'Teen Wolf' 5x6 recap: 'Required Reading'

“We never should have read that book”
We drop into right in the middle of the action, with one of the Dread Doctors choking Scott. Scott is hyperventilating, and Malia and Melissa McCall arrive just in time to save him. Malia fights off the Dread Doctor, whilst Melissa injects Scott with a dilator, regularizing his breathing. They all escape together into the elevator just in time. Scott says “We never should have read that book.” For those of you wondering what book he is referring to: The book is called The Dread Doctors, and it was written by none-other than Dr. Valack, the creepy dude with the third eye, from Eichen House. According to Dr. Valack, the book was designed as a tool that would trigger the memory of anyone who had ever encountered The Dread Doctors, since one of their powers was disappearing without a trace. He informed them that all they had to do was read the book in order to trigger its power.

Chemistry
A lot is happening in Beacon Hills, so here’s the short version: The Sheriff’s department discover a football field with numerous graves, meaning more Chimeras. Sheriff Stilinski is trying to figure out why these teenagers are being murdered, after being turned into Chimeras. Stiles is still being haunted by the death of Donovan. Whilst all this is happening, Parish is teaching Lydia how to fight, and as her training intensifies, so does their chemistry. Lydia is also being haunted by memories of The Dread Doctors performing some sort of surgery on her.

The pack has realized that reading the book not only triggers memories, but it also causes a series of tragic events to occur, like Malia almost being run over by a car. The pack, along with Theo, get together to read the book. Though the pack is working together to try and solve this situation, it seems that Stiles and Malia are slowly drifting apart: Stiles is still experiencing pain from Donovan’s bite, but he lies to Malia when she asks why she can smell blood. Likewise, Malia fails to mention to Stiles that she saw the Desert Wolf during her flashback. The group falls asleep while reading the book, and when Kira begins to sleep talk in Japanese, Theo records her. Theo, as we now know, is not the helpful good guy he has been pretending to be. He not only employed fake parents to help him with his cover, but in a past episode, we have also seen Theo feeding information to The Dread Doctors. Though the whole pack has been reading the book, Kira has been unable to and she doesn't know why until Mason, who by the way is now part of the inner circle, tells her that Kitsune’s have trouble with language. She cannot read the book because the book is a language trick, so the fox part of her cannot understand it. Sidebar: I love all the historical facts, myths, and cultural stories that are woven into the script, à la “moshi moshi.” It’s great that many of the supernatural stories have bits and pieces history tied in.

Liam has been separate from the pack for a little while now. He seems to be building some sort of relationship with a new character, Hayden. He has been trying to make amends for something that he did to her in the six grade. We don't know too much about Hayden, but this is Beacon Hills, I'm sure she has her own story to tell. Later in the episode we learn from Mason that Liam and Hayden’s feud began in sixth grade when Hayden accidentally walked into a fight between Liam and another kid, and got a black eye. Unfortunately for her, the black eye was also with in her year book photo. What! The build up was too much, for the issue between them to be so petty. I am also not a big fan of the Liam and Hayden subplot. The integral story is already complicated as is, with the Dread Doctors, the Chimera’s, the love triangles; therefore, this additional subplot just seems unnecessary and time consuming. Their chemistry is off, and even with her kidney transplant, her job as a bartender to pay for her medicine, her stellar soccer skills, and her wicked side-eye, I am just not connecting to Hayden’s character. She better grow some tentacles or acquire some glowing eyes soon, or my already waning interest in her will disappear completely.

Biology
In biology class, Lydia begins to suspect that one of the girls is a Chimera, after the girl begins losing some of her hair. When the girl runs out of class, Lydia follows her, only to find out that the girl has been losing hair for years due to stress. When Lydia tries to help the girl, she falls back and begins to have a vivid flashback of an incident that occurred when she was a child: She walked in on her mother helping her grandmother, who was in a bathtub, in Eichen House, bleeding from her skull. She is confused because the flashback has nothing to do with the Dread Doctors. She now believes that her earlier flashbacks, where the Dread Doctors were performing surgery on her, were actually flashbacks of someone else’s memories. As Scott is about to drop out of the AP Biology class, he begins to have flashbacks and gets an asthma attack, something that he hasn't experienced since he became a wolf. In his flashbacks, he sees himself as a child in the hospital, restrained in a hospital gurney. Liam arrives with an inhaler just in time, and uses the wolf part of him to wake Scott from his hallucination. Hayden sees Liam's kind act, and seems to like him a little more.

Theo and Malia seem to be heating up. Theo gets shirtless at the gym when he hears Malia approaching. She is curious as to why Theo hasn't told Scott and the rest of the pack about the Desert Wolf from Malia’s flashback. Malia is uneasy with the fact that Theo hasn’t told anyone. She is a very guarded person, so she doesn’t want to feel like she owes him anything. This coupled with the fact that she’s clearly attracted to him makes her visibly uncomfortable. Later at school, Theo shows Scott the recording he took of Kira speaking Japanese, and says when translated, she was actually saying, “I am the messenger of death.” Kira is no longer just Kira. Scott says that he can no longer trusts her because the fox is no longer just part of her, it’s overpowering her.

Lydia and Stiles head to the hospital hoping to get some information on what the Dread Doctors did there. She realizes now that she really was having flashbacks of someone else's memories, a teenager who has now been turned into a Chimera. While at the hospital, Stiles begins to have a flashback of when his mother was in the hospital for her dementia. His mother believed that a ten year Stiles was trying to kill her. I gotta hand it to the directors and actors. These flashback scenes are very well executed. From the music when a young Lydia is walking into Eichen House, to Stiles seeing his childhood shadow. It is all very well done. Though Stiles thinks that it’s his mother attacking him, it’s really a Chimera. Luckily, Theo arrives in time to save him. Theo kills the Chimera by ripping out its throat, then asks Stiles not to say anything to the rest of the pack, and when Stiles asks why not, Theo says because he hasn't said anything about Donovan’s death, something that has been haunting Stiles, and something Stiles believed no one else knew of. Stiles is shocked and confused by the fact that Theo knows anything about the death, as he an Donovan were the only ones there.

The episode comes full circle, ending where it began, at the hospital with Scott being attacked, then saved my Malia. Though this episode took a few unnecessary detours, here's looking at you Liam and Hayden, it still managed to get back on track and push forward. It will be interesting to see the dynamic in the pack now that Theo knows about Stiles. Stiles seems to be losing control, he and Scott haven't necessarily been the dynamic duo as of late. He seems to be losing both Lydia and Malia. He is struggling with the death of Donovan, and we are yet to see what effect the bite has on him. I am also excited to see the progression and changes in all the relationships; Parrish and Lydia, Theo and Malia, and Kira and Scott, now that Kira is no longer her usual self.

Ps. I would be remiss if I did not mention how odd it is that Parish, an officer of the law, is fraternizing with a highschool student. I understand that Beacon Hills is fictional, but even fictional worlds gotta have some laws right. #Justsaying

See you next week!

Image courtesy of MTV