As I review the second season finale of Teen Wolf, I wonder if Victoria’s death is now meaningless when faced with the writers’ decision to have Gerard put aside his hatred of werewolves in order to be healthy. Turns out Scott had a plan to defeat Gerard, and he developed it offscreen, because he’s only a secondary character, Allison’s angst is short-changed in favor of Chris’ angst, and in the longest scene ever, Jackson goes from Kanima to werewolf, automatically making it so that there are too many male werewolves running around. Finally, I talk about Jeff Davis’ ten teases wrt season 3.
Quotes From the Podcast: “Gerard’s master plan was better fit for a mini arc. I feel like at the end of it he should’ve been a minor villain, and they should’ve kept the Kanima thing since I feel like it was on a bigger scale as far as plans go.”
“I feel like the comedy was off in this episode, for the most part. [….]. I wasn’t feeling it. I feel like there were lighthearted moments in places and regarding dialogue that was not needed and that was not necessary and that flat out didn’t work.”
Just Another Judicious Podcast 
Good parts
All the craziness surrounding the Kanima.
Scott had a clever plan! Yay!
Melissa doing stuff
Sheriff Stilinsky
Terrible parts
Allison really was only there to support Gerard’s story. I thought secondary characters are there to support the story of the main ones, Jeff Davis. What happened? Oh, you meant only when the secondary characters are black, right? Rme
What is a Lydia?
ffs, why is Gerard still alive?
Give up on Lydia, Stiles.
Stiles is a stalker. He just doesn’t have his telephoto lens yet…
Can Melissa have a bigger role than Gerard? I never want to see him again
Also Peter’s back <_< and I'd rather watch the Morrell/Deaton show
Explain to me how a pack of alpha’s even works. Do they decide not to turn anyone and just go hug it out with other alpha’s???
lol, ikr! And what do they want from Derek? Do they want want him to join their hugging orgy?
I was thinking the same thing. They would just tear each other apart.
Some of them have to be beta’s.
Lmao.
I’m so disappointed by this finale. I enjoyed the season but after this finale I can’t help but wonder what the point of this season was. S1 had better plotting.
Gerard is still alive. Why? And his goal was to get the bite? That is … anti-climactic. His ~master plan was pretty convoluted if that was all he wanted.
What was the point of Lydia’s SL? Why is Peter here? He didn’t even do anything. I was waiting for a big twist with him but nothing. He’s just here to be sassy. I’m not here for that. And I say that as somebody who actually likes (liked?) Peter. Is this a case of the showrunners falling in love with an actor/a char? I don’t get it.
What was the point of the Kanima SL? So Jackson killed a bunch of people because he was controlled by some random dude … and now he is a werewolf? Where is the pay-off? What did this SL actually do for Jackson’s character? It feels so unsatisfying to me. The least they could have done was to have Jackson die. That sounds harsh but at least there would have been a point to this SL.
I’m still confused about the Kanima mythology and how it was possible for Peter to come back.
I still like Stiles but I feel like he is slowly – or not so slowly? – taking over the show. There were so many unnecessary Stiles moments in this episode. I want insight on the other characters too!
Stiles/Lydia is a walking horror story. I can’t with Stiles’ entitlement.
Jackson/Lydia isn’t better. I was hoping that they wouldn’t play this ‘Lydia can save Jackson with her love’ thing straight. But alas… It’s gross and also feels like a retcon of their entire relationship.
What was the point of Stiles being kidnapped?
Chris Argent needs to stop. I get the feeling that were supposed to see him in a sympathetic light? Nope.
Okay, so this was my big rant about the finale, lol. I will be back later when I’ve gotten over my intitial disappointment (I just watched the ep) with some positive thoughts.
Oh, to clarify my point about Chris Argent. I dislike how is framed as the voice of reason. Please. He is the man who had his daughter kidnapped to teach her a lesson and who took part in shooting up the police station in the last episode.
I still like Stiles but I feel like he is slowly – or not so slowly? – taking over the show. There were so many unnecessary Stiles moments in this episode. I want insight on the other characters too!
With this ep, he is officially the Damon of this show. He is def eating the show.
Lol, I was about to call him the Damon of TW too in my previous post but then changed my mind.
It really should have been Kate this whole time. Maybe instead of Lydia being controlled by Peter, Derek could have been controlled by Kate.
When are the women going to come back from the dead?
Stiles showed his ass. All he was thinking about was himself. and his feelings and it was gross. How can anybody ship it with rainbows and bunnies. it’s a creep fest.
I’m so disappointed by this finale. I enjoyed the season but after this finale I can’t help but wonder what the point of this season was. S1 had better plotting.
Yes, yes, and yes. This episode annoyed and frustrated me. The only good part was Allison breaking up with Scott. Everything else sucked. Nothing that happened this season needed 12 episodes to play out. Come on, now. At one point, I thought, “Are we still on this Kanima crap?”
I can’t believe what they did with Gerard’s goal. They turned him into a cartoon. Wanting revenge for Kate would’ve made more sense. At one point, I thought, “I can’t believe they killed Victoria for this.”
I wanted someone to kill Peter. He was making so many comments, and all of them were unnecessary. He’s basically here to be a character again, and wtf?
What did this SL actually do for Jackson’s character?
Nothing. We don’t even know what he knows about it. So the Kanima part was just a transition? Why did no one die in this finale? How did old ass Gerard get away from that room full of young people?
I’m still confused about the Kanima mythology and how it was possible for Peter to come back.
Jeff Davis is in part confused about how it was possible for Peter to come back, because he didn’t let anyone explain it to Scott when he asked.
What was the point of the game convo between him and his father? Why was he kidnapped?
Their relationship has been retconned? That flashback? Please.
Lol, I didn’t realize you asked the Stiles kidnapping question.
I was not here for Chris’ angst. I feel like the story about the Argents being hunters has taken a major hit. I mean: Victoria’s dead, Kate’s dead, Gerard is cray, and Chris is ineffective. I feel like the family/their position won’t be the same going forward. And that sucks.
I can only agree with everything you said.
Stiles/Lydia is a walking horror story.
So true. It´s disgusting and what I even found more problematic is that last episode Stiles spoke about Matt Cameraguy and his obsession with Allison and judged him but what he is doing is almost as awful. It´s so creepy.
I hated the imagery of him freaking out on Lydia out of ~concern, and she jumps out, looking just like she did whenever she hallucinated about Peter.
This was the worst episode of the season. It didn’t even feel like a finale. I aired most of my thoughts in my reply to Emily.
Ok but you have to admit that this ep reached the “it is so bad, it is good” level. If I were co-hosting the podcast with you, all you would hear is me laughing for 2hrs straight. The Kanima shit was the best. Is it a bird, a plane, a dead Kanima? No, it is Omega Man!
Oh God! And that moment when Jackson got up after being stabbed by Derek and Peter? Was that copied from the Terminator movies? Lol. Idk. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
I thought he would never straightened, he was so slow in getting up. And everybody was riveted like it was the most interesting thing ever.
I still don’t know why Peter was in the scene. He says Lydia is the key, but he doesn’t bother to go pick her up. It’s not like he doesn’t know where she lives.
I don’t know why Peter was brought back at all. Sure, he is somewhat entertaining when he makes fun of Derek but it feels like he is a guest who has overstayed his welcome. He just won’t leave. His story is done. What is he still doing here?
He does. And he no longer seems to have a plan. He just wanted to come back.
These white dudes are harder to kill than the Terminator.
Lol.
The Lydia/Jackson epic love came out of nowhere, right? When did they act like they were deeply in love?
Never. What we saw in the flashback did not gel with “That’s not the only sucking I do for his benefit.” And while I’m sure they weren’t always snippy with each other, I doubt they were ever what the flashback showed. It was ooc for both. They acted like they were Scott/Allison, and they’re not. Everyone was looking at them in that scene, all amazed by the power of love, and it’s bs.
It seems like everyone has been OOC for a couple of eps now. The season was ruined for me when Matt was revealed as the Kanima master so everything after that is meh *shrug*. They could not have picked a more ridiculous character for such an important storyline. At the very least, they should have chosen Isaac as the Kanima master.
They should have pegged it all on Peter. At least he would have been dead by the end of the season.
Peter should have been acting through Lydia. I wish the Kanima master was someone cooler than Matt. This would have also given Peter some sort of purpose in the story other than randomly torturing Lydia. Then there could have been two puppets somehow fighting each other and, possibly, fighting Peter too. If they had somehow cancelled each other out it, could have been at least interesting.
I wish what had happened was that Derek was suspicious it was Peter controlling her/everyone. That fear, rational or not, would have made sense, because all his actions this season were about trying to step into the Alpha shoes. A role he stole from Peter.
Isaac, as the Kanima master would have made some sense too. His father and brother were both connected to the Kenima/the swim team. He didn’t hold it against Jackson that Jackson had known about his father being horrible for years and shrugged it off despite Jackson’s father being a lawyer. The werewolves & co. were always protected from the kanima, weirdly. Also, it would have made more sense when Jackson was possessed and said “We’re all here” etc, with Isaac right there. Just random stuff like that would have worked better. Plus, if he was the kanima master, his intense presence in the season would have made more sense.
All of this.
Right now Peter was torturing Lydia for pretty much no reason at all. He tortures her and now he’s just standing around making quips to get chuckles out of the audience? Why would you do that as a writer who cares about Lydia. And the humor in the finale is another thing I didn’t like. Sometimes the characters’ flippant reactions took away from what was supposed to be some serious situations. Like when Isaac learned who Peter was.
That would have been great wrt Derek. We spent an episode watching him prepare for something that’s coming NEXT season? On top of that, by the end of this season he’s still not prepared because all of his betas have abandoned him.
Isaac wanting revenge on people who did nothing while he got abused would have hit harder than Matt doing it because he almost drowned. Isaac’s would have been more current.
Right now Peter was torturing Lydia for pretty much no reason at all.
They made the mythology too complicated (for them) to handle by bringing back Peter. Once dead doesn’t mean dead, you’ve opened up a can of worms. It is not like they said he took over someone else’s body. They brought someone back to life even though his body had been rotting for months. What is to stop someone from the 16th century from coming back? As long as there is some bit of DNA somewhere, what is the diff? The methods might be different but it should be possible.
All of this made me think of Victoria and Allison. Allison has gone on a psychotic killing spree over her mom’s death, but once she discovers that dead people can easily and completely come back to life, she’s not going to do something about it? No way. It makes no sense but I think that is the direction the show is going to go with.
They should have never brought Peter back. It’s holding the show down.
They need to explain how Peter was able to come back to life. Why did he need to touch Derek specifically, if touching Derek was not going to make him an Alpha? The ingredients seem to be full moon, mirrors to reflect the moon, and….Derek? A supernatural creature? A werewolf specifically? An Alpha? A family member?
Yes! And shouldn’t Derek think about trying to bring his sister back?
Another reason why Isaac (or one of the other betas) should have been the Kanima master is Derek. Derek made a really questionable choice three times. He turned three troubled kids into monsters. One of those choices should have blown up on him. One of them could have gone extra crazy when they were turned into a werewolf. Becoming a werewolf is a pretty intense experience. That way, the identity of the Kanima Master would have felt more organic to the story because his existence would have been the result of the choices of one of the main characters. Plus, it would have gone along with the theme of Derek being a terrible Alpha lol.
I agree. Derek says the bite is a gift (and I can see why he’d think that, being a born werewolf), but who defines how it’s a gift? It could’ve been a gift to Isaac to be able to kill his dad and everyone who’d ignored his abuse for all those years.
And Isaac presumable had a relationship with Jackson, even if they weren’t close. Jackson was his neighbor. Matt just happened upon Jackson.
They acted like they were Scott/Allison, and they’re not.
The idea that Jackson is even capable of love, at this point, is laughable. And Lydia straight up told Allison that she has never loved anyone the way Allison loves Scott two eps ago.
Yes about the Lydia part! That’s another thing that this stupid plotline goes against.
I suppose Lydia could have been lying to Allison. Allison refused to listen to Lydia earlier so maybe Lydia didn’t feel like listening to Allison and sharing with her right then. What I used to like about Lydia is that she seemed to discount all emotions and try to align herself with her consciously-chosen priorities especially since her consciously-chosen priorities were usually so silly (to me). Maybe she didn’t want to give an inch, emotionally speaking, to Allison.
Wtvr, this ep is still disappointing
The way she looked, I think she was being completely honest.
So I said I would come back with more positive thoughts. But tbh I don’t know. The only positive thing I can think of is that it’s still TW >>>>> TVD.
I still don’t know what happened at the end of the season. I remember thinking that Lydia’s and Allison’s arc were coming around nicely after ‘Party Guessed’ and then – poof!
Btw, I just saw a gif-set of the Lydia/Stiles scene and can’t believe that “Death doesn’t happen to you, it happens to everyone around you.” was an actual line. (I mean, I can see what the writers were trying to say but :/)
Pretty much.
Party Guessed was a great episode. It was the last good episode of the season, and who knew it was the end of Lydia’s story.
I know what they were trying to do too, and they failed.
Yeah, I don’t like how all of Jackson’s bad actions were excused this season. What I liked about Jackson is that he was a senselessly horrible person because that’s a great balance to Scott being a senselessly upright person. I mean, they’re just being who they randomly are. I find all the stress they are putting on Jackson’s ancestry suspect because they might be trying to say that he really is somehow better than he thinks because of that ancestry. I would think what’s fun about him and the whole basis of the character is that he’s WAY WORSE than he appears to be. That’s why I liked that he was the kanima in the beginning.
What I liked about Jackson/Lydia was that, regardless of whatever fondness they had for eachother, the reason they chose each other was that they are both opportunistic social climbers. This ~epic love stuff for them is too fast
That’s what I liked about him too, that he was just an asshole. And there’s a way to give him all this background stuff and storyline without making something to the effect of “He has a golden heart deep inside him.” Blech.
That’s what I liked about them too. And that maybe they could grow to stop biting each other’s heads off once they let go of the importance of their reputations.
I didn’t like that Scott was so ok with Allison at the end. She didn’t dent his car. She tried to murder a whole bunch of people and stabbed his new bff (Isaac) several times in this ep. As someone who is genuinely concerned for the safety of others and is incapable of contemplating doing the level of violence Allison did, it was strange to see such a placid grin on his face in their last scene. I am not saying that he should have raged at her. I just wanted something to indicate that he was wary of her – to show that he thought what she did was messed up. Don’t be Elena, Scott.
As someone pointed out on Tumblr, Scott has been weirdly happy the majority of the season. It’s like he’s lost the ability to angst. He angsted more in season 1. Did that all go to Stiles/Allison at the end of this season?
I thought there were was going to be lots of Scott angst after Gerard threatened Melissa but it was not to be. Siiigh
I thought so too! But that would have made too much sense, I guess.