OMG, y’all. So, way back when Teen Wolf kicked off (nearly three years ago!) I called Dylan O’Brien “A really very good new actor.” Well, I’m a genius, because this week, he just KILLED it. And me. And then KILLED it again.
Two weeks back, “Silverfinger” gave us the exposition on Allison’s dad’s previous run in with shadow ninjas. That leads the tribe to the door of the only other man to escape it that time, a former Triad figure (aka Revenge‘s Takeda). After a hilarious (and hot) pep talk where Allison finally kisses Isaac and puts his hand on her ass, he mans up and goes inside to take a fake meeting over a gun sale only to find out they have their own werewolf.
NoTakeda helpfully explains that the shadow ninjas (who we discover are called Oni) are trying to out a Nogitsune evil spirit who has piggybacked one of them. Their interrogation of potentials leaves the potential hypothermic and scarred with a reverse S behind the ear indicated their still possess their Self.
Meanwhile, Kira is holed up at Scott’s as the Oni come calling and everything goes sideways when the Scavos, Scott’s mom and dad, and Derek show up. (An earlier scene at the beginning of the episode has Kira asking to see Scott’s wolf when he drives her home after the rave, and she responds by very sweetly stroking his transformed face, so she’s now onboard with the wolves all over the place).
A call from Isaac and Allison convinces Scott and Kira to submit so the Oni will test them and then leave. Scott’s dad gets injured in the initial melee and believing himself at death’s door he asks Melissa to let him talk to Scott and tells her that she knows why he came back. She tells him no, not now, his timing sucks, and to hang on.
At the hospital, Stiles sleeps off his anxiety bender courtesy of Melissa’s sedative. She’s heartbroken when she sees his symptoms mirroring those of his mother. When he wakes, up he wanders the hospital until he comes face to face with the ninjas and something in him flips a switch and we realize he’s the Nogitsune (CRAP). He reaches through their chests and pulls out their energy (aka fireflies) and when Scott finds him, he’s himself again.
And that little morsel left us hanging until this week, when we kick off with Stiles frantically calling Scott in the middle of the night to come find him. He’s unsure of where he is, and unsure of whether he’s alone, and he thinks he might be bleeding. And the weather forecast is for a night in the 20s, so the clock is ticking to find him.
Scott yells Isaac awake and they go to Stiles’ where they run into Lydia and Ethan. Lydia heard something at the school and she hears it again in his room. They tell the sheriff and he’s suitably freaked out and they round everybody up to find him. That leads to an asylum basement where Stiles isn’t. And Derek helps Scott scope out Stiles’ scent at the hospital where they find Stiles’ car.
We find out Kira’s mom has her own supernatural something or other (and I’m a dumbass because I didn’t realize she’s being played by Tamlyn Tomita). When she comes in to change a light bulb that Kira accidentally shatters by touch, Kira notices her mom causes the same spark. Her mom glazes past it and tells her to go to bed.
Stiles, meanwhile, is trapped in an endless game of riddles with a menacing figure with a wrapped face and sharp silver teeth (and they seem to be in the very basement where there was no sign of him). Scott’s dad gets looped when nobody’s looking for his attacker (with very funny Wanted posters) and he meets up with Melissa and asks for more info about the things Stiles said to Scott when he called.
He said he was damp, and cold, and it smelled, and from that, Scott’s dad pieces together that Stiles is still likely somewhere asleep, and was asleep when he called, which is why they couldn’t find him. That leads them out to the coyote den, where Melissa pulls him out screaming, because in his dream, the figure was about to pull him toward some nasty fate.
Isaac finally goes to Allison’s when they can’t get her on the phone, and she runs up the hall half asleep and is startled when Isaac asks her if she got any of their calls or texts and she realizes her phone’s been off all night–something she never does. When she plays back her voicemail, there are repeated messages in Japanese. That morning at the school, they ask Kira’s dad about them and he says they sound fake because there was never a Japanese internment camp in that part of the US.
Meanwhile, Lydia keeps hearing whispers and clangs but is afraid to confess it, until she finally can’t stand the din anymore and lets loose one of her banshee wails.
At the hospital, Melissa and the Sheriff grieve when it looks like Stiles inherited the dementia that killed his mother. They set him up for an MRI to rule it out. While they wait for the test, a super emotional Scott and Stiles talk it out and Scott says if he has this, they will do something. He will do something. So we may be looking at a wolf Stiles, to which I say, hell, yes! The boys hug tight and hang onto each other and I may have gotten sniffly at home because I love the two of them so much and even though I ‘m 99.99% sure we’ll have Stiles until the wheels fall off this show, it was still very effective.
Derek starts his own investigation with Kira after Ethan asks why the Nogitsune went after Stiles (which he assumes everybody thinks and isn’t saying) instead of someone with power. He asks Kira to take him to where she’d been held at the power plant, and when they find Stiles’ bat magnetized to one of the transformers, he realizes that the Nogitsune hijacked Kira’s power surge at the moment Stiles arrived and jumped into him.
Derek goes to tell Scott what he’s found out and it’s unclear if they get to that point because Derek tells him first that he took Cora home to South America (closure!) and had a spirit talk with his mother, who reset his perspective that the wolves are the protectors of Beacon Hills. That drops the penny for Scott that Stiles was trying to protect everyone from himself, and they head up to the roof.
Once Stiles is in the MRI machine, he goes back into his dream state and the figure who kept taunting him reveals himself as a shadow Stiles. This sets off a power surge that gives him a quick escape. He gets dresses to leave and when the elevator doors open, there’s Kira’s mom. She calls the Nogitsune out for taking over a boy and says it won’t stop her. NotStiles asks if she’s threatening “them,” and then two Oni appear beside and she says now she is.
Back on the roof, Scott and Derek find evidence around the power grid that Stiles was fighting with himself about having to do something. They find a line that he tampered with, and as NotStiles has his confrontation inside, the power line breaks loose and swings down toward Kira on the ground.
And that’s our cliffhanger!
So we’re going on all cylinders now, and I’m at the point where I wish we had a dozen more episodes in front of us this season instead of just six, because DAMN are they getting good. I’m glad we already know we have a fourth season coming, but I wish they’d greenlit another super-sized season instead of 12 only eps (so far).
When I think of how much this show has morphed over the (relatively short) years, I haven’t always loved every twist and turn but I am definitely digging the vibe now, and I’m sort of on board with the show being a full-on ensemble. It works. I don’t feel like anybody’s being slighted, and I want to know what’s going on with everybody’s mini-arcs. I’m even okay with Kira falling into line so quickly. (I do wonder if we’re going to see Coyote Girl again, given that casting).
I LOVE LOVE LOVE Stiles and Scott and they will always be the central love story of this show as far as I’m concerned, so I look forward to watching Scott move hell and high water to save Stiles and bounce the Nogitsune.
Here’s a sneak peek of tomorrow’s new episode, and MTV is taunting us again with the “Who Will Die?” tagline. Bastards.