These are my ups and downs for Wolf Pack episode 108, Trophic Cascade.
The writer of this episode is show creator Jeff Davis.
The director of this episode is executive producer Jeff Davis.
The Director of Photography is Rich Paisley.
Episode 108 is also the first season finale of Wolf Pack and will serve as the series finale
unless Paramount Plus gets off their executive asses and renews the show for a second season.
Obviously there are spoilers ahead. Go away if you haven't seen it because this one is really
fun and I've gone out of my way to make this video make zero sense unless you've seen the episode.
We begin in the freezer where Austin has just stabbed Baron with the silver-dipped knife.
While this whole sequence of events from Baron's perspective gets an up,
there's also a down here right away.
This is the last you're going to see of Austin outside of flashback in this episode.
His thread is completely left hanging and that is
a big sad-face down for me because I happen to really love the character.
As I said, the following sequence takes us inside how Baron actually
experiences the mental link with the rest of the pack.
It's all ups, ups that go all the way up!
These are memories and perceptions of memories,
from each pack member all mingled in with Baron's own perceptions and experiences.
I go more into that in canon observation.
I know that recasting the parental roles in this was partly for fun, but it also gives us a real
sense that this is not 100 percent accurate information that we're experiencing here.
Plus, I mean, huge up for Kristin as Kendra in these scenes.
Kendra (Kristin): He looks drugged. Doctor: Well, your son was just given
70 milligrams of a rather powerful anesthetic.
David (Ranger): We're here for
the therapeutic benefit, remember? Kendra (Kristin): I certainly hope so
because otherwise we just spent three thousand dollars to get our son high.
Are you kidding me? So good right out of the gate!
Roberto (Ranger): What's the problem with me looking at my wife's messages?
Blake's Mom (Kristin): The problem is you're not looking, you're digging.
This is the first time we're seeing Blake's mom... sort of.
An up for the return of the prepubescent Luna and Harlan.
Austin: Why do you keep drawing me?
This is one of those examples of memory mingled with perception,
specifically Luna's fear that her crush might reject her.
Baron: He got caught.
An up for keeping it surreal whenever possible as Baron's own memories begin to come back.
This is just wonderful all around.
Baron's been in beast form for a while now.
His human mind is just beginning to grapple with this and it's all mingled with the
memories of people he doesn't really know but he actually knows on a level of unmatched intimacy.
All of that comes through in technicolor throughout this
sequence and later when the rest of the fire memory resurfaces.
I've separated out this Cyrus moment from the rest because it's important.
This is a recent Harlan memory, but that's 100 Baron talking there.
Baron: I don't like you Cyrus: How come?
Baron: Because you're a threat.
And I'll kill anyone who threatens my pack.
And it shows that, despite all his protestations to the contrary, on some level he approved of what
the beast was doing, killing anyone who even slightly annoyed the pack members.
Danny: Nice to meet you. Kristin: Do you remember me?
We never got the chance to say hello.
I'm gonna jump ahead and give an up for the Kristin Ramsey
keeping people alive by shaking their hand thing.
You know, when this happened initially I felt it was awkward.
I mean that first time with Everett was just weird.
But it's brilliantly threaded throughout the season.
Alas our mental journey with Baron must end and we're back in Everett's bedroom with a
silver poisoned kid and four other teens who have no clue what to do.
An up for Harlan having the panic attack all on his own. All this should be panic inducing.
I mean gah!
I'm gonna toss in a down for new assertive Everett.
There's a line. On one side, there's finally
standing up for yourself and feeling confident and stable.
On the other side of that line is just being a dick.
This is a down for dick Everett.
Don't get me wrong, I still love his journey this season and I love him,
but I really wanted to smack him hard right now.
Luna: oh God
Blake: How do we know it's not the silver that's keeing him from changing back?
Luna: We don't! We don't know anything.
Huge up for this admission from Luna. Even as canon-obsessed as I am,
I like it when the characters are figuring out stuff on their own without any help.
Mistakes lead to drama, which makes for good TV.
Luna: Tell us what to do. Caller: Find a way to get
that silver out. Or let him die. and break the bond.
An up for mysterious caller creating a true quandary that splits the pack.
Let Baron die and you'll all go back to the way you were before.
A nice neat solution to escape all your recent problems and Blake is on board immediately.
Blake: Let him die. Everett not so much.
You can tell Luna is hurt by the idea that Blake would just dump their connection so quickly,
plus you know, letting someone just die instead of trying to help them.
Okay, I have to give an up for how sexy all this close-talking between Ramsay and Briggs is,
but I don't really want to
knowing what I know about her now.
I just cannot bring myself to see this scene the same way the second time around.
She's turned creepy for me.
Blake: What do you think he can do? Everett: You mean like us?
Blake: You're strong. I'm fast. We each get one thing.
Huge up for the discussion of powers.
Complex explication that flows naturally in a scene - that is my drug of choice for real.
I have an up here for Jeff Davis being so
real and opening up about his own feelings in this Everett speech.
Everett: You know what anxiety does for me? It makes me want to [ __ ] die.
That doesn't feel like a survival tool to me.
That is so true for so many people and is just so upworthy.
Briggs: Is there anything you haven't told me? Luna: Yes and no.
Up for Luna being over the BS.
That look. Her transition to salty is subtle over the first half of this episode.
Honestly, I thought her heel turn later was a bit abrupt,
but on second viewing you can see the process.
All of this gets an up - from Kristin's subtle manipulation,
to the gadget, to Cyrus confessing to a lesser crime, to the boys' banter.
It's all just really quite wonderful.
And up here for moving the story along and never getting bogged down.
Keep in mind that Harlan and Luna were actually brought in for further questioning,
but we don't actually need to see that so bam! Interrupting police with an anonymous tip.
Huge up for Danny. He is precious and if Kristin
Ramsey or Baron harms one hair on that boy's head, I'll...
Well, I will launch a strongly worded complaint because they
are badass werewolves and I'm scared of them.
But I really love Nevada Jose's Danny in all of this. He's been so wonderful.
Briggs: I know all we do right now is argue. I'm sorry I couldn't figure out how to fix that.
Okay this gets an up.
If you watch my review of School Spirits or the new Gotham Knights pilot, you might
be surprised that an overly emotional scene like this one gets praise for me.
But this is exactly the right way to do this kind of content.
You do not stop all forward momentum to have a discussion about feelings or weepy time.
It has to be super short, flow naturally as part of the plot and push the main story forward.
This scene with Ranger Briggs about-to-die recording is perfect for that.
It's brief. We've already been given the context way back in episode one, so we're up to speed.
And it prompts the characters to immediate action.
Luna: We need to tell Garret about Baron.
Okay, this next bit gets a down for being a little spatially confusing in its presentation.
Is she really in the house?
Is this part of her mental connection to the pack?
I mean, I get it if it's all mind stuff, but then there's
this moving shadow in this one scene and that suggests she's actually in that room.
I was distracted by not being clear on this one point.
And as you should know by now,
any production choice that takes me out of a scene is gonna get a down.
Overall, the fact that Ramsay has been stalking the Briggs gets a big up,
mainly because it's part of her motivation and her creepy cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs family reunion plan.
Briggs: Where is he?
Huge up here for telling a parent.
I know it sounds all preachy, but damn y'all.
Sometimes parents are absolutely the right answer to complicated questions like "what
do you do with a fellow teen that's dying of a stab wound?", tell a parent.
That's another up for Harlan stepping up for Everett here.
And another up for the completion of Luna's heel turn. Maybe it's not completely fair
calling it that, but she definitely has fallen from her high of finally finding her pack to
the rock bottom of realizing that close human interactions are complicated and often suck.
It's not a pleasant journey, but it is an important one for her character.
Okay I'm just giving one big up for the absolute
[ __ ] over Jeff Davis gives our little pack in the end.
CPS custody for Danny and Blake.
A 72-hour psych hold for Everett.
And straight up incarceration and a murder charge for Harlan.
Mr. Davis does not play around when it comes to delivering real
world consequences for supernatural behavior.
My up above all ups this week is for Kristin Ramsey and her Manson family values plan
to get Baron to bite both Ranger Briggs and little Danny and then live happily ever after.
Kristin: Luna can have the pack that she's been searching for.
and Harlan can have the father that he has always wanted,
in you.
Insane, but such good TV.
And a final up for Gideon Emery with a silver-plated ax. Absolutely iconic!
Over to canon observation.
Quickies up top.
Silver does indeed kill werewolves, albeit slowly.
And, if Baron dies, the pack dissolves and the people he bit go back to normal.
Let's talk about the mental link the pack shares, which we see unrestrained after Baron is stabbed.
Partly he's reliving moments from each member's life and partly he's
experiencing their perceptions of those moments.
It is a very intimate form of communication.
Austin: Why do you keep drawing me/
Best example is this scene from Luna's mind.
We get her fear of Austin finding out how much she likes him and then rejecting her.
She probably could not articulate that herself because that level of
self-reflection and self-awareness isn't common,
but because the mental link between the pack is so complete and Baron's consciousness
is just now re-emerging and is wide open to everything, he is privy to these deeper layers.
And then we start getting to Baron's memory. Such great stuff.
This is actually a slightly altered replay of the scene from episode five.
Take a look at what happens when you place the dialogue over that earlier scene.
Baron: Wait, I know you. You're like me. We're the same. It's okay, I'm not gonna hurt you.
It's just so good, brother wolf there talking to little Harlan. Uh, love it.
But then they've got Briggs seen as the ultimate danger. Now that doesn't get
explored but it is interesting especially in light of Kristin's plan for happy families.
Okay, we learned that she is indeed the twin's mom...
if we believe everything she says, which I still find her a little suspect.
But we'll go with that, that she is the twins mom.
We learned that Kristin started the fire.
Now, I honestly don't know what to think about that.
Malcolm is as crazy as she is,
so I don't know if he's being honest or just blaming everything on her.
I can't imagine her trying to burn her son. Maybe she didn't intend for him
to get caught by the flames, just to make him flee out of the woods like the other animals.
That's the only thing I can grasp hold of in
trying not to think that she is the real monster of this series.
Speaking of monsters, Malcolm. Dude is rotten.
Yeah, yeah. All his friends got killed and he was scared by a werewolf,
but damn man you managed to survive.
You got an awesome and chill son in Rainer Dawn and a decent job in the medical field.
Quit your bitching.
And we get the full Avengers roll call of individual powers.
Harlan is hearing. Luna is smell. Blake
is speed. Everett is strength. Kristen is healing apparently.
And baron is transmutation. He can turn people into werewolves.
I love the hint in the dialogue here that there's a much deeper well of lore yet to be explored.
Kristin says "what used to be called transmutation". That
indicates to me there's some lost knowledge or knowledge old enough
and well known enough that some terms are now considered archaic.
I love that. I really hope we get a chance to explore that.
You need to start pushing Paramount Plus to renew Wolf Pack.
I know Jeff and some of the cast will be at WonderCon next week,
so that would be the perfect time for them to announce a season two.
But the latest information that I have is that no one
in the production has any clue about the future of the show at this point.