Teen Wolf season 6, episode 7, “Heartless,” just finished airing, and not only did the pack catch a Ghost Rider, but Lydia realized who Claudia really is.
The episode begins with Theo’s recurring hallucination that his dead sister is there to rip his heart out of his chest over and over again to take back what was once hers. He comes out of it to see Malia ripping him to shreds, and all he can say (to both Malia and his sister) is, “It’s okay, you don’t have to stop.”
Could this be the new and improved Theo Raeken? Perhaps Theo has finally come to terms with what he’s done, not only to his sister but to all of them, and feels as though his punishment is deserved. I’d love to see Theo try harder to be one of the good guys — as long as he gets to be just as sassy as he’s always been.
The pack does stop Malia from attacking him, but Scott isn’t happy with Liam right now. The Alpha wants Theo back in the ground, but somehow Liam convinces Scott it’s a good idea to keep their former enemy around. He knows about the Wild Hunt and he knows about Stiles. As long as they keep the threat of returning Theo to the Skinwalkers hanging over his head, the guy is most likely to cooperate.
Last week Liam said Theo was his responsibility, and this week we see that put into action. They slap Theo in chains and drag him to and old transformer, which according to science will allow them to capture a Ghost Rider and keep him locked up long enough to interrogate him.
Everyone knows that when the team is doing science, they need Mason. And everyone knows that where there’s a Mason, there’s a Corey. The little pack the could actually does succeed in catching a Ghost Rider, but there’s one major problem. How do they talk to a walking corpse?
You need a Hellhound for that, apparently. Mason is obviously the one to realize Parrish can get the Ghost Rider to talk, so they call in the deputy to act as translator. Except the Ghost Rider has the ability to control Parrish and the Hellhound attempts to set him free. Liam and Scott stop him before it’s too late, but while they’re busy tending to their burns, Mr. Douglas pops in to harass Theo and attack the Ghost Rider.
There’s history here. Not only does Theo know who Mr. Douglas is, but Mr. Douglas knows who Theo is, too. The younger werewolf refers to the older one as Hauptmann, which means Captain in German, and tells Mr. Douglas he should reveal his true identity to the pack.
But the secretive Alpha has more important things to check off his to-do list. After throwing Theo to the side, he attacks and kills the Ghost Rider, eating its pineal gland like he’s been doing all season. Is it just me or was the Rider’s gland much, much bigger than the last one we saw? It must have extra special powers, too, because Mr. Douglas’ eyes turn green and he uses the Rider’s whip to make Corey disappear without anyone realizing it.
While all of this is going down, Malia is chasing her own lead that she hopes will pan out better than Theo. That lead is, of course, her father, Peter Hale. Melissa takes a little too much pleasure in stabbing him with the concoction of nine herbs, but it does the trick and he heals almost instantaneously. Considering the portal and the whips have similar magical/electrical energy, it makes sense that this would work on both Chris and Peter.
After hitting on Melissa (and getting dropped on the floor), Peter reluctantly follows Malia to the spot where he came through the portal from the train station. After berating her for having no self-preservation instincts, he sacrifices himself to the Ghost Riders so she can get away. Luckily for Peter, they heard their fellow Rider in pain and let him go.
I love Peter’s story arc so far this season, as short as it has been. I’ve always felt he’s a good guy underneath it all, but he’s a little too cunning for his own good. He does manipulate people for his own gain, but that doesn’t necessarily make him evil. He’s done some pretty terrible things in his past, but I’m hoping Malia’s influence on him means he’s turning over a new leaf.
Elsewhere, we see the continuation of Sheriff Stilinski pulling the wallpaper back in the hallway, revealing the door to Stiles’ room. He enters and finds that it’s empty, but it does seem to be proof that something is going on here. Claudia denies it, adamant that it doesn’t mean anything and that they should just leave it alone.
But the sheriff doesn’t want to leave it alone, and neither does Lydia. She tells Sheriff about Lenore, who was left behind by the Ghost Riders and somehow conjured her dead son Caleb back to life. Lydia is convinced the sheriff did this with Claudia, but I’m still confused as to how he would’ve been able to. Lenore was a banshee, connected to the dead, but the sheriff is human. Did the Ghost Riders have any influence over this?
Either way, the mystery of Claudia has been solved. She is, in fact, dead, and although she is technically real in that she can interact with people and the world at large, she is not meant to be there. The sheriff was simply filling the void left behind when his son was taken. Lydia feels as though Claudia is hiding a secret, and I wonder if she knows more about the Ghost Riders than she’s let on.
In Stiles’ room, Lydia can see it come to life before her eyes, but Sheriff Stilinski is hesitant. He is afraid to remember his son, afraid for what this means for his wife, and yet, when Lydia throws him Stiles’ jersey toward the end of the episode, he catches it and he finally sees. He finally believes.