The carnage steps up. What They Say:
Dreamcatchers – Scott tracks a dangerous shapeshifter that has been threatening Stilinski; Malia receives information about her mother.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As is often the case with Teen Wolf, the second episode worked better than the first one as it started to get into the mood of things more. I do like the openers that does look at what’s changed since we last saw everyone while putting in the basics of what some of the stress and strains will be. But the previous episode worked really well in regards to introducing Tracy to the mix as there was a good horror aspect to it that played to the tension rather than gore. Some of the story material is still moving along at an awkward pace and I’m not caring for what’s been introduced with Theo so far as it’s comically forced, but at least we got it made clear that he’s working with the Dead Doctors that have been scattered throughout the first two episodes.
With the cold open here, we get a bit more follow-up to the kid Donovan that was detained previously as he’s now being transferred for his next holding. He’s a volatile personality to be sure as there’s a ton of anger going on here that’s directed at the sheriff. It’s a pretty public display of anger that he puts on as they take him out, though something that even Stiles kind of torments the kid a bit about since we learn that he was trying to be cop. It’s his transport run that goes strangely though as the driver ends up losing control of his body, causing the van to have a pretty erratic run, but the real terror comes in what’s on the roof. Revealing that it’s Tracy that’s causing all of these problems in a primal state of sorts, it gets bloody and violent quickly. Sometimes a fast escalation can be fun. For Donovan though, he manages to flee. What makes the whole experience really sad though is that the lawyer in the van for this is actually Tracy’s father and not only does he get to watch all of this, his life ends in her hands. All for Donovan to be drawn into what these mysterious folks are up to.
The show has a little bit of fun at first by giving us some time with Malia learning to drive with Lydia and Kira helping her in the car, but it goes pretty badly in a comical way. But it also starts to take a turn along the way as Lydia realizes they’re being drawn into the city proper to where the incident happened. That gets them connected to what’s going on there but also has them calling it into the police, which draws in the sheriff and both Scott and Stiles. Everything thankfully comes together quickly here with what’s going on in realizing that this is something that Tracy may be involved in because of what happened before. It’s loose to be sure, but considering the different experiences of the group so far, a little out of the box thinking with some intuition involved works better than drawing it out in a way that doesn’t feel realistic. A leap of logic is definitely welcome.
While we get the slow build to see how Donovan has been twisted by the Dread Doctors, particularly as he’s now back in police custody, we get to see more of what Tracy is up to. Though we know she killed her father, she’s also apparently killed her psychiatrist and is now angling to kill her history teacher as well since she’s managed to make it back to school. This gets the team to trying to figure out how to deal with it, which brings up the handy fire alarm trick. We do get to see things from her perspective from time to time, showing how she views everyone as Dread Doctors, and it explains her reactions pretty well. What happens from there is pretty disturbing though as it takes a toll on her overall and causes her to collapse unconscious. That a silver liquid pools out from her mouth highlights a little more of what’s to come from the Dread Doctors though.
There’s a decent bit of investigation put into play to try and figure out what happened to Tracy from a couple of different directions and that gives each pairing an opportunity to add a little more in general. Lydia makes one of the most important discoveries though in that she believes that Tracy might still be trapped in a night terror and not aware of what she’s doing. With Liam getting a little more of an idea himself as to what’s going on, with his friend now enjoying being involved a bit, we also get to see the exam being done by Deaton at the office. What they discover is that the metal chain that was once around her neck has been twisted to being inside of her and providing a lot of protection. But it’s here that the show really goes up a whole other level in weirdness as a during the exam, a good chunk of her back rips open and she reveals her true nature – that of a kanima.
The final act starts to pull all of these threads together, especially the fun of the way things go down in Deaton’s office and the four of them there get paralyzed for awhile with Malia the first to really step it up. Where it all focuses though is on the police station where Tracy has realized her next target will be – which is the school therapist. Lydia’s mother, of course. Who is, naturally, at the police station to finally go on a date with the sheriff. That just makes for a whole lot of complicated fun to start to come to light in that area alone, never mind having a kanima running around the ceiling looking for its next victim. This gives Kira a chance to shine and we get a decent, if short, fight sequence between the two. One that ends up wounding Lydia pretty hard along the way at that. But that just serves to bring out more of Kira’s power which is really fun to watch as she struggles to contain it. But it also gets Lydia to realize just what kind of power she has.
In Summary:
Teen Wolf doesn’t really resolve anything here in the big picture, but it starts to reveal more of what the Dread Doctors are up to with their experiments that they’re working through. Tracy served as a good launching point before and here she really gets to go all out as she causing quite a lot of carnage over the course of a day and a night in Beacon Hills. There are some good reveals along the way with what is going on with Tracy and I rather liked the action sequences overall with what they bring to the table. But I also continue to find that Malia is really stealing the show for me in general with what she’s doing and her level of involvement, which makes it a lot of fun. There’s some real carnage and consequence in this episode, but we’re no closer to the truth when it comes to the Dread Doctors. They’re at least still proving to be interesting.
Grade: B+
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