Teen Wolf Season 4 Finale Review: Smoke and Mirrors

‘Twas the Season Finale of Teen Wolf, and all through Ikea, not a were-creature was laughing — not even Malia. Truth be told, I have no earthly conception as to what is taking place at Ikea tonight, but, in festive spirit of the closing of a season, I thought it appropriate to begin this review with some semi-original verse. That obligation done, I will now apologize for said semi-original verse and move on to the sorrowful matter at hand: Pointing out that this week’s final installment of the season…wasn’t very good.

It’s sad but true!

While I don’t think the season in its entirety was lackluster (far from it: there were some strong episodes, for sure) this final episode, wherein the crew magically talks Scott out of being a Berserker and where Derek dies-but-not-really for easily the hundredth time, was much closer to the proverbial whimper than any sort of bang.

We returned to the scene of the first episode, La Enrique y Julio Iglesia. But, unlike our first visit to this locale, there was no real sense of urgency — even though Kira had a moment of nearly dying, and even though the likelihood of Scott or any one of his friends dying was supposed to be all-too real. Instead, Scott freed himself (with some help from a pep-talk, courtesy of Liam, who apparently has a real future in Life Coaching) and immediately deduced that it wasn’t Kate Argent at fault, it was Peter.

Because…it’s always Peter. Always. That’s what made this episode so disappointing. When you go out of your way to give us a new breed (quite literally) of evil with a character like Kate, you’re playing a cruel joke on your audience to make her a red herring for Peter’s whining, perpetual and uninspired plan to take back his alpha powers. I really wanted them to get all Snape with Peter this season, but it just never happened. Exhibit how he brutally hurled his newly-discovered daughter into a wall of rock while making lame quips at her: Peter is the same as he, in the words of The Talking Heads, ever was.

We received no resolution, and no real cliffhanger. Sure, the promise of more desert wolf to come next season was dangled, Kate escaped, and Peter is quietly going mad with Eichen House’s answer to Hannibal Lecter, but none of the pertinent emotional growth we were promised even reared its head once. The only thing that came close was Scott accepting that he isn’t a monster. Frankly, that “shocking revelation” falls a little flat in the face of Lydia discovering her grandmother’s gut wrenching legacy, right? Or Stiles trying to reconcile what his life as a non-supe is going to be like in the wake of this latest crisis? Or, you know, ANYTHING ELSE.

The acting was strong, and, because it’s Teen Wolf, there were beautiful moments (Kira’s climb out of her cell into the twisting haunted looking basement of the church, for one) but sadly, there wasn’t much else going on. It’s like someone dropped the story face down on the floor, and rather than doing the right thing and throwing it out, they figured they’d serve it to us anyway. That said, I don’t care where my cake has been — I’m eating it.

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