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LAST SEASON ON TEEN WOLF:
In order to find and save their parents from an evil dark druid (the Darach), Scott McCall (werewolf), Stiles Stilinski (human), and Allison Argent (WEREWOLF HUNTER) took a chilly ice bath and acted as surrogate human sacrifices.
The act wasn’t without a cost: sacrificing themselves gave power back to the Nemeton (basically a magical tree stump, less basically an ancient oak tree where druids used to gather). The Nemeton acts as a beacon, and will start drawing more supernatural creatures to Beacon Hills. The sacrifice will also have an effect on the three teens, surrounding their hearts with darkness.
Gotta respect the magic tree.
Also, Scott bested a magic force field and went from being a Beta werewolf to a True Alpha.
Pretty weak force field, tbh.
NOW:
Stiles Stilinski is in his bed, having a nightmare. He’s crying, pleading with someone, ‘Don’t let them in.’ In his nightmare, Stiles finds himself trapped in a school locker. He bangs on the door repeatedly until he breaks out into the school locker room.
Stiles walks out of the locker room and down the hall to an open classroom where he finds chairs and tables have been shoved aside to make room for the giant stump of the Nemeton. Stiles reaches out and branches rise from the stump, grabbing his wrist.
Make like a tree and get outta here.
Stiles wakes in his bedroom, breathing heavily. Lydia Martin, Stiles’s long-time crush and now apparent girlfriend (OTP WIN!) wakes beside him to check that he’s okay. Stiles tells her the nightmare was like a dream within a dream. He looks at Lydia and asks her what she’s doing here. The bedroom door creaks open. Lydia tells Stiles not to worry about the door and go back to sleep.
I promise I will kiss your face just forget about the damn door.
Concerned that someone might come in, Stiles gets out of bed and walks towards the door. There’s a weird painting of a black blob next to the door. I don’t know if that’s important or symbolic of the darkness Stiles is feeling but I’m mentioning it in case it is. Lydia is more insistent now, pleading for him to come back to bed, screaming and crying.
Stiles opens the door and walks through it. He emerges on the school lacrosse field and finds the Nemeton waiting for him once more. He tells himself that this is just a dream and screams for himself to wake up.
Stiles wakes in the morning, alone. His dad, Sheriff Stilinski, opens the bedroom door and tells Stiles to get up and get his butt to school. Stiles breathes a sigh of relief.
At school, Stiles tells Scott that he couldn’t wake up from the dream and likens it to sleep paralysis, where you feel like you’re about to wake from a dream but can’t move or talk. Stiles explains that, during REM sleep, your body is basically paralysed so that if you dream about running, you don’t actually start running in your bed. But sometimes your mind can wake up before your body does and for a split second you’re actually aware that your body’s paralysed. It turns dreams into nightmares.
Stiles is worried that acting as surrogate sacrifices for their parents is still affecting them like some kind of post-traumatic stress. Well, vet man Deaton did say that the darkness would be with you for the rest of your lives so I don’t know why you’re surprised.
They take their place in class.
STILES: You wanna know what scares me the most? I’m not even sure this is real.
It’s not. Stiles wakes in his bed during the night, screaming. Sheriff runs in to hold him and calm him down, assuring him that everything’s okay.
Yep. Just peachy.
We have an altered TITLE SEQUENCE, friends! In tribute to Scott’s new Alpha-ness, there are tinges of red everywhere and there is a quick shot of a creepy demon mask instead of Allison scraping mud off herself.
As Scott gets ready for school, he catches a glimpse of his shadow. While his hands are completely normal, his shadow shows werewolf claws. Scott clenches and unclenches his hand a few times until the shadow matches reality.
Me and my shadow.
When he opens the door, Isaac Lahey is waiting for him. I’m assuming Isaac is still living at Casa McCall since Derek Hale (former Alpha hunk) kicked Isaac out of his loft in season 3A and there’s been no real reconciliation. Actually, it was also hinted that Derek was leaving Beacon Hills. But he’s still in the credits so I assume I can look forward to his chiselled-by-baby-angels cheekbones at some point in the near future.
Isaac wants to know if Scott’s mad at him (presumably for his budding romance with Scott’s ex-girlfriend Allison). Scott says he’s not mad but he’s not really sure how he’s feeling. Isaac thinks Scott should hit him. Isaac admits that he wanted to kiss Allison but didn’t act on it.
Scott throws Isaac into a wall, knocking down a picture frame. Mama McCall looks around the corner and tells the two supernatural teenage boys not to test her entirely un-supernatural level of patience. She should probably also call out and tell the boys that Isaac has had enough abuse in his lifetime and Allison is a person and not a prize to be won so throwing anyone around (especially someone who may or may not have a complex wherein they think they deserve to be punished for being happy) is just fucking stupid.
As Stiles packs his school bag, he pauses to stare at a book. The title seems to be written in a completely different language. Sheriff appears at the door to ask if Stiles is all right. When Stiles looks back at the book, the title is in plain English. He assures Sheriff that he’s fine and it was just a nightmare.
Sheriff is carrying a box of files from the office that bear the label Sheriff’s station. Do not remove. He tells Stiles that’s only if you’re not the sheriff.
Allison calls out a goodbye to her father as she runs out the door of their apartment. She hops into the elevator and starts shivering from the cold. The lights of the elevator flicker as the doors open. She’s not on the ground floor of her building but in what looks like the Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital. The whole place has been trashed.
As Allison steps out of the elevator, a phantom Allison flickers in the background, still in the lift.
Yeah, COOL. FLICKERING PHANTOMS. Everyone get ready to scream at whatever horror they inflict on us.
Allison enters the morgue. Lights are flickering and one of the benches is covered in water. The door closes behind her and one of the morgue cabinets pops open. When Allison looks closer, the label on the cabinet reads Kate Argent. That would be Allison’s psycho aunt who died way back in season 1.
After a few short black and white flashbacks to Kate’s death, Allison opens the morgue cabinet. It’s empty and seems to stretch on for miles. Suddenly, Kate starts crawling out of the darkness and towards Allison, screaming.
Like THAT.
Allison slams the cabinet door and runs out of the morgue. She stumbles through the door and finds herself in the high school with no memory of getting there. Lydia sees Allison and asks if she’s okay. Allison nods vigorously and unconvincingly.
Scott parks his motorbike at school. He takes off his helmet and catches a glimpse of his Alpah eyes in the visor reflection, even though we can see his eyes are their normal brown. Scott shakes his head until the glowing eyes in the reflection fade. As he walks to class, Scott sees another wolf-like shadow behind him. It’s the immense shape of an Alpha werewolf.
Damn, shadow. Be cool.
Scott runs from the shadow and right into Stiles. Scott pretends that he’s okay but Stiles isn’t an idiot. He knows Scott is seeing things too. Lydia walks up with Allison and tells the boys that it’s happening to all three of them.
At the station, Sheriff is starting to go through old case files and line weird events up with the full moon. He tacks a picture of a young girl up next to a noted full moon. There’s a brief flashback/glimpse of an overturned car with a prone bloody hand hanging out the window. Sheriff labels the young girl’s photo, calling her Malia Tate.
You have a name before we’ve even met you so you must be important.
At school, Lydia is revelling in no longer being the crazy one in the group.
This is gonna be the best day of my life.
ALLISON: We are not crazy.
LYDIA: Hallucinating, sleep paralysis—yeah, you guys are fine.
SCOTT: Well, we did die and come back to life. It’s got to have some side effects, right?
Right. Because that’s exactly what Deaton told you would happen. Did you just ignore everything he said? He is a very smart man/werewolf emissary, Scott. Pay more attention. As the school bell rings, Stiles tells them to keep an eye on each other. He tells Lydia to stop enjoying this so much.
In History class, we get introduced to the new teacher who apparently is going to be important because he gets a bit of a backstory.
MR YUKIMURA: My family and I moved here three weeks ago. I’m sure by now you all know my daughter, Kira. Or you might not, since she’s never actually mentioned anyone from school or brought home a friend for that matter.
Kira, who’s sitting at the back of the room, drops her head on the desk in shame as her dad points her out.
Please be my friend. I’m adorable.
I like her. So does Scott, who stares for a little longer than everyone else. As Mr Yukimura starts to talk about American history, Scott sees another Alpha shadow on the ground.
In Art, Lydia comments on Allison’s shaking hands. She’s supposed to be a superb marksman but for the last few weeks her hands won’t stop shaking. Allison drops her paintbrush and a splatter of red paint flies across the canvas, reminding her of the way her Aunt Kate’s throat was ripped out. Lydia takes the piece of paper away and tells Allison to start over. Allison does. Over in the corner, Isaac is watching her.
Damn it, Allison. Sit still so I can paint you.
At Stiles’s locker, Scott says they might need a bit more time to get back to normal.
STILES: Yeah, try not to forget we hit the reset button on a supernatural beacon for supernatural creatures. There’s a pretty good chance that things are never going back to normal.
Stiles can’t get his locker open. The numbers on the dial have changed to random symbols that he can’t read.
The intervals are still the same, buddy. You can do this.
Scott’s wolf hearing picks up Kira arguing with Mr Yukimura further down the hallway. Kira wanted to make friends but she didn’t want her dad to embarrass her in front of the whole class.
MR YUKIMURA: You said you wanted to be noticed.
KIRA: I could set myself on fire and be noticed.
MR YUKIMURA: Well, then you’d be dead.
KIRA: Exactly.
Kira looks around and catches Scott’s eye. Scott ducks his head.
Dad, please. I’m trying to be angsty right now.
Stiles is still stumped by his lock. He looks up and notices that Scott’s eyes are starting to glow. Scott can’t seem to control it. Stiles pushes Scott’s head down and ushers him into an empty classroom. Scott pulls off his jacket and tells Stiles to get away. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen. His claws and fangs are coming out.
Scott digs his claws into his own palms, roaring in pain. He sinks to the floor, finished with his wolf attack.
Flexing that hard looks dangerous.
SCOTT: Pain makes you human.
STILES: Scott, this isn’t just in our heads. This is real. It’s starting to get bad for me too. I’m not just having nightmares; I’m having these dreams where I have to literally scream myself awake. And sometimes I’m not even sure if I’m ever actually waking up.
SCOTT: What do you mean?
STILES: You know how you can tell if you’re dreaming? You can’t read in dreams. More and more over the last few days, I’ve been having trouble reading. It’s like I can’t see the words—I can’t put the letters in order.
SCOTT: Like even now?
Stiles looks at the blackboard and the posters around the classroom. He can’t read a thing.
Lydia takes Allison to the woods to practise aiming. She pins a target to a tree and says that if Allison doesn’t think this will help, it definitely won’t. She tries to be supportive. Allison’s first arrow misses the tree by a few feet. The second one misses as well.
Lydia suggests holding the string a different way, using the Mongolian draw (turning the bow slightly on its side, basically). Allison looks at her, for some reason surprised that her incredibly brainy friend has spent any time reading up on shooting technique. She tries the Mongolian draw and misses a third time. Lydia tells Allison to close her eyes and imagine the arrow going into the target.
When Allison opens her eyes, she sees a figure running through the woods in the distance. Lydia didn’t see anything. Allison grabs her quiver and goes to check on it. Because that seems like the most sensible option when you can’t hit a stationary target: go out and try against a moving one.
Allison doesn’t move very far before she loses sight of Lydia. She calls out for her friend. Lydia doesn’t answer; instead, it’s Kate Argent’s voice calling out to Allison.
Allison blinks and finds herself in the woods at night. Kate Argent, throat slit, runs towards Allison, baring her teeth. Allison fires an arrow.
Back in reality, Isaac appears and catches the arrow before it hits Lydia in the face. Allison drops her bow, apologising profusely.
No biggie. Your stalker saved me.
Isaac fills Scott in on the details at Casa McCall later that night. Whatever’s happening to them is getting worse and if Isaac hadn’t been there, Lydia would be dead.
SCOTT: What were you doing there?
Isaac hesitates. Scott throws him against a wall. From downstairs, Mama McCall hears the thump and yells up at them that the house doesn’t have a supernatural ability to heal.
Stiles takes a vase of flowers to his dad’s office. They’re for his mother’s grave. The last time they left a bouquet, it was stolen the same day. $100 down the drain. Sheriff is on the floor, surrounded by paperwork.
SHERIFF: Hey, if somebody wants flowers that badly, they can have them. It’s the gesture.
Stiles looks around at the dozens of case file boxes. Sheriff tells him about his attempts to sort through the cases with more of an illuminated perspective. Stiles’s ability to read has been restored. He looks at one of the reports.
STILES: Strange sighting of bipedal lizard man sprinting across freeway.
SHERIFF: Kanima pile.
Sheriff has found at least 100 cases where he can look at the details and wonder how he could have handled them better if he’d known about the supernatural. It’s a dangerous path but Sheriff has no choice but to follow it.
This town has seen some creepy stuff, son.
Sheriff tells Stiles that there’s one case in particular he can’t get out of his head.
SHERIFF: Eight years ago, when I was elected sheriff of the county, my first official duty was to tell a man that not only had his wife and two kids died in a car accident but, as best we could tell, the body of his nine-year-old daughter had been dragged from the wreck by coyotes.
STILES: You mean ‘dragged and eaten’.
SHERIFF: We didn’t find the car until three days after the crash.
This is the case of Malia Tate. Sheriff flashes back to the scene with the overturned car again. The Tates’ car had driven off the road into a deep ravine. The two bodies left in the car were covered in bites and slashes.
We blew our budget on nightmare scenes and transporting a giant tree around. You get one bloody hand. That’s it.
Sheriff is wondering if maybe it was a werewolf attack. Coyotes are scavengers. They could have left the bites and slashes. But the accident did occur on the night of a full moon.
Stiles looks at the case file boxes again and asks where they’re going. One of the boxes has directions to send it to the office of FBI Agent McCall (Scott’s dad).
Stiles walks into class the next day and finds his usual seat taken by a girl. She signs at Stiles, indicating that she’s deaf. Stiles takes a seat a few rows back and starts flipping through his textbook. He looks up, realising that everyone in the class is almost frozen. They’re blinking and breathing but completely silent.
Coach Finstock stands at the front of the classroom, which means this must be Economics. Rather than speaking, Coach starts signing at Stiles, making the exact same movements that the deaf girl made earlier. Stiles gets up to leave the classroom. When he looks back, the entire class is signing the same things over and over again.
I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes. I saw the sign!
Stiles wakes in class to the sound of Coach blowing his whistle. He had asked Stiles if he was paying attention.
STILES: Well, I am now.
COACH: Stilinski, stop reminding me why I drink every night.
Scott, who’s sitting beside Stiles, looks concerned. He tells Stiles he wasn’t asleep and nods to Stiles’s notebook, where the words Wake up are written over and over again in different patterns.
Well, that’s only a little terrifying.
At lunch, Scott, Stiles, and Allison talk to Lydia and Isaac about their hallucinatory problems. As far as Isaac knows, people with conditions like these are locked up because they’re insane. Being helpful is kind of a new thing for him because he was locked in a freezer for half his childhood.
STILES: Okay, do we—are you still milking that?
ISAAC: Yeah, we are still milking that.
Well, who knows? Maybe being thrown into a wall a few times in the last day or so is bringing back memories. Kira walks over to their lunch table. She overheard their conversation and thinks she might understand. For a second, everyone at the table looks panicked. When will you ever learn to keep your voices down in public?
KIRA: There’s a Tibetan word for it. It’s called Bardot. It literally means in between state—the state between life and death.
Lydia, seemingly unhappy that someone else has knowledge of obscure subjects, asks who she is. Scott surprises everyone by saying that her name’s Kira and she’s in his History class. Lydia wants to know if Kira is talking about Bardot in Tibetan Buddhism or Indian.
I also heard you mention some weird stuff about supernatural creatures but I ignored that.
Kira sits down next to Stiles and excitedly explains that in Bardot, there are different progressive states where you can have hallucinations. Some you see, some you just hear. And you can be visited by peaceful and wrathful deities—demons.
ALLISON: Hold on. If there are different progressive states, what’s the last one?
KIRA: Death. You die.
No one at the table looks pleased to hear that.
Scott and Stiles go to visit Deaton at the animal clinic. He thinks their subconscious is trying to communicate with them.
STILES: Well, how do I tell my subconscious to use a language I actually know?
Deaton, who knows a little sign language because he’s a beautiful and perfect creation, asks Stiles what the movements looked like. Stiles shows him and Deaton translates it to mean ‘When is a door not a door?’
SCOTT: When it’s ajar.
Stiles is not impressed that his subconscious is speaking in riddles. Deaton thinks it’s more than that. When they were having their little sacrificial ice bath, Scott, Stiles, and Allison essentially opened a door in their minds. And that door into their minds is still open just a little—ajar. Deaton did tell them it was risky. Having an opening into your mind is not good. He tells them to close the door to their minds as soon as possible.
As Scott and Stiles leave the animal clinic, Sheriff drives up. He wants help from Scott on the Tate family case. He’s hoping that if Scott can somehow get a lock on Malia Tate’s scent (the girl who was dragged away by coyotes), they might be able to find her body and figure out the rest of the case. If it was a werewolf, then someone out there murdered an entire family and they need to be caught.
The next day, Sheriff drives over to the Tate house. Mr Tate has been having a coyote problem; the population is up around here and they get into everything. He unpacks a rat trap, saying that if you take away the coyotes’ source of food then they leave you alone. And these days, Mr Tate prefers to be left alone. Sheriff promises he’ll leave after a couple of questions.
Get out of my life.
While Sheriff asks his questions, Scott and Stiles sneak into Malia’s old bedroom, trying to find any stuffed toy or clothes that might still have her scent after eight years. Seems like a long shot to me. All Scott can get is an animal smell, which seems to be from the dog that has just walked into the room.
This dog has no traces of supernatural eyes. I didn’t even know regular dogs existed anymore.
Scott isn’t in control of his Alpha abilities at the moment, which means he can’t just show the dog his eyes and get it to back off. He approaches the dog slowly instead and it immediately starts barking. Mr Tate yells for the dog to shut up. It does, and runs out. Scott still can’t catch a scent but Stiles sees a picture of Malia and her little sister on the dresser. He snaps a photo of it on his phone.
Scott, please say you can track Malia’s scent through this photograph.
Mr Tate is not taking kindly to Sheriff’s questions. He spent eight years thinking that it was an accident and he doesn’t know who would want to murder his entire family. He doesn’t want to find out, either.
MR TATE: I don’t want to redefine this entire nightmare as an unsolved murder. Just leave me alone with ‘tragic accident’ because that is what I’ve spent eight years getting used to—accident, not murder.
Sheriff tries to apologise but Mr Tate is angry now. He wants Sheriff to leave. Outside the house, Sheriff meets up with Scott and Stiles to find out that Scott couldn’t find a scent.
SHERIFF: That’s okay. It was a long shot. In fact, it was a pretty terrible idea. I think I just ripped a wound open in that poor man. I never should’ve brought you guys here. I don’t know what I was thinking. Thanks for trying, all right?
Sheriff drives off. Scott doesn’t understand why it’s so important to solve this case right now when heaps of cases go unsolved. Stiles thinks his dad wants to solve one more case while he’s still the sheriff.
Mama McCall arrives home that night to find Scott shouting at his father, saying his job sucks. Agent McCall denies that he’s trying to get Stiles’s dad fired, saying he’s just conducting a case for impeachment.
We like Sheriff better than you. Get out.
MAMA McCALL: Sounds a lot like getting him fired.
AGENT McCALL: A lack of resolution and ability to close cases is what’s going to get him fired. My job is just to collect the information and it’s the job my superiors have given me.
MAMA McCALL: Your job sucks.
She notices that Scott’s breathing is ragged and his claws are starting to come out. She takes his hand, telling him to calm down. She leads him away from Agent McCall.
In the hallway, Mama McCall remembers what Scott has told her in the past and tells him to find his anchor. Scott’s anchor has always been Allison and he doesn’t have her anymore. He’s going to have to be his own anchor.
The shift subsides and Scott and his mum both breathe a sigh of relief.
MAMA McCALL: Sweetheart, let me tell you something no teenager ever believes but I swear to you is the absolute truth: you fall in love more than once. It’ll happen again and it’ll be just as amazing and as extraordinary as the first time. And maybe just as painful. But it’ll happen again. I promise. And until then, be your own anchor.
Stiles lies in bed that night, waiting to fall asleep. Scott bursts into Stiles’s room.
SCOTT: You and me. We’re going to go out and find a body. A dead body.
Allison and Isaac are having a make-out session in Allison’s bed. Isaac assures Allison that Scott’s fine with this. He’s 100% over it.
ALLISON: He said that?
ISAAC: Not in so many words but he’s moved on. You should too.
Isaac gets SHIRTLESS and Allison notices there’s something around his neck. It’s a garrotte, held by Kate Argent.
KATE: Let’s do him, Allison. Let’s do him together.
Kate, you need to quit with the underage boys. It’s unacceptable.
Allison finds herself holding a dagger. She wakes up in her bed, breathless. Lydia is asleep on the bed as well. They’re surrounded by school textbooks and have both fallen asleep studying. Allison lies back down and finds a dagger on the mattress beneath her.
Scott and Stiles trudge through the woods, looking for Malia Tate’s body. If Sheriff is right about this being a werewolf attack, then there’s another werewolf in Beacon Hills that they don’t know about. And if it’s something like triplets who form into a three-headed hound of hell, neither of them are up for it.
Scott has his phone out and seems to be following a map to a location (I guess where the Tate car was found?). A coyote howls in the distance and Stiles jumps, knocking Scott’s phone into a puddle. Scott retrieves the phone from the puddle. It’s still working. Stiles takes the torch and shines it on the wreckage of the Tate car.
The car’s evidence but it was probably too much of a pain to tow out of the ravine. Stiles approaches the car, shining the torch on it. Slash marks rake the side of the car. Animal claw marks would be a lot closer together but these marks are just far enough apart to be from a human. Provided that human has the same approximate hand width as Scott. Looks like Sheriff was right about it being a werewolf.
So convenient that these marks match my hand size perfectly.
Inside the car, Scott and Stiles find a baby doll that was left behind. It looks in fairly good condition for something that’s been in the woods for eight years and there’s enough battery left for the doll to suddenly say, ‘I’m hungry.’ Scott and Stiles scream, dropping the doll on the ground.
Maybe the doll was the werewolf?
Growling starts up close by and a set of glowing eyes shine in the darkness. It’s not Scott’s hallucination—Stiles can see it too. Scott runs after the thing and finds himself chasing a coyote through the woods. His eyes glow red and he runs faster. Somehow, both Scott and the coyote manage to leap over a cliff so they can face off in another part of the woods.
When the coyote sees Scott’s Alpha eyes, it stops growling. Then its eyes glow blue—the same colour of a werewolf who has taken an innocent life.
SCOTT: Malia?
Have you ever heard a wolf cry to the blue corn moon?
The coyote runs off and Scott is too shocked to follow it.
We cross to a wooden table covered in bloody tools that have apparently been used to torture someone if the grunting and buzzing electricity in the background is any indication. A mobile phone is on the table as well. Messages start to appear from Scott, asking Derek to call him urgently.
Someone picks up the phone and we see that Derek and Peter Hale are both SHIRTLESS and chained to a fence. They look at each other.
PETER: Why are you looking at me like this is my fault?
DEREK: Because it is your fault.
The electricity starts up again, shocking the two of them. Peter admits that Derek’s probably right.
At least we look good SHIRTLESS.
END OF EPISODE
Commas and Ampersands 