What They Say:
The Dark Moon – When one of their friends goes missing, Scott and the pack travel into Mexico on a search and rescue mission.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Teen Wolf had a length third season that had a good split in half but it also proved to have some difficult material to work with, especially in the second half of the season with what it wanted to do. It definitely challenged itself in that regard and it gave Stiles a lot of material to work with, but it’s the kind of material that worked better when watched in full rather than weekly. As we got some new characters brought in that upped the game and what it could do in terms of changing the dynamic, we also got some losses along the way, including the very difficult one with Allison being killed off as the actress wanted to move on to other projects. That definitely makes an impact on Scott as even though the two broke up and had been done, you always held out that hope that they’d get back together in the way that some couples always seem destined to do.
With this new fourth season, which is running at half the length of the third season and arriving much quicker than I expected, it has a lot of fallout to deal with from what came before. Especially when it comes to Derek and the trouble he caused, which has Lydia and Stiles tracking him down to where they think he is in Mexico in order to confront the people that may be protecting him. It’s a nice bit of style that’s played out here as the two of them work well, but it also hits a sweet note as we see the other members of the group making their way through the club, and reminding us that Scott is most assuredly an Alpha now and showing it off. Bringing in Malia is definitely a plus as she has an interesting vibe to her, but I’m still really interested in seeing how Kira handles taking on an important role here as someone very close to Scott. Of course, we see some of her awkward nature at the start here as she’s really bad at dancing. At least until she and Malia really go at it with everyone falling for it.
It’s a cheap and easy thing to do and I can be kind of frustrated by them doing it, but, well, it works. Oh does it work, especially since it lets us see Kira loosening up a bit and having some real fun and enjoying the attention. Both of them also balance it with some power and ability as well as once the usual round of goons make their move, both easily handle what’s thrown at them and Scott gets to show off a little as well, though it’s not an area where they’re each protecting each other but rather just doing what needs to be done. Teen Wolf has given us strong women from the start, vulnerable and human women, but women that play just as strong as the men, if not more so in many ways. Scott’s team is definitely a little more female heavy this time around though as it’s basically him and Stiles as the only guys, at least at the moment.
With the group having found clues before that Derek may have been taken by a group known as the Calaveras, seeing them make an attempt on these Hunters with a whole lot of experience is definitely interesting since themselves have gone through a lot. But Scott is admittedly a relatively new Alpha and that has its own learning curve as well. But there are differences to how things normally go down since Scott’s pack is definitely unlike what most others are since he’s got Stiles, which is a huge help, and obviously Kira has her own abilities, but there’s also Lydia and her special skills that come into play pretty well. It’s definitely interesting watching this dynamic play out as the group deals with events that don’t go the way they want, especially when it turns out that the Calaveras’ head Hunter is interested far more in Lydia than anyone else since Banshees are pretty rare.
What becomes interesting even more so as it goes on is that as the group is captured and we see how Scott is tortured by them, pretty intensely, we see how it’s a real challenge for Kira to watch play out because she doesn’t have the lengthy experience with Scott that Stiles and Lydia do. Not that they’d let it go on as long themselves, but it’s definitely fun to see how she really is uncertain about what he’s going through. But it all leads to Scott cutting loose with what he understands is truly going on with Derek, which in turn leads to the reveal that Kate Argent is out there and involved in all of this somehow. Bringing her back is not a surprise considering her own hatred towards Derek for past events, and her own general popularity through the after show where the actress has been hosting it for a bit, and it’s generally a good callback to the first season where we did see that people would fall along the way. Coming back to life is admittedly not a surprise, though I’m always hopeful for the dead = dead angle to really be enforced, but with shows like this you have to have a little give and take. And someone like Kate is definitely a kind of spoiler in the zone with how she’ll interact with everyone.
All of this works to the Cavaleras advantage as everything they did was towards the goal of pointing Scott towards Kate since they’ve been unable to deal with her. There’s some interesting threats made here, but it has the quirk of them sending a guide with Scott and the others as well since she really wants to make sure it’s all dealt with. Of course, the guide is Braeden, which brings back a mercenary we haven’t seen for a bit who has her own fun bit of badass style. While I would have liked to have had a bit more time early on with Beacon Hills material, there’s a really big fun road trip kind of feeling to all of this. Especially since we get a bit of backstory here with who Kate is since half the group has no clue about her and they need to suss out exactly how she could still be alive. And with there being a lot of involved history over the years when it comes to the Argent’s and Peter’s family, a little recap isn’t a bad thing.
Breaking up the group for a bit isn’t bad either as events force Scott to go with just Braeden for a bit to an abandoned town that was leveled in an earthquake. All that survived was the church, which is amusing because as Braeden reveals, it’s on top of an aztec temple that was home to were-jaguars from way, way back in the day. That’s not ominous at all, right? The final act works nicely as we see Braeden and Scott going through the underlayer of the church to see what they can find while Stiles and the others deal with the broken down jeep quite a few miles away while being stalked by something mysterious out there in the night of the wilderness that wants them. While that doesn’t get explored all that much, what Scott’s dealing with is given plenty of creepy moments as it attacks and we see an insect like feeling to it that’s pretty disturbing and creepy as it plays out. What it’s protecting is the most interesting though, at least that’s the tease we’re given rather than shown which is hugely frustrating in the final minutes until we get that single, beautiful sequence as we see what’s become of Derek.
In Summary:
Teen Wolf could have spent its time mired in coping with the events of the third season but what they do here instead is a bit disconcerting at first but for the best. Shifting gears to a Derek search and rescue mission by tracking him down in Mexico and dealing with the larger world that has its ties to what we’ve seen before, it gives us the expansion we need and introduces some ideas that could be a lot of fun this season. For me, right now the big appealing material is seeing how Kira fits into this new group and her relationship with Scott that’s still not quite a relationship and seeing how Malia factors in as well. She’s definitely got an interesting personality, especially when dealing with Stiles and how that impacts other things, but she has a really unpredictable element that could be a lot of fun. The series has not disappointed in its first three seasons and I’m excited to see how it’ll tackle the challenges of this season.
Grade: B+
