Teen Wolf Recap 8/13/12 Season Finale “Master Plan”

On this week’s season finale of Teen Wolf, Scott proves that he’s more than a pretty face thanks to a brilliant plan to take down Gerard. Allison continues trying to kill all the things with little success. Peter grows a gross goatee. Gerard goes balls-out crazy, as members of the Argent family are wont to do. And everyone spends all episode in a giant glass case of emotion, crying like they’re watching a marathon of Beaches. To take the Beachesmetaphor to its logical conclusion, obviouslyStiles is the wind beneath all of our wings.

The finale capped off a truly excellent sophomore season of MTV’s surprisingly fun and astoundingly good teen werewolf drama. With a name like Teen Wolfit would be easy to write the show off as just fluffy summer fare, but that would be a mistake. The series knows how to have fun (and especially how to pander to its female demographic) but it also weaves a tight story with truly well-crafted performances. The whole cast is really gelling together in a way that wasn’t even apparent in the first season.

Crystal Reed has especially stepped up to the plate this season. Whether Allison was lovestruck, helping Scooby Doo crimes or shooting people multiple times with arrows for no reason, Reed really committed to everything. Allison has certainly been through the ringer this season, but the finale left her in a hopeful place for the future. Hopefully this doesn’t involve multiple stabbings anymore, but with the Argent family it’s hard to tell what constitutes “healthy” behavior.

The finale also finally solved both the Gerard problem and the Kanima drama while leaving open multiple story avenues for season three. Since the third season will run for twice the length of the first two, the show is going to need all the story it can get! Certainly, there are no complaints here if that story involves more of the hilarious Uncle Peter, whose eye rolls and one-liners considerably lightened up this plot and emotion-heavy episode.

You know it’s going to be an emotional episode when Teen Wolf starts with a touching moment between Scott and the Coach. Usually our favorite Coach, fond of cupcakes and Independence Day speeches, is rattling off weird stuff like he’s high on at least seven different kinds of speed. This time, however, he’s getting heartfelt when he tells Scott he’s needed on the team. So he needs to get his grades up.

It’s funny how I completely forgot that Scott is failing all his classes in the midst of this craziness. This might be the most realistic supernatural teen on TV. I always wonder how teens on these supernatural shows (or even most normal teen dramas) manage to graduate if they never seem to go to class. If there was a class based just around locker room shirtlessness though, Scott and Jackson would be honor students.

Soon it’s right back into the business of the episode. Erica and Boyd are tied up down in the Argent Basement of Beating and Electrocuting Teenagers, being beaten and electrocuted. Stiles is added to the mix, where he says one old joke too many and ends up on the nasty end of a Gerard smack down.

Allison is on board with all of these shenanigans because she has gone totally insane and thinks torturing people is awesome now. Her dad is staring at her in shock, wondering at the monster he’s created and snapping her crossbows so she can’t shoot people a million times anymore. But Allison is like “joke’s on you sucka, I have a bunch of tiny knives!” Then she and Gerard giggle in a corner about how fun torture is and decide who to kill next while leaving Argent out, like the totally homicidal mean girls they are.

While all of this is going on, Scott is shocked to learn Uncle Peter is back and 100 percent less crispy than before. “I’m back! And I grew this molester mustache so you’d remember I was evil instead of just hot! How does it look?” Uncle Peter says. “Like you want to lure me into a van to see some puppies, so mission accomplished former dead alpha!” Scott replies. Isaac looks around in confusion and then just gives up, because these people are exhausting.

—Read the full recap including all the action and all the feels on HaveUHeard.net HERE!!

Teen Wolf Recap 8/6/12 “Battlefield”

On this week’s episode of Teen Wolf, the big lacrosse game gets deadly while Allison runs around shooting everything that moves in Beacon Hills. At the game Stiles finally gets a moment in the spotlight, which of course means he ends up kidnapped. Peter visits Derek in the Hale Crispy Fried Mansion of Tough Love to tell him how to deal with the Kanima. And Scott and Isaac fall in love with each other some more on the lacrosse field.

As the penultimate episode of this spectacular season of Teen Wolf, this episode set a lot of balls into motion. The Argents are clearly in charge and acting more dangerously than ever before. We finally discovered Gerard’s motives, although they were fairly obvious the whole time. As soon as Gerard came back for Kate’s funeral, it was pretty apparent he was there to avenge his murdered (and murderous) daughter. This week we only received confirmation, although we still don’t know the purpose of his ever-present pills.

As per usual in this season, the battle lines are constantly being drawn and redrawn. No wonder Scott always looks so confused. One minute Derek and the pack are evil, the next they’re best bros. One minute he’s doodling hearts on Allison’s window, the next minute she’s pumping some teen wolves full of arrows. The characters are always standing on shifting sands and each episode brings with it new alliances. Yet all these reformations make sense with where the characters are emotionally, which is a real testament to the writing of the show.

Next week’s finale will see the battle between the Argents, led by pill popping Grandpa and Allison “shoot all the things” Argent. We will undoubtedly see an end to the Kanima storyline that’s woven its way throughout the entire season, probably thanks to the power of love. And perhaps we’ll get some answers to our questions about Peter, the vet, and the mysterious guidance counselor. But I wouldn’t bet on it. After all, Teen Wolf has an expanded third season it’ll need storylines to fill.

This week the show starts with Stiles in the guidance counselor’s office, playing with his stick. Lacrosse stick that is. (I’m sorry, that’s the last terrible pun about Stiles’ package I’ll make. Probably.) He’s telling the counselor, and by extension the audience, about the fallout from last week’s action packed murder-fest.

Stiles’ father is now Sheriff again, probably because he’s the only police officer left alive in Beacon Hills. Allison and Scott aren’t really talking. Scott’s mom is still trying to process that her son is a teen wolf and there’s no way to deal with those stupid sideburns now. Lydia is fine, because now that she’s resurrected that hot dude stalking her from beneath the floorboards it’s time to go shopping at show sponsor MACYS for lipgloss. Oh and the latent Argent crazy in Allison’s DNA has finally manifested itself and she’s started to go on father-daughter wolf hunting trips.

But the most important thing is that there is going to be a lacrosse game! It’s the big one! Remember in the first season whenTeen Wolf was trying to act like lacrosse was a sport that anyone outside high school or really rich country clubs cared about?

Meanwhile, Boyd and Erica hear some howling and come to the conclusion that it’s time to bounce and join a new pack. Derek tries to remind them of all the good times they had as werewolves together. “Remember that one time I tried to get you guys to help me kill one of your classmates? Or that other time I chained you up with torture devices? Come on guys, how could you leave all this?”

Boyd and Erica look at each other, hold hands, and then skip off into the sunset to find their new pack. In the Hale Crispy Fried Mansion of Manpain, Derek tries to hold in his tears while mentally composing a sepia-toned montage of all the good teen wolf times but it’s basically a ‘footage not found’ situation.

—Read the full recap including all the playoff action and kidnappings at HaveUHeard.net HERE!!

Teen Wolf “Fury” Recap 7/30/2012

On this week’s episode of Teen Wolf, chaos reigns supreme as everything terrible happens all at once. Having learned Matt was the Kanima master in last week’s episode, we finally get a glimpse into his unhinged mind. And oh man is that mind unhinged! Matt is like every horror movie villain rolled into one. If he had a mustache he would have just spent the entire episode twirling it while laughing manically.

This season, every episode of Teen Wolf has raised the tension while also giving us insights into the characters. It didn’t seem like last week’s wolfsbane drugging party could be outdone, yet this episode was non-stop action the whole time. From the moment Matt showed up with a gun about ten minutes into the episode, it was clear this outing wasn’t going to be filler. The show wisely realizes the drama and suspense that can unfold from trapping the characters in a small space and watching them fight it out.

This isn’t to say that we didn’t also get a great deal of character development. Allison fully embraced her badass destiny with the help of some manipulation from Grandpa Gerard. Scott’s mother finally realized her son has been running around town as a teen wolf. I can’t wait until Scott runs away from home to become a waitress in a small town just like Buffy did when her mom found out. And last, but certainly not least, Stiles and Derek finally got that hug they’ve both been craving.

One of the many things I really appreciate about Teen Wolf, besides how fun and surprisingly meaty it is given the subject matter, is how well the show understands its audience. This show knows people want to see shirtlessness within the first ten minutes (thanks gratuitous dream shot of Derek!). It has clearly also cottoned to the fact that a large contingent of the online community is obsessed with the hilarious back-and-forth Derek and Stiles have. Throwing a paralyzed Stiles on top of Derek was basically a gift to the fanbase. Here you go, Teen Wolf magnanimously said tonight, have some pandering.

This week the episode began back in the not-so-distant past. Matt gives Jackson his camera; sure he’s going to use it to make a sex tape. So what does he do? He breaks into the camera to stream the video and watch a shirtless Jackson sleep like an enormous creeper.

Instead, he sees Jackson turn into the Kanima and realizes Jackson killed Isaac’s dad for him. Matt puts up his hand and Jackson puts up his scaly Kanima hand, and the two fall in love and live murderously ever after. And that, kids, was how I met your Kanima!

—Read the full recap including all the Sterek, shirtlessness and Allison badassery at HaveUHeard.net HERE!!

Teen Wolf Recap 7/23/12 “Party Guessed”

On this week’s episode of Teen Wolf, it’s Lydia’s party and she’ll drug everyone if she wants to. The diabolical and extra crispy Peter Hale finally unveils his true purpose for Lydia, which involves underage drinking and fairy dust. Even dead and underneath some floorboards, Peter Hale is such a drama queen.

Meanwhile, everyone hallucinated their greatest fear at a party full of awesome pool dunking extras and drag queens. We find out once and for all who the Kanima’s master is, although the why and how are still mysteries. And we say a fond, terrified farewell to Mama Argent.

This episode of Teen Wolf was so dense and packed with action that a sequence where Derek screwed a torture device onto Erica’s face while she screamed in pain was actually episode filler. This whole season the show has subtly been getting more involved, more complex, and just plain more awesome. This week’s episode took that to a whole new level.

In the middle of the reveal of the season-long Kanima master mystery and the Peter Hale Extra Crispy Vengeance plan, the episode still managed to pack in more character building and emotional arcs. More than understanding that every episode is best begun with nudity, Teen Wolf understands that action cannot take the place of character development.  Thus we learn more about almost every character tonight, including their deepest fears.

—Read the full recap including all the shocking relevations at HaveUHeard.net HERE!