Spoilerfilled Teen Wolf rewatch: Second Chance at First Line
The episode starts with Scott in the dressing room, where he’s pretty much in shock. This scene is set only shortly after the final scene of ep one.
Stiles tries to find out what happened with Allison at the end of the first episode. While Scott is freaked out because he just found out that it was Allison’s father who shot him.
Scott is still both upset and distracted when the lacrosse practice starts, leading to him severely injuring Jackson's shoulder as his werewolf abilities make him lose control. He tries to warn Stiles, but ends up attacking him anyway, with Stiles barely getting away just in time to get his hands on a fire extinguisher to protect himself.
(and oh yes, Derek was stalking him, instead of doing something useful)
So from one moment to another Scott goes from everything being great, to realizing that he’s no longer fully in control of his own actions. After Stiles reminds him that it’s anger and violence that makes him change, Scott’s first reaction is to agree, and to bow out of the game.
The problem is that as soon as he gets home, he has to deal with his mom. Melissa is of course proud of her son making first line, something she probably knows he’s wanted for years. Even her concern as she realizes how bad he’s looking, having trouble sleeping (probably to do with the sleepwalking we saw last ep), she gets worried, and he quickly tries to distract her. Which leads to a fun scene with her worried he’s on drugs, and him shooting back if she ever was. (from the looks of it, she’s at least tried it 😉)
When Scott and Stiles talk on skype, Scott has to deal with the fact that Jackson, the team’s star player, is out of the game, because of his fault, because he hurt the guy. He’s suddenly stuck between keeping the team happy, his dream of playing first line, feeling responsible for Jackson being hurt, and knowing that he’s not fully in control. It’s just at that moment that instead of calmly explaining the dangers and trying to reason with Scott, that instead, Derek breaks into Scott’s bedroom, aka a sixteen year old’s bedroom, and flat out attacks him.
And this while Derek up to this point has done no effort whatsoever to try and even tell Scott, that he wasn’t the one who attacked and bit Scott in the first place. This would be an easy thing for Derek to do, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t even try and talk to Scott’s good nature, doesn’t try and warn him of the danger he could pose to innocent people.
Instead of any of that, Derek just threatens him, because Scott getting outed as a werewolf, could hurt Derek. Which in a way is the exact wrong thing for Derek to do.
Despite all that, Scott does indeed try to back out of the game, but of course he can’t just tell the coach that he’s scared that he might end up hurting anyone, he can’t tell him that he might wolf out, or that he could be a threat to anyone around him. So he’s stuck in a situation where there is no good reason he could possibly give to back out of the one thing he's wanted for years; while talking to an authority figure whom he deeply respects, a man who ends up threatening him into playing anyway.
In fact everything seems to conspire to get him on that field, his mother, Allison, the coach, all the people he actually wants to respect him, want him to play the game, even Lydia confront him about it, trying to manipulate him, and playing on his insecurities about his still new relationship with Allison. The fear of disappointing them all is just too much.
When Derek and Scott talk next, Derek is slightly calmer, but he’s still dismissive, and threatening in such a way that feels more like challenging Scott, rather than trying to change his mind. After all, as far as Scott can see, Derek’s bringing Allison home can be seen as a threat, especially when you keep in mind who her father is.
Does Scott want Derek to be responsible, so that he doesn’t have to worry about Derek’s threats if he played? Maybe some small part of him does consider this, but it’s not the only reason he finds Derek suspicious. In fact, he has a lot more reason to suspect Derek in s1, than Stiles had to suspect Theo in s5, yet somehow we’re supposed to act as if Scott is paranoid to think that this weird stalker, who’s threatened him more than once, might possible be the guy that hurt him, turned him and killed the girl they found.
When they go looking for the other half of the body, Laura’s body. Neither Scott nor Stiles have a clue whose body it is that they’re looking for. They have no idea of her connection to Derek or his full story. All they know, all Scott knows, is how Derek’s been behaving. And keeping that in mind, it doesn’t look good for Derek.
Once again, it’s Stiles taking unnecessary risks, showing another part of his character, in how natural it is for him to lie about everything, and how his father isn’t even surprised about this.
“Stop saying werewolf, stop enjoying it so much.”
Scott says it right, when him and Stiles are in the car and he loses control again. For Stiles, most of this is just a game. It’s Stiles who doesn’t realize how serious the situation really is, even though his life has already been endangered. But then this is the same kid who thought it would be fun to go out in the woods to go look for a corpse, not even considering that the killer might still be around.
Scott is still under the influence of the full moon when he goes to visit (stalk) Allison. But when he sees his face reflected in the window, it instantly spooks him enough to want to run away, and almost ends up with him getting run over by Allison’s dad.
Ending up with yet another reason for him to be unable to back out of the game.
It’s here that Scott is still allowed to express his frustrations, his wants, his needs, gets to be a kid ofr a moment, only for Stiles to make things worse by pointing out everything that could go wrong.
Jackson has to show just what an asshole he is, finding it more important to hurt Scott, than to win the game. Showing just what kind of character he is, aka the bully of the group. Scott being a werewolf hears Jackson’s words, sees the crowd support for Jackson, and is still under the effect of the moon, and still somehow manages to retain enough control to at least score and prove himself. It’s a moment of strength under fire that’s oh so easy to ignore, but really shouldn’t be.
And then just when things are finally getting too much, his wolf side too strong, and it’s Allison’s voice that breaks through just long enough for him to gain just enough control to hold on till the end of the game, long enough for him to get away from the team and try and be safe for everyone else, releasing his anger on a mirror instead of on a person.
After that it’s the wolf stalking Allison, a moment of horror that must have freaked out Scott even more, once he regained full control of his senses. The tension built up, so when Scott calms down enough to face her, to be honest to her, about being nervous at least, it’s a full release and stands in contrast to the start of the scene.
I love that Scott got that moment of happiness, of realizing he had managed to find control. Even if it was quickly ruined when Stiles comes to tell Scott the bad news, that Derek is out, and who the victim is.
The episode ends of course with Jackson finding a clue in Scott’s gloves, and Derek being his usual total creeper. I mean seriously, what’s he even doing, standing there, glaring at Jackson.
If he was there in case something went wrong with Scott, why not follow after the kid when he runs inside? No, that would be making sense, instead he’s standing outside in the dark, catching attention, by being an obvious creeper.
It’s just… It makes it incredibly hard for me to understand how fandom does NOT seem to get that Scott was entirely in the right to distrust Derek after the way he behaved.
But then people have always seemed to be more likely to hold Scott accountable for even the slightest mistake, no matter how young he is, while treating Derek as a woobie who can do no wrong, even though he’s the adult of the two.
Either way, the episode was a good follow up on Wolf Moon, a nice further exploration of the characters, letting us know more about them than the basic types. And Scott is just so totally human and loveable, right from the start.