Since it premiered in 2011, MTV’s Teen Wolf has gone from being a semi-cute story about a teenage werewolf to its current state as a supernatural thunderdome. After showing a complete disregard for continuity, it seemed unlikely that showrunner Jeff Davis could restore the show to its former glory. However, the midseason premiere of season five, “The Last Chimera,” could begin to right some of these wrongs.
Our favorite highschoolers, Lydia Martin (Holland Roden), Stiles Stilinski (Dylan O’Brien), Scott McCall (Tyler Posey), Malia Tate/Hale (Shelley Hennig) and Kira Yukimura (Arden Cho), have been through a lot — alpha packs, dark Druids, Oni, even berserkers — with every season having a ‘monster of the week’ vibe. This season the “Dread Doctors” have been amping up the terror, snatching up teenagers for their supernatural experiments, turning them into the ultimate creatures with various attributes: chimeras, the “perfect killers.”
“The Last Chimera” starts off exactly like the summer premiere, with Lydia again in Eichen House recounting the weeks leading up to her commitment in the mental institution, making both halves of season five one giant flashback.
Her Banshee status is a vehicle for some much-needed recap of the craziness that went down in the midseason finale, when the Supermoon hit the sleepy town of Beacon Hills. Creepy Dr. Valack (Steven Brand), who had his third eye ripped out by the Doctors, has drilled a hole in her head in order to “amplify her abilities” so that she can revisit the past and find out how Theo Raeken (Cody Christian) became the only successful chimera. Meanwhile he and his pack of undead ‘failed’ chimeras make quite an entrance, slaughtering their way into Eichen House.
After the credits, we’re back to the crazy night of the Supermoon, where Sheriff Stilinski (Linden Ashby) is fighting for his life, and Lydia has been left comatose near the Nemeton after Theo dug his claws into her neck. While taking a very steamy (yet entirely imaginary) shower, Deputy and Hellhound Jordan Parrish (Ryan Kelley) is visited by Lydia, which is less sexy because her appearance means someone is dying. After finding her body in the woods, he brings her to Scott, because who else can help except her alpha?
But everything’s gone to Hell in a hand basket for the werewolf, leaving Scott with the shambles of a pack and a hole in his chest, a wound from his beta, Liam Dunbar (Dylan Sprayberry), who went a little crazy under the effects of the full moon. It seems as if coming back from the dead, literally, has taken its toll on the alpha, as he can barely make it outside his room before passing out from a wound that curiously won’t heal. But when Parrish tells him that Lydia carved a badge into a rock, Scott knows it’s a warning for his best friend’s father.
And so he enters the ring — aka Beacon Hills Memorial — where he and Stiles commence round two of their recent ‘breakup’ fights. Previously their friendship got a little rocky with Scott blindly trusting Theo, an old schoolmate of theirs, and turning his back on Stiles when the human ‘killed’ a failed chimera. After the usual funny man knocks his werewolf buddy around, the two pit their heads together and figure out that the attack on the Sheriff was a diversion for both Stiles and Scott, who was trapped in the school library with Liam, whom Theo hoped to kill the ‘True Alpha.’
Liam and Mason (Khylin Rhambo) are also on a mission, trying to locate Hayden’s (Victoria Moroles) body. Feeling guilty and remorseful for both not being there when his girlfriend died and for attacking Scott, Liam spends the entire episode being emotionally reassured by his best friend. These interactions showcase some of the most real human emotions in a very raw episode. But being a revived chimera with werejaguar attributes, Hayden is more inclined right now to follow Theo’s direction, even if she doesn’t completely trust him.
Speaking of trust issues, Liam’s stepdad, Dr. Geyers (Todd Williams) questions Melissa McCall (Melissa Ponzio) because he knows some shady stuff’s happening, not helped by Stilinski’s rapidly worsening condition or Liam and Mason’s inquiries about dead bodies. The latter gives us vibes of the good old days when Stiles and Scott were just looking for bodies. Now it’s chimeras — they’re everywhere now — and the ex-best friends and an enlisted Malia, whom Stiles would rather not see after breaking up with her, track down another recently failed experiment, a part berserker named Noah, who they discover had unknowingly attacked the Sheriff and poisoned him with a shard of broken bone.
With Stiles’ well-timed phone call and a surgical procedure, the elder Stilinski is finally out of the woods, but before joining him Scott and Malia run straight into the Dread Doctors. “We’re gonna die down here,” Malia, a werecoyote, claims. Then her alpha reveals he called in some backup: werewolf hunter, Chris Argent, who returns for the first time since season four.
After losing his pack, Scott is on a path to redeem himself, and part of that is to bring everyone back together. While Kira is still in New York honing her kitsune powers, her ex-boyfriend will try to reunite his friends, a promise he made when he carves his signature circle alpha sign into a warehouse, a warning to Theo and his chimeras. However, Theo isn’t so much worried about it as is Dr. Valack after hearing Lydia recount the previous events, including how her own mother signed her over to Eichen House because she would be “safe there.”
While the chimeras plan to forcefully remove Lydia, someone begins to break into the institution, and Valack worriedly thinks it’s Scott making good on his promise. But Lydia tells him otherwise, “Someone’s coming but it’s not Scott,” and this someone just so happens to be Parrish, keeping his own promise to knock down the walls of Eichen House to get to her. And Theo finally reveals what he was really after: a Hellhound.
Teen Wolf airs Tuesday nights at 8/c on MTV.
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To contact Lifestyles editor Tanner Dedmon email lifestyles@mtsusidelines.com.
