Teen Wolf – Blitzkrieg

By: Kaitlin Olson

Noah Stilinski (Linden Ashby) is placing the pieces of his son, Stiles’ (Dylan O’Brien), life back together. After catching Stiles’ lacrosse jersey Lydia (Holland Roden) threw at him in the previous episode, Papa Stilinski finds and uses the red string and thumbtacks that Stiles utilizes for his crime board in order to rebuild his son’s room. Stiles’ whole room and all of Papa Stilinski’s memories of his son come flooding back! He pins a piece of string in Stiles’ floor and Stiles’ desk reappears. The more strings he pins down, the more Stiles’ room rematerializes. Photos reappear on the crime board. Stiles’ bed, lacrosse equipment, knickknacks, clothes and more pictures come back. It’s all the details of Stiles’ life! “Looking Too Closely” by Fink plays over the scene. Not listening to the lyrics of the song, Papa Stilinski hurts himself by looking too closely at the pictures on Stiles’ crime board. He discovers proof that his wife, Claudia (Joey Honsa), actually died. On Stiles’ crime board, he finds a picture of Stiles with his mother on her last good day – the day she died. Yes, in his room, Stiles has a photo of him and his mom on the day she died!

Excited by what he’s found, Papa Stilinski is impatient to show Stiles’ room – his bed, the clothes he never folds, his crime board, even his lacrosse gear – to Claudia. “He’s on the lacrosse team. I mean, he’s terrible, but he’s on the team,” he says. Claudia doesn’t see anything. Even standing in Stiles’ room like her husband asks her too, she still doesn’t see anything. Perhaps, in order to see “Stiles,” she needs to believe in Stiles, which she does not. “There’s nothing here,” she tells her husband. “You’re here,” he replies sadly. He realizes that to get Stiles back he has to let go of her.

Just as the memory of his son’s life is coming back to him, as is the death of his wife and his life after her. “I don’t remember your birthday last year. Or what we did for our anniversary or Christmas for… I don’t know how many years,” he tells her. She insists they went to Big Sur, but they didn’t. They always wanted to, but never did. He shows her the picture he found on Stiles’ crime board, the one he took of Stiles and her on her last good day. Looking at the picture she tells him, “I was sick, but I started getting better. The medication had started to work. The doctors couldn’t explain it. We started making plans, started dreaming again… I was myself again.” That’s a lie. Remembering it like it was yesterday, Papa Stilinski closes his eyes and tells his wife the true story of the day she died. “Stiles refused to leave your side. You were yourself all day. Stiles had his mom back and I had my wife back. Stiles couldn’t stop talking about school, all the trouble he’d gotten into. He tried so hard to stay awake. When he finally fell asleep, it was in your arms. We just sat together and watched each other. We didn’t need to talk. But, when you finally closed your eyes… I knew you were gone,” he says. Claudia remembers being herself again because she died. In heaven, she got to be herself again and do everything she always wanted to like spend the holidays in Big Sur with her family. Sad, but true.

When Papa Stilinski reopens his eyes, Claudia is gone. He let go of her. That took strength, which fortunately he and his son have to offer in spades. As heartbreaking as it is, it’s a necessary step to getting Stiles back. With Claudia gone, a bright light shines across Stiles’ room. Is it Stiles?

Papa Stilinski finds Stiles’ friends at Scott’s house and tells them he remembers his son. He says, “I have a son. His name is Mieczyslaw Stilinski, but we call him Stiles.” That’s right! Stiles’ dad is the first person to say his real first name out loud! There’s a sweet story behind Stiles’ first name, besides it being Claudia’s dad’s name. Papa Stilinski continues, “When Stiles was a little kid, he couldn’t say his first name. Not sure why. It pretty much rolls off the tongue. The closest he could get was ‘mischief.’ His mother called him that.” Mischief Stilinski. That name fits him so well! Noah tells Stiles’ friends about his son, as if he can’t believe he ever forgot about him. Looking at Lydia he says, “I remember when Stiles first got his jeep. It belonged to his mother. She wanted him to have it. The first time when he took a spin behind the wheel he went straight into a ditch. I gave him his first roll of duct tape that day.” Turning to Scott (Tyler Posey), he reminds them all how Stiles impacted each of their lives. He says, “We’re here tonight because my goofball son decided to drag Scott, his greatest friend in the world, into the woods to see a dead body,” referencing the pilot of the series when Scott turned into a werewolf. “He was always getting into trouble. But he always had a good heart. Always,” he says.

Scott’s plan to defeat the Ghost Riders is to get Stiles to come up with a plan. “With Stiles back, he’ll be able to help us figure out a plan,” says Scott “He’s good at that,” adds Malia (Shelley Hennig). Scott is going to go through the rift and bite Stiles, turning him into a werewolf, so that he can come back through and heal himself. “As long as somebody is left in Beacon Hills the Wild Hunt can’t move on,” says Scott. It’s like a game of Dodgeball. They’re going to catch the ball and call Stiles back in. As long as one person is still standing, the game isn’t over. First, Scott needs to find the “rift,” or portal, to the train station. So he goes traipsing through the woods with Malia and Lydia back to where Peter (Ian Bohen) came in. According to Lydia, if the rift is a tear in the fabric of their world, “theoretically it could look like anything from a microscopic black hole to a free-floating Einstein-Rosen Bridge.” Lydia really hopes the rift isn’t up in the sky and it’s not. It’s underground. They all turn on the flashlights on their phones and go searching through the tunnels. They find the rift! It’s a giant, invisible, vibrating circle. “It’s remarkably similar to the Einstein-Rosen Bridge,” says Lydia. Now, how to get through the rift?

While failing to get through the rift, villainous Mr. Douglas (Pete Ploszek) comes upon them in the tunnels. Mr. Douglas is a mongrel! He has the power of an Alpha, Ghost Rider and Lowenmensch – part wolf, part lion! In exchange for Liam (Dylan Sprayberry) breaking the one thing that can put Theo (Cody Christian) back underground – Kira’s kitsune sword – Theo explains to Liam, Hayden (Victoria Moroles) and Mason (Khylin Rhambo), from behind bars in his jail cell, Mr. Douglas was a Nazi in World War II. The one thing Mr. Hauptmann Douglas always wanted was his own personal, supernatural army. In World War II, he came upon the Ghost Riders – an army of unstoppable warriors. Because the Ghost Riders are dead, they are not burdened with the weakness of ordinary soldiers. They never grow tired, they never need food and they never break. They seemed perfect. However, persuading them to fight for him turned out to be harder than he imagined. The Ghost Riders will and did mess up Douglas’ army of mere humans! A simple bullet is no match for an unnatural Ghost Rider. It certainly isn’t going to kill them! Douglas lost a lot of good men that day. Scared, he ran away from the Ghost Riders, but to this day he still wants them in his army.

Mr. Douglas has a plan to infiltrate the Ghost Riders’ lair with the help of the hellhound, Parrish (Ryan Kelley). But first he needs to find the hellhound. He goes back to where Parrish was last seen, the cage where Scott and his pack kept the captured Ghost Rider in the last episode. Mama McCall (Melissa Ponzio) and Daddy Argent (JR Bourne) are there now, finding the Ghost Rider that Mr. Douglas killed in the previous episode. Mr. Douglas killed the Ghost Rider so he could have the Ghost Rider’s memories and, with the Ghost Rider’s whip, abilities to erase people. Mr. Douglas chokes the life out of Argent! Melissa screams! She hopes Douglas doesn’t want their pineal glands as they’re still using them. Argent promises they’ll take Mr. Douglas to Parrish, which is what he really wants, so Mr. Douglas lets Argent go. Safe, for now, Chris pulls Melissa in close. But once Mr. Douglas has Parrish in his grasps, he has no more use for Mama McCall and Daddy Argent so he erases them. “Just crack the whip,” Melissa says. Mama McCall and Daddy Argent are gone! But, they’re still alive. They may be gone, but they’re still alive.

While Liam, Hayden and Mason are leaving the police station, a Ghost Rider enters. The Ghost Rider takes no time erasing a shocked Mason! Mason might have made it too easy because he’s human. On the bright side, he’ll be with his boyfriend Corey (Michael Johnston) now, who he’s been crying over and missing. Liam and Hayden put up a good fight until the Ghost Rider’s whip ties around Hayden’s wrist! With no way out, Hayden begs Liam to leave. “You can save me on the other side. I believe in you,” she says. He tells her he loves her and then, poof…She’s gone.

Back in the tunnels, Parrish opens the rift. He and Mr. Douglas step through, closing the rift and leaving Scott, Lydia, Malia and Liam behind. The Ghost Riders promptly follow out. The Ghost Riders are back! How wunderbar! Lydia and Liam run while Scott and Malia face off against the Ghost Riders. The Ghost Riders aren’t just trying to erase them this time. They’re trying to kill them! To Scott and Malia’s surprise, Peter comes to save the day. “Why aren’t you running?! Go!!!!!” he yells at them. While they watch from afar, the Ghost Riders erase Peter…again. Peter is gone…again! Hopefully, he’s just erased and not dead! Sherriff Stilinski is officially the only adult left!

The rift is gone. Everybody’s gone. Noah Stilinski, Scott, Lydia, Malia and Liam are the only ones left in Beacon Hills. But they might be able to create a new rift. The quick blinding light Papa Stilinski saw in Stiles’ room was a new rift opening. He remembered Stiles and a new rift formed. Maybe if they all remember everything about Stiles, they can produce a new rift?

Best Lines:

• Nazi: How do you stop the unstoppable? Mr. Douglas: With German efficiency.
• Peter: I like your plan Scott, I really do, especially the part about turning Stiles.
• Liam: You got a better idea? Peter: Yeah! It’s called run like hell! So… Leave in five?
• Theo: I hold all the cards. Mason: You’re locked in a jail cell. You have no cards.
• Liam: It’s afraid of you. Lydia: I’m afraid of me.