I’m gonna say it…

Eli was shoe-horned into the movie because they needed an actual teen wolf to legitimize still calling the show Teen Wolf.

Also, he was like Dawn in Buffy the Vampire Slayer — a completely inexplicable presence that makes no sense. I was just waiting for the Nogitsune to reveal him as a trick, an emotional mirage meant to torture everyone.

SECOND TEEN WOLF RANT:

because I missed a few things so SPOILERS!!!

- Malia and Jordan. Just…no. After the flat out said that Jordan and Lydia were deeply connected through their connection to death and then blatantly displaying their chemistry in the show…they put Malia and Jordan together? Way to fuck with your own continuity. It would have made more sense for Lydia to come back and then reconnect with Jordan.

- what exactly is Malia doing these days other than boning the deputy? Because it seems like she spends most of her time in coyote form. She’s certainly no less feral now than she was 10(ish) years ago. Also, the one member of the pack that was obsessed with getting out into the world enough to say Beacon Hills can go fuck itself, is one of the only characters to stay. Make it make sense.

- They mixed the Oni with some aspects of the Wild Hunt which felt confusing.

Thoughts on Sterek

You might be surprised to learn that if you binge watch the show and don’t participate in the live fandom echo chamber then…”Sterek” isn’t a thing. It’s invented by the fans who want more dd/lg gayness — because for reasons. But on the main run of the show it isn’t even remotely romantically coded. It’s instead coded as a big brother being heartily and constantly annoyed by his little brother’s shadow/best friend who is meant to be an outsider but who keeps inserting himself into HIS pack (family unit). Then there’s later coding as the former formative presence in the younger brother’s life who has now been supplanted/usurped by the shadow — leaving big brother on the outside looking in. Eventually as the story progresses, the big brother comes to accept the shadow character as an occasionally useful member of the pack, if not still an annoying one. They didn’t enjoy crossing paths or being forced into situations together and they NEVER saw the same situation from the same perspective — it was more teenage obliviousness on Stiles’ part and begrudging acceptance on Derek’s. And begrudging acceptance is what the Jeep speech was all about. Derek’s complicated feelings about Jeep were about his complicated feelings about Stiles — but complicated feelings aren’t always romantic feeling. It was more about Derek coming to the realization that Stiles’ presence in his life in the old days might just have been more formative than he’d been willing to admit at the time. We change other people’s live with our presence…or absence, whether we realize it or not.

- Eli was definitely meant to be a Stiles stand-in. But not the cool, Murder-boarding, putting-together-the-obscure-pieces Stiles. No, he had to be tripping over his own feet, worst player on the team Stiles. And maybe, at the heart of that, was part of why Derek was able to make peace with his negative feelings about Stiles. During the show, he obviously was frustrated by Stiles’ very human qualities — the goofiness and the clumsiness in particular (and the constant sarcasm as well) — the way that someone who’s never had a clumsy day in their life can feel about someone who’s constantly tripping over things or knocking breakable items to the ground. His disdain for Stiles when he was like this was palpable in a teeth-grinding, jaw clenching kind of way. So to now be saddled with a kid that exhibits many of these same qualities is…a cosmic lesson. He HAS to love Eli — he has no choice — meaning he has to accept and love the qualities that he once disdained in Stiles, in someone else. And in the end, that means, through Eli, he sees teenaged Stiles in a new light, a much more positive, less teeth-grinding light.

- Teen Wolf continues its cringey reputation for inappropriate relationships. Scott is now in his early 30’s and is now getting back together with his 17 year old once dead girlfriend. Allison may look age appropriate but she has no life experience beyond turning 17 and then dying. But I guess 17 is the age of consent in CA and at least his last name isn’t DiCaprio.

- I did like that Dr. Fenris made a return. But are we still not going to talk about how Fenris is the name for The Great Wolf in Norse mythology? Still? We’re just going to keep leaving that out there?

- So if Scott gave the Nogitsune the Gift, then shouldn’t he be Scott’s Beta and susceptible to his Alpha thrall? I’m asking because this show apparently conveniently forgot some of its own rules and continuity for this movie. Like how Eli said he might be the first Hale to never turn, when we know from canon that several of the Hales that Kate murdered did not in fact exhibit the dominant traits of the werewolf gene and were just normals.

— I hated how they kept repeating exposition to each other like it was their first rodeo. “It’s a tree. It’s a Sacred Grove.” It’s called a Nemeton.” Fuuuuuuuuck. Either this movie is for fans or for new audiences. Pick one. If it’s for new audiences then create a neophyte character to stand in for dummies who never watched the show. Also, the show is available on many platforms. Get caught up. Or you know what — an amnesiac Allison might have been a perfect newbie stand-in if they hadn’t wasted all that time turning her into a mindless killing machine who had zero character traits in common with her original character.

- As show, Teen Wolf was a soft reboot of the 80’s Michael J Fox sleeper comedy of the same name (a film that was a much bigger hit than it had a right to be). And as soft reboots go, it was the mushiest of mushes, literally only sharing the name of the main character. Not even the origin story was the same, as Scott from the movie came from a long line of werewolves but didn’t get the memo until his first change. I’ve always said, this show would have been better off if it had been name “True Alpha” (or something) and had been set in college. At least then the sex lives of our main characters would have seemed less icky. Also college can be more realistically drawn out for a long period. Many people don’t finish in four years and that’s okay. And then there’s grad school.

- Beacon Hills didn’t look like Beacon Hills. Even The Preserve looked anemic of trees. I know…it was filmed in Georgia.

- Derek is a mechanic and owns an auto shop. What in the ever loving hell? Look, it never sat super well with me that on the show he seemed to be a “man of leisure” with no perceivable form of income (who spent all his time with teenagers). But I was okay with him being one of the lone heirs to an old money family who rested on his trust fund laurels or his passive income from real estate investments. Which is why it would have made more sense for Derek to have been a contractor — flipping houses for profit. Did we ever see him so much as lift the hood of car on the show? Car guys are car guys and they’re always under the hood or the chassis and that never was Derek. He drove several vehicles but that’s because he was the type of guy to trade the old one in for the new model to avoid changing the flat.

-Why? WHY Did Chris and Melissa break up?!? I need a reason. If you were eagle eyed it was clear that he still cares for her (always watching for her reaction, little intimate touches, etc) while it seemed like she was doing her best to ignore him. There’s obviously a story there, even if it’s just between the actors. I’m so mad about this, like…

Okay?

- I’m sorry but any one of the 10,000 (!!!) normals in the stadium could have broken the mountain ash boundary during an evacuation so that wasn’t a full proof plan.

- Killing Derek. I’m just not even going to dignify it. An Alpha is not a replacement for a dad.

- This one goes waaaay back so I’m just going to take the opportunity to bitch about it now. Why the FUCK is Melissa a nurse??? I’m just saying…her depth of medical knowledge (not to mention her access and duties) would have been more believable coming from someone with an actual MD. I guess some people still have a problem with the concept of lady doctors. I always thought her character would have been better if she had been the understaffed, overworked pathologist frantically doing baffling autopsies in the basement morgue. Her work providing her som with a good, stable lifestyle, but creating a rift between them because she’s just so busy (and baffled by all the ANIMAL ATTACKS!) until she learns about the supernatural world her son’s been drawn into, bringing them closer together than ever before. DR. McCall, tyvm. Tragically widowed when her drunk husband drove off a bridge. I’m just saying.

I should not be this mad, but damn, if they think this was a “love letter to fans” then that explains a lot of the toxic relationships on the show.

THINGS I DIDN’T LIKE ABOUT THE TEEN WOLF MOVIE!!

(Spoilers ahead)

CAVEAT: Let me begin by saying I binged the original series after it’s end, so I wasn’t generally involved the fandom or its dramas.

First the obvious dislike:

I felt like then show ended in a good place. I mean, in that sense that you feel like life will go on. Or at least the war between the shapeshifters and Monroe waged on, bringing the pack closer together and growing its numbers. Scott was going to be a great leader and lead his people to a freedom from enforced fear and prejudice.

The movie offers nothing new on this subject. Did they defeat Monroe entirely, or are they now separated because they’re in hiding? Who the hell knows? Scott and Deacon (apparently still tight) are working in LA, the latter still with his practice and the former running a shelter because in 10 years (I guess???) Scott never managed to achieve the one dream he had for himself.

I can’t believe someone sat in a room and said “Let’s bring back the Nogitsune, but let’s do it without Dylan O’Brien!” The problem here is that DO was the one that made that villain so compelling in the first place. Without him, the trickster is just — been there, done that.

Liam is hanging out in Japan with a pack of kitsunes for reasons that never become clear — with a kitsune girlfriend. So if cheapening the impossible relationship between Scott and Kira was the aim — congrats. Well done.

Derek has a 15 year old son, which by the movie’s own timeline would have had him being born right around the time Allison died. Yet his presence is never explained. We have no idea who his mother is, except she’s clearly NOT Braedon. Timing-wise, only Julia Bacarri makes sense, but she’s supposed to be dead.

Also supposed to be dead?? Adrian Harris, killed by Julia Bacarri himself. No real explanation to how he got re-alived. And his motive for undertaking this dramatic show of revenge is a weak plot point, at best. I would have found a cloaked Coach Finstock as a villain to be more believable, tbh.

Argent and Melissa (really, it was the ship that saved me after Derek and Jennifer turned out to not be real) are no longer together. Unexplained.

But apparently Jackson and Ethan still are, so good for them!

Mason wasted his genius potential to become a Deputy Sheriff, but I’m glad to see that at least one member of pack 2.0 still seems to have some sense of loyalty to the town. Even if none of the others do. And WHERE IS COREY? I guess those two crazy kids didn’t work out. Who knows? Unexplained.

None of which makes sense. I just found it completely out of character, after all they went through, that they —particularly Scott — wouldn’t have returned to BH to continue as its guardians. Out of territorial instinct, if nothing else.

Im not a big fan of “Off screen” character development. It’s cheap and unsatisfying. But after a certain period of time elapses, you HAVE to develop the characters in some way because you will have expected them to grow or die. Nearly all of the characters regressed in some way. Scott, who showed suck promise as a great leader, is now a lone wolf. Lydia doesn’t use her abilities any more after possibly prophetic dreams forced her to leave Stiles. Derek stopped transforming because it scared his unexplained (obvious Stiles replacement) son. Jackson is still Jackson and Malia seems just as feral as ever.

Of course, the one think I hate more than off screen development is NO development of all. I give you Peter Hale, ladies an gentleman. Still a well dressed asshole who seems to have less charm than he did when we last saw him. Even his relationship with Malia seems to be unchanged. Boring.

Wow, i mean a war story where they end Monroe and her reign of terror would have been a better story. Remember when everyone in Beacon Hills knew about shapeshifters and after the Anuk-ite was dead they were actually thankful to the pack for keeping them safe? Good times.

But I guess THAT story doesn’t get us Allison back. Which seems to be the only goal the show runner had for this movie. So I guess…mission accomplished (sigh).

Into the Fray

Completed, bitches.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/13812231/chapters/31760874

A powerless Superman swooping in to the town hall meeting to validate Lana’s story is a big Nope from me. Not a big fan of the man-validating-woman plot point.

And then having her thank him for it?? Nope.nope.nope.

Writers should have found a way for Lana to bring around the town without Superman. Because she’s smart and capable.

Instead they just made her look weak and like she needs Superman to fight her mundane battles for her.