What They Say:
The Fox and the Wolf – An important clue is revealed in the story of a World War II Internment camp; Kira’s role is more crucial and she discovers unusual abilities.
The Review:
Teen Wolf did some interesting things in the previous episode with its heavy focus on Stiles, much needed after the first half of the season didn’t utilize him much, but it was a piece that left me a little less than enthused for it. While we had a few subplot pieces running through it from other stories going on with the rest of the cast, the bulk of it focuses on Stiles in Eichen House working through portions of his issues, his seeming madness and the fact that he’s being pressured carefully and heavily to give in to the Nogitsune that wants to control him. It worked well enough but it was the kind of episode where the bulk of the reveals and truly important information came in the last couple of minutes. Luckily, Dylan O’Brien pulled it off and made it interesting just through his portrayal of the character, but there wasn’t a lot of meat to the episode but plenty of drama.
With this episode, back story is again an important piece of the puzzle as we get time material that goes back to 1943 as it deals with one of the many dark times in our countries history with the internment of Japanese-Americans. With some soldiers bringing out the dead to the countryside in the dark of night, we see how they were set to burn the bodies and hide what was done, but the arrival of the Nogitsune makes for some good old time terrifying moments. Especially the amusement of the way the riddles are turned around on the perpetrators. While it’s not an unacknowledged piece of history, it is one that doesn’t appear in a lot of entertainment programs since, like slavery, it’s a hard piece to really make work without potentially offending someone. But with the ties to the past her with Kira’s mother and what she potentially represents as one of the few left of her kind, it’s an interesting scenario to work with that doesn’t feel like it’s pandering but rather showing a light on it for the audience that may not be aware.
Interestingly, with Stiles out of the Echo House, his first stop is to visit Kira’s father, which he uses the moment to try and get a little information out of him before taking him out with a bug. That brings everyone running later on though, with Noshiko doing what’s needed to save her husband with some reishi, an amusing moment where Kira can’t understand why she’d do something so weird. But it also opens Noshiko up to talking some as we learn that she’s well over 90 years old now, having been involved in the internment camp. That starts to expose more of what she is, but there’s also a sense of trust and necessity to it as she talks to Scott and Kira about this with the details of the internment camp and the origin of the nogitsune with Noshiko’s role in it. It’s not exactly a surprise, but getting it all starting to be tied together in this way works pretty well since it once again makes the parents a useful component of the show rather than just another oblivious cog.
There’s also the amusing aspect where as Noshiko tells them of her past in the camp, she also makes it clear that she has a hard time trusting Scott since he’s a wolf. Wolves and foxes tend to not get along, she says, and that’s a cute little moment that definitely works well to paint the right picture of her hesitation, one based in a lot of reality and history. While we get these little tidbits about her past and how she survived in the camp, we get some revelations in the present as Argent and Derek are being processed out as the charges have been dropped. There’s fun there with what Argent has on hand, but we also get Stilinsky being very upfront with them privately that he really needs their help to deal with Stiles. The revelation that the nogitsune is playing a trick on him by mimicking the disease that his mother had and placing it in him, that just pisses Stilinsky off and there’s a great kind of seriousness that comes from it that you can totally understand how Derek and Argent find themselves easily willing to stand with him.
The story in the past has a few basic layers to it as we see how those in the camp were getting sick, Noshiko had a romance with one of the soldiers in secret and the eventual riot that happened when it was discovered that the reason they were all dying was because the camp doctor was selling the medications on the black market. It was a basic recipe for disaster that went wildly out of control and in the midst of it, Noshiko discovered that one of those in there with her was a bitten werewolf. And that werwolf ended up causing Noshiko’s lover to be the first one killed in the riot, earning her quite the distaste towards werewolves ever since. It’s hard to call it a good story, but we see some of what makes Noshiko who she is, why she’s protective like she is and her uncertainty towards Scott that has her willing to put Stiles on the line in order to deal with the larger threat that is the nogitsune that ends up becoming a factor in the events from 1943.
All of this circles us back to the beginning of the episode which gave birth to the nogitsune that came from Noshiko’s body and her grief amid the fight to survive. What becomes tragic is that we see how her love and her pain formed the nogitsune right through her lovers body and became something dark, disturbing and oh so dangerous in order to carry out revenge for what was done to so many people. It’s completely understandable that she would make the prayer that she did, the hope for revenge while she was feeling her own life slip away, but she also didn’t remember that a fox spirit like this is not one to play by the rules, instead taking on its own form through Rhys’ body. Which is doubly tragic for Noshiko to watch happen, to see what he had become.
The sprawling tragedy definitely connects well to events in the present, especially with Eichen House, and seeing so many people fall to the nogitsune and its hunger hits the right spots. But we also get to see Noshiko take up her blade and fight, which has its own curious turn as well that reveals more about her blade and the pieces that she’s held onto for all these years. There’s a lot of power in the imagery that’s used here and Noshiko definitely provides something in the series that lets her stand out in a strong way that doesn’t happen in a lot of series like this. For Kira, it’s all a lot to take in, especially her mother’s true age, but it also starts Kira down the path of realizing who she is as well and what kind of kitsune clan member she can become. Though forged in a different way than her mother, it has its own sense of beauty that really drives Kira into a character that you want to know a lot more about.
In Summary:
Teen Wolf has surprised across its three seasons so far and spending time in the past isn’t exactly unusual for it. But it takes the path here of giving us an episode that focuses on the origin of the enemy that doesn’t involve any of the main players in the present. Using Kira’s mother as the focal point is very surprising since we’re just only now getting to know Kira. Noshiko’s tale is very well executed in a simple way as it has the hallmarks of the right kind of semi-nostalgic view from Noshiko, one cast in a light of severe pain. What I really like is that we get the motif of history repeating talked about several times and it all comes down to that at the end as Kira is working with Scott, has the newly forged blade and realizes there is something far more about herself than she ever could realize. And with the show having an even deeper connection to events in Beacon Hills, Noshiko becomes a far more integral player than one could ever realize.
Grade: A
