Teen Wolf “Memory Found” Review

Get ready to take a trip down memory lane, Teen Wolf fans, because as the title suggests, this episode is full of emotional ones involving Stiles. I was fully prepared to get hit with nostalgic feelings during the final season, but I wasn’t quite prepared to get hit with them this early on. “Memory Found” takes us on an emotional journey as Scott, Malia, and Lydia work to remember Stiles in order to open a rift to save him. Meanwhile, Liam and Theo are forced to run from and fight the Ghost Riders, ultimately showing us how both of them have grown. It all makes for one heck of an episode and qualifies as one of my favorites.

Let’s recap what went down…

The episode opens with Scott, Malia, and Lydia locking up the tunnels and Argent bunker to keep the Ghost Riders out while they try to remember Stiles so they can open the rift. Scott and Malia are going to try to use the freezer chamber that Parrish locks himself up in to slow their heart rate down and put them in a trance-like state… like hypnosis. Seems logical.

At the sheriff’s station, Liam is trying to convince Stilinski that Theo can help them distract the Ghost Riders while Scott, Lydia, and Malia try to open the rift. Stilinski is completely against it until he realizes that all of his armed deputies have been taken. The Riders have literally taken everyone in Beacon Hills… but not Theo (or Liam, Stilinski, Scott, Malia, or Lydia). Theo now has the task of convincing Stilinski to let him out of the jail cell. Stilinski threatens him that if he lets him out and Theo screws up again, then he’ll kill him. Stilinski pulls out the key card, but asks Theo to tell him one thing that he remembers about Stiles. Theo confesses that Stiles was smart… smart enough not to trust him.

Stilinski let’s Theo out, and it’s a good thing too because the Ghost Riders show up as soon as they walk into the other room and open the door. They’re prepared to take them on… until they see that there’s more Riders than they bargained for. The Riders immediately shoot Stilinski into non-existence. Ugh! What I would have given to see the reunion between him and Stiles in the station!

Theo and Liam are forced to run before the Riders erase them too. They hop into a cop car, but struggle for a minute to find the right key to start the car. It’s a hilarious scene that ends in them putting the car in reverse and hitting a Ghost Rider before speeding off. I’m going to tell you this right now, the dynamic between Theo and Liam this episode is perfect. Cody [Christian] and Dylan [Sprayberry] seem to feed off of each other, which makes for some great moments between their characters.

Back in the Argent bunker, Scott is up first to go into the chamber. Malia and Lydia have the task of guiding him and keeping him focused on trying to remember Stiles. In the trance-like state, Scott is first at his house. He goes up the stairs and he’s taken back to when Stiles had him chained up in his room on the night of a full moon. He sees Stiles sitting on the floor of the hallway as Scott begs him to let him out. He hears the conversation they had about how Scott kissed Lydia. He can hear himself roaring as he transforms.

Meanwhile, Theo and Liam head to the hospital to hide. It was Liam’s idea. Apparently he hasn’t been filled in on all the crazy supernatural attacks that hospital has been through. Not really the safest place, Liam. Theo also believes it to be a bad idea, but Liam convinces him because he knows everything about the building. They just have to keep the Ghost Riders away from Scott, Lydia, and Malia so they can remember Stiles, and if they don’t remember him… then everyone else gets forgotten.

Back to Scott’s memories as Lydia tells him to try to find Stiles in his memory. He can hear Stiles’ voice and flashes of memory, good and bad, start overloading him. Malia and Lydia can tell that something is wrong. They can tell that he’s lost in all of the memories. Lydia yells at him that he needs to focus.

Liam and Theo run into the hospital, but not before Liam turns the siren to the ambulance on as a way to lure the Riders to them and away from Scott, Lydia, and Malia. Theo hates the idea and confesses that while they’re wrapping a whip around Liam’s neck or shooting a hole in his head, he’ll be running in the other direction… he’s only on Liam’s side as long as it helps him. They head into the deserted hospital and Theo is met with his worst nightmare again: his sister coming after him. It’s just that though, him reliving his nightmare. They run to a place to hide as the Riders get closer.

Back in the bunker, Scott is still struggling to focus on the right memory of Stiles. Malia and Lydia start to hear the Ghost Rider thunder. They’re worried that the plan isn’t working and that Scott may freeze to death in the chambers… if his memory doesn’t kill him first. Malia is about to get him out of there when Lydia realizes that they have to treat it like actual hypnosis, using images to guide him. Lydia gets him to visualize himself in the high school and all his memories of Stiles are in separate lockers. Scott is able to imagine himself there and he starts to open lockers.

Theo: “This is your brilliant idea? Barricade ourselves in the morgue?” Liam: “The Ghost Riders go after the living. So, we hide with the dead.” I’ve gotta say, it’s not the most illogical idea, but it’s also not the brightest. They both decide that they aren’t hiding in the morgue cells with the bodies, though. Theo makes a comment of how Liam should have left him in the jail cell, and Liam states that he should have left him in the ground. Liam confesses that when the Ghost Riders find them, he’s not going to help Theo, he’s going to use him as bait. The ambulance siren goes off and the Ghost Riders arrive.

Scott is taken back to when Stiles frantically called him in the middle of the night when he went missing in season 3b. He can’t figure out which memory is the right one. Malia realizes that maybe just a memory isn’t enough, maybe he has to remember an emotional connection because of a memory with Stiles. Malia talks to Scott outside of the chamber and tells him something she remembers about Stiles. He told her about his and Scott’s plans to move into an apartment together after graduation. She remembers telling him that it’s not always a good idea to live with your friends, but Stiles said it wouldn’t matter because him and Scott weren’t just friends… they were more like brothers. Cue the tears!

Scott opens another locker as the word “brothers” echoes in his head and pulls out a road flare. He’s taken back to “Motel California” when he was about to kill himself (because he was hallucinating because of the wolfsbane) with gasoline and a road flare. Stiles talked him down by reminding him that he’s not no one, he’s his best friend… he’s his brother, and that if he’s going to go through with it, then he’s going to have to take Stiles with him. Cue the sobbing for my favorite scene of the entire series! Sadly, Malia and Lydia had to pull Scott out of the chamber before he died and the rift wasn’t opened.

He wants to go back in because he knows it was working, but Malia and Lydia won’t let him because he’s still too cold, and nothing was happening outside the chamber anyway. He doesn’t want to give up, though. Malia then takes matters into her own hands, takes her shirt of and says that it’s her turn to try. Lydia is hesitant, but Scott believes that she’ll probably handle the cold better than him and it’s too dangerous not to try. Malia believes that since it’s all about connection, then it could work since Stiles was the first one she connected with as a human. Lydia finally agrees as she thinks of a visual idea.

Malia is taken to the school library and all the books are her memories. Lydia tells her to find the shelf of books with all her memories with Stiles. She opens the first book and it takes her back to first seeing him at Eichen House. The next page is her punching him in the face at Eichen, and she immediately closes it. She opens another one and she’s taken back to when he was with her trying to control her shift in chains on a full moon. She keeps turning pages and more memories flash before her. None of them are right until she finds the one where, in season 4, after being poisoned by The Chemist and he tells her that he’d never leave her behind. Something starts happening to her in the chamber and outside of it, though, and Scott and Lydia have to pull her out.

The Ghost Riders search up and down the hospital halls for Theo and Liam. One is about to go to the doors of the morgue, but Theo and Liam come running out while pushing a table and push it and the Rider into the wall (killing it?). But then four more Riders show up and start shooting at them as they run in the opposite direction.

In the bunker, Lydia turns off the chamber as Scott helps Malia try to get warm and they ask what she’s doing. She says it’s too dangerous and they’re not going to save anyone that way. Scott and Malia are adamant that it was working though, saying that Stiles is more real to them now than he’s ever been. Lydia states that there’s a difference between a memory and an actual human, to which Scott suggests that he thinks it should be her and that they need to think of something else. He says it’s all about the connection and tells her that when he was remembering Stiles, he was also remembering Stiles and Lydia together, and he doesn’t think anyone has a connection like them. Malia saw it too, and I felt kind of bad for her in this moment because she realized her connection with Stiles wasn’t as strong as his and Lydia’s, but she puts her feelings aside, and Lydia finally agrees.

At the hospital, Liam and Theo are fighting the Ghost Riders. When they get one locked in a room, they realize that they’re everywhere. Liam is weirdly okay with this, though, as he realizes that they’re both going to get caught anyway. He tells Theo that he can do it while he’s running, but he’s going to go down fighting. The Riders zero in on them and Liam shifts into werewolf mode and runs toward them. It takes a minute, but Theo soon follows suit.

Lydia, Malia, and Scott prepare to hypnotize Lydia. She’s written out an induction script so that one of them can talk her through the hypnosis. She hands it to Malia first and explains how she should read it. Malia starts reading it and it’s honestly the funniest thing in the entire episode. Lydia grabs the notepad and hands it to Scott. He starts to read it and hypnotize her. She’s taken to a classroom in the school. She’s sitting at a desk in front of a TV. When she turns it on, it starts playing her memories with Stiles. We see the “what the hell is a Stiles” scene from season one. She changes it and she’s taken to when Stiles was her date at the formal and asked her to dance. She keeps flipping through the memories with Stiles, trying to find the right one.

Theo and Liam continue to fight the Riders in the hospital. Theo finds a blade on the floor and manages to stab it in one Rider’s neck, killing him. But as he turns around, another Rider grabs him by the throat and starts strangling him while Liam is getting tossed around in the room behind him. Liam manages to get control of the gun in one of the Rider’s hands and shoots it at the Rider strangling Theo, killing it. Then he turns around and shoots the one that has a hold of him, killing him too. They meet up in the hallway and are about to fist-bump when they see four more Riders coming for them. Theo runs and presses the button to the elevator as Liam werewolfs out, but Theo drags him to the elevator and pushes him in. Liam: “What are you doing?” Theo stands outside the elevator and looks back at him, “being the bait.” The elevator closes. Theo shifts and runs towards the Riders. Liam hears him fighting from inside the elevator and then hears a gunshot, knowing that Theo has been erased.

Lydia finally lands on the right memory after she turns the TV off. It’s coming from down the hall. She follows their conversation to the locker room, and she’s taken back to the memory of Stiles having a panic attack because the Darach had taken his dad and Scott’s mom. Lydia pulls him into the locker room and tries to talk him down. Lydia watches as the memory of her kissing him unfolds before her. She realizes “that’s when it happened.” She comes out of her hypnosis with tear-filled eyes and Scott asks her when what happened. She then remembers Stiles untangling the red string from her fingers when she was feeling down and when they hid from the Dread Doctors in Eichen. “When I kissed him,” She remembers Stiles saving her from Eichen. “That’s when it all changed.” She remembers him holding her in the Jeep after saving her from Eichen. Then she remembers him in the Jeep the night he was taken. She’s emotional and crying now, “I saw him. I was there. I was the last person to see him.” Scott: “Where? When did you see him?” “The Ghost Riders, when they took him.” She remembers the night he was taken, him holding her hand and saying that she was going to forget him, but her promising that she won’t. She remembers him telling her to remember that he loves her. “I never said it back. I never said it back.”

The bunker starts shaking and they leave the closed room to see that the rift has been opened. They walk closer to the light and see a shadowy figure emerging. Lydia: “Stiles?”

Then the episode ends and my emotions are all over the place! So much nostalgia! So many feelings! The Stydia feels are so real, y’all! Like I can’t even deal with them! I need this ship to sail happily! I need this show to end on a happy note for everyone more than anything. Jeff Davis, please give this to us!

I’m not sure we’re ready for this winter finale, y’all.

Teen Wolf airs Tuesdays at 9/8c on MTV!

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