Teen Wolf‘s wrap up of the Benefactor storyline is – in a word – convoluted. There are so many plot holes surrounding the revelation of the Benefactor and their method of operation that thinking about it too hard is just frustrating. 

“Monstrous” begins with Scott and Liam suiting up to go meet with Kira after she rescues hot, mean wolf Brett and his smaller pack member Lori. Liam asks to be dropped off at werewolf daycare instead, because he’s probably the smartest person on this show right now.

Scott and Kira take Brett, Lori, and the rest of Satomi’s living pack to stay at Chris Argent’s abandoned weapons factory, where they all decide to chill in one convenient spot and wait for the assassins to find them. Derek and Braeden arrive as back-up and make some fun threats about killing their potential killers. I’ve said it before, but Derek seems to be adjusting pretty happily to his life as a human-ish thing. Naturally, something will come and destroy those good feelings before long.

Meanwhile, Lydia hangs out at the police station and waits for Meredith to confess. No one seems to treat Meredith like the threat she allegedly is, and it becomes clear after she asks to speak to Peter Hale that she too is a pawn in this game of death.

Peter arrives and, after some confusion on his part, downloads Meredith’s memories of him via wolf claw. Lydia interprets Meredith’s murmurings and reveals that Peter had once conveyed to a comatose Meredith a crazy, confusing scheme about killing all the other supernatural creatures in Beacon Hills and making more in his image. Apparently, Meredith decided to take his ravings to heart, and carried out his plan. It’s such a weird, weak plot, and having Peter be the mastermind is just a total buzzkill. He’s so predictable, I would have preferred a new character. Or anyone else, really.

Stiles and Malia resolve their issues after being locked in a hospital room by Melissa. Personally, I hate when that scenario occurs in stories, because it’s such a cheap tactic and morally questionable to boot. Melissa, I know you can do better. In any case, Stiles and Malia make up and move on to some sleuthing at the Lake House after they recognize the sound of the record player from the murderous orderly’s tape.  There, they discover that the dead pool is being transmitted via ancient computers. In the wall. The wall that they have to tear down to access the computers. How exactly are those computers being manipulated?

Stiles and Malia manage to stop the dead pool just in time to prevent Scott’s and Satomi’s packs from being murdered by a group of assassins, though Scott almost kills an assassin in the process. Scott’s face begins to morph into the evil alpha face from season one, which likely means that he’ll have to deal with his monstrous urges in the future. Honestly, I think some serious inner conflict could do his character some good, lest his friends start getting too comfortable with his “werewolf messiah” role.

One such friend is Lydia, who reminds Meredith that Scott is a nice person who doesn’t murder people. Meredith’s motivations are pointless and muddled. Apparently she wants to avenge Allison, whom she didn’t know, and wipe out all the monsters in Beacon Hill because they don’t deserve to live. But how could she do something like that when she knows all of these nice, peaceful monsters? Meredith seems to realize the idiocy of her plan pretty quickly. In the end, I’m not sure why she’s involved in this at all. It doesn’t seem like something she would ever do, and it just added a whole layer of confusion to the Benefactor plot.

As it turns out, Peter is less oblivious to this plan than we thought. He expresses his desire to kill Scott to Kate, who seems equally eager for murder and mayhem. Still, I wonder why she’s working with him if she knows he’s the Benefactor. She worked very hard in the past to viciously kill all of the people who were hunting her. I thought that she wanted to get rid of the Benefactor as much as everyone else did.

I’m glad the Benefactor storyline is coming to a close. The pay-off is messy and unsatisfying, and with that out of the way, I hope we can move on to the more direct Kate/Peter/Berserkers storyline.

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