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Teen Wolf Season 5, Episode 4: "Condition Terminal" Recap/Review
Hey, friends! Is everyone still with us? Nobody had a heart attack this week, or a stroke, or experienced their brains exploding as a result of how literally bananas this episode was, right? Good! I admit it was kind of a close call, there, but I'm pleased to say I made it through essentially in one piece. (Granted, sleeping Monday night was quite a struggle since I couldn't stop thinking about/theorizing about everything we just learned in this episode, but whatever, I can sleep when I'm dead).
Anyway, so how great was "Condition Terminal?" Maybe great isn't the right word-- I thoroughly enjoyed the entirety of the episode, but there were some parts that scared me or frustrated me. First was the part with Donovan being experimented on by the Dread Doctors. I already have a weak stomach for medical horror, which is weird, since I'm a nurse and all, but dental horror is even worse and gives me the wiggins so bad! I was also not thrilled by Scott, Stiles, and Kira's reactions to Malia telling them about the Dread Doctors. I'm sure now that Scott and Kira have seen them for themselves, they'll be much quicker to believe she was telling the truth, but come on, McCall Pack! Malia is your friend and she is well-known for hating lying, so why wouldn't she be honest about this? Especially after how upset she was? I mean, they didn't outright say they didn't believe her, but they didn't do much to convince her that they did, either.
Plus all you have to do is look at Tracy's body to see that there's no way a werecoyote who attacks with her claws could have killed her. I'm also extremely worried about Scott, not only because he seems to have siphoned a shitload of scorpion venom/pain out of Corey and into himself, but also because everyone leans on him when they need support, but he never gets that support back himself, aside from maybe Kira. He just gives and gives and gives without getting anything back, and if he keeps bottling up all of his problems so he doesn't worry people, we're definitely going to be having a "Motel California: Part Deux" situation on our hands, and it scares me.
Other than that, though, I was a huge fan of what we saw this week. Fiery, naked Jordan, who seems to be some sort of angel of death and maybe connected to the Nemeton! (Shhh, I'm still refusing to believe he's anything evil) Lydia wanting to learn how to fight! Kira's second lapse into full-blown kitsune-mode at the club! CANON BISEXUAL BRETT TALBOT! Mason and Liam going to the club together! Scott telling Kira he loves her! Scientific supernatural chimeras! Supernatural research in the new badass library! So, how about I stop summarizing and get to the good stuff, yeah? Yeah!
Previously, on Teen Wolf: A Beacon Hills senior named Tracy Stewart, who suffered from terrifying night terrors, was injected with a bunch of mercury-ish goop by the Dread Doctors and turned into what seemed to be a werewolf, but ended up also having qualities of a kanima, such as the tail and paralyzing venom that managed to temporarily incapacitate Deaton, Malia, Scott, and Stiles at the animal clinic, and Sheriff Stilinski, Clarke and a bunch of other deputies, and Natalie Martin at the Sheriff's station. She also managed to seriously wound Lydia with her tail as well, slicing open her side and leaving her to bleed out on the floor. Kira, super pissed that Tracy hurt her best girlfriend, started to fight her with her katana and ended up going into full-kitsune mode with a huge fiery aura that literally everyone can see. She managed to slice off Tracy's tail, thankfully, which weakened her enough that Malia was able to pin Tracy down in the basement until she shifted back. Of course, just went Malia thought she had saved this poor girl's life, the Dread Doctors showed up and pinned Malia to the wall in order to force her to watch as they killed Tracy with an overdose of mercury-ish gunk. Whew!
This week's cold open begins with Jordan, who is laying on his couch at what I'm assuming is his apartment as he holds a deck of playing cards in his hands. He's specifically looking at the Queen of Diamonds card, and the depiction of the queen is a woman with red hair, green eyes, and a face that looks suspiciously like Lydia's. AWESOME. I wonder if they made a deck of cards with a queen that looks like Lydia/Holland Roden? If so, that's so cool. Also, it's worth pointing out that we get a brief glimpse at the living room where he's hanging out, and the nearby table is covered in a bunch of weird stuff. It looks like he has a plant of some kind, a jar full of nails or screws or something, a couple spools of wire in different sizes, and a jar that is full of some short cables of some kind. Is this a bomb tech thing? It's kind of freaking me out, to be honest, but as I said earlier, I am in denial and refusing to believe that Parrish is a bad guy until we're informed otherwise. Anyway, so Parrish is flipping the Queen of Diamonds around in his hands, looking closely at the drawing of the queen, and is transported into a flashback to gods know when. Considering the fact that Lydia isn't bleeding out, I'm going to say it was a while ago.
She and Jordan are sitting at the Sheriff's station late at night, where Lydia is sitting in a chair next to his desk and absentmindedly flicking a lighter on and off. He asks her if she's going to do a magic trick, but Lydia just smiles demurely and replies that it is actually he who will be performing it. "I only know one trick, and it's with a playing card," Jordan retorts, but Lydia just explains that the trick they'll be doing involves a lighter and Jordan's hand. He laughs and points out that it sounds more like assault than magic, but though Lydia concedes that it is slightly dangerous, she assures him that it's not as dangerous as being set ablaze in a deputy's cruiser and reminds him that he walked away from that little assassination attempt without a scratch or a burn-- he was just covered in soot and melted polyester. "Not entirely!" Jordan argues, as he gestures toward his body. "I had to pay for the uniform!" Lydia, looking more serious now, asks him to give her his hand, so Jordan, trusting Lydia's scientific mind and banshee instincts, holds his right hand out in front of her. "I think I've seen something like this in a movie," Jordan quips, to which Lydia instantly responds, "Lawrence of Arabia!", and when he asks her to remind him what the trick actually was, Lydia tells him that it's not minding and flicks the lighter wheel with her thumb.
She holds the flame right under his outstretched hand, and he manages to hold it there for several short moments before the heat gets to him and he yanks his hand away and swears under his breath. Lydia laughs heartily and retorts that she knows he can last longer than that, which immediately sent my mind to a very dirty place. Oh, double entendres! Jordan just rolls his eyes, but she's serious about this-- for the second try, she wants him to not think about the fire, or the heat, or the pain, or anything like that, which I think is important-- in the section of the pre-Season 5 write-up where we speculated what supernatural creature Jordan could be, a lot of the debate was centered around when he was set on fire by his partner Deputy Haigh in "Perishable"-- was he screaming because the fire actually burned him, caused him pain and injury, and then healed quickly, or was he screaming out of fear because he thought himself to be a normal human who would be charbroiled quickly after being doused with gasoline and set ablaze? I mean, fear is a powerful emotion, and if you think something is going to hurt, then it'll probably hurt. Thanks to this scene, I'm going with the latter guess; I think he can feel the heat, but it doesn't actually burn him, it just makes him sooty like anything else that has fire near it. I'm also thinking that fire can heal him of non-burn related injuries, since his claw wounds from Sludgewolf/Glow!Wolf (whose actual name apparently is Belasko-- the more you know!) started smoking before they healed completely.
But, as usual, I'm getting ahead of myself. So, as Lydia is instructing him not to think about the fact that she's going to try to set his hand on fire again, she slowly covers his hand with hers, and since Jordan clearly has major heart-eyes for our banshee queen, he nods in understanding and holds out his hand again. Lydia holds up the lighter and flicks the wheel until the flame appears before holding it out under Jordan's outstretched palm. After a moment, it looks as though he's zoned out, which intrigues Lydia, and his hand starts to smoke pretty severely for a minute or two until the lighter gets so hot that Lydia accidentally burns her thumb and has to stop. Jordan, snapped out of his trance by Lydia's yelp of pain, asks her if she's okay, but she assures him that she's fine before asking him if he's okay. When he remembers that, hello, Lydia just held a flame to his hand for several moments and he didn't feel a thing, his eyes widen in alarm as he looks down at his hand, which is covered in soot but otherwise unburnt, and anxiously shakes his head in the negatory.
Lydia looks a little nervous and points out that while he was looking at her, his eyes sort of drifted as though he was daydreaming, which leads her to ask him what he was thinking about. Jordan looks even more alarmed now and hesitates for a moment that he was remembering a dream that he has apparently been having off and on for the last six months, dun dun dunnnn! We then cut to the clip of Parrish covered in soot and surrounded by flames that we saw at the end of "Creatures of the Night" when Valack was questioning Lydia-- he looks up at the camera, and the flames flicker in the reflection of his eyes before they turn orange again. This is super interesting to me, since I was under the impression that the scenes we saw would all be more-or-less at the end of the season, so the fact that we're getting payoffs for that montage already means that we could be getting more answers sooner than we think. Woot!
"I'm walking in the woods, carrying a body. But, it's completely burned. I can't see who it is... or who it was," Jordan explains in voiceover as we see him doing exactly that-- he's completely naked, covered in soot, and carrying what looks like the body of a young woman whose clothes and skin are pretty badly burned. It also looks like her clothes have been super-shredded as well, which makes me wonder what the circumstances of her death were. However, I don't recognize the girl he's carrying. Am I supposed to? Is this someone we haven't met, or do I need to update my glasses prescription? I'm going to go ahead and assume it's another one of the Dread Doctors failed test subjects.
Anyway, when Lydia asks him where he's taking the body in his dream, Jordan replies, "A clearing. There's a huge tree in the middle of it. You'd think it was a thousand years old, but it's been cut down. It's just a stump." Lydia, of course, recognizes this description and immediately closes her eyes and sighs deeply when she realizes that the Nemeton is back in play, which Jordan totally notices. We then cut back to the flashback of his dream, where he silently walks toward the huge tree stump. Also, he seems similarly zoned-out while he's walking, as well, so I'm wondering if maybe he isn't aware of what he's doing? What if the spirit of whatever creature he is is starting to come out, like the kitsune spirit is doing to Kira? I fully admit that I could just be reaching, though, considering my current "FUCK NO PARRISH ISN'T EVIL HOW DARE YOU SUGGEST SUCH A THING" stance. :P
LYDIA: [sighs] "It's real. It's a real tree, in a real part of Beacon Hills." [She pauses] "It used to be the center of a grove of trees called a Nemeton."
JORDAN: [confused] "What's a Nemeton?"
LYDIA: "A sacred meeting place for Celtic Druids. They were scientists and healers thousands of years ago."
JORDAN: [frowns] "I've never seen this place..."
LYDIA: "But that's why you're here. It drew you here. That's what it does. It's a beacon for supernatural creatures. It might even make them more powerful."OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT. I have a couple different theories about this, but I'll get into that in a minute, since we still have some more exposition to cover. Also, can I talk about how much I love that the Nemeton theme is back? That bass line is so great it gives me chills, and I love it so much! We heard it a lot in Season 3A, obviously, given how big the Nemeton's role was, but that one time we heard it in 3B's "The Fox & The Wolf" made me super happy, so I am thrilled to be able to hear it again. So anyway, Lydia asks him what happens next in his dreams, so Parrish stands to his feet and hesitates for a moment while he paces around before replying, "I put the body down. I... I lay it down on the rings of the tree, and..." When he trails off, Lydia once again asks him what comes next, but Jordan just lies and says nothing else happens because he wakes up right afterward.
The scene then cuts back to Parrish in his apartment, where he's laying on his couch and still flipping over that Queen of Diamonds card. "I only know one trick, and it's with a playing card..." his own voice rings in his head as he continues thinking about the dream-- particularly, the end of the dream, which he neglected to tell Lydia. He flips the card around, revealing that the bottom drawing of the Lydia-esque queen has a scorch mark right over her face. Holy shit! Is that just soot from his hands that smudged it? Was he so stressed about it that his thumb actually burned the card? I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS. I'm kind of getting flashbacks to The Mortal Instruments novel series, specifically the sixth book, City of Heavenly Fire, where Jace Wayland-Morgenstern-Lightwood-Herondale-whatever his name is was pretty much possessed by heavenly fire and would accidentally burn stuff whenever he got too excited (which usually happened whenever he and his girlfriend started making out, hahaha) Then, he flips the card around again so that he's looking at an unburnt Queen Lydia of Diamonds card before sliding his thumb across it and revealing that the scorched-face Queen of Diamonds card was behind it the whole time! MAGIC!
Jordan then is transported back into a flashback of his dreams, where he passes what looks like the scorched body of a young man near the roots of the Nemeton stump while he carries the burned body of that young woman from earlier toward it. Jordan then steps up onto the stump and gently lays the body down on it as his chest, shoulders, and arms suddenly burst into flames. Once she's on the stump, the camera pans over to yyet another unidentifiable and burned body whose arm has been flung on top of the Nemeton as well. When Jordan sees the bodies, his entire body bursts into flames as he anxiously rubs his temples with his hands, like he's overwhelmed by the death around him.
When he looks up, his eyes glow their flame-orange color, and the camera pans backwards to show us that what I initially thought where just a bunch of huge roots of the Nemeton is actually dozens and dozens of scorched bodies, which surround Jordan as he calmly sits cross-legged on the stump with the girl he just brought there, his literally flaming body causing the stump itself to be set ablaze as well. OH MY GODS! Upon rewatching this scene, there's something very respectful and almost ritualistic about what Jordan is doing that is leading me to believe that caring for the dead is part of his supernatural nature. Plus, he doesn't seem that aware of what he's doing, which makes me wonder if maybe the supernatural spirit in him has been taking control while he does this, much like what is happening to Kira right now? More on that in a bit. The question is, who are the bodies? My current theory is that they're failed Dread Doctor experiments, but if that is actually true, that is very, very worrisome. TITLE CARD!
When we return, we pick up right where "Dreamcatchers" left off. Donovan is still in his cell at the Sheriff's station, where he's hearing the sounds of Tracy fighting against Sheriff, Lydia, and Kira. When he hears the sounds of gunshots, he immediately starts freaking out, as any normal person would. "HEY!" he yells frantically. "Can someone let me out of here?" As it turns out, yes, someone can, and he's about to seriously regret asking. Just then, the lights in his cell start flickering, and he hears that telltale rattling noise that indicates the Dread Doctors are coming to fuck shit up. When he sees them approaching, he instinctively backs away from them, since the last time he saw them, they presumably drilled through his damn eardrums into his brain, and the leader (the Pathologist, I think?) lifts up his hand and holds it in front of the RFID card-reader that unlocks the cell door, using some kind of technokinesis to open the door. So they are magic! Does this mean that they were the ones who have been messing with everything all season so far? Stiles' car, the power-outage/demagnetized magnets/earthquake at Scott's house, the lightning strikes in the woods that almost hit Stiles, Scott and Liam? EEEP! The Doctors then head into the cell and corner Donovan so that he can't escape. Man, they seriously give me the wiggins.
Meanwhile, Scott, Stiles, Theo, and Deaton have just arrived to the station and instantly begin to panic at the huge smear of Lydia and Tracy's blood on the floor. The slow-mo kicks into gear as they run into the bullpen and find Clarke, who seems to have recovered from the kanima venom and is helping the also-recovering Sheriff Stilinski to his feet. Scott wastes no time rushing over to him to help, but Stiles is more concerned about all the blood and from whom it came. He follows the smears of blood to the Sheriff's office, where Lydia is still laying across Kira's lap while our favorite kitsune tries to staunch the bleeding wound on her side with her hands. Stiles pretty much shuts down at the sight of one of his best friends laying injured on the floor, but before he can even begin to process this, Theo shoves past him while he removes his belt and rushes toward Lydia so he can wrap the belt around her rib cage and use it as a tourniquet. Back in the bullpen, Deaton has just found Tracy's severed kanima tail on the floor and quickly strips off his jacket so he can cover it up, even though I'm pretty sure everyone involved in this mess saw wolfed-out/kanima'd-out Tracy at some point. He then whispers to Scott, who is still having a confab with Sheriff, and points out the tail to indicate that Tracy is probably still there and that they need to focus.
Natalie has just awakened from being knocked out by Tracy as well and is completely horrified to see her daughter's blood all over the floor. When she finally finds Lydia, she's so overwhelmed by fear and anxiety that she clutches onto Stiles' arm for a moment before rushing over to her. Scott, who has walked to the door to go to the basement to find Malia and Tracy after Sheriff has presumably told him what happened to Lydia and Tracy, calls out to Stiles to come help him, but Stiles is still so freaked out that he basically can't do anything but gape in horror at everyone. You can tell that Scott feels bad about having to leave Lydia for the moment, but he's insistent that they need to focus on the task at hand. Theo, seeing Stiles' hesitation, promises him that Lydia is okay and tells him he should go with Scott, but when Stiles is visibly unwilling to take Theo's word for it, Lydia smiles at him and assures him that she's fine before insisting that he needs to go save Tracy. BLESS LYDIA'S LIGHT. Can you imagine Season 1 Lydia being so self-sacrificing? The Scott McCall effect is real, you guys, and so is everyone's character development. Anyway, Sheriff echoes Lydia's instruction, so Stiles finally snaps out of his panic-fugue and helps his still-limpy dad down to the basement as they follow Scott and Deaton.
When they finally find the girls, they see a horrified Malia standing over Tracy's body, and the fact that Malia immediately felt obligated to say, "It wasn't me" just breaks my heart so badly. I know that Malia was a little overzealous earlier with the whole "put Tracy down for good!" thing, but Scott told her to save her, so there was no way that she was gonna go against her Alpha's orders. Sheriff asks what the hell happened to her as Scott starts to examine Tracy's body, so Malia, who is in tears and extremely overwhelmed, starts to rapidly explain what happened in a panicked voice. "There were these people..." she begins. "They had masks! Um, there were- there were th-three of them, I think there were three of them--"
When Stiles interrupts her and asks her what she's talking about, Maliab becomes even more distraught, because while Stiles isn't actually disbelieving about her story, he's not exactly 100% believing it, either, which makes me so damn sad. You're the detective, Stiles! All you have to do is look at her body to see that there's no way Malia could have killed her. "They were strong, Stiles!" Malia continues in a small voice. "They had a weapon... I didn't do this!" Stiles, to his credit, does assure her that it's okay, but before he can say anything else, Deaton, who has been checking over her body, informs them that since she's not changing back, they're going to have to bring her back to the animal clinic so he can study her further.
"Hey!" Sheriff interrupts angrily. "Absolutely not! This is a crime scene! We call the coroner." *SIGHS FOREVER* Gods damnit, Sheriff! Must we go through this every single fucking time? Like, I sympathize with the horrible position this puts him in career-wise, since he is a man of the law and I can understand why he wouldn't be comfortable with having to constantly cover things up and let killers walk and all that simply because he can't let anyone know just how much supernatural shit is going on under everyone's noses, but Deaton makes an excellent point. "I think the coroner might be very confused by this girl's severed reptilian tail." Sheriff, of course, doesn't give a fuck, because the Law is hard, but it is the Law, and blah blah blah, but Deaton insists that he should.
"Unless you're prepared to give a press conference announcing the presence of supernatural creatures in Beacon Hills?" TELL HIM, DEATON. I mean, the members of the pack have essentially all been adopted by the kids' parents-- Sheriff adores Scott, Malia, and Lydia, and Melissa is obviously very fond of Kira and the others as well, not to mention Chris, Noshiko, and Ken, so what Deaton is really asking is, "Are you willing to put these supernatural teenagers that you care about so much in danger from the general public, who will likely fear them and try to round them up/experiment on them/kill them?" I mean, haven't they ever seen X-Men? Seriously, now. So, Stiles pipes up that Deaton's right, which Sheriff totally knows, but that doesn't mean he has to be happy about it, and he definitely is not. Scott, wanting to play peacemaker as usual, suggests that maybe once they get Tracy to the animal clinic, they can figure out a way to change her back and then have the police "find" her so that they can do the legitimate legal stuff, but Sheriff doesn't seem like a fan of this plan. "There-there is a line!" Sheriff stammers in frustration. "There is a line that we have to draw!"
Stiles gently reminds his dad that he's already crossed it several times-- I mean, remember how a nogitsune doppelgänger of his own son went on a killing spree at the hospital, Sheriff's station, and the animal clinic? Or the time Sheriff had to let Peter walk free because he couldn't tell a judge that he was a werewolf who, while comatose, telepathically instructed Meredith on creating a deadpool of supernatural creatures in Beacon Hills? I am seriously concerned that this is foreshadowing of Sheriff just getting so sick of everything that he checks out completely, and I am not prepared whatsoever for that to happen. Deaton pleads with Sheriff to let him help, since he's dealt with this sort of thing quite a lot in his tenure as a druid veterinarian, so after much grumbling and cursing under his breath, Sheriff order him to do it quickly, so Scott and Deaton roll up their sleeves and start to pick Tracy up to bring her back to the clinic for a supernatural autopsy of sorts.
Okay, this next scene is seriously the worst and made me want to throw up, so I'm going to cover this very quickly. Donovan has been brought back to the Dread Doctors' mad-scientist lab, where he is strapped down to that old-fashioned metal examination chair by his wrists, ankles, chest, and head. There is a bright fluorescent light above him, and he's angrily struggling to get out of his restraints, to no avail. After a moment, the three Dread Doctors show up again, and they pin him down to the table with their hands as they do this weird musical-chairs-esque examination on him, which involves them each taking turns and walking around the exam chair while they look at his eyes and inside his mouth and ears.
After a moment, the maybe-Pathologist says, "His condition looks promising," in its robotic voice before walking over to a small table and picking up a pair of pliers. Donovan frantically asks them what the fuck that's supposed to mean, only for the three Doctors to suddenly pin him down with their hands while the one with the pliers opens his mouth. Before Donovan can even process what's happening, the Doctor quickly rips out his teeth one by one while he groans in pain and spits up copious amounts blood, which ends up splattering all over his face. The camera then cuts to a close-up shot of Donovan's face as he screams in agony while thin, sharp, double-rowed fangs begin to grow in place of the teeth he just lost. Specifically, WENDIGO FANGS! HOLY SHIT! On the one hand, that totally sucks, because now he's stuck with wendigo fangs forever instead of shifting back and forth like most wendigos/shapeshifters in general. (Though, let's be real, this kid is so gonna die, and probably at Stiles' hand. More on that later) On the other hand, I'm wondering if this means he'll actually become a cannibal? Or if he'll adopt the qualities of whatever other supernatural creature he's been spliced with that has the silver eyes (which, thanks to the wonderful Wendy/notomys on Tumblr, I now know is called a nictitating membrane! Thanks for the information, darling!). Still, this is literally my worst nightmare come to life, so thanks for the dental horror, Teen Wolf! I could have really done without it.
When we return from the break, Lydia is being wheeled into the operating room on a gurney by Melissa and another nurse, and flinches when the overhead lights shine brightly in her eyes. Her mother is walking alongside her and assures her that everything is going to be okay, but Lydia is more worried about what she just witnessed. She weakly insists that she cannot tell anyone what she saw, but Natalie just frowns for the briefest moment before replying that all she saw was a "lunatic girl" who tried to kill everyone. That was not at all the reaction I was expecting from Mama Martin, and now I'm wondering if Natalie actually knows more about the supernatural world than she's letting on (which would make sense, considering all the stuff she's witnessed, particularly that in regards to her own daughter) or if she's just so overwhelmed with shock and worry that she's just trying not to think about it at all. Definitely interesting! I'm hoping we see more with Lydia and Natalie, particularly Lydia filling her mother in, because it she is seriously overdue to be given the truth.
In an adjacent hallway, Scott has just met up with Liam, who is updating him on what Mason, Brett and himself uncovered in the woods that night-- specifically, the fact that Tracy was buried alive in a hole by the bridge and crawled out of it, and that they found a second hole as well. Between learning that Tracy was a kanima, getting paralyzed, running to the Sheriff's station to find his good friend bleeding out and the girl he was trying to save murdered (on top of being attacked by Belasko and the whole thing with Donovan), Scott is not exactly thrilled to hear this very alarming news, but even still, he asks Liam who was buried in that hole. "I don't know," Liam replies exhaustedly. "But I think we're gonna want to find out." The two then meet up with Kira, Stiles, and Theo, who have been waiting for news on Lydia's condition.
A moment later, Melissa comes out, and when Stiles instantly asks her how bad she's been injured, Melissa assures him it could have been worse before turning to Theo. "Theo, nice going on that tourniquet. You probably saved her life," she says kindly, which gains him a jealous stink-eye from Stiles, before she then informs them that Lydia is about to go into surgery and it'll be a while before she's out. "Any other supernatural details that I need to know about? Or do we just stitch her up and hope for the best?" Melissa is seriously such a great nurse, it kills me! She's just like, "Okay, what are Lydia's drug allergies? Also, is there some other magic at play here that may be contraindicated by this medical procedure?" So thorough! Kira and Scott explain that all they really know was that she was cut with Tracy's tail, though they're not sure how that will make a difference, especially since they're still not fully sure how she became a kanima. I'm also going to assume that since they didn't say anything about Lydia being paralyzed by the cut that she was actually still immune to kanima venom and was just in shock after all.
Malia reminds them that it isn't just Tracy they have to worry about, because they know that the masked men she saw must have something to do with it, since they killed her, but Scott and Stiles just sigh and look at each other for a moment, not saying anything in response. Why are they being so weird about this? Like, I understand that they're worried about Lydia, but I just don't understand how they couldn't simply give her a few words of encouragement at least, or tell her that they know she didn't do it, since it's obviously weighing on her a lot? I even saw someone on Tumblr had the audacity to say that Malia needs to understand that not everything was about her, and obviously everyone should be more concerned with Lydia since she almost died, and I just ???????
I just don't understand it at all. Like, 1) you can be worried about Lydia and care about what Malia is going through, because they're not mutually exclusive, and 2) Malia was just as worried about Lydia as anyone else-- in fact, her reaction was very similar to Stiles' in that Malia wanted to stay with Lydia and Lydia instead insisted that she go save Tracy, and 3) Malia isn't even thinking about herself right now, she's thinking about the Dread Doctors, because they're the ones who killed Tracy and obviously they're involved in all of this, so figuring out who they are and what they're doing is kind of important and should probably be a priority? Sigh, fandom drama and unnecessary Malia hate.
But, for whatever reason, Scott and Stiles don't seem interested in figuring it out, or are at least more concerned about things they have no control over. Even despite the fact that the last time masked men showed up, they were oni demons who were tracking down the nogitsune who had possessed Stiles, so they should know by now that masked people are never a good thing. BAH! This is pretty much my only complaint about this episode, though, because it was seriously awesome otherwise. I just thought that Scott and Stiles' non-reaction seemed kind of out-of-character for them? Scott is usually super-supportive of all of his loved ones, especially his mother and his pack, and Stiles is always super-supportive of Malia, at the very least, if not the others as well (he's had sweet moments with Kira, Lydia, and Liam, too) so I guess I was just expecting more from them. Sigh.
We cut over to the OR, where Lydia has been given an IV and is about ready to have her surgery. Once she's been anesthetized, Melissa asks her to start counting backwards from ten. Lydia does as she's told and slowly starts counting, clearly already sedated from the drugs. However, when she gets to eight, the lights start to flash and flicker around her, and when she slowly looks around the room, she sees the Dread Doctors flicker into existence right where Melissa and the doctors were just standing. I guess she just assumes that she's just tripping out hardcore from the pre-op drugs, because she just keeps counting down, though she does continue looking around around the room with a scared expression as each of the medical staff become replaced with a different Doctor, and when she gets to five, the Doctor I think is the Pathologist robotically interrupts and says "Keep counting."
UH OH, I DON'T LIKE THIS. Were the Dread Doctors really there? Are they interested in Lydia? Or is she just having a banshee hallucination, kind of like how her banshee senses made her draw the Nemeton and accidentally incorporate the Deadpool's computer code into her math notes? This scene did happen pretty close the same time period of the scene where Donovan was being experimented on/medically tortured by the Doctors, so maybe this is her banshee spirit telling her what is going on with him, just like how she kept hearing the same clanking noises that Stiles heard while he was getting an MRI in "Riddled?" I'm really hoping it's the latter rather than the former, because I don't want the doctors to hurt my babies. :( I'll get into these theories more in the write-up that is definitely happening this week because I have been putting it off way too long now, and the information we got this week should help give my fragments of theories and notes into a more cohesive prediction. Anyway, so finally the anesthetics and sedatives kick in, and Lydia's eyes roll back into her head as everything fades to white.
Apparently all of the kids, after being told that Lydia wouldn't be done with surgery for a few hours, decided to go home, which for Stiles and Malia means it's time to go back to Stiles' bedroom and work on this season's plot board. "Who is the Desert Wolf?" is still written, as we saw in last season's "A Promise To The Dead," along with the "Theo Raeken" Stiles wrote in "Parasomnia." He adds "Masked Killers" and "Tracy Stewart" to the board as well before looking over at Malia for feedback. After a moment, she grabs the eraser and scrubs the board until the part about the Desert Wolf is gone, because as far as she's concerned, the threat to Beacon Hills' citizens and her loved ones themselves are much more important to her than finding her mother, who, as she's recently learned, is a very proficient killer-for-hire. Yeah, Malia! Stay strong, girlfriend. She then looks over at Stiles, who seems hesitant to write TDW off so soon, but Malia just nods at him in confirmation that she's made her decision.
Meanwhile, Scott and Kira have just arrived to the McCall house, where they're both still pretty shaken over what has happened in the last two or three days. Kira's hands are still covered in Lydia's blood, and she looks at them anxiously before Scott takes her hands in his and leans toward her so their foreheads touch. He looks into her eyes for a long moment before kissing her on the forehead, and then they get to smooching for a few moments until Deaton shows up to cockblock, all, "Sorry to interrupt!" Aw, Deaton! I know what you have to say is super important, but these kids probably aren't going to have much time for dates going forward, so let them have a little macking time!
Anyway, so Kira and Scott break apart and look at the good doctor as he sets down his medical bag and starts pulling out jar after jar of various supernatural body parts. The first jar has the talons Scott pulled out of his chest after Belasko stabbed him with them in "Creatures of the Night." "A werewolf with the talons of an eagle," Deaton begins. "Possibly a shapeshifter, known in Eastern mythology as a garuda." OH SHIT! I plan on detailing all of these creatures in the upcoming write-up, but for now, I'll say that according to my (admittedly shallow) research since the episode aired, I've learned that a garuda is supernatural creature from Hindu and Buddhist mythology that has the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a human. You might also remember the garuda as being the big-bad of Season 2 or 3 of the SyFy show Lost Girl, which is amazing and if you're not watching it, you should be.
Deaton pulls out a second jar, and continues, "Tracy's claws-- the unmistakable claws of a werewolf. But..." He pulls out a third jar, this one larger, and adds, "A werewolf who bears the venom and the scales of a kanima." Ew, did he skin Tracy's body of its scales? Harsh, bruh, and a little bit creepy. I bet he probably ganked a bunch of her venom, too, just to replenish his stores in case they need it again. I still have no idea how he had it to use against Ikeda in "Letharia Vulpina" and Nogitsune!Stiles in "De-Void," unless he like milked Jackson while no one was looking. Or maybe it was that creature at Eichen House that we were speculating was also a kanima? Who knows.
Anyway, Scott and Kira both look confused at these statements, since they've never heard of anything like this before, and when the latter asks him what a werewolf-kanima hybrid is even called, Deaton just retorts, "Personally, I call it terrifying. But, at the moment, I'm more interested in how Tracy was able to get across the mountain ash." This is news to Kira, since we know she wasn't there for that part, and she brings up the fact that she was under the impression that a supernatural crossing mountain ash was impossible. Deaton confirms he also believed until now, since he uses mountain ash for just about everything and even built his entire animal clinic out of it, but this discovery leads him to an even more worrisome conclusion.
DEATON: "So, if Tracy was able to cross the mountain ash, and no one supernatural can do that..."
SCOTT: "...Tracy's not supernatural."
DEATON: "Exactly. If she wasn't born, and she wasn't bitten, she had to have been made."
KIRA: [confused] "Made?"
DEATON: "Someone is trying to make supernatural creatures with non-supernatural means. And, whoever they are, they're somehow managing to blur the lines between science and the supernatural."
SCOTT: "But there's more. Liam said he found another hole out in the woods."
DEATON: [frowns] "Burying them could be part of their process-- a kind of incubation."YIKES! None of that sounds good at all. On the one hand, it's nice to see that all of our speculation was correct, but on the other hand, that is seriously terrifying. And, if they're splicing together all kinds of different supernatural creatures out there (and there seem to be a shitload more than what we know of right now) then there is possibly an infinite number of different hybrid combinations that the Dread Doctors could make. If you remember Deaton's conversation with Scott in "Parasomnia," we know that Deaton seems to have already been theorizing about this possibility, so he's probably been mulling it over for the last few days. As you can imagine, Kira is understandably horrified by all these revelations and asks Deaton what they're supposed to do, but there's not much else he can say at the moment, except: "The same thing you've always done. Protect your friends. Protect each other." Scott, in an absolutely heart-crushing moment, asks him what they're supposed to do about the hybrids they keep running into, who, at least in Tracy's case, were totally innocent in all this, but Deaton is at a loss for answers as usual.
"Hopefully, I'll have more answers soon," he adds. "I'll be gone a few days." Both Scott and Kira are freaked out about this, because even if he doesn't have super-detailed answers for them, he's still a source of information that is pretty necessary, plus he's pretty much their healer, but Deaton assures them that he'll be back as soon as possible. It's not often you see the usually-unflappable Alan Deaton shaken up, so Kira asks him just how scared they should be, and naturally, the answer is pretty much "SO SCARED YOU SHOULD FLEE TOWN IMMEDIATELY." "I've lived in the world of the supernatural a long time," Deaton replies grimly. "But, I'm still a doctor. Still a man of science. When something like this happens, it rattles the foundation of everything you believe. Something like this shakes you to the core." Scott, confused by this vague answer, asks him what specifically he's talking about, so Deaton sums it up for us in what might as well be the tagline for the season-- "The rules... the rules have changed." This is so awesome and also so terrifying! Science! Supernatural! Supernatural science!
Over at the hospital, Lydia has just awakened after her surgery to find that Jordan, in his Sheriff's deputy uniform, is sitting in a chair by her bed and flipping through the channels on the television. She seems confused (but not unhappy) to see him, and when she asks him what she's doing there, he just smiles sheepishly and replies, "Officially, I'm here to gather eyewitness testimony. Unofficially? I'm trying to find something to watch, but the only thing that comes in is this kung-fu movie." LOL, PARRISH! Your crush on Lydia has no chill whatsoever. Lydia is distracted by the sight of some sort of martial artist getting his ass kicked by this fierce and fabulous woman who is kung-fu-ing the shit out of him. Jordan mistakenly assumes that she's a fan of this movie genre, but really, she's more interested in the fighting itself.
She asks him if he knows how to fight like them, so he admits that he does know a little jiu-jitsu, since he was trained in CQC, or close-quarters combat, while he was serving in the Army. "Can you teach me?" Lydia asks quietly, and when Jordan asks her if she really wants to learn hand-to-hand combat, she nods determinedly and replies, "I want to learn how to fight. Can you teach me?" I can't tell if Jordan just feels bad that she has been hurt enough time to feel the need to defend herself so it doesn't happen again (and we all know Allison is over on the Other Side all, "HELL YEAH GIRL, LEARN TO FIGHT LIKE A BOSS AND DATE THAT CUTE DEPUTY") or if he's touched that she actually trusts him enough to ask him, or both, but he just smiles gently and tells her that yes, he can teach her. I know the fandom is pretty divided with regards to Jordan in general and his relationship with Lydia, but I like it, not even gonna lie. She's eighteen, and it's not even like they've fooled around, anyway, so it's whatever.
At the school, Kira, Scott, and Theo are back in AP Bio for another hellish round of Mrs. Finch's shit-talking of every student. Fortunately, this lecture also has some relevant information, particularly that regarding genetics, since of COURSE they're learning about genetics when a bunch of mad scientist doctors known as the Geneticist, the Pathologist, and the Surgeon are doing experiments on unsuspecting teenagers and young adults. While Mrs. Finch lectures, Scott is writing his own notes on the supernatural hybrid stuff he, Kira, and Deaton have just discovered that looks something like this. "Belasko ---> Talons ---> Tracy ---> Kanima ---> Wolf" with an arrow that begins at the right of "Belasko" and is drawn all the way down until it points to "Wolf." Theo manages to please the teacher by correctly stating that nucleotides account for the 0.01% of our DNA sequence that isn't the same as other humans, which gets me thinking-- how does he find time to study for biology between his super-shady extracurricular activities like being his fake-dad's hand with a hammer and all of the supernatural drama going down constantly? I mean, Scott didn't get a chance to do his reading because he was too busy being paralyzed, tracking down Tracy, and getting Lydia to the hospital. Is it because of all the time he's presumably spent with the Doctors? I'm super curious as to how he manages to maintain this cover and have time to conspire against the pack or whatever.
Kira breaks Scott out of his note-taking when she asks their teacher if there can be more than one species in one strand of DNA, which is an excellent and appropriate question, considering everything they've learned in the last twenty-four hours. Mrs. Finch explains that there can't be multiple species in a single DNA strand, but that there can be multiple species within one individual, a phenomenon that is know as a chimera. This is super interesting to me, because not only can chimera refer to a specific hybrid creature that I'll get into in a minute, but it has also been expanded to pretty much refer to any being who is made up of multiple different types of DNA. For example, do any of you remember that one episode of House M.D. with the kid who was a real chimera due to having absorbed his twin's body in the womb? So, this very conveniently gives a name to the type of creatures that the Dread Doctors appear to be making, and Scott makes a point of jotting down the word "chimera" while Sydney explains to the class from where the term comes. "Greek mythology. It's a lion with a goat coming out of its back and a tail that ends in the head of a snake." CREEPY! I'm hoping that we don't end up seeing a creature like that, because it's way too much, to be honest.
Of course, Mrs. Finch immediately calls Sydney out on reading the Wikipedia entry verbatim, which, admittedly, is also the first thing I did when I heard them talking about chimeras and garudas and whatnot. I've seen quite a few complaints about using Wikipedia as a source when writing meta, but let's be real, guys, I highly doubt Jeff Davis is using any information you can't find with a simple Google search, and he's most certainly not seeking out super obscure bestiaries for accuracy when creating his mythologies. I love Teen Wolf, and I love the stories the show tells, but it's pretty clear that Jeff enjoys using artistic liberties in his work rather than being totally accurate from a mythological standpoint. But I digress. Again. Mrs. Finch's distraction-radar suddenly goes off, and she turns all of her attention on Scott before asking him about the fragility of DNA molecules and correctly assuming that he didn't do the reading. And, since Scott can't exactly tell her that he spent the entirety of the last thirty-six hours trying to track down a werewolf-kanima hybrid who was in the middle of a traumatic night terror and paralyzing everyone with her venom-secreting tail, which meant he had literally no time to sleep, let alone do homework, he's forced to admit that nope, he didn't.
"Well, then, thank you for another helpful transition in topic," she says in response as she picks up a thick stack of papers from her desk. "Drop forms. All those now acutely aware that they do not belong in this class, you should fill one out." She actually has the nerve to hand out a form to a male student and a female student who are sitting behind Scott, though she does skip Scott himself, before dropping the rest of the stack on her desk and informing them that everyone else can grab one at their leisure. SHE IS THE WORST. Singling out students, berating them in front of their peers, and pretty much bullying them into abandoning their college dreams because they can't perform under the incredible pressure she's putting them under? GROSS GROSS GROSS. I'm getting major Severus Snape vibes from her.
To make matters even worse, once the bell rings, Scott walks up to the front of the class and anxiously stares at the stack on the desk for a long moment before ultimately deciding to pick up a drop form before he leaves. Weirdly enough, the teacher actually seems disappointed by this, even though I don't understand what she could have been expecting-- if you tell a visibly insecure student that they're basically dimwits who have no business being in a class, they're eventually going to start believing it, and it makes me so fucking sad, you guys. In my experience, tough love usually doesn't give great results, so while she may think she's just trying to motivate him, in reality she's just making him more discouraged about things that are beyond his control. Scott really wants to go to college, become a veterinarian, and work with animals like his mentor Deaton; maybe even having a side-business for supernatural creatures like Deaton does as well. And now, he feels like he has to give up that dream because he's too busy trying to protect his pack and his town to be able to even finish AP Bio. Like, how unfair is that? Someone please help Scott McCall!
At the Sheriff's station, Sheriff is sitting at a desk in the bullpen while Clarke shows him security camera footage from the jail cells. "Wait for it," she states as they watch the video taken just outside Donovan's cell, and they see him pacing around inside for a few moments until finally, the footage cuts out before resetting itself once Donovan has vanished with the Dread Doctors. That's crazy! So, not only did they have the ability to mess with the RFID card-reader, but they also seemingly manipulated the video feed too? I wonder if this is like, straight-up magic they're doing, or if their ability is only electricity/technology based? I NEED TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THEM AND HOW THEY GOT THESE POWERS, UGH.
Anyway, so Sheriff points out the fact that it's very convenient that the cameras chose then to begin to malfunction, to which Clarke agrees. Suddenly, Sheriff realizes that this is supposed to be Clarke's day off, but our favorite (and only) female deputy on the force seems to be very close with him, because she just gives him a stern look and replies, "I stood there listening to that kid threaten your life. I'm not taking time off until he's caught." Aw, that's sweet of her! I'd like to know more about this girl, or have some interactions with between her and Hayden, or something. Sheriff, however, incorrectly assumes that Donovan just escaped on his own in the midst of the chaos and figures that he's running as far away as possible as quickly as possible. Oh, if only you knew, Sheriff.
Speaking of Donovan, he's still fully restrained to the creepy exam chair in the basement lab of the Dread Doctors, where he's furiously struggling against all the leather straps binding him in hopes of breaking free. Just then, he hears footsteps approaching and groans loudly in fear and frustration, but it's not the Doctors, it's THEO! How surprisingly unsurprising. "You're lucky they're letting me talk to you," Theo begins amiably, as though they're simply making small talk about sports scores or something instead of excruciating torture by steampunk supernatural worshippers. "They don't usually do that. They're not giving me much time, either," Theo continues, as he saunters into the room and approaches Donovan's chair with a file in his hands.
THEO: "See, these guys, they... They believe in numbers. And their results. They'll weigh the pros and cons, and they'll decide pretty quickly."
DONOVAN: [angrily] "Decide what?"
THEO: "Whether or not you die." [Donovan looks horrified as Theo holds up the file] "By the way, this is your psych evaluation for when you applied to be a Sheriff's deputy. Multiphasic Personality Inventory. You know what that is? It's a test that assesses abnormal behavior. It's supposed to be able to tell when you're lying, or being defensive, or if you're a total psycho. Your results were pretty disappointing, Donovan. You scored high on the Psychopathic Deviate scale. And that?"
[Theo gently smacks Donovan's chest with the file]
THEO: "That's bad. I'm not even going to get into your Anger Expression Inventory-- Just this one quote here at the end. 'Not suitable for law enforcement.'" [He chuckles in amusement and tosses the file onto the ground] "It sucks, right? I mean, you never get to be a cop like your dad. [He turns the lever to sit Donovan up in the exam chair] But, it doesn't matter, because... you've got something else now. Power. Real power. Strength, speed, heightened senses. So, what do you do with power like that? [He pulls off the strap binding Donovan's head to the chair and gently caresses the back of his head] I know what you're thinking-- go after Stilinski. Break his legs, cut off his ears? Pull out his teeth?" [He laughs again] "Problem is, though, sooner or later, physical pain? It's... it's manageable. See, real pain is emotional pain. That is the kind of pain that lasts. And, if you want to cause Stilinski that devastating, soul-crushing emotional pain? You don't go after him." [He leans in close to Donovan's face] "You go after someone he loves."WELL SHIT, THIS IS SUCH A DISASTER. Also, wow, Theo talked a lot. That is quite a fucking monologue. Anyway, so, where do we begin? How about the fact that Theo seems to know the Doctors pretty well? I'm thinking he's one of their successful experiments, which is why he can full-shift even though he's pretty much an omega. It's also obvious that he's trying to send Donovan after Stiles, but what's he trying to accomplish here? If the key is getting into Scott's pack, then he needs to take out the people who are trying to keep Scott from letting him in, and Stiles is definitely the main person who doesn't trust him-- though Liam doesn't seem to be a huge fan, either. So, is he trying to stop Stiles from digging into his history by taking him out? Is he trying to set Stiles up to get hurt, just so he can step in and save him at the last minute to try to earn his and the rest of the pack's trust? I'm also wondering why the Doctors would even allow him to do this? Is Theo joining the McCall pack part of their plans? Is Stiles one of their targets for a test subject? The pack is so diverse and quite literally one-of-a-kind that I wouldn't be surprised if they were interested in experimenting on all of them-- I mean, really, a True Alpha, his very first Beta who he bit himself, a Hale werecoyote, a thunder kitsune with one tail, a powerful banshee, and a human who was possessed by a nogitsune and may very well have abilities of his own, if the fandom's theories are actually correct? There's all kinds of potential there. I have much more to say about this later.
Meanwhile, at the school's library, Scott and Kira are at a table where they're studying when Malia and Stiles come in to join them. Scott immediately asks his best bro if he got in to see Lydia, but Stiles just sighs and says that he went over there during his free period, but since she's still in the ICU, they're only letting in family (and cute Deputy Sheriffs, apparently). Malia pulls out a large book, though, and assures them that they did bring one thing-- the Argent bestiary, which is way bigger than the book we saw Lydia give Parrish at the end of "Smoke & Mirrors." Did they make more than one? I want a full-sized copy with all the different creatures! But, I do have a copy of the short-version, which was given out at last year's Comic-Con and was also included in the Season 4 DVD set, so I'll be sharing the relevant details in the write-up post that I promise will be posted by Monday.
Kira opens the bestiary and flips the pages, stopping briefly on the section about berserkers, as asks if there's anything in there about werewolf-kanima hybrids, Uh oh! Hopefully the Doctors don't make up some sort of berserker hybrid, that would be a disaster! To answer Kira's question, Scott wows everyone with his mythological knowledge. "The Chimera!" he exclaims proudly as he flips the page to a section that hasn't yet been translated from the original Archaic Latin, which I can't read to save my life. The illustration looks like some kind of canine creature that looks like it has spikes going down its back and on the elbows/knees of its arms and some kind of bill or horn coming out of its nose while it eats another creature with a really long, twisting tail. Anyone have any idea what the hell that's supposed to be? I'll put a screencap of it below. When Stiles is, like, "Bwuh?" Scott explains what he's put together so far. "Chimera. It's a creature made of incongruous parts. And, if Liam said he found two burial sites, it means Tracy's not the only one." The main question the four of them have to ask are, "Who's the second chimera?", which would definitely be good to know, but Malia is also curious as to why they would be buried in the first place, leading Scott to briefly describe the theory Deaton has formulated about who Malia refers to as the "people in masks," where the assumption is that the burial of the test subjects serves as a sort of incubation period while the serum they're injected with/the other medical procedures done on them take effect and change their bodies. Yikes! The four of them become almost awkwardly silent, and Kira starts flipping through the bestiary again, landing on the page describing wendigos. Dun dun dun!
Over at the hospital, we get a clue as to who the second chimera is when a young, cute little guy named Corey is being wheeled into the ER on a gurney by two paramedics. He literally screams bloody murder and writhes in agony as Dr. Geyer, otherwise known as Liam's good-looking stepdad, and Melissa rush over to him to see what the issue is. Dr. Geyer frantically asks what the fuck happened to this kid, but Melissa, who is in the middle of quickly assessing him, gestures to the boy's left arm, which is is completely covered it painful-looking and disgusting lesions that extend from his wrist to his elbow. There are several white pustules, but the rest of the open wounds are seeping an equally disgusting yellow/brownish/reddish fluid. I've seen a lot of pretty disgusting stuff as a nurse, including all matter of body fluids, and quite a few awful injuries during my rotation at the wound clinic, but this literally makes me want to vomit everywhere just looking at it. "I'm pretty sure it's this," she states in alarm, and Corey continues to shriek the most agonizing screams as they're forced to literally pin him down to keep him from writhing right off of the gurney.
Night has fallen now, and Liam is messing around with his phone while he and Mason, both of whom are dressed up in party clothes (Liam in a very attractive brown leather jacket, a henley, and jeans, and Mason in a nice button up with dark jeans as well) and walking toward a frankly kind of derelict-looking warehouse place. Mason sighs and asks Liam to put his damn phone away and stop worrying, because Scott can just howl if they need his help, but Liam is clearly anxious and admits that he feels like he needs to be doing something. "You are!" Mason crows happily. "You're my wing-man tonight! And, considering the state of my dating life, I need a wing-man, co-pilot, and a really hot flight attendant." Oh my gods, Mason! Never ever ever ever ever change. You are seriously the best! Liam just rolls his eyes and points out he's definitely not a hot flight attendant, but Mason just shrugs and retorts, "Okay, yeah, options are limited, but at least here, you can get drunk!" He pats Liam on the back and rushes toward the door of the club, while Liam, who knows damn well he can't get drunk without a bunch of wolfsbane or some infrasonic dubstep played by assassins, just sighs and follows Mason to the door.
And, naturally, who should open the door but Hayden Romero herself, dressed in a very cute and tight black dress with cut-outs around the sides of her rib cage. Everyone was wondering how someone who can't be more than sixteen years old is working at a club, but I'm guessing that she probably lied about her age, especially if she's in desperate need of money like she seems to be. She likely has a fake ID or something, because she's not even old enough to be in a club in the United States, let alone serve alcohol in one. Anyway, she's predictably unhappy by the sight of Liam and reminds Mason that she said she'd let him in, not his doofus of a best friend, but Mason just argues that she told him he could have a plus-one. "I didn't say plus-Liam," Hayden snits, to which Liam just blurts out, "I'm his flight attendant!" Nice one, kiddo. Very smooth.
Hayden just frowns in confusion, and Liam just sighs in frustration and explains that he's Mason's wing-man before eventually stating that he doesn't have to go in. Mason is insistent upon it, however, and instead pulls out a $50 dollar bill and holds it up in front of Hayden's face. Unable to say no to that kind of cash, Hayden puts on her most fake smile and opens the door before chirping, "Welcome to Sinema." What an awesome name for a club! I very much like the theme of the club, too, but I'm a sucker for black lights and glowing drinks, to be honest. I kind of miss Jungle, though. Also, this is the second reference to how much money Mason seems to have? He paid $200 for a bestiary about the nahual and berserkers from a rare books dealer in Germany, and now he has $50 dollars to convince Hayden to let them in? Plus however much extra money he brought for drinks? Meanwhile, Liam is the step-son of an actual doctor and he doesn't seem to have much spending money at all. Very, very interesting. More Mason backstory, please and thank you!
Once inside, they walk down a back hallway until the two boys pass through a doorway with what looks like strands of tinsel hanging over it, which is being used as a backdrop for a movie that is projected against the wall. All around them are men and women in various styles of dress who are writhing to Teen Wolf's usual electronic dance music. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, the DJ in the booth at the front of the room is DallasK, since the majority of the songs played in the club are by him, including this one. (I love how they have featured DJs during all the rave scenes, like when The Bloody Beetroots played at the blacklight Halloween party in "Illuminated" and Deorro played at the Calavera's club in "The Dark Moon." On platforms throughout the room that are meant to look like cages, but only have a bar in each corner of the square, there are men in black-and-neon speedos and what look like spandex bike shorts who are dancing all over the place, and a sleek bar with drinks that glow in the black light on top of it is near the DJ booth. Mason is in heaven, basically, but Liam just looks like he would literally be anywhere else and points out to that they definitely do not look old enough to be there, which is totally true-- Mason and Liam are such tiny babies, it's adorable and quite obvious when surrounded by all these club kids. "Neither does he," Mason says with a smirk as he gestures across the room, where none other than Brett Talbot is grinding up on a cute girl in a tight black dress.
"So, is this club mixed?" Liam asks, which is kind of a weird question. Mixed sexualities? Mixed species? What the eff are you talking about, bb wolf? Mason just replies "...Ish" as the camera cuts back to Brett, where we see that he has turned around and begun grinding against a very cute boy, their foreheads touching as Brett reaches his hand up to cup his face. BISEXUAL BRETT IS CANON, YOU GUYS! THIS IS NOT A DRILL. Seriously, I was mostly just meh on Brett at first, but then when he started telling Liam how awesome Scott was, I started to actually like him, but now that he's bisexual, I am like 100% more interested in him now. That might sound weird, but there are so many actual bi characters on television that I get super excited whenever we have one. THANK YOU JEFF.
While these sophomores in high school are out clubbing harder than most people my own age, Stiles and Malia are still in the library at school. Stiles has fallen asleep on his books and is half-drooling over the bestiary, which is opened to the page about wendigos. Uh oh! Other creatures that can be seen on the table is a section on La Bête du Gévaudan-- who, as we learned in Seasons 1 and 3B, was a werewolf in France in the 17th century who was killed by the Argent family themselves-- and what I think is a section on a manticore, which is another mythological hybrid creature, this one from Persian mythology that has a human's head, a lion's body, a scorpion's tail, and in some cases the wings of a dragon. This would be suuuuuuuch a nightmare for the town at large, so prayer circle that this is just a write-off clue.
Anyway, Malia is still awake, but she's absentmindedly clicking her pen and not really focusing on whatever she's reading. After a moment, looking at hand clicking the pen off and on causes her to get flashbacks to the Dread Doctors when they killed Tracy-- as she watches the ink cartridge of her clear pen get pushed down, she gets a brief vision of Tracy being injected in the neck with an overdose of the silver substance. Finally, Malia shakes herself out of it, though she's very clearly still struggling with what happened to the poor girl, before standing up and informing Stiles that she's going to leave. Stiles just mumbles what I think is "I'll see you in the morning," but since he's half-asleep and still drooling on the bestiary, it's hard to make out what he's saying. When Malia realizes he's still nota wake yet, she raises her voice and adds, "Stiles, wake up and go home. I'll meet you there in a bit," while Stiles continues to mumble unintelligibly in response. Aw, Malia! The fact that she considers the Stilinski residence as her home is endlessly sweet to me. Also, Stiles really should have listened to Malia and left with her! I'm going to go on ahead and predict that Stiles will totally end up regretting the fact that he stayed behind soon enough. One last note about this scene-- on Malia's way out, she passes a carpenter climbing down a tall, red-painted scaffolding and apparently doing some late-might renovations on the ground floor of the library. I just feel compelled to mention it since the promos suggest it will make another appearance in the next episode. :)
Back at Sinema, Hayden is at the bar, where she's picking up a huge tray of glowing body shots someone ordered, only to shoot a glare at the jerkish bartender when he snags one of them off of the tray. "You remember I have to pay for these out of my own pocket, right?" Hayden snaps, but the guy, whose name is apparently Phil, just smirks and replies that he does before downing the shot and grabbing a second one. Rude, dude! What the fuck? He's an attractive-ish, half-naked bartender at an LGBT-ish bar, he surely makes enough in tips that he can buy his own fucking drinks instead of stealing them from the literal child who is working as a waitress? What a dick! Why couldn't Lucas have gone after that guy? Anyway, Hayden is understandably and visibly pissed and angrily snits, that he can just stay back there and get wasted behind the bar as usual, but the guy just holds his hand in front of her face and reminds her that he's steady as a rock. She sighs and grabs the tray from the bar and goes to pass out the ones that are ordered, not knowing that Liam is watching her from nearby.
After a moment, she stops walking just long enough to flip through the small amount of cash she's made so far this evening before sighing defeatedly. Liam, who is still staring/eavesdropping on her, can clearly hear Haudm mutter, "I'm never going to make enough," which is a very cryptic comment that seems to suggest that there are way more issues going on with Hayden that we know about. Liam seems to be thinking the same thing, and frowns in concern and confusion while he continues to stare at her. Oh, he's so crushing on her! Which isn't saying much, because he's kind of like a way more-lowkey version of Isaac when it comes to crushing on the ladies around him. I'm still convinced he has baby crushes on Lydia, Kira and Malia, too, but is way too terrified of them to try anything, which is very smart of him. Anyway, you can tell that his wolfy-senses are still totally tingling, though, because he begins to anxiously look around the room at everyone partying-- including Mason and Brett doing shots together in the corner, which does cause Liam to smile happily for his BFF-- to try to see if he can finally pinpoint what is making him feel so uneasy. As he looks around, everything slows down to slow-motion, and he eventually catches a relatively short young guy dancing in a crowd and wearing a faded blue tshirt. Just then, everything returns to its original speed, and Liam is suddenly surrounded by partiers, causing him to panic so much that he quickly scampers to get the fuck out of the middle of the dance floor. Oh, Liam, you are so much like
At the hospital, Scott and Kira have just arrived after having been summoned by Melissa, who is very much worried about the state of Corey's health while she leads them too his room. She's just in the middle of telling them that he arrived about 45 minutes prior when suddenly his agonizing screams are heard echoing through the hall. Scott and Kira both give her a horrified look, becayu==to which Melissa has absolutely nothing to say except, "Yeah..." Dr. Geyer stops to tell Melissa to try to see what she can do for him while he finds an anesthesiologist from acute pain to help out, and once he's gone, Scott is like, "Uh, what the fuck is happening to this kid?" The answer is that his pain is so severe that literally nothing they give him is working, not even huge doses of morphine.
They go inside Corey's room, where they find Corey has has his wrists and ankles restrained and bound to the bed, probably to prevent him from writhing around so much that he rolls right off the bed. Kira asks Melissa, who is standing guard by the door, asks her if there isn't something they can do to help him at the sight of Corey whimpering and writhing fitfully in his bed, but Melissa explains that while they often put burn patients into a medically-induced comas to basically knock them out during the worst of the pain, it doesn't seem to be a viable option for Corey because his pain is so severe that even their strongest painkillers can't help him. However, since Scott is so much of a giver that he is constantly taking everyone's pain, he walks over to Corey's bedside and holds his hand so he can help him out. When Corey looks at him and pleads, "Please make it stop," it becomes clear that there is no way that Scott won't end up doing what he intended.
I'm seriously concerned that there might be after-effects though, because when Scott starts to pain-drain him, his veins turn a medium brown color rather than their usual black when he uses this ability, the same color as the seepage coming out of Corey's wounds, which makes me think that he's actually siphoning the venom out of him and into himself, to the point that his veins darken all the way to his face. As we learned in "Alpha Pact," this kind of seriously intensive taking of someone's pain can actually strip people of their Alpha status, which we saw Derek do firsthand to save Cora. When Scott starts groaning in pain from the force of it, Kira practically leaps across the room as she and Melissa beg him to let go of him, but Scott is clutching Corey's hand so hard in his own that Kira has to literally force him away from him. The sheer amount of pain Scott has absorbed has made him so weak he has to lean over a nearby table and take deep breaths to try to gather his strength again. When he assures them that he's okay, the two women start to back off a bit, looking relieved as Scott begins to return back to normal. Okay, guys, did it seem weird to any of you that Corey didn't have any pain after this? At the very least, it was manageable, and not just temporarily, either-- from what we saw, Corey had little-to-no pain whatsoever following Scott's pain-suck. Before now, we have always been told that werewolves can't totally take away pain or heal injuries, but they can take the edge off for a few moments.
However, this is the second time we've seen Scott do something like this-- the first time was in "Parasomnia," when Stiles punched his engine and nearly broke his knuckles. After Scott took his pain, Stiles opened and closed his fist in surprise that it didn't hurt anymore. So, I think at the very least, Scott is able to take on all of someone's physical pain now, if not heal minor injuries. You might be saying, "But Emily, Scott didn't heal Corey's wounds!", which is totally true. But, Scott did manage to take a kid from being in unbearable pain to little-to-no pain whatsoever, and the lack of pain will definitely have a positive effect on his healing, since his body won't be too overwhelmed by pain to work on fixing itself, so that's definitely something. Besides, that was a serious wound caused by a terrifying chimera who possessed an equivalent amount of venom to a ten-feet-tall scorpion, so that's nothing like a bruised hand, you know? Others are suggesting that Stiles healed his own hand, which could be possible, I guess, but that still doesn't explain how Scott was able to take away someone's pain completely. I think his powers are expanding with experience, just like Kira's and possibly Lydia's. (Also, I read this excellent fic where Scott eventually learned how to heal small wounds with his powers and it was amazing, so maybe I'm just biased? You should seriously read it, though-- eventually-romantic immortal!Scott with reincarnated!Liam in a dystopian future? SIMPLY FANTASTIC)
ANYWAY, so Scott assures Kira and Melissa that he's okay before asking if he can see Corey's injuries now that they're both no longer in agony, so she moves to his bedside and unbuckles the leather restraint from his wrist before removing the bandage on his forearm to reveal that he still has a huge sting whose wound has now extended from wrist to elbow and is still weeping brown pus. Even Kira, who has seen multiple mauled bodies since she moved to Beacon Hills, curses under her breath when she sees it because of just how disgusting it looks. When Scott, who is just as shocked as his girlfriend, asks his mother what the drainage is, and Melissa informs them that according to the lab, who tested it, it's scorpion venom. YIKES! This horrifies them about as much as you'd imagine, but Melissa isn't even the weirdest part yet-- "A sting this bad means that he should have been dead ten hours ago... and the scorpion that stung him would have been ten feet tall." THIS IS BANANAS. So, if it should have killed him, then why didn't it? Does this mean that Corey is something, too? Or one of the Doctors' test subjects? Or is the fact that the kid who stung him is a hybrid mean that the venom is different/not as toxic? I NEED TO KNOW EVERYTHING. "Please tell me that doesn't mean there's a giant scorpion running around Beacon Hills?" Kira asks with an understandable amount of panic in her voice, only for Corey to finally become lucid enough to give them a clue. "Lucas..." he says weakly. "It was Lucas."
Back at Sinema, Liam must seriously be feeling unnerved by whatever it is that he's sensing, because he has actually voluntarily approached Brett for help in figuring out what exactly he's feeling. "No, I didn't catch anything." Brett insists, but when Liam asks if he's sure that there's not anyone else in there like them, Brett just shrugs and replies, "I don't know, dude. Maybe? It's Beacon Hills. What's the difference?" He's kind of got a point, but in this town, you can never be too careful. Liam argues that whatever he's sensing feels different, and not in a good way, which alarms Brett enough to ask him what he means. "It felt off," Liam replies as he continues to look around the room for the source of his discomfort. "It felt wrong." Trust your instincts, Liam bb! Brett just pats him affectionately on the back and goes to rejoin the clubbers grinding each other on the dance floor.
Meanwhile, Mason has been catching the eye of a cute, wee boy nearby who seems very into him, so naturally he makes a beeline for Brett to ask him if he knows the guy. "Yeah!" Brett says with a smirk, which makes me wonder if maybe Satomi's little beta hasn't had a fling or two with the guy himself. "That's Lucas." Mason nods his head in excitement and looks over at Lucas, who smiles devilishly at him. What Mason can't see is Lucas' arms, which are behind his back and currently expanding outward like a balloon as the skin starts sprouting a terrifying row of stingers down both the medial and distal surfaces of his forearms. Liam, still in the middle of the crowd, suddenly gets some instinct that supernatural shadiness is going down, and when he looks around to investigate, his eyes flash yellow in the shadows. Well, shit. Welcome to the pack, Mason! Time for you to get mauled by a terrifying sort-of supernatural creature! As if the berserker in "A Promise To The Dead" weren't bad enough. Also, that kid is most certainly not ten feet tall, in case you were curious. I have so many questions about him, but I'll get into that more in a moment.
We return to the hospital, where a very concerned Scott and Kira are trying to get more answers out of Corey now that he seems to be at least slightly on the mend. "Hey, Corey," Scott says gently as he sits down on Corey's bed. "What Lucas did to you? He's gonna do it to someone else, and it's gonna be much worse." Kira cuts in to back up her boo and adds, "We need to know what happened." Of course, Corey doesn't really know what happened, because if he really is just a clueless civilian, who would really understand what the hell was done to him? What he does know is that Lucas used to be really shy and slow-moving in their relationship, as opposed to Corey, who would have been happy to speed things along if Lucas wanted; then out of nowhere, it was like he became a different person.
When Scott asks how he became different, Corey replies, "Like, super-confident. We were just kissing, and then I felt this sharp sting on my arm, and... and then, I looked up at him, and I swear his eyes turned black." Kira is horrified by this and confirms that yes, his entire eye turned black, like a Supernatural-style demon, but Corey insists that it was only for a second, and then Lucas apologized for hurting him, told him he'd see him at the club that night, and then just bolted; a few minutes later, Corey was in unbearably agonizing pain from the stings. YIKES! Kira, realizing that he mentioned Lucas would be at a club, asks him which one, and Corey looks a little scared when he replies, "Every Friday night-- Sinema." Yay, Scott and Kira! Be that interrogator/warrior power couple! I adore it.
Back at the club, Liam is wandering around, trying to find the source of his uneasiness, and awkwardly forces his way through the throngs of grinding men on the dance floor while also trying not to look at their public displays of macking too closely, which is why he ultimately crashes right into Hayden and causes an entire tray of glowing blue body shots to fall onto the floor and shatter into pieces. "Are you kidding me?" she groans angrily. "Those were ten dollars each!" Liam immediately apologizes, but Hayden points out that the bartender isn't just going to refill them if they're not getting paid for the extra booze, so Liam instantly starts digging around in his pockets for money to pay her back. Unfortunately for both of them, Liam only has twelve dollars and a handful of change, which he shoves into her hands to try to at least put a dent in the cost. Of course, that's only enough to cover one of the shots, so Hayden just groans in frustration and retorts, "You still owe me two hundred dollars" before flinging the coins at him and storming off. Oh Liam, you sweet summer child.
Elsewhere in the club, Mason has been led by Lucas into this strange, dark, little cubicle created by four walls of hanging chains for some snogging, and Mason, who's clearly nervous to have scored so early, looks up at the movie being projected on the walls, which end up also projected onto his white button-up shirt, and remarks on the fact that it's Night of the Living Dead. Lucas has no idea what he's talking about, so Mason explains that it's one of the first classic zombie movies and is totally appalled to hear that he's never seen it. When Lucas asks him how it ends, Mason shrugs and replies, "The zombies pretty much win. All the good guys die." Lucas walks closer to him until their faces are just inches apart and Mason is pushed up against the wall replies, "So, I guess it's better to be one of the bad guys." Mason is still super nervous and stammers, "Maybe. Sometimes," before Lucas leans forward and kisses him, They break away for a brief moment before Lucas dives back in, and while they're smooching, more scorpion-style stingers come out from under the skin on his spine and through his shirt. Wait, so are the Dread Doctors encouraging him to sting people? Does he get some kind of supernatural benefit from doing it? I don't understand why he'd be so keen on just attacking whomever he comes upon with his stingers unless he gets something out of it, you know? Or unless he's being controlled into doing so, but then we come back to the Dread Doctors wanting him to sting them-- could that possibly turn them into fake-supernaturals, or prepare them to become them? With all these weird chimera experiments, it seems as though anything is possible.
Outside, Scott and Kira have just arrived to the club, where Kira anxiously asks, "A kid turning into a half-scorpion, half-werewolf? Is there even a myth for that?" Scott responds that he read a Sumerian legend about it in the bestiary, which I'm guessing has something to do with the Scorpion-Man? Though, that doesn't involve wolves/werewolves, and when I looked it up, the sources said it was a Babylonian/Assyrian mythological creature rather than Sumerian, but it was all in the same general region so maybe there were multiple versions? He then breaks the door open and is about to lead them inside when an alarm suddenly goes off, stopping them both in their tracks. When Scott begins to panic, Kira reaches down to her belt buckle and pops it off, revealing it to be what I'm going to assume is a type of shuriken, like Kira's first tail. However, instead of being made out of obsidian like the tail and in the shape of a star, this belt-buckle shuriken is made of a round piece of metal, also kind of like a chakram. I'm not a weapons expert, though, so please correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm quite curious myself! Anyway, Kira takes the shuriken and throws it at the alarm, slicing through the wire and shutting off the alarm. HELL YES! That is so fucking badass! Scott agrees with me wholeheartedly, because he sighs in admiration and chirps, "God, I love you!" before turning and heading inside the club, leaving an incredibly shell-shocked Kira behind to process this unexpected next step in their relationship.
Oh, Scott, you beautiful moron, how many more times are you going to do these things without realizing them? Like, I do not doubt whatsoever that Scott loves Kira, because who wouldn't? They've been together for almost a year now, have fought side-by-side and have literally walked through hell together! Forgive me for the slight side-track, here, but I saw an excellent gifset on Tumblr comparing the main ladies of Teen Wolf to the four elements, which I not only think is super accurate, but also applies to their relationships on the show. Allison is fire due in part to her being strong-willed, outspoken, and stubborn; Kira is earth because she's grounded, focused, and stable; Malia is air due to her being free-spirited, independent, and bold; and Lydia is water because she's intelligent, artistic, and caring. Obviously, they have many other amazing qualities, but these are the ones that reflect their element.
So, Scott and Allison's relationship was very intense, passionate, and consuming, both because of the fact that they were each other's first love, but also as a result of having to sneak around so their parents didn't know they were still together. A lot of people compare Scott and Allison's relationship to Scott and Kira's relationship, as though Scott doesn't care about Kira as much or their relationship is somehow lesser, but I completely disagree. Scott and Kira's relationship may be much slower-moving than his relationship with Allison-- mostly due to the fact that they met in the middle of the nogitsune crisis-- but that doesn't mean that Scott loves her less, he just loves her differently, and that's okay! Like Kira's connection to earth, their relationship is stable and grounded, with a deep understanding between them based on mutual respect and adoration.
Likewise, you could say the same thing about Stiles and Lydia vs. Stiles and Malia. Lydia was Stiles' first crush, and he spent the better part of his formative years pining over her, only for a friendship to eventually develop when she officially joined the pack. Like Lydia's connection to water, her bond wit Stiles is based on care and intelligence, because they have fought for each other and worked together as detectives for the pack while they researched their various threats, which is what made them as close of friends as they are to this day. However, regardless of their relationship, Lydia hasn't reciprocated Stiles' romantic feelings, at least not openly, so it's completely understandable that he ended up finding romance in Malia, who appeals to his bold side. They have similar free-spirited disregard for rules, and because they're both independent people, they are perfectly content to do their own thing when the situation calls for it.
Stiles' relationship with Malia isn't better or worse than his relationship with Lydia, in my opinion-- again, they're just different, and they make each other happy in different ways, just like Scott/Kira and Scott/Allison. Remember Melissa's speech in "Anchors?" "You fall in love more than once. It'll happen again, and it'll be just as amazing and extraordinary as the first time." The fandom just seems so caught up in ship wars lately that they're forgetting how many different kinds of love there is out there, and how loving one person doesn't negate the love they have for another. It's really been getting me and the other intensely-multishippers who are content with whatever relationship happens as long as there is chemistry down, though, and it's making me crazy. I know I talk about this all the time, but I basically ship all pairings except for the ones that involve Peter and anyone except Death herself. I like canon ships like Allison/Scott, Allison/Isaac, Kira/Scott, Malia/Stiles, and Braeden/Derek, but I also ship non-canon crack!ships like Derek/Lydia, Isaac/Lydia, Lydia/Scott, Malia/Scott, Derek/Kira, Kira/Malia, Lydia/Malia, Kira/Lydia, etc. I just feel like it's a lot easier to enjoy shows when you're just accepting that relationships happen and change all the time and riding with it.
Okay, now that this whole ridiculously long relationship tangent is over, let's get back to the story, yeah? Sorry about that! Anyway, so back inside the club, Lucas braces himself against the wall with his left arm so he can make out with Mason more passionately, and our favorite supernatural fanboy is way too distracted looking at Lucas' lips to notice that his arm, which is only inches from his own face, is starting to grow stingers, too. They only manage to make out for a few moments before Lucas is suddenly yanked away and thrown hard and far into the next room by Brett, whose wolf eyes and fangs are out in preparation for a fight. "Run!" he growls at Mason, who is quite understandably stunned by all of this. Just then, Lucas gets up, revealing his all-black eyes and ridiculous arm and spine stingers.
Scott is trying to make his way through the crowd of the club when Kira finally catches up to him and starts exasperatedly babbling about what just happened between them. "You did it again," Kira begins breathlessly. "You did something that changed everything, and you don't even realize you did it! But you did." Scott just looks confused, all, "Pardon me?" to which Kira replies with a silent face that just screams, "ARE YOU FUCKING SHITTING ME, SCOTT?" But, before they can get into a discussion about the current state of their love life and what this new "I love you" thing means for them, they hear the sound of a werewolf roaring, which causes them to forget about their relationship drama in favor of finding Lucas.
We then return to that back room, where Brett and Lucas are in the middle of a pretty intense fight. Lucas keeps swiping at Brett with his stinger-y arms, forcing Brett to jump and duck to avoid them while also trying to claw him back in return. Lucas grabs Brett in a choke-hold and pushes him against one of those skinny scaffoldings used for stage lights, but Brett breaks his grip and knees him in the stomach so hard that he's thrown backward several feet. He growls at the scorpion-kid and continues to try to dodge his strikes, but eventually Lucas kicks him back into the scaffolding again and slices across his chest with the stingers on his left arm, which are now soaked in Brett's blood. Also, we get a shot of Lucas' hands, which have claws that look just like a werewolf's, so there's confirmation that he's a scorpion/werewolf hybrid. Just when Lucas is about to make the killing blow against Brett, who has fallen onto the floor while Mason tends to his injuries, Liam appears out of nowhere and tackles him. That's my tiny wolf prince! Just last episode he was grumbling about having to see Brett, and now he's protecting him from rogue chimeras! Such progress.
Lucas pins Liam down onto a table, but Scott and Derek's speculation about Liam being a strong werewolf seem to be spot-on, because he just groans and headbutts him HARD in the face before breaking one of his arms' grip. Lucas rears the arm back to hit him, but Liam grabs him by the wrist and pushes it away, nicking his hand on one of the stingers. Finally, Scott and Kira make their way back into the room, and when Liam sees them, he growls, "YOU'RE A LITTLE LATE," in annoyance, which is hilarious to me. Like, "UGH MOM AND DAD, WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG?" Scott lunges for Lucas while Kira whips out her katana belt and gets ready to go samurai on a baby werescorpion twink. Scott jumps up and grabs onto the lighting scaffolding so he can swing around and kick Lucas off of Liam, but after a moment, Lucas throws Scott across the room. Liam gets up off of the table, only to be kicked backwards as well, leaving a very excited-looking Kira to kiss his ass for them. She starts swinging her katana, aiming for the stingers on his arms, but before we can see more of them fight, the scene cuts to...
...The Stewart residence, where Malia is going through Tracy's things in hopes of finding more clues as to what is going on with the Dread Doctors, or maybe just to learn more about the girl she ended up being unable to save. She takes a moment to examine the sketches Tracy drew that practically wallpaper one of the walls in her room; it's kind of hard to see them all, but I can make out quite a few portraits of anonymous people, what looks like a dove or some kind of bird, some blood-red flowers surrounded by a black shadow, and a couple tasteful full-body sketches of a naked man and woman in two different drawing styles. When she doesn't find anything especially illuminating, she absentmindedly looks around the room until her eyes fall onto what looks like a small journal bound in red and pink heart-patterned fabric on top of an old paperback book. Malia walks over and curiously walks over and lifts up the journal, only for the book underneath it to catch her attention.
The book is entitled The Dread Doctors by T.R. McCammon, which unfortunately is not a real book. There's a note on top of it as well-- "Here's the book you asked for. Cheesy stuff, but still a fun, scary read." There's no signature, so we don't know who gave it to her-- could be her dad, or a friend, or a librarian, who knows?-- but the fact that she asked for it seems to suggest that Tracy had been experimented on for quite a while, though I have no idea how conscious she was of it at the time, or if she thought she was just dreaming, or what. When Malia removes the sticky note from the book cover, she sees that it has an illustration of the three Dread Doctors she saw at the Sheriff's station when they killed Tracy (though their masks were much shinier and newer-looking) and gasps in shock. YIKES! I'm ridiculously curious about this book-- did one of their test subjects write the book about them? Or did the Dread Doctors get the idea from the pre-existing book?
Back at the club, Kira is still fighting against Lucas with her sword while Scott and Liam recover from their blunt-force injuries enough to rejoin the fray. Kira manages to slice into his left arm with her sword, and Brett, who is watching them from the other side of the room while Mason applies pressure to the wound on his ribs, gasps, "What is that thing?" before wincing in pain. Kira continues to be a total badass, twisting and flipping her sword around, and even when Lucas tries to yank the katana out of her hand, Kira just twists out of his grip and kicks him in the chest, which sends him back into the chain curtains. Before he can lunge back at Kira, Liam jumps in and throws him onto the floor so hard that Lucas is snapped out of his scorpion-mode, and his eyes go back to their usual white and brown colors. YEAH LIAM! Way to end the fight quickly! However, despite the fact that Lucas is definitely incapacitated for the time being, Kira's kitsune aura flares super-brightly as her eyes start to glow that kitsune gold/orange/pink shade. Scott, Liam, Brett, and Mason, neither of whom seen this new development of Kira's powers yet, watch her in awe and fear as Kira yells what I think is "私は死の使者だ! / Watashi wa shi no shishada!" which, according to Tumblr Japanese speakers, means "I am the messenger/emissary of death!"
This is both amazing and totally terrifying, because girl, what are you doing? Killing is not the McCall Pack way, especially not when they're currently not posing a threat. I'm wondering if maybe the kitsune spirit in her thinks that these unnatural supernaturals are an abomination of nature or something, and that's why she wanted to kill him? Or if she had some kind of tit-for-tat feeling against him for hurting Corey, since from what I understand, kitsunes are much like the fae in how they have a very strict sense of honor and justice. Fortunately for her, Scott yells "Kira!" and grabs her by the wrists before she can kill Lucas with her katana, and though Kira looks almost pissed that he stopped her at first, when Scott looks at her with a scared and concerned expression, her aura fades away, and her annoyance turns to horror and embarrassment while Mason, Liam, and Brett just look at her in shock.
Anyway, Scott, knowing they have bigger fish to fry at the moment, asks everyone if they're alright, and when it appears that they are (Brett seems to be healing and definitely isn't in the kind of pain Corey was when he was stung by Lucas-- are werewolves maybe immune to the venom? Or maybe their healing processes just push it out before it can really hurt them?), he points out that they need to get Lucas out of there and asks Liam to give him a hand. However, before they can pick him up, a squishing noise is heard as a metal crossbow bolt pierces Lucas' heart, killing him and splattering his blood everywhere. Before the gang can even process this the bolt, which is connected to a long, retractable wire, is pulled out and wound back up to the crossbow that shot it, which looks like it was last used in World War II, to be honest. When the kids look up to see who shot it, they find that t the Dread Doctors are standing on the balcony and have arrived to see how Lucas' abilities work in practice. SOMEBODY OWES MALIA AN APOLOGY FOR NOT TAKING HER SERIOUSLY EARLIER.
"Why did you do that?" Scott demands angrily, but the main doctor with the yellow monocle just replies, "His condition was terminal," echoing what they said to Malia when they killed Tracy in the last episode. Kira, Liam, Brett and Mason are staring at them in horror, but Scott only becomes more angry and asks them what the fuck that was supposed to mean. Unfortunately for them, all they have left to say as they have turned to leave is "Failure," before they demonstrate their ability to manipulate electricity by causing the lights in the club to explode as they vanish. WHAT THE FUCK? I really want to know what is considered a failure to them. Are they looking for specific reactions? Are they killing them when they draw unwanted attention to themselves? I would think the fact that the Doctors keep showing up and revealing themselves to so many people means that they don't really care that much, but who knows, you guys.
We meet back up with Scott and Melissa at the hospital's morgue, where they're staring at Lucas' body, whose fingers still have claws and whose arms and spine are still covered in scorpion spikes. Since they already broke the rules with Tracy at the beginning of the episode, I guess Sheriff wasn't willing to do it a second time, so they were forced to let him be taken in to be autopsied by the coroner instead of dealing with it internally. "I'm sure they'll come up with a reasonable explanation for the stingers in his arms," Melissa says gently as they stare at the clearly inhuman creature laying on the steel slab. "At least it's better than trying to explain a tail?" Yeahhhhhh, all of these experiments are probably going to be hard to cover up. Or, maybe they won't, given what happens at the end of the episode? "Better than the truth," Scott murmurs glumly, and he looks so sad and so discouraged that I'm just seriously worried about him, you guys. It's already so early, so if it's already this bad, by the end of the season things are going to be unbearable. Melissa replies that for now, this is pretty much the best that they can do, knowing that her wonderful son isn't going to stop beating himself up about all of this any time soon.
SCOTT: [upset] "I should've done better. I-I-I should've known that this was going to happen. I should've been able to stop it."
MELISSA: [sympathetically] "You know, your grandfather used to have a saying about the word 'should'-- 'You know what you're doing when you say "should" too often? You're should-ing all over yourself!'" [Scott smiles weakly, and Melissa chuckles at her joke] "I know that I can't be the mom that says, 'I don't want you to do anything about this.' 'Cause you're always going to be involved. Because not only to you have the power to do something, you care enough to do it. So, all you really need to ask yourself? 'What am I going to do?'"
SCOTT: [determinedly] "I'm going to find out who did this. And I'm going to stop them."YESSSSS SCOTT BB! I believe in you! Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure that Jeff Davis has serious plans to horrendously torture you this season, but trust me-- if I had my way, you'd just be having non-stop polyamorous pack cuddles and cute dates with Kira. So, Melissa nods proudly at him and pushes Lucas back into his morgue cubby before the two leave the room and head home.
A few minutes later, a black-clad figure walks into the morgue and opens the cubby back up to look at the body. I figured it would be one of the Dread Doctors trying to reanimate him or something, but nope! It's JORDAN PARRISH, who seems kind of out of it, which makes me wonder just how conscious he is of what he's doing. We then cut to the woods, where a sweaty, soot-covered Jordan is carrying the dead Lucas, covered only in an autopsy sheet, toward the Nemeton, where he lays the boy over the stump, sits down behind him, and then bursts into flames, causing Lucas' body to do the same. WHAT THE FUCK IS PARRISH, YOU GUYS? I'm still convinced part of his supernatural duties are helping the dead supernaturals/fake-supernaturals move on, and that's part of why he has such a connection with Lydia-- Lydia is the harbinger, and Jordan is the chariot, so to speak? I don't know, but for now, I'm refusing to believe he has any malicious intentions, and instead, I maintain that he's either helping the dead or is being controlled by external forces (maybe even the Nemeton itself?) into doing what he's doing? I don't know, but I need answers sooooon!
Finally, we meet back up with Stiles, who has finally awoken and was about to head home when his Jeep broke down yet again. He opens up the hood of his Jeep, which releases a shitload of white smoke that makes him cough and grimace, and grabs a wrench to try to fix whatever is wrong. While I'm glad to see Stiles is actually using real tools other than duct tape now, does he even know anything about cars? I just get the impression that he just messes with stuff until it works. Anyway, he's so distracted by Roscoe's never-ending mechanical issues that he doesn't realize that the recently-freed Donovan is heading right toward him. He reaches out his right hand, which has a FUCKING ROUND SUCKER-MOUTH THING ON THE PALM WITH SHARP WENDIGO-STYLE TEETH. and clamps it down hard onto Stiles' shoulder and causes him to shriek in agony while Donovan looks veryyyyy satisfied behind him. WHAT THE FUCK IS HE DOING TO STILES, WHY DOES HE HAVE A MOUTH ON HIS HAND, WHY THE FUCK IS THE EPISODE ENDING LIKE THIS? WHYYYYYY?
Next episode: Stiles attempts to fend off Donovan's plan to get to Sheriff through Stiles, and somehow still also manages to go to Eichen House with Scott, Lydia, and Kira while they talk to Dr. Valack about the Dread Doctors. Kira also seems to once again lose control over her inner kitsune, though whether it's tail-related or Dread Doctor-related is still a mystery.
-In this week's "Fashion Reruns," we have Scott wearing the same camouflage jeans he wore in "Silverfinger," and Kira wearing the same polka-dot leggings she wore in "Time of Death."
-There is a TON of music this week, so I'm just going to link to it here! Enjoy!
"'Til My Heart Stops" by Too Far Moon (Stiles & Malia go over the evidence board. Kira and Scott kiss until Deaton shows up with his update on the hybrids)
"Lookin' at You" by SpeakerHedz (Mason and Liam walk to Sinema while Mason talks about needing a wingman)
"Orion" by DallasK (Mason and Liam enter the club and see Brett dancing with a woman and a man in turn)
"Vice" by DallasK (Hayden picks up a tray of body shots at the bar and gets angry with Phil the bartender. Mason and Brett do shots while Liam tries to find the supernatural he senses)
"Area 51" by Hardwell & DallasK (Liam asks Brett if he senses any supernaturals in the club. Lucas eyes Mason and starts to transform into a werescorpion)
"Superfuture" by DallasK (Liam bumps into Hayden and causes her to spill her tray of drinks. Mason and Lucas go into the alcove to make out)
"America" by No Ego (Lucas starts to make out with Mason, but Brett attacks him when he sees his arms transform into scorpion stingers)
"Alienz" by DallasK (Brett and Liam fight Lucas, and Brett is badly hurt by his stingers)
"God Loves War" by Black Sugar Transmission (Scott and Kira arrive and join in the fight against Lucas)