Teen Wolf season 6, episode 5, “Radio Silence,” just finished airing, and Stiles has finally returned to our screens!
This week’s Teen Wolf wastes no time in showing us Stiles, who is sitting on a bench looking pale and sickly. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he has a touch of Void Stiles about him, what with the dark eyes and chapped lips, but that’s a nightmare from a different time.
The doctor from Lydia’s first vision in episode 2 is sitting next to Stiles on the bench, which solves the question of whether or not Lydia is seeing victims of the Ghost Riders.
Immediately, Stiles seems different from the others. He notices he’s still holding onto his car keys, and then begins asking questions. Everyone else is content to believe the easiest explanation — that they’ve only been waiting for the train for a few hours — but Stiles knows something is wrong.
Everyone sits patiently on the benches of Train Station #137 until an announcement comes over the speakers listing which of the following stops have been cancelled. The crowd gets to its feet and looks into the tunnel, where the Ghost Riders appear and drop off more victims of the Wild Hunt.
I know Teen Wolf has been touting the idea that Peter is a shocking new ally for Stiles, but in reality we saw this coming a mile away. Not only haven’t we heard a peep out of Peter since the final episode of season 4, but several moments from this episode were featured in the show’s first trailer for season 6.
Besides, Peter has worked alongside the pack for several seasons now, albeit reluctantly and usually to his own ends.
Peter, like everyone else, forgets the Ghost Riders once they leave the station. But not Stiles. I wonder why he so easily remembers what’s going on? It’s not intelligence — Peter has always been cunning himself. It’s not because he knows of the Wild Hunt — Peter was also familiar with the myth.
My only guess is because of Stiles’ connection with his friends in the real world. Peter had no one who truly cared about him. The old woman said she was visiting her grandchildren, but perhaps they were too busy to pay much mind to her when she existed in the world. Stiles’ connection with the rest of the pack would definitely be strong enough to keep him grounded in reality.
At long last, though, “Radio Silence” gives us the answer to the question we’ve been asking since season 5 — “Where the hell is Peter Hale?” It turns out everyone did forget about him because he was taken by the Ghost Riders on that fateful night, three months ago, when the pack rescued Lydia from Eichen House. He escaped during lockdown when the power went out, and was captured by the Riders soon after.
I feel like there’s a lot to dig through here with Peter’s psyche, between him carving the revenge signal on his cell floor and that scruff he’s sporting along with his messy hair, but we don’t have time for such in-depth speculation. I only pause to ask whether or not we’ll get some more deep v-necks anytime soon. I needs them.
If you haven’t already figured it out, the train station isn’t a real train station. Stiles tries to go through the doors, but always finds himself redirected back into the main room. Three episodes without Dylan O’Brien on the show doesn’t sound like a long time on paper until you remember just how good he is. He and Ian Bohen feed off each other, and between the snappy one-liners and the physical comedy, it’s no wonder this episode was so good.
Luckily, Peter and Stiles spot a potential ally, the only other person in the station who isn’t catatonic. He tells them there’s only one surefire way out of there — the tunnel the Ghost Riders travel through. It has a strange effect on them, in that none of them particularly want to walk across the threshold, but with a little push and a little pull, they make it.
Their new friend has a way out of the station, by jumping on the back of one of the Riders’ horses, but Peter wisely tells the kid to try it first before he attempts to follow in his footsteps. It’s a good idea that Peter is there to hold Stiles back because when the kid gets to the portal into the real world, he’s blown backwards and burnt to ashes.
I love the following scene between Peter and Stiles because it shows you just how broken Peter is in this moment. He’s always been pessimistic, but he’s given up all hope. Not Stiles. Stiles knows his friends will find him sooner or later, and he throws the question back in Peter’s face: “Who would ever come for you?” Considering no one had noticed Peter went missing three months ago and it took roughly a day for the pack to feel Stiles’ absence, the question isn’t off-base.
In Beacon Hills, Lydia spots the Jeep in the parking lot about to get towed, and she and Scott pay off the driver to leave the car in their possession. I love that Lydia doesn’t particularly know why she must rescue the Jeep, yet Scott doesn’t question her. After all these years, you learn to just trust Lydia’s instincts.
Later, when Stiles finds a room in the station with a radio, he begins to mess with it, which sends static through the radio in Stiles’ Jeep. The pack hear it, break into the car, and start snooping around. Scott notices their scents are all over the car to begin with, but no one can explain why.
As Lydia was rifling through the paperwork in Stiles’ glove compartment, I felt my heart leap. Will this be the moment that leads us to finding out Stiles’ real name!? No such luck, though I’m wondering if Peter throwing Stiles’ driver’s license on the ground in the tunnel will carry it to the outside world and provide us with the answer that way.
Unfortunately, the car has no record of an owner, though the registration does trace back to the Stilinski household, where Claudia says the Jeep was stolen 18 years ago.
The constant struggle to remain optimistic that Stiles is a real person is taking its toll on Lydia, and she leans against that fateful wall in the Stilinski home, crying and thinking of Stiles. Meanwhile, Stiles leans against the same wall in a different dimension, and that back-to-back of the two of them, despite reminding me a bit of Frozen, was absolutely heartbreaking.
As more people from Beacon Hills arrive, Peter realizes how dangerous the situation truly is and steps up to the plate. Since he’s supernatural, he can heal from the wounds inflicted by going through the portal. Stiles asks him to talk to the pack, and Peter, in typical fashion, says he’ll do it — but only if he feels like it.
For all his bluster, Peter does care. We know he cares about Malia, his daughter, but I think Peter is a bigger softie than he even knows. He gets through the portal, though he’s so charred he can’t even talk, and Malia and Scott find him. Together, they take some of his pain away, and each remembers him in their own way. Malia discovers Peter has the keys to Stiles’ Jeep, and I’m taking this as definitive proof that Peter doesn’t hate the pack as much as he wants everyone to think he does.
Lydia and Scott use the key to turn on the Jeep, and Stiles soon finds a way to make the radio work so he can talk to his friends. Neither one of them remembers Stiles fully, but Lydia recalls the last thing he said to her: “Remember I love you.”
The end of the episode brings us one final message from Stiles and one more clue as to the mystery of the Ghost Riders: “Find Canaan.”
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