Teen Wolf feels from episode 203
Okay, so yes, I'm back with Teen Wolf feels. No, I can't believe it either. But this has been stuck in my head since Tuesday and not even talking to tahariel has got rid of it, so I'm going to put it all down here.
So, there are things that bugged me about this episode, things that bugged other people and it bugs me that they were bugged by these things (I feel like Rumsfield doing his known and unknowns soundbite - that's not good)
So, I guess the two biggest things to address are Derek and Erica - not together, separately. As in two separate issues.
So, let's take Derek first (I mean, he is the Alpha afterall)
So, there are two things about Derek that are bugging me, which makes me cry because I love Derek.
1) Derek's characterisation this season has been bugging me and it took the phone call with tahariel for me to figure it out.
I don't feel like this is the Derek we got to know last season. Not even a little bit. I get that being Alpha is going to change him, I really do. If he was exactly the same as last season this would also bug me, but I feel like he's a completely different character, you know?.
Because it's been what? A couple of weeks since the events of the finale of season one, right? I mean, they only just had Kate's funeral so it can't be that long.
And I feel as though him being Alpha has got rid of all his pain from losing his entire family, like he doesn't even think about them now. Now, it could be the whole drunk on power thing is kind of eclipsing other stuff, but I don't get the sense from this Derek that he's someone who's had his entire family ripped away from him. And it's not like I expect him to be all vulnerable and the like in front of, well, anyone really but I do expect to see that bleeding through, like we did in season one.
You could argue that with him bringing in Erica, Issac and Boyd he's trying to build another family, but that doesn't feel right either. I think in a way Scott is right: this is about power (it's about protection too, but not in a fluffy family way).
Also, I'm not going to lie, I miss the grumpy, misanthropic Derek of last season. I wish he could still be like that and also be snarky and give the occasional smile (because, not going to lie, his 'that really hurts, Scott' at the ice rink totally made me laugh).
I feel like they haven't really set up the idea that Derek would change that much. Yes, being Alpha would change you. But would it give you a complete personality shift like that? I just can't quite buy it.
Having said all of this, I also accept that this is only the third episode. They could well end up addressing some or all of this in a later episode and if they do, I'll rejoice. But at the moment I think I'm going to frown and be all 'huh?' about it.
And don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying Derek being snarkier and some of his shiteating grins have made me laugh out loud and the whole 'Because I'm the Alpha' thing to Stiles in the previous episode was golden, but it still doesn't quite sit right with me.
2) Am I the only one whole was totally creeped out by the way Derek went about changing Erica?
I mean, I was so much more creeped out by Derek in this than any of the times he's creeped in Scott or Stiles' rooms or around the school. This was so much worse.
A) He just shipped her off to an out of the way part of the hospital (in possibly the most unsubtle move EVER - except maybe that hospital doesn't have security cameras). A vulnerable girl who'd just had a pretty horrible experience in what appears to be an life time of pretty horrible experiences
B) then the whole conversation had a really overtly sexual tone to it. Not to mention the whole running his hands up her legs and pulling her to him like that. And I find that a weird choice for the writers because it's established that Derek was taken advantage of by Kate and that there was quite the age difference. I'm surprised that someone who was so obviously damaged by that, would act in that way. The age difference is more or less the same and Erica is vulnerable in a way I'd imagine Derek never was, which kind of makes it worse.
Plus, the way he was presenting being a werewolf to Erica came across to me as completely different from how he presented it to Issac or Boyd. I feel as though to be guys he almost sat them down, gave them pamphlets to read and shit whereas with Erica it. Well, it wasn't like that.
Which also feeds into the whole reason I don't want Derek and Erica to ever get together. It has nothing little to do with me being a Derek/Stiles shipper and everything to do with how skeevy that would come across to me. He'd be doing to someone what Kate did to him and that upsets me. Not to mention the question of power within the Pack with him being her Alpha and all. If she was well adjusted, well, that would be one thing, but she's not. Even now, as a werewolf she's vulnerable mentally because of everything she's gone through in life.
[And, yes, I know that her and Stiles are the same age, and so I should be icked out by Derek and Stiles being together, but I maintain that it's different. Stiles is an independent person. While Derek scares him, he's always stood up to Derek and he's in no way indebted to Derek (for the bite, like Erica would be) and even if he becomes Pack (God, they better end up as one big happy family by the end), he's still human and so any control that Derek would have over the werewolves (I mean, like, bending them to his will kind of thing) he won't have with Stiles, so the power dynamics would be a lot more healthier (or as healthy as they could be in a place like Beacon Hills)]
I wish they'd shown Derek presenting the whole werewolf thing to Erica in a much more neutral way - unless he did the whole perving thing on Issac and Boyd, then, well, okay I guess. It's still creepy, but at least he's being equally creepy to both genders.
Another thing about Derek
I don't feel as though he's bad, as such. I get why he's doing what he's doing and I get why Scott and Stiles (although more reluctantly) are against it, but I don't think Derek is bad. He's just not going about things in the best way. I think he's still very much the anti-hero in this. And just because he and Scott are at loggerheads at the moment, doesn't mean they are enemies as such.
And now Erica
I watched this a couple of days after it aired, and so I knew that on Tumblr at least there were a lot of negative views about Erica. And it made me nervous for two reasons: 1) Even the Teen Wolf fandom who embraced Lydia and Allison was being misogynistic or 2) they had a really, really awful character there and of course it was going to be a female character that got particularly badly written.
And I watch it and I find it's, in my view, like, 70% misogyny and 30% bad writing.
Because, with only having seen her for one episode, I kind of love her. It's possible that bad writing down the line might make me change my mind, but at the moment, I love her.
I think her character suffered from the writers having never introduced her to us before. It was very difficult to care about how shitty her life was from those few minutes we got. I wish they could do what Buffy did - have these background characters who you see about, see how they act and then get pulled to the forefront. I think fandom as a whole would have liked Erica a whole lot more if they'd maybe seen her around the hospital getting her checkups or skulking around school, hating every minute of it but trying to succeed anyway. You know, atuff like that. I get that in a show it's hard to do that, hard to plan characters like that, but it would have been nice. Plus, having characters we'd already seen would at least have made it seem more like a community, that these kids had been around before.
It's not as bad as in say, Once Upon a Time where I feel as though it's a town of maybe ten people, but it's kind of like that.
I think that the people saying that Erica had a complete personality change are wrong. Mostly because we have no idea what her personality would be like if she wasn't so victimised. She's hiding herself, what she's truly like so she doesn't get picked on. It's not really such a stretch to say that getting turned would make her explore the kind of person that she is. I'm not saying that she made good choices, but I understand a lot of why she acted like she did.
[Also, am I the only one curious about how Erica gets this kickass makeover through becoming a werewolf and all the guys stay more or less the same? I thought that was kind of hilarious. And sad.]
I hope they do interesting things with Erica and I can't wait to see her interact with Lydia and Allison. But mostly Lydia.
I get people being mad at her for hitting Stiles. I was mad at her for hitting Stiles (and I hope that Stiles resents her for it for a little while. I know I would) but then I'm mad at Scott for not wanting to learn how to control the werewolf in him just so he doesn't accidentally kill his best friend and I'm pissed at Jackson for giving him shit and Derek for being a douche to him. I'm not mad at solely Erica for this crappy behaviour towards Stiles.
[I love the fandom idea that all the werewolves manhandle Stiles because he's Derek's mate and Derek is ignoring this and is frustrated and so they're all frustrated]
I'm sure there was other stuff I wanted to say about both Derek and Erica, but I think I'm all out at the moment.
Just some other things about the episode
- Victoria Argent scares me more than every other dangerous person on that show. Combined.
- Also, how did Melissa McCall not realise that cut was self inflicted? That's not a normal place to get a deep cut without meaning to.
- I was upset that the hunter dude who was waiting for Allison to get free was killed. I kind of liked him.
- The Argent's are a pretty fucked up family. It's a wonder Allison is as lovely as she is.
- I love Boyd. His transaction with Stiles was hilarious. I want more Stiles and Body snark.
- Issac's 'I'm bummed about being a fugitive' made me laugh muchly. If I was Issac I'd be making so many fugitive jokes (I'd also be worrying about Tommy Lee Jones being called in, but maybe he's too young to know that's a danger).
- Finstock remains awesome.
- I loved Boyd telling Scott he doesn't want to be a werewolf like the others, but like him. That was pretty awesome and I hope they do cool things with Boyd.
- Scott being all confident about the ice skating and then falling flat on his face will never not be funny
- Stiles and Lydia were adorable (although I can't ship them, sorry.)
- I really hope they tell Lydia what's going on soon because if they keep her in the dark in some weird assed way to protect her, I'm going to be super pissed
- Uh, what was Peter the captain of? Because it can't be lacrosse, right, because he said it wasn't really his sport?
- After Jackson was horrible to Lydia I just wanted to give Lydia a hug and punch Jackson
- Jackson had a Clark Kent moment. Jackson is apparently superman. This will never not be funny to me
- Matt is a very creepy guy. This is a theme in Beacon Hill, I know, but still. He's creepy.
By the end of this season, they better all be happy in an awesome Pack and being all bickering like a family. I get the need for drama, but I just want everyone to be friends.
So, there are things that bugged me about this episode, things that bugged other people and it bugs me that they were bugged by these things (I feel like Rumsfield doing his known and unknowns soundbite - that's not good)
So, I guess the two biggest things to address are Derek and Erica - not together, separately. As in two separate issues.
So, let's take Derek first (I mean, he is the Alpha afterall)
So, there are two things about Derek that are bugging me, which makes me cry because I love Derek.
1) Derek's characterisation this season has been bugging me and it took the phone call with tahariel for me to figure it out.
I don't feel like this is the Derek we got to know last season. Not even a little bit. I get that being Alpha is going to change him, I really do. If he was exactly the same as last season this would also bug me, but I feel like he's a completely different character, you know?.
Because it's been what? A couple of weeks since the events of the finale of season one, right? I mean, they only just had Kate's funeral so it can't be that long.
And I feel as though him being Alpha has got rid of all his pain from losing his entire family, like he doesn't even think about them now. Now, it could be the whole drunk on power thing is kind of eclipsing other stuff, but I don't get the sense from this Derek that he's someone who's had his entire family ripped away from him. And it's not like I expect him to be all vulnerable and the like in front of, well, anyone really but I do expect to see that bleeding through, like we did in season one.
You could argue that with him bringing in Erica, Issac and Boyd he's trying to build another family, but that doesn't feel right either. I think in a way Scott is right: this is about power (it's about protection too, but not in a fluffy family way).
Also, I'm not going to lie, I miss the grumpy, misanthropic Derek of last season. I wish he could still be like that and also be snarky and give the occasional smile (because, not going to lie, his 'that really hurts, Scott' at the ice rink totally made me laugh).
I feel like they haven't really set up the idea that Derek would change that much. Yes, being Alpha would change you. But would it give you a complete personality shift like that? I just can't quite buy it.
Having said all of this, I also accept that this is only the third episode. They could well end up addressing some or all of this in a later episode and if they do, I'll rejoice. But at the moment I think I'm going to frown and be all 'huh?' about it.
And don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying Derek being snarkier and some of his shiteating grins have made me laugh out loud and the whole 'Because I'm the Alpha' thing to Stiles in the previous episode was golden, but it still doesn't quite sit right with me.
2) Am I the only one whole was totally creeped out by the way Derek went about changing Erica?
I mean, I was so much more creeped out by Derek in this than any of the times he's creeped in Scott or Stiles' rooms or around the school. This was so much worse.
A) He just shipped her off to an out of the way part of the hospital (in possibly the most unsubtle move EVER - except maybe that hospital doesn't have security cameras). A vulnerable girl who'd just had a pretty horrible experience in what appears to be an life time of pretty horrible experiences
B) then the whole conversation had a really overtly sexual tone to it. Not to mention the whole running his hands up her legs and pulling her to him like that. And I find that a weird choice for the writers because it's established that Derek was taken advantage of by Kate and that there was quite the age difference. I'm surprised that someone who was so obviously damaged by that, would act in that way. The age difference is more or less the same and Erica is vulnerable in a way I'd imagine Derek never was, which kind of makes it worse.
Plus, the way he was presenting being a werewolf to Erica came across to me as completely different from how he presented it to Issac or Boyd. I feel as though to be guys he almost sat them down, gave them pamphlets to read and shit whereas with Erica it. Well, it wasn't like that.
Which also feeds into the whole reason I don't want Derek and Erica to ever get together. It has nothing little to do with me being a Derek/Stiles shipper and everything to do with how skeevy that would come across to me. He'd be doing to someone what Kate did to him and that upsets me. Not to mention the question of power within the Pack with him being her Alpha and all. If she was well adjusted, well, that would be one thing, but she's not. Even now, as a werewolf she's vulnerable mentally because of everything she's gone through in life.
[And, yes, I know that her and Stiles are the same age, and so I should be icked out by Derek and Stiles being together, but I maintain that it's different. Stiles is an independent person. While Derek scares him, he's always stood up to Derek and he's in no way indebted to Derek (for the bite, like Erica would be) and even if he becomes Pack (God, they better end up as one big happy family by the end), he's still human and so any control that Derek would have over the werewolves (I mean, like, bending them to his will kind of thing) he won't have with Stiles, so the power dynamics would be a lot more healthier (or as healthy as they could be in a place like Beacon Hills)]
I wish they'd shown Derek presenting the whole werewolf thing to Erica in a much more neutral way - unless he did the whole perving thing on Issac and Boyd, then, well, okay I guess. It's still creepy, but at least he's being equally creepy to both genders.
Another thing about Derek
I don't feel as though he's bad, as such. I get why he's doing what he's doing and I get why Scott and Stiles (although more reluctantly) are against it, but I don't think Derek is bad. He's just not going about things in the best way. I think he's still very much the anti-hero in this. And just because he and Scott are at loggerheads at the moment, doesn't mean they are enemies as such.
And now Erica
I watched this a couple of days after it aired, and so I knew that on Tumblr at least there were a lot of negative views about Erica. And it made me nervous for two reasons: 1) Even the Teen Wolf fandom who embraced Lydia and Allison was being misogynistic or 2) they had a really, really awful character there and of course it was going to be a female character that got particularly badly written.
And I watch it and I find it's, in my view, like, 70% misogyny and 30% bad writing.
Because, with only having seen her for one episode, I kind of love her. It's possible that bad writing down the line might make me change my mind, but at the moment, I love her.
I think her character suffered from the writers having never introduced her to us before. It was very difficult to care about how shitty her life was from those few minutes we got. I wish they could do what Buffy did - have these background characters who you see about, see how they act and then get pulled to the forefront. I think fandom as a whole would have liked Erica a whole lot more if they'd maybe seen her around the hospital getting her checkups or skulking around school, hating every minute of it but trying to succeed anyway. You know, atuff like that. I get that in a show it's hard to do that, hard to plan characters like that, but it would have been nice. Plus, having characters we'd already seen would at least have made it seem more like a community, that these kids had been around before.
It's not as bad as in say, Once Upon a Time where I feel as though it's a town of maybe ten people, but it's kind of like that.
I think that the people saying that Erica had a complete personality change are wrong. Mostly because we have no idea what her personality would be like if she wasn't so victimised. She's hiding herself, what she's truly like so she doesn't get picked on. It's not really such a stretch to say that getting turned would make her explore the kind of person that she is. I'm not saying that she made good choices, but I understand a lot of why she acted like she did.
[Also, am I the only one curious about how Erica gets this kickass makeover through becoming a werewolf and all the guys stay more or less the same? I thought that was kind of hilarious. And sad.]
I hope they do interesting things with Erica and I can't wait to see her interact with Lydia and Allison. But mostly Lydia.
I get people being mad at her for hitting Stiles. I was mad at her for hitting Stiles (and I hope that Stiles resents her for it for a little while. I know I would) but then I'm mad at Scott for not wanting to learn how to control the werewolf in him just so he doesn't accidentally kill his best friend and I'm pissed at Jackson for giving him shit and Derek for being a douche to him. I'm not mad at solely Erica for this crappy behaviour towards Stiles.
[I love the fandom idea that all the werewolves manhandle Stiles because he's Derek's mate and Derek is ignoring this and is frustrated and so they're all frustrated]
I'm sure there was other stuff I wanted to say about both Derek and Erica, but I think I'm all out at the moment.
Just some other things about the episode
- Victoria Argent scares me more than every other dangerous person on that show. Combined.
- Also, how did Melissa McCall not realise that cut was self inflicted? That's not a normal place to get a deep cut without meaning to.
- I was upset that the hunter dude who was waiting for Allison to get free was killed. I kind of liked him.
- The Argent's are a pretty fucked up family. It's a wonder Allison is as lovely as she is.
- I love Boyd. His transaction with Stiles was hilarious. I want more Stiles and Body snark.
- Issac's 'I'm bummed about being a fugitive' made me laugh muchly. If I was Issac I'd be making so many fugitive jokes (I'd also be worrying about Tommy Lee Jones being called in, but maybe he's too young to know that's a danger).
- Finstock remains awesome.
- I loved Boyd telling Scott he doesn't want to be a werewolf like the others, but like him. That was pretty awesome and I hope they do cool things with Boyd.
- Scott being all confident about the ice skating and then falling flat on his face will never not be funny
- Stiles and Lydia were adorable (although I can't ship them, sorry.)
- I really hope they tell Lydia what's going on soon because if they keep her in the dark in some weird assed way to protect her, I'm going to be super pissed
- Uh, what was Peter the captain of? Because it can't be lacrosse, right, because he said it wasn't really his sport?
- After Jackson was horrible to Lydia I just wanted to give Lydia a hug and punch Jackson
- Jackson had a Clark Kent moment. Jackson is apparently superman. This will never not be funny to me
- Matt is a very creepy guy. This is a theme in Beacon Hill, I know, but still. He's creepy.
By the end of this season, they better all be happy in an awesome Pack and being all bickering like a family. I get the need for drama, but I just want everyone to be friends.