A new twist enters the picture as the Dread Doctors focus on a new subject.
What They Say:
Strange Frequencies – Scott’s plans to protect the newest victim are derailed when the Dread Doctors attack.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With an episode that focused on some internal issues a bit as the gang attempted to read the Dread Doctors book, we had some good sequences overall even if I didn’t care for the way it tried to pull things together with past and present mingling a bit. While we had some good things going on with Kira and what we learned about her and some general action aspects itself, the downside is that Malia is once again sidelined when she should be one of the more outgoing characters. Exploring some of the characters pasts in a new light, especially with Scott and Lydia, helped to bring a bit more to the forefront for them. It’s nothing that felt like it was contradicting past material so it was easy enough to add to the overall narrative for each of them.
This episode lets Stiles deal with Theo and the dead werewolf they have now, something which necessitates that they work together for the moment since the cops are coming. Surprisingly, the more interesting part is what follows as Liam does his best to try and get Hayden at the club to realize that there’s something different about her related to the Dread Doctors. She’s not interested in listening to him of course, so when he transforms a bit in front of her to try and convince her, she hilariously punches him in the nose as a perfect reaction. That puts her on the run, but since she’s starting to change herself now with more knowledge, it’s time for the Dread Doctors to come for her. And that’s a frightening moment in a good way, one that even lets Liam look good here as he attempts to rescue her from them.
While Scott and the others deal with Hayden becoming a werewolf herself as part of her chimera side, events with Kira are definitely starting to take shape more. While she’s at the school later helping her father with some things, she ends up being attacked by her mother as part of the surprise training. Or at least that’s what we see at first as it’s more that she’s trying to draw out the fox inside of Kira, and to get Kira to realize that it’s taking a dominating effect on her. It’s well choreographed overall and it has some fun moments that put Kira through her paces, but what works is that Kira gets so into it as the fox takes more control that she almost ends up killing her mother without realizing it. They’re taking the slow approach overall with this storyline, but it’s slowly coming together. Which naturally means a little flashback montage to all the good stuff between her and Scott has to be brought out, just to make it clear that there’s something to lose here.
With the first half working through a good bit of setup for what’s to come, events move where Scott and his group make camp at the school with jammers in order to try and use Hayden as bait and to capture a Dread Doctor. At the same time, Stiles is stuck with Theo as they watch to see who will come for Josh’s body that they’re holding at Deaton’s. That provides a little background for Theo as he tries to get closer to Stiles and become his friend, but we’re just given such clear evidence that he’s not what he seems that it’s hard to take him for the most part. Especially since Stiles distrusts him too in a big way and you hope that he really doesn’t loosen that resolve considering all the little pieces of it all that are in play here.
When the Dread Doctors finally do make their play in order to reclaim Hayden, they put in some good psychological material, first with some make-out time for Parrish with the hallucination of Lydia that goes in bad ways, and then with Malia defending the school only to be taken down by traps that appear out of the ground. It’s made up of some good sequences even if the overall plan here is one that’s simple in the face of the unknown, which is what’s really driving Scott nuts at this point. They’re losing people in town to the Dread Doctors and they don’t even know what the game is that’s being played. And it only gets worse for them as both Scott and Lydia fall prey to what Parrish and Malia did, these also in grisly ways. Scott envisioning that it’s Kira that would kill him while Lydia goes the extra distance in believing that Tracy has come back to life only to tear Lydia’s tongue out of her mouth with ease. The incursion may not accomplish a lot at the moment, but it makes for some good tension and it lets the focus turn more towards Hayden and Liam as everyone else gets taken out. And Liam certainly needs to step up in this series.
In Summary:
While a mysterious opponent can make for challenging villains for our heroes, there’s also the problem of drawing out too far what it is they’re after. Seven episodes into this season and we’re none the wiser with what they’re actually after. Other fans have dropped off earlier because of that, but it looks like we’re closer to getting an idea of the truth of it now that Hayden and Liam have been taken to their lair. I continue to like pieces of what’s going on here, such as some of the hallucinations that they go through and some of the blatant meanings of it all. Mostly at this stage the series is starting to feel draining when it comes to the larger narrative. We’re getting closer as we see Stilinsky and Scott’s mother getting closer to some answers as well as others, but it’s getting to be too late in a lot of ways in order to make it a compelling piece overall.
Grade: B
