While Stiles doesn’t have the best record for following basic rules and laws, he still appears to be following in his father’s footsteps of crime solving. He also has a definite knack for laying out all the information they have in a way that doesn’t feel like pure exposition. Even if it did, a little exposition is sort of necessary at this point in the season. At almost halfway through part A of season 4, things are getting complicated, and Teen Wolf has a history of throwing more plots around than it can reasonably handle.
Thankfully, it looks like they’re only sticking with one real big bad—the Benefactor, though so far he remains out of sight. It’s true that Kate is also out there somewhere but she’s not exactly in control and Peter, well Peter is mostly concerned with the state of his bank account and his lack of marketable skills. So while those two wait in the wings, the biggest problem at the moment are the paid hit men, and women, working for the Benefactor.
Despite the tendency to trip over its abundance of story lines, Teen Wolf has done a good job so far of introducing its host of new characters this season. The population of Beacon Hills is dropping and we’ve lost many wonderful characters. Yet the ones introduced this season have already sparked our interest. Here’s hoping they take the time to flesh them out because while Teen Wolf is good, and only getting better, at horror and mystery, the real reason the fans keep coming back, week after week, are the characters they’ve come to know and love.
And what exactly are our main heroes up to? Well, while Stiles’ team of professional and amateur detectives work on finding Garrett and Violet, Lydia is still over at the lake house trying to figure out the last two keys to the other sections of the hit list. She’s not having the best luck, so Kira and Malia pull her away, suggesting she try drawing instead. The drawing is a bust but with a little help from Eichen House’s Meredith, Lydia cracks the second code and guess who is on the list. Deputy Parrish. It’s hard to tell if he even knows he’s a supernatural being at this point. He’s either a really good actor or he has absolutely no idea. The latter might be more fun.
Over at school, Derek provokes Liam by breaking his lacrosse stick in half. The reasoning behind this is very unclear but we’ve got some guesses. One, he wanted to see the color of Liam’s eyes because maybe they hold the answers to why his own are currently wonky. Two, he wanted proof that Liam has serious anger issues. Or three, he wanted to prove that Scott can calm Liam down with only his voice, which, hey, apparently he can. What we do know is that Derek’s smile that follows is the most genuine one we’ve ever gotten from this sour wolf. What’s even better is that it’s directed at Scott while he tells him he’s going to do great as an alpha. Remember when these two hated each other? Or when Scott hated Derek at least. Now it’s like Derek is the werewolf grandpa watching his son Scott handle his grandchild for the first time.
The scrimmage goes on, even though Liam identified Garrett as the lacrosse-playing assassin. Things are normal for maybe five seconds and Kira even scores a goal, but then she’s benched because she didn’t pass and the whole point is teamwork. See, at least the opposing team worked together to take down Liam. When Liam and his ex-teammate clash on the field, the wrong one gets nicked by Garrett’s lacrosse stick knife extension. Except it turns out that guy is also a werewolf, and is promptly beheaded by Violet in the locker room. Is anyone else tired of watching teenagers get brutally murdered?
Scott probably is. When he runs into the locker room to find Liam’s ex-teammate, Violet tries to cut his head off too. But she doesn't know that Scott is a super badass true alpha, so he just grabs the wire like it isn’t trying to burn through his hand, and knocks her out.
Things we really want to find out next week on Teen Wolf : Are Violet and Garrett like the teen versions of Bonnie and Clyde? Are they on the run or do they have parents and actual home lives? And just what is deputy Parrish besides devastatingly handsome? We’ve refrained from asking who the Benefactor is because we appreciate the building of suspense as much as the next viewer. Let's just hope Teen Wolf delivers.
image courtesy of INFphoto.com