Okay, I’m going to need to spend a little bit of time talking about that last panel, because holy crap, that “YES!” was nearly unhinged. My love for this scene is off the charts - NOT ONLY because I don’t see any pedastal-ing of Lydia here, but because we’re three episodes in and Stiles is ALREADY fraying. I understand why Jeff Davis decided to jump four months in the timeline - it makes sense to reset everyone to a more even keel, even if in my heart of hearts I want all the angst. But man, Stiles did NOT end last season in a good place (however much they wanted us to think that via that final lacrosse scene), and I don’t believe for a second that he actually dealt with any of his issues.
This just reinforces that for me. He’s had four months of relative calm, four months where he got to repress repress repress and pretend he didn’t have anything to do but play lacrosse with Scott. Only now, within the span of DAYS, he finds out there’s an Alpha pack in town and that Erica’s (supposedly) dead. He’s dealing with the fact that Boyd and Cora are loose and probably going to kill someone, that Scott’s desperately trying to stop them before that happens, that Heather’s gone missing, and that Lydia has somehow stumbled across yet another body.
And I love that in this moment, he loses control; all of that underlying tension and fear and desperation break through for just a second, because shit’s going to get BAD again, he knows it. There’s no fucking question. I feel like this is him trying to keep control of the situation, but it’s already slipping through his fingers. He’s not going to be able to keep Scott safe, or Lydia safe, or his DAD safe. Things are spiraling already - before the night’s over, he’ll know that Heather’s dead, that he couldn’t do a damn thing to protect her.
He’s 16 years old, on no PLANET should he be someone’s first call when they find a body, but here he’s convinced he should be, because if he knows everything, if he has all the facts, then maybe he can stop it. Maybe he can keep the people he cares about safe.
(Don’t mind me, I’ll just be sitting here, waiting for his complete and total obsession with this mystery to start. Because if he can figure it out, he can stop it. And if he can stop it, then everyone he loves is safe.)