Scott has made his deal with the devil in Derek and it’s already starting to haunt him. What They Say:
Magic Bullet – A new hunter in town puts Derek’s life in danger, forcing him to make reluctant allies out of Scott and Stiles. While Scott tries to survive dinner with Allison and her father, Stiles attempts to keep a mortally wounded Derek alive.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
A family that hunts together isn’t all that strange when you get into series like this and this episode starts off with a fast moving piece of action as Allison’s aunt, Kate, arrives in town and already takes a really good shot at Derek after running across him on the road. She’s a no-nonsense hunter like the others from what you can tell, but she has a very definite and aggressive attitude. While we’ve seen that Allison’s father certainly has his serious moments, he’s the type to blend in and capture and kill rather than just rolling into town, guns a blazing. That said, she does get results as she wings Derek easily in their first encounter and he’s got forty-eight hours until the bullet she got him with does him in.
Derek’s largely been in control since we’ve met him, even if he’s not the alpha werewolf, but this bullet has really done a number on him and his abilities are starting to get a bit out of control. When he goes hunting to find Scott to help him through his crisis, everything is above and beyond his norm. Every little sound is something he can hear and the sound of the bell is really intense. When he pushes up against Jackson to find out where he is, just a bit of roughness has him pretty much scraping the back of his neck bloody. His ability to control himself is going out the window and with Scott putting it all together, everything gets in the clear for understanding pretty quickly. Rather than dragging it out too long, they know they have forty-eight hours to figure out what this bullet has done to him. But this public happening is enough to push Jackson even further down the path to finding out the truth. It’s still hard to say whether he’ll be part of the group or someone that can really mess with it all.
The romantic relationship side of the show continues to be a whole lot of fun to watch. For Scott, it’s definitely a dangerous romance on a lot of levels. His attraction is strong to her and he’s still panicking over how his body will react in its werewolf ways. While she’s dealing with being interested in him in a way she didn’t expect, the two have a great series of moments in her house when they’re supposed to be there studying. It’s good to see her being mildly aggressive in making out a bit and it leads to some very amusing revelations as she describes what her dad does for a living to her understanding, but it also shows that her natural skill is in archery. If you can sympathize with Scott at all, this is definitely that moment.
Allison’s dad is a lot of fun to watch in this series as well as he’s pretty much the intense guy, and you kind of hope that he’s going to come around at some point and figure out that it’s not a cut and dried thing that the werewolves are all about. The grilling he gives Scott during the dinner they have at the house is comical in its obviousness, but Scott has to put up with it since he’s trying to find the bullet whenever he can get away for a minute or two. The whole time there is filled with a lot of great moments and watching how the evening end provided one of the few times that I’ve laughed out loud during a series like this in awhile. It’s just another moment where everything is coming together well and we’re getting a more realistic look at how teenagers are than we usually get in most shows, especially an MTV show.
Unfortunately, the weak point for the episode involves the overall motivating element with Derek dying in front of Stiles while Scott hunts for the bullet. The pair do have some amusing moments together and Stiles being flip in the face of disturbing events that are unfolding is a pretty expect coping mechanism. The scenes with them serve as bridging points between the fun Scott has at Allison’s home and there are some good moments, especially when Derek gets to the point where he’s ready to do something desperate in order to survive. Stiles is still the difficult character to work with here, though they’re fleshing him out a touch here and there, and Derek is still a mystery overall. There’s some bad material at the end, mostly when you get to the dramatic music as Derek gives Scott a nasty little revelation, but it all just rings hollow because of it. Still, that was the only downside, a minute or two at most, out of the entire episode that was otherwise quite strong.
In Summary:
It may not have the snappy dialogue of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but Teen Wolf continues to defy my expectations week after week. This episode is another very good one that works the teenage supernatural angle well by giving us fairly realistic kids, slowly expanding the hunter mythos and providing more werewolf moments. Unlike Buffy, it plays things straight for the most part with out the wink and nods about the kind of fun that it’s having as it wants to be a more serious show and that works really well for it. The cast is hitting all the right marks and the story progression keeps you interested even as it moves at a relatively moderate pace for bringing in more plot points and explanations. There’s a mystery to be had here and it’s giving us just enough to keep us interested. It’s also giving us a teenage romance that’s actually fun to watch with Scott and Allison since it’s moving forward itself but not so fast that you’re rolling your eyes at it. If you passed over this series just because of its name and titular origin, do yourself a favor and check out the four episodes that are out there now and see if it surprises you like it did me.
Grade: B+
Tags:
Teen Wolf , MTV Shows
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