Teen Wolf recap: 'Face-to-Faceless'/'Pressure Test'

Nothing good ever comes of an hour that begins with someone vomiting a million spiders onto a faceless body. How about THAT for a sentence?!

And I’m actually not exaggerating: The first of tonight’s back-to-back episodes begins with Aaron opening his mouth so that a ton of tiny spiders can crawl onto the DNA-free, face-free body currently sitting in the morgue. Aaron then collapses, and the body? Well, it might not have a face, but it just sat up, so there’s no way this is good.

Also not good? A werewolf named Quinn is being attacked by hunters across town only to realize that a Beacon Hills deputy is fighting for Gerard.

And she’s not the only one. Gerard’s army is everywhere, which is why Liam really doesn’t want to go to school today. Quick reminder: The last episode ended with Liam wolfing out in front of quite a few of his neighbors. But when Scott reminds him that staying home could result in more of his friends dying, he puts on his cutest T-shirt (and his bravest face) and walks through the front doors of the high school. Turns out, supernatural hearing sucks when everyone’s talking about you.

It doesn’t take long for Nolan to go after Liam. First, he gathers the lacrosse team to vote Liam out as captain, then he decides he wants to force Liam to shift at school so that even more people can see what a monster he really is. But Liam’s not the only monster at that school, and when he ducks into the guidance counselor’s office to avoid Nolan, he finally realizes the truth about Monroe. Thanks to the scratch marks on her neck — and just generally, her sketchy nature — he texts Scott to let him know that Monroe is the new hunter.

Liam then goes back to trying to figure out how to get through the school day seeing as how Nolan now has the lacrosse team blocking all the school’s exits. Yep, Liam’s trapped, but thanks to all the work he’s been doing with his mantra, he manages not to shift even when Nolan and his friends beat the crap out of him (and the chemistry teacher lets them do it).

I never thought I’d say this, but thankfully, Finstock is there to save the day. Finstock breaks things up and sends a very bloody Liam on his way (and he’d better move fast before he starts healing).

Outside the school, Scott updates Argent on the Gerard of it all, so Argent heads straight to dear old dad to try to convince him to meet with Scott and talk peace. Not surprisingly, Gerard wants nothing to do with peace. So with the news of Monroe’s extracurricular activities, Scott and his team go to Plan B: Convince Monroe to talk.

Lydia gets Monroe to agree to meet with Scott, but as Malia expects, it ends up being a trap. In the tunnels, Scott learns Monroe’s horror story: She was at the school late one night for a faculty meeting when the Beast showed up and murdered pretty much everyone. It was Sheriff Stilinski — a human —who eventually found and saved her. And that’s why she hates everyone and blah blah.

Just as she’s about to ambush Scott, Malia and Lydia show up…and so does the faceless corpse. With the corpse amplifying everyone’s fear, Monroe’s men start firing, so Lydia calls in backup. Parrish shows up and scorches the corpse, which puts an end to things for now. But by the time Scott gets home, Quinn is there waiting for him…which leads us into episode two. (Next: The faceless corpse gets a name)

The second hour reintroduces us to Theo, who’s being tortured along with two members from Satomi’s former pack (former because they’re all dead). Of course, Theo figures out a way to get them all out of it, but they barely make it a mile down the road before Sheriff Stilinski arrests them for murder. It seems these two kids killed some hunters. But seeing as how Theo had nothing to do with it, he’s released…though he doesn’t go far.

With Scott and his pack at the station to try to convince Stilinski to let the kids go, Monroe sees an opportunity: She has her men surround the building. They want those two kids, and she gives Stilinski until midnight to make that happen.

In the meantime, she sends Nolan in to cut the power, which he does, but not without getting caught. And with wolfsbane in his pocket, he plans to kill the two teens from Satomi’s pack. But Liam gets to him first. And that’s where things get complicated: Liam tells Scott to look at the teenagers’ eyes. They’re blue, which means they’ve killed innocent people. It turns out that those hunters they went after hadn’t killed anyone just yet.

While Scott ponders whether the kids are worth saving, fear strikes. Before anyone can stop them, one deputy hangs himself while Morrow — who’d been working with Monroe — shoots herself in the head. Oddly, this tragedy gives Scott an idea: Seeing as how Monroe doesn’t know what the two teenagers look like, they could hand over these two bodies and solve everything.

Long story short, it doesn’t work because Monroe asks to see their pack tattoos. But before Monroe realizes what’s happening, Scott’s dad — who works for the FBI, you’ll remember — shows up to put an end to all of this. The FBI takes custody of the two teens while Scott and his entire pack agree to leave the state.

Only that doesn’t happen. First, the two teens still end up dead — Monroe/Gerard apparently have guys in the FBI — and Scott’s pack ends the hour back at Deaton’s clinic. As he puts it, “What did you think we were going to do? Run?”

One other thing you should know from this hour? They’re all fighting an Anuk-Ite. Deaton and Corey ultimately figure it out, but the thing that’s causing fear is an ancient shapeshifter also known as “The Double Face.” It quite literally has two faces, and when those two faces — or creatures — come together, it will be unstoppable. So if Aaron was one of its faces…who’s the other?

Okay, we’re finally getting some answers! I’ll admit: I preferred the second hour to the first one, but I always love a tense hostage situation. And, thanks mostly to that second hour, it finally feels like we’ve got some forward momentum heading into these last episodes.

What do you all think? Hit the comments with your thoughts or let me know on Twitter @samhighfill.