Duck Fox

There are a lot of ways to handle death on a television series. Both plotwise and character wise. You can use the death of a character, whether minor or major, as a stepping stone to more aggressively move a story arc forward, or you can slow down and explore what the deceased meant to the other characters on the show. It's also possible to do both, but unless a TV show has created an atmosphere of breakneck plot twists and heel-face/face-heel turns every few episodes, it's hard to prevent shortchanging character for plot or vice-versa. Bitten opts to take the best of both worlds, but it doesn't quite have what it takes to tug at your heartstrings while simultaneously keeping you at the edge of your seat.

"Grief" opens on the minimalist funeral for Pete. The only individuals in attendance are the residents of Stonehaven, and they're barely done toasting to Pete when they hear the howl of a werewolf. After a short chase scene where the group loses the Mutt in the woods, Elena takes a minute to discuss the difficulty of balancing her life with Logan. It's rather unfortunate that the show is still sprinkling in bits of Elena's human life. I mentioned in an earlier review that there's little need for Elena to struggle so much with her werewolf and human sides, because there are numerous excuses she could craft that are believable and probably pretty true. Telling Phillip that Pete passed might make him think she's having really bad luck lately, but he certainly wouldn't suspect anything is out of the ordinary.

Thankfully, Elena decides to go see Jeremy before Logan starts complaining about how hard it is "pretending" to be an incredibly successful psychiatrist with a beautiful girlfriend... Elena and Jeremy's conversation is much more revelatory, with Elena mentioning she's never grieved for anyone before, as she was only five and thus too young to really understand her feelings when her mother died. Their conversation reveals an interesting dynamic, with Jeremy enunciated he feels as though Elena were his own child and Elena being angry that Jeremy's not taking steps to avenge Pete. Elena runs off and alleviates the tension she's feeling with a run, being joined by Clay.

Jeremy, meanwhile, goes to talk to the sheriff whose expanded role is actually doing wonders for the show. Though her role still consists mainly of eying Jeremy suspiciously and asking seeming innocent questions about his connection to the murders at Stonehaven, she's definitely much more savvy than your average small town cop. She even takes a minute to reach out to her retired predecessor about the Danvers, and apparently Stonehaven has seen even more mysterious occurrences-- a few years ago a telephone lineman was called to the property, but he was never heard from again after driving up there. They found his car later, but no sign of what had happened to the lineman himself. I'm guessing he became wolf food.

After their run, Elena and Clay take a roll in the hay- literally. Okay, so technically it's leaves, but point is they have sex, Adam and Eve style. They return to Stonehaven and Nick and Logan realize what happened (having a nose that's that accurate has got to be more of a curse than a blessing...), but the two play coy. Later Elena makes it clear to Clay that their sleeping together was a mistake. But this being a kinda-sorta love story, their compatibility gets mentioned by gossipy girls in diner when they go back on the hunt for the Mutt.

And on the hunt they go. After checking out a diner where one patron has a particular dislike of Clay (don't worry, Elena nips his violence in the bud by casually catching his fist mid punch), Elena and Clay pick up the trail of the Mutts at a hotel and check it out, only to find the new Mutt, Thomas Leblanc, is an escaped convict, same as the old one. They also see familiar Mutts named Kane and Karl Marsten enter with the newbie. They hide in the adjoining room, Elena using body spray to cover their scent, and then escape out the window before any of the Mutts catch on.

After regrouping at Stonehaven, Elena and Clay fill everyone in, and Jeremy realizes Kane and Marsten are likely planning to take out all of Danvers clan. This scene is intercut with Daniel Santos, an old pack member and great great grandson of an Alpha, visiting Logan. Daniel asks for Logan to convince Jeremy and Clay to let him join Stonehaven to deal with the Mutts. Of course, Logan is skeptical as Clay killed Daniel's brother some time ago.

The episode closes with the Stonehaven gang heading back to Mutt motel. Clay leads the charge, but before he can open the door Elena pulls him out of the way. Good thing, too, because a shotgun was rigged to shoot upon opening the door. With that trap out of the way, they head in safely and see an empty room. At least empty of people. It seems to be pretty full of rage, though, judging by a note scribbled onto the walls by one of the Mutts, saying they will be coming after Elena for their notebook. They also call her a bitch, which I find weird because I have to doubt Elena would be offended by that.

In terms of character development, the first half the episode definitely made up the bulk of actual forward progress. Elena's grieving process is fairly straightforward, but we do get to see a bit of how she and most of the other members of the pack come together to deal with such a loss. That said, Elena's backsliding by sleeping with Clay felt a little too tacky. I get that she's having trouble dealing with Peter's death, and what could make you feel better than a roll in the hay with Clay? But her casual sexcapades right after talking down to Jeremy about how he wasn't doing anything to avenge Pete struck an odd tone. Especially when she basically insists it won't happen again. But I've never had much patience for the "will they, won't they" thing.

What's great about this particular post-death episode is how easily it slides into moving the plot along. After the first half of the episode, with the small exception of Phillip and his little sister talking about Elena (BTW, what was up with Natalie Brown's speech? It sounded like she was hiding an accent, but she's apparently Canadian so I don't know why she sounded so weird) and how perfect she is for him, every single scene seemed to further the plot along.

While "Grief" didn't really blend the plot and character aspects together as well as a more seasoned show might have, it did escalate things in Stonehaven, and the fact that Pete's dead means the storyline has real stakes. If the show manages to just get rid of Phillip, it'll really be something to look forward to in the coming weeks.

Getting Our Ducks in a Row:

• Daniel Santos and Karl Marsten are shaping up to be truly great antagonists. Marsten in particular is really creating that "love to hate" kind of a vibe. 
• I keep saying get rid of Phillip- and meaning it- but I will miss Natalie Brown's Diane:
• "I'm a woman. We just know things."
• Also, if they get rid of all the human world stuff then Logan's girlfriend would be gone too, and we'd be left with just Elena and the sheriff for female cast members. This whole "women aren't born wolves" thing kinda sucks for the show.

Grade: 8.0/10