Assassins Are The Least Of Their Worries Now

Now this is just scary. On Monday night, Teen Wolf introduced us to a scary new disease that threatened to wipe out everyone at Beacon Hills High School, including Scott, Stiles, Malia, and Kira. While part the Wolf Pack were trying (and failing) to ace their PSATs, this new mystery disease was discovered on one of their fellow students in the exam room and on lacrosse coach Bobby Finstock. The CDC rushed into the high school and quarantined off the premises, leaving Sheriff Stilinski, Derek, Dr. Deaton, and Melissa McCall to find out more about this disease and its possible cure.

So far we know that the disease seemed to originate with the wolf pack led by Satomi — the same pack of werewolves that was bitten and not born. The disease was used as a weapon and infected and killed all of the wolves in the pack. So what exactly do we know about this infection and how will the Wolf Pack stop it? Well, after Melissa McCall and Dr. Deaton do an autopsy on an unlucky werewolf who succumbs to the disease, we have a name for it: Canine Distemper. And we have a few details about the disease itself.

We're not sure exactly how Canine Distemper affects humans, other than giving them a terrible rash and making them pass out. We do know that for those humans, after a few hours they're essentially cured of the disease, or at least they survive. Supernatural creatures, however, are not so lucky.

Werewolves are affected seemingly quickly. First, they lose the ability to control their shift; their claws and teeth come out at random. Then black blood begins to ooze out of their bodies, which is their bodies' way to try and fight the disease. This also happens when wolves are poisoned with wolfsbane and other attacks. The wolves then become blind, have seizures, and finally, they are killed rather quickly.

For Kira, the affect seems to be quite different, but equally disturbing. Her symptoms are neurological and she can't quite control her powers either. In real life, canine distemper is an extremely contagious viral disease that affects the respiratory, urogenital, gastrointestinal, and nervous systems, starting with the lymph nodes. The virus has no known cure in real life, but thankfully this is Teen Wolf and anything is possible.

According to Dr. Deaton with the help of Satomi, the cure seems to be a very rare flower called "the wild purple" reishi. And thankfully again, Derek seems to have a stash of it, despite its uniqueness. After Scott's dad busted into the school and killed the man responsible for spreading the virus, Simon, Stiles was able to run to his friends and let them know what they needed — and just in time.

"Weaponized" may have been a hard episode to watch, thanks to Canine Distemper's gross symptoms and the fear of losing one of our favorite characters, but it was all worth it in the end when we got to see Stiles save the day.

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