#5a

Propaganda (if any) under the cut! Please be civil, and please reblog!

Written for @teenwolf-meta‘s Meta May Monday theme: Transformation.

I’ve talked before about how the conversation between Scott and Liam at the beginning of Heartless shows how much their dynamic has changed since season 5, but I also love how the plan to catch the Ghost Rider in Heartless (6x07) is a reversal of the one to catch the Dread Doctor in Strange Frequencies (5x07).

In both episodes, they’re trying to catch a supernatural enemy with a very risky plan, and eventually, in both, the hellhound will show up and completely throw things off.

But in 6x07, instead of crumbling under the pressure of trying to solve everything on his own, Scott has Liam, Hayden, Mason, and Corey to help him figure it out.

In 5x07, Liam angrily demands that Scott do everything he can to save Hayden--including coming up with a plan. Later, in 6x07, Liam is the one to come up with the plan. I think it’s significant too that he then goes on to doubt the plan (of bringing Theo back), specifically because he’s so worried and stressed about making the wrong choice re: Theo and Scott, as he ultimately did in 5a.

In 6x07, Hayden volunteers to be bait, rather than unknowingly acting as bait as she did in 5x07. She makes eye contact with Scott as she justifies it with “I’m faster,” and I’ve always interpreted this look as a significant one--that she’s forgiven him, and genuinely wants to help. You can see how much it means to Scott as he looks back at her.

Posey’s acting does a phenomenal job of communicating Scott’s despair in 5A, but I really love the almost childlike uncertainty he brings to the table in this scene from Status Asthmaticus.

Hayden’s dying, he’s fallen out with Stiles, Malia’s in the wind and Kira’s been gone for days, and he’s just seen the first glimpse of havoc the Beast is about to unleash, thanks to the busted school sign taking up half a halfway. And then Lydia texts him—a spot of hope!—so he goes to the library and can’t find her but when he calls her, he hears the phone.

But there’s no Lydia.

He’s already uncertain—there’s been a lot of steeling breaths and half-glazed eyes, and the almost dissociative way he spoke with Theo at the beginning of the episode—but there’s just something about the acting choice of holding the phone with both hands here that feels so small. Like a child clutching to a favourite animal in the dark, or a drowning man to a single piece of driftwood. He knows it isn’t going to help, not in any way that matters, but it’s literally all he has left to hold on to.