60 Teen Wolfs in 60 Days: day 58, Monstrous

[hth]

Aw, that's a really cute fake-out there with the werewolf diving down on the fallen girl to pick her up. I have no memory of this sequence, and in fact I lost the thread on a lot of the end of s4. I remember that Meredith is – not? – the Benefactor, or she is, but also Peter has more to do with it than you'd think? Or something? Let's find out!

 

I really love that the show has given us an Everyman character who really is an Everyman in Liam – someone who bucks protagonist logic by just really, really not wanting to fight monsters, and not in a hilarious comedy-relief Shaggy-and-Scooby way, but who is just scared to die and it's not played for laughs at all. And I love that Scott, who has had reason to grow accustomed to people joining in with his borderline idiotic stunts, is completely understanding about someone who just doesn't think he's up to it. Scott wouldn't be volunteering for this stuff now if he hadn't learned that he could do it after being forced the first few times; I bet he rightly suspects Liam would also grow into the role, but Scott's not going to be the one to force him.

 

Wait, have Scott and Satomi really not met til right now? She knows everyone else he knows. I guess I'm going to take their word on this, though, because I certainly can't keep track.

 

Okay, Chris just did a thing where he hit something in the face with his gun without looking at it, and I have a lot of feelings about that. Pants-feelings.

 

Yeah, so no wonder I couldn't figure out the Peter connection. It's pretty bizarre, even now that I'm totally awake. I mean, I think it's actually a pretty neat idea, that Meredith is acting out the rambling revenge fantasies that Peter doesn't even remember having, but it's still a little opaque, watching Lydia watch Meredith watch Peter's fugue state.

 

Right, so that whole “bullet between the eyes” bit that Stilinski is trying to pull off – this would be a great time to introduce him to our friend Braeden, who can explain why pointing a gun two inches from someone's face is a great way to lose your gun. I'm sure he feels really badass, but let's be real, the only reason Peter didn't take the gun and then eat his face off is that he doesn't really want to fight his way out of the station and then be a fugitive.

 

This is getting more incomprehensible by the moment. The dead pool is being disseminated by a bank of antique computers walled up inside Lydia's lakehouse? Has that been running since the room was built, or did it just get switched on this season? And the key is inside a bottle of wine that is...not wine, that is like the one that Lydia opened at the party – or is the same one, but then it would be already open, so... didn't she drink some of the wine, and I... What. The. Fuck. Is happening in this episode? What the actual fuck?

 

And unfortunately between the impenetrable reveals on the mystery plotline and the overkill on the gunfire in the fight scenes, the climax of the plotline about Scott's fears of turning into a monster gets a little lost in the shuffle. (Nice of those hired killers to check their messages in the middle of a shootout, though, so they could receive the Benefactor's status update.)

 

There is nothing about the resolution to this that makes the slightest bit of sense. I don't even know what else to add about that. I really thought this time I'd track all the pieces and figure out how they were connected, but nooooope.

 

 

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Comments

[green_grrl]

Yeah, this season really doesn't resolve in any way that makes sense. Fortunately Chris Argent is hot like burning and so there is something to enjoy anyway.

ITA about Liam getting to be just a kid who does not want to be involved in the violence. One of the things I really loved about the first Bourne Identity movie is that Marie was totally freaked out about the violence, you know, like a real person would be.

[hth]

Yeah, they really went for set pieces over mystery-solving in this finale. I mean, it's cool and all to watch Chris pry a piece of rebar out of his torso and Kira stab herself with a piece of obsidian she clawed out of a wall and Derek -- evolve his way out of being impaled, but I sense that they're really hoping we'll think it's *so* cool we'll quit asking them how any of this even works.

[scribblemoose]

re Peter as the Benefactor - I was totally baffled the first time I saw this ep, but a few rewatches on and I have a theory. Peter seems to have advanced abilities on the psychological/psychic front - his claws-to-spine memory trick, the way he gets Scott and Lydia in Stiles' mind, and most of all the way he influences Lydia in S2. In fact, his bond with Lydia seems particularly strong, which makes me wonder if he has a thing with banshees. Maybe he can manipulate the voices of the dead? He has been mostly dead several times. So this makes me wonder, what if Peter did it consciously? We know he's a damn good liar and doesn't mind playing a long game. Rewatching S4 with this in mind, it all made a hell of a lot more sense. So my theory is that he consciously picked on Meredith in the hospital in her fragile state, and ever since he came back from the dead he's been whispering in her head to pick off as many of the people who might oppose him in stealing Scott's power as he can.

That's my theory, anyway! But the key, wine and IBM mainframe? Not a clue!!

[hth]

Well, it seems in character! Peter is big on the long game, as we know. I actually think the first, confused time that I watched, I assumed he had done it all on purpose, and it didn't really become clear to me until the second viewing that Peter himself didn't know how he was involved until the end of the season. Peter-as-criminal-mastermind does, as you say, make far more sense, which makes me wonder why they even tried to sell us this alternate version that makes basically no sense. I'd get it if they were trying to salvage Peter as a major character -- it'd be cool in that case, because you'd have people separating into the "it wasn't his fault! it was an accident!" camp and the "he is getting his inherent murdery nature all over everything! he's dangerous!" camp. But they were clearly going to burn Peter anyhow, so why not just make him the big bad?

I guess it seemed like a clever twist at the time, but I'm like you, I think it would've been simpler and more satisfying just to say that Peter had been pulling the strings from the beginning.