Hello there.
Of all the character arcs on Teen Wolf, the most complex and satisfying had to be Theo Raeken.
I'm not taking anything away from Stiles really, his Season 3 arc was peak television and his
complex performance in Season 5 is worthy of loud praise.
But Theo Raeken had that rarest of all things in genre television, a solid villain arc followed
by a satisfying redemption.
In most shows, either the bad guys aren’t really bad from the start or they’re misunderstood
or they’re too young to know better or like Micky Milkovich: they’re all three.
With Theo, we got a classic scene-chewing panto baddy in Season 5 who ends up in a hell
dimension and learns how to be human in Season 6.
Good stuff all around.
But Theo’s is a complex tale. It is way to much to cover fully in one of these videos.
So, today, I’m just looking at three key aspects of Theo’s story.
And I’m going to do my best not to wander off on a tangent and I will do my best
not lapse into Dr. Phil-type annoyingly-accented armchair psychoanalysis.
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Valack: There's no record of a heart condition. But a transplant would make Theo a genetic chimera like the others.
There are three things you need to know about Theo Raeken.
First: he was always seriously damaged, a sickly kid in mind and body.
Theo: In fourth grade, you had an inhaler. I had one too.
I remember this day when I ended up in the nurse's office with an asthma attack, a bad one.
I was waiting to get taken to the ER. You told me what would happen when you go to the ER for asthma.
How they give you oxygen and an IV of prednisone.
You made it sound easy, like everything would be okay.
And since Scott seems to remember that story (if not all the specific details) we know that
part of Theo’s life is true.
Also, Theo was severely mentally ill.
The boy had one of those vaguely described but widely used television mental disorders
where the kid who vivisects the neighbors dog grows up to be an FBI-taunting serial killer.
In this case, Theo apparently took his crazy directly to watching his sister die so he
could have her heart transplanted into his body by the geratric members of a supernatural
leather fetish club.
It’s not completely clear how or why Theo hooked up with the Dread Doctors.
Honestly? I think they recruited him.
I mean, he was a sickly kid with severe mental problems and they were looking for a vessel
for a legendary serial killer with infinite mental problems.
They must have figured they’d hit the jackpot, especially after how long it took for his
sister to die with little Theo just standing there and occasionally arching an eyebrow.
I also think Theo didn’t understand that if the Dread’s experiment worked, he would
disappear completely.
Child Theo thought he was signing up for the werewolf health plan to clear up his asthma
and give him superpowers.
He doesn’t strike me as the type to donate his body to science while he’s still using it.
We’re not told what happened to him in the several years between the transplant and the
Dreads return to Beacon Hills.
I mean, was Theo just hanging out with them?
Did he help them dig the holes for the chimera bake?
These are things I wonder about.
I imagine they experimented on him for a while at least.
He was their first Chimera that didn’t just fall apart when you poked it.
I think they’d want to know why that was and also
why they couldn’t graft Sebastien’s essence into him.
I imagine a lot of poking and prodding in the intervening years.
But, by the time they returned to Beacon Hills, the Dreads had a very important role for Theo.
This is the second aspect of his story arc. Theo had a job to do when he came back to town.
He had a job, but he also had his own plan that pretty much contradicted his employers’ wishes
First, the job. The Dreads would try a frontal assault on the town’s Alpha werewolf with Belasko.
If it worked, Theo would be there to pick up the pieces of the pack and keep them out
of the way while the Dreads went about their business.
Since Belasko’s attack failed, Theo was tasked with interacting with Scott and the
pack and directing them in ways that would avoid conflict with Dreads while at the same
time maneuvering them into certain necessary situations, like the visit to Eichen House.
Y’all know it was Theo who planted the book in Tracy’s room. Right?
Theo: The book worked. Now they're going to see Valack.
They're going tonight.
Schrader: Please empty your pockets into the container.
The Dreads needed Kira in Eichen House because her recently enhanced abilities would interact
with the security system enough to allow the Doctors to get in.
Yeah. That was all Theo.
Of course, he then needed to get rid of Kira because she was now way too powerful.
So, he first undermined Scott’s trust in her and planted the dead body at the McCalls’ home
All that just to get her either arrested or sent away.
That’s was just one of a myriad of attacks on the confidence and stability of the pack
in the overall effort to undermine and weaken Scott.
All this was partly his job and partly his personal plan.
You see, Theo didn’t really care if Dreads succeed. I don't think he expected they would.
He just wanted his own personal power to grow in the process.
His plan was always to take out Scott.
Theo hoped that he could do it in a way that would allow him to get the Alpha spark.
Basically – Liam kills Scott and then Theo kills Liam.
After that failed, but the Dreads were able to bring back the Beast of Gevaudan, Theo
adjusted his plan.
He quit his job and dumped the Dreads altogether, stole their go-go juice, and made his own
pack with one thing in mind, steal whatever power made the Beast so big and bad.
That’s why he sent his legion of super rejects to find Deucalion,
Because Deucalion knew how to steal power.
He then led the b-team into Eichen House to get Lydia.
Lydia could draw out the Hellhound, the Hellhound was destined to bring the Beast.
Theo gets his shot.
That was his plan and we all know how it didn't turn out. Deucalion’s deception, Theo’s
greed for power that killed most of his pack his spectacular failure with stealing the beast power.
and finally the confrontation with a very pissed off Kira in the tunnel.
So, then Theo went to hell or a generic hell dimension designed by the Skinwalkers.
This was his punishment for all the bad stuff he’d ever done.
And, as the audience safe in our homes, we felt good about that.
A true villain gets what he deserves.
Yay!.
Then we get to Season 6 and those diabolical Teen Wolf writers set about the very difficult
task of redeeming one of their most irredeemable characters.
I mean, seriously, everybody talks about how bad Gerard was.
Theo literally killed multiple characters including Scott, destroyed Stiles emotionally,
shot Malia and much, much more.
He was the single worst person on the show.
But those writers are super dooper smart and just as manipulative as Theo.
They bring him back and we find out that the generic hell dimension he was in was actually
an endless cycle of non-surgical heart resections at the hands of his super-pissed off sister.
We don’t actually know how long this went on but just in the course of what they showed
us, we were all like 'Okay little girl from the ring, He’s sorry. You can stop now.'
So, just like that, in just a few minutes of screen time, we’re feeling sorry for
Theo.
Then they took the next step, they paired Theo with the character he had directly damaged
the most.
While others were killed and emotionally wrecked in Theo’s wake, I think Liam suffered
the most.
Theo turned Liam into the thing Liam feared the most; an uncontrolled rage machine.
This is the nightmare Liam keeps locked away in his heart and Theo ripped it out and made it real.
LIam: They can't know about this. I can't do this to them again.
The way they looked at me when they saw what I did to that car.
They can't see me like this.
That's what you don't get. I want to kill you. I want to.
So these genius writers, knowing exactly how to manipulate us poor brainless viewers, paired
Theo and Liam on a series of adventures.
They wrote clever banter and placed the former villain in situations where he could sacrifice
himself and prove that he’d changed.
Theo: Being the bait.
Then they go further.
Even after all his good deeds, Theo is homeless
[Sad guitar]
Living in his Toyota, and afraid or ashamed to reach out to Scott and the pack.
The writers then rinse and repeat with more comic scenes between Liam and Theo and more
heroic sacrifices.
Theo: I'm not dying for you. Liam: I'm not dying for you either.
[Elevator bell and growling]
By the end, Scott’s actually calling Theo an ally and while he may not be fully forgiven,
he’s definitely fully redeemed.
Thanks for watching.
Remember to like the video and I know I missed a lot so tell me in the comments.
I’ll see you next time we go back to Beacon Hills.