It’s been ten months since we’ve encountered any Teen Wolf-branded werewolves, but in Beacon Hills – home to its own pack – only four months have gone by since the good guys kinda, sorta defeated season two’s menaces to society.
Jackson (Colton Haynes) turned out to not be the only Kanima in town and his creator, now revealed to be Grandpa Gerard (Michael Hogan), has slinked off into the shadows after his attempt to gain Alpha-status as a cure to cancer backfired. So to recap, Gerard has mysteriously disappeared, Jackson is alive and well in Italy settling into life as an average werewolf now (like he always wanted), and everyone else is stuck fighting the good fight.
Season three of Teen Wolf started out with an exciting chase scene. It’s always fun to just jump into the action, but the whole thing literally came out of nowhere. After such an extensive hiatus, it might have been better to ease viewers back into the supernatural drama then hurtle it at them on a motorcycle driven by an anonymous female rider. Yet, it definitely fit the schematic of the show and followed suit with the continuity established early on in the still-young series. The formula used most often seems to be, ‘throw things at the viewer and explain later.’
Before the episode ends, aforementioned ‘mystery girl’ becomes the target of the newest threat to pseudo-normalcy. She never pulled out her claws, pointed her teeth, or grew hair in unattractive places, so I think it’s safe to assume that she indeed is not of the werewolf variety. However, she demonstrated some pretty fancy self-defense moves which leads me to believe she isn’t exactly an innocent bystander that got caught in the crossfire either. On top of that, she was playing the hero to an ailing Isaac (Daniel Sharman), and knew who both Scott (Tyler Posey) and Derek (Tyler Hoechlin) were. It’s hard to say if we’ll ever find out who she was, or if she was just a catalyst for the storyline to come.
Meanwhile, Scott has spent the summer attempting to lead a supernatural-free life, despite his incurable werewolf issue. Although, he should probably lay of the wolf-related reading if he wants the full effect. Allison (Crystal Reed) left town after losing both her mother and grandfather, and breaking up with Scott to complete the trifecta of misery. You can’t really blame her for needing this mental health break at that point. This left Scott to pick up the pieces of his broken heart with only Stiles (Dylan O’Brien) to help glue them back together.
Scott and Stiles are best friends, but not even that is going to be enough to mend everything that’s wrong with this picture. Not long ago they were two relatively invisible members of the community and now they spend their evenings saving humanity and what not. Every ‘normal’ quality of their friendship has either disappeared completely or looks like it’s on steroids. Loyalty is one thing when your bff gets pantsed at the mall, it’s another thing entirely when he starts turning into a half-animal with weird compulsions. These two make it look relatively easy, but Stiles deserves an award. His loyalty to Scott has extended way beyond the accepted confines of the word.
To celebrate surviving the Allison-less summer, more or less, Scott decides that a tattoo is in order – thus the title of the episode. Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t have Derek’s perfectly ingrained werewolf knowledge and it turns into a wasted attempt, at least at first. When the truth behind that tattoo comes out later in the episode, there’s something tragically beautiful about it. Initially it looks like a simple attempt at teenage rebellion, but Scott’s emotional compass doesn’t allow for anything quite that tacky.
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