Bitten Recap 'Family, of Sorts'

Image from Bitten, streamed via Netflix

Season 3 Episode 1

Part of my frustration on the early episodes of the second season came from this desire to learn more about the werewolves. The expansion of the story of the werewolves was briefly paused as Bitten pivoted to the introduction of werewolves and exploration of Aleister as the villain. Later in the second season, Bitten eventually melded the stories of the witches and the werewolves well, so that the show went into the second season finale strong. The witch part of the Bitten tale remains, but the third season opener saw the show firmly back on werewolf territory. Bitten explored the nature of the Pack, introduced a more dictator-esque Jeremy, showed more about the lives of werewolves outside the core members of the Pack and started to delve into the history of Elena via a man who claimed to be her father, Sasha Antonov. I have not watched ahead so I do not know if my optimism is misplaced, but I am hopeful that Bitten's third and final season will be a good one.

The first member of Jeremy's pack that he lost was Pete. Next was Antonio, a huge blow not only because he was Nick's father, but because of the integral function he played on the Pack as an all around fixer, money man, and Jeremy's second. The third loss was Logan, a loss I am still in denial over. Nick's boyhood friend Joey Stillwell was brought into the inner circle, but he died, too, killed by a sniper bullet meant for Jeremy in this episode. Jeremy only had Clay, Nick, and Elena, and he had a large territory to rule over. The decision he made affected every single werewolf in North America. There would no longer be a choice between Pack or mutt. A werewolf was either a member of the Pack, or he did not exist.

Image from Bitten, streamed via Netflix

Though Elena followed Jeremy's orders, she was not happy about this change of the rules. Elena argued that there was no way to know if the werewolves who were now to be made part of their Pack were joining because they really wanted to (the answer is no, many of them just did not want the other option, to die painful deaths).

The radical change in Jeremy's way of leading the Pack was not without merit. There was now only four core members of the Pack left, and a large territory to police. Elena and Clay could not fly out to every single location in North America where there was a werewolf issue. After the challenges to Jeremy's rule, it was also no longer safe for him to live as he used to at the start of the first season, when he was all right with being alone at Stonehaven, with no security. At the very least, Nick did not seem averse to hanging out at Stonehaven all the time, which he would not be able to do if he, too, would have be sent out on Pack business. Delegating the less sensitive tasks could be good for the core Pack members.

Having a large number of werewolves under their command also opened the Pack to betrayal. With only a few core members, Jeremy was certain that every single member of his Stonehaven family was loyal to him. Even someone like Logan, who had a life outside of Stonehaven, who eventually wanted out of the werewolf life, could be trusted to be around Jeremy without stabbing him in the back. The former mutts who were coralled into the Pack were not Stovehaven loyalists. As was shown near the end of this episode, one of these new recruits was already working with Eduardo to kill Jeremy.

Image from Bitten, streamed via Netflix

Eduardo was kicked out of the Spanish Pack, along with his brother Pablo, for his actions in the second season. He was now back and intent on killing Jeremy. Pablo was the shooter who tried and failed to assassinate Jeremy using a long range rifle. Joey happened to be at Stonehaven at that time and caught the bullet instead, because poor Nick just had to lose another person he was close to. Can we please stop hurting Nick? Jeremy and his Pack caught Pablo and brought him back to Stonehaven, where Jeremy and Clay tortured him until he gave up Eduardo's location. By the time Jeremy, Clay, and Nick arrived there, however, Eduardo and his accomplices had managed to slip away. Jeremy wanted all hands on neck in the search for Eduardo. Unfortunately, one of the werewolves who were given a Jeremy cell phone they needed to answer immediately when it rang was working with Eduardo.

Elena had not joined the hunt for Eduardo because she was in town getting the supplies Clay said they might need; with Pablo tied up in the basement, there was a good chance they would be getting rid of another body soon. It was outside a store that Elena was approached by a human girl, Katia. She came with her father Sasha and her brother Alexei, both werewolves. Elena tried to leave, but Katia managed to blackmail her into speaking with Sasha. Sasha said he was Elena's father.

Image from Bitten, streamed via Netflix

Even back in the first season, when Jeremy was more of an indulgent father to Elena than a Pack boss, Elena already chafed under his leadership. It would be interesting to see how Elena would cope with this more dictatorial Jeremy. Elena had already mentioned wanting to have a separate place with Clay. I hope the addition of people who claim to be her family would help explain why Elena was the only female to have survived a werewolf bite with her faculties fully intact. Looking forward to recapping the final season of Bitten!

Strays

■ Elena told Sasha she ought to call her family, to tell them there was a human who knew about werewolves, a violation of their most important rule. Would she have made that call? She did not even tell anyone when Rachel saw her turn whilst they were captives of Aleister. Jeremy only found out because Aleister in Clay's body told him.

■ Nick has been visiting Rachel and baby Rocco, who were in hiding. Rachel has been sending postcards to her family, pretending to be in Bali with Logan. She has not yet told her family that Logan had died.

■ What is up with the electricity in Rachel's safe house? Was baby Rocco affected by magic?

■ When Elena wanted to visit Rachel, Jeremy said no. Jeremy had not yet decided what to do with Rachel, who was in violation of a core werewolf tenet, a human who knew werewolves existed.

■ Elena told Paige she kept seeing Savannah's premonition; she has not told anyone about it, not even Clay. Paige said Elena would keep seeing it until it happened.

■ Sasha found out about Elena Michaels from a mutt who passed by the area where he lived, a mutt who was trying to get away from the new Pack order of join us or die. Sasha had clearly not been keeping up with werewolf news; he thought the Sorrentinos were still head of the Pack. According to the mutt, changes started happening when a female werewolf joined the Pack. Sasha became very interested at the mention of Elena, and killed the mutt.