‘Teen Wolf’ 4.04 Episode Recap and Review: The Benefactor

This week’s episode of Teen Wolf  featured a full moon and various transformations. The gang headed over to Lydia’s (Holland Roden) lake-house in preparation. Newly bitten freshman, Liam (Dylan Sprayberry), is completely against the idea of receiving any help from Scott (Tyler Posey) and Stiles (Dylan O’brien) probably because they decided to kidnap and tie him up to explain his current situation, so Scott and his pack take it into their own hands to lure Liam away during the full moon. Meanwhile, Derek (Tyler Hoechlin) and Sheriff Stilinski (Linden Ashby) work side-by-side in order to figure out the goal of the Mute.

Drastic Measures:

We have a little time jump. Scott and Liam are no longer on the roof of the hospital, and instead the police department and Derek Hale are searching for clues for what possibly could have happened to the teenage wendigo. Derek, using his heightened werewolf senses, realizes that Sean wasn’t alone on the roof with the Mute. Honestly, I’m not sure why Scott decided against filling Derek in on everything, he probably could have provided some insight.

Regardless, back at Scott’s house, he is filling Stiles in on his current situation with Liam. Scott explains that Liam is ‘laying down,’ but in reality he’s tied up in a bathtub. Yeah, obviously Scott isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. Stiles immediately intervenes and tries to reason with Liam. He explains that Scott’s bite could either kill him or change him. Liam, being the adorable 15-year-old that he is, begins to cry. I’m pretty sure every girl watching Teen Wolf let out an audible “awww” at that, but unfortunately the cuteness ended up being short-lived.

Scott and Stiles try to comfort him, and end up getting sacked with a chair and punched in the face. Liam gets away, but they end up cornering him at school the following day. Scott tries, again, to reason with Liam but to no luck. He even tries to use the same words that Derek used on him back when he first transformed.

It was still up to debate whether Liam would die or become a werewolf, but all questions were put to rest when Liam revealed that nothing was happening to him, because the bite had healed. He is now a werwolf, and he is now Scott’s responsibility. Okay, if I had a massive bite mark that broke flesh and suddenly healed out of nowhere, I would be even more freaked out, frankly.

Scott quickly realizes that the only way to get Liam to be safely away from everyone during the full moon was to somehow lure him to Lydia’s lake-house. Lydia convinces Kira (Arden Cho) to summon her inner ‘vixen’ and to get Liam to come to a non-existant party that the gang is throwing. Kira hesitantly complies. Cue slo-mo vixen walk down the stairs. It immediately catches Liam’s attention, but not because of her flirting skills, but more so because of the face plant she made when she tripped and fell. Kira is my spirit animal.

The Sheriff And The Werewolf:

Derek and Sheriff Stilinski are trying to figure out who the Mute is and what goal he has. They realize that they need to hurry up and figure it out, because the mysterious killer has now set his sights on Peter (Ian Bohen). By the end of their exchange, Peter gets a tomahawk to the chest and a message from the Mute letting him know that Derek is next. Luckily, Derek arrived back in time to help out his uncle by burning his wound, because the weapon was covered in wolfsbane, before the outcome became deadly. For a second I was afraid for Peter’s fate! I really didn’t want him to die before getting more screen time with Malia (Shelley Hennig).

After tracing a phone signal from the benefactor to the school, Derek and the sheriff head there at night. Definitely a bad idea, seeing as nothing good happens at the school at night. The Sheriff spots a pool of blood from a closed classroom, but a red flag is brought up when Derek realized that he hadn’t caught the actual scent of blood when walking in. They go over to the classroom and Derek tries to flat out open the door, but the sheriff knows better. He props the door open slightly, only to see that there’s an explosive on the other side. This is where things really got intense. 

Derek pushes Stilinski out of the way right as the Mute pops up throwing very, very sharp objects at them. Derek takes the lead and begins to battle it out. Everyone knows that Derek never wins a fight, but out of some twist of fate, he gets the upper-hand and Sheriff Stilinski takes over and begins reading him his miranda rights.

Sadly, he doesn’t get very far before Peter shows up and literally claws his face off. Not a smart move, considering they didn’t figure out his goal and who was hiring him to kill off supernatural creatures. I guess they’ll have to find out on their own… Maybe if they talked to Scott and his pack, they may be able to figure it out that much faster!

A Little Party Never Killed Nobody:

Kira’s quirkiness ended up working in getting Liam to come out to Lydia’s lake-house, even if he assumed there would be a party there upon arrival. Unfortunately for him, he was instead greeted with an intervention of sorts. It was obvious during the car ride over that his werewolf side was beginning to come out. It was eerily similar to Scott’s first transformation in season one, such as him being in denial about the whole situation and going to a party.

Once they arrive, everyone explains what they are: Scott being a werewolf, Lydia being a banshee, Malia being a werecoyote, Kira being a fox (or more appropriately a kitsune) and Stiles being… Well, better than last season. It’s all a lot to take in, and it seems that Liam doesn’t have much time to adjust. He begins to shift, and if that’s not bad enough, all of his friends begin to arrive to Lydia’s lake-house for a party courtesy of Liam’s invite. Lydia is forced to oblige while Scott and Kira try to handle Liam and Stiles tries to handle Malia.

Frankly, Stiles and Malia are beginning to grow on me, only because they’re kind of being forced on the audience. It’s obvious that Stiles is good for Malia, and that he really cares for her. As Malia was in the midst of her transformation, Stiles stood by her side the entire time. She urged him to leave, more so when she eventually broke out of one of her binds, but he stuck it out and told her that he was confident in her not hurting him. Stiles went on to explain why he thought Malia was so afraid of hurting him, linking back to when she killed her family, but told her that he had faith in her. She eventually broke out of the binds but changed back to her normal self before she could hurt Stiles. It was very cute.

Meanwhile, Lydia had to manage a flock of freshman. And if that’s not bad enough, one of them, that one being Garrett, decided to order a keg of beer. First off, how do freshman order kegs of beer without being carded? Lydia began to freak out after seeing the cost of it, but quickly bolted when she noticed Mason (Khylim Rhambo) making his way upstairs. Once upstairs she corners Mason who reveals that he was just looking for Liam. During their exchange, Lydia manages to drop red wine on her white carpet. She begins to freak out, and while Mason tries to calm her down, she blurts out that her family is trying to sell this house because they need all the money they can get out of it.

Upon hearing that, Mason leaves to try to find something to help get the stain out (but ends up never returning). When he leaves Lydia begins to unleash her banshee abilities, and honestly I was kind of lost here, because my TV’s sound cut out, but Lydia ends up figuring out the password to the code she wrote down for Malia’s math notes. As it turns out, the password was ‘Allison’ and once it was unlocked, it revealed a supernatural hit list of sorts. Every supernatural creature in Beacon Hills, included all of our favorites, had their name on it.

And as if by total coincidence, the audience ends up seeing that the beer delivery man is also a werewolf after seeing his anger flash when he discovered that his tires were slashed. He begins saying a chant to calm himself down “the sun, the moon, and the truth.” Before he knows it, he has a wired necklace tied around his neck. His head is sliced off, and it is revealed that the person behind it is Garrett’s girlfriend, Violet (Samantha Logan). I have to say, that whole scenario was completely badass, I loved it! It turns out that Garrett and Violet are working together in these supernatural assassinations, and this was probably the coolest twist yet.

Scott and Kira end up majorly sucking at guarding Liam, because, for one, he ends up having to be knocked out by Kira… And while he is knocked out Kira and Scott begin getting a little frisky and totally miss when Liam wakes up and breaks out of his chains. Scott has to go out and find Liam, and when he does end up finding him, Scott almost ends up getting his face clawed off.

Luckily for him, he is saved by none other than Chris Argent! He’s back from Paris, all thanks to Scott’s text, and he’s there to help handle the Liam situation. Liam ran off, but Chris has it all under control. One of his hunting gadgets currently has Liam trapped. He gives Scott the device to stop it in order to give him a bit of time to talk to him. He finds Liam curled up frightened by the lights and sounds of the device, and when Scott turns it off, Liam vents that he doesn’t want his parents to see him as a monster… Especially after he was kicked out of his old school for keying his teachers car (And I mean reaaaaally tearing into it). Scott assures him that he has his back and that he’s not a monster, he’s a werewolf. So cheesy, but I love it.

So a new member is added to Scott’s pack, Daddy Argent returns (without our beloved Isaac unfortunately), and our favorite supernatural creatures are all on a Dead-pool list! Let’s see how long it takes them to figure out that the newly introduced freshman power couple, Garrett and Violet, are apart of this massive scheme. It is also important to note, will Liam now be added to the list, despite being besties with the two main assassins?

‘The Benefactor’ was a fantastic episode. The audience was treated with a copious amount of new eye candy  characters, and we’re finally getting a bit of backstory on them! I can honestly say that the additions of Liam, Garrett, Violet, and Mason have just made Teen Wolf even better.

Rating:

A-

So FanBolters, how are you liking the freshman class? And why do you think that ‘Allison’ was the password to the dead-pool list? Could it possibly be Gerald’s return? Comment on your thoughts and theories below!