up Scott wakes Isaac so they can go hunting for him.
Did I mention that Teen Wolf can really hit some acting
highs?
To Lydia sketching Aidan at the school at night – he’s
worried about security but in a moment of glorious lampshading Lydia tells him
there is no security – there have been so many murders at the school that
no-one will take a night job there. Aidan leaps on some interesting ideas with them
all alone, when Lydia’s Bean Sidhe senses kick in – she hears voices instead of
music on the radio saying “…find me”.
Did I mention that Teen Wolf is doing a great job with
the creepy this season?
Scott gets another call from Stiles – brief because of
his dying phone – revealing he’s in a basement of a large building and it’s
freezing. And he’s whispering because he thinks there’s something in there with
him
Meanwhile at Kira’s house, Kira’s bulb goes. As she
reaches for it the dead bulb glows – but when she touches it, it explodes. Her
mother arrives to replace the bulb – and when she puts in the new bulb it glows
as well. Looks like her mother’s also a kitsune.
Scott and Isaac arrive at Stiles’s room to find Lydia and
Aidan already there, guided by bean sidhe senses – and find dozens of red
strings from his mystery boards threaded through to the bed; the red strings he
uses for unsolved cases. Apparently they’re there to pick up Stiles’s scent
which seems a little off that Scott and Isaac don’t already know his scent, but
maybe it’s the start of a trail, except Stiles’s jeep is also missing. Lydia
isn’t impressed by the whole promise not to call his dad – they need the
police, especially since, as Aidan reminds them, Lydia only gets bean sidhe
feelings when someone’s about to die.
Scott goes to the police station while Lydia stays to
commune with the room because she’s sure something’s there
Stiles is in a basement – and his leg is caught in a bear
trap, ouch. He searches the room with his phone as a torch to find the person
he can hear moving around – and sees a man crouched in the corner. We can’t see
much of him but what we do see seems to be badly scared – he draws
the Oni’s kanji on the wall in chalk. Seeing it, Stiles gasps “stop” and a
wind runs through the basement, stirring the dead leaves and lifting the chalk
from the wall in a line of dust
Sheriff Stilinski rallies his men to find Stiles –
everyone’s worried that it’s the coldest night of the year and Stiles is
dressed in sleep clothes; the Sherriff is also smart enough to check any supernatural
help.
They find the jeep outside of Melissa’s hospital and head in, Melissa already has her minions sweeping the hospital and she leads the Sherriff to the basement. Scott and Derek go to the roof and Derek thinks Stiles is gone – but they find his scent on the roof and after Derek gives him a crash course on smelling emotional signals, they smell that Stiles was stressed, anxious – there was a struggle, apparently with himself.
Agent McCall, who is not dead damn it, he’s not even
missing any significant body parts, wants to know why the police station is
deserted (and why the sketches of his attacker are really not even close to
what he described because even the sketch artist hates him) only to be informed
that he’s not anyone’s priority.
Aidan pokes Lydia about Stiles’s oh-so-obvious crush on
her and then plucks one of the strings (fiddling with things while bored) and
Lydia hears more mystery voices thanks to bean sidhe hearing. She plucks several
strings and is guided to Eichen House, the mental health centre where
Burrows was committed.
In the basement of said house, Stiles is still trapped and struggling and the shadowy figure talks – in Japanese. He translates – the question isn’t “who are you, but who are we?” so I take it this is the nogikitsune possessing Stiles and may even be a hallucination. Bandaged-probably-illusion bloke tells Stiles the symptoms of hypothermia – which Stiles knows and is suffering from and wants Stiles to get out because otherwise “we” (yes possessing nogkitsune) will die otherwise. Stils can’t escape – there’s a trap on his leg – but Bandaged Guy points out that a second ago the trap was on his left leg – now it’s on his right. Bandaged Guy (with vicious fangs) is trying to save him.
Lydia leads the crew into the basement – but Stiles isn’t
there. They leave – but, unnoticed by them, the kanji has been carved on the
wall.
And Melissa and Agent Oh-god-can-someone-please-kill-him are on the case and McCall (who needs to die) has the idea that maybe Stiles is still asleep and may not even be in a basement (he has an anecdote of him being drunk and doing something similar).
Back to Stiles in Dreamland playing riddle games with
Bandage Guy. When Stiles can’t answer “everyone has it but no-one can lose it,”
Bandage Guy – who I’m just going to call nogikitsune, grabs the leg trap and
pulls Stiles across the floor by it. Until he wakes screaming and in a panic –
being held by Melissa who tries to calm him down.
After all the drama Isaac knocks on Alison’s door because
she’s been absent from the whole drama and not answering her phone. Her phone
is off – which is odd because her phone is never off. She also has a gazillion
missed calls – when she checks one it’s a man speaking Japanese.
Aidan asks Derek what he thinks about the whole chaos –
and confesses to Derek he listened in to Stiles and Scott when Stiles told him
that he was the one who wrote the message to Burrows to kill Kira. Derek laughs
at the idea of Stiles –skinny, weak Stiles (hah, only in Beacon hills, the land
of the Sculpted Torsos can Stiles be skinny and weak) as the nogikitsune when
he could have possessed someone with more power.
At the hospital the Sheriff thanks everyone including
should-be-dead guy for finding Stiles who is fine. Lydia is bemused that her
powers didn’t work – and she hears a ringing; but she denies it to Scott, doubting
her bean sidhe powers. Lydia is definitely having problems, repeatedly hearing
metallic bangs she tries to ignore and hide from Scott
To school and Scot texts Deaton who he apparently has
researching something – but he’s got nothing. And Derek drops in on Kira to
find out all about what happened at the power station. She takes him there and
they find a grove on the floor and Stiles’s baseball bat stuck to one of the
cabinets, magnetised. He asks her about foxfire.
Melissa and Sheriff Stilinski have a beautifully understated scene where they both talk about they’ve noticed symptoms in Stiles (just like his mother) and the Sheriff thinks they need to do some tests.
Isaac and Allison take her voicemails to Mr Yukimura who
translates them as instructions prison camp guards gave Japanese inmates of the
internment camps during World War 2; but the internment camp, Oak Creek, never
existed.
Stiles goes in for testing (with Scott for moral support)
with an actual doctor who isn’t Melissa (they exist! I know I’m stunned as
well) and the running joke that he has no idea if Stiles’s first name is
written correctly or how to pronounce it. With Scott Stiles tells him he knows
what they’re testing for – a form of dementia his mother had; it’s incurable.
Scott promises they will do something and they hug wile Stiles cries and
Melissa and the Sheriff look on.
As Stiles goes into the MRI and hears the loud clanging
it makes, Lydia in her car cranks the radio to try and drown the sound of metal
hitting metal – a similar noise.
Derek and Kira arrive at the hospital though Kira decides
to wait outside because their news is that Kira using the foxfire to kill
Burrows may have jump started the nogikitsune inside Stiles. Derek meets Scott in the waiting room and they
talk – about learning from each other, about Cora returning to South America
(to the plot box with ye!) and the message Derek
got from his dead mother – his family protected Beacon Hills and needs
someone to do so – someone like Scott. Scott agrees but adds he needs Derek to
teach him the “trade secrets”. And Scott has an epiphany
Stiles was trying to protect them – protect them from himself. They rush up to the roof where they smelled Stiles struggling with himself. Struggling not to do something – they find tools and a frayed wire
And in her car, Lydia is driven to the edge by the banging and screams.
In the hospital, the doctor examines the scans and tells
the Sheriff and Melissa that there are signs of atrophy. Stiles has the
disease. Damn…
In the MRI, Stiles becomes more distressed, closes his
eyes and enters a dream world complete with nogikitsune who wants an answer to
his riddle – saying he may “let them go” if he does: his friends and family,
the nogikitsune intends to destroy all of them. He keeps chanting the riddle as
he takes off the bandages and Stiles hits the answer – Shadow. The nogkitsune
takes off his last bandage to show his face – Stiles himself. Evil Stiles
And it’s Evil Stiles who wakes in the MRI – who then vanishes when the lights flicker. On the roof the big box of electrical stuff explodes while Scott and Derek watch. While the hospital is full of people panicking and running, Evil Stiles calmly walks among them until he runs into Kira’s mother. She confronts him “I won’t be deterred by your choice of host, even if it’s an innocent boy”. She’s backed by the Oni; he scoffs, he’s not afraid of fireflies (and now speaks in the plural). She has a plan B though if the Oni don’t defeat him
Outside, a live wire comes free from the electrical thing and whips down to the bottom of the hospital – to Kira.
Teen Wolf is just one of the best shows on at the moment –
the acting, the atmosphere, the weird story. However, I call a question on
Agent McCall’s rather huge leap of logic here – especially since he doesn’t even
know about Stiles’s lucid dreaming or health issues. Could Scott or Melissa
have guessed this? Yes, because they’re in a position to do so – but there’s no
reason why Agent Should-be-Dead would make this leap of logic.
Stiles, his illness, his friendship with Scott, Melissa
and the Sheriff… it’s powerful and cannot really be praised enough. It’s scenes
like this that make Teen Wolf a powerful, emotional show and not just campy
light escapism.
There’s not really much commentary to add except to
loudly yell MOOOOAR MOOOOOAR in a rather undignified fashion. Epic, emotional, exciting
and awesome.
