Teen Wolf Recap: “Fireflies”

by Kevin Ranson:

Teen Wolf Recap: “Fireflies”
Original Air Date (MTV): Monday June 17, 2013
Season 3 Episode 3

Isn’t catching fireflies pure serenity on a cool evening? Yes, I made a Joss Whedon joke.

Scott saves a couple of bug-catching kids who find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, but he loses track of Boyd in the rescue; Derek hasn’t managed to catch up to Cora, either. Beacon Hills’ resident scream queen Lydia goes out for meds after her nightmare – seriously, with all the scary stuff out on a full moon, why won’t folks just wait until morning? – but she winds up at a crime scene with no idea how exactly she got there. She calls Stiles in who arrives ahead of the police, but something looks off about the body; have Boyd and Cora already killed?

Derek and Scott regroup but are losing ground on the rogues; Alison contemplates joining the hunt after Scott’s confession that her mother tried to kill him. Meanwhile, a young couple getting serious about their relationship discover something bugging them; one of them completely disappears beneath a swarm of creepy crawly things. Isaac saves the other camper from a wolfed-out Cora with Scott and Derek close behind before she runs off. When Stiles calls about the bloody body, Scott suggests enlisting the help of an expert, specifically a werewolf hunter.

While the Sheriff listens to the camper talk about people with “claws and fangs” and assumes she’s on drugs, Scott ask Alison’s dad, Chris Argent, to help them. Chris refuses until he “drops Scott off” at the pool and sees the ambulance; pretty evil, Scott, but effective! The veteran hunter explains to Derek and the guys that trying to resist the moon puts them at a disadvantage against two moon-deprived frenzied werewolves. While Chris explains hunter tactics, Alison is already putting them to use to lure Boyd and Cora to the same location her father suggests: the boiler room at the high school. Like father, like daughter.

Using high-frequency Dune-esque hunter-thumpers – yeah, I’d like to tell you I’m kidding, but it’s still kind of fun – the rogue lycanthropes are herded toward the empty school, but is it really empty? Stiles makes sure Lydia gets home, but the real concern is that it was the same thing that happened to her leading up to Uncle Peter’s resurrection. Speaking of the former alpha nobody likes, Peter tries unsuccessfully to convince Derek to let Scott handle the rogues since Derek “can always make more werewolves.”

Thanks to Melissa at the hospital, Stiles gets a peek at the corpse from the pool, but with the blood cleaned away, it clearly isn’t a wolf killing… and it isn’t the only murder. Is this Deucalion’s work or a new threat in Beacon Hills? Worse yet, Stiles recognizes the other body as Heather, and both teens have been killed the same way. Stiles talks to the surviving camper and figures out the pattern: both victims and the missing camper are all virgins. So, either some bug-loving devil worshipers have moved into town or Deucalion is proving to be a true Renaissance alpha werewolf.

By the way, did you know that fireflies in California aren’t the glow-in-the-dark bio-luminescent kind? Now you do, and knowing is half the battle – thanks, Teen Wolf! As Derek, Scott, and Chris stake out the school, Isaac runs off to herd Boyd and Cora inside, but Alison has already done the job for him and he’s the only one who sees her do it. Once inside the boiler room, Scott and Derek seal the rogues in, but Scott hears a third heartbeat inside; they’ve trapped the werewolves in with one final potential victim. Derek goes in alone, giving Boyd and Cora a target while hoping to survive long enough for the moon to set.

It works! While Isaac and Scott take Boyd and Cora out of the boiler room, Derek goes in to find the unlucky and as-yet unnamed English teacher unharmed; hey, is she crushing on her alpha rescuer? Meanwhile, Stiles brings Scott up to speed on the virgin killings. Each were killed with the three same injuries, what Stiles calls “the three-fold death” of strangulation, throat slashing, and head bludgeoning. He believes it’s all part of a ritualistic sacrifice and that missing camper Emily will be found the same way… and she is. How does he know all this stuff?

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Kevin A. Ranson is the author of The Spooky Chronicles and the upcoming vampire thriller The Matriarch. He also the creator/critic for MovieCrypt.com and the “ghost writer” for its horror host Grim D. Reaper (often seen skulking around horror conventions). Find him on Facebook, on Twitter @KevinARanson, and his author blog at ThinkingSkull.com.