Wherein our longstanding cast is shown up repeatedly by the smaller players.
What They Say:
The Beast of Beacon Hills – Now that the Beast’s identity is known, Scott and the others race against time to stop the Dread Doctors.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As we race to the end of an utterly dispiriting season, the show provided an exciting and arguably the best episode of that season last time around. And the bulk of it that worked didn’t involve the main cast at all but instead focused on some backstory about the first of the Hunters, allowing Crystal Reed to come back in a fun way. We had some decent stuff in the present but it was mostly chase material while trying to discover the identity of the beast in said present while also garnering his identity in the past. The combination of the two isn’t a bad thing to get done here but the material in the present was just weak because so much of the season has been so, right down to the reveal of who is truly the beast that’s about to lose his identity to the original beast.
Now that the Dread Doctors know who they’re after it doesn’t take long for them to take possession of him since there’s no actual defense against them. They’re pretty much the vague villains who are unstoppable so the attempts to stop them are pointless. It’s not a bad cold open in the sense that it has some nice stylish moments with the setting and all that it entails, but when I’ve found Mason to be such a third level supporting character this season, similar to most of the chimera that we’ve had to deal with, he simply doesn’t resonate – nor the chimera that tries to keep him safe since he cares about him. The problems of the season are certainly coming home to roost since it’s been difficult to get behind any of these characters that have been set as the villains. And that includes Theo, who is going through is own foolish shenanigans with Deucalian and the mask that they have.
With this being the penultimate episode of the season, we do get a range of subplots moving towards bigger moments. Kira’s doing her work to get in the game, though I like that she admits to her father that balance is what she doesn’t need now to save Mason and go against the beast. And that she has a lengthy life ahead of her to work towards balance rather than rush into as a teenager. Her work to repair her sword is a minor thing here overall, but it’s one that I liked watching play out. And that’s definitely in contrast to the terrible subplot involving Deucalian working his scenes with Theo to turn him more to his side through creative ways while eliminating the competition. Deucalian has plenty of history and plenty of things he wants to do in this life so seeing him utilize others like the tools they are to him makes perfect sense. But it still doesn’t make him interesting, which was one of the problems with his arc the previous season.
The only thing less interesting than Deucalian is Theo, who gets pushed into wearing the mask in order to truly claim his position at Deucalian’s urging. He’s working his master plan here and does provide the right kind of threat, but it’s just another layer of opponent here that simply doesn’t click on top of the other layers. And to make matters worse, they break all of this up with some even less interesting material regarding Malia and her struggle with the Desert Wolf. Said Desert Wolf is looking to deal with her daughter by taking down Stiles, who is at the sheriff’s office while Malia and Braeden are protected by Mountain Ash at Scott’s house. While it may play a larger role as we hit the finale, it’s such an utterly boring subplot that complicates an already awkward season that I just want to throttle everyone involved. And considering the Malia/Stiles story last season was a big highlight for me, this just makes me sad that it’s where it is now.
The second half of the episode works towards building to a bigger moment, especially as Scott, Theo and Liam make their way to where Mason is being held by the Dread Doctors. It’s a moment where there’re hints of what’s going on and some fleshing out elsewhere, such as an eye-roll inducing reveal about Mason’s in utero time years ago. While Scott and Liam are working with Theo at the moment simply because he’s useful and they don’t trust him, Theo is certainly playing his bigger game here and is being pushed by the Dread Doctors who are calling him a useful but failed project. We get a fairly standard action sequence here that doesn’t inspire, especially when it comes to Mason standing tall for himself to protect Liam, who is getting taken down by the Dread Doctors. Of course, all it does is serve to finish the transformation of Mason as he loses himself to the Beast that takes over. They play it with as big of an epic feel as they can and it works on a basic level, but the resonance problem of the season continues to just undercut everything.
In Summary:
Teen Wolf continues to be hugely unfocused in what it wants to do with so many players in the midst and even more of the throwing them to the wind at times. Kira once again gets the short end of the stick as she heads off to spend time repairing her sword so she can swoop in to briefly help out in the finale – hopefully. While I like her sequence overall it’s still just another separation subplot. The show is definitely hitting all the right beats to feel like a solid penultimate episode to the season with so many things going on but it’s doing it with a series of opponents that are just mind-numbingly dull. My expectations certainly weren’t high as we get near the end here and the show works about as I expected with a lot of things hitting the wall, sometimes literally, and little of it sticking because of the terrible foundations of the season.
Grade: B-
