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Teen Wolf

Credits

Cast

Network

Reviewer

Bob Hoose
Paul Asay

TV Series Review

MTV has transformed itself from music video channel to reality TV kingpin, so it knows a thing or two about transmogrifications. Handy information, that, when nurturing a coming-of-age show about a werewolf.

With its origins stemming from the 1985 teen comedy feature Teen Wolf, this scripted show follows an average nobody high schooler who gets bitten by a werewolf and suddenly develops some unexpected super skills—not to mention a full-moon-sparked 5 o’clock shadow that just won’t quit. That, however, is pretty much where the similarities end between the hour-long drama and the Michael J. Fox campy monster mash (and its subsequent cartoon spin-off). MTV’s take has grown ever more complicated—weaving countless supernatural characters, lycanthropic factions and a dense mythology into the mix.

Not Your Mother’s Buffy

Our lycanthropic leading man is the mild-natured teen Scott McCall, who gets infected during a forest excursion with his goofy pal Stiles. Before long, Scott can hear and smell things he never has before, run superfast on four legs and look rather wolfish should the mood strike. And the perennial lacrosse bench warmer finds that he can perform like an all-star.
After some growing pains, Scott finds that he fits into his new skin pretty well. He even takes over the role of alpha in the werewolf pack, and he has to be respected a bit for using his nifty powers mostly to save people, rather than rip them apart for kibble.
Teen Wolf takes some thematic cues from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, turning puberty and high school into a flat-out horror story with the occasional metaphorical undertone. These werewolf changes mirror, on some level, the weird transformations that all adolescents go through—complete with deeper voices, seemingly uncontrollable emotions and hair that grows in strange places. And Scott’s transformation into an alpha may reflect how we all grow into the burdens, benefits and responsibilities of adulthood.
But Teen Wolf is more graphic than Buffy ever was. Since this is the age of supernatural heart-flutterers like Twilight and The Vampire Diaries, MTV’s Teen Wolf has to keep up with the Jacobs when it comes to CGI blood spattering and those steamy golden-eyed gazes—including some same-sex dalliances.

A Sexualized Mythology

We see vicious fights, horrific wounds and enough body parts to keep casual Saw fans sated. Werewolves are often dispatched by being cut in two, for instance. And even if Scott and his furry cohorts are in their human form, things can still get a little hairy.

“There’s a lot of nakedness,” said cast member Holland Roden in an eonline.com interview. “And we have lots of sex. Yes, a lot of sex.”
This angst-laden Teen Wolf does tear out more than the occasional jugular. It’s also ripping through bodices, hot-around-the-collar teen trysts, high school sexual self-discovery and lots of mythological mayhem.

Episode Reviews

Teen Wolf: Dec. 5, 2016 “Relics”

Scott and his ever-growing allotment of supernatural helpers continue to battle the ghost riders: evil spectral cowboys who hunt the living and wipe their victims clean from the memories of others, as if they didn’t exist. Those victims then allegedly join the ghost riders in their spectral Wild Hunt. The ghost riders sport white, mottled faces whose mouths seem to have been “grown” shut, almost as if a wound has healed. Most victims are shot (after which they vanish in a puff of green smoke), while one is dragged away (also terminating in a smoky vanishing).

We see victims of other sorts of mayhem, too. Two bloodstained bikers are discovered in the woods: One is still living, but just barely. She coughs up blood and expires. A nearby were-coyote, Malia, is spotted and is shot in the leg by hunter Chris Argent in order to be questioned. Later, Chris and a nurse operate on Malia in a bloody procedure, with Malia eventually yanking the bullet out herself.

We see several people turn into werewolves (not the full transformation, but close-ups featuring glowing eyes and fangs). One turns into what is known as a hellhound: a werewolf-like creature that also has a flaming body. (He’s shot by a ghost rider but, unlike everyone else, doesn’t vanish. Once he’s shot, though, his surrounding fire is extinguished, which previously burned off his clothes. He still somehow retains his underwear, though.) Characters say “a–“, “h—” and “crap” once each, as well as misuse God’s name once.

Teen Wolf – July 27, 2015: “Required Reading”

Scott and his friends read an old paperback called The Dread Doctors after discovering that the book helps them recall horrific, repressed experiences they’ve suffered at the hands of the real Dread Doctors. Meanwhile, there’s much discussion of, and some fighting with, chimeras—werewolf-scorpion hybrids apparently created by the Doctors.

The throat of a chimera is torn out. In one vision/flashback, banshee Lydia sees someone carved up by the Doctors, peeling back skin from the man’s abdomen and revealing glowing blue beneath. In another, she sees her grandmother bleeding from a head wound, a bloody drill nearby. (Conversation suggests self-inflicted injury.) Stiles is attacked by his dementia-riddled mother, her hands slashing at him. (It turns out to be a chimera.) Fights involve punches and kicks and claws and teeth. A Doctor nearly electrocutes Scott with his fingers. We hear about deaths and killing sprees. Scott “remembers” his dog fighting another dog to the death. (He holds a bloodstained leash.)

Japanese legends are connected to the show’s complex mythology. Guys gratuitously take off their shirts, flexing their muscles. Gals sometimes wear sports bras and midriff-baring tops. Somebody works at a bar. Characters lie. Infrequent profanity includes “d–n” and the misuse of God’s name.

TeenWolf: 7-28-2014

“Orphaned”

Scott commits himself to saving and protecting everyone who’s on a list of assassination targets. Meanwhile, Liam, a beta to Scott’s alpha, gets stabbed with a weapon laced with wolfsbane and is thrown down a well.

People are brutally stabbed in the gut by massive claws. (Scott has to have a detached claw removed from his torso.) A poisoned werewolf (in human form) coughs up bright yellow phlegm before a doctor cuts open his chest, apparently allowing the poison to escape. (Another’s chest is cut open for the same reason.) Scads of corpses, many bloodstained, litter the ground in several scenes. One woman’s body is found tied to a chair, indicating that she was perhaps tortured to death. A girl hangs herself. (We watch as medical personnel remove a sheet from around her neck.) Fistfights and gunfire do their damage. Someone’s hit by a car.

An unresolved moral struggle revolves around Scott finding a stash of cash in a locker and the pressing money problems of his bill-laden parents. Teens lie and mislead adults. One character seems to blackmail another. References are made to Buddhism (a religion a pack of werewolves adhere to in part to keep control of their emotions). There’s talk of driving drunk. We hear “h—” twice and “d–n” once.

TeenWolf: 7-8-2013

“Motel California”

The lacrosse team stops at California’s Glen Capri for the night—a motel said to lead the state in suicidal guests.

The episode features a content warning at the start, and little wonder: The team’s werewolves all grow suicidal. Ethan sees something inside him crawling around (its face presses against his abs) and tries to slice himself open first with a saw, then his own claws. Boyd (after seeing his dead sister in an ice machine) fills a bathtub with water and tries to kill himself by lying in the tub and putting a chest on his chest. (He comes to when Stiles jabs him with a flare.) Scott douses himself with gasoline and nearly sets himself on fire. When a flare touches gas, Lydia pushes Scott and Stiles clear of danger—as a demon appears in the resulting flames.

Lydia hears the ghosts of other suicides: A boy and girl apparently shot each other and a mother smothered her baby before killing herself. In flashback, a man (who has a horrible bite mark on his side) kills himself with a shotgun. (The camera is outside the room when the trigger’s pulled, but returns to watch the blood ooze.)

We see Ethan and Danny (two guys) engaged in heavy foreplay with each other, both shirtless. Ethan kisses Danny’s chest. Derek makes out with his new girlfriend; the two kiss, and we see them in bed together, presumably nude. (Derek’s bare chest is mottled with grotesque wounds.) Sexual tension accelerates when Scott walks in on Allison in the shower. Characters vandalize property and steal stuff from a vending machine. They say “h‑‑‑” (three times), “d‑‑n” (once), “a‑‑” (once), and misuse God’s name six or eight times.

TeenWolf: 6-3-2012

“Omega”

In this season premiere, Scott flashes back to some memories from the last season—showing off his muscled body, probing a grotesque bite wound in his side and smooching with girlfriend Allison in a car before her father threatens his life. Back in the present, Scott visits Allison in her bedroom where the two partly disrobe (we see her in her bra) and engage in a very explicit make-out session.

Lydia has a horrific hallucination while showering (we see her from the shoulders up) and runs into the woods, naked. When she wanders back into civilization, she’s still nude, her forearms covering her breasts. We see her from the back when she drops her arms and asks for a coat.

A werewolf is strung up by his hands, shocked with a Taser-like object (which returns him to his human form) and cut in half with a sword. (His upper body hangs limply from a tree.) An ambulance is attacked, leaving the man in back dead and the interior spattered with blood. A grave is ransacked for the corpse’s liver.

Black liquid gushes from the nose and ears of a high schooler. A girl gags while pulling clumps of hair from a bathtub filled with blackish water. There are references to Internet pornography and people clawing each other during sex. A man claims he lost a testicle to the cold. We hear “h‑‑‑” (a half dozen times), “a‑‑” (two or three times), “b‑‑ch” (once) and misuses of both God’s and Jesus’ names.

TeenWolf: 6-13-2011

“Pack Mentality”

Things start with Scott finally getting his longed-for date with Allison. So he sneaks her into a parked school bus for a little alone time. A kiss and a bit of exposed bra later, Scott gets so overheated that he flies into full-fledged rip-and-tear mode. The next morning he’s pretty sure it was all a dream. Or was it? Authorities find a school bus with a torn back door and bloody prints everywhere.

Allison, though, isn’t the victim.

The worried teen wolf decides he must have help with his uncontrollable claw baring, and the mysterious man-wolf Derek is the only one to turn to. Derek is having a little trouble, too, as a werewolf hunter and his “thugs” get aggressive. In the end, it all comes down to a wolfo-a-wolfo battle between Derek and Scott that reveals this little nugget: Scott’s real werewolf maker is still out there.

Foul language is limited to “a‑‑” and one misuse of God’s name. But references to cleavage, ogling and oral sex show up. Two victims are bruised and bloodied.

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Bob Hoose

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

paul-asay
Paul Asay

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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