Teen Wolf Season 3 Episode 15
What They Say:
Galvanize – When a convicted murderer escapes prior to a surgery, Scott and his friends try to help his target.
The Review:
Teen Wolf has naturally been spending some of its return in this second half of the third season by doing some smaller stories that are largely standalone. We had the decent on the week prior involving the werecoyote that Scott was intent on finding and helping as they learned the truth behind it. But while we get these solid little stories, it’s also expanding the relationships of the characters, twisting them in various situations and showing regular bits of change and growth. With the main trio still struggling with their darkness, we see how Isaac has been trying to help Allison and how Stiles almost lost Lydia because of his vision issues. But we also got to see Scott really step up in the previous episode as he’s starting to overcome his fear of being an Alpha and losing control of his form. He’ll likely continue that in a larger way as the season goes on, putting him in a stronger position by the end, but also giving him a stronger opponent to have to deal with.
This episode plays in a different way as we’re introduced to a different situation as a mysterious man under guard is brought into the hospital, a known murderer, who has to have a surgery. The county hospital wanted nothing to do with the man so he got turfed down to Beacon Hills, which has Scott’s mother having to do the pre-op interview. It’s all given a pretty dark and ominous feeling with lots of shadows as they go through it, especially since they make the guy as creepy as possible through his nature while still being somewhat realistic. Where it turns kind of amusing is that as he talks to her, he reveals that the reason he committed the murders that he’s known for is because he saw their eyes and they were glowing. That makes a good impact on her since she knows that’s all about the werewolves now and that can set a different wave of panic through a mother since it reinforces the danger that she knows Scott is regularly in.
One new subplot that comes into play is that the twins are back at Beacon Hills High and are doing their best to try and get Scott to accept them as part of his pack. It definitely makes sense since they’re both down to Omega’s now and with their past, there are a lot of people out there that will want to take them out when they find out that and that they have no pack. But it’s also fun because one wants to just finish school as well, using that as a way to try and show Scott they’re series, but there’s also some potential stuff because of Danny and Lydia. It’s a nice bit to see how they think it through and accept what has to be done but also realizing on some level there is a part of them that wants to finish high school, even if they don’t have to. We also get a good bit in showing Scott as a leader, but also still a confused teenager since he has Stiles telling him later to start going after Kira since there’s obviously an attraction between them. The high school aspect of the show has always been well balanced and it’s nice to see it playing into the show again.
The hospital story takes a weird twist as the surgery goes on with Barrow as a cyst inside him bursts open and a ton of flies spew out of him. The chaos allows him to escape, which naturally puts both Melissa and the sheriff into a worry mode since they know there are some real issues there due to what he hunted down before. Naturally, Barrow’s escape leads him to the school where it’s a Devil’s Night kind of event as the kids are going silly with things due to Halloween and the like. The school turns into a bit of chaos with it all going on since they can’t find Barrow there, but it’s a given he is because of what Lydia is hearing by being connected to him. But we also see that Barrow is intending to potentially kill the werewolves there, so after the police leave since they found nothing, it’s once again up to the kids to try and solve the problem. Of course, it’s a dangerous problem considering the guy they’re facing and that there can be a lot of fallout due to it occurring at the school and the casualties could be high.
The show has a lot of little things going on before the Barrow storyline returns to center stage, which works nicely because they’re not fluffy but rather add to the overall narrative. Scott ends up at dinner at Kira’s because her father wanted to thank him for saving his daughter’s life and we get some neat teases about what’s to come, with her mother being the last of her line in Japan and her father actually being Korean. It’s a bit of a comical sequence in some ways as Scott gets his first taste of sushi, but it also lays the foundation more for the season with the larger potential threat that’s coming into play. We also get a bit of that with what Allison is researching as we get a touch on some Japanese folklore through a visual, but she gets to do that with Isaac, which follows a comical moment where he discovers that she’s electrified the windows that he was using to come into the house with. Her grin is so close to being a giggle that it’s priceless.
When Barrow’s story comes back in, it’s pretty much towards the end but it takes an interesting twist as we see that he’s been after Kira the whole time, which Lydia managed to discover through her wicker super smarts. Having that follow the dinner that Scott was at, we see Scott taken out by surprise but it also goes in some intriguing directions as Lydia is starting to really understand her power more, using it to try and figure out in her own head what Barrow is doing. Barrow is obviously a threat, but the show doesn’t make him the primary storyline. In fact, while it is a strong presence, the show continues to manage to have multiple primary storylines running, though obviously this one caps off at the end. Barrow gets to do his exposition and it’s certainly interesting, and amusing as he makes his comment on remakes, It turns into a decent little fight, but one that doesn’t do much itself. It’s more about affirming the growing bond between Scott and Kira as he has to save her again but it instead turns into something far different as her hidden power starts to be realized.
In Summary:
We’ve known for awhile that Kira was going to be something new within the show and we definitely get that at the very end here, which is going to open a whole host of questions. The show gives us Barrow as the dark aggressor here with a purpose that we think we’ve got figured out from the start, but it turns nicely as it progresses and we learn not only what his real goal is, but what it is that he’s really after. There’s still a ton to still learn and seeing the fallout from it, the discovery and how Scott reacts to it should be hugely entertaining. There’s a lot going on in this episode, like seemingly every episode of this series, and it offers a good bit of something for fans of nearly every character. With the twins back, Derek and Peter investigating their own thing and the rest of the core cast moving right along, there’s a lot to keep track of but it all weaves in and out beautifully.
Grade: B+