Teen Wolf 4×7 Review: Weaponized

August 5, 2014 Farid-ul-Haq

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We’ve passed the mid-season mark and still almost all of the episodes of Teen Wolf have been about the gang surviving assassination attempts rather than the plot moving forward. This week’s episode followed the same trend, featuring assassins that popped out of nowhere.

Our Beacon Hills heroes haven’t come any nearer to finding the true identity of the Benefactor and I think that’s going to drag on for another couple of weeks. Though the episode was mostly filler, it still had some enjoyable scenes. The gang arrived to school on a Saturday to take their PSATs, except Lydia because she gave the test in her freshmen year, duh! I’m guessing the same holds true for Danny, because he wasn’t seen or mentioned even though his whole school year was present for the test.

A virus started to infect the student body and that’s where Beacon Hills High started to remind viewers of Contagion. As there wasn’t really much of a plot, let’s talk about the characters.

10539254_280800918770383_854048996649440772_nEver since Meredith’s death in the previous episode I’ve wanted a scene where Lydia apologized for her behavior. Jeff Davis might not give us proper funerals, but at least he gave us a scene where Lydia got some closure. I greatly enjoyed the scene where Lydia took out some of Meredith’s old things and tried to talk to her. Meredith definitely knew about the panic room in Lydia’s house, and I hope we get to know more about her relationship with the Martins. The mystery behind the Martin family and their link to banshees feels more interesting than the whole ‘Who is the Benefactor?’ mess. There’s also something weird about Lydia being worth $20 million compared to Meredith’s $1 million even though both are banshees.

Kira’s absence in the previous episode wasn’t explained. I thought she had been busy trying to keep her mother safe after her name appeared in the dead pool. Kira played an important part back in Season 3B but since then her role hasn’t been much. Even her Kitsune powers haven’t grown. There have been no indications of her being a powerful trickster spirit, and she hasn’t even used any of her fox-like powers. Currently, she exists to add a POC female character to the main group. She needs to have an arc of her own in order to be relevant. She did absolutely nothing this week.

Malia freaking out during the PSAT didn’t come across as funny. The character was clearly uncomfortable and it went to show that she shouldn’t have been in highschool in the first place. Another thing that didn’t feel right was the absence of Malia’s father when the school was quarantined. Back in 3B he was shown to have strong feelings for his daughter and completely disappearing from her life doesn’t seem right. Apparently, parents aren’t even mentioned in Beacon Hills unless they add to the plot.

Malia’s little arc of being a Hale picked up speed near the end when she found out about her identity from the dead pool list. The only thing I have against her being a real Hale is that if diminishes what I think of Talia. I can’t understand how a powerful alpha like her could’ve given away a baby, a potential were-being, to a normal human family, and not keep an eye on her when she went missing in the forest. That’s a huge plot hole, and knowing Jeff Davis, it will remain ignored. However, I’m curious to see how Malia and Peter’s ‘father-daughter’ relationship is going to play out now that she’s clearly upset with Stiles. Scott still has the money under his bed and it will be interesting to see if the two friends use it to help their parents, unless Malia gets to it first in order to break the ice with Peter. By the way, how did the Benefactor even know she was a Hale?10583904_280800782103730_8874735332901531576_n

Stiles was the hero of the episode and he had a lot to do. He figured out how the virus reached the school and he didn’t give away the location of his friends to the assassin even with a gun pointed to his head. Not to worry, because he was saved by Papa McCall. The sequence would surely provide some interesting material for Stiles/Rafael fan-fic writers. Stiles also shared some emotional scenes with Scott and Malia and Dylan O’Brien played them well, as usual. The scene where he tried to open the Hale vault and kept yelling Scott to save himself pulled at my heartstrings.

Satomi, a familiar face, also made an appearance and she performed moves from The Matrix to take out an assassin. Why can’t Derek fight like that? Or is it a Buddhist werewolf thing?

Speaking of Derek, I don’t feel anything for his blossoming relationship with Braeden. It just doesn’t make sense for Derek to be falling for a contract killer. Maybe he’s not the real Derek? There’s meta flying around on the Internet that the real Derek is still trapped inside the catacombs in Mexico. Whatever the case I would like to know more about Braeden and how she’s the only one who appears to be human after being clawed in the face by an alpha.

This week’s episode again introduced killers that didn’t have any backstory just so the gang could survive another attempt on their lives. I don’t think we even got to know the names of the man who brought the virus to the school, or the woman who tried to attack Satomi. Teen Wolf needs to start moving the plot forward, or at least give viewers some interesting villains, and soon!

What did you think of this week’s episode? Why was there a picture of Meredith inside the Martin panic room? Why is Derek falling for Braeden? Will Rafael and Stiles come clean about their feelings for each other? Will Stiles and Derek ever talk? Let us know in the comments!

Author: Farid-ul-Haq

Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.

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4 thoughts on “Teen Wolf 4×7 Review: Weaponized”

  1. This whole season is not going how I expected it to go. I really don’t like the romance at all honestly they shouldn’t be focusing on romance at all.

    I have suspicious feeling on Rafael. For one thing how did he know Garrett and Violet were orphans ??? I don’t even think the McCall pack knew themselves. Another thing he’s taking the whole secretive thing way to easily and if he does know about Scott being a werewolf then again he’s taking this way to calmly so something’s up with him.

    Am I the only wondering where’s Kate ??? To me they are adding (as the article pointed out) to many assassins without giving them a back round story.

    I honestly loved Holland’s performance and Dylan’s. They both did an amazing job and Lydia really shined in this episode. Her asking for forgiveness and trying to talk to Meredith made my heart cry.

    Stiles protecting his friends A+. I love seeing him acting like himself.

    something that’s been bugging me about Malia is her dad. (Not Peter) you think that after finding his daughter Mr. Tate would be smothering her, worrying about her, and not leaving her out of his sight.

    Derek and Braden it just makes no sense whatsoever. Its just another paring that’s being forced on us.

    I do wonder how Braden not only survived but how she’s not a werecreature like Kate.

    I do wonder what the guy who transmitted the disease was able to get into the school ???

    To be honest I was never a fan of Kira mainly because I felt like she was Allison 2.0 and this past season she’s not really doing much hell she’s not even using her kitsune powers or growing into them.

    I just wish Jeff would explain things to us instead of us asking question after question.

    I literally had to repeat ‘Questions are a threat to you and burden to others’ over and over so I wouldn’t confused myself even further.

  2. I was so disappointed in this one. It had looked from the previews like it would be a good suspenseful episode, but it was so full of plot holes and unbelievable coincidences that it ended up being a letdown. Lydia’s mom just happens to realize that the rash is so unusual and dangerous it requires the CDC to be called? Satomi just happens to mention the rare tea that’s also an antidote in front of Deaton? The Hale vault just happens to have some of that rare tea? Rafe just happens to show up at the right moment to save Stiles? etc. I can overlook one or two things like that in each episode. But when the entire plot of an episode rests on a string of them, I begin to suspect TPTB are not even trying anymore. And then everyone miraculously gets well again at five minutes before the end of the hour, so the show can wrap up easily. Sure, why not.

    And of course Malia was taking the PSAT’s with her friends, because a girl who has been returned to high school after nearly a decade away from any schooling at all is going to be expected to take PSAT’s a few weeks in. It’s mind-boggling. Oh, and Malia’s upset that what – Stiles kept a secret and didn’t tell her about Peter? It certainly can’t be that she’s upset to learn her father isn’t her father, because it’s not as if we’ve been given a single scene this season that would hint at her having any feelings for that man. And they’ve got to stop with the, “It’s progress,” jokes. They’re using them as a cheap laugh and all it’s doing is making Stalia even more unpleasant in a Pygmalion-gone-wrong way. It’s not cute for him to be constantly apologizing for her.

    I love Derek and I like Braedon, but there’s no chemistry there. I don’t care if they have a romance storyline, but I don’t care if they don’t. That’s probably not the reaction the show should want from someone who’s a fan of both characters.

    Lydia is the saving grace of the season (along with Parrish). Holland is nailing her scenes, and even when Lydia annoys me I can see that her behaviors are coming from a place of fear and frustration, and I credit Holland’s acting with that. I hope it’s enough to carry the show for the rest of the season.

  3. I liked this episode at first because it was entertaining, but overall, yikes.

    Like where was Liam this entire time? Scott’s his alpha and they just had this big moment last episode. Wouldn’t he have noticed? Or something?

    And what’s with Rafael? Does he know or are they keeping it from him? And same question for Parrish. What does he know? If they were more obvious about it, if it felt more on purpose, that could be to show that maybe they’re the benefactor but… Rafael pretty clearly isn’t, right? He just killed an assassin. I doubt the benefactor would do that.

    Anyway, the whole bit where Rafael tells Stiles about the tea in the vault, at no point does he ask a single question. He’s an FBI agent! He would be curious. Not to mention wanting to know where Scott was and wanting to get to him immediately, which he seems to have no interest in.

    I do actually kind of like Derek and Braeden, but Stiles and Malia is weird. Scott and Kira should be adorable, but we don’t get nearly enough of them. Or of Kira doing anything.

    This show feels like how Lost would bring up all these questions that never got answered only worse because it feels like Teen Wolf doesn’t even notice it’s asking all these questions.

  4. I’m about 2 to 3 weeks late on watching this episode. I just finished it and really I feel like it wasn’t really necessary. Satomi’s fight scenes were visually beautiful and fun to watch but the episode just felt so weird to me. Malia taking the PSAT just made me feel uncomfortable for her and (like you said) shows exactly how ridiculous it is that she’s in high school.

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