What They Say:
Perishable – Scott and Liam are tageted by an assassin during the lacrosse team’s annual bonfire; Lydia discovers a family secret.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The mix of stories going on with the season have been a bit uneven, but the thing that continues to work best for me is the focus on the characters we have rather than trying to include a lot more. Malia continues to be a favorite but I’m disappointed that Kira isn’t being used better, but not surprised since she was a dominating factor in the second half of the third season. We’ve had some good stuff from the new players and have seen Peter continue his role of background badass. The dead pool has been a fun component of the season along with the bigger view of the world that we’ve been getting and I’m liking that we’re finally getting a little more information about what Lydia really is and her being a bit more focused on her abilities.
This episode gives us some dark stuff with the dead pool from the start as we see that officer Haigh has gone and discovered that Parrish is on the list and has executed his plan to acquire the five million that he’s worth. Burning him in his patrol car while unconscious certainly works, but Parrish wakes up first, but not in time to stop things. It’s easy to imagine Parrish it out of the picture at this point, but he’s worth a lot of money and that means there’s more to him than meets the eye. So when he comes strolling into the station the next day, naked but burned, seeing him taking down Haigh makes a lot of sense. Parrish does want answers and while we don’t get any right away, Parrish does think that some of the others like Scott are like Lydia, psychic. The revelation of the truth certainly makes an impression on him.
What makes an impression on Stiles though is that his father got shot in what Haigh and Parrish was fighting about and that’s landed his dad back in the hospital again. Which means that the insurance side of things is causing more problems for the family since the money issues have been piling up since the third season with what Stiles has been forced through with everything. There’s some good tension between the two that goes on with this and their relationship is given a nice nod here, one of the better father and son ones of many shows out there because it has a kind of honesty about it that works on both their parts. The sheriff is one of those rare adults in shows like this that’s just as interesting and integral to the show in a way that you couldn’t imagine based on the first season appearances.
Lydia’s back story is something that’s explored a bit here as we get her talking about her grandmother, the experiences she had in the past that brought Meredith into the picture, but also some curious explorations of Lydia’s power and how she’s able to understand things and bring it to life. Revealing that her grandmother was a banshee as well was certainly an interesting twist, but not a surprise as there’s often some kind of connection there that carries down the family line. Though we don’t see much of the grandmother herself, we get to see the things that she had done over the years to try and figure it all out with what went on at the lake house, which culminated in the arrival of Meredith there eventually, and what she discovered in the house. It’s a pretty dark story, but one that also ties to the dead pool as the messages she left at the lake house are identical to what the dead pool code is. And that puts a new spin on things.
While a lot of things are in motion, the show also gives us some fun at school as the lacrosse season is about to kick off and that means the start of the season bonfire. Liam’s not intent on going, but he’s panicking over seeing the berserker in school and ends up accepting that he’s going to go since his friend has prodded him into it. Scott actually gets to be a pretty good older student here, and a pack leader, as he works to help Liam through some of his fears but also the fact that he’s now got a weird situation that went on at home with his printer providing a lot of information on the dead pool. Which is also now showing up on the school printers a bit among others. The whole thing is becoming more public and getting ready to cause more trouble. The list that’s printing has some new data on it as Derek is off of it and Liam has shot up from three million to eighteen million. That’s worth panicking about.
The bonfire event has a few things going on there, which moves a few minor things along nicely, as we see Malia doing her best to get drunk, which she shouldn’t be able to do considering what she is. Liam is ending up the same way, which means someone is using the drinking that the kids are doing as a way to figure out who is more than they seem. But there’s something more to it as Scott himself starts to succumb after not having anything to drink. Initially you could think it was the bonfire, but it’s actually the music which is an interesting change of pace for an attack on those on the list. The sonic attack works nicely here as part of the larger plan and it doesn’t take long for all three to be rounded up for quite the new bonfire that’s being planned so they can earn their money. That it doesn’t go as planned is no surprise and we do get another assassin of the week angle, but it’s one that helps to bring a few things into focus, especially as both Derek and Braeden are there to help as well.
Stiles and Lydia’s attempts at figuring out the names on the list that they got from the next cipher has them going back to Eichen house again to go through the records, but the guy there that Stiles has had to deal with for awhile, Brunski, is actually one of those involved in the whole dead pool. That puts Stiles and Lydia in a bad spot since they’re easily overpowered and he has a connection to Lydia’s past in that he helped her grandmother end her life. He’s a bit twisted but still thinks what he’s doing is providing release for people that can’t get it any other way. This does, in the end, provide a potential game changing moment for Lydia as things fall into place for her and you get to see a kind of seriousness of expression that I don’t think we’ve seen from her before.
In Summary:
With a last minute twist that reveals the Benefactor at last, one that has you scrambling to try and figure out from past episodes how it all actually works, Teen Wolf makes a decent bit of overall progress in this episode with a few things. While I’m disappointed at the lack of Kira and dislike that current distance between Malia and Stiles, there’s some good revelations made with what Lydia’s family past. The assassin of the week aspect is weak, but it works well enough to provide for some action and a bringing together of a few characters. I also really liked what we got with Parrish as that does, in the end, ask more questions than provide answers but that’s a given in general. I just really want these answers in order to see what it all means. The show continues to move well and keeps me really pleased with it.
Grade: B+
