You just had to bring Loki into this, didn't you?

[the_deep_magic]

Brace yourself: this one's gonna be long.  That's what he said.

• Items of "Continuity": Stiles knows about Derek's relationship with Kate; Deucalion wants both Derek and "true alpha" Scott in his pack because he wants "perfection"; Jennifer/Julia was Kali's emissary who she maimed but couldn't bring herself to kill; Kali joined the alpha pack to be with Ennis; Kali and her pack either lived in Beacon Hills (or close to the Nemeton) or that's just where she slaughtered them; Derek's "sacrifice" of Paige allowed the Nemeton to keep Jennifer/Julia alive until medical help came; during a total lunar eclipse, werewolves (or possibly just alphas) lose their powers; "guardians" = parents


• A lot of what Jennifer/Julia/the Darach (Notice I can call her "Jennifer" now that she's the Darach... anyway, we'll stick with that) does makes very little sense.  For example, why does she head straight to Derek's place after taking the Sheriff to the Nemeton?  Okay, I'll buy that her time as an emissary taught her how to disguise a lie from a werewolf, but even if Stiles and Scott hadn't gotten to Derek first, it wasn't a ruse she could keep up for long.  And at that point, she didn't need protection from the alpha pack.  In the car, she says she's helping Cora because she wants to, but why not go straight to Cora?  You could say she's trying to ingratiate herself with Derek (since she probably poisoned Cora in the first place), but why involve him at all?  Why not just pick up two more parents, sacrifice them, and have all the power of Greyskull or whatever?  Supposedly she does still care for Derek, but she pretty well psychologically tortures him in the elevator.  Stiles does say the whole going-to-the-hospital thing seems planned, but for what purpose?  To pick up Mama McCall because she has some special kind of significance?  There are so many easier ways to do that, like just going and doing it.


• I do love Jennifer's reaction mid-kiss -- "They're already here, aren't they?"  I know it's because Derek is distraught over Jennifer probably being the Darach, but I like to think that he just can't even fake it with anyone else when he knows Stiles is in the apartment.


• I like the beginning and the end of the apartment scene, but I wish the middle and end had played out differently and Jennifer hadn't half-heartedly tried to deny it.  Haley Webb is really convincing as good and really convincing as evil, but she doesn't quite nail the in-between, morally gray bits.  Love her wildly impractical, try-to-run-and-you'll-break-an-ankle shoes, though.


• Okay, now I know I'm getting too picky, but Peter says Cora is vomiting "black blood."  Is it the same supernatural black ooze as everything else?  Probably, because it's just used as the go-to, bad-shit's-happening goo, but vomiting black blood can have a non-paranormal explanation.


• Really expected more immediate rage from Stiles over the kidnapping of his dad.  There's been no evidence that the Darach holds on to her victims for longer than it takes to kill them (except now, for Plot Reasons).  Instead, he takes it out on Derek later with the "psychotic, mass-murdering girlfriend" line.  I understand why Stiles has been going for the low blows lately, but ouch.  Plus, how does he know that Derek dated Kate?  I don't remember Derek telling anyone on the show.  Perhaps Peter knew, but he's never taunted Derek about it, and he does love a good taunt.  Does everybody know about Derek and Kate?  How?


• Yeah, Stiles with the (very battered) baseball bat was awesome, and the fact that it was Melissa's was a nice touch... but did they go stop by Scott's house to get it?  And Stiles looks genuinely shocked when it shatters over the Voltron wolf.  I was hoping he'd tricked it out with some mountain ash.  Maybe he learns from his mistake?


• How did the alphas know to come to the hospital, especially since Isaac said the rain washed away the scents?  How do the twins know Jennifer is the Darach?  Lydia, Scott, and Stiles were the only ones who saw her at the school.  Did Kali finally come clean?  It didn't sound like it in her conversation with Deucalion -- he sounded like he already knew but hadn't told anyone else.  So at least Kali and (probably) Deucalion knew about Jennifer when they kidnapped her and took her to Derek's apartment.  Why the hell didn't they just kill her then?  For Plot Reasons?  ARRRRRGH.


• Were this a different show, one that could handle humor and action together, I'd love to see the Forehead Twins, as Voltron wolf, squabbling with each other now that one is Good and one is Evil.  As in, "Stop hitting yourself!  Stop hitting yourself!"


• Peter is still an awful, awful person (er, werewolf) and I can't ship him with anybody, but he is always entertaining.  Loved him pulling a Pulp Fiction there, though he's either still genuinely useless in a fight... or feigning still being weak after resurrecting.  That was, like, four whole months ago.


• Jennifer to Derek about Kali: "You can't beat her on your own."  BUT.  Jennifer seems to be powerful enough to handle one alpha werewolf (as demonstrated on both Kali and Derek) and she's got to figure Kali won't go full strength on her, so she and Derek could probably take Kali fairly easily.  Ergo, Jennifer wants to run back in to the hospital.  Why?  Is Mama McCall that important?  Did Jennifer ever have any intention of saving Cora?


• Speaking of Cora, if I can't have Derek/Stiles (yet), I'll take Cora/Stiles.  Probably because Cora hasn't been given any characterization other than being a mini-Derek with boobs, but she and Stiles have chemistry.  Also, Stiles does this little lip lick in the middle of the "my lips to your mouth" line.  UNF.


• How are Derek and Jennifer safe in the elevator?  No, they're not making a ton of noise, but what about heartbeats and scents?  It's only raining outside, and the elevator seems pretty much central to the hospital.


• Loved Stiles' monologue in the ambulance about not having a plan B.  Of course, since nobody's sharing immediately-important information with each other and everyone's just running around doing the first damn fool thing that comes into their heads, he can hardly form a plan.  But, I don't know, I liked that little self-reflective moment.


• As opposed to ALL of Jennifer's monologuing.  I think everybody watching groaned when she breezed past all the actual issues in her relationship with Derek and went straight to talking about her face.  Why was she going on and on about it?  It's not the same face she had before (again, see the picture in the Jane Doe folder from the last episode), and the Darach face wouldn't come merely from being clawed, no matter how many times.  And then she basically starts torturing Derek by thanking him for keeping her alive by killing his girlfriend on the magic tree (which, how the everloving hell does she know about that?).  Derek's complete non-reaction leaves me with a tiny shred of hope that the "Paige was actually Peter's girlfriend" theory might turn out to be valid, but only a tiny one.  "Visionary" was, sadly, probably meant to be taken at face value.


• I liked the idea of emissaries as "the overlooked."  See, that could have been a theme that was developed throughout the season -- how Stiles is often overlooked, how Cora was (possibly) overlooked for years, how Boyd and Erica's deaths have gone overlooked, how Lydia's importance has been overlooked.  Ah, but then you'd need some writers that thought farther ahead than the next back-flippin' claw fight.


• Aah, so Isaac has a thing for brunettes.  I WANT THAT THREESOME TO HAPPEN.  THEIR TRIFOLD LOVE WILL BE GLORIOUS.


• When Jennifer finally shut up and conked Derek over the head (I guess), how did she know the alphas were gone and it was safe to leave?


• Is it just me, or did Scott give up way too fast to go with Deucalion.  Ugh, if Scott has another mountain ash ex machina that he's not telling Stiles (or anyone else) about...

In conclusion: everybody knows things about each other that they have no reason to know, except anything that could possibly be important to achieving their various goals.  I kinda liked the first half of the episode when I watched it on Monday; now the whole thing just pisses me off more.  I've said it before and I'll say it again: what kills me about this show is not that it's uniformly awful.  It's that it has such potential and moments of occasional brilliance... that are all wasted on shoehorning together a convoluted attempt at a mystery plot with werewolf violence.  At least in past seasons there were more shirtless dudes to act as a buffer.