Teen Wolf premiere recap: 'Said the Spider to the Fly'

Welcome one and all to the final 10 episodes of Teen Wolf, where the name of the game is fear. We don’t know much about what’s going on in Beacon Hills at this point, but we know that fear is the cause of, well, all of it. And if there’s anything else we know, it’s that Scott and the gang can’t leave town just yet.

But before we get to that, let’s catch up with everyone. We start the hour at lacrosse practice, where Scott has swapped a jersey for an “assistant coach” jacket. His main role? To convince Finstock that Liam is worthy of being captain, a title he first earned last season. Speaking of Liam, he’s currently pouting in the locker room because apparently, Hayden moved away in order to protect her sister. So I guess that’s the end of that relationship.

Once Mason and Corey — still together — physically drag Liam to the practice field, we watch as he loses control of his anger, flashing his yellow eyes on the field. Thankfully, Scott is there to help manage the situation, but Liam is not their only wolf-related problem. An actual wolf — not a werewolf, just a wolf – walks onto the field. It’s clearly injured, but when Scott flashes his red eyes, it turns and runs back into the woods. The best part of this scene? When NO ONE questions Liam and Scott’s decision to follow the wild animal into the woods at night. I mean, I knew Finstock was an irresponsible adult, but COME ON.

Once in the woods, Liam and Scott discover a plethora of dead wolves: bad sign No. 1. Malia, for one, doesn’t want to hear anything about it. Lydia tries to explain the situation, but as Malia puts it, she’s done with “mysterious animal situations.” She has shifted her focus to “mysterious men … French ones,” and as soon as her flight to Paris stops being delayed, she’ll be well on her way. Let’s reiterate: She is NOT sticking around for another Beacon Hills mystery.

At least not until a bunch of rats take over a classroom. Let me back up: The next day, Liam, Corey, and Mason meet with the very nosy guidance counselor to set their schedules for senior registration. It’s obvious that this woman has an interest in the supernatural side of things. She even asks Nolan, another student, about an “animal attack” that happened in the library over the summer. “Everybody knows that that was no animal,” Nolan says. As for the wolf on the lacrosse field, Nolan believes it was “some kind of wolf,” and when she asks, “What kind of wolves have you seen?” he changes the subject (though I was really hoping he’d respond, “Hot ones”).

Meanwhile, down the hall, a classroom is flooded with rats, an event that prompts Liam and Mason to head to the tunnels. There, they find a pile of dead rats — something Mason calls a “rat king.” And that’s when they call Malia. She smells the rats and confirms that they smell of fear. She then defines a rat king: The rats freaked out, got their tails knotted up, and tore each other apart trying to break free. But don’t expect some scared rats to convince Malia to ditch Paris. She’s still leaving…

At this point, Scott and Lydia also think they’re leaving, so they each gift their parents with something to help protect them when they’re gone. Lydia leaves her mother, Principal Martin, a list of all the supernatural beings in Beacon Hills, while Scott leaves Melissa with a stun baton so she can properly defend herself.

So, with their parents taken care of, Lydia and Scott get ready to leave Beacon Hills behind…until Lydia gets a vision. Suddenly back at the school, she’s in a hallway covered in webs, each one emitting a sound, from screams to gunfire to growling. The final web she touches says, “You let it out. You were supposed to ride with the Hunt forever.” Just like that, they’re not going anywhere, and after a minor guilt trip, neither is Malia.
(Next: There’s a new Hellhound in town)

While all of this is going on, Parrish comes face to face with new Hellhound Halwyn — except by new, I mean really, really old. It seems Halwyn was around when Eichen House first opened in 1912, and after being literally frozen for years, he’s out. After he tells Parrish that he’s hunting “something you let out,” he knocks Parrish out and pretty severely injures Liam.

But just as he tells Liam, “If the Wild Hunt couldn’t keep you, nothing can…” he realizes he’s got the wrong guy. “It’s not you,” he tells Liam. Sadly, he doesn’t get more specific about what we’re looking for, but he does say, “It won’t stay hidden. It must be stopped. Nothing else matters.” Meanwhile, Liam asks zero follow-up questions about what this guy is talking about. So far, I think it’s safe to say Liam is not nailing this whole “the new alpha” thing.

Back in Roscoe, Lydia, Malia, and Scott try to figure out a plan. As Lydia puts it, “We opened a door to another world, and something came out with us.” And the only person who knows what that is might be this new Hellhound, which is why they need to find him. The bad news? The new guidance counselor just put some kind of special bullet right between his eyes. So I guess you can kill a Hellhound after all? And then there’s the real kicker: The bullet that killed him has the Argent engraving on it.

As far as the guidance counselor goes, Lydia remembers something else she heard in that hallway: “The sound of people who’ve never lifted a hand against another human being…they were killing each other.” In other words, people are going crazy and now is not the time to leave Beacon Hills. However, is it the time to make Stiles return?

Checking in on the only member to make it out before all the drama, we get a brief glimpse at Stiles starting as an intern at the FBI. As his voicemail tells Scott, he’s in Quantico, and he wants Scott to promise him that he, too, is going to get out of Beacon Hills. But as we know, Scott can’t leave just yet…but he also can’t bring himself to drag Stiles back into things.

However, Stiles doesn’t need to be in Beacon Hills to have his hands full. When his instructor introduces the class to the FBI’s latest manhunt, none other than Derek Hale shows up on the screen. (And yes, he’s shirtless.) It seems our favorite Hale is now wanted for mass murder. So this should be fun.

All in all, I still have a lot of questions about what we’re dealing with, and I think the hour started off a little slowly. But once it got going, I was happy to be back in Beacon Hills. And I have to say, the Stiles-Derek twist was the greatest moment of the premiere for me.

What did you think of the premiere? Hit the comments with your thoughts or let me know on Twitter @samhighfill.