Jackson tries to bench press far too much weight in the
locker room (it still seems odd that there are free weights in the
locker room, but I’m just going to roll with it) while Danny spots him. Jackson is being his usual
driven, relentless, snappish self and keeps overdoing it, until Danny’s had
enough: “I’m taking a shower. If I come back and you’re lying dead under a pile
of weights, I’m taking the Porsche.” Danny is very, very good for Jackson.
Left alone, Jackson’s senses kick into overdrive, until
little noises—rotating fans, dripping faucets—start driving him nuts. While
he’s thus distracted, someone pops up and grabs him by the throat. I was hoping
it’d be Derek, as we haven’t yet had a scene this season where Derek menaces
Jackson in the locker room in a sexually-charged manner, but it turns out to be
Erica. Eh, that works, too. Erica and Isaac drag Jackson back to Derek’s lair
and grope him a bit while Derek sits back and supervises. One of the perks of
being the Alpha, I guess. Remember the good old days when Derek would
cheerfully harass and manhandle Jackson himself instead of making his werewolf
underlings do his dirty work?
Derek demands to know what happened to Jackson on the night
of the full moon. See, he’s been working on this theory that Jackson is the
kanima. Jackson as a poisonous, vicious, inhuman creature? Hmm, yes, Derek, I
do see where you’re going with this. Jackson insists nothing happened all
night, and he’s got the video tape to prove it. Sensing that Jackson is telling
less than the full story, Derek gets his own proof: He poisons Jackson with the
kanima’s venom, on the assumption that the kanima would be immune to its own
toxins. The venom promptly paralyzes Jackson. Ergo, Jackson is not the kanima.
As long as he’s got Jackson at his tender mercies, Isaac
(who, with reason, really loathes him) forces him to do him one small
favor: He makes Jackson go to Sheriff Stilinski and retract his statement about
witnessing Isaac quarreling with his father on the night of Mr. Lahey’s murder.
(Stilinski, upon seeing Isaac’s entire motive for the murder going up in smoke:
“Aw, crap.”) As Isaac is no longer a suspect, the manhunt for him is called
off, and he resumes his school attendance as usual.
In the hallway at school, Danny informs Jackson that he’s
found a way to recover the missing two hours on the recording Jackson made of
himself sleeping (which I keep reflexively wanting to refer to as “Jackson’s
sex tape”, because pretty much everything Jackson does ends up having all these
crazy sexual overtones), though it’ll take him most of the day to get it done.
While Danny yammers on, Jackson’s super-hearing kicks in again, and he
eavesdrops on Isaac and Erica whispering about how Derek now suspects Lydia is
the kanima. They’re going to test his theory in chemistry class; if Derek is
right, they’ll kill Lydia on the spot.
So Jackson finds Scott and Stiles and floors them by asking
them outright about the kanima. (He also addresses them as “Testicle Left and
Right”, which is crude and mean and yet almost affectionate). Jackson fills
them in on Derek’s plans for Lydia.
In chemistry, Mr. Harris has some convoluted musical-chairs
lab experiment thing going on, in which the students continuously switch
partners while dumping various chemicals into beakers. He encourages them to
eat the crystallized results of their experiments, and you know, I’m not at all
convinced Mr. Harris is a good teacher. I like him, though. He’s
attractive and spiteful, which is a powerful combination. While this nonsense
takes place, Isaac and Erica try to poison Lydia with the kanima venom while
Stiles, Allison and Scott run interference. Along the way, Erica threatens
Scott, then gropes his thighs in an inappropriate manner, then informs Allison
of her plan to seduce Scott right out from under her pretty nose, then gropes
Allison’s thighs in an inappropriate manner. Props to Erica for her tireless
attempts to sleaze things up around Beacon Hills. Despite the best efforts of
Lydia’s amateur protection detail, Isaac successfully slips her the venom.
She’s immune to its effects, which indicates she is indeed the kanima.
School library: Danny and Matt work together to recover the
missing footage on Jackson’s tape. Jackson, in a rare playful mood, observes them
and realizes Danny has a crush on Matt. The Danny-Jackson dynamic, by the way,
never fails to entertain. It’s nice that Jackson has one person in his life he
doesn’t consistently act like relentless, blistering prick around. Danny points
out that whoever erased the section of the tape probably had access to
Jackson’s house.
Derek and Boyd hover outside the school, waiting to kill
Lydia when she leaves, while Erica and Isaac prowl around the hallways, hunting
her down.
While Scott tries to reason with Derek, Allison brings a
section of Gerard Argent’s bestiary to Ms. Morell to translate from archaic Latin. Per Ms. Morell, the kanima is similar to the werewolf in that it
receives power from the full moon, but while werewolves seek packs, the kanima
seeks… friends.
Midway through Scott’s chat with Derek about the kanima, it
dawns on him that Derek tried, unsuccessfully, to make Jackson a werewolf. This
realization, of course, puts Scott five episodes behind the viewers, which…
seems about right. Scott takes this bombshell in stride. Granted, he’s got more
pressing matters at the moment, but even still, it seems like the only
appropriate reaction to this news should run something along the lines of,
“Holy hell, Derek, really? Jackson?” Derek explains that sometimes the
shape a person takes, post-transformation, reflects the kind of person they
are, which is why it seems plausible to him that the kanima would be either
Lydia (cold-blooded) or Jackson (venomous).
Jackson, Stiles and Allison smuggle Lydia out of the school,
one step ahead of Derek and his pack. They head over to Scott’s home and
barricade themselves inside. Right when you start thinking it seems unusually
nice of Jackson to help protect Lydia like this, he takes her aside and snarls
at her for never returning his house key after he dumped her. He’s pretty sure
this means she snuck into his house on the night of the full moon and deleted
the relevant section of his tape. Lydia denies everything, Jackson acts like a
deranged jerk, Lydia tearfully returns his key, which she’s been wearing on a
chain close to her heart because she still loves him, and somehow, these two
crazy star-crossed lovers end up kissing. It’s a sweet, unexpected moment,
which is totally ruined when scales begin spreading across the back of
Jackson’s neck, because, yep—he’s the kanima. Of course he’s the kanima.
Isaac and Erica invade the house while Boyd and Derek wait
outside for Scott to show up. Mayhem ensues. While Lydia calls the police,
Jackson stealthily transforms into the kanima and slinks out the window.
Allison paralyzes Erica with a kanima-poisoned arrow, then gets some payback
for all the taunting and inappropriate groping in the chemistry classroom by
doing some groping of her own.
By the time Scott arrives, things are pretty much under
control. With the police on their way, Derek makes a big cheeseball speech to
Scott about how Scott is the Alpha of his own ragtag pack. And then the kanima
appears on the rooftop while Lydia is standing with the others on the porch,
thus making it obvious to all concerned parties that it’s Jackson. The kanima
scurries out to the road, where it approaches a stopped car with an Einstein
quote on a bumper sticker. The kanima places its clawed hand against the
driver’s side window; the unseen driver places his hand against his on the
other side and holds it there briefly before driving off.
Great stuff. The reveal with Jackson was deftly handled by
the show; from the start, he was the most likely candidate, but there were
enough distractions and red herrings to make it far from a sure thing. Well
done, Teen Wolf.
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