60 Teen Wolfs in 60 Days: day 48, The Divine Move

[hth]

I realize it's immensely fucked up that Argents are as adept at death as they are, but it's pretty sweet, honestly, how Chris is able to walk both Scott and Isaac through all this in a very fatherly sort of way. I suppose it's a low bar to clear, being more present and capable than Scott or Isaac's actual fathers, but he clears it well anyway.

 

Okay, normally I am first on board to talk about how great Scott is, but this “How great is Scott!?!” speech is...ridiculous. I don't know if it's just impossibly ridiculous as written or if a better actor than Hoechlin could've made it work, but as things stand, it just plain doesn't. I did appreciate the nod to Lydia's loyalty to Scott, which I think has been present through this show and not very much remarked on, which gives their relationship a kind of delicacy, like there's something quite private and special about their friendship.

 

All covers of “Bad Moon Rising” are good covers. That's the mark of a genius song. What's up with the nogitsune's weird thing for Melissa, though? He seems to especially like messing with her. Did he bond with her, in whatever horrible way nogitsunes bond, when she was taking care of his host body back when he was only a wee little invasive species?

 

This episode is an epic bloodbath even by Beacon Hills standards. How many people have to be slaughtered in crowded public places by masked immortal samurai before we just go ahead and agree that everyone in this town is now in on it all? Like, clearly no one can believe anything natural is going on in Beacon Hills now, right? I feel like we're several light years past “mountain lions did it” at this point, and just well and truly into the realm of, “yeah, immortal samurai, I guess.”

 

As final confrontations go, I think it was pretty good! It had some nice visuals, with the winter garden, and a whole shit-ton of blood, and one final operatic burst of crazy from the Stilesitsune. I have some ambivalence about the resolution being...exactly what they announced the resolution was going to be several episodes ago. I mean, after all that “divine move” stuff and hearing how wildly out-of-the-box their final move was going to have to be, I did kind of expect something other than the move we established in “Echo House” and brought up again in “De-Void.” I mean, not every climax has to be a twist, but they did sort of promise us one; that's the whole point of a divine move, right?

 

Aw, man, how can people hate on Malia? Look at her little face when she gets her claws to work! Precious.

 

I'm pleased that Danny got the “There's one thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach” moment, but a bit sad that he's anti-werewolf dating, because I still think Scott has a little crush on him. Not that it matters, I guess, since apparently this character who has been here since the pilot episode is just going to blip out of existence with nary a mention, and don't think I'm not irked by that, because I'm very irked by that.

 

I know it's traditional to set up your next season at the end of a season, but that is a hella weird transition. We've had this dark, gothic season full of incursions from the spirit world and realms between life and death, structured entirely around the emotional beats of Stiles' victimization and culminating in Allison's noble and tragic death. So in the last two minutes – hey, remember that plotline from ten episodes ago that nobody ever asked about? You're welcome! And here's a hail of gunfire to wash it down with! It's just the weirdest choice tonally. It's all fine and dandy to let us know that we should tune in next season for The Revenge of Kate, but there had to be a way that didn't feel completely unmoored from the rest of the episode and the season at large.

 

But it's been a good season, overall! If I had one complaint, it's that the season really did need a strong B plot to flesh it out a little, because the episodes all had the feel of treading water any time they weren't focused pretty directly on the nogitsune plotline. I like that there was enough space left in the episodes to get a really nice, extended introduction to Kira and to let her relationship with Scott unfold in a way that made her addition seem organic, when it could very easily have come across as, “Don't worry, we got Scott a new puppy so he won't be so sad about the old one!” But other than that, there was precious little happening this season that wasn't about the Stilesitsune. And that stuff was great! But they obviously couldn't or wouldn't just have the narrative follow that at all times, so there were always those “Let's check in with everyone else” subplots, and none of them were useful or interesting at all. I know no other plotline was going to compete, but just throwing up your hands and deciding not to bother trying to make everything else interesting was a serious pacing problem, especially in the back half of the season.

 

Thanks again for playing along at home, and I'll see y'all tomorrow for – what's season 4 again? Oh, right, bounty hunters. And a variety of other... I guess there's Kate and... a lot of banshee business, am I remembering that right? And they still play lacrosse, right?

 

What could possibly go wrong?

 

Comments

[green_grrl]

I love Chris so much. Between him and the sheriff, they have this "father figure for the pack" thing locked down. I like Kira's dad as well—her mom I would like to be a little more forthcoming with the supernatural info, thanks. Melissa is the mother figure, which I think is why the Nogitsune likes fucking with her. She's so important to Scott and Stiles and Isaac. (I love that we get to see more of Lydia's mother next season, because she is awesome as well.)

I just don't have quite as much love for Scott because, well, he's a teenager and he still sees things in black/white, right/wrong. And I love his good intentions, but at some point most leaders have to deal with shades of gray and he's mostly avoided that. I feel like the writers molded Derek into a Scott Is Great mouthpiece to do more tell instead of show, which is never going to sound natural.

Samurai slaughter fest at the hospital—it is a miracle that they can get doctors, nurses, teachers, or deputies to work in Beacon Hills at all! I mean Dad McCall is a dick, but it does make sense the FBI would send someone in at some point, because, man.

Danny got done wrong. Notice the beginning of next season when Coach namechecks the players he's doing without this year, and fails to mention his star goalie. Two seconds in the script for Coach to say Danny moved or graduated or something—that's all it would have taken! Grrrr.

I really liked the beginning of the end piece, where it's dream-logic, and Stiles explains to Derek how to know if he's awake or not. That fits so well with the theme of the season, the growing trust from the umpteen times they've saved each other, and Stiles being the pack's research nerd. Then it's all smoke and guns and Kate's werejaguar face and ugh. I just don't like the whole plot line that she came back.

Season four: Kate, banshee business, plus assassins for hire and Scott's new beta. It's nice to get to a new season without having to wait months on end, yes?

[hth]

This show is really good with adult characters! As someone who regularly plays an adult in real life, I appreciate that on my high school shows.

See, one of the reasons I really do like Scott is that I *don't* think he tends toward black/white thinking. Or, I guess he does have pretty sharp instincts for how to proceed according to his own moral code, but what I think is interesting is that he's exceptionally (to a fault, really) forgiving of other people, which to me is something you really can't do if you're in the mindset of Right is Right and Wrong is Wrong and there are Good People and Bad People. Scott's never proceeded as if that were the case; that's *why* he can become friends with Chris, and why he can let Deucalion off with a stern warning to Think About His Life Choices, and why he can go to the mat for Jackson, who worked really hard to make Scott hate him. The thing I think is so special about Scott isn't really that he'll risk his life to save people, it's that he really seems to value people, even when they are a pain in his ass.

Of course, you're quite right that he has the advantage of the writers protecting him, so that he can keep extending the benefit of the doubt and not have it bite him in the ass, and as they explicitly called out at the end of s4, all his workarounds to keep from having to kill anyone actually do work. I have a feeling they're waiting for the right time to pull that out from under him, and we'll see how close he comes to breaking when that happens.