Hello friends. I’ll be taking over from Alanna for Teen Wolf recaps for a few weeks. So let’s jump right in to the flashback-y, time skip-y ball of amazing that was last night’s episode.
I may or may not have written a haiku in honor of Allison’s greatness. It’s not a particularly good one, but even if I were a bona fide haiku master I could not craft 17 syllables worthy of our favorite bow-wielding teenager. (Sorry, Katniss.)
We start this week’s episode with our favorite teen wolves (plus Stiles and Danny, who are not wolves, and Ethan, whom I do not yet count among my favorites—sorry, dude) bussing it to a cross country meet. Scott, Isaac, and Boyd confined in a metal tube with one of the Alpha twins. This should go well.
It’s clear straight off the bat that something is terribly wrong. Isaac and Boyd seem more ready than usual to attack Ethan, who’s being all flirty with Danny but also keeps checking his phone for some reason. Then there’s Scott, who has a huge gash on his side that isn’t healing.
Oh, and it turns out there was some huge fight, and Derek’s dead.
Whaaaaaaa—Roll credits.
Show, you cannot actually expect me to believe that you’d kill Derek, right? I’m pretty sure there are scenes of him in the season three promo that haven’t aired yet. Stop toying with my emotions like this.
Lydia and Allison aren’t in the bus, but they are following it. Allison says she refuses to leave Scott alone after what happened, especially since she was involved in… whatever it was. Then we get our first flashback of approximately 12 million this episode.
Allison asked Isaac before not to tell anyone that she was BAMFing it up at the school when the Beacon Hills Boy Band was hunting down Boyd and Cora, but it turns out she should’ve been more concerned with not littering, since she left one of her super-duper military arrows at the school, and Scott found it. Whoops.
When he goes to her place to ask her about it she refuses to outright admit that she was there that night, but he knows. And she knows he knows. And he knows she knows he knows. Ad nauseam. Scott’s worried about what she’s getting into, but she’s all like “Don’t worry your pretty puppy head over me, I can take care of myself. After all, I can handle you.” They engage in a bout of sexual tension-laced sparring that Scott handily wins, but only because Allison didn’t have her Chinese ring daggers handy. Talk to Isaac. He knows. Scott reassures her on his way out that he’s not warning her about the alpha pack (the alpaca) because he thinks she’s weak, but because the alpha pack is just really freaking scary in a general sense.
When Scott gets on the elevator, who should he see but Deucalion, who lives in Allison’s building. So now in the show’s pantheon of “weird intimidation tactics” we can add “scary elevator riding” to “aggressive dessert grabbing” and “angry car windshield wiping.” Watch your back, Chris Argent. A competitor approacheth.
It’s hard to take Deucalion seriously when you know he had to be listening in on Scott and Allison’s conversation so he could time his elevator ride so he’d run into Scott. “OK, OK, I hear him walking to the door, I think he’s almost done. Now I just have to call the elev—dammit, who’s holding this thing on the fifth floor?!”
To be fair, his ridiculousness levels are still kind of high after last week’s “DEMON WOOOOOOLLLLLFFFF!”
Scott goes to give Derek the deets on Deucalion’s living situation, but Derek already knows, because he has moments of not being a failwolf. However, since bad decision making is more his forte, he’s decided to attack Deucalion despite the fact that there is no way in hell that would work. Oh, Derek. So ready to die. *sniff* *sniff*
Then we flash forward to a quick snippet of a Patented Teen Wolf Dubstep Werewolf Battle, except this time it’s a Slow-Mo Classical Music Werewolf Battle, because all the battles can’t be scored to dubstep; Teen Wolf may be on MTV, but it has standards. Unfortunately for the good guys classical music appears to be a harbinger of doom, since they’re getting their asses kicked.
From there we go back to the future: On the bus Scott and Stiles are worried about Boyd and Isaac attacking Ethan, and in the car behind the bus it comes out that Allison invited Lydia along to keep an eye on her, since she’s involved with Aidan. She denies it, but then we flash back to the two of them engaging in some sexytimes. Lydia tells Aidan to get his hands somewhere that isn’t her waist because she is not, in fact, a nun. Yay for sex-positive Lydia!
Back in Derek’s loft Scott unsuccessfully tries to sway Mr. Grumpypants to the controversial opinion that maybe the best way to solve problems isn’t murder. Peter asks him whether he ever gets tired of being “blandly moral,” because he wasn’t around to sass anyone last episode so he’d damn well better make up for it now. Derek’s membership to the Scott McCall Fan Club apparently doesn’t come with a plus one, because Cora derisively asks why Scott’s even been invited to come with them. Derek defends Scott, because he’s not just a member of the Scott McCall Fan Club, he’s also its President.
Hey, what happened in the elevator between Scott and Deucalion, by the way? Ah, just a little bit of prime villain goading: “Scott, sometimes you have to kill one person to protect another, you can become an Alpha if you kill me, I want to see what you’re made of, kill kill kill death death death.”
Speaking of death: We speed forward a bit to the Slow-Mo Classical Music Werewolf Battle, where we see Derek and Ennis plummeting through a giant hole in the floor, coming to an abrupt stop several stories below. It sure looks like they’re dead. But then we skip ahead to Cora and Peter, post-battle, looking for the bodies, which either  A) were moved or B) got up and walked out, because they’re not really dead.
It’s a pretty cool scene between the two of them. They clearly don’t trust each other: Peter is suspicious of where Cora’s been in the six years since the Hale house fire, and Cora’s well and truly aware of the fact that Peter, y’know, killed her sister. In the hiatus between seasons I was a bit worried that Peter would be accepted into Derek’s pack too easily (which might be a result of reading one too many fanfics in which Peter’s the “sassy pack uncle”—is there a fandom with a larger canon/fanon chasm than Teen Wolf?), so I’m glad to see Cora giving him some crap about it.
The bus is stuck in a traffic jam, which makes everything more intense, and Boyd’s just about ready to leap on Ethan and (try to) rip his throat out. Scott gets up to stop him,but nearly collapses. We hear an inspiring voice over conversation between Scott and Deaton wherein Deaton tells Scott that in order to save his friends he has to lead them. Scott rallies and makes it to Boyd, then points out to him that he doesn’t have a plan beyond “1) Attack Ethan on a crowded bus filled with human teenagers, 2) ???, 3) Profit.” Boyd agrees to give Scott time to figure out a plan that doesn’t end in death. Crisis averted.
Ethan’s still been obsessively checking his phone, which makes Stiles’ evildar (evil radar, duh) go off. “I have a very perceptive eye for evil,” he reminds Scott, “You know that.” Heck yeah he does. Matt. Stiles texts Danny to try and get him to figure out what’s got Ethan on edge, but Danny refuses. What follows is the requisite Samsung Galaxy product placement scene, but I don’t even care, because it’s hilarious. Stiles keeps texting Danny, causing his phone to beep over and over until he caves and asks Ethan what’s up. Turns out sometimes close to him is sick and might not make it through the night. So now Stiles and Scott know Ennis isn’t dead (yet). But what about Derek?
Flashback to the alpha pack bringing Ennis to Deaton’s, but they have a helper:Kendra Ms. Morrell. Deaton refuses to let them in until Morrell points out that if Ennis dies the alpha pack will go after the others, and Scott would surely get caught in the crossfire.
Scott, meanwhile, is getting worse, his wound starting to ooze nasty black goo. Stiles tries to get Coach Finstock to pull the bus over at the next bustop, but he refuses, a description that doesn’t do justice the hilarious wonderment of this scene, so here, have a gifset. As a last resort, Stiles buddies up to a carsick classmate called Jared, gives him the creepiest smile known to mankind, and somehow makes him lose his lunch.
Stiles! What did you do? He can be such a little jerk sometimes, I love it.
Having successfully stopped the bus, Stiles hurries with Scott, Allison, and Lydia into the rest stop bathroom. Lydia suggests that Scott’s wound is psychoformic, a.k.a. it’s being caused by Scott’s mental state, a.k.a. Scott’s subconscious won’t let him heal because Derek’s dead.
I just need a minute. And some Kleenex.
OK, I’m good.
While Stiles and Lydia head back outside to keep the bus from leaving, Allison volunteers to sew up Scott’s wound. She’s having a tough time of it though, unable to thread the needle because she’s shaking so much it looks like she’s on the verge of a panic attack.
But who to my wondering eyes should appear but Mama Argent! She’s not any less scary now that she’s a hallucination/vision/whatever. Victoria goes drill sargeant (Sargeant Argent.. OK, I’ll stop) on her daughter, mocking her for freaking out before reminding her to steady her breathing and approach the task at hand coldly and unemotionally. The pep talk works: Allison successfully threads the needle and sews Scott up. If the scene wasn’t dramatic enough already, it looks like Scott’s died.
But it turns out he’s just not dead, just flashing back to the Slow-Mo Classical Music Werewolf Battle, because this show likes to cause us torment. He tells Allison that what happened to Derek is his fault.
From there we’re back to before the battle. Scott’s planning to visit Deucalion and talk to him werewolf-to-werewolf, but he’s intercepted by Isaac, who asks where he’s off to. Scott, not a particularly adept liar, says he’s going to grab a bite to eat, and when Isaac asks what he’s going to get he responds “…Mexican…?.” Isaac doesn’t buy it, but he plays along, saying he’ll go with him even though he knows Scott must be going to confront Deucalion.
No one will ever convince me Isaac saying “Dude, I love Mexican” isn’t an in-joke about Tyler Posey having Mexican heritage and Scott being Latino. No one.
Derek knew Scott would try and use diplomacy to stop the battle from happening, though, so when Scott and Isaac arrive at Deucalion’s place (this is… the apartment building? I’m pretty sure it’s not Derek’s loft. Where is this crazy abandoned building with the giant hole in the floor?) Derek and the rest of his pack are already there. (Minus Peter, predictably, who stood off to the side of the final battle last season, too! His contribution is snark, not actually doing things.) The rest of the alpha pack pops out of the shadows. Cue Slow-Mo Classical Music Werewolf Battle!
Back outside the bus Isaac has attacked Ethan, but Scott uses his Alpha Wolf Voice Powers to get at him to stop. In other news: Scott is totally Isaac’s alpha.
Flash forward to the animal clinic, where Peter and Cora are creeping around outside and Deucalion is creeping around inside, though he’s less creeping than straight up walking up to a recovering Ennis and sticking his claws through his face, killing him.
Good night, sweet prince. We barely knew ye.
Peter and Cora, seing Kali’s epic ragescream, realize Ennis must’ve just died, meaning Derek (or Derek’s corpse) is still MIA.
Then, finally—finally—we get the bulk of the Slow-Mo Classical Music Werewolf Battle. The Alpha twins do a Teen Wolf-style dramatic backflip off a ledge and merge into the Frankentwin, and Isaac attacks him (them?), causing Scott to let loose an epic eyeroll before running to help. Derek fights Kali. Boyd fights Kali and Ennis. All the good guys are getting thoroughly whumped. Deucalion tells Derek that he’ll let the rest of his pack go… as long as he kills Boyd. The victory of the alpha pack looks all but assured, and then…
Allison. Motherflippin’ Argent.
She pops up on a balcony shooting flash arrows at the baddies, backlit by a spotlight that’s from who knows where, but I dont’ even care because it makes her look like a freaking superhero. (Also, who knows where all the ~mist~ and ~mood lighting~ in Beacon Hills comes from? You just have to go with it.) As if Allison wasn’t bossing it up enough, one of her bolts causes the Alpha twins to split into two again. How does that even happen? Now I’m imagining them in their fused form during a thunderstorm, reflexively separating every time there’s a bolt of lighting because loud noises freak them out like they’re particularly timid kittens.
There’s a flashback to Allison talking to her dad. Chris wants them both to live a normal life, but Allison is determined to help her friends and says her father’s “we should stay out of it” attitude is just plain cowardly.
Time for that haiku:
Allison’s the best.
If you don’t agree with that
Well, I think you’re wrong.
The werewolf fight continues. As we know, it ends in Derek’s death. (Well, “death.”) Scott gets pummelled by Ennis but is saved by Derek. But when Scott crawls over to help he claws at Ennis’ knee, which accidentally causes Ennis to lose his balance and fall through the giant hole in the floor, bringing Derek with him. Oops.
So that’s why Scott thinks Derek’s death his his fault.
Kill me now.
Back on the bus Stiles and Lydia are trying to figure out what’s up with the dark druid (remember them?), while Allison tries to convince Scott that Derek’s death, if he even is dead, isn’t his fault. Scott does’t look convinced. He then thanks Allison for not listening to him when he said to stay out of werewolf business. That’s right, Scott! Allison’s the best.
We have two more revelations to go before the episode’s over, though. One’s about Deaton and Morrell, the two of whom are having a chat in Deaton’s office. Deaton cautions Morrell that she doesn’t know what she’s getting into with the Alpha pack, to which Morrell responds: “It’s a little late to play big brother, don’t you think?”
Siblings! They’re siblings! Mystery solved!
And for the final revelation, yep, you guessed it: Derek’s alive, if barely. He’s made his way to Ms. Blake, slapping his bloody hand on her car window before collapsing in the middle of a parking lot. Oh, Derek. You do love your dramatic entrances.
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