A few new reveals.
What They Say:
The Last Chimera – Scott and Stiles try to learn what is behind the mysterious infection that’s killing the town sheriff.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With four and a half season of the series behind us so far, I can definitely say that I’ve had a lot of fun with the show. Part of the appeal is in how it handled the cast changes and the characters growing up a bit while also expanding the world. The fifth season kicked off with some interesting ideas and some fantastic moments of execution for the horror side, but a lot of it has just felt weak with what it’s doing while also not giving us compelling opponents to deal with. The season has been difficult enough at times, especially with some characters getting greatly reduced or ineffective roles, that I’m not quite sure how far I’ll carry on with the series. I’ll finish out the fifth season but it really needs to step up for me to considering giving the already greenlit sixth season a shot.
The cold open for the episode is one that does some decent catch-up for us as we learn why Theo wanted his sister dead so that he could get her heart, to become a genetic chimera of sorts. It’s done in an interesting way with Valack amplifying Lydia’s powers so that she can see the past and what happened while being sort of involved in it. It does try to boil things down a bit in the why of Theo trying to figure out who the last chimera is since they’re the one that’s essentially the best of the best, which is what he’s truly after, but as we noted throughout the first half of the season it’s been an issue where we haven’t really found a reason to care. That’s still mostly a problem here, but streamlining things a bit from the get go isn’t a bad thing.
The state of the show is one where there’s plenty of bad things going down and the usual bits of Scott and Stiles trying to keep everyone away to protect them. With the sheriff heavily wounded and in the hospital, Stiles is in a panic about that. Scott wants to be there but he’s in recovery mode from his own recent fight where he nearly got disemboweled and is certainly very frustrated by how that played out and how he’s feeling. And amid all of this, we get Parrish having another dream sequence about Lydia that doesn’t involve things going as he might want, instead reinforcing his position as some sort of harbinger of death. And all he knows is that Lydia is in a bad place and may not survive what’s coming. Suffice to say, it’s the usual craziness in Beacon Hills, which normally works well but is under some strain here after a half season of the Dread Doctors.
While the episode opens fairly strong in reminding us where we’re at with things and bringing it all into focus, it again meanders in the middle. Stiles and Scott are still somewhat on the outs as Theo has put a whole lot of manipulation in play since his return to Beacon Hills and that’s proving difficult for Stiles to work through because his father’s life is on the line. Finding Theo is what’s needed to try and ensure Stilinski stays alive as he’s certainly not healing right after making it through the surgeries. We’ve seen Scott and Stiles at odds before, intensely so, so this isn’t anything new, but it does feel like it has a little more impact and weight now that they’re a bit older. Scott’s reminder of what they’ve faced before and how they’ve survived it all by working together is a familiar line, but again, it works within the style of the show.
The variety of events works well, getting a little time with Liam and Mason as they try to find Hayden as well as the other chimera, which leads them into its own potentially interesting trap. I liked the material with Hayden the last time around, weird as it was, so I’m curious to see if they can recapture aspects of it. I also like that we get some time with Liam’s father trying to figure out what’s going on in Beacon Hills from Melissa because she never seems fazed by anything. But the winning moment for me was the arrival of Argent at a key time as Scott and the others save Noah from the Dread Doctors but end up trapped. It’s not a huge sequence, but it’s welcome to have him back even briefly. And in tried and true tradition of the series, the big moments are all mostly kept to the final couple of minutes, but they drive it home a bit more this time around with some solidly emotional material as well.
In Summary:
The second half of the fifth season moves right along here and there’s no real pause for breath when you get down to it. Though there are a few quiet moments from time to time in order to establish some of the emotional beats, the show mostly just keeps moving forward and dealing with what it throws at the characters while they try and figure out how to save Stilinski from what’s killing him. I like aspects of it with what it wants to do and that there is a bigger than life feeling about a lot of it, but the show has a lot to recover from after its meandering and less than engaging first half. It also doesn’t help that once again the Dread Doctors are just this lurking evil in the background that are done to look cool but have little real impact at the moment. I’m curious to see just what they’ll do throughout the rest of this season, though, and hope for it to really start feeling like it’s actually doing something rather than just spinning its wheels.
Grade: B-
