What They Say:
Riddled – Stiles goes missing; Scott and the other set off on a search; Lydia tries to master her new abilities.
The Review:
The exploration of the kitsune has been pretty fun and we’ve had some really good material when it comes to Scott and Kira getting closer together, something I’m fully in favor of. They dominated the previous episode and it was worthwhile since we got a lot of back story on the demonic ninjas and everything associated with them, as well as some good Elder Argent material mixed into it that showed us him as a youth. The background storyline from that episode was also intriguing as we saw Stiles starting to succumb to things and not being himself. He’s been the rock of the series in that he’s the normal guy in an un-normal situation while being able to cope with it. But that’s all changing and now his storyline is starting to take center stage as he’s gone missing and the calls he’s made to Scott has lead to quite the panic since Stiles certainly doesn’t sound right and desperately needs help, something that we really haven’t heard from him before.
That gets us a small but tight group to start figuring this out as Scott brings Isaac on quickly and they end up at Stiles where they end up coming across Lydia and Aiden, as Lydia managed to hear him out through her abilities. Stiles’ place is pretty intriguing with the way his mind is working these days and what he has set up in his room, but the group rightly knows that it’s something to be dealt with later since the first job is to find out where he is since the night is not going to be friendly to him. And we get a good glimpse of that when we catch up with him in the basement that he’s in, where he’s injured and in some serious pain in the dark with only his phone to help. But he’s not exactly alone as there’s something else in there scrawling things in chalk on the walls which will start to make sense to Stiles as time goes on.
The search is one that goes pretty well when you get down to it as the way people come together hits all the right spots as they each hit different areas and connect with the right people. It’s definitely good to see how Scott does do the right thing and informs the Sheriff about what’s going on and we get another solid moment with him and Derek as he teaches Scott a bit more about his senses and how to read it. But the fascinating part comes from Lydia as she’s getting more in tune with her abilities. With her and Aiden back at Stiles’ house, he ends up plucking one of the strings lightly and that sets something off for her where she can hear voices. It’s like playing an instrument in a way as just a few pulls gets her some disturbing voices that only she can hear and the real lead on where he actually is, which is pretty creepy when you get down to it since it puts us into contact with a pretty run down and history filled mental institution place.
The search goes in a lot of different directions and touches on a lot of different people as it progresses and it’s intriguing to see how some of them interact with it, particularly Scott’s father by his surprise and Stiles’ father when he gets so intense over it and realizes he may lose his son and takes it out a bit on Lydia. Who herself is freaking out because she thought she had the right place early on but it proved to not be quite what it was. What’s interesting with Lydia is the way she’s able to hear so many things but it’s very difficult for her to really figure out what it is that’s going on, but she can’t help but to be drawn on it. With time going on though, it’s becoming more and more difficult for it all to be dealt with. While Stiles is found, that’s just the precursor to the larger issues at play since something is obviously going on within the town.
The neat turn that comes is that Derek starts to grasp a bit of what’s going on and actively works with Kira to try and figure it out as it goes back to when Kira was being held by Barrow and things went wonky there. Which included Stiles’ baseball bat being magnetized, which could explain some of what’s going on with his head. That investigation is a nice parallel to what Stiles is going through since the two of them do realize that what happened is what’s cased Stiles to not be himself. Watching what Stiles is going through is definitely difficult to watch since he has fears of history coming back to him with the kind of dementia he may have. And to make matters worse, seeing and hearing what he’s dealing with is played against Lydia as well due to her connections with him and with sound itself, which is close to driving her nuts as well. Of course, Stiles descent into madness is definitely going into full motion here with what he has inside him, which is causing a good bit of atrophy in his head that the doctors are seeing. But the clues are there that the others may be able to bring out in time to try and save him of course.
In Summary:
Teen Wolf doesn’t exactly go for something complicated here but it does go for convoluted in its attempts to get to the point, which of course is all revealed in the final minutes. Stiles has had a weaker role in the first half of the third season, so seeing him take more center stage here for this half of it and for it to become realized here in this episode definitely works nicely. We get a lot of little moments throughout, but the highlights for me continues to be watching Lydia cope with what she’s going through and the whole Derek and Kira interactions, as well as Kira’s final moments here. But there’s also the big plus that Stiles really does shine as he copes with so much here and takes on a new personality as it progresses that I’m looking forward to seeing whether he can chew the scenery well, especially as his real opponent is now revealed.
Grade: B+
