Teen Wolf season 4? not my favorite
Sep. 21st, 2024 09:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annavereAlright, so this kind of sucked. Season five goes a long way to fixing the problems (so far anyway). There was a bit of good stuff in season four, but the bad weighed too heavy for me, mostly involving total lack of character moments. Also, the plotting of this installment is beyond swiss cheese. It's a moth-eaten v-neck sweater. It's the victim of a Prohibition Era drive by. It should be renamed Dire Wolf, because that's the state of the writing at all times. "Maybe the wine isn't wine." That's gonna be my go to phrase for all explanations which make less sense than the hole they're supposed to patch. It was shameful.
Okay, so while the writing on this show has so far not managed to depict anyone processing trauma in a healthy way, for three seasons it actually did a remarkably good job at depicting the results of trauma, even if it was solidly in the background. Isaac's abuse informed his reactions to multiple situations (I miss Isaac). Allison hallucinated her dead relatives. Scott wanted to die because he couldn't handle the deluge of misery being a werewolf has brought him and his friends. Stiles had panic attacks and went to the school counselor. Hell, even chronically neglected Boyd got an episode swamped by guilt over his sister's death.
But as of season four, that element which I dearly cherished is gone. The time skip is maybe a couple of weeks since 3B, and suddenly Scott is reset to season one, concerned with lacrosse and whether the girl he likes is his girlfriend or not. The increasingly subpar plotting leaves the characters suffering mass idiocy and I have to use headcanon coping mechanisms. Maybe Scott forgets how to werewolf (in the season where Derek is the one losing his powers) because he wasn't fast enough to save Allison and internalized his failure. Stiles buries his trauma and refuses to speak of it, because he's crippled by guilt. Lydia ceases to solve problems, having a hard time thinking clearly under the extreme pressure of having lost her best friend (she at least gets to display acute depression). Chris Argent prefers to unload rounds of ammunition into the clearly bulletproof Berserkers because it gives him an outlet for his anger, and if he blows them up, he'll lose his punching bags. I don't know.
Maybe all of them are trapped in a toxic feedback loop where no one wants to be the first to share their pain, because "everyone else is handling it, and I don't want to bring them down with my inability to cope." It would be great if a single line of dialogue backed me up in this charitable interpretation, but it is worth noting that the psychological toll of their experiences does factor into season five quite consistently, which could fit with them trying so hard to be okay they become emotional cripples who can't communicate honestly anymore. So in hindsight I might be able to live with this.
I can't even with the plot, though, so I won't rant about that at all.
Another problem was Liam. There are always a group of new players per season, and I can usually adapt quite quickly to them, but this season it felt weighted too heavily towards Liam and his life. What's interesting to me is that Liam functions as Scott's surrogate son, exactly the role Dawn and Connor had in the Buffyverse, and I loved those troubled kids straight away. The difference, as I see it, is that their arrivals didn't coincide with complete downplaying of the core characters. The concept of Liam wasn't bad, but in a season where I was hungry for any acknowledgment of 3B's trauma, he's the one who got a depiction of PTSD, complete with inability to sleep, flashbacks and emotional scarring. Not literally anybody from prior seasons. By the end of the season I was cursing his scenes. He got the big emotional beats, he was the one who snapped Scott out of his Berserker rage (not Stiles, the best friend from episode one onward, who was right there and who I guess Scott would have blithely murdered) and he was the reason Scott morphed into Neo and became zen master werewolf in his fight with Peter.
Liam's gotten easier to put up with in season five, because the core group are back to getting angsty scenes like they deserve.
Malia was a huge missed opportunity to explore family dynamics. She and Derek only had one scene together (before either of them knew they were related), Todd Stashwick did not return and after nearly an entire season of dragging out the "secret" of Malia's biological father, she and Peter barely interacted and the writers switched seamlessly to dragging out the "secret" of Malia's biological mother. Bravo.
Kira made the opening credits but I've got nothing to say about her, except shame on the writers for neglecting her so completely. No training, never winning (or even proving formidable) in a swordfight, no using her electrical powers except for fluffy romance, no kitsune lore...
Oh, and Lydia spent the season having tiny fragments of a larger plot, with much of the big stuff happening off screen - including when she finally used her banshee powers with conscious intent to resuscitate a comatose Deaton, saving him from a fate worse than death. I think it bears repeating: She harnessed her powers (which she normally can't control), saving Scott's mentor... and neither her figuring out he was in trouble, realizing she could reach him or even her friends finding out what she heroically accomplished was even DEPICTED.
The villains got the same shameful treatment, with the main course being the deadpool and a revolving door of one-note assassins, next to which Kate and her Berserkers felt like an afterthought, and Peter an after-dinner afterthought. Why bring Kate back if you're just gonna stick her in the shadows, maybe popping round for a couple minutes an episode? Kate used to be riveting, and the ingredients were still there - still victimizing Derek, paralleling Peter by being motivated by her family's destruction, getting turned into the very abomination she sought to destroy, too defiant to follow the code and off herself. She could have been dynamite, and instead she was just kind of there. Jill Wagner and JR Bourne did a fantastic job the instant they finally got a script dealing with their relationship and the death of Allison, but that didn't happen until Kate's final scene in the season. Thanks, Jeff Davis.
Peter likewise got buried in the rubble, with basically no indication what he thought of his entire surviving family being put on a hit list (financed with his stolen money), to name only one development. Basically everything that happened in this season should have been massively traumatic for him, and (without even changing a shred of abysmal plot) watching him come apart at the seams would have been fascinating, but unfortunately, this show is not driven by character, and we got the assassin hit parade instead.
There was stuff I liked, but it was thin on the ground. Some of the Stiles/Malia material was like a healthy update on Xander/Anya. Braeden was a delight (so glad they brought her back) and had great chemistry with Derek (and they became a battle couple! Then they got written out of the show...). The Lydia/Peter dynamic during the sheriff station sequence was riveting. Peter having a chat with Chris Argent was a throwback to this show's guilty pleasure glory days. And all the actors put in their usual good work wherever possible.
Slim pickings, but those are the positives which stuck with me. Maybe it... improves... on rewatch... or something?
Okay, so while the writing on this show has so far not managed to depict anyone processing trauma in a healthy way, for three seasons it actually did a remarkably good job at depicting the results of trauma, even if it was solidly in the background. Isaac's abuse informed his reactions to multiple situations (I miss Isaac). Allison hallucinated her dead relatives. Scott wanted to die because he couldn't handle the deluge of misery being a werewolf has brought him and his friends. Stiles had panic attacks and went to the school counselor. Hell, even chronically neglected Boyd got an episode swamped by guilt over his sister's death.
But as of season four, that element which I dearly cherished is gone. The time skip is maybe a couple of weeks since 3B, and suddenly Scott is reset to season one, concerned with lacrosse and whether the girl he likes is his girlfriend or not. The increasingly subpar plotting leaves the characters suffering mass idiocy and I have to use headcanon coping mechanisms. Maybe Scott forgets how to werewolf (in the season where Derek is the one losing his powers) because he wasn't fast enough to save Allison and internalized his failure. Stiles buries his trauma and refuses to speak of it, because he's crippled by guilt. Lydia ceases to solve problems, having a hard time thinking clearly under the extreme pressure of having lost her best friend (she at least gets to display acute depression). Chris Argent prefers to unload rounds of ammunition into the clearly bulletproof Berserkers because it gives him an outlet for his anger, and if he blows them up, he'll lose his punching bags. I don't know.
Maybe all of them are trapped in a toxic feedback loop where no one wants to be the first to share their pain, because "everyone else is handling it, and I don't want to bring them down with my inability to cope." It would be great if a single line of dialogue backed me up in this charitable interpretation, but it is worth noting that the psychological toll of their experiences does factor into season five quite consistently, which could fit with them trying so hard to be okay they become emotional cripples who can't communicate honestly anymore. So in hindsight I might be able to live with this.
I can't even with the plot, though, so I won't rant about that at all.
Another problem was Liam. There are always a group of new players per season, and I can usually adapt quite quickly to them, but this season it felt weighted too heavily towards Liam and his life. What's interesting to me is that Liam functions as Scott's surrogate son, exactly the role Dawn and Connor had in the Buffyverse, and I loved those troubled kids straight away. The difference, as I see it, is that their arrivals didn't coincide with complete downplaying of the core characters. The concept of Liam wasn't bad, but in a season where I was hungry for any acknowledgment of 3B's trauma, he's the one who got a depiction of PTSD, complete with inability to sleep, flashbacks and emotional scarring. Not literally anybody from prior seasons. By the end of the season I was cursing his scenes. He got the big emotional beats, he was the one who snapped Scott out of his Berserker rage (not Stiles, the best friend from episode one onward, who was right there and who I guess Scott would have blithely murdered) and he was the reason Scott morphed into Neo and became zen master werewolf in his fight with Peter.
Liam's gotten easier to put up with in season five, because the core group are back to getting angsty scenes like they deserve.
Malia was a huge missed opportunity to explore family dynamics. She and Derek only had one scene together (before either of them knew they were related), Todd Stashwick did not return and after nearly an entire season of dragging out the "secret" of Malia's biological father, she and Peter barely interacted and the writers switched seamlessly to dragging out the "secret" of Malia's biological mother. Bravo.
Kira made the opening credits but I've got nothing to say about her, except shame on the writers for neglecting her so completely. No training, never winning (or even proving formidable) in a swordfight, no using her electrical powers except for fluffy romance, no kitsune lore...
Oh, and Lydia spent the season having tiny fragments of a larger plot, with much of the big stuff happening off screen - including when she finally used her banshee powers with conscious intent to resuscitate a comatose Deaton, saving him from a fate worse than death. I think it bears repeating: She harnessed her powers (which she normally can't control), saving Scott's mentor... and neither her figuring out he was in trouble, realizing she could reach him or even her friends finding out what she heroically accomplished was even DEPICTED.
The villains got the same shameful treatment, with the main course being the deadpool and a revolving door of one-note assassins, next to which Kate and her Berserkers felt like an afterthought, and Peter an after-dinner afterthought. Why bring Kate back if you're just gonna stick her in the shadows, maybe popping round for a couple minutes an episode? Kate used to be riveting, and the ingredients were still there - still victimizing Derek, paralleling Peter by being motivated by her family's destruction, getting turned into the very abomination she sought to destroy, too defiant to follow the code and off herself. She could have been dynamite, and instead she was just kind of there. Jill Wagner and JR Bourne did a fantastic job the instant they finally got a script dealing with their relationship and the death of Allison, but that didn't happen until Kate's final scene in the season. Thanks, Jeff Davis.
Peter likewise got buried in the rubble, with basically no indication what he thought of his entire surviving family being put on a hit list (financed with his stolen money), to name only one development. Basically everything that happened in this season should have been massively traumatic for him, and (without even changing a shred of abysmal plot) watching him come apart at the seams would have been fascinating, but unfortunately, this show is not driven by character, and we got the assassin hit parade instead.
There was stuff I liked, but it was thin on the ground. Some of the Stiles/Malia material was like a healthy update on Xander/Anya. Braeden was a delight (so glad they brought her back) and had great chemistry with Derek (and they became a battle couple! Then they got written out of the show...). The Lydia/Peter dynamic during the sheriff station sequence was riveting. Peter having a chat with Chris Argent was a throwback to this show's guilty pleasure glory days. And all the actors put in their usual good work wherever possible.
Slim pickings, but those are the positives which stuck with me. Maybe it... improves... on rewatch... or something?
