TEEN WOLF RECAP: Condition Terminal 5x04

I don't even really know where to start with this episode, so I guess the beginning is a good place.

So, like, Lydia's basically dying on the floor of the police station because our good friend Tracy decided it would be a good idea to cut open Lydia's stomach with her tail. Kira's trying to clot the wound with her hands, and then Stiles and Scott get there with Deaton to see what the hell happened. Our other good friend Theo busts in out of nowhere (he came with them but really it was nowhere) and pushes past Stiles into the room with Lydia, using his belt as a tourniquet to block the blood pouring from her side while Stiles stands in the doorway dumbfounded at the site of Lydia lying on the floor in near death. Mrs. Martin comes up from the basement and sees Lydia lying on the ground looking half dead and starts to freak out herself. Scott calls Stiles to him so they can go into the basement to investigate and Lydia smiles at Stiles and tells him to go help Tracy so that he'll actually move from where he's glued to the floor. Later Mama McCall says that the tourniquet Theo made probably saved Lydia's life, so I mean, thanks dude, but go away. She goes into surgery to fix herself and while she's counting down the anesthesia, she starts to hallucinate the Dread Doctors in the place of the actual surgeons that are going to be operating on her. When she wakes up, Parrish is sitting in her hospital room. Officially, he's there to collect eyewitness statements; unofficially, he's there trying to find something else to watch besides the kung fu movie on TV. Lydia asks him to teach her how to fight, since he learned how in the military. Obviously, he agreed, because we already know about the Marrish scenes in future episodes.

But, even before this, there's a scene between Lydia and Parrish of her trying to get him to burn his hand with a lighter, like so:

credit to lydiasdeputy on tumblr

At first, it hurts, but then when he really focuses, it's she who burns herself and he who has the patch of ash left on his hand from the flame. He then tells her about a dream he's been having where he's bringing people (naked, both him and them) to this giant tree stump in the woods (it's the Nemeton stump) and burning them alive. He doesn't tell her the last part, but we see it later as he's lying on some couch somewhere (seriously those couch card scenes were really randomly placed) thinking about the dream, which comes into play at the very end of the episode.

Okay, so now we get to the freaky part. After Scott called Stiles to go investigate the basement at the police station with Deaton, they found Tracy lying unconscious on the floor with Malia standing over her, and as soon as she saw them she started rambling about how she didn't do it and there were these guys with masks who were really strong, and she sounded really freaked out, because we all know how she hates to be out of control. The Sheriff starts freaking out because Deaton and Scott want to take her body out of the station to Deaton's office, and he says that they have to call the coroner to examine her body, but they eventually convince him that that would be ridiculous because she has werewolf claws and kanima skin (!!!!), so he lets them bring her body back to Deaton's office.

So everyone goes home, and Scott and Kira are in Scott's kitchen when Deaton walks out of the shadows and shows them some jars of the stuff he's gotten off the weird creatures that have been walking around town. Apparently, Blue Nails is a Garuda, which is supposedly a creature from Hinduism and Buddhism that's eagle-shaped and protects the god Vishnu, but I'm really not sure if that's correct. I know Deaton explains it more than me in the episode. Tracy turned out to be half kanima, half werewolf, with the signature werewolf claws and kanima skin, tail and venom. According to Deaton, this means that someone around here is trying to change the rules and rattle the very foundation and rules of the supernatural world that they've always had, which freaks him out, considering he's a man of science. He also explained that she was able to cross the mountain ash he put at the doorway because she was not a true supernatural creature because she was made and not born or bitten. Which basically means we have literally no defense against these creatures beyond our teeth, claws and other sharp objects (Kira's sword and that throwing star thing that acts as a belt buckle, pretty much.) All we can do is protect each other like we always have done in this crazy ass town.

Furthering our research on Tracy's little predicament, unexpectedly, is Scott's AP biology teacher and some girl who read from her cellphone to answer one of her questions. They were talking about DNA strands, and Scott and Kira were asking about whether there can be more than one kind of DNA in a being, or something like that, and the teacher explained that it could happen. There is a creature in Ancient Greek mythology called a Chimera, that has been depicted in pictures as a lion with the head of a goat protruding from its back and a tail that ends in a snake head, like this:

This animal is used as the example for having multiple sets of DNA in its body, much like Tracy's situation of being half kanima and half werewolf. She had both sets of DNA in her body. Now that we know that this is scientifically possible, we know that the Dread Doctors could be capable of mixing other monsters together to get the prime traits from both to make the ultimate killing machine.

Remember last week when our good old convict friend Donovan crashed a car and escaped and then the Dread Doctors drilled into his head through his ear? They came back for him and took him out of the holding cell he was in at the station while the fighting was going on in the basement and took him back to their little lair thing, and proceeded to pull out all his teeth to make room for the Wendigo teeth that grew in. He remains strapped to the table for the remainder of the episode, shuddering uncontrollably, probably going through some kind of bodily change so he can take on his new form. He basically now has about 3 rows of really sharp teeth in his mouth and an uncontrollable thirst for blood, plus a weird hole in his hand that also has teeth in it.

While Donovan is strapped into this chair, our wonderful friend Theo comes to visit him, starting with the exact words "You're lucky they're letting me talk to you, they don't usually let me do that." Theo goes over the psych evaluation that Donovan took before he was rejected to be a police officer (he rated too high on the psychopath scale and has a wash of anger issues - I'm not surprised) and Theo starts to talk to him about his hate for Sheriff Stilinski and how he can use the power and strength he has now has courtesy of the doctors against him to get revenge for what he's done to him. He tells him that physical pain, after a while, becomes manageable, but what really hurts is emotional pain. According to Theo, the best way to hurt Sheriff Stilinski is not go after him, but to:

credit to hoechloin on tumblr

This entire scene was a shock to me, because I didn't expect Theo to be connected to the Dread Doctors of all people. I thought he had his own evil agenda that was completely separate from whatever they're trying to do. Does anyone even know who they're trying to kill anymore? Is it Scott? Their plot line has literally just veered off into "Let's have them make weird creatures and then kill them later when they fail" and it's weird. So now basically all I want to know is whether he works with them or whether they take orders from him, but if they don't usually let him talk to anyone, then that either means they take great pride in their creations or he isn't in charge of them at all. I highly doubt they made Theo though, so I don't really know how he could be connected to them since him being in league with them makes very little sense to me since he has no purpose when it comes to them. He isn't a Doctor and he doesn't perform their little surgeries with them. But him being in charge of them doesn't make any sense either, considering they seem to be running their own little operation (pun unintended) wherever they are. In conclusion, Theo makes no sense.

Okay, so the last 20 minutes or so of this episode were probably my favorite of the entire episode. Mason carts Liam off to a potentially gay bar that Hayden works at as a shot girl and only lets Liam in with Mason after he pays her $50, which is a true testament as to how much she doesn't like him (according to Dylan the reason is that they broke each other's noses on picture day when they were in the 4th grade or something and they haven't liked each other since - which, now that I think of it, doesn't flow with the fact that he changed schools because of his anger issues, so he either made it up or it's another plot hole). Liam is basically supposed to be Mason's "flight attendant", something he proudly declares to Hayden for no reason (read: Scott is the hot girl) and then they spot Brett across the club dancing with a girl and then with a boy.

credit to lydsargent from tumblr

They meet up later and Brett and Mason start doing shots while Liam does that paranoia thing where he finds the one person in the entire club that's totally weird. Liam's talking to Brett, asking him if he's sensed anyone weird, and Brett says that he hasn't, and then successfully points out the only other weird person in the entire club to Mason, who's apparently interested in him. Cool. Good job. Lucas knows that Mason and Liam are close, so of course the only viable option is to hit on him and ask him about the classic zombie movie playing on his shirt when he pushes him into an alcove protected by strings of silver beads (The name of the club is Sinema - get it?). They flirt (or Lucas flirts with Mason while he's dumbfounded), and then Lucas kisses Mason up against the wall, and proceeds to bring out the really freaky looking stingers in his arm just before Brett tackles him to the ground because SOMEONE finally realized that he was weird. They fight for like 10 seconds until Lucas slashes Brett with his stinger things, and then Liam literally jumps out of thin air and tackles Lucas to the ground, at which point Scott and Kira run into the room.

Prior to this moment, Scott and Kira had been at the hospital with Mama McCall, investigating a really weird injury that some kid has. It looked like a giant, very shallow cut that was also really wide. It was like yellow and white, and the kid was screaming like there was no bloody tomorrow because he was in so much pain. They had already tried everything and the only other thing they could do was put him into a medically induced coma, like they do for burn patients. Dr. Dunbar ran off to go find his anesthesiologist, but they had already pumped the poor kid full of morphine and it wasn't doing anything. Scott went in with Kira and Mama McCall and Scott successfully removed that kid's pain (apparently his name is Corey and he's supposed to be a recurring character now) but he appeared to be in more pain than usual, so much so that Kira and Mama McCall had to pull him away from Corey and he was exhausted after removing his pain. Corey finally stops screaming, and Mama McCall explains that it's a scorpion bite that would have come from a scorpion ten feet tall. Lucas isn't quite ten feet tall, but he'll do. Corey finally wakes up and explains to them that he and Lucas had been on some kind of date, and they were kissing when he stung him with the stingers. Lucas told him he'd see him at the club that night, and he left before Corey even knew what happened. So, Scott and Kira journey off to Sinema thanks to the helpful tips of Corey.

When they arrive, they open the door and an alarm goes off in the corner of the room. Kira takes the belt buckle off her knife belt and uses it as a throwing star to get the stupid thing to turn off. Scott then goes:

credit to stilesdunbar on tumblr

Without even realizing what he's saying to her, like the time he kissed her in the hallway for the first time and had no idea until like a minute later. So, as per regular Kira fashion, she goes:

credit to stilesdunbar on tumblr

And stands there in shock for a few seconds before they start walking through the club trying to find Brett, Mason, Liam and Lucas while she goes "You did it again. You did something that changes everything and you don't even know.", and Scott ever so eloquently responds "I did?" because for some reason his brain shuts off when he says these things. He still has no idea what he said, so we're going to have to deal with that next week. So they finally show up and find Mason clotting Brett's cut on his side while Liam is fighting Lucas, and all he has to say is:

credit to teenwolf on tumblr

And I'm like, dude. Not the time for sass. Focus, please. So, they fight a little more, and eventually Lucas ends up flat on his back on the ground, with Kira looking like this:

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And almost stabbing him through the chest with her sword. Her doing that seemed like it was almost an unconscious thing that she didn't even realize she was doing, and Scott had to grab her wrist before she stabbed him through the chest, and it was only then that she realized what she was doing. Then, out of literally nowhere, the Dread Doctors appear in front of them, and they stab Lucas through the chest with one of their little arrow things, successfully killing him, which means that he was one of their little creations. Scott asks them why they did that, and one of them, seemingly the leader, the one with the magnifying glass thing on his mask, says "His condition was terminal." with no further explanation, and they disappear into thin air. 

Scott apparently decides to take Lucas to the morgue at the hospital, and he and his mother put him into the wall, because it's the best thing they can do for now, although they might have to explain the stingers to someone if they come to examine him. Scott starts to beat himself up for letting any of that stuff happen, and Mama McCall just says "You know what you do when you say should a lot? You're shoulding all over yourself" and it might be one of the best things she's ever said. They exit the room, and Parrish enters from the other end, and picks Lucas up out of the.... container that he's in, and it cuts to a real life representation of his dream. He takes him to the Nemeton;

credit to bussykween on tumblr

Sets him down on the trunk and lights himself on fire;

credit to bussykween on tumblr

And then proceeds to light Lucas on fire, burning his body.

credit to bussykween on tumblr

I read a theory somewhere that said that Parrish was unconsciously restoring a balance to Beacon Hills. Jennifer always used to go on about how there had to be a balance in the world, and that the Nemeton was part of having that balance. The amount of supernatural creatures in Beacon Hills is getting to be a little out of hand recently because the Dread Doctors are making so many of them, so by Parrish burning them at the Nemeton, he's restoring the balance, and as Deaton would say, regressing the mean to a neutral state.

And, to cap off the shitstorm that was this Teen Wolf episode, we join Stiles in a parking lot, fixing his Jeep (again) because it's broken (again), taping some hose closed with duct tape (he needs a real mechanic or a new car). Donovan shows up behind him, and sticks his hand up, with it looking like this:

And cutting him in the shoulder, making him scream in intense (#mason) pain. And that was it. The episode was over. Freaking Jeff Davis, making me cry eternally and giving me these terrible cliffhangers to deal with.

So, yeah. That's the end of that shitstorm. Come back next week for the next one! See you then!

TEEN WOLF RECAP: Creatures of the Night 5x01

Let's start with Lydia, since our lovely strawberry blonde opens the show for us. She's in Eichen House, having a shower, in quite the catatonic state, being yelled at by a female nurse. The scene changes, and she's walking down a dark hallway in Eichen House with wet hair, followed by a couple of nurses. Eventually they get to her room/cell, and the male nurse is in the process of injecting her with some kind of sedative. As soon as he sticks her with the needle, she sits up really fast and screams so loud that the lights blow out and the nurse goes flying across the room, like so:

And then she runs out of the room and has one of the most badass fight scenes I've ever seen on Teen Wolf, like, ever, which includes this move of hers:

It looks like she's propelling her scream out of her hands in the form of a sound wave to make it into a weapon, and it looks pretty damn cool to me. She makes it to the outside of Eichen House, where she beats up a couple more nurses and security guards until she is met with a scary sight as she approaches the stairs. Aiden is walking up the stairs, telling her that it's not her time yet, whatever that means, and then she is subsequently tasered by the security guards while saying "No, no, you have to let me go. My friends... my friends.., they're all going to die." 

And then it cuts to the credits. All this happened in about 2 minutes. That's craziness, if you ask me. 

Let's talk about the credits for a second. They changed them for this season, and the only parts that are the same are Posey, Dylan, and Holland's. Then it cuts to Shelley doing her through-the-hanging-brush thing, a Scira kiss, then Arden doing her knife thing, and then baby Dylan looking cute as ever, with a quick change between wolf and regular self, and then it says TEEN WOLF in the traditional block letters, followed by a really creepy shot with the doctors. I missed the theme music man. 

So after the fabulous theme ends, we open with a shot of Scott and Stiles sitting - where else? - on Stiles' jeep in the middle of the woods. They appear to be overlooking the city of Beacon Hills, and Stiles is going through apartment listings in San Francisco, chattering on while Scott stares at the moon. He stops when he notices Scott isn't listening,and this is the introduction of Stiles' "vision". This vision apparently entails Lydia getting into Stanford with no problem, Kira going to USF, Malia figuring something out, and the two of them living together. With the jeep, of course, because no one gets left behind (although that thing broke a lot this episode so maybe it needs some professional help or maybe a funeral and a new car for Stiles - although, like him, I'm sure we're all very attached to that car. We've had so many adventures in it.) And then you hear Liam, who's chained to a tree behind them. Then, this happens:

And then they approach him, so he asks to be unlocked. They agree, or rather, Scott agrees, because as Scott approaches Liam to unlock him, Stiles says "In control? Last time it was a dozen calls to the Sheriff's office about a mysterious dog boy running naked through the streets." Which prompts this:

This is the point when they decide to leave for the Senior Scribe, with our not-a-senior friend Liam in tow. The jeep has the first of its many breakdowns during this trip, a very impressive and scary lightning bolt goes off in the background while they're fiddling with the engine, which is legitimately 65% duct tape. Liam sees it and tries to get their attention, to no avail, because they're having a very deep conversation about why Stiles is so insistent on getting to Senior Scribe on time. Then, another one of those impressive lightning bolts hits the ground behind Scott and Stiles, and then Liam turns on the car, sticks his head out the window, and goes "Can we go now?" because that kind of lightning = bad, even though we literally have no idea what caused it at all. Liam starts to question them, asking where they're going and why he can't come and is it a party and where are the girls.

We then join Malia and her dad in a parking lot with a bunch of strangers, trying to lift a fallen tree in what appears to be one of the worst storms Beacon Hills has seen in a while. Malia ends up lifting the tree with no assistance from her father or the 6 or so strangers also helping, which she attributes to her "strong legs". Stiles then swings into the parking lot in his jeep to pick her up, where they kiss for the first time and her father says "You know I own a gun, right?". Inside Stiles' car, everyone turns to stare at her for no reason. They are all curious to see whether she "got it", and then, in a strange turn of events, Liam does the wrong thing and explains the entire situation as Malia waiting for an email from school letting her know whether she's a senior or whether she has to repeat junior year after her summer school stint to make up for her low ACT scores.

Then, we jump to Kira, standing on a car in the biggest traffic jam I have ever seen, attempting to get some cell service so she can call Scott. As she gets back into the car as per her mother's request, she sees this guy, our new friend Theo, for the first time:

Who is also attempting to get some cell service. At this point, he looks like a random dude, but we all know better than that. He's not just any random dude. But we'll get back to Theo later. 

We join Scott and Liam in the hospital, dropping him off so that he can wait for his dad to get out of surgery and they can all go to Senior Scribe. Scott joins Stiles downstairs, after making sure Liam can stay in control (he uses music as his anchor) and they're discussing Scott telling Kira to have fun in New York, which was apparently a bad idea, as illustrated by one of Malia's fabulous lines: "Fun like bowling, or fun like sex with other guys?" to which Scott aptly replies, "Okay, now I'm worried." Mama McCall informs them that all these injured people are coming from a jackknifed tractor trailer on the 15, which is apparently the only way back into Beacon Hills from the airport and currently where Kira is, sitting in a car with her parents while they tell her legends about the Ghost Riders. Scott goes to his house to grab his helmet from his room, and suddenly all the magnetized objects break because Blue Nails, as I have dubbed him, is creeping in the background trying to hurt Scott. He doesn't, not till later. Scott then hops on his bike and drives through the traffic - totally illegally, by the way - to find Kira. Thankfully, she didn't have fun in New York, like I knew she wouldn't, and then they kiss and make up and everyone's happy. 

Stiles and Malia are standing outside the school building, fruitlessly checking their phones for messages from Scott, Kira and Lydia. Malia smells Stiles' anxiety and asks him why he smells this way, and he explains that he's nervous about everyone not being together on this night. He says that his dad doesn't talk to any of his high school friends anymore and he can't understand how that can be, because he already has all the best people in his life right now and so it makes sense that he would fight to keep them there.

Finally, FINALLY, we make it inside the damn school building that is never locked at night and totally should be because how many times have we been there at night and something bad has happened? Someone call the janitorial staff, they have to LOCK THE DAMN DOORS. It's not hard, really. Lydia finds them inside the building, and they all proceed to the formidable school library inside BHHS. Seriously, that thing is huge, mostly because they built it where Derek's loft used to be. I want a library like that in my life. They all line up to write their initials on the shelves, and Stiles goes first. It shows the initials DH for our lovely Derek Hale, then Lydia goes, then Kira, who is very concerned about vandalism, then Malia, who signs as a Tate, and then Scott. Scott writes his own initials, and then, after a pause, does this: 

And writes Allison's initials. Way to make me cry, man. They reminisce about Allison, and Lydia says that she is always with them, which is true. Apparently no one cares about Isaac, but I mean, whatever. That totally doesn't annoy me at all. 

And with that, Senior Scribe is over. 

Now we get to the fun parts of the episode - the fight scene, the Doctors, and Parrish.  

We see Parrish for the first time near the beginning of the episode - answering the phones at the front desk in the Sheriff's office. The power is down in Beacon Hills because of the storm, and apparently that means everyone has to call the police for assistance. Stilinski comes out of his office to tell Parrish to go check the backup generators and to answer the damn phone, because that thing is ringing off the hook. Parrish then charges into his office, yelling about how he's done traffic direction, courthouse security, served subpoenas, and just that night, finished an overhaul of the evidence locker. He's annoyed that Stilinski won't let him go anywhere when the power is down, there's a jackknifed tractor trailer on the 15 and reports of gunshots downtown. According to him, he needs every available deputy out there. So, to make him be quiet, Stilinski hands him a noise complaint so that he can feel useful.

So he goes to investigate said complaint, and breaks open a wall inside of the house because he thinks someone is trapped somewhere. I honestly don't know what the hell is train of thought was. So, anyways, he breaks the wall and gets pulled into this mysterious space by none other than Blue Nails. He says that Parrish is "definitely something" because his eyes light up when he picks him up off the ground, and he then proceeds to slash his chest open with his formidable talon things. He asks Parrish where Scott McCall is, and Parrish doesn't give him up, because he's a wonderful human being. Blue Nails leaves him to die on the floor and leaves in search of Scott, which is when he ends up in his house, like I mentioned previously.

Parrish leans himself up against a metal shelving unit and tries to call for backup, to no avail. He then starts to hallucinate Lydia being there with him, and they almost kiss, until Stilinski bursts into the room to save him. He carries Parrish off to the hospital and Mama McCall. They lie him on the metal table, his bloody wound smoking for no reason, until he shoots up off the table incredibly fast. His eyes light up, and he turns around to see Stilinski pointing his gun at him with Mama McCall behind him. His wound has been reduced to blood marks left on his chest, and he tells them that Scott is in trouble. Liam, being incredibly helpful, bored, and nosy, is standing outside the door and runs off as fast as can be as soon as he hears this. He finds Stiles and Malia at school, and Malia almost takes him out because she thinks he's going to hurt them. He tells them that Scott is in danger, and we join Scott and Kira making out under that bridge thing where everything happens when we're at school - the one where Aiden died. That one. The fight has already started, as Blue Nails has found them first, and Kira has this totally badass belt knife thing she's using to attempt to defend herself and Scott against Blue Nails. Stiles, Malia and Liam show up and Liam almost goes full wolf, but settles for an intimidating stance instead. Theo also shows up out of goddamn nowhere, and attacks Blue Nails but gets thrown against the wall, like Scott and Kira previously were. Blue Nails then approaches Scott and sticks his talon things inside of him in an attempt to suck out his true Alpha power. He almost makes it, but then, in true Teen Wolf fashion, his eyes light up and he breaks Blue Nails' wrist and throws his talons on the ground. Blue Nails then runs away, and this is when we officially meet Theo for the first time. Apparently they used to be friends in the fourth grade and now that Theo is a werewolf, he heard that Scott was a true Alpha and wants to join his pack.

The show ends with Blue Nails crouching in some mysterious place, clutching his broken wrist (the bone is sticking out and everything), telling a mystical entity that he can do better and that they have to give him another chance to kill Scott because he can do it. The camera angle changes, and we see the Dread Doctors approaching him with a very large knife, telling him that that was his only chance and that they failed him. They then proceed to stab him through the chest, effectively killing him and releasing a swarm of ravens from his mouth into the aerial camera shot. My guess is that those ravens represent some kind of spirit the Doctors can put into different people to make them do their bidding. They all look very.. Not scary, really, maybe creepy is the word that I want. They look so mysterious, and I really want to take their masks off and see what's underneath, if anything.

That's it. That's Creatures of the Night for you. It was definitely a jam-packed episode. Parasomnia, the second episode, is better, in my opinion, but they were both still great. That's it for now, folks. See you next time!