Teen Wolf: S0301 - Tattoo.

It's back baby!
Four months have passed since the gang were fighting lizard men and the such and Tattoo uses this timeskip for great effect, dropping us right in the action rather than simply wasting this first episode bringing everyone to speed. Honestly the whole episode is well paced, establishing everything in interesting ways to leave us hooked and waiting for what will transpire over the course of the season. It isn't perfect though, with so many new villains introduced it does feel at times that some characters are just sort of...there.

If the timeskip didn't already make it clear, it's best to forget a lot of what you remember about Season Two. It's already been said by those who make the show that the finale of season two was a 'clusterfuck', so maybe they want to pretend it didn't happen. The episode does an okay job with at least addressing some of the bigger questions you may have but there are still a lot of things from season two left unanswered, and even with the increased number of episodes, I'm assuming most of these questions wont ever be answered while we focus on a much larger roster of villains this time around

The show also, once again, handles its genres well. Although the whole urban fantasy romance genre has now taken over the world, there are very few of those stories that can do it well. Teen Wolf thankfully is one of them, switching effortlessly between polar opposite genres and doing each one as well as the last. The show just works and that is a big part of the charm of it all.

So how are the Alpha Pack? Do they live up to their hype? Were they worth waiting for? Errr...yes...and no. You see the problem with Teen Wolf is it often has ideas much too expensive for their budget, and so for every impressive fight in an elevator is another claustrophobic locker room scramble and chase sequences that look like something from a late nineties cartoon. I just don't think the Alpha Pack ever felt as powerful or as threatening as the show seems to be telling us they are (see: ramming down our throats). But they have lots of episodes left to change my mind and then again King Alpha Deucalion was pretty fucking badarse, wasn't he?

Although the classic 'high school teens who look as old as most of the staff' thing is in full effect, the acting is really very good in Teen Wolf with a cast with great chemistry. A big part of this is also the writing, with the episode providing characters with great scenes and dialogue to play with. Everyone slips right back into their roles perfectly.

Overall Tattoo was pretty much the best start to the season we could ask for, I mean there is really nothing I can complain about other than to simply repeat the issues I've had with the show since the beginning. And as much as I should be complaining about the fact that they aren't sorting those issues out, everything around them works so beautifully I almost don't care. Almost.

Pros;

• It doesn't waste any time.
• This has gotten me so excited for the rest of the season.
• Well written, it really shouldn't work as well as it does.
• That fight in the elevator was pretty epic.
• Deucalion.
• Great characters. 
• Great characters supported by great actors. 
• And great actors supported by great dialogue. 

Cons;

• I'm just hoping with all these new villains, the heroes don't get screentime stolen away from them. Even main characters like Allison seemed to fall into the background quite frequently in the episode and that is a problem.
• Awkward transitioning from the end of Season Two.
• Some pretty poorly constructed action sequences. 
• With even worse special effects. 
• The Alpha Pack just don't feel as threatening as I think the show wants them to feel.

Think About It!

-Locke

What would you rate, 'Tattoo'?