REVIEW - Teen Wolf - S03E03

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Last week’s episode was really good, like exceptionally good. Maybe my hopes were a little high but this week just didn’t quite make it. Don’t get me wrong, this episode wasn’t awful, it just wasn’t great and after last week’s offering it was sorely disappointing. That said there were some great moments hidden in what was a rather lacklustre effort as a whole.

Derek and Scott enlist some unlikely help to find Boyd and Cora who are still at the mercy of the full moon. Lydia and Stiles investigate a series of disturbing murders and Allison takes matters into her own hands. This episode is mostly snarling and running through the woods with a little bit of gore and a dash of harlequin romance.

Teen Wolf doesn’t really have filler episodes, but if it did this would be it. The search for Boyd and Cora could, and probably should, have been completed in half the time. While the secondary storyline of revealed significant information that furthers the overarching season mystery, the majority of the episode was spent watching the werewolves run through the woods in slow motion.


Speaking of slow motion, the director of this episode obviously had a fetish for attractive men in walking slow motion. Now, I’m partial to the occasional use of slow motion, especially on attractive men, but there comes a point when it’s time to speed things up and give us something relevant. When they were walking in slow motion they were performing excessive and unnecessary acrobatics. There is just so much that could have cut from this episode.

If you ignore the running and growling there were a few things that stood out in this episode. The classic horror elements, including a camping trip gone wrong and a surprise dead body, were really well done. I’m actually loving Teen Wolf’s use of classic horror tropes this season. Dylan O’Brien was exceptional as always, especially in a particularly poignant emotional scene.


Although the female characters were relegated to the background they outshone the testosterone filled hunting party. Especially Allison, who managed to achieve by herself, what Derek, Scott, Isaac and Chris had been unable to achieve as a team. The one highlight of the hunting storyline was Derek’s slow decent into despair, as he loses the last vestiges to his self-esteem but even that was undermined when he was gifted a romantic reward for his sacrifice.

Ms Blake (Haley Webb) was introduced in the first episode of season 3, and while we didn’t learn much about her she appeared capable and intriguing. In this episode most of what made her intriguing was ripped away from her so that she could be forced into the role of damsel in distress in preparation for meeting Derek Hale. While this episode didn’t introduce Ms Blake’s storyline particularly well, I am hoping that behind the romantic damsel is a dynamic character with a storyline of her very own as more than just Derek’s ‘love interest’.

It’s safe to say, that this episode was a bit of a let down but hopefully it will be the exception in an otherwise amazing season.

Review by Yvonne Popplewell

More of Yvonne’s work can be found at her blog.

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