“Parasomnia”

The second episode of Teen Wolf Season 5 airs a day after the premiere. No idea why they premiered the second episode a day after the first but hey, I’m not complaining. This episode confirms my suspicion about the newly introduced character, Theo. He does seem to have evil motives but it’s difficult to point out what he wants, but we’ll get to that part later although most of the episode seems to be revolve around Theo’s mystery and Stiles not trusting him.

While Teen Wolf does struggle with introducing new characters as they tend to feel a little forced, this was not the case with this week’s newly introduced character Tracy; who makes a very strong impression in the creepy cold opening of the episode. Tracy finds herself in the guidance counselor (Lydia’s mom’s) office and admits to her that she gets night terrors and recalls what happened in her nightmare. She recalls she saw one of the “Dread Doctors” looking at her through the window. When she went up to close the window the Dread Doctor suddenly appeared out of nowhere, grabbs her chair and tells her that her father found her next to the chair later. Mrs. Martin assures her this is normal stress and when Tracy gets up to leave the office, she starts feeling sick again and much to Mrs. Martin’s horror throws up black liquid finding a feather in it.

Tracy experiences another night terror, but this time she’s awake. Lydia snaps Tracy out of her trance and when they leave together, a claw mark is shown on Tracy’s locker, giving us clear evidence that the Dread Doctors were indeed there. Lydia tries to help Tracy by enlisting Deputy Parrish to investigate what happened back in her room. Although Deputy Parrish doesn’t find anything but the camera pans down to show that there was blood and dead ravens on the roof outside her window and he was lying to keep Tracy safe. Parrish can’t do anything for Tracy but promises to watch over Tracy’s house in case something happens. However, Parrish didn’t realize that Tracy had walked out of the house whilst he was busy smiling at a flirtatious text from Lydia, Parrish claims that no one has gone in or out, however Tracy finds herself in the Dread Doctors lab and tries to convince herself that she’s dreaming but the Doctors say that she’s “awakening” before injecting her with a serum. It becomes clear that they’ve indeed turned her into a werewolf. Their motives seem pretty unclear so I’m really curious as to what they’re trying to do here. Is Tracy going to be a weapon against Scott? Who knows, although it’s become clear that the Dread Doctors are indeed after Scott.

Meanwhile Scott, continues to work alongside Dr. Deaton. The vet claims that the claw from Scott’s attacker last week was actually an eagle talon and despite being an expert, Dr. Deaton cannot identify what Scott’s attacker was and says that the rules of the supernatural world are not that rigid anymore. Scott also comes back to his normal life as he wants to be a veterinarian and plans to take his senior year seriously as he wants to get into a college of his choice. I like how he still wants to live a normal life like a normal teenager, despite everything that has been happening to him and his friends. Stiles, however won’t let him think about school for long.

Stiles wants his dad Sheriff Stilinski to investigate Theo as he is still very suspicious and I found the whole conversation between Stiles and his dad absolutely hilarious as it shows Stiles as he really is and always will be, the comic relief that this show needs. After much debating with his father, Stiles finally finds his way and finds a clean background check on Theo with an exception of a speeding ticket. Still, Stiles is unconvinced despite everyone telling him that it’s unnecessary.

This leads to Scott and Stiles talking to Theo about the night he got turned into a werewolf. He was skateboarding alone when he was bitten. His Alpha had been killed by two beta twins (Aiden and Ethan I presume). Theo also goes on about a heartwarming recollection of both Theo and Scott in the nurses office when they were in Elementary school. While that was enough to convince Scott that nothing was wrong him, Stiles still felt that something was off. Stiles then steals Theo’s transcripts and claims that his father’s signatures are fake, however his friends shrug him off. Stiles still won’t let this go though. He brings Liam along to stalk Theo and figure out what he’s up to. I actually like this Liam-Stiles pairing and they work well together. Liam smells Theo and claims that he’s just sad really. Suddenly Stiles realizes that Theo was dropping off dead flowers for his sister, not plotting to murder anyone. When Stiles and Liam try to get away, Theo catches them and confronts them. Stiles comes clean about what they were up to, but Theo says that he doesn’t have proof of anything and that he’s meant to be a part of Scott’s pack no matter how much Stiles disagrees. I think one of the most heartwarming scenes of this episode was when Scott confronts Stiles about him not trusting anyone to which Stiles angrily exclaims: “BECAUSE YOU TRUST EVERYONE!” and then slamming his hand on the car and hurting it and Scott absorbing the pain for him. Stiles and Scott have the strongest friend chemistry on television and Jeff Davis does a pretty great job in capturing that. These two clearly need one another.

On the other hand, Mason, Liam’s best friend still hasn’t been told about the supernatural or what Liam really is. After ditching Mason to go stalk Theo, Liam finally decides to come clean because he can see how upset Mason is for always lying to him. Just when he’s about to tell him, when a real wolf suddenly interrupts them until Liam goes into wolf-mode and scares it away. Mason, however, isn’t upset or horrified, but is actually excited to see his best friend as a werewolf.

It is later revealed that the real wolf was in fact, Theo. This left me momentarily confused. Why was Theo after Mason and Liam? And then things got even weirder when Theo headed back to his home. Theo speaks to two people who look like his parents, although we’re not sure if they really are. He says that they had to make sure that the signatures were perfect although the man claimed that he practiced the signature countless times. Theo says that they will have to explain the different signature with an injury, as giving a signature would be hard with a cast. He plans to injure the man’s hand with a hammer, and then the scene cuts to black. This means Stiles was right all along. Theo is definitely up to no good and I can’t wait to see how this plays out in the rest of the season. While Beacon Hills isn’t short of new werewolves, I really like the addition of Theo as he I’m sensing that he’ll be a real source of conflict between Stiles and Scott, something we’ve never seen in the show before.