Teen Wolf recap: Damnatio Memoriae

There’s nothing quite like a terrifying new werewolf to bring two best friends back together. At least, that what I took away from tonight’s episode, which saw the introduction of The Beast, the reconnection of Scott and Stiles, and the rekindling of one of the show’s romances. 

Let’s get into it.

We start in the car with Clark, who refuses to let her back-from-the-dead sister out of her sight. At least not until she heads into the town’s communication towers on a call. Of course, the instant Hayden is alone, Liam shows up and asks why she hasn’t texted him back, which leads to this classic teenage argument: 

Hayden: You left me for dead!

Liam: You were dead!

We’ve all had that conversation, amirite? Sadly, we won’t find out how it ends just yet, because Clark discovered what was inside the communication towers, and it’s much bigger than any werewolf we’ve seen on this show. 

Moments later, The Beast bursts out of the building and starts chasing Hayden and Liam until they finally reach a point where Liam decides that their best chance of survival is to fall off a cliff and let The Beast think they’re dead.

Spoiler: Liam’s plan works. Well, if him ending up with a broken back is his definition of it “working.” And before Hayden leaves him to check on her sister, she fills him in on a little secret: It was Theo who brought her back from the dead.

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Speaking of Theo, he’s currently with Tracy at the bedside of one of the cops that was present on the night she killed her father. Using her kanima venom to paralyze the guy’s diaphragm, she kills him. (Is there more to this that I don’t know? Or is she just feeling murderous?)

But considering that Theo and Tracy are not the town’s biggest problem at the moment, Parrish shows Scott footage of The Beast, the last chimera. To make matters worse, Scott asks Parrish just how many bodies he sees when he dreams about the Nemeton. “Everyone,” Parrish informs him. (So we’ll take motivational speaker off Parrish’s list of potential jobs.)

Back in his bedroom, Scott gives the bulletin-board treatment a try, but there’s a reason Stiles was always the organizer of the red string. With that in mind, Scott heads to the hospital, where Stiles is currently having a conversation with his father. 

NEXT: Father-son bonding

In the morgue, Stilinski is standing over Donovan’s body when Stiles finds him. Of course, Stilinski has put two and two together and wants to know why Stiles didn’t tell him the truth. Poor Stiles is still questioning himself, doubting that it was self-defense, but Stilinski doesn’t see it that way. He knows it was self-defense, but regardless, he would’ve protected his son. He tells his son what we already know: He’d burn down the whole police station if it meant saving Stiles. 

But bringing things back around to what happened with Donovan, Stilinski tells his son that his great challenge now is learning how to carry this burden with him. His advice? Save a life and try to counterbalance the guilt. Or maybe Stiles should try to forgive himself. And if he can’t do that just yet, he could start by forgiving someone else: Scott! (Stilinski FTW!)

With Scott now standing outside, overhearing the conversation, he hears Stiles ask his father, “What about Kira?” Stilinski replies that Kira was a mistake. WHAT AM I MISSING HERE?

Brief pause for an Argent update: The man who still has safes for absolutely everything he owns finds a plant hidden away in a super-fancy safe. What it all means is TBD.

Back to the action, Theo catches up with Josh outside a club. Apparently Josh isn’t exactly loving life as a back-from-the-dead chimera, so Theo gives him something that will make him feel — or rather, two things that will make him feel. Handing him jumper cables, Theo gives Josh the sort of electricity he’s been looking for. (So he’s part kitsune?) 

Lurking in the parking lot, Liam witnesses the whole thing, realizing that Theo didn’t just resurrect Hayden. And by the time he updates Mason, the two of them run into Corey at the library clean-up volunteer effort. Mason tries to get information out of Corey, but instead, all he gets is a date for Saturday night (let’s be honest, there are worse problems).

Elsewhere, Scott is trying to find help, and when Malia doesn’t answer his calls, he shows up at her house. Sadly, however, she can’t be convinced to get involved because, according to her, she’s about to do something and Scott’s not going to like her much after she does it. (Hint: Kill her mother.) But instead of giving Malia the sort of pep talk only a True Alpha can give — or even pushing the question of why there are two heartbeats inside her home — Scott, who clearly needs to brush up on his leadership skills, just drives away.

Back inside, Malia and Braeden are about to torture a man from the Soviet special forces when they discover the easier way to get information out of him: Money. Specifically, $10,000 buys them everything he knows about the Desert Wolf, which is: She won’t fly, she avoids surveillance cameras, and she’s holding Deaton captive.

With Scott out and about, Stiles is back at the hospital using his dad’s laptop to look up footage of The Beast. And when Stiles takes the footage to Scott, who still hasn’t healed, it looks like our favorite team is back together! (Now if only we could get Roscoe back.)

After Stiles points out that two people entered the communication towers and three came out, Scott and Stiles head down to the towers to figure out how The Beast got in.

NEXT: Who needs a bath?

But Scott and Stiles aren’t the only two trying to solve a mystery. Over at Eichen, Lydia’s having a literal out-of-body experience when she walks her way to the bathroom and discovers a black ooze/oil-covered Meredith crawling out of a bathtub. Why Meredith was covered in oil and/or in a bathtub, I have no idea. But according to her, all of Lydia’s friends will die without her, which means it’s time to snap Lydia out of this catatonic state. It’s also time for Meredith to teach Lydia how to use her voice as a weapon. (If Meredith knew that, why didn’t she ever use it?!)

Whatever, I don’t really get it, but I know that Meredith is back, and if she’s going to teach Lydia how to crack some skulls, I’m in!

Getting back to Theo, he catches up with Hayden at the police station, where she’s still under her sister’s watch. The takeaway is this: If Scott needs leadership training, Theo can sit right next to him at the seminar because his form of leadership is essentially just threatening people. First up, he gets an update on The Beast from Hayden before telling her that she can’t hide anything — translation: Liam — from him.

He then makes his way to Corey to inform him that their little pack is going to protect Scott and all his friends. But for now, Corey is going to do exactly as he says if he doesn’t want to die again. 

And it just so happens that what Theo needs from Corey directly involves Scott and Stiles, who have figured out that The Beast entered the communication towers from underground, which is where they find the words “Damnatio Memoriae” via blacklight.

But just as Scott’s about to take a picture with his phone — even True Alphas need a little help from technology! — Tracy shows up and paralyzes Stiles. Switching into alpha mode, Scott is able to take down both Tracy and Josh, despite his injuries. As for Corey, well, the poor kid is so scared he doesn’t even fight. As he tells Theo, “He’s got fangs!”

To be fair, he’s right. 

With that, it seems Theo’s pack failed its first test. But that’s okay. All Theo really wanted was to show up and destroy the Latin phrase before Scott and Stiles could see them. According to Theo, they’re all back on the same side because what they need to worry about is The Beast. Scott makes the argument that it’s just a kid underneath it all, but according to Theo, that kid is long gone. (But which kid?!)

Thankfully, after Theo leaves, Stiles manages to not only remember the words but know the Latin translation: A condemnation of memory. It means that whatever The Beast is, it’s not new. It’s very, very old. Basically, the Dread Doctors didn’t create something new. They resurrected something.

And that brings us to Gerard. Yep, Gerard is back. Remember the flower that Argent kept in a safe? Apparently, it’s for Gerard. Once Gerard eats it, he’s cured of the second most annoying thing about him: all that black ooze. 

So why cure him? Because Argent needs to know what they’re facing. According to Gerard, it’s a monster whose “only purpose was to kill.” And as soon as Gerard mentions the monster’s close personal connection to their family, Chris puts it together: The Beast of Gévaudan.

As for Scott, he can’t focus on The Beast yet. Right now, he’s focused on getting his pack back together, which stars with Stiles’ willingness to complete his pack symbol — even though he hates that tattoo — and then moves to finding Kira. 

Eventually, Scott will make his way to Liam, who’s currently trying to find Scott to apologize, though he gets a little sidetracked when Hayden shows up and is all “Nothing feels the same, nothing feels right… except you.” Yep, they kiss. 

And finally, we get our first glimpse of where Scott and Stiles will have to go to find Kira. It involves a lot of sand and at least three “skinwalkers.” So this should be fun.

Thoughts/questions/theories:

• What was Stiles talking about when he asked about Kira?

• What was that plant that Argent used?

• Who is The Beast?

• Who’s the housekeeper responsible for caring for Gerard, and have they been fired?

• Is there some sort of significance to Theo’s white Converse?

• How many safes does Argent own?

What did you all think of the hour? Are you keeping up? Hit the comments with your thoughts, or find me on Twitter @samhighfill.