Wow I'm blown away by all the hits my Teen Wolf reviews have had! Thank you for reading guys...I think I'm gonna cry! I'm joking...sorta *sniff*. But guys, if you have any constructive criticism please drop it in the comment box or message me on one of my many social networking platforms. I'm always hungry to improve and make it better for you guys. Because that is who I am writing it for. Thank you and enjoy!
If Teen Wolf wasn't already fragmented as fuck, we now have a load of new characters. God, by the next episode I won't be able to follow this any more, will I? Queue Isaac, another Teen Wolf who has been recruited into Derek's pack - as Derek is now willing to give the powers to anyone who is willing, whatever their motivations. As if we needed another Scott McCall. Isaac has a job digging graves and his Dad is an asshole of the violent variety, a D?! I'm gonna smash things, I hate D's - D's killed your mother! Okay that never happened... Riveting stuff and if you couldn't tell, I was being sarcastic.Why does season 2 structure itself so it fills every opening quarter with pointless shit - Isaac is an important character by the end of the episode, but opening it with him with no real proper sense of introduction just means no one cares. And I mean aren't there more immediate things to address without adding another character onto the mountain?
But hey, at least it adds some sort of weird continuity with them living across the street from Jackson. Personally I think it would have been better if Isaac was introduced last season. Just one stand alone scene that wouldn't make sense at the time. Maybe Jackson takes out the trash and sees Isaac and his Dad fighting through the front window or something. At the time it wouldn't seem important, but it'd give Isaac a sense of presence rather than just giving him a bit part last episode and hurling him at us this episode. I mean apparently Isaac has been on the lacrosse team the whole time? See this is what I mean, Isaac has practically no introduction - Derek just randomly appears because I assume he is chasing the Omega that happened to steal a body part from the graveyard Isaac works at and now Isaac gets the whole first quarter of the new episode. Brilliant, brilliant pacing. And I mean Jackson's 'freaks' comment implies it happens quite often, so why haven't we seen it? Unless we have and this guy is so bland I just never noticed...We don't know it at the time but the episode also opens up with an introduction to our new werelizard. I'm happy that they decided to add a new race to the show, without just going for something like vampires or witches - that shit is getting really old. They went for something new and I admire that. The actor who plays Isaac's Dad is a little hammy but his escalation to violence is frightening as you're sat on the edge of your seat waiting for it as Isaac is cowering from this seemingly nice, old man. It then leads to an almost noir like sequence as the Dad chases Isaac to a dark, steamy and rainy alleyway where he is confronted by a mysterious silhouette, it's thick with atmosphere and is a great opener to the episode.
I get that Scott is our protagonist and we need to root for him, but I liked the balance in the first season of the noble hunters and the reality that Scott could lose control at any time. It gave a sense of reality, that there is no black and whites. Scott may be our protagonist, but he isn't our hero. I mean they've tried hard to make sure that Allison's Dad keeps going on about the code to cement his feelings towards it, but it still doesn't explain why he chose the code over his own sister and I think they realised they fucked up here. So I was rather irritated that in this episode the Hunters are now just a gang of thugs but it does have some sense of continuity that Allison's Dad is the only one protesting it I guess. But it's at the same time, still kinda cool that they have an actual game plan, replacing the principle with Gerard Argent himself. Which cements the theory that teenagers have the best chance to survive the werewolf bite.
This episode provides really great character development. Scott is getting better and better at being a werewolf, he cant get any stronger because he is an Omega, but that doesn't mean he can't learn to control his powers. It's gradual and feels natural and it's cool that Scott is becoming an independent character, it gives him a sense of growth. Because lets be honest, he is easily the most bland character out of the cast and is still somehow the lead character. Allison is now not just the love interest and has become Teen Wolfs equivalent of Hawkeye, helping Scott almost as much as he helps her. And he is the one with the super powers! Badass female role models? A gay character that isn't fairy? A Prom Queen who has brains? Calm down now show, you might actually make some positive progress with character archetypes. They even played with Derek too, he's always super serious and bit of an ass - so I was in tears of laughter when he had to pretend to flirt with the receptionist at the police station - it was just the complete opposite of his character. And it was brilliant and gave so much more bite to his badass moment, moments later.To be fair, overall the episode is a vast improvement over the first and although I was initially worried, by the end I remembered why I loved this series so much - the quality of the episode just gets better and better with each passing minute finishing on an exciting and dramatic conclusion that is just awesome. It does still have a bit of a filler feel especially since the driving force of the episode is about getting Isaac out of jail before the full moon and because most of the rest of the episode is really just conclusions to the last episode rather than moving much forwards but when the episode is this good, it's hard to really care. It has all the elements back that makes Teen Wolf so enjoyable. A perfect balance of comedy, romance, action and horror. Thank God, Teen Wolf is back baby!
Pros;
- Teen Wolf is back! It doesn't just blend romance, comedy, horror and action together near perfectly but each individual element is near perfect in themselves.
- The werelizard...thing and not going with the obvious choice like vampires or magic.
- Great character development, great characters in general and the real strive to do something controversial, new and exciting.
- The sense of continuity, the sense of universe - that characters actions have a cause and effect. A resonance. The whole series really feels like it's coming together as a whole unit now.
Cons;
- Isaac - he isn't a bad character, I haven't had enough time to make that judgement but he still got way too much screen time considering there are more important things going on.
- Why so much filler? Even minus the Isaac stuff, you don't need to put an episode of Jackson being an ass to Lydia every episode, it wastes precious minutes. Unless this is leading somewhere.
- Reducing the hunters to just villains (with one exception) - this is nowhere near as interesting as the morally grey hunters from season 1.
- The pacing really needs to speed up. It moves like it has 22 episodes a season when this only gets 12.
Think About It!
-Locke
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