‘Teen Wolf’ Season 4 Premiere Recap and Review: The Dark Moon

It’s finally back! After the agonizing three month hiatus, Teen Wolf has returned, and with it came serious repercussions. The fandom is surely still mourning the loss of Allison (Crystal Reed) and Aiden (Max Carver), as well as the exits from Isaac (Daniel Sharman) and Ethan (Charlie Carver).

Unfortunately, during the highly anticipated season premiere, we were only greeted with a nod towards Allison’s death. It’s only the first episode though, so hopefully we’ll be seeing a bit more mentions about those characters. Regardless, it was a fantastic start to the season.

Teen Wolf took fans to a shocking location: Mexico. As it turns out, Derek (Tyler Hoechlin) was taken and it’s up to Scott (Tyler Posey) and his pack to save him. If the prior three seasons weren’t a big enough hint, it should be mentioned that these rescue missions never go as planned!

Dub-Step Dance Fighting:

Stydia shippers should be happy! This episode starts off with Stiles (Dylan O’brien) and Lydia (Holland Roden) off on a mission in an unlikely place. The duo are in Mexico and they’re obviously not there to try the margaritas. They seem to have a solid plan, although Lydia fears that they’ll end up dead following it.

Regardless, they head to a heavily guarded location. At first it seems that the duo won’t be able to get in, but Stiles holds up a sketchy looking card to a camera, and the door ends up opening for them. As they walk through a desolate hallway, the creepy vibes rise to an all time high. Much to my surprise, the hallway leads to a wild dance party. Stiles and Lydia didn’t come for drinks or dancing, sadly (I would have LOVED to see that).

They are met by Araya (Ivonne Coll), leader of a group of werewolf hunters. It is then revealed that Stiles and Lydia came to Mexico to find Derek. They place $50,000 on the table, hoping that he can be bought. Unfortunately, Araya has other plans. She soon figures out, probably from the awesome slo-mo sequence panning from Malia (Shelley Hennig), Kira (Arden Cho), and Scott, that the duo didn’t come alone. And as most fans would know, an episode of Teen Wolf is never complete without a dub-step fighting sequence.

Scott, Kira, and Malia manage to make their way out of the dance floor, but are stopped when the hallways are then filled with wolfsbane gas. They are all captured, but the group is immediately alarmed when they find that Lydia is now missing. Araya wanted to see Lydia’s banshee powers in action, giving Lydia quite the fright. Once that’s all done, Araya reveals that she wants to see what type of “Alpha” Scott really is. This leads her to tie Scott up with Lydia tied beside him. She forces Kira to make a choice: Turn a knob and electrocute Scott when he fails to answer a question, or have someone else electrocute Lydia.

You would think that the questions would start out easy, but Araya makes a bold decision to ask Scott where Derek is… Even though Scott initially thought Derek was with Araya and her werewolf hunters. Something clicks within Scott, and he manages to figure out, after being electrocuted, that Kate (Jill Wagner) not only has Derek… But that she’s still alive.

Mercenaries and Alphas:

Thus we embark upon the journey of finding Derek and Kate! Araya and her hunter gang seem to already know the location of both– La Iglesia. She sends Scott and his pack off to retrieve Derek, and as a parting gift? Braeden, the snappy mercenary who saved Isaac last season from the twins, comes along as a guide. Somewhere along the way, Stiles’s jeep stops working and forces Scott to travel with Braeden alone to the church.

All seems to be going well (or as well as a broken jeep in the desert can go), but then Malia spots a figure in the distance. She runs off, Kira following closely behind. Her reckless decision earns her a nasty scratch from the unknown creature. Malia wasn’t able to take much from her brief encounter, except for the fact that the creature had a distinct smell of ‘death’.
Luckily for them, Stiles ends up fixing the jeep at that moment and they head off in the same direction as Scott and Braeden.

Meanwhile at the church, Scott and Braeden are faced with their own creature. Braeden is ready to kill, but Scott manages to take charge and unleashes a massive howl that scares away whatever it was in the darkness. In turn, the duo finds a chamber that they’re sure holds Derek.

Fountain of Youth:

The season premiere ends with a shocking cliffhanger– Scott and Braeden find Derek, but not in the condition they had hoped. Derek is now, not the chiseled and muscular god, but the cute and handsome teenager we saw in last season’s flashback. I have no clue what this means for Derek, a lot of speculations arise with this new development. Does he still remember the fire? How is this reversible? And most importantly… Can we keep both Tyler Hoechlin and Ian Nelson, please?

There you have it! It was a pretty jam-packed episode, if I do say so myself. I’ll be honest, I was expecting a bit more! The reveal at the end was shocking, even for those that did the research on returning characters, but overall the episode was missing something for me. It’s obvious that this season is going to be dark and a whirlwind on everyone’s emotions. I’m curious to see what direction TW takes.

Rating: B-

So FanBolters, we’ve had time to get used to Kira in the group, but what are your thoughts on Malia? Did you miss Allison’s title sequence in the beginning? And what are your thoughts on Teenage Derek Hale being thrown into the mix? Comment below!

Photo Credit: MTV

Responses

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  1. I definitely miss Allison already. And I’m not necessarily the biggest fan of Malia, not quite sure why, but she isn’t my favorite. I would like an explanation for Isaac not being there, also I just want to look at him more. Derek being his young self was definitely quite the shocker and I’m looking forward to the explanation of how it actually worked (but I could see some more Tyler Hoechlin).

  2. I love malia and stiles together! They r great u left out there cute parts when they r in the room and she’s trying to focus but she can’t and so stiles try’s to coach her and focus her but she kisses him I guess cuz when she kisses him she only thinks of him or silences everything around her or something which was super cute! And then when she ran off cuz her coyote instincts stiles almost ran after her but new he had to finish the jeep and then when she got back stiles was so concerned and was freaking out on malia cuz he thought she was leaving the pack but mostly him! And she said she’d never leave him and he was all shocked cuz stiles never gets picked first and Lydia and stiles please those 2 Lydia has never shown a interest in stiles like that and in episode 4 still nothing and she wasn’t jealous in the car I just got a sisterly boprotherly annoyance and banter from them in this episode which I like cuz they have no romantic chemistry! But malia and stiles have so much it’s insane!!