Why Is Lydia In Eichen House On 'Teen Wolf'?

Scott has always been the wolf in charge around Beacon Hills, and Stiles is the heart of Teen Wolf, but it's about time teen genius ginger queen Lydia got her season in the sun. She deserves it after being left out and lied to, only to pretty much save everyone's lives once they finally got around to telling her that there's a bit of a supernatural infestation at Beacon Hills High. No, I wasn't thrilled that it looks like that moment in the "sun" will be actually be a murky grey as Lydia is in Eichen House, but she knocked the first six minutes of the premiere out of the park on Monday night. She singlehandedly gave me hope that Season 5 of Teen Wolf will be a marked improvement from a slightly, uh, overly complex Season 4.

Not that the idea of having an entire season (or half season) take place in a flashback knowing that it ends with a broken Lydia proclaiming all of her friends' imminent deaths is not complex, but it's definitely interesting. The show's creator, Jeff Davis, has been open about Season 5A's first 10 episodes being a flashback, so starting the season with that intense and confusing six-minute glimpse into the future sets up some clear questions about the forthcoming present. How did Lydia end up in Eichen House? Who's keeping her there? Why does she seem totally out of her mind? What about those never-before-seen powers? And is all of this really happening at all? In a season centered around "The Doctors" as the main Big Bad, there are a couple of glaring theories to explore..

Doctor Valack

At the end of an already crowded Season 4, we were introduced to a number of new characters and settings as Uncle Peter was taken into a special wing of Eichen House... what appeared to be a wing dedicated to the holding of supernaturals. And, if possible, it was even more desolate than the rest of Eichen House where we'd previously seen Stiles be slowly possessed by a fox demon. But this supernatural wing held someone who we were clearly supposed to recognize as important — Peter's new roommate, Dr. Valack. He made his first appearance when vet/mystery-man, Deaton went to visit to him to get some answers about how Kate Argent zapped Derek back into a teenager and weakened his born werewolf powers. The answers were apparently held in Dr. Valack's... third eye! This third eye supposedly has the power to drive people crazy and trap them into their own minds. Does that sound like something that could happen to a high school senior trying to keep all her friends from dying?

Dr. Valack and his third eye (which also sent Peter into a screaming fit when he looked into it at the end of Season 4) is the likeliest explanation for the opening scene of Season 5 all taking place in Lydia's head. That doesn't mean what she's saying isn't the truth, but perhaps there's still hope for her to get out of Dr. Valack's head and therefore, out of Eichen House. After all, Deaton was sent into a coma after he looked into Valack's third eye, but he was able to wake up and relay the information he found there with the help of — you guessed it — Lydia Martin.

Doctor Deaton

Speaking of the mysterious Dr. Deaton... he's been known to mess with a teen's psyche or two. Remember that time he told Scott, Stiles, and Allison that the only way to save their parents' lives was to stop their hearts and basically die for a couple of minutes while their friends held them down in ice baths? And then they retreated into their own minds to find the answer... and that answer was a tree. Kind of crazy, but ultimately helpful. What if this is all a way for Lydia to discover her own powers? We've certainly never seen her karate-kick a guy in the face and then knock a couple more down with bolts of light before. Whether this is all in her head or not, it seems likely that the McCall pack is in trouble, and I wouldn't be surprised if Deaton and Lydia are joining forces again to try and save them (even if Deaton's plans are always, ugh, the worst).

The (Other) Doctors

You may be noticing a sort of... medical theme to these theories. After all, the only thing we really know about Lydia's descent into madness (we don't even know if it's madness!) is that it lands her in Eichen House, a mental institution, so it makes sense that Lydia might have been put there by any number of doctors circulating her crew in Beacon Hills. And while in normal life, that might mean a scrubs-and-stethoscope type, in Teen Wolf life, it's more likely to mean the gas mask-wearing, teen-abducting, tar-injecting type. From what we've seen of this season's Big Bads, they're no strangers to messing with a teen girl's mind. Poor, sweet Tracy still doesn't know what's real and what's fake (spoiler alert, all the bad stuff is real) and she's well on her way to going full Doctor drone.

The appearance of Aiden, who's supposed to be dead, almost certainly implies that much of the flash forward is taking place in Lydia's mind, but that doesn't mean some of it couldn't be based in reality. Her trip to Eichen House could very well all be part of a plan to exploit her powers to get to Scott McCall (what tar man with the glow-in-the-dark talons was trying to do in the premiere).

Lydia. Is. A Banshee.

All of this really revolves around the mystery of Lydia's Banshee powers. As smart as Lydia is, some things can only be figured out through experience, and she has spent much of her high school career trying to use powers that she doesn't understand. It's possible that Lydia ended up in Eichen House through very obvious means — being constantly surrounded by death finally got to her. But with the presence of Aiden, the premonitions of her friends' deaths, and the power orbs shooting out of her body, it seems that something a little more sinister is at play... something more sinister than just hearing dead people's voices in your head all the time. Good luck this season, Lyds.

Images: MTV; Giphy (2)