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Teen Wolf: Illuminated

“Finally. Awkwardly. Predictably.”

It’s weird to say this, but artistically ‘Illuminated’ was one of the strongest episodes of the series. Now that the show has proven its capability in terms of direction and great storytelling, it’s showing strengths in other areas. Here, bright and fiery sexual energy stood out amongst disparate elements of dark horror, and it all worked so well.

It might sound silly to be describing a series that most still classify as total teen fodder as artistic, but it’s hard not to see how well directed it’s been lately. Obviously, glow in the dark loft parties aren’t even close to that easy to throw together but that’s not the point. What I loved about it was how well the creepy invaders stood out amongst all the bright partying going on, but it still tugged at that frightful idea of horror happening in plain sight. It’s such a clever play on standard teen horror fare, while still making it uniquely Teen Wolf.

The direction isn’t being let down by scripting and writing either, which is still on point, and has barely faltered since the show came back a few weeks ago. The new characters have seemingly all fallen into place nicely among the show’s pillar ones, with the twins and Isaac comfortably adding to the group, but never distracting us from who we really like to see. Kira is still one of the greatest parts of the show right now, and as we learn more about her she continues to grow as a character as well.

Her chemistry with Scott is effortless. It’s hard to think of her as a new love interest being shoehorned in to cause drama, and even though we’ve seen it cause a small bit of tension and awkwardness between Scott and Allison, it’s never been to the detriment of Scott and Kira’s friendship, or whatever it’s starting to become.

I like to attribute the same effortlessness to Lydia's character, and her coming to terms with the fact that she's not normal. She’s felt what it feels like to help people and even though she’s scared of what she truly is, she’s overlooking it in favour of putting other people ahead of her. I look at her as the series best example of a character who’s progressed naturally and easily, and one that’s always defied what we used to know about the sarcastic big mouthed it girl.

Now that Derek’s officially back in Beacon Hills, and we’ve had one hell of a confrontation with who we believe this season’s big bad to be, I think things are going to continue to get even more interesting in the coming weeks. It’s nice to know that you will rarely be let down with this series, thanks to those behind it who don’t just use it to check off boxes (shirtless scenes, drama, gore), but still take the quality of both its writing and direction seriously. In a time when so many series are just there out of necessity, that’s a refreshing fact.

4 out of 5 crashed glow in the dark Halloween parties.

Plus

So Stiles wrote that message on the board?

What do those creepy markings behind the ear mean?

He Said, She Said

Scott: “But what if she’s like me?”
Stiles: “That girl walked through 1.21 gigawatts of electricity. She’s not like you.”

Originally posted at PandaTV.

1 comment:

  1. In a nutshell, here's why Teen Wolf is completely on a roll for me in Season 3B.

    * Something awesome happens every week.
    * Each episode teases even more awesomeness NEXT week(which next week procedes to deliver in spades)

    Oh, and also Kira. She's been written into the show so wonderfully, and Arden Cho is doing a fantastic job making her a likable character. Plus, Arden & Tyler have great chemistry on screen together. I hope they have plans to keep her around after this half-season arc.

    ReplyDelete

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