Teen Wolf season 6, episode 2, “Raw Talent,” just finished airing, and it’s clear that the show is not shying away from a storyline that’s more than a little relevant these days.

It’s been clear from the start of Teen Wolf season 6B that the series’ writers are looking to make a statement about America’s current climate, whether it’s about those who feel they can take matters into their own hands or about the fear of those who are different.

Ms. Monroe is the new guidance counselor at Beacon Hills High School, and it’s evident that she isn’t exactly who she appears to be. Caring and determined to get her students to open up to her, she’s also hiding the fact that she knows exactly what kind of secrets a town like Beacon Hills can hide.

We initially see Ms. Monroe talking to the seniors as she individually helps them with their upcoming class schedules. She talks with Liam, Corey, Mason, and a new character named Nolan. She does care about their course loads for the year, but it’s also obvious she’s trying to get more information than some of them are willing to part with.

She’s most direct with Mason, who’s smart enough to realize Ms. Monroe may know more than she’s letting on, but it’s her interactions with Nolan that tell us she’s aware of the various supernatural presences in town. Nolan talks about having seen the Beast in the library, growing angry when it’s referred to as merely an animal attack. He can’t quite explain it, but he knows there aren’t just plain old wolves in their little Californian town. Some of them are more than just natural creatures.

The guidance counselor is unable to get a straight answer out of Nolan, but when she later hears Parrish and Halwyn fighting in the school as she’s ready to head home, we find out that she’s actually an amateur hunter who has taken on the responsibility of ridding Beacon Hills of its monsters all on her own.

Throughout the first and second episodes, we see her awe and fear of creatures like Halwyn, a Hellhound, and Brett, a werewolf. “You don’t deserve to have this much power. You don’t deserve to terrify people,” she tells Brett. Dr. Fenris, who runs Eichen House, has a similar feeling on the subject: “Then I realized we shouldn’t be caging them,” he tells Parrish, referencing supernatural creatures of all kinds. “We should be killing them.”

But what gives Ms. Monroe and Dr. Fenris the right to play God? What makes them the best people to make these decisions? The truth is, they aren’t. Ms. Monroe is an amateur at best, who has more luck than actual skill. She very nearly could have died when she went up against both Halwyn and Brett, but a weapon and a healthy does of good fortune puts her on the winning side in both circumstances.

It is evident that this is a commentary on the current state of America, in which citizens have taken up arms, perhaps without the proper training, and feel that it is their right to police their own neighborhoods in order to keep themselves “safe.”

But safe from what? Is it up to them to decide which people are the criminals? The reason we have a justice system and a police force (setting aside, for a moment, any corruption) is because the average person has their own prejudices and are not capable of rational thought in a tense moment.

Ms. Monroe cannot distinguish the difference between evil or misguided creatures, like the nogitsune, Jennifer Blake, or Kate Argent, a former hunter herself, versus creatures who have done more to save the town than even the humans. Brett is not evil. Scott is not a bad guy. Even Jackson, who was responsible for plenty of destruction and lives lost, could not help what he was doing, nor did he even know it was happening at the time.

Those people do not deserve to be treated the same way as the monsters whose sole purpose is to systematically wipe out the residents of Beacon Hills, and yet because of their ignorance, people like Ms. Monroe and Dr. Fenris cannot see the shades of difference between the supernatural creatures who call this town their home. And because of that, innocent lives are being lost, much as they are in America every day.

It’s this ignorance that breeds fear of the unknown.

The residents of Beacon Hills have long been victim to the supernatural, and in Teen Wolf’s final season, we’re finally seeing the show tackle this storyline. It really is the perfect way to end the series, as it not only allows them to reference past occurrences, but it shows that the buildup of six seasons worth of supernatural happenings isn’t going unnoticed.

In the first two episodes alone, we’ve already gotten several moments where characters in the show have noticed that something strange has been happening in their town. Nolan mentions the Beast, while a student in one of the classrooms calls out, “Why does this keep happening to our school?” when the rats come flooding in.

Later in episode 1, we see Liam lose control of his abilities in the hospital when he’s punched in the face. Several people see his yellow eyes, fangs, and claws. In episode 2, Scott accidentally attacks Sheriff Stilinski and one of the deputies asks, “What’s wrong with his eyes?” We even get a montage of students in the school moving away from the pack members and looking at them like they’re afraid of what they might do.

It’s clear these residents are not blind to what’s been happening over the years in their town. “What are they afraid of?” Malia asks the pack. “Us,” Scott answers.

The fear is compounded by whatever creature escaped the Wild Hunt when the group rescued Stiles from the Ghost Riders. It’s also obvious that Gerard Argent will be using this heightened sense of anxiety to control people like Ms. Monroe and get them to do his bidding. Despite whatever supernatural influence there is right now, this terror is deeply ingrained. It can’t be amplified if it wasn’t there to begin with.

Teen Wolf perhaps gets most transparent when Corey, Mason, and Liam are talking about the history test they need to take the next day, which is on “Mussolini and fear-baiting and the rise of fascism.”

All you need to do is watch the news and it becomes clear that Trump, his current administration, and certain factions of the media use fear-baiting to rile up citizens of the United States, making them fear anyone who is different from themselves. In the same way Gerard Argent is using the current landscape to accomplish his own objectives, so too are many of our political leaders.

Art imitates life, and it’s exceedingly obvious to me that Teen Wolf is taking a stance on the current political climate. This series strives to lead by example, the most obvious being that since the series began homophobia has not existed in this world, and I cannot wait to see how the show will handle the fearmongering that is already brewing amid its characters.

I can only hope they can show us a solution we can apply to our own lives as a way to defeat those who wish to do us harm. No matter what happens on Teen Wolf season 6, I am confident Scott and the McCall pack will find a way to win in the end — and that will give us hope for our own future.

What do you think of the current storyline on ‘Teen Wolf’ season 6?