S05.E14: The Sword and the Spirit

[ahisma]

As Scott tries to put his pack back together. Meanwhile, Malia and a new ally set out to rescue Deaton from The Desert Wolf.

Edited January 27, 2016 by ahisma

[ahisma]

Much better pacing than last week! Although it partly feels that way because we got more answers than questions this time around. And because it ended on heist planning—I love heist planning! I just wish Derek and Peter were there for old time nostalgia feels.

Love that it's not Chris's choice that Gerard is his father. I wish they'd taken the time to do some enhanced interrogation on the Dread Doctors, since he has the means to trap them.

When Gerard was actually being helpful, I thought it was all going to tie up in a "the enemy of my enemy" pact with Gerard, Theo, and Deucalion, maybe even some Eichen crew, all banding together with the Pack to take out the Beast, but, nope, Theo is still an untrustworthy little shit. And the Desert Wolf really is ruthless. I can't help but picture her and Peter together—no wonder Talia stole the memories from her brother.

I have to say, they did a great job of bringing in Lydia's flash forward from the beginning of the season and adding to it. Now we know that while Lydia was catatonic, she was getting banshee lessons from Meredith. And we finally got Meredith's story!

And we got Parrish's story, too, although, damn, Gerard really is still a psycho.

Always love Kira's dad, embarrassing the heck out of her. So cute!

I used to love Lydia's mom, but it's like she got a personality transplant this season. Do not trust your daughter to Victorian horror asylums! Ugh.

Waiting and seeing on Deucalion. I would love to see that he's stringing Theo along like a fish.

[beee]

This had my three least favorite bad guys all in one episode.  Gerard and Deucalion really should be dead already (does anyone actually like these ‘fan favorites’?) and Theo I don’t so much dislike as find his continued success very contrived. In this episode he manages to double-cross Malia, whose main motivation for trusting him seems to be that it’s her fault that Deaton got kidnapped?? What is it with Teen Wolf characters and misplaced guilt (which can then be conveniently exploited)? But I say this: I know Shelley Hennig gets a lot of grief for various reasons, but at least she can act. The material she's given is another matter. Her character has been a wasted opportunity from the word go and I still can’t work out why she wants to kill her mother. Or why her mother wants to kill her, for that matter.

 

At least the plotlines moved forward. The show has been stuck in a mire of drawn-out subplots and convoluted twists for so long, it was rather refreshing. Even Lydia might finally emerge from being stuck in her own head. Overall there wasn’t enough Stiles for my taste, but Kira’s dad is always fun.

[mac123x]

Nice to see the plots converging instead of 4 parallel lines.  It was also nice to see that Lydia's flash-forward escape wasn't totally futile -- her scream somehow blew out the lights in the warehouse and distracted The Desert Wolf long enough for Malia to escape.

 

Theo got the blue-talons-of-power-stealing, and wants to steal the power from the Beast of [garbled French].  Yeah, those talons didn't even work on Scott, who's just a regular Alpha, how are they going to work on this ginormous cartoon?

 

The CGI when the Beast was looking into the warehouse where Deaton was looked really bad.  Like MS-Paint bad.

[AudienceofOne]

Am I supposed to know why Deucalion hates Scott? I admit I haven't rewatched that season but I thought they'd track down Deucalion and he'd say "Nah, I'd rather side with Scott". And how did they catch Deucalion anyway? Has been hanging out in Beacon Hills this whole time? Did he leave town, only to stop in a low-rent motel 20 kilometres away to wait for someone to go after him?

 

I guess I can understand why they still use Gerard though because he makes my skin crawl. What a horrible human being.

[MV007]

So now we learn that Marrish was in Afghanistan.  Or did we already know that?  Either way it just makes me think he's that much older than Lydia and his obsession creeps me out.

 

Speaking of Marrish, did the police department clone him in hiring that guy Stiles and Scott talked to in the hallway?

[ahisma]

The CGI when the Beast was looking into the warehouse where Deaton was looked really bad. Like MS-Paint bad.

I was cracking up when Gerard and Chris were talking about the Beast and its different descriptions, and Gerard said someone described it as looking more like a shadow than real. The great thing about words is you can create fantastic descriptions. Unfortunately with cheap CGI you can only create something that looks like a clunky video game character.

Am I supposed to know why Deucalion hates Scott? I admit I haven't rewatched that season but I thought they'd track down Deucalion and he'd say "Nah, I'd rather side with Scott".

Crazy!Deucalion wanted Scott to join the Alpha Pack, but his pack got busted up in Beacon Hills, instead. My impression was that Deucalion ended up cooling his jets and having respect for the True Alpha. My hope is that Theo showed up with a proposition and Deucalion decided to play along, and that eventually he'll tell Theo, "Naw, you're just a faked up werecoyote. Your delusions of going up against werewolf Jesus are pitiful." Then again, if Deucalion finds out that Gerard the Betrayer is walking around BH, all bets are off.

[Sakura12]

Well now we know where Malia gets her impulse control from. Although I suppose Malia's learning from her pack to save friends first. 

 

Her mother wants to kill her because she gave some of her power to Malia when she was born. So Malia still has to kill her otherwise she won't stop coming after her. Since the scene Lydia saw hasn't happened yet. I also hope Malia kills Theo.

 

Are we supposed to think they need Parish to defeat the Beast? Also how does Theo even have a pack? He's not an Alpha they don't have to follow him. Or better yet I want his "pack" to turn on him and kill him. 

 

I did like seeing the McCall Pack together again. 

 

The Beast is sure slow, Malia had time to rescue Deaton, grab Braeden and walk out of there and the Beast did nothing. 

Edited January 28, 2016 by Sakura12

[ahisma]

I also hope Malia kills Theo.

She certainly has reasons to do it! But the show so far has been pushing the idea that Scott's pack should not be killers, and they've also been slowly "civilizing" Malia. "Self defense" against her mother is already pushing the boundaries. My bet is on Deucalion taking out Theo. The show loves to allow Scott et al to stay pure by having bad guys do the killing.

[Lady Calypso]

I would enjoy it if Malia was the one to kill Theo. First off, a male needs to die this season, and for real. The last real male death we had was Boyd, so having Theo die and making it stick would be great. But I'm just waiting for the Dread Doctors to do the deed. Malia would have the most motivation to kill Theo, though, plus she has been the most forthcoming with killing anyone. Maybe she won't go through with it, but I'd still like to see her get a few slashes in. 

 

Actually, no. The person with the most motivation to kill Theo is Scott. Theo killed Scott, almost broke up his pack for good, and is getting all his enemies back to kill Scott, take his Alpha status and all that. Now, if Scott does kill Theo, he loses his Alpha ability (...or does he? He IS a True Alpha, after all), so it would be motivation to not kill him. But hell if I wouldn't love to see Scott finally snap, say 'screw it, I was dead for almost 20 minutes because of this asshole' and just slash his throat (while letting Malia, Stiles and Liam get their shots in. I don't care if his chimera pack dies with him....except for Corey. I love Corey). 

 

Lydia getting to explore her banshee powers and at least try to do something was great, and it actually worked! She saved Malia indirectly (or rather, directly from miles away). 

 

So...Theo...those talons....who are they meant for? Scott, or the Beast? 

 

So, in typical Teen Wolf fashion, the Beast is probably someone we already know. Quick! Get someone to take pictures of all the characters and see which eyes glow! 

 

Little by little, we learn about characters like Parrish. It just happens to either be done REALLY slowly (like Lydia) or we get an info dump. I don't know which one is worse. Probably the little by little information. 

 

So...I like Malia a lot more this season, but I don't know if I want her mother to be the next major recurring villain. She's kind of lackluster to me so far. 

[bettername2come]

Finally catching up on the second half of season 5...and my favorite moment was definitely the Deaton/Scott hug reunion. What can I say, I'm a sucker for the relationships on this show. The beast looked fake.Lydia's a badass.