'Teen Wolf' 3.04 "Unleashed" Review

MTV

Anytime a show has to deal with bringing in new characters, expanding the relationships of its core crew, and balancing new storylines there are difficulties in doing so smoothly. Four episodes in and ‘Unleashed’ had a few more issues with handling concepts such starting new ships for known characters. Last week, Derek saved Scott and co’s new teacher Ms. Blake from a rabid werewolf thrashing. Now he’s showing up before school in her classroom checking on her well-being (good), trying to impress her with his knowledge of the metaphorical nature of The Crucible (she’s an English teacher Derek you’re not impressing her), and Ms. Blake responded in kind with suspicion and nervous twitchiness.

The problem with creating a pairing out of this situation is that it feels so random. We barely know anything about Ms. Blake outside of the fact she’s a hot young teacher with a penchant for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

'Teen Wolf' 3.03 "Fireflies" Review

MTV

One of my favorite things about this show is that not only does Jeff Davis make you pay attention so you can often come to the correct answer before one of his own characters does, but he is perfectly comfortable with allowing a central mystery within one character drive more than one plot while staying a mystery. Take the saga of Lydia Martin for example; we’ve only been given glimpses of why she’s such a unique player in all of this. She’s immune to the bite, she seems to be drawn to some sort of mystical force, and she has a habit of hanging out with corpses accidentally or not. This week’s opening felt strongly reminiscent of a plight suffered by another television character, Hannibal’s Will Graham, in that Lydia too wound up in a place without a sense of why she was there or how long it was since she left home. Somebody get her a piece of paper to see what her drawing of the nearest clock looks like.

'True Blood' 601 Review - "Who Are You, Really?"

HBO

Season six of True Blood is shaping up to be an exploration of power, and how those who have it can grow corrupt and lose themselves to it.

'Teen Wolf' 3.02 "Chaos Rising" Review

MTV

Now I know that for some younger viewers of MTV’s Teen Wolf the original Scream film is a bit of a dusty entry in the horror genre. Something that older siblings would mention but not something that they have personally seen. Well there’s a character in the first couple of Scream films played by Jamie Kennedy whose purpose was to keep viewers abreast of the meta rules of the very film he was in—the rules of a horror movie. One of the most important rules of this canon has to do with girls losing their virginity. It’s a play on the perception, especially in a girl’s teenage years, that the women who are liberated sexually are courting trouble. Put simply, if you’ve had sex or are going to have sex then you’re probably going to die. New character Heather learned this fact the hard way in tonight’s episode.

'Teen Wolf' 3.01 "Tattoo" Review

MTV

Typically the worry with a hit show is the sophomore slump but in Teen Wolf’s particular case the show actually popped in its second season so the worry would be that the third couldn’t live up to the standout episodes of last year. After watching tonight’s premiere, it’s quite clear that Teen Wolf is interested in taking what they learned from last year and growing from there as represented by a thrilling, mystery-laden, action-packed episode that proved why this show is quite possibly the modern-day heir to the Buffy the Vampire Slayer throne of thematic genre storytelling. Oh and don’t worry, there’s still plenty of shirtless guys and a Stiles cracking wise so don’t think this is Teen Wolf  suddenly going grim. That said, things are quite dark from the get-go in a season that seems poised to deal with its latest threat with a little more maturity and readiness than in the past.