The fallout from the events in the school at night starts to put new pressures on an already stressed out group of teenagers.
What They Say:
Lunatic – Derek is on the run; Stiles helps Scott face his second full moon. Jackson takes advantage of complications.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After an episode that put the gang in the school together under plenty of duress, the show is dealing with the fallout from those events. With Allison no longer able to trust Scott after the way he held back quite a few secrets to be sure, Scott’s in a real funk. Thankfully, he does have a best friend in Stiles who is intent on helping him through this, which is mainly trying to get him drunk on Jack Daniels. Interestingly, he’s actually unable to get drunk, but Stiles is mildly amusing in this mode. The whole situation is a setup for something else though as the full moon is about to arrive and there’s danger in the woods, though it’s unclear who is actually causing the new deaths that have occurred in the middle of the night.
The coming of the full moon is definitely having an adverse affect on Scott as his senses are all over the map. With the problems he’s facing with Allison, everything has him on edge. So much so that in school he’s actually having a panic attack with how he hears all the small sounds in the room and as his mind plays tricks on him with the test he has to take, where it questions how he could ever be with Allison and how many of his friends he’ll end up killing with the full moon. It’s all got him on edge, but the same can be said for the hunters as well, as they’re gearing up for the night as they know exactly how they operate. It’s a fun little thing to run in parallel, showing how the school day is going while the adults are all plotting a whole lot of carnage Of course, focusing a bit on Jackson is fun as well as the whole full moon is having a mild effect on him as well, though it’s a bit more nuanced.
He’s starting to notice things as well, such as Lydia’s lipstick being slightly smudged after she has a surprising and definitely full-moon induced makeout session with Scott after he goes to talk to her to see if she likes Stiles at all. It’s actually an amusing but accurate thing that happens, since she’s viewing what happened at the school very differently than Allison is. She viewed it, correctly, that he locked them all in to protect them where as Allison felt that he abandoned her. And Lydia, being who she is, is very grateful about what happened and shows him so. As much as I do like the Allison and Scott pairing, there’s something fun and primal with what happens here, as brief as it is.
This isn’t the only change going on here, though a lot of it comes across as a mixture of teen fickleness and the coping with the trauma that stems from the previous episode. The interactions between Jackson and Allison are curious, more so from Jackson’s point of view with what he’s really angling towards, since it’s hard to believe that Allison would be interested in anyone else so quickly after what happened. The time they spend together is more than enough to be interpreted poorly by Scott and leads to a brief and at best okay fight sequence. They’ve generally played the show well here with this, going more for quick cuts that makes sense, but there’s some more openly filmed moments here that shows some weakness.
In Summary:
After a couple of really good episodes, this one comes off a bit weaker overall, especially in having to deal with the full moon again already. There are some very good moments in here though, but what appealed the most tended to involve either Lydia or Jackson, which is definitely a very good thing. The supporting cast here is being well used in enhancing the show and making the various connections, not quickly, but in a reasonable manner considering how strange it all must be. What’s really surprising is that even with a fairly average episode for the series, one that has good moments and some really fun bits, it still leaves me really wanting the next episode right away. Few shows manage that, especially live action ones, but Teen Wolf has really managed to win me over and only reinforces it more week after week. Definitely a good episode, but weaker than the last couple we’ve had.
Grade: B
