60 Teen Wolfs in 60 Days: day 53, I.E.D.

[hth]

So about the “dead pool.” I have only ever heard the term used in reference to gambling on when someone is going to die, which is not remotely the same as a mandate to make them die. That's a hit list, right? Please let me know if this is a standard use that I'm not aware of, but until further notice, I can't figure out why Lydia coins the term. Although I do fully believe that after she said it once, Stiles would insist on keeping it, because it sounds way cooler than “hit list.”

 

Someone should really put some security cameras around those school buses.

 

I usually feel like this show earns its deductions fairly well, but I'mma call shenanigans on being able to figure out from a third of the list that the whole list is going to add up to 117 million because this is related to the heist. I mean, it's a tv show, so obviously two fantastical events in close proximity are for sure related, but they don't know that! That one just feels like a bridge too far for me.

 

Aw, Derek breaking into the high school locker room to terrorize half-naked children again, just like old times! I told you this season was just one big season 1 homage. He makes a good heavy for Scott, though; I think it's never 100% clear whether he's technically in Scott's pack or not – I imagine Derek would say not, but it's clear that he's ready to help with whatever scheme Scott has, and equally clear that Scott will put everyone at risk to help Derek, so it seems like a distinction without a difference to me. I think this is a nice scene for the two of them; the show keeps picking up and putting down this idea that they have a fraternal relationship, but when it comes back around again, these two actors do sell it really well.

 

God help me, I really do want some Malia/Lydia. I think they'd treat each other terribly, but we already know Lydia doesn't mind that, and I think all Malia really needs to know is that the person she's with is unafraid of her, which, check. Also, so, so many dominance games in bed. Just so many.

 

Heh, I like that playing against a prep school has become an anti-capitalist radicalizing moment for Finstock. Occupy Beacon Hills!

 

I'm going to start doing a shot every time nobody on the planet seems to know or care who's in charge of an orphan in Beacon Hills. Okay, Meredith's family is dead – someone has to be authorizing her care, right? If she's a ward of the state, she should have a fucking caseworker, and I know that this is the World Without Social Work, but who even cuts the checks to Eichen House? We know it's not cheap to stay there, since apparently the 48 hours Stiles was a resident is going to financially cripple his father for life (why does the Beacon Hills civil service have such a shit insurance plan, while we're at it?) But, yeah, Meredith is a minor. Someone signs things regarding her medical care. That's the person who can get Lydia to see her.

 

Excellent reveal for Mason being gay; it's just done so naturally, in a conversation that two people who already know would actually have. So I have to say that even without having any connection to Teen Wolf or Teen Wolf fandom, I heard some rumblings last year about how the show had freaked out about being seen as too gay and had ejected all their gay content and angered the fans. Now that I'm finally at s4, I just...do not even know what that's about. I mean, I guess I do know what that's about: I think it's solely and completely about Stiles having a girlfriend this season, when everyone (including me!) had bonded with the idea of him as Canonically Sexually Confused. But the thing is... he was always Ambiguously Bisexual, rather than Ambiguously Gay, and although I'm not usually inclined to be that person with the tedious lecture about bi erasure, yeah, that's kind of in play at the moment, I'm afraid. The fact that Stiles once had a girlfriend in high school doesn't make him part of some nefarious Great Straightening scheme on the part of the show; it just makes him still maybe bisexual.

 

What queer credibility the show has rests, I feel, on four major points:

1. Stiles is sort of ambiguously bisexual.

2. Ever since the first episode, it's created a world full of minor gay characters whose sexuality is neither erased nor fixated upon creepily.

3. There are frequent off-handed jokes and banter-y comments that reference or suggest queerness.

4. It's full of hot boys with intense feelings about each other.

 

I can't really credit the Great Straightening with much basis in reality, honestly. Point 4 is no less true than ever it was, as it point 3 (“your ass is fine” and “he can dance with me next time” fit perfectly well into the general tenor of light gay ribbing the show has gone in for all along). Point 2 takes a minor hit with the exit of Danny (NEVER FORGET), but there's absolutely nothing wrong with Mason; he has a smaller role than Danny did in s3, but not really a smaller role than he did in 1 and 2 – give him a minute to get situated! So that leaves us with point 1, which isn't a whole lot to hang a year's worth of internet outrage on. I do understand, honestly I do, that it gets a little frustrating sometimes when a show tries to get cred for having bisexual characters when it's aggressively focusing on those characters' heterosexual relationships. But...give the show a break. Stiles has a girlfriend. I don't get how that's some huge reactionary conspiracy, for a character who was only ever intermittently implied to be perhaps bisexual. It's not like they have to retcon anything to get here, even.

 

I'm trying not to jump to the conclusion that what people are really pissed about is having half the title credits characters be women, because girl cooties on our hot boy show. I hear that fandom is overrun with social justice lately, so surely we no longer indulge in such antifeminist chicanery the way we did in the bad old days. Right?

 

Anyway, I went on about that for a while because nothing much is happening in this episode. Lydia yells at a banshee to get her to banshee faster, which she is constantly telling people not to do to her. Derek doesn't smell so good. There are a lot of werewolves in this town! Although as Stiles would probably point out, fewer than there were last week.