Teen Wolf Review: “The Benefactor” (Season 4, Episode 4)

The matriarch of the Calaveras family let Scott (Tyler Posey) and his traveling companions go with one stipulation,“When you take the bite of an innocent, when you make a wolf of your own, when you do that – I will cross your border and come knocking at your door.” Well, that sounded like an acceptable bargain at the time, until Scott was forced to make a choice on last week’s episode of Teen Wolf and decide between letting Liam die, and holding onto him, with his teeth.

As a result, the new kid at school is going to also have to deal with becoming the newest member of Scott’s pack. Liam (Dylan Sprayberry) spent most of this episode going through a rather rough first transition, and really, it’s understandable. Yesterday (in TV time) his biggest concern was getting injured at lacrosse tryouts and disappointing his parents, and today he’s experiencing all the joys that go along with coming to terms with being a werewolf.

Over the course of the show, viewers have seen a handful of characters experience the first transition for themselves – Scott, Isaac (Daniel Sharman), Boyd (Sinqua Walls), and Erica (Gage Golightly) – and none of them have been particularly pleasant. Although, the realization that Liam was a prime candidate for anger management classes before becoming a werewolf doesn’t help matters.

As the Alpha, Scott is supposed to be able to evoke some kind of control over his pack. Yet, in “The Benefactor,” he doesn’t seem to be able to control Liam until it’s nearly too late. In fact, Liam’s strength dwarfs Scott’s on several occasions. If it wasn’t for the welcome return of Argent (JR Bourne), who re-enters the Teen Wolf universe for the first time this season on tonight’s episode, coming back with almost painfully accurate timing, Scott may have experienced a less productive ending to his evening.

Besides simply lending a much needed hand during this scene, Argent delivers a spectacular line that adds comic relief to a tense portion of the episode: “I got your text.” A statement that carried over a joke from the previous episode, and ranks as one of the best lines of the season (so far).