Something like four years ago, in the back corner of a bar 2 hours into a party halfway through Emerald City Comic Con, my dear friend Kel McDonald told me and our friend Cat Farris about a show. A very silly show. We were so bemused by what we heard that we decided we should all have a night to sit down and watch this ridiculous show. Now, four years later, we are about to begin the final season, the one season even Kel hasn’t made it all the way through. But we can do it with the power of friendship, which seems rather appropriate.
What is this show, you may ask? Why, it’s MTV’s Teen Wolf.
I know, I know. But guys, it’s delightful. It has almost nothing whatsoever to do with the Michael J Fox movie that inspired it other than that they are teens, (some of them) are wolves, and (some) play a sport (in this case, weirdly for California, lacrosse.) The first season begins with our hero, Scott, he of the floppy hair and puppy dog eyes, being bitten by a werewolf and having to learn to deal with his new transformations with the help of his silly but extremely clever friend Stiles (the best character), a broody older (early 20s) werewolf (Derek, who doesn’t know why he’s in this show) and his new girlfriend/the new girl who is secretly from a family of werewolf hunters.
Keep in mind, this is all just season one. There are SIX SEASONS of this nonsense, each one sillier than the last, full of mythology that is sometimes ripped straight from Wikipedia (we have checked) and as many plot twists as the writers could think up. But despite all this (because of all this?), Teen Wolf Night has remained a favorite night for the three of us. Because this show is just so delightfully bonkers that I will never really recover.
Great Things about Teen Wolf
Being a good werewolf is related to how strong your pack is. Checks out. But how do you make a strong pack as a human? Well, you just … be a really good friend. The power of friendship makes you a better werewolf. This is why Scott McCloud is our hero = he is the best at being a friend.
Alternatively, if you are bitten by a were-creature (oh, there are so many more than just wolves) and you are bad at friendship, you will turn into a weird demon-lizard-thing because no one loves you. Hey, I don’t make the rules.
There is a character in an early season who discovers that Scott is a werewolf and is very upset about it. Not because he is a secret supernatural creature and is potentially dangerous. No, because it makes him stronger and thus, better at lacrosse so he has an unfair advantage. Jackson is a perfect character and it is a tragedy he is only in the first two seasons.
Other perfect characters include Lydia Martin, the queen bee of the school who is secretly genius-level smart but doesn’t advertise it because who wants that in their Blair Waldorf? She becomes more and more of a main character as the series progresses, because the writers weren’t morons and she even gets her own supernatural powers at one point.
Also, she has perhaps the best relationships on the show? She spends the first two seasons dating the aforementioned Jackson while Stiles pines for her. THEN! Stiles gets a girlfriend and Lydia maybe doesn’t like it so much? THE TENSION! If it isn’t obvious, I ship Stiles and Lydia like no one’s business. We are just about to start season six and I have purposely not spoiled myself to see if they get together but if this best ship does not set sail by the end of the series, I may regret everything I have written in this newsletter.
I know I mentioned that there are weird plot twists but guys, there are weird plot twists. In the finale of season five, they just casually mentioned that there was a nazi alpha werewolf that was being kept in a tank keeping some immortal evil time travel (??) doctors alive. Just … offhand. And then it was hinted, after some much bigger theatrics, that he escaped?? And then Kel just casually goes, “As far as I can tell, he’s never brought up again.” ????????? This may not be true, it may be hiding in the bit of season six she never got to, but still.
Actual characters that exist: twin boys who are both werewolves that transform into a singular werewolf like Voltron because of course they do
There is one season that revolves around a kitsune (or a nogitsune, which I think is a rather obscure word as I’ve never heard it before? And when I googled it to check, there was only one wikipedia link and like a million Teen Wolf links so…) and it involves a lot of very bad Japanese which was very funny to both Cat and I who speak it. The character design was legitimately very good and creepy, though!
An actual actor in the later seasons is named DYLAN SPRAYBERRY (we call his character Scrappy Doo)
We call this character Deputy Cutie. Deputy Cutie is a Cutie but unfortunately joins Veronica Mars’s Deputy Leo in the ‘cute police deputy who unwisely dates a high school girl’ category. The sole point against him!
The lacrosse coach is amazing, definitely high like 95% of the time, and in one scene, just gives the Independence Day speech verbatim before a game. He is the real hero of this show.
All the parents are really good, well rounded characters? Which is shocking for a teen show! Each season, one parent finds out what’s really going on and then they just kind of form a little “our kids are supernatural creature I guess we better support them?” support group for each other and just generally have all the characters’ backs and it’s delightful. The two standouts are Scott’s mom, a nurse at the local hospital and badass lady extraordinaire, and Stile’s dad, the local sheriff who is so tired of all of this but will put up with it because what else is he going to do?
Also, Allison’s dad (or Papa Argent as we call him), he of the werewolf hunters, is played by JR Bourne, who also played Martouf, leader of the peaceful Tok’ra, on Stargate SG-1, my childhood favorite show so this is especially delightful for me. Proof that he’s a versatile actor?
And Derek is … well, Derek.
Where Can I Watch Teen Wolf?
Well, my lovelies, it is unfortunately not on Netflix or Hulu but on the “prime” streaming service of the Corporation That Shall Not Be Named. We watch it on iTunes as Kel has the whole series. It is also apparently on that pay-to-watch Youtube service? Which I have never used. (If any of you have used it, tell me how it is!)
This week, I just really wanted to talk about a thing that makes me happy. I hope it makes you happy, too.
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