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| Courtesy MTV |
A Fox, A Wolf, and A Katana
After reasserting control over our beloved Stiles, the Nogitsune takes us on a trip down memory lane. We are treated to a scene in 1943 where two Military Police Officers are unloading a truckload of dead Japanese-Americans into a mass grave. As they return to the truck for another load, a familiar bandage-wrapped figure rises from the bodies and stumbles toward the men. Needless to say, the Nogitsune makes short work of the two and begins riddling his own riddles.
Back in modern day Beacon Hills, Evil Stiles pays a visit to Mr. Yukimura whose dedication finds him at the high school on a Saturday. The Nogitsune wants the last knife (kaiken) representing his wife’s kitsune tail of course. Evil Stiles clues us in that since this tail is the oldest, the Oni it holds is far more powerful than the others. When he refuses to give the Nogitsune what he wants, Kira’s dad is forced to swallow a fly. The fly doesn’t seem to agree with him, as he immediately starts coughing and gagging. Kira, who is with Scott, is soon called by her mother to bring a cure. The cure seems to be reishi mushrooms. The magic mushrooms seem to work and soon Mr. Yukimura is coughing up a gob of blood and a fly.
Kira is obviously very angry with her mother, and lets her disapproval show while Scott stands awkwardly nearby. They confront Noshiko with the photo and the sword found with the Nogitsune’s corpse hidden in the wall of Eichen House. As Noshiko grasps the hilt of the katana and pulls it from the scabbard, the pieces of the blade fall out on the table. The blade was broken when she killed the Nogitsune the first time. At her husband’s urging, Noshiko tries to explain things to her angry daughter. As you might have picked up on, all of this goes back to 1943 and the Oak Creek Internment Camp.
In case you don’t know, during World War II, the American government rounded up its Japanese-American population and placed them in internment camps, just in case they were spies you know. It’s a nasty piece of history, you might want to look into. It would appear that something so horrible happened at the Oak Creek camp that it was covered up and removed from the history books. This of course, is that story. We learn that Noshiko is actually 900 years old, and was in the Oak Creek camp. She and a few others stole extra supplies from the trucks sent in, things like aspirin and apples. They don’t appear to have been treated very well by the military guarding them.
Young Noshiko (also played by Arden Cho) being a tricksy kitsune, was very handy at appropriating things from the truck. She was also quite flirty with a young medic named Rhys, who did his best to throw his rank around to help the “guests.” It turns out that the doctor at the camp, which centered around Eichen House, was selling the medicine sent to the them on the black market with the help of two corrupt MPs. You guessed it, they are the same ones from the beginning of the story. People start dying from pneumonia and so the prisoners begin to riot. As usually happens, Molotov cocktails are produced and things escalate quickly. Satomi, an older woman who had always chastised Noshiko for her stealing, is struck down by one of the MPs, but she’s not exactly who she appears to be. As she picks herself off the ground, we see that she has wolf eyes and big scary teeth. Enraged, she grabs one of the burning bottles and throws it. It lands at Rhys’ feet and he is quickly engulfed in flames. Noshiko screams in the background.
As real panic sets in, the soldiers start firing into the crowd of prisoners and Noshiko is shot several times. The kitsune is so weakened, she appears dead and is loaded onto the truck with the others. Rhys finally dies, screaming in agony as well. It seems, the doctor had sold all of the morphine as well as the antibiotics. As luck, chance, or fate would have it, his corpse is thrown in beside her. Filled with anger and the desire for revenge, Noshiko calls on the kitsune ancestor spirits to send a Nogitsune to possess her body for this purpose. Only the Trickster Spirit had his own ideas, and took Rhys’ body instead. And this is the form we see in Stiles’ conversations with the creature; the bandage wrapped burned corpse of Rhys.
Evil Rhys returned to Eichen House, to get the doctor who caused all of this suffering. Here’s a warning, when a Nogitsune takes revenge for you, he doesn’t really stop when you want him too. By the time Noshiko made it to Eichen House, everyone was dead; the Nogitsune had killed them all. She retrieves her katana that was hidden under her bed in the dormitory and hunts him down. She finally catches up to him in the bowels of the facility and whips her katana all around him, but he is too strong. Just as he almost wrenches the blade from her hands, Satomi appears behind him and sinks her big werewolf claws into his back. This succeeded in distracting him long enough for Noshiko to impale him with her sword. A single ugly fly escapes from the corpse’s mouth which Noshiko snaps up into her hands. Mr. Miyagi would be so jealous. Then with one last gasp about lightning bolts and love at first sight, what remained of Rhys dies. When next we see Noshiko, she is still covered in blood and fleeing through the forest with the fly in a jar. She comes upon a very large impressive tree and buries the jar at its base. It’s the Nemeton of course, and our little wolf pack set the Nogitsune free when they woke it up last season.
Noshiko goes on to tell Scott and Kira that they have to kill Stiles in order to save him from the Nogitsune. Well, this doesn’t go well at all. In the face of the two teenagers anger, even Mr. Yukimura chimes in that it’s the only way. As one last favor, Noshiko convinces Kira to help her reforge the broken katana. Only Kira can do this because she is a thunder kitsune. Once the sword is reforged, she bequeaths it to her daughter and gives her her remaining power. It would appear she has passed the torch to Kira and given her this problem to solve. Something about history repeating itself and learning from the past appears to be a theme here. She does have only one tail left and I expect that using up that last one will kill her anyway. So, to sum up: Noshiko is responsible for bringing the Nogitsune into this world, and the Wolf Pack is responsible for setting it free again. Oh, and Kira is a Thunder Kitsune. So, it looks like we are going to need a little wolf and fox cooperation to get this job done. At this point Scott gets a text from Allison for him to meet them at Derek’s loft. He and Kira run off to meet their destiny, together.
While Kira and Scott have been getting a history lesson, the rest of the Wolf Pack and friends have been trying to find Evil Stiles. The Sheriff has released Mr. Argent and Derek from their cells and dropped the charges. In trying to enlist their help in saving his son, he tells them what he found out from that specialist he went to see about Stiles’ brain scans. It would appear that all that brain damage they showed, is exactly identical to his wife’s scans. Ergo, it’s just another trick by our Evil Trickster. The Sheriff thinks it’s designed to make Stiles’ lose hope and stop fighting the spirit. Parrish, the new deputy we’ve seen in the last few episodes, is reluctant to give Mr. Argent back his shock stick, claiming it’s only a few watts short of being a lightsaber. I like him, I also think he might actually be Peter’s child and not Malia. Remember that quip he made about having good genes when he was checking out the “bomb” on the bus? Or maybe they both are; Peter seems like he could get around quite a bit. Anyway, the Sheriff, the Argents, and Derek split up to go hunt for Stiles.
Sheriff Stilinski and Allison share a heartfelt moment in the elevator at the hospital. The Sheriff is commenting on how “together” Allison always is and she cracks under the Sheriff’s high praise. Finally, she tearfully admits she doesn’t know what she is doing. She is terrified that she has made all of the wrong decisions and she has just been faking it. I guess that’s something, but she has a long way to go until I like her again. The moment is interrupted by an alert on the Sheriff’s phone. When Stiles started sleepwalking he installed a security system. When he opens the app to check the surveillance camera, he finds Stiles sitting on his bed, creepily waving at the camera.
When all four of them get to the house, they find that Stiles has left a chess board set up in his bedroom. Interestingly enough, it has little sticky notes attached to the pieces. Even more interesting, the king is named Derek and he’s one move away from being in check. That’s not good. Amusingly, to me at least, Isaac’s little pawn is lying on its side off the board. Poor Isaac. They deduce from all of this, that Evil Stiles has laid a trap for them at Derek’s loft, so off they go to confront him. Showing that Stiles’ isn’t the only brain in the family, the Sheriff postulates that the spirit isn’t really trying to kill them. The dying is just a byproduct of its little jokes. What it really wants is the chaos, strife, and pain its antics cause; the dying is just a happy byproduct. As the episode closes, the Sheriff is walking alone into Derek’s loft. Stiles turns with his face still shadowed and says “Hi, Dad.”
What do you think is going to happen next? Will Scott really try to turn his friend into a werewolf in order to save him, even after Stiles’ has turned down the change before? Or will Mr. Argent just shoot poor Stiles? Either way it goes, it looks to be a crazy last few episodes you don’t want to miss.
The next episode of ‘Teen Wolf’, ‘De-Void’ airs Monday, March 10 at 10 p.m. ET on MTV.