Teen Wolf: "The Overlooked"

Previously on Teen Wolf: The Girl Who Knew Too Much.

After several episodes of mystifying characterisation decisions and weird, floundering plotlines, Teen Wolf has gone back to doing what it does best: silly action/horror sequences taking place in municipal buildings in the middle of the night. The only problem was that this episode seemingly confirms the fact that Derek did kill Paige, meaning that her flashback storyline apparently isn't some kind of weird Peter Hale fakeout. In case you've forgotten, the whole Derek-killed-his-first-girlfriend is probably the worst thing that ever happened on this show.

Shortly after watching last week's episode, I realised that I'm approximately 1000x more invested in Jennifer and Derek's relationship now I know that she's a skinless druid serial killer. Sorry if this makes me a human nightmare, but I personally think it would be a laugh riot if Derek was just like, "WHATEVS, everyone makes mistakes! And at least she loves me for who I am!" I support this pairing because it's exactly the kind of preposterous storyline that Teen Wolf would be able to make totally entertaining, if not actually "plausible". I mean, is it really that much weirder than Buffy/Angel? Angel doesn't even have a pulse.
The downside is that although I'm happy with the amount of time they spent explaining Jennifer's backstory and motivations in this episode (THANK GOD), I'm not wild about the way they've now given her so much more development and screentime than the as-yet nonexistent relationship between Derek and Cora. Jennifer/Derek is clearly far more important to the storyline than we thought (which: yay!) and I appreciated the nod to the Baldur myth (one of my faves), but nothing is ever gonna make up for the fact that Derek and Cora have had a non-relationship since the moment she showed up.

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MELISSA MCCALL. Despite the fact that she was landed with some truly idiotic expository dialogue at the beginning (look, we know that a thunderstorm is happening, you don't need to tell us), this was a great episode for Mama McCall. Defibrillator warfare! And a moment of satisfying attention to continuity as we remember that she doesn't know Peter is still alive! Also, she's clearly the most sensible, practical person in the show. She just tells Scott all the information she thinks might be relevent to the situation, and trusts him to do what's right. SO MUCH AMAZING TEAMWORK THIS WEEK. And everyone was uncharacteristically cooperative with their parents, perhaps to make up for the fact that Stiles is traumatically torn asunder from Sheriff Linden Ashby -- who you should all be following on Twitter because he's hilarious.
My absolute favourite thing this week was the amount of thoughtful strategising we saw taking place -- probably because Derek Hale, master of the impromptu Terrible Idea, was trapped in an elevator for most of it. After multiple episodes this season where character continuity was completely abandoned, it was great to see how much the main cast have developed into something resembling a functioning team. Every episode brings us closer to that ever-popular fanfic universe where the characters actually like each other, you guys! I would happily watch many more scenes where everyone debates the merits of opening the service hatch in a stalled elevator, or MacGyvers weapons from hospital supplies. Praise be to Jeff Davis for giving us anything as beautiful as Peter Hale lurching into a fight scene with a gigantic hypodermic needle poking out of his chest, helpfully exposed by his cleavage-baring Hot Dad shirt. (Although seriously, Peter Hale needs to tone down the Hot Dad outfits. Chris Argent makes it work, but Peter is definitely edging into aging rentboy territory.)

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As per usual, Dylan O'Brien's face, voice, body and tearducts were a major highlight. The appearance of fandom's favourite baseball bat was A++, and I am FULL OF AGONY about the fact that the Sheriff is still missing. My one criticism would be Stiles' bizarre CPR technique. Now, I know that CPR guidelines are subject to change, but I'm pretty sure that if you just blow into someone's mouth without doing chest compressions, you're basically gonna just inflate them like a balloon, right? (N.B. I am not a doctor.) EDITED TO ADD: Apparently it's called "rescue breathing! I have Learned A Thing today. I was hoping it was something "real" rather than just a bizarre CPR technique, and am happy that Stiles is apparently well-informed about emergency medical techniques. (Maybe because of Scott's asthma?)

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Re: the alpha pack, I'm still pretty puzzled about the whole concept. I really enjoy the idea of Kali/Jennifer (or Julia), partly because it's this absolutely casual reference to bisexuality, but also because it's a genuinely compelling reason for why Jennifer is in the place she is today. However, in many ways it makes the whole Alpha Pack thing make even less sense before. I understand the desire for power as a motivation, just as I understand some people's desire to follow a powerful leader without much care for morality. However, what the hell do the Alphas get out of this deal? Rather than being the leaders of their own packs, they have to kill everyone they know and love, in order to be subservient to Deucalion, who barely seems to care about them anyway. Presumably the Alphas killed their packs voluntarily rather than being tricked into it, otherwise why would they even be loyal to Deucalion? Kali leaving her girlfriend to die on the ground is an excellent origin story for Jennifer Blake's murderous rampage, but it makes Kali's motivations seem even more obscure than before.

The weirdest thing about this episode is that one of the best aspects was the exact same thing that was seriously terrible for the rest of this season: the balance between multiple character stories. Yes, "The Overlooked" was chaotic, but that chaos kind of worked in its favour. There are multiple factions of enemies and frenemies having to work together to defeat each other (much like in seasons 1 and 2), but everyone gets a mini-scene every few minutes to remind us of their goals: Stiles and his father, Scott and the Alpha Pack, Cora and the Hales, etc. There was more of that thoughtfulness in this episode than in most of the previous nine episodes put together, what with the fact that Boyd and Erica's deaths have sunk without trace, and the Cora/Derek relationship failed to materialise for nine episodes. So. Let's hope those issues are cleared up soon, and that future episodes are more like this one and less like the bizarre mistake that was "Visionary". (Although perhaps with, you know, more of an actual plot structure.)

Miscellaneous

• Luv the music in the final scene. SCOTT/STILES FRONDSHIP!!!!
• I feel like I say this every week (who am I kidding, I definitely say this every week), but SCISAAC/ALLISON THREESOME NEEDS TO HAPPEN!!
• How many thunderstorms does Becaon Hills have each year? 200?
• Has anyone else noticed that the Alpha Twins kinda have cartoon boy voices?
• Peter and Scott in the laundry chute, LOLOLOL.
• "She's kinda hot." -- This feeds into my headcanon of Isaac being a dude who is slyly attracted to literally every single person on the show. God, I love Daniel Sharman. Did you know he's playing a woman in his next movie? A movie about a gigolo in the 1950s, set in the French Riviera? Well, NOW YOU DO. Treasure that information. 
• Really enjoyed the detail of using cellphone cameras to keep track of what was going on inside the hospital. Honestly, the whole sequence of group-strategy scenes in this episode was excellent, and genre-savvy to an extent that we rarely see in this show. It was such a turnaround from the previous couple of episodes that I wondered if it was by a different writer than before, but in fact it's the exact same writer/director pairing as "Currents" and "Visionary" (ie probably the two worst episodes so far): Jeff Davis and Russell Mulcahy.

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