Bitten Recap 'Summons'

Image from Bitten, streamed via Netflix

Season 1 Episode 1

As could be expected with a Pilot, Summons was a table setting episode, tasked to introduce the story and its characters. Elena was living a good life in Toronto with her hot, successful, often shirtless boyfriend Philip when she received a message from home. Unbeknownst to perfect boyfriend Philip, Elena was part of a werewolf pack, and Jeremy the alpha had summoned the whole family back to their estate called Stonehaven to deal with a crisis. 

A mutt (a werewolf without a pack) killed a young woman and dumped the body right outside Stonehaven. Elena was the pack’s best tracker, which was why it was incumbent for her to go home. Elena, however, would rather not see Clay again (werewolf ex boyfriend was my guess the first time I watched this show, and I was right), and resisted Jeremy’ call. She also bristled at the thought that the pack needed to drop everything else in their lives the moment Jeremy summoned them. Everyone around her told her to go, however, including you can’t be real you’re too good Philip, werewolf therapist Logan, and rock star werewolf Peter. Back in Stonehaven, Clay had already arrived, along with Antonio (pack money man) and his son Nick (introduced to us in bed with a girl and another dude).

Bitten is a chill show, the kind you can watch without investing too much attention or energy. When I watched the first season last year, it was at a time when I would often come home exhausted from work. An undemanding show was exactly what I wanted. The cast was also exceedingly pretty; it was as though Bitten took the CW mandate of prettiness (just to clarify, this is NOT a CW show) and turned it up a notch.

When the mutt was at a bar asking about the Danvers family up at Stonehaven, a local girl described them as ‘hot but weird’. With Summons, Bitten already had the hotness factor covered. Whether it would get weird, in a good way, remained to be seen.

Strays

■ Elena has quite an appetite. I am going to assume this is a werewolf thing.

■ If there were professors in my university who looked like Clay, well, I would have avoided his classes because there was no way I could have concentrated properly.

■ If werewolves did not run on a regular basis, the change would force itself on them. Logan advised Elena to run every week so she would not wolf out accidentally.

■ Elena’s Toronto peeps --- Philip McAdams, boyfriend. Diane McAdams, best friend who introduced Elena to his brother Philip. Becky, Philip and Diane’s younger sister who is getting married. Mrs. McAdams, Philip’s mother who disapproved of Elena.

■ Not killing a human for sport was a cardinal rule amongst werewolves.

■ Elena’s story to Philip was that she was in the foster system. She did not know about her family, and they did not know about her, until she was an adult. Logan was her cousin. They needed to go home because one of their cousins was in an accident, and they needed help with the kids.

■ Before going to Stonehaven, Elena joined Logan on a run. A coyote attacked wolf Logan, and wolf Elena helped out. Someone got a video of the wolves and the coyote.

■ Stonehaven was in a town called Bear Valley in New York.

■ Clay was at the gate when Elena arrived at Stonehaven.