Courtesy of MTV
Teen Wolf airs what may be its worst episode of the season as things fail to come together leading up to the finale.
Let’s bitch it out…
Wow – what a hot mess of an episode. Pretty much nothing works in ‘A Promise To The Dead’, most of all the pacing. In the aftermath of the revelation that Peter Hale (Ian Bohen) is the man behind the Benefactor plan, I thought that things would come into tighter focus. After all, we have a real villain now.
And yet this episode fails in every way to address that. For roughly the three quarters of the episode, scenes are merely strung together – each character randomly off on their own separate storyline that has no bearing to anything else. That means Scott (Tyler Posey) and Kira (Arden Cho) have a date night (apparently right before their first lacrosse game of the season), Argent (JR Bourne) goes hunting in the sewers, Dr. Deaton (Seth Gilliam) goes spirit walking and Liam (Dylan Sprayberry)…takes up screen time.
Things start to come into tighter focus in the final moments after Scott and Kira are attacked and abducted by Kate Argent (Jill Wagner). Although the chilling final sequence in which Scott is converted into a Berserker makes absolutely no sense (I’m unsure why putting on a mask will turn Scott into an uncontrollable killing machine), at least it offers the pretense of a dramatic conclusion for next week’s finale when Scott will undoubtedly be unleashed on his friends. Clearly this is intended to be pay-off for all of the “Scott fears becoming a monster” stuff this season, but honestly, so much of what we’ve had to wade through to get here has been such complete garbage, it just reinforces how much weaker this season four arc has been compared to 3B.
Other Observations:
- Liam’s PTSD visions of Berserkers will obviously come into play when Scott – his mentor – comes after him next week, but man is tonight’s stuff boring as hell. Add this to the return of inane lacrosse action and my eyes just glaze over.
- Peter proposes to Malia (Shelley Hennig) that he’ll take her to her mom if she kills Kate. This is either a) a set-up or b) the writers’ way of taking Peter right to the edge of villainy (again) before bringing him back so that they don’t have to write Ian Bohen off the show.
- Parrish (Ryan Kelley) ends up helping Argent after he’s impaled by rebar in the sewers. I’m pretty sure that leaving the bar in would have been the better medical decision, but the scenes between these two are pretty much the only redeeming parts of a majorly sub-par episode, so I’ll let it slide.
- Seriously, what was the point of Deaton and the third eye patient? He and Lydia (Holland Roden) basically just show up to confirm that Scott and Kira have been taken south of the border and that’s their contribution for the episode. Weak.
- Does Derek (Tyler Hoechlin) even have a function anymore?
- Finally, Scott has never seen Star Wars. Watching A New Hope would have been a much better use of time than watching this episode. Just sayin’
Best Lines:
- Malia (when Sheriff Stilinski asks what her favourite food is): “Deer.”
Your turn: was this the weakest episode of the season? Do you care about Liam’s PTSD? Does Scott’s transition into a Berserker make up for all of the time we’ve spent on his fears of turning into a monster this season? Is Peter going to be rehabilitated or will he be outed as a true villain? Will Argent survive his pretty serious looking wound? Sound off below.
Teen Wolf airs Mondays at 10pm EST on MTV