Tuesday, June 11, 2013

'Teen Wolf' 3.02 "Chaos Rising" Review

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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.



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Jeff Davis has two apparent inspirations in his writing: mythology and horror movie tropes. This week’s pre-credits scene with Stiles and his love interest out of thin air called Heather definitely paid tribute to the latter and very well. Stiles drags Scott to Heather’s seventeenth birthday where she’s decided that tonight’s ‘the night’. We even get the fun return of fan favorite TW superfan Shantal Rhodes who memorably appeared last season at another birthday party. Heather brings Stiles downstairs and before he knows what’s gotten into his former pre-school bubble bath buddy they’re making out against a row of wine shelves. I love how O’Brien played Stiles desperately searching her house for a condom. As I said last week the fact that these teenagers are neither smooth nor magically sexually adept makes for a better portrayal of big awkward high school experiences such as losing one’s virginity. The moment Stiles leaves the girl alone however, Heather is assaulted by an invisible force that not only wrecks what must be a fairly expensive wine collection but drags her out of the window to who knows where as well. Except that was entirely in her head and proves to be another example of how this season is going to have some of our characters getting seriously mind-fucked.

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My issue with how this scene plays out has to do with this suddenness of Heather and Stiles. So much of it seemed like Dylan O’Brien fan-service from a show that knows exactly what its audience wants—well not exactly but that was definitely their ‘we’ll meet you half-way’ with Stiles nearly getting it on with a bit of a Mary Sue really.  Close your eyes and take Heather’s place if you’d like to ladies. We know absolutely nothing about Heather except she and Stiles were close as little kids and now she’s gone so who knows if we’ll even get the chance to learn anything else about her. My fellow Beyond Fandom blogger Rachel joked that it was the Sterek fandom that really snatched Heather up and not the Alpha pack. Right now that would make more sense than the Alphas happening to target this girl out of nowhere.

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You do have to give the show credit though for not being afraid to have female characters that are so sexually self-assured and confident. First Heather in her attempt to get with Stiles and then we have Lydia eyeing one of the new Alpha pack twins. There was another site which published a review that claimed Lydia was becoming a sexual predator. There aren’t enough rage words in my vocabulary to express how pissed off that made me to read. Lydia Martin owns her sexuality and she goes after what she wants. She plays by her own rules and gasp, it’s exactly like what most guys do! How dare she use men for sexual satisfaction and not spend the rest of her days and nights pining over them as though her life depended on it afterward…is it dangerous for her to pursue an Alpha? Of course it is, but she should not be demonized for having a sex drive at all or the will to see it through.

As for the twins themselves they’re a bit ‘fetch’ at the moment. I mean, I get it that the show is really trying to make them happen but so far it’s just not happening. A large part of this is the fact that we’ve mostly just seen them across rooms when other characters look at them. They have no personalities yet except we do know one is, as Lydia so bluntly informs Allison, gay because he looked at Danny while the other looked at a book shelf. They really need to start giving us more of the twins as actual people; we’ve barely seen Deucalion or Kali but they already feel much more realized as characters since we’ve gotten glimpses of their respectives personalities not just their special Alpha wolf tricks.

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There is one Alpha wolf trick I loved in this episode, or maybe it was just because of the wolf that performed it. Derek Hale was not the only Hale to get his own special entrance this season as Peter strolled into Derek’s loft accompanied by his own swaggering background music and a camera that clearly adores him from the moment he walks into the frame. I love it anytime a show takes a character who clearly served as a big bad then shifts them into the dynamic of the main cast of characters all while not forgetting the actions of said villain. Buffy did it with Spike, Heroes flirted with it when Sylar became arguably the lead character on that series, and now Peter Hale gets to try to prove himself among a group of people who don’t like him and have no issue saying so to his face. Stiles has a great line later on he uses to try to ease the tension between Allison and Derek that applies just as well to Peter Hale. To paraphrase it, sure Peter used some people and killed a little here and there, but everyone that matters is still alive right now so bygones?

His trick with using his claws to ‘plug into’ Isaac’s mind remains one of the coolest things that Jeff Davis has brought to werewolf canon. But when it didn’t work, Isaac then had to go through even more suffering this time at the hands of Dr. Deaton when plunged into an ice bath in order to slow his heart rate to the point of near death.

If there’s something that Teen Wolf accomplishes much better than some of its peers then it’s the establishment of supporting characters you yearn to learn more about and get excited about when they show up in an episode. Doc Deaton, the mysterious guidance counselor Ms. Morell, and even characters like Coach are all used effectively without becoming crutches for the plot to rest on too frequently. To me, a series that creates a world filled with people you come to know and care about beyond the main four or five leads becomes a richer viewing experience.

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Back to the ice bath which fulfilled both Teen Wolf’s man candy quota as well as became a nifty way to get exposition that led to the caper of Scott and Derek attempting to rescue Boyd and Erica and/or whomever the other girl was that Isaac mentioned. I have this sinking feeling with Isaac this season and I just can’t shake it. There’s often a formula of sorts for what characters are perfect to be sacrificed for the sake of upping the dramatic personal stakes in a story. It can’t be the lead character, it can’t be the wise-cracking friend, and it’s not going to be one of the few ladies. Isaac is already such a tragic figure from his past abuse at the hands of his twisted father that it seems absolutely unthinkable that he will continue to suffer only to wind up the sacrificial lamb on Teen Wolf’s storytelling altar.

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Yet I feel this is exactly what we should be preparing for this year. I hope that I’m completely wrong on this count but if there’s one person who’s popular enough to cause fan outrage after his death it’s Isaac. The key with choosing him to fill this role is that all of the audience empathy for him can easily be charged into a want for revenge to drive the plot forward that much more. It’s very Agent Coulson to have a character death galvanize our heroes to finally defeat the baddies.  

As things so frequently go on here, this episode led to our heroes making a plan and following it through, well some of them anyway. Scott and Derek went to the abandoned bank to rescue their captive fellow wolves while Stiles and Peter hung back at Derek’s new loft. If it’s wrong to hope that a small Stiles/Peter Hale shipping community grows out of their time together in this episode than I choose to not be right ever again. In fact, this episode had some quality comedic moment in it to break up the growing sense of dread from the Alpha pack threat.

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My personal favorite had to be Derek proving to Stiles just how easily he was going to punch his way into the bank vault by showing Stiles’s open palm his technique. Though a close second would probably be the simple mundane humor of two high school boys passed out while the printer just keeps on shooting paper out; most all-nighters aren’t centered around cracking the mystery of a years old bank robbery but that was a very relatable moment for someone that remembers what it’s like to fall asleep during their homework. It’s a very real teenage moment and keeps things grounded on this supernatural show.

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The scene at the bank holds a number of interesting developments. For one, Allison shows up first in an attempt to prove to Derek and I think everyone else that she can redeem her acts from last season. I do admire to a point her desire to save Boyd and Erica but the problem with how Allison’s efforts play out can be described like so: she has a tool, she uses said tool, and then that’s the extent of her plan. It doesn’t matter if that tool happens to be her bow or a pair of bolt cutters, Allison starts things with no idea how to finish them or deal with consequences when they come. Road to hell being paved with good intentions and all that. She does wind up saving Derek and Scott from a moon-starved (yeah it’s a thing) Boyd and Derek’s suddenly not dead sister Cora.  But if she hadn’t managed to hide her scent in the maintenance closet when hiding from the Alpha pack how exactly was she going to get out of that by herself against wolves far more lethal than a couple of cornered pups? She’s still a human on a battlefield that’s becoming increasingly dangerous to navigate even for fairly proficient combatants like Derek Hale and needs to learn to look before she leaps for her own good.

I will give Allison credit though for calling out Derek on turning teenagers into creatures that can far too easily become rabid killers. That is a harsh truth, just as harsh as the one he spat back at her about her family and their legacy of killing said teenagers. It’s a really tricky battle for moral superiority between those two, and I dig that they can both be wrong and both be right in it. Grey areas are the most interesting ones to have characters exist within. I’m curious to see how she takes to the news of what her mother was really up to the night Derek attacked her though. That might shift the moral high ground a little bit under the trio but it still won't make one character completely in the right for their past actions.

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Regarding Cora, I know I’m supposed to really care about that happening but honestly I’m way more concerned with Ms. Morell walking out on Deucalion’s arm. Again, it’s the show’s capacity to build mysteries around its supporting characters ensnaring my interest there. I’m also incredibly curious if Erica’s corpse is a permanent thing or if we’re going to get her back soon. Let’s hope so because that was a really shitty way to go out if that’s what that was.

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