Teen Wolf Review: “Time Of Death” (Season 4, Episode 8)

Teen Wolf has created a general grey area when it comes to death. In “Time of Death,” fans watch for the second time as Scott (Tyler Posey) takes his turn advancing the narrative by faking his own. Last season, he was one of three characters who temporarily died to ascertain the location of the Nemeton in order to save innocent lives and take down the Darach. On tonight’s episode, the plan was more or less the same – draw out the benefactor and save all the local supernaturals who haven’t already been crossed off the deadpool list.

This episode had a lot of layers to it. Not only did viewers get to experience the present scenario, but they also got a peak into the lead-up, along with a few pressing peripheral plot points – Derek (Tyler Hoechlin) learning to adapt to a life without the benefit of his supernatural assets, Malia (Shelley Hennig) as she struggles to reconcile finding out that Peter (Ian Bohen) is her biological father, and Lydia (Holland Roden) discovering a family secret that may turn out to be a real game changer.

Most of the characters were tied up with the main event – luring out the benefactor. Scott doesn’t do much more than lay there really, but we get a little insight into his subconscious while he is dead (err, unconscious). Surprisingly, the only characters that are co-starring in his dreams were Liam (Dylan Sprayberry) and The Mute. It was a little hard to tell what the underlying message of his thrice resetting experience was, but something tells me that Scott is going to have to embrace some of the finer points of being an Alpha to defeat whatever evil is looming over Beacon Hills this round.

Scott’s accomplices for this plan come with various degrees of approval, including both his mother and Kira’s (Arden Cho). Coming up with this idea seemed very much like something within the Teen Wolf wheelhouse. It isn’t the first time, and will doubtfully be the last time, that we see the characters put themselves in near death situations to either make a point or procure a certain response. In this case, even when viewers were led to believe that the plan had failed based on the lack of physical appearance by the benefactor, the potential sacrifice was able to move the story along in a big way, which also ties nicely into what Lydia discovered with a little help from her mother.