Teen Wolf - Premiere Recap: Alphas and Alfred Hitchcock

Teen Wolf returned tonight with a Season 3 premiere packed with crazed animals, way too many alpha wolves, and a couple of bitchy teens. With Jackson sent off into the abyss of his own imaginary spinoff, An American Werewolf in London aka I moved to ‘Arrow’, the kanima has been all but sucked from our memories. All that work and not even a single mention in the opening "last season on Teen Wolf…"? “Tattoo” saw the start of the new school year, as our favorite supernatural angst-ridden teens regrouped to deal with the looming threats of some awful beast named Deucalion (Gideon Emory) and poor attendance records. In other news, twin werewolf acrobats rolled into town, we quickly grew to know and love a badass mystery woman (R.I.P. Whoever), and Scott McCall (Tyler Posey) can indeed read classic literature. Also, an (unintentional?) reference to Alfred Hitchcock?

https://twitter.com/ColtonLHaynes/status/341745955374243840

MTV "Teen Wolf"

The episode opened with Isaac (Daniel Sharman) getting rejuvenated by a mystery babe who was packing some serious military-grade heat. Propped on the back of her motorcycle, the two sped to safety as a new mystery threat made itself known from the shadows. At first, it seemed as though this enemy was simply super speedy, a werewolf track champion; however, we quickly learned that this threat was not so much a “he” but a “them.” Identical twin baddies managed to corner our dynamic duo (well, for the opening scene.) in warehouse after an exhausted and fading Isaace caused the bike to topple. The two strutted into plain view just before removing their shirts, of course. It was as though they knew that they were being filmed for some new hidden camera MTV show called Teen Wolf. I appreciated their circus-like gymnastics routine, like it wasn’t enough to simply double-team Isaac. They made sure to pull out the “human cannon ball” attack, which bombed, quite honestly. Surprise! The twins can morph into one giant ugly mega-wolf. Luckily, the mysterious heroine guarding Isaac whipped out some sort of electronic zap gun that shocked the pair back into hiding. Still, she and Isaac were in awful shape.

Meanwhile, Scott McCall made the seemingly hasty decision to get whatever he wanted tattooed on his arm. At first, the self-drawn sketch of “double bands” looked like a gay pride symbol to me, as opposed to say, a tribal band. I mean, everybody loves Danny. To Scott, the act of getting a tattoo was enough of a reason to, well, get one. Stiles (Dylan O’Brien), on the other hand, regarded Scott’s call as mostly terrible before passing out at the sight of a pulsating needle threading ink into his bestie’s skin. Surprise again! By the time the two made their way back to Stiles’ car, the tattoo had burned its way off of Scott’s arm, much to Stiles’ relief.

Thank God, I hated it.

MTV "Teen Wolf"

Lydia (Holland Roden) and Allison (Crystal Reed) reunited for a late night non-double date following Allison’s return from a loveless Paris. The two quickly glazed over the show’s abrupt lacking of Colton Haynes before realizing Scott and Stiles had parked at a red light next to them. Give it one summer vacation, and Lydia was already back to sneering at Stiles from a distance. Speaking of sneering, perhaps that is why I will miss Jackson the most. Although Lydia ran the light at Allison’s request, both cars ended up parking on the empty dark street to consider facing their counterparts. Of course, all of that wondering was shot to smithereens when a massive freaking stag ran itself straight through Lydia’s windshield. Way to break the ice, crazy deer. No, seriously, teens can be so indecisive. Lydia recalled the crazy look in the animal’s eyes, while Scott felt the pelt of its corpse. The deer died terrified, and something was clearly amiss.

MTV "Teen Wolf"

The next day, our foursome prepared for their return back to high school in their own signature ways. Allison sulked, Lydia primped and shrugged off a one-night-stand, and Stiles sat obsessing at his laptop, researching the town’s history of crazed woodland creatures. Scott, meanwhile, strayed from his usual lackadaisical form to do some one-armed pull-ups while reading Call of the Wild. The “Word of the Day” popped up on his computer screen. Ephemeral: Lasting for a very short time. Scott McCall, boy genius. Well, maybe not, but how about… Scott McCall, better at reading comprehension in Season 3. By the way, is there any reason for a werewolf to workout, really?

MTV "Teen Wolf"

While Lydia scoped out the freshmen fresh meat, Allison reminded her that being single was perfectly fine. Yeah right, this is high school, Argent. As Lydia noted, she was most likely projecting her own insecurities onto our favorite plucky ginger. Finding seats in class seemed to be sufficiently awkward, as Allison found herself seated *gulp* in front of Scott. I mean, it could be worse. She could’ve ended up on his lap. “Can we talk?” read the very large folded note she passed back to her ex, before McCall was sent down to the office due to an emergency call from his mother, who'd been tending to Isaac. Meanwhile, Stiles noticed a bandage on Lydia’s ankle. Little Prada had apparently done some nipping. Quite out of character, claimed Lydia, before a massive flock of crows decided to bombard the windows before breaking in and ravaging the entire room. Stiles dove over Lydia, protecting her, while the rest of the class suffered a barrage of angry pecks. The birds, inevitably, died in that classroom. A nightmare for many, dying in school. Sorry, birds. By the way, the sight of that school teacher bombarded by birds whirling in a frenzy certainly drummed up memories of Hitchcock's The Birds. Anyone over the age of seventeen out there reading? No?.. Carry on.

At the hospital, Scott’s mother, Melissa (Melissa Ponzio), tended to Isaac and his mystery friend, who alerted Ms. McCall to her need to find the alpha. Sadly, Scott’s mom didn’t catch that she was looking for Scott as opposed to Derek (Tyler Hoechlin). Mrs. McCall did her best to deal with Isaac’s bizarre situation; the need to hide the fact that he was healing perfectly fine following his wounding, as werewolves often do. He’d been scheduled for surgery, and that would surely look strange. It wasn’t long before the hospital was infiltrated by some of our new villains. Isaac was visited by a “nurse” who seemed quite pretty, that is, until she injected his drip with an anesthetic that knocked him out cold. The last image he caught a gander of? The gnarliest pair of heinous feet I’ve ever seen. Was the she-wolf proud of those claws? Isaac would be sent into surgery, only to end up the subject of a tirade from the surgeon, who was quite pissed that his time was wasted setting up an operation for a healed wound. Left there alone on the table, Isaac was wheeled away by an evil alpha, perhaps to join Erica and Boyd, who’ve been missing since the Season 2 finale.

Scott arrived at the hospital on his toes and quite aware of a possible impending attack. While Scott remained clueless, I’m pretty sure anyone watching was aware of the fact that the blind man who asked for Scott’s help maneuvering in and out of the elevator was most likely someone extremely evil. McCall was just in time to witness an evil alpha wheeling Isaac into another elevator.

MTV "Teen Wolf"

Argh! There she blows, folks. Our titular star, the original Teen Wolf, all furried up for the first time this season for a quick yet epic elevator scuffle with the new baddie. Just when we thought Scott was done for (not really), there he was, Mr. Hale, ready to save the day.

Aren’t you supposed to be in school?

Aren’t you supposed to not be Scott’s dad? Stick to mean older brother who likes to bully sometimes, Derek. We’ll have more fun with you and Stiles that way. With Isaac dragged back to Derek’s decrepit home, Scott seemed to have accomplished his weekly mission. Was that it for episode one? Of course not! With Stiles in tow following the devastating bird attack, Scott asked Derek for a favor in return for his help saving Isaac. Derek was happy to oblige by blowtorching the tattoo back onto the flesh of Scott's upper arm. Did you know that "tattoo" in Tahitian means “to mark something”? No one cares about that, Stiles. In Samoan, it means “open wound,” a reflection of Scott’s lack of all that Allison stuff in his life and heart. He went a whole summer without so much as a text, so congratulations? Eh, you’re a teen wolf. A decent tattoo is sort of required, I think, so I can back McCall on this one.

MTV "Teen Wolf"

In the meantime, our mystery woman, the lady who’d saved Isaac from capture, had meandered her way to Scott’s school, only to bump into Lydia and Allison. A quick grip of their wrists in the sight of the twins at the far end of the hallway, and our two leading ladies were left with some unsightly bruises. Back in Allison’s bedroom, the two judged some paint swatches before Allison noticed that their bruises were in a specific pattern. They connected, like friendship bracelets, only Teen Wolf style. What kind of brand had our mystery warrior woman left on them? I’m guessing some sort of protection symbol to ward off the baddies, as we later witnessed Boyd and Erica (I’m assuming), terrified, sitting in a gated room sporting the symbol on the ground.

Some quick notes before I close the recap: Mr. Argent (JR Bourne), Sheriff Stilinski (Linden Ashby), and Dr. Deaton (Seth Gilliam) are aware of the funky animal suicides occurring. Even the sick animals at the vet had off’ed themselves, most likely under someone else’s influence.

The episode closed with Scott noticing Derek’s new shoddy paint job on his front door. After some super-scratching, Scott revealed an ominous symbol. Derek had no choice but to fill the pair of teens in on the very dangerous threat of a new alpha pack lead by this Deucalion fellow. Did you manage to guess who Deucalion was before his big reveal? Our mystery woman met what looked like her doom in the school locker room following a decent fight scene with the evil alpha team. Deucalion is a phony blind man, apparently, and he wants Scott dead. Apparently, Scott’s future self is destined to do some damage to his legacy, and he isn’t having any of it. His plan? To convince Derek Hale to kill Scott McCall.

What did you think of the Teen Wolf Season 3 Premiere, Episode 1, “Tattoo”? Did you miss Colton Haynes? Where was Ian Bohen (Peter Hale)? What do you think the bruises mean? Are the animal attacks related to Deucalion or are they related to another upcoming threat?

Thanks for reading my Recap and Review of the Teen Wolf Season 3 Premiere, Episode 1, “Tattoo”!