Hello there! I’m Paul Rea and today I’m answering a question recommended by a viewer.
I should say recommended repeatedly by a very, very, very persistent viewer.
The question revolves around Stiles inside the Wild Hunt in Season 6
and, when it first came up, I honestly didn’t think there was an answer. But while I was
researching, I discovered I was wrong. Not only can I answer this question, I’ve rediscovered what
may be Teen Wolf’s most underrated comedy duo in Peter Hale and Stiles Stilinski.
If you enjoy these trips back to beacon hills, consider hitting the subscribe button and
maybe even the bell so YouTube can let you know each week when I post new content.
We didn’t get near enough Stiles and Peter scenes in my opinion,
this first one was very funny but all wrapped up in the emotion of finding
Scott and the always present danger that Peter might snap and kill Stiles.
But the material is laugh out loud when you watch it back knowing how everything turns out.
Stiles: Whose car is this?
Peter: It belonged to my nurse.
Stiles: What happened to your nurse? Oh My God!
The chemistry between these two - "chef's kiss".
Stiles: Where do you live?
Peter: In an underground network of caves hidden deep in the woods.
Stiles: Whoa! Really?
Peter: No you idiot. I have an apartment downtown.
I’ll be honest, the chemistry between Stiles and every character was pretty amazing but
something about the combination of defensive and offensive sarcasm here mixes really well
and unfortunately this combo was on display only a handful of times throughout the series.
Stiles: How old are you now?
Peter: Not as young as we could have been but not as old as you might think.
Stiles: Okay. That was frustratingly vague. How old are you?
Cora: I'm 17.
Stiles: See, that's an answer. That's how we answer people.
Keep in mind that by the time we find them together in the Wild Hunt,
Peter had been away from the show for like 25 episodes
and we’d not seen Stiles since he was taken by the ghost riders.
When this episode debuted I was so caught up in my emotions over seeing these characters again,
I actually missed some of the important nuances that turned out to be very important to the plot.
First to establish the canon here is important – this train station is a physical manifestation
of a non-corporal plane of existence that isn’t inside the wild hunt but also
isn’t in the real world. We are between dimensions here and everything you see,
benches, the arrivals and departures board, ticket booth, train tracks, doors, and speaker system
it’s part of the connection between our world and the wild hunt.
The tracks represent the path between worlds while the speaker and radio equipment represent
whatever force is maintaining the barrier between the dimensions. We learned all about
this in season five with the dread doctors and their use of vibrational radio frequencies.
Surgeon: We're on a frequency you can't possibly imagine.
It becomes clear later in Season 6 when the ghost riders or Douglas and the Ghost Riders
plug Corey into this machinery. He’s the only character capable of seeing and touching things
beyond the barrier so plugging him into it allows the real world and the station to fully merge.
I went down a rabbit hole there – bottom line, the train station is multidimensional concepts
masquerading as physical objects.
Wait – one more thing below the bottom line - it’s also important to point out that we catch up
to Stiles immediately after he was taken back in episode one. The train station is a wibbly wobbly
timey wimey thing but I won’t go too much into that – it’s sufficient to say that time is passing
much more quickly outside the train station - so this episode is showing everything Stiles was
doing from the start of the season and it’s all happening on the same day from his perspective.
Okay – I think that’s it for the fictional science stuff.
In this inbetween space we find Stiles and Peter. Stiles becomes self aware
because the keys in his hand are a relic that connects him back to the real world.
It reminds him of his past, which the others here seem to have forgotten.
Peter then sees Stiles and becomes more aware. But after the rider leaves,
Peter quickly reverts to the “waiting for a train” coma state of the other passengers.
Peter: I'm waiting for my train.
Stiles slowly wakes him up by forcing him him to think about the situation logically.
Eventually the memories come back and Peter is fully awake returns to his snarky self.
Peter: This looks like the underground lair of a depressed bureaucrat.
Now, I could run through all their one-liners but
you should really go back and watch the whole episode again.
Okay, just one more.
Peter: Take your time. No rush. The only thing at stake is any evidence of our existence, soon to be lost forever.
Stiles: Okay, not helping.
Love it. Now onto the question that started this whole thing. How did Stiles know to tell Scott
and the Scooby gang to go to Canaan. I mean, he had a lot of choices on that board and they’re
mostly all ghost towns or areas of the world that saw a dramatic drop in population at some point.
But Stiles picked Canaan
and the only explanation I can come up is that Stiles and Peter are psychic bros.
Okay, it’s not all that crazy. Stiles obviously picks up on
Peter’s strong reaction as Peter is reading down the list of towns.
Peter: ohhh.
Stiles: What is it?
Stiles: What are those places? Bannack, Canaan? I know you know something.
Stiles specifically mentions Canaan out of all the choices because he realized Peter was reacting to that part of the board.
The fact that Peter is suddenly willing to try the portal is significant because Stiles knows
that Peter would not do anything that might get him killed unless there was no other choice.
There’s also the heartwarming bit about Malia, but the flashback shows Peter
actually saved his own skin at Eichen House rather than helping her so I did not get the
same “he’s doing it for his daughter” vibe that Stiles was picking up here.
No, Peter knew that one of the towns on that board had been fully consumed by the wild hunt
and he realizes that the only reason for a way station like this one to exist
is if the wild hunt got stuck for some reason.
Peter would have been a little kid when all this happened in Canaan,
but it might actually be legendary among the supernatural community. He knew
all about the wild hunt and he would have heard how they took everybody in one nearby town.
So Peter gets out and Stiles stares at the board.
He mentions Canaan two more times and something clicks in his brain.
Stiles: Pripyat, Bannack, Canaan, Beacon Hills.
Stiles: Canaan.
Of course, in reality, Stiles had already heard of Canaan once before.
Parrish: Like how, a month ago, Canaan PD helped you get home after blowing a point one on a breathalyzer.
Stiles: No.
Yeah. This was in Season 4 and obviously wasn’t about the same Canaan. The one in Season
6 was taken by the ghost riders back in the 80s so they don’t have a police department.
The fact they reused the name is just another in a line of Teen Wolf production mistakes.
I’m thinking this one was due to turnover in the writer’s room and a general lack of interest in
continuity throughout the run of the show. Either way, in this moment in the multidimensional train
station Stiles only connection to the name was through watching Peter react.
So, while this isn’t a definitive answer to our viewer question,
it appears to me that Stiles picked up a psychic vibe from Peter’s freaking out and
then relayed it his friends to send them to the other local ghost rider ghost town on the list.
Okay, thanks for watching and while you’re here do all the YouTube things, like the video,
comment with your theories on why Stiles picked Canaan or whatever you want
and subscribe if you feel like it. I’ll see you next time we go back to Beacon Hills.