60 Teen Wolfs in 60 Days: day 25, Tattoo

[hth]

SEASON THREEEEEEE! Y'all, I'm so into this. Season Two was a real letdown for me – I felt like the pacing was all the hell over the place, too much of it relied on me caring what happened to Jackson (NOOOPE), and they couldn't figure out how to make use of most of their characters, up to and including Scott McCall, whose show this is supposed to be. While it had lots of isolated fun bits – some of the Peter stuff had a splashy, gothic sort of quality to it that I enjoyed, Derek crashing and burning without Scott was a good time, and I continue to count “Venomous” as one of my very favorite episodes – basically I was super done with season two when we were barely halfway into it.

 

But you guys, I love season three so much. I love the first half, which dials the splashy, gothic fun up to 11 and stacks up bodies like cordwood. I love the second half, which is legitimately terrifying and a glorious bouquet of twisted Sciles-y goodness. Welcome to three and a half weeks of distilled fucking awesome, my friends!

 

Two things that are very cute: Stiles' new haircut, and Scott's grin at the tattoo artist. Just gonna say that right up front. Everyone's looking very nice this season, and life is good. (I couldn't figure out what they were doing with the non-explanation for Scott's tattoo, but I gather that it's actually Posey's tattoo, so they were just stuck with it?)

 

Usually I don't approve of when a former main-cast character just vanishes and other characters are like, “Hey whatever happened to so-and-so?” “Oh, he's wherever doing whatever,” and that's all you ever hear. In Jackson's case, I will make an exception. Literally a single more minute of dialogue about Jackson fucking Whittemore would've been far too much. It does make me happy that Derek might've put him in the Rusty Iron Bolts of Discipline, though.

 

I still really need that Stiles/Veronica Mars crossover event, though. Two kids who are driving their fathers to ulcers because they just won't stop investigating crimes. Seriously, though, this is the type of thing I'm talking about when I say that Stiles is an adult from this point on in a way he wasn't before – he was always a strong-willed dude, but he's been scattered in what he wants and why (let's go look for a dead body!), in marked contrast to how doggedly pragmatic he is when he's forced into a reactive position. He's a guy who's great at coming up with ideas, but until now he hasn't really known what to do with himself, so he's just burning up energy when there isn't a crisis to address. But the deer that hits Lydia's car isn't really an emergency by any stretch of the imagination. It is, however, weird. And I think here you start to see – throughout this episode and beyond, really – Stiles taking on automatic responsibility for noticing what's weird in Beacon Hills and getting ahead of it. The game isn't reacting effectively anymore. The game is chasing leads and never letting himself be caught by surprise – it's hypervigilance, as Morrell would say, but instead of letting it become a neurosis, Stiles is actively bending it into a strength – and, I might add, a distinctively human strength. He's the investigator. He's the detective. He notices patterns – I think he's still got the jeep in the credits sequence this season, but in my head he's already gone over to the string map, because that's the image of Stiles that should be iconic, if it isn't yet.

 

You know how much better season three is than season two already? Lydia is getting all the ass in Beacon Hills now that her douchebag boyfriend has gone on walkabout. That just makes me so, so happy on so many separate levels.

 

The reason I would ultimately fail as a teacher is that I would jam a fucking phone down some kid's throat within the first month of school. Put that shit away! Someone is talking to you right now! Jennifer is much nicer about her policy than I would be, and given that this is Jennifer, maybe that should make me think about myself a little.

 

(I have this whole story in my head where Stiles goes across the country to college because he needs to at least try to experience something in his life that isn't the pack for a few years. And he gets the same open-wound tattoo before coming home for his first Christmas break, as a reward to himself for not running straight back home, for making it through a whole semester alone.)

 

It's pretty cute how Derek seems to think that Stiles isn't trying very hard to hold Scott down while he's scarring his arm. Because obviously that's something that Stiles could totally do if he just put a little effort into it.

 

So here we are! A bunch of new villains to throw around. Lydia with a new lease on life. Scott being a better Scott McCall. Derek finally hurting someone whose life he's not making worse. It's promising!

 

Comments

[hth]

She didn't stay with Aidan, did she? I remember him trying to win her back, and I feel like he never really did? She had a nice little moment where she told him that it was because "you're not just a bad boy, you're a bad guy."

I feel you on Lydia's potential skeeviness, but I guess I feel like it falls on the side of the line that is "some relationships just aren't a good idea" and not the one that is "predatory and abusive." Especially when you're young, a lot of people do things that, looking back, they think they were probably dumb to have done, but that aren't traumatic -- just "god, I was so dumb back then". I bet Lydia fills that role for a lot of dudes, ultimately.

[green_grrl]

She does say that at some point ... I feel like it was really late in the season, though. Of course I recall that I spent most of the season not knowing if she even knew Aidan was a murdering alpha and wondering whether the pack was keeping her out of the loop again. But at some point (Boyd?), she does know but still doesn't end things?

I imagine that if a boy looked truly uncertain Lydia would not pursue him. It's also pretty silly, since her "type" is muscle-bound lunks and freshman boys just ... aren't.

[hth]

I'm watching for that this time through, because you got my curiosity up! So far, she's involved with him even though she's been told he's an alpha -- but I don't think she really has any idea what that means, because nobody tells Lydia anything, and anyway everyone on this show hangs out with people who probably seem equally dangerous to Lydia. I do think she breaks it off with him after Boyd's death; we'll see when I get there, but I remember her saying, "I like you, but every time I think about you, I think about how Boyd died," or something of the sort.

But yeah, you're 1000% right -- only at TV High do 14-year-old boys look even *remotely* like what Lydia goes for. Her type is clearly "24-year-old actors playing high-school freshmen."