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Guys, I don't even know what to say about this episode. There's some serious construction going on here! Normally when I watch these for review, I pause the show when I want to type out a comment, unless it's really just a one-line thing. Even then, sometimes I pause, because I don't want to miss something while I'm typing. My problem with this episode is that I never wanted to pause it.
It's not because this is the Very Best Episode Ever – although, what the hell, it could be, it's pretty good! But that's not the reason. It's that I was in awe of the patterns they were using during so many of the extended sequences as they laced all these various schemes through each other. The hallway scene is beautifully written and shot, as the camera pauses on two people hatching a plan, then sort of rolls off of them and onto two more people passing by doing the same thing. By the time they all get to chemistry and they're swapping partners and accusations, the rhythm is just stunning. Any time I thought about hitting pause so I could reflect on what was going on, it seemed like carving up the pace they were establishing measurably harmed the experience of viewing it.
A lot happens here. Primarily we discover that Jackson is the kanima, obviously, as well as set up the back-half plotline to discover who his “friend” is. We see Dead Peter for the first time (oh, man, that was a scene I must've slept through last time, because I had no memory of it at all and it was terrifying) and witness one of Lydia's first weird fugue states firsthand. The Hale Pack and McCall Pack graduate from uneasily watching each other to squaring off directly, with Derek and Scott making leadership decisions that put their respective betas into adversarial positions. Lydia and Jackson's relationship pivots somewhat, tying them more tightly together, narratively speaking, than they have been since they broke up, what, eight or ten episodes ago?
It's just a damn good episode that really capitalizes on the complexity that Teen Wolf can generate organically just by having a deep bench of self-motivated characters pursuing their own agendas, and watching those agendas bring them into each other's orbits and setting them against each other. Even Jackson, as much as I hate him, is incredibly well deployed in this episode, which casts him as helpless victim, as rallying his own resources to solve a mystery on his own, and as one of Scott's followers, albeit temporarily.
Derek and Scott continue to have an interesting relationship, pivoting seamlessly from sharing resources and debating strategy like allies to claiming rights and territory and setting conditions on each other's actions like hostile forces sharing a border. It's fascinating to me how they can do all that in such a weirdly measured way; Derek is ready to kill a girl that Scott believes is totally innocent, which I feel like most of us would find upsetting. Scott just kind of sighs – it's Derek, what are you going to do? He opposes Derek, but in a way that doesn't really feel personally angry or agitated, just like during episodes when he works more closely with Derek, that doesn't feel entirely personal, either. They're not pals, but they're not really enemies, either. They relate to each other exactly the way I imagine two alphas would, with respect and caution, but too busy looking out for their own packs to get overly invested in anyone else.
The last act was a great base-under-siege episode, and something about the big suburban house in the settling dark with the killers waiting patiently outside nicely evoked the slasher movie genre. I continue to hate everything that happens to, with, around, or because of Erica, and I certainly wasn't invested in the randomly ginned-up catfight between her and Allison (“I'm going to fuck your man because that's totally the same thing as being powerful!” doesn't fill me with as much rage as Jackson's version, I suppose because it's much harder to dehumanize a male protagonist than it is a female love interest, but it's still Some Bullshit), but I did admire the way Reed played the endgame to it – her smug, chilly glee had an extremely Argent note to it that a more straightforward anger/catharsis sort of reading would've lacked. Allison is not just Some Girl getting one over on the school's Regina George, and I think Reed played it in a way that was sympathetic but not entirely relateable – just sadistic enough to let you know what you're dealing with if you want to come at Allison Argent. There was definitely some Kate in there.
One interesting thing to me about the construction of this episode is that it isn't fully Scott-focused, although he probably has more to do than any other single character except maybe Jackson, but it doesn't feel focused on anyone else. The sense of constant motion and the density of characters and agendas made the episode feel to me like it wasn't focused on anyone's particular story at all, but that it's a Beacon Hills-centered episode. It advances the world – builds the board out, if you will, in a Settlers of Catan sort of way – and no one person's choices are in the driver's seat at this point. It's much more like real life in that way than it is like a traditionally structured piece of drama. Everyone is having an impact, but they're also constantly dodging the results of everyone else's impact. That the episode manages to feel propulsive, scary, and important is totally to its credit, because this could very easily have become a soggy, confusing mess of info-dumps and people chasing their tails. I don't really have a favorite Teen Wolf episode so far, but I think this is the one I've admired most.
Also, I applaud the high concentration of Danny! I feel like this is a watershed episode for him, where he's starting to operate somewhat under his own power as a character; even if he doesn't exactly understand what mystery he's trying to solve and why, he's getting interested in solving it. Sure, some of that is probably because solving a puzzle with Matt feels like a good time; Danny really likes the dangerous ones, doesn't he? No wonder he's not into Scott (too earnest and eager) or Jackson (weaselly blowhard). Only genuine sociopaths for Danny. (One does wonder what exactly Scott means, though, when he says “it depends” to the Coach. He's willing to be responsible for taking care of Danny's equipment if they are talking about lacrosse pads, or if they aren't? I feel like the obvious answer to both is “no,” but that's not Scott's answer, is it? Just saying.)
A minor point, but I still really admire the show's ability to have the characters working off of false information and bad assumptions without it feeling like the writers are cheating to prolong the goose chase. They've been playing out this idea for a while that Lydia is the reason that Jackson is wonky – Jackson originally suggests it, and Scott seems to have come to the idea separately. It makes a certain amount of sense, given that Lydia is the more spectacularly weird of the two, and Jackson's just so fucking basic. It seems like he can't be somehow supernaturally exceptional other than by passively taking that in from somewhere else; just intuitively, that feels correct. But of course it isn't; Lydia is immune to all kinds of things, but that has fuckall to do with Jackson, who really is a special case just by being Jackson. I think it would be easy to feel like the audience is being screwed with, when this Lydia-as-Patient-Zero thing comes up multiple times and then turns out to be a big can of nothing, but instead it just keeps the show grounded in a world where no one has The Answer (even the Great Thwacking PDF of Lore they spent so much effort to get last episode provides some vague and misleading info, which never happens in this genre) and you just have to keep sharing information and churning out ideas and eventually one of them will stick.
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Date: 2015-04-10 02:19 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2015-04-13 12:47 am (UTC)From: