A girl runs, clearly being chased, to the school. The school?!
This is Beacon Hills, girl, you may as well run into a mine field filled with
angry honey badgers – you’d be more safe than the school! She’s already had one
hand cut off by something hot enough to burn –
probably Violet’s garrotte
Sure enough, Violet is hunting her – and the girl’s eyes
glow gold. She’s a werewolf. What’s with these werewolves who are running from
1-on-1 fights with hunters? Even the Argents loaded up for those fights
(especially since a garrotte is a good ambush tool and a crap weapon). The girl
chants “the sun the moon the truth”, the same chant the dead werewolf used last
episode to stay calm and stop from changing.
Violet finds her hiding place and the girl knocks her
down and runs – right to be rescued by Violet’s boyfriend Garrett who finishes
her off.
Time for Stiles to recap the deaths and the killers with
added tit-bits: the werewolf who delivered the keg was part of a pack (per
Scott’s nose) and Parrish can disarm claymore mines. The dead werewolves are
DeMarco and Carey. And Sheriff Stilinksi is still awesome when presented with
the Supernatural and adding banshee weirdness to a murder investigation. They
also only have a third of the list – there are 2 more names that will reveal
the rest (along with Allison so far). Lydia is desperately trying to push her
banshee powers and getting nowhere.
The Sheriff also points out the elephant in the room –
the gang didn’t know these werewolves. We’re reminded that the Nemeton is
pulling supernaturals to the area (or has been) but the Sheriff wonders what
the “area” is –the city is 30,000 people, but the county is 500,000; so the
list could have hundreds of names.
Back to the numbers on the list – they will add up to
117, since $117 million is how much was stolen from the Hale vault and, they
think, is being used to finance all the deaths; this gives a limit on how long
the list can be. (this also upgrades the gang who had low numbers – since they’re
assumed to be $15 and $20 million rather than $250,000). They also realise that
to know Demarco was going to be at the party, the killer had to be a student.
So to the school! Where Violet is hiding scratch marks
from fighting Carey – and she and Garrett are planning on going for the high
ticket items on the list.
Mr. Yakimura corners his daughter because he knows she’s
been keeping a secret. She crumbles completely within seconds (never ever trust
Kira with secrets! She’ll fold the minute the Sheriff turns his confused eyes
on her). She spills about assassins and deadpools (wait, she didn’t want to
tell her supernatural mother about this?) and all that. Which is somewhat of a
surprise to Mr. Yakimura who was actually wondering about her joining the
lacrosse team without telling him.
In the gym, Liam is finding being a werewolf allows him lift bigger and bigger and bigger weights while Mason tells us that Garret doesn’t live where he claims to – and throws in a little passive aggressive poke at how weird Liam has been acting lately. He’s worried about Liam, especially since they’re playing against the school Liam was kicked out from.
When he’s alone in the locker room, Derek drops in to introduce himself to Liam and show baby!wolf how it’s done. Just a test of Liam’s anger issues which are going to be a problem. Laughably, Derek thinks Scott is doing a good job. He does do a good job of being the supportive second/mentor to Scott though.
Lydia continues to try and push her banshee powers –
along with Malia “helping”. Malia
suggests they talk to another banshee – Meredith who was in Eichen house with
Stiles. We also get an excellent scene
with Lydia’s frustration with her powers; they all get claws and glowing eyes,
she gets voices in her head that she can’t control.
To emphasise how little Scott is getting his chance to
focus on school, the gang all examines crime scene photos while the Coach (who
is weird and awesome) talks economic disparity while clearly being bitter about
the school they’re playing against. Anyway, the coach byplay leads Stiles to
decide the knife that Garrett used to stab Carey is definitely made from a
Lacrosse stick. I’m not even going to go into the fact that an 8 sided stick
isn’t exclusive to lacrosse, nor am I going to question why Garrett went to
such trouble to make a lacrosse knife. I’m not going to do this because I’ve
just watched Falling Skies and at
this point my brain is willing to accept any and all plot holes
In between wondering what to do about an assassin on the
team, Stiles, Kira and Scott wonder just how the killer learned about them
anyway, especially very secretive suprnaturals or new supernaturals like Kira.
Kira and Scott declare how not afraid they are – Stiles is much more sensible about
the whole professional assassins trying to kill people.
Cut to Garrett and Violet who have found a whole new
special kind of wolfsbane (this stuff may end up like multi-coloured kryptonite!)
which Violet thinks they should be using
to bring down Scott, while Garrett is more wary and wants to target a beta (which,
on the lacrosse field, must mean Liam – which means the list is very quickly
updated). They poison Garrett’s lacrosse stick knife.
Back to Liam who decides to confront a member of the
opposite team, Brett who he has Issues with. Brett and his team are not amused
by Liam destroying his coach’s car. Stiles and Scott have to drag Liam away
until his temper calms and he no longer has fangs. When he’s calm they learn
that Liam has Intermittent Explosive Disorder, an actual behavioural disorder
that leads to explosive, disproportionate temper. He’s on anti-psychotic drugs
to treat the disorder, but he doesn’t take them because the side effects make
him tired and impossible to play lacrosse. Scott tries to talk him out of
playing but Liam is sure he can hold it together – with Scott’s help. Scott
adds that there’s an assassin on the team –and Liam remembers that it was
Garrett who paid for the keg Demarco brought when he was lured to his death
To the police station – Parrish has found Meredith
walking 15 miles to try and find Lydia. This banshee is definitely in touch
with her powers. They call in Lydia and Malia and Parrish is still kind of
tip-toeing around the idea that Lydia is psychic (since she finds bodies) It
gets him involved in speaking to Meredith which is difficult since her powers
appear to be complicated with mental illness. She gives them the phone number
she uses to call for help – 2436. It’s a little short. Lydia gets more and more
agitated and starts shouting at Meredith.
But Malia looks at the numbers and the letters in a phone
and points that out to Lydia who applies her brilliant brain and comes up with
the name – Aiden. She puts it in and a new list of names appear – including Kate
Argent, Noshiko (Kira’s mother) – it also includes some other names I don’t
know, but it also includes someone called Brett.
Also on the list? Jordan Parrish – and for $5,000,000.
Chris Argent and Derek go to the Hale vault to discuss
the return of Kate. After much back and forth Chris wants to track Kate down
but Derek wants to find her because she’s taken something from him – not only
are his eyes not blue any more, but he’s losing his sense of smell. He’s losing
his werewolfiness.
Chris also gets a visit from Araya and Severo from the
Caleveras. They’re concerned that Braeden hasn’t called back for a while (me
too). Araya has decided to do the job herself rather than hiring mercenaries
since they are hunters. She’s upset that Chris isn’t following the code and
tries to browbeat him with it and his dead loved ones until he recites it: “we
hunt those who hunt us”.
To the school: the game is about to start and Liam
considers beating up Brett while Mason looks on and is more concerned with
checking out his physique (there, final confirmation that Mason is gay)
Scott makes a last attempt to get Liam out of the game –
it doesn’t work. To the game (Stiles “I’m just going to try and play lacrosse”
because Kira and Scott have their own plans). Liam has to be held back. Kira is
awesome but she gets benched for soloing rather than passing.
After some random play violence, Scott thinks Garrett is
after Liam and Liam manages to sit out the rest of the game. But Stiles arrives
with Lydia’s new cracked code – Liam isn’t on the list
But, yes, Brett from the other team is. He’s staggering, weak in the locker room and, with glowing yellow eyes, he’s confronted by Violet.
Scott hurries into the dressing room, finds several unconscious players and Brett – still alive. Violet attacks from behind and wraps the garrotte round his neck. She’s making a try for the Alpha. Scott grabs the red hot wire, easily pulls it away from his neck and turns to face Violet. His eyes glow red and he snaps the wire and casually taps her against the wall, knocking her out
I would say this is the difference between an Alpha wolf
and a Beta wolf – but where was this badassery all season?
I just kind of love how the show doesn’t even care about
keeping secrets any more. Lydia rants about not having claws and having voices
in her head? In a crowded corridor. Stile examines crime scene photos in class.
No-one even cares any more!
So 5 episodes into a 12 episode season we have final
confirmation of an actual gay character on the show. Hey, it took nearly have
the season but we got there. He also appears to be playing exactly the same
role as Danny did in season 1 – guy who hangs around in the background. We also
have confirmation that Danny isn’t coming back this season – so we have
ourselves a T-Dog chain when they realised this oh-so-gay show was going to have
zero gay characters. Bring in another token, quickly! I’m just overwhelmed by
how amazing the representation on this show is (yes, this is my sarcasm).
Braeden fell in the plot hole again. She spends so much
time there I think she’s had it fully furnished – well her half. Dr. Deaton has
the other.
I’m curious about Parrish, I think they’ve done a good
job of having him trying to feel out his boss as to just how much he knows
about the supernatural. I think he’s quite eager to join the group simply
because he has been tip-toeing around it.
I also really like Lydia’s frustration coming through, I
find it really honest. Obviously there’s going to be a lot of anger that she
has this power that repeatedly leads her to unpleasant situations (being used
by Peter, finding many many many many bodies) but also a power that she cannot
USE. It’s a power that uses her, a power she doesn’t understand and for someone
of Lydia’s intelligence, that’s got to be frustrating. Throw in that she’s
nearly surrounded by people who, from the outside, have pretty awesome powers
of strength and speed and healing and super senses: Malia, Kira, Scott, Derek –
even Aiden last season. Stiles is the only regular human she commonly spends
time with.
With Liam and Meredith we have two people dealing with
mental illness/behavioural conditions. Meredith is straight out of the trope
bag – the seer who is insane and therefore incomprehensible. She’s a tool.
Liam, it might be interesting if they develop his issues,
his need for help and medication and dealing with the side effects of that
medication. It will also be interesting to see what develops of that “the anger
will make him strong” line. But I’m leery of it being maintained in anything
like a sensible or useful manner.
