Teen Wolf “Raw Talent” Review

What are you afraid of? If it’s spiders, then this episode of Teen Wolf will surely freak you plum out. The theme of these last 10 episodes is playing on fear. I don’t think necessarily the fears of our supernatural friends – at least not yet -, but rather the fears of the people in Beacon Hills. In one of the final scenes of this episode, Lydia, Scott and Malia are discussing why they seem to be being hunted. Once they realize it’s because people are afraid of them, we get a little bit of a hint at just how nasty the people of Beacon Hills might get this season: “Scared people will do things you won’t believe.” Dun dun dun!

It looks like we are officially getting somewhere, y’all! However, with only 8 episodes remaining and still quite a bit of confusion going on, I still can’t help but wonder how we’ll get a nice wrap up by the series finale. I can only hope that it’s not too rushed and that these characters get the nice ending they all deserve.

Anyways, let’s not jump ahead. Here’s what went down on tonight’s episode!

The episode kicks off with a sequence of Theo waking up in his truck and getting told to move by the police – giving us a little glimpse into what his life has been like since returning from hell with the skinnwalkers and his dead sister. One night a spider crawls along his skin (he doesn’t fling it off like a normal person) and then it just digs into and under his skin – CRINGE! He breaks into Deaton’s clinic and stabs a scalpel into his back and kills the spider. When he holds it up on the knife, though, it vanishes into black dust.

The whole montage really makes you feel for Theo, especially when he gets back in his truck and contemplates calling Scott, but decides against it and goes back to waking up to cops telling him to move. Unfortunately, the last place he moves to, he doesn’t wake up to cops, he wakes up with his car surrounded by guns pointing at him. He raises his hands in surrender before they open fire at him, the show cuts to opening credits, and that’s the last we see of Theo for the entire episode. Sigh.

After the break, we’re back where the premier left off with Scott, Lydia and Malia in the woods discussing the Argent bullet – that killed hellhound Halwyn – they found. But as they’re talking, Scott starts hearing heartbeats not far from them. Believing they’re hunters, he tells the girls to run and they all do. While he’s running, Scott begins reliving memories of being hunted in season one. He becomes so disoriented by these memories, he wolfs out and tackles Sheriff Stilinski – whom was with a bunch of deputies. He would have full on attacked him if he hadn’t snapped out of it. Stilinski has his team put their weapons down, saying he’s just a kid, but that doesn’t stop one of them from questioning the color of his eyes. Parrish is the one that steps in front of them and tells them to stand down.

Scott goes back to human just as Malia and Lydia catch up to them and Scott worries about what the other deputies saw. Parrish assures him that it’s nothing they haven’t seen before. They show Stilinski and Parrish the dead hellhound and he has the same questions as them – wondering how a hellhound was killed. Scott tells Stilinski that he doesn’t think it was a regular bullet, but when Stilinski asked if there was anything else he needed to know, Scott puts the Argent bullet in his pocket and didn’t say a word about it. Neither did Malia or Lydia, though, which is exactly what he responded with when they asked him about it. They want to talk to Argent before they go accusing him of anything. Makes sense.

Meanwhile, lacrosse drills are about to go down and Mason and Liam chat while Liam puts on his gear. Mason states that they have a serious problem with a supernatural creature being let out of the Wild Hunt that wasn’t supposed to. Liam changes the subject to Brett helping him run drills with the freshmen who want to make first line, and Mason is super excited about that. “Incredibly hot Brett with the eight pack abs? Do you know how hard it is for the human body to make an 8 pack?” Oh, how I love Mason. Such an innocent human.

Liam states that Brett was the only one who volunteered to help him, and Mason says that’s because it’s unlikely for any of the players to make first line junior year. Liam doesn’t hesitate to point out that he and Scott did, to which Mason points out that they both had supernatural powers to help. Then some random freshman thanks Liam for letting him borrow some gear and helping and is realistic in assuming they probably won’t make first line, but is still appreciative. Mason takes it upon himself to be a little too encouraging, causing Liam to literally to carry him out of the locker room as he yells, “Go cyclones! Yay sports!” Let’s make sure we protect Mason at all costs.

When Mason and Liam get out of the locker room, the sketchy guidance counselor (Tamora Monroe) stops them and tries to pry more information out of them by suggesting they come by her office to talk. Mason says that Liam has a lot to talk about, but Liam objects. She keeps insisting though by saying he doesn’t want “any heavy burdens” during his senior year. She hands him a form and states that she has an open-door policy.

Liam heads to the field, but Mason catches a quote on Monroe’s board when she opens the door: “Opportunities multiply as they are seized.” Okayy??? Who wrote this message and what does it mean? Mason starts talking about it, but she rushes him off and then we see that there is a knife sticking out of her desk! Things are getting fishy! Even more so when we head back to the locker room and see the freshman who borrowed Liam’s gear get swarmed – all over his face and in his mouth – by spiders after he puts on the helmet! – CRINGE!

While Malia and Scott search for Argent, Lydia is trying to figure out her premonition she had in the premier. She hits up the station and listens as Parrish scans the keycard on the cell, but it wasn’t a sound she heard in the webs. She suddenly realizes that it was one of the doors in the closed unit at Eichen House – just the name sends shivers down my spine. She wants to go herself, but Parrish is like not a chance since she nearly gets killed every time she goes there and insists on going by himself.

Malia and Scott end up at Argent’s bunker, he’s not there and he’s not answering their calls or texts. None of his bullets match the casing they found by Halwyn. They agree to hack into his computer, but Malia is a horrible password guesser – “Gun, “Lots of guns” and “Hunter.” Then she realizes that it probably wouldn’t be “hunter” since he isn’t one anymore. She tries to question why Scott was worried about hunters in the woods, but he ignores her and changes the topic when he breaks into a crate and finds a lot of guns. “I think he’s back in business.” He says with a bit of worry in his voice. Then he spots a compound bow and realizes what the password must be – Allison.

At Eichen, Parrish gets a history lesson on Halwyn the hellhound. According to the doctor in the closed unit, Halwyn built the closed unit in 1912 so that he would always have a room. He states that no one knew his age and that he stayed there for 100 years in a “state of hibernation in case IT got out.” When Parrish hears a woman call for help down the hall, he asks the doctor to open the door, but the doctor acts scared and refuses to. Parrish glows his hellhound eyes and insists the doctor opens it. He does, but locks the door and runs away as soon as Parrish walks in.

On the lacrosse field, Brett runs circles around Liam. He shows the freshmen how to do multiple perfect lacrosse tricks like a “hitch”, “split/dodge”, and a “rocker.” Liam then tells the trainees to keep their backs covered, “especially when your opponent is a dick.” This prompts Brett fire a shot back, “You’ve got some pretty big cleats to fill with Scott leaving.” They go at it again, and Brett manages to get past Liam once again. Mason finally shows up with a friend and tells her that Corey has practiced all summer and has actually gotten really good at goalie, but Brett quickly scores and Corey falls to the ground. Liam tries to get past Brett again to keep him from scoring, but they all end up crashing into Corey.

The whole ordeal only infuriates Liam to the point where he starts to shift, but it gives him the upper-hand when Brett comes at him again, and he manages to score. However, this only prompts Brett to taunt Liam. “There he is. That’s the I.E.D. I remember.” Liam’s eyes glow beta yellow, and Brett confesses that he’s only trying to help. “I’m trying to help you. You’re not in control, and if you don’t fix it, someone’s going to get hurt.”

As they continue drills, Monroe (the guidance counselor) goes to her car and finds the ball Liam just shot through the net and doesn’t miss the claw marks on it. She looks to the field and sees Brett as he shoots the ball. Corey manages to catch it, but the sheer force that Brett threw it with, knocks him to the ground. “I’m not actually invisible right now, am I?” Poor Corey is just as innocent as Mason. I love it.

Remember how Parrish heard a woman’s voice yelling for help? Well, he followed it until he finds her in the shower room along with a bunch of other dead people. There’s a live electrical wire on the wet floor, and it killed everyone but her. The doctor comes in and Parrish says they need to help her, but the doctor grabs the wire and stabs Parrish with it instead.

Back at the school, Liam is still mad and losing control. He runs into the locker room repeating his mantra of “the sun, the moon, the truth.” When it doesn’t work, he takes his anger out on a locker. That manages to calm him down, but he’s looks a little worried about the damage he did to a locker.

Anyways, Scott and Malia track Argent down to a location where he’s doing a gun deal with a group of supposed Marines. Scott and Malia show up just as a surprised Argent starts to realize something else is up with the buyer. Unfortunately, the buyer manages drop a grenade and escape before they get any answers as to who is possibly behind all this supernatural hunting business.

The Eichen doctor drags Parrish to hellhound Halwyn’s old cell and goes on a rant about his struggle to protect everyone from the supernatural beings in the closed unit. He finally realized that the supernatural shouldn’t be caged to protect the world, but rather killed. So, that’s what he’s been doing. Parrish tells him that the cell won’t hold him, but the crazy doctor scoffs a little and reminds him that it held Halwyn. He drops the temperature intending to freeze Parrish like Halwyn was before he broke out.

At the school, Brett goes to his car where sketchy guidance counselor is creepily waiting for him. She says that she saw him play and compliments him by saying he’s “something else” before tossing him the ball she found earlier. Unfortunately for Brett, it’s laced in wolfsbane and he drops to the ground. I’m really starting to hate this guidance counselor. She needs to chill.

Checking back in with Lydia, she gets a reminder on her phone that it’s the last day to register for MIT, but she ignores it when she hears some radio feedback. Side Note: I really hope she doesn’t completely ignore it and she actually makes it to MIT. Anyways, she picks up a police walkie talkie and turns up the volume. At first, it’s nothing but static, but then she turns on the mic and says “hello.” Finally, she hears the Eichen doctor saying, “Even you can freeze solid Deputy Parrish. We should be killing them.” Then she hears screams. Typical Eichen House.

So, we all know Monroe is crazy and out for supernatural blood. As I mentioned before, she’s after Brett’s this week. She stabs him with his own lacrosse stick TWICE, claiming that it’s nothing against him. She just believes that no one deserves that much power – the ability to heal or terrify people. Brett is a tough cookie, though, and manages to get away and run off into the woods.

Argent explains that he hasn’t been avoiding Scott, he’s just been busy investigating that rise in gun sales. Scott and Malia inform him about the dead hellhound and shows him the Argent shell casing they found by the body. The problem, though, is that Argent hasn’t molded his own bullet since Allison’s death. He tells them that they need to find the slug of the bullet to find who’s after the supernatural. So, they head back to the woods in search for it.

Mason and Corey find Liam in the locker room because they’re supposed to study for a History test on Mussolini and fear-baiting (foreshadow much?). Mason notices blood on the floor though, so they follow it to the showers where they find a body with absolutely no skin. Like literally you see muscles and tendons and all that grossness and that’s it! The 2.0 trio start looking for Aaron (the random freshman who borrowed lacrosse gear from Liam) because the gear is across the floor where the body was. However, they find him sitting alone in a dark classroom… studying, and he gives them like a super creepy smile and excuse as to why he didn’t answer their calls. Yup. Those spiders definitely did something to this kid.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Lydia went to Eichen after she heard the screams and what the crazy Eichen doctor said. She shows up and is instantly met with war flashbacks of the hell she went through there in season five. It nearly causes her to turn back and leave, but then she hears crazy Eichen doctor again, “We should be killing them” followed by something breaking and another scream.

Crazy Eichen doctor (Fenris) has a gun – because of course – but he tells Parrish that he’s never liked them. He confesses that he thinks he’s having a crisis of faith, but can’t be afraid anymore. He puts the gun to Parrish’s head, ready to pull the trigger, but Lydia Martin screams and blows Fenris to the wall like the badass banshee she is.

While out in the dark woods alone together, Malia not-so-subtly asks Scott if he’s okay since he freaked about hunters last time they were in the woods. He claims he’s okay though. This is also where we see the budding of their relationship that was teased in the trailers. They bond over how they were both once hunted by dads, they giggle, and then Argent pops up and ruins the moment like dads do.Fortunately, it’s for good reason. He found the slug of the bullet that killed the hellhound in a tree, and he gets Scott to see it with his werewolf eyes. The kicker is that it’s made of silver – “an element with a higher heat signature than regular metal.” That fact would be irrelevant if the myth of silver killing werewolves was true, but it’s not, and any experienced hunter knows that. Therefore, that tells Argent, Scott and Malia that whomever is after them, is a newbie aka inexperienced and has no idea what they’re really doing.

Scott and Malia meet up with Lydia at his house, and Lydia explains to them what happened at Eichen with Parrish and how crazy Eichen Dr. Fenris killed all the supernatural in the closed unit out of fear. Scott realizes that everything that’s happening keeps coming back to fear. Malia asks, “What is everyone afraid of?” Scott responds with, “Us.” Or anything that is supernatural. “We don’t know what fear will do to somebody. It could change them. They’ll look at us differently. They’ll do things that they’ve never done before.” As he’s saying this, we see Liam at school and fellow students giving him weird looks and whatnot – clearly knowing he’s supernatural.

The humans of Beacon Hills are fed up with all the supernatural shenanigans that go on in their hometown. Unfortunately, they don’t realize that Scott and his pack aren’t the bad guys, they’re the ones that have actually been protecting the town. Therefore, every supernatural is fair game because they’re afraid of them. Scott says what we all know, “Scared people do things you wouldn’t believe.”

The episode ends back in the woods with Monroe and Brett. She chases him, and he even manages to get the upper-hand for a second until he gets an arrow shot through his shoulder (he manages to run away though). And guess who’s the one that shot it, if you guessed the evil and never-dying Gerard Argent, you guessed right. He gives some speech to Monroe about having raw talent and UGH why can’t he ever just stay gone?!

So, that’s where we stand two episodes into the season. As to be expected, though, there are still a ton of questions that still need to be answered, but we’re slowly getting there. Will Gerard turn the inexperienced town of Beacon Hills into supernatural hunters and win? Or will the McCall pack prove to the town that just because they are supernatural predators, it doesn’t mean they have to be killers? There’s only eight episodes left, so be sure to tune in to find out!

Teen Wolf airs Sunday nights at 8/7c on MTV!

GIF Credit: theoraken, cockyblake, hclymalec, scottymccall, stilinskikissme, fytwolf