Teen Wolf Recap 3.21 “How I Met Your Nogitsune”
Teen Wolf this week is basically really long, really
convoluted history porn. Although this episode is ways off from the quality of
earlier ones like ‘Riddled’, granted it’s a huge improvement from last week’s
sexy mental hospital debacle, the only redeeming quality of which was Dylan
O’Brien’s butt in sweatpants. Sexy WWII detainment camp works much better.
The episode opens in 1943, with two dudebro soldiers cracking
riddles while getting rid of dead bodies. Classing bonding moment. The
Nogitsune pulls a Jesus and rises up from the pile of dead bodies, shoots one
dudebro, and kills the other by ripping off his head. That’s one way to start
an episode.
“What has a neck, but no
head? LOL.”
Cut to Mr. Yukimura in school on
a Saturday (classic Asian) and is confronted by Nogitsune!Stiles. He looks to
be running on about -123456 hours of sleep and 700% demon fox power, which is
basically what I look like on a good day. Stiles is looking for the knives, the
physical representation of the kitsune’s tails. The nogitsune does this whole
asshole cat syndrome, knocking books off shelves and his weird finger tapping
thing; and when that doesn’t work, tries to make Yukimura talk by choking him
with a fly. “They always talk,” he says. Even when they’re choking on a fly and
physically incapable of speech?
Still Perf.
Cut to Kira and Scott, who are
looking at the photo Stiles and Malia found near the Nogitsune’s body. It’s dated
1943, of a woman who looks exactly like Kira. They’re interrupted by Kira’s
father choking on a fly, and rush to school. All’s good when Mrs. Yukimura
feeds her hubby magic mushrooms. Turns out the woman in the photo is actually
Kira’s mother, Noshiko, and she’s about 900 years old. Billions of questions
here. Why did her aging suddenly accelerate after WWII? How does she and Mr.
Yukimura deal with an age gap of 858 years? Why does she look better at 900
than I do at 20?
She’s so pretty I want
to punch her in the face.
Kira brings a katana to her
mother, and Noshiko explains that the blade was shattered the last time it was
used – on the Nogitsune, and she needs Kira’s help to put it back together. Cue a bajillion scenes of
exposition and flashbacks. Noshiko lived in Oak Creek, a Japanese internment
camp during the 1940s. Mr. Yukimura is in on the secret, as he met Noshiko
while trying to find out about the camp.And that’s how you do the thing, HIMYM.
Nine seasons versus 10 seconds worth of exposition.
At the camp, she goes around
stealing supplies for her friends, much to the disapproval of an older lady
obsessed with following rules and playing Go (sort of like Japanese Chess). All
the soldiers are total douchebags, except for one, Reese, who Noshiko is
totally dating. They’re super cute, canoodling and butchering French together,
which obviously, is why one of them has to die.
What’s a romance without
a little immolation?
The camp prisoners start getting
sick, except for Noshiko, since apparently Kitsunes are super healthy. There’s not
enough medicine, and pneumonia was a pretty big deal pre-penicillin. Turns out
the camp doctor is pilfering the meds and selling them on the black market. A riot commences, and the Go-obsessed lady
turns out to be a bitten werewolf. She’s aggravated enough by the commotion to
lob a firebomb at Reese, barbecuing him alive. He’s sent to Eichen house to be
treated for burns. Burn victim in Eichen house? Whomp, there it is.
Naturally, the solution to a riot
is to kill them all, and even Noshiko is not impervious to dozens of bullets.
Army dudebros try to cover up the incident by piling up all the bodies and
taking them to the desert, including Reese. Enraged but weakened, Noshiko calls
on her kitsune ancestors to summon the Nogitsune, to possess her bodyrain havoc
down on the soldiers and the administration. But since the Nogitsune’s a
trickster prick, he possesses Reese instead, and basically kills everyone.
Noshiko rushes to the camp to stop
him, only to find the courtyard littered with dead bodies. She chases the
Nogitsune down into the tunnels, and with the help of Go-lady-werewolf, stabs
him with her katana, shattering it to pieces. As the Nogitsune dies, he exhales
out a fly, which Noshiko captures and puts in a jar, burying it under the
Nemeton.
Once again, super confusing. The thing with the fireflies versus the
normal flies is just a massive plothole. While insects are inherently
disturbing, they can’t really carry an entire plot by themselves. Is the
Nogitsune actually the fly or is it just a manifestation of his power? Are
flies his secret demon minions? If Reese was just another possessed body, why
does the Nogitsune torment Stiles with that form? Or does Jeff Davis just get a kick out of
exploiting classic horror movie tropes?
This episode is basically the ‘Visionary’
of 3B, with all the exposition and flashbacks. It’s basically a less
titillating episode of Game of Thrones. It’s loads more compelling than Derek’s
never-ending roulette of manpain, but that it partially due to the Kitsune’s
more interesting backstory, and how Arden Cho manages to look boss even when
covered in blood and guts. Still, it’s a an hour’s worth of clunky exposition
about a supporting character’s mom, instead of an hour of Scott and Stiles
cuddling or Derek doing angry pushups in his burned down house. Scott speaks
for everyone when he says, “You didn’t tell us anything.”
GPOY.
Basically the whole point of the
8-hour exposition marathon was to drill in the whole Scott must kill his one
true love best friend. She totes
blames Scott, Stiles and Allison for the whole ice bath thing, which
resurrected the Nogitsune. Never mind that she was the one who called it in the
first place. She insists that the only way to save Stiles is to kill him. Remember
the whole ‘change the body’ cure they had going on last episode? Nope? Well,
neither do the writers. Kira basically superglues the katana back together
using her Thunder Kitsune powers of electricity, and off they go to commit
pseudo-fratricide.
In other news, Sheriff, Chris
Argent and Derek are the broodiest bromance to ever bromance, breaking each
other out of jail, and having serious man talk around an important table for
about 10 minutes. Sheriff finds out that Stiles brain isn’t really broken after
all, the Nogitsune’s really just a douche. They team up, plus Allison and agree
to save Stiles. There’s a really tender/sad moment when Allison breaks down in
the Sheriff’s arms, by far the most realistic reaction to all the shit that’s
been going on in the psychotic town. (NGL, I’m still clinging to the idea that
Allison is also evil/possessed, was waiting for her to go all Roose Bolton on
Sheriff Stilinski.)
The Lannisters send
their regards.
The Sheriff’s phone beeps, and its
his security system; someone’s breaking into his house. It’s Stiles, sitting on
his bed, waving creepily. I never know whether to be turned on or terrified
whenever Nogitsune!Stiles is on screen. Basically, fear boner. So off they go
to Casa Stilinski, and find a chessboard, the same one Stiles used last season
to explain the whole werewolf thing to his dad.
It’s all set up like a game, labeled with their names. Derek is king, and one move away from checkmate. It’s either a message from Stiles or a threat from the Nogitsune. The Sheriff pitches the theory that this might be just one sadistic joke, and all they have to do is change the punchline. Makes no sense, but I hope they’re setting up the biggest dad joke of all time.So they go to Derek’s loft, and
seriously, he needs a security system, or at least some locks, because Stiles
is there, standing in the middle of the room. Cue dramatic turn.
“Hi, dad.”
Next Week: More gratuitous
torture scenes, 40 backflips in a row, and Derek gets his ass kicked.
