I’ve come to the conclusion that, a lot of the time, I have no idea what the hell is going on with Teen Wolf, but it’s highly enjoyable all the same.
Let’s get caught up.
In “Letharia Vulpa,” Deaton goes calling on the Triad to fetch Lichen that the previous Nogistsune bled into in the hopes that it will help diffuse Stiles. He’s going to need it, because we spend the episode hopscotching all over town trying to disarm NotStiles’ little tricks lying in waiting before they can go boom. We start right up though with the live power line coming down off the roof (the closing scene from the episode prior) and Kira helpfully snuffs it out but not before it electrocutes a handful of people, including Isaac (noooo!).
Stiles is AWOL again so everybody hunts him and then he just shows up at school, pleading that he really is himself, and then he enlists the team’s help to head off his alter’s wicked traps. They’re fairly successful, but the coach still takes a spike to the gut and a bomb goes off in the police station. Both times, Stiles prompts Scott to take their pain and he does. He also takes Isaac’s pain at the hospital when he and Allison go to see him.
Derek and Papa Argent find themselves locked up after their own tracking leads them back to the Argent family safe, where they find a suitcase of cash belong to the now-dead Silverfinger. The cops arrive soon after and both are in the police station when the bomb goes off but Derek keeps Argent from being killed.
Stiles, Kira, and Scott head to the clinic after Kira witnesses her parents releasing another batch of Oni. When they get inside, Stiles reveals that he’s been NotStiles all along and knocks Kira to the floor. Then he launches into full Mwa Ha Ha mode as he stabs Scott and pulls all the harvested pain from him. Thankfully Deaton drops him with the Lichen.
When we pick back up with “Echo House,” Stiles is admitting himself for a psych hold to keep everyone safe. Once inside, he has second thoughts but it’s too late. He soon finds out that Miss Morell is the doctor in residence there, and he properly meets a less-than-grateful Malia, until he dangles the carrot that Scott can help her re-coyote, and then she softens considerably. He also befriends Oliver, his roommate who seems to have been there for a while.
Oliver keeps hacking up phlegm which I kept paralleling back to the escaped convict with flies in his stomach, so we have an inkling something is up with him. Stiles gets busted with the amphetamines that Morell gaives him to stay awake/keep the Nogitsune at bay, and the orderlies tranq him. Malia breaks him out of solitary and they go exploring the basement from Stiles’ nightmare.
They look through files and what-not and confirm the asylum has a hellish history and then things take a turn (a random couch in the room is a big clue) and Stiles and Malia kiss and then sleep together. It’s very sweet and more of a “I haven’t done this before, you’re a good guy, let me get this out of the way” on Malia’s side and Stiles is happy to oblige.
Afterward, Malia notices something about the wall around the etched reverse “S” and when they check it out, they realize it’s hollow. They break through it to find a Nogistune warrior (the pronged teeth fellow that keeps plaguing Stiles) but before they can get too far along in that, Oliver tasers them. He ties them both up and is about to drill Malia’s noggin while Stiles begs him to stop. Then he changes to NotStiles and knocks Oliver out (so I think Oliver was the second Nogitsune, but like I said, I’m lost). We end the episode with Malia released and leaving the asylum in search of Scott but there’s something extra about the way she saunters out of there that made me wonder if she’s now the second Nogitsune.
Elsewhere in the episode, Scott and Allison team up with Lydia and Kira and the Scavos to retrieve a scroll that should help them free Stiles (I love that they all just jump right up to do something fairly dangerous to save him). They succeed in getting it without killing Silvefinger’s werewolf. At the station, Papa Argent and Derek are still locked up and they talk about whether Stiles can be saved. Both hope he can, but Papa Argent has a precedent where he killed a boy who was possessed because there was no turning back.
And that’s that.
I’m sort of over the “is he Stiles or not?” aspect of this arc, and I still stand by my original statement that Dylan O’Brien isn’t going anywhere. He sure seems to be having a ball with the duality, though, so good for him,
I was glad Malia finally rounded back in–with her casting we knew she had to be more than a one-off, and now that Allison and Lydia know she’s Peter’s daughter we’ll see where all of that goes.
I like that Kira is settling in with the team but so far there’s no drama about it between her and Allison. It’s convenient that they had her pick up swordplay really quickly (which she demonstrates in a cute scene with Scott and then just beams when he tells her she can come with them) but I guess now that she’s been activated we’ll see lots of abilities come up. Sidebar: Am I alone that I keep thinking of the Firefox browser every time they talk about her power?
No Isaac in “Echo House,” so I hope he’s back tonight or that they at least tell us how he he’s doing. Here’s a sneak peek of “The Fox and the Wolf,” which airs tonight on MTV in the US and Canada.
Photo courtesy of MTV