Teen Wolf – Ghosted

By: Kim Olson

Lydia (Holland Roden), Scott (Tyler Posey) and Malia (Shelley Hennig) go to Canaan. In Canaan, there isn’t a single heartbeat to hear. There aren’t any scents to catch. That is because everyone left a long time ago. Canaan is a ghost town. As Lydia sees through a vision in the mirror of the girl’s bathroom at Beacon Hills High School, Canaan became a ghost town on April 8, 1987. During a community picnic, the Ghost Riders came in and took all the citizens away in giant puffs of green smoke. They were on the hunt after them! For the next thirty years, Canaan remained how it was on that fateful day in 1987. The houses, cars and newspapers were left untouched. No one even removed the carousel there for the party. The only thing that changed in Canaan was the one woman the Ghost Riders left standing: Lenore, a banshee. Lenore (McNally Sagal) is the only one who knows this reality set up by the Ghost Riders isn’t real. She’s the only one who really knows what happened to her neighbors. She’s the only one who knows her neighbors were ever even real. Because Lenore is a banshee, the Ghost Riders couldn’t touch her. They just circled her, intimidating her, before leaving her alone…forever. To keep Lenore company for the rest of her life, the Ghost Riders (kind as they are) brought back her dead son, Caleb (Mason McNulty). Caleb drowned in 1985, two years before the Ghost Riders made everyone in Canaan “disappear” and hasn’t aged a day since.

Caleb isn’t even real. Lenore sees her dead son for the same reason Scott sees his mom injured and Malia sees her dead mother and sister, Kylie. They’re just hallucinations caused by the energy the Ghost Riders left behind in Canaan. Malia’s hallucinations run so deep she imagines Theo (Cody Christian) telling her, “I know what you’re thinking. You should have died with them. Let me help you with that,” before shooting her dead! If the energy in Canaan is causing such vivid hallucinations, perhaps the same thing is happening in Beacon Hills? Does this mean Claudia (Joey Honsa) isn’t real? Is she just a hallucination given to Noah (Linden Ashby) caused by the energy the Ghost Riders left behind in Beacon Hills?

After recovering from their hallucinations, Scott, Malia and Lydia follow Caleb into his house. When they enter, Lenore is quietly standing across the room watching them. She says, excitedly, it’s been so long since they’ve had visitors and Caleb’s had someone to play with. Because of this, she threatens that “no one is leaving Canaan, ever again,” before shutting and locking the door on them. They can’t get out. Scott and Malia can’t even use their supernatural strengths to open the door! Lenore has Lydia, Scott and Malia held captive! Lydia tells Scott and Malia to go play with Caleb while she talks this out with Lenore. Scott and Malia follow Caleb into the dark cellar where he sits in front of a static-y TV, watching himself in old home videos. He, telepathically, locks the door to the basement, trapping Scott and Malia inside. He fills the room with water and causes Scott and Malia to start choking on the same liquid. Caleb tells them, “You’re drowning, just like me. Now we can be friends forever.” Meanwhile, upstairs Lydia is trying to persuade Lenore to let them go and give them information on how to rescue Stiles (Dylan O’Brien). Lenore tells Lydia because she’s a banshee, she’ll be safe from the Ghost Riders. Lydia tells her, “I don’t want to be safe. I want to save Stiles.” Lydia just wants Stiles back. She just wants to save Stiles even if it kills her! Understanding each other, Lenore lets Lydia and her friends leave.

On the drive home, Scott says they need to get the Wild Hunt to leave before Beacon Hills becomes the next ghost town. But they can’t, not yet. Not until they get Stiles back. If nothing changes and Beacon Hills becomes the next ghost town, Lydia will be like Lenore – the last one standing. If the Ghost Riders take everyone, Lydia will be alone – the only one left behind. She doesn’t have a Caleb. The Ghost Riders took him away. They need to get Stiles back, before the Ghost Riders leave. Additionally, Lydia tells Scott and Malia she could feel, through Lenore, what happens to people after the Ghost Riders erase them. Their souls hollowed out, they become something else. They become Ghost Riders, doomed to ride the storm forever. Not just for Lydia’s sake, but Stiles’ as well, they need to save Stiles before it’s too late! As seen in the last episode, Stiles isn’t a ghost rider, yet. He is real and in a train station. It is a train station he can get out of, as Peter did. There has got to be a way to save Stiles! The question is how. Until Scott and his pack can find a way, the Ghost Riders are stuck erasing souls in Beacon Hills.

Hayden (Victoria Moroles) and Liam (Dylan Sprayberry) devise a plan to catch a Ghost Rider with the help of a teacher they shouldn’t trust, Mr. Douglas (Pete Ploszek). They’re going to find a person to absorb the Ghost Rider’s lightning bolt. At the end of Season Five, Scott and his pack buried Theo alive with the ability to eat electricity – a power Theo got from killing Josh who initially had the power. To re-release Theo on the world, Hayden and Liam need Kira’s kitsune sword, which is in her mom’s possession. Kira’s mom (Tamlyn Tomita) hands over the sword warning, “Whatever happens will be your responsibility.” Liam drives the sword into the ground, reopening the hole they pushed Theo into last season and Theo crawls out!

After being hit by a Ghost Rider’s whip two episodes ago, Chris Argent (JR Bourne) is dying. Because a supernatural toxin caused his scar, if he goes in an operating room and doctors try to cut it out, it will spread and he will die. So, genius nurse Melissa McCall (Melissa Ponzio) sneaks Chris into the hospital basement and saves him herself!

Scott is finally fighting for Stiles! He visits Sherriff Stilinski at the police station and tells him about hearing Stiles’ voice through the jeep radio in the previous episode. He tells him, “Trust me. I heard Stiles on the radio. I’m sure of it. If you had heard it too… If you had….” But Papa Stilinski doesn’t believe him because he didn’t hear it for himself. He yells, “Enough!” at Scott and asks him to leave. Something Scott said to Papa Stilinski must have sunk in though because at the end of the episode he seems to finally get his head back on straight. Without Claudia stopping him like she did Lydia, he peels back the wallpaper in his house revealing Stiles’ old bedroom!

Overall, this confusing episode is kind of boring. It wasn’t a great episode and it wasn’t a favorite. It’s a boring filler episode, connecting the last with the next. This season overall though is actually a really good one to not have Stiles. It is a good way to explain away a character everyone cares about and is so integral to the story.

Best Lines:

• Malia (to Lydia): Do you ever have nice dreams?
• Malia: Am I having another hallucination? Scott: If you are, I’m having the same one.
• Malia (to Scott): I know you’re not gonna beat an eight-year-old’s ass, but I will!
• Theo: Who’s making decisions around here? Where’s Scott? Where’s Stiles?
• Theo: Let me guess. Scott wasn’t a part of this plan, was he?
• Theo (about Scott): Somehow, I don’t think we’re gonna hug this out.
• Theo: Malia, you aren’t still upset about the whole shooting thing, are you?