Teen Wolf Anchors (3×13)
Synopsis: After the events of the Nematon Scott, Stiles and Allison all begin to suffer mental side-effects.
Rating: ★★★☆☆
After a long 5 week wait the second half of Teen Wolf’s third season arrived on 6th Monday. For many for many fans the absence was unbearable but for myself, I wasn’t that bothered.
The finale of 3A really disappointed me. In fact the whole damn half-season disappointed me and not the kind of disappointment where you’re exasperated but the kind where you want to throw a rock in someone’s face. Honestly I do not think that Jeff Davis and his team of writers and producers could have thought have executed a worse season. That’s why until I actually watched this episode I didn’t spend any of my energy missing the show or getting pumped for next half of the season. So having not watched any trailers, read any spoilers or engaged with the fandom I watched the mid-season premier not knowing what to expect.
The Opening of ‘Anchors’ sets the scene for the second-half of the season to be a psychological torment not only the characters but for us viewers as well. Stiles suffers from dreams within dreams playing with his mind and blurring the line between real and unreal. Dylan O’Brien’s acting in these scenes are amazing; didn’t we all feel genuine terror for him when he woke up from the last, unexpected dream? The scene played out marvellously and this quality is something I was worried the show had lost but thank god I was wrong.
However I couldn’t help but wondering, where is Scott? The first 7 minutes or so were solely dedicated to Stiles and this made me a little uncomfortable because I thought it was a little too much Stiles. I love the guy but Scott’s the main character and it felt a bit strange that we would get such a powerful scene from Stiles but have to wait so long to see Scott. And then when we finally do see the main protagonist we get a fraction of a second where he sees claws coming out from his shadow and then the rest is a , frankly, annoying scene between him and Isaac about Allison. And honestly less said about this damn love triangle the better.
Straight after this “comic” scene it’s Allison’s turn to have her mind messed with. Walking through a wrecked morgue for a second she’s haunted by her double who stands far behind her, carrying dagger in each hand, but Allison doesn’t look behind her and so she doesn’t see. That little gift was just for the audience. In the morgue Allison sees Kate’s cold chamber, looks inside and out from the darkness crawls her aunt like a demon from the deepest pits of hell. When Allison turns runs away and somehow ends up at school. Cinematically speaking, I think this was the best scene of the entire episode. Everything was just so perfectly eerie and spine-tingly chilling.
At school Scott’s entire shadow transforms into a beast and it’s openly admitted that the three of them are not alright. Arden Cho’s character, Kira, is also introduced, who is embarrassed in front of the entire class by her father, but it attracts Scott’s attention so it isn’t all bad (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). Kira wastes no time getting involved with the McCall pack as overhears their discussion about what’s happening to Scott, Allison and Stiles and tells them about ‘Bardo’ a state between life and death, and they find out that this can ‘cause its sufferer death.
While the threat of losing their life is a possibility in the present the three of them have others issues to worry about, like the fact that the effect of the nemeton is effecting them all uniquely, targeting their defining skills. Despite Lydia’s help Alison unsteady hands means she can’t shoot her arrows like she used to, even worse if Isaac wasn’t there to stop her arrow she could have killed Lydia, who she mistakes for Kate. Stiles, on the other hand, can no longer read letters and this means that he’s, therefore, lost his amazing research skills. And with the image of his shadow turning into a beast we can see that Scott’s humanity is slowly slipping. This all leads back to the Nematon and Deaton tells them that there is an open door in their minds due to the sacrifice that they made and that they need to close it.
Meanwhile the Sheriff is looking back at old files and seeing is he can solve a few now that he has his knowledge of the supernatural. He asks for Scott’s help in trying to track the body of a young girl called Malia who was killed 8 years ago. Unfortunately Scott can’t help and he finds out that not solving this case and many others puts the Sheriff’s job on the line. Agent McCall is still in town and he’s investigating all of the Sheriff’s unsolved cases and could ultimately get him fired. When Scott confronts his dad about this he starts to lose control again but Melissa takes him away and forces him to “be his own anchor” and control himself. She also tells him that he’ll fall in love again and yes, we know that this is obvious foreshadowing of his relationship to Kira.
Later that night Scott and Stiles go out into the woods to find the body themselves. Instead what Scott finds is another creature, similar to a fox who runs away, which he assumes is Malia. But before we shouldn’t jump to conclusions just yet, let’s all remember how much this show loves to surprise us. I wouldn’t be so sure that that creature was Malia but rather what killed her or maybe even Kira. I do not believe that that girl is still alive, this show loves killing off female characters too much to let this one survive.
The episode ends with our first scene of Derek and Peter who are both tied up somewhere being tortured. And really who’s even surprised at this point that Derek’s having a rough time?
‘Anchors’ is, in the most part, an impressive mid-season opening. With some fantastic cinematography and thrilling acting we can hope that this season is going to keep us on the edge of our seats for the next 11 episodes.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SF5GBp_0pc]
English