Teen Wolf – Memory Lost

By: Kim Olson

Welcome to Season 6 of “Teen Wolf,” the final season of the hit MTV supernatural show. Welcome to the final adventures of the teen wolf, Scott McCall (Tyler Posey), his best friend Stiles Stilinski (Dylan O’Brien), and their pack including the love of Stiles’ life – his crush since the third grade – Lydia Martin (Holland Roden). Welcome to the final season of everything that makes this series “Teen Wolf.” Soak it up and enjoy it now while it’s here because the final scene will air and the show, characters and relationships will be gone and missed before you know it.

It’s been almost eight months since the last season, three months canonically, so it’s a good thing the last season doesn’t need to be remembered much to enjoy this one. However, it is important to remember Scott’s beta is Liam (Dylan Sprayberry), Liam’s girlfriend is Hayden (Victoria Moroles), Liam’s best friend is Mason (Khylin Rhambo) and Mason’s boyfriend is Corey (Michael Johnston). That will be important later.

The big bad of the new season are the Ghost Riders. They come by storm, riding horses, and run around collecting souls – taking people. “Once they take you you’re gone. But it’s not just you. It’s everything about you.” They take the person and their belongings, such as furniture. But they don’t just make the person disappear. They erase any and every trace of them. They make them disappear from all photos. They wipe them from everyone’s memory so their loved ones can’t remember them. It’s as if the person never existed. If you can see the Ghost Riders and their horses, not only are you next but you’re already gone. “Those who see the Wild Hunt, beware. For you are already lost.”

Before the ghost riders come to town, Stiles (who is clearly going to grow up to be a cop) is practically begging for something supernatural to happen in Beacon Hills so he can feel needed while he and his friends go to school like normal teenagers. They are just living like normal teenagers – taking yearbook photos and trying to stay in school. The only reason Scott is still in school, after missing 38 classes last semester, is because Lydia’s mom (Susan Walters) who is a teacher at the school pulled some strings for him. Meanwhile, Stiles is still dreading graduatin, because he doesn’t want to drift apart from his friends. But, forget graduation, the Ghost Riders will take care of that for him.

Stiles is the first to see the Ghost Riders so, ultimately, he’ll be the first to be erased. He’s in trouble from the second the Ghost Rider shoots at him in the abandoned house he and Scott are checking out. He is lost from that moment on. Everyone, unbelievably quickly, forgets him and everything about him. Coach gives his jersey to another player. Liam and his friends wonder if he even goes to their school. Lydia’s mom has no idea who his dad is. His dad, heartbreakingly, doesn’t even know his name. Stiles tries to say goodbye to Scott, but Scott won’t even listen to him. No one knows who he is. Lydia is the only person who remembers Stiles because they’re true love. She’s the only one who knows him. Lydia swears to not leave his side, even if that means she might see the Ghost Riders too and be erased next. They run, past the Ghost Riders, through the school parking lot holding hands to find refuge in his jeep. Instead of driving away though, Stiles takes his last moments to say goodbye to her and beg her to remember him. “Find some way to remember me. Remember how you were the first girl I ever danced with? Or how I had a crush on you Freshman year? Sophomore year? Junior year? (Since 3rd grade?) Remember how you saved my life? …Remember I love you,” he tells her. Before Stiles can kiss her though the Ghost Riders yank him from his car and existence forever. Lydia swears she’ll remember Stiles, but by the next morning she has already forgotten him. Lydia, please remember Stiles. Please, don’t forget him.

Stiles cannot be gone that long. He will be back. He is “Teen Wolf.” The show doesn’t work and is hard to watch without him. Everything always happens to him, like becoming the Nogitsune in Season Three, because if it happened to anyone else the audience wouldn’t care as much. Stiles was saved from that fate, same as he’ll be saved from this one. This will be no different. I don’t know how. I don’t know when. But Lydia will save Stiles from the Ghost Riders because, as they reminded each other, they save each other. Always. It’s what they do.

Best Lines:

• Liam: It’s a new car. Hayden: It was new to someone, about 20 years ago.
• Stiles: Beacon Hills would burn to the ground without us.
• Papa (to Scott): A guy with a gun. That sounds like my department. Not yours.
• Lydia: Once a week you drag me out of bed like I’m some sort of supernatural metal detector. Stiles: Ok, it is way more often than that.
• Stiles: Scott is the sworn protector of Beacon Hills. Lydia’s mom: He can protect it at 3:30.
• Scott (in abandoned house): You wanna split up? Stiles: Absolutely not.
• Stiles: Is there a French word for feeling an overwhelming sense of urgency and impending doom?
• Stiles: It’s a myth, only apparently, it’s real like every other myth in this town that should just really remain a nightmare.
• Stiles: We had practice?! Why doesn’t anyone tell me anything?!