Teen Wolf, 3x08 -- "Visionary"

“If you wanna know what changed Derek, you need to know what changed the color of his eyes.” Who writes this crap?

There are right and wrong ways to do a flashback episode. It’s acceptable to take a break from the running narrative of the series once in a while if the story you have to tell is interesting. In this case, the characters are all sitting around discussing High School Derek’s “epic romance” which turns out to be just as epic as you might expect. This teen love story is loosely connected to Deucalion, in the sense that one of Deucalion’s lackeys kills Derek’s girlfriend and then Derek’s eyes turn blue which is apparently a really big goddamn deal, you guys.

This thing is, these flashbacks are just so boring. The actors who play High School Derek and Paige have zero chemistry. It’s filled to the brim with exposition, and the music score is over-the-top ridiculous that it makes this episode even more eye-roll worthy than it already is. Nothing at all happens that is of any consequence to the overall story, and the only new piece of information we get from this entire episode is that Gerard blinded Deucalion. Was this really so important that it needed such build-up? Who knows, maybe it will turn out to be important. But then the episode ends with Scott and Stiles doubting the reliability of our narrators, presumably because the writers have some big surprise down the road for us. So now we can’t even be sure if what we learned here is at all true, making this episode even more of a waste of time. (Cue next eye roll.) 

This episode was weak. There was no reason to show any of this. I'll write this off as a low-point and assume next week will show vast improvement.

Notes:

• “The Scorpion and the Frog” story is such an overused metaphor in television that it should be taken outside, shot dead, and buried six feet under. 
• Did anyone else hear the score of The Walking Dead at the end of every flashback? Was it just me?
• Guest Star Corner: Alicia Coppola of Jericho appeared tonight as Talia Hale.
• No Lydia = automatic point deduction.

My Grade: C-