Too much dread, not enough good engagement.
What They Say:
Lies of Omission – Scott turns to an unlikely ally for help; Stiles and Lydia search for the truth about Parrish.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Teen Wolf has had a rough season in a lot of ways with its uneven approach while having some decent core ideas to work with. I’ve been hoping that those ideas would take hold in a good way but as it’s progressed I’ve lost faith a good deal. The ideas of working with the potential of loss with the senior year of high school and what the future holds is one that certainly can be exploited in a good way but it’s been very superficial and limited overall. What’s made that even worse is that as we get a good concept for the villains of the season with The Dread Doctors by being something completely different the execution has been terrible. Here at the penultimate episode of the first half of the season before its break we still really haven’t a clue as to their goals. It’s kept things small and personal in a way with the chimeras put into play, but it’s not been terribly engaging overall.
At this stage of the game, there’s still this sense of uncertainty about things because of what’s going on and who is seeing what. Stiles doesn’t want to talk to Parrish – even though they know Parrish is the one taking the bodies – because of what Stiles did in the school that lead to one of the chimeras getting killed. Stiles is struggling with it because he’s keeping it a secret of course and hiding that from Lydia and Scott isn’t easy. He’s not hiding it from his girlfriend, Malia, because the two are almost never together this season. Add in that Stiles is starting to see things and it just gets even creepier in general, though knowing some of his active imagination aspects it’s not a surprise that he’s like this. Especially after the time he’s spent at Eichen House.
Also creepy is the tone in the school as most of the student body is acting very somber and almost listless in a way. They’re going about their classes and doing what needs to be done, but they’re also not making eye contact for the most part and they have this sense of dread about them. With the things that Beacon Hills students have faced so far it’s no surprise that they’ll be kind of keyed to the tone of the world to some degree but this kind of just takes it up a few notches. What it does allow is for Scott to be keyed into it as well and that has him providing the narration at the start about all of it, which ties into the way he’s feeling about his disconnect from everything at this point. And every time he has to use his inhaler it just comes back to him in a big way, adding to his own uncertainty. The group knows they’re stronger together, but they’re also dealing with the pressures of growing up more and the way secrets become a bit more important.
The first half of the episode works through these themes to a degree – and sets Lydia on the road with Parrish to find the Nemeton in hopes that he’ll subconsciously remember where it is. But it also kicks things up a bit with the chimera experiments out there as more of them are starting to surface and come apart at the seams, leaving a number of bodies flowing with mercury coming out of them. All these failures are also drawing the attention of The Dread Doctors as they continue to eliminate them once and for all. It’s done decently enough and the incident at the hospital plays well as a race against time with Scott and Theo trying to find him but naturally coming too late. That turns all the focus on Hayden at that point, hence her being given more time than usual earlier on in the season.
What’s frustrating is that there are things happening without rhyme or reason at this point, at least from the point of the viewer. While we still don’t know what The Dread Doctors reasons for all of this are, we know that they’re after Hayden next. That has Scott and Liam doing their best to protect her from the one that shows up to collect her, but they take quite the beating overall – to no surprise. Playing it out in the silly club is all the more silly with its visuals of a fight on the screen that at times mimics what’s happening in the actual room but it proves to be more distracting than stylish when you get down to it. What’s even more annoying is the fake fighting that Theo gets to do with the Doctors since you know he’s playing for the other side but that they’re not really caring much for him at this point. It’s designed to make you feel a bit more sympathetic towards him as he’s caught up in larger actions, but none of it connects well.
In Summary:
Teen Wolf sets things up for the mid-season finale – which won’t bring this arc to a close but rather flow into the second half when it hits later. That’s a mixed bag in a lot of ways and it doesn’t exactly get you excited for what’s to come. The show nudges things forward a bit more with Parrish and understanding what he is and we also get a bit more of the rift opening up between Scott and Stiles into the foreground – serving as bookends to the episode rather than the meat of it. The episode has some decent action to it, some nice visuals and a sense of dread about what’s to come, but it also falls into the usual traps. There doesn’t feel like there’s anything here of note once again, though what Hayden is going through is the big piece of it because she’s being put into a position where she’ll feed the Dread Doctor’s goals. Mostly, at this point, it’s hard to like any of the cast as nobody is acting much like themselves, the story feels shallow at best and it’s becoming a show I dread instead of adore like I did before.
Grade: C
