Thursday, February 18, 2016

Teen Wolf, Season 5, Episode 17: A Credible Threat



So everyone is all worried about the Beast and not knowing what to do about it, especially since they don’t know how to find the beast. What they do know is the Beast is getting smarter, stronger and more powerful with each transformation. As Gerard points out, the Beast will get more powerful until it completely forgets whatever Chimera teenager it and becomes a monster through and through

Corey wants to run (which is pretty smart since he only cowers or gets terribly injured) but Mason wants him to stay because he doesn’t want to have to get to know the next replaceable gay token. He wants Corey to protect him (I’d laugh if this weren’t so very very sad). But Mason has a logic leap – the Beast appears near transmissions every time, the Dread Doctors are controlling the beast and summoning it with broadcasts. By making it transform more and more and more they are encouraging to become the super powerful monster.

Mason having an idea – excellent, maybe he is going to be around more than 2 seconds every three episodes? Nope, because Liam gets to explain this idea to the gang. Really, you couldn’t have Mason explain his own idea? A straight white guy had to present it to the group for more brainstorming? They can’t have him silently in the back of the room or something?

Anyway, having come to all these conclusions the then realise there’s a charity lacrosse match coming up which is going to be heavily televised. A crowd of people for the Beast to slaughter

Surprisingly they actually make the sensible decision and decide the match needs to be cancelled rather than insisting the game has to go off (honestly so many teen drama would have had the match go on no matter what). Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any sensible way to actually cancel the match, the Sheriff certainly can’t without a reason

The idea they come up with is, sadly, to rely on Coach Finstock to forfeit the match. The problem with this is a) I don’t see how forfeiting at the last minute will work since the crowd will be there and the media. And B) it relies on the random coach Finstock doing what they want.


Can we have an aside here to say that it’s not ok to treat his alcoholism like that. He has been constantly faking relapse so he can stay in rehab – but getting into rehab is a hard, expensive and often impossible process, it’s wrong to trivialise it

So the match, predictably, goes ahead – and the gang hopes to try to find the Beast’s alternate identity by checking for blood stained shoes (the idea the Beast may have more than one pair of shoes sees to have skipped that). They’re helped by Brett, the werewolf playing for the other team, and his sister Lori.

The latter is especially helpful because she ends up distracting Kira. Kira completely (and, again, predictably) loses it to the fox. This has been threatened since a very cute moment with Scott and Kira together. After Kira completely tears up the lacrosse field she is sent off and speaks in Japanese – I’m sure we’ve been told previously that Kira doesn’t speak Japanese. It’s a sign the fox is peaking through. She and Lori fight, tearing through the school and it only stops when Scott arrives. It’s a pretty pic fight

His Alpha Roar brings her back to her self. I actually like this because it’s a sign of how all of them are becoming more powerful as a pack – especially since Scott has now finally healed his wound now he has reunited his pack. His power, his strength how they will win is dependent on the unity of his pack.

Meanwhile Malia runs into her mother – the delay prevents her from cutting off all of the radio signals

Corey and Mason also kiss – which is excellent and keeps raising my low hopes – but Corey breaks it off, something seems to be bothering him. I worry now, I worry again.

All of their distractions mean they fail to find the Beast – and to stop him appearing. The Beast appears and everyone cowers in the school preparing to face the Beast who has already unleashed one slaughter

At that first slaughter Parrish went all Hellhound to face the Beast – and it didn’t end well. As the Beast is evolving, Parrish is not really managing to keep up and can no longer go toe-to-toe with the Beast. He needs to do his evolving – he needs to embrace his inner hellhound

So he turns to the Argents. Oh dear gods who thought this was a good idea? Of course, on long Teen Wolf tradition, that means a near death experience! This time by freezer… allowing Lydia to communicate with the inner Hellhound who seems to have a lot of contempt for the body he’s occupying. But, by the end, Lydia seems to convince him, invoking Banshee authority.

This episode it seems everyone is starting to get their issues together. Scott has healed, Kira has conquered her fox at least once… maybe it will bode well for the future. This is where the pack seems to be getting everything lined up and ready – or we seem to be heading that way