WARNING: If you don't want to know what happens in this episode, don't read this photo recap!
In the woods, we meet Trevor Resayas, a man taking it upon himself to spray the area with wolf urine to keep deer away … and, thusly, to discourage participants of deer hunting season. It's a touchy subject for Trevor, as once upon a time he lost his own younger brother, Mike, to a hunter's stray bullet.
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Trevor has little time to drink to the memory of his brother before he's attacked by a creature from the woods. It's a wolf, natch — Alexei, to be exact, and now we know whose blood was all over him at the end of last week's episode.
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Clay and Alexei are retracing Alexei's wolf-steps, trying to track down Trevor to see whether he's a) dead or b) alive and, you know, about to turn into a werewolf himself. Alexei is both enthralled by and terrified of the instinct and bloodlust that drove him to attack Trevor, something that Clay says he must learn to control. When you're a wolf, you have to hold on to the part of you that's still human … and remember that every would-be meal is a human being, too, one with hopes, dreams, a family, the whole shebang. Who are you to take that away, furry-face?
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Clay and Alexei finally find Trevor's body, dead from an animal attack … and with no trace of his own transformation, much to Clay's relief. Alexei despairs that he may be unable to control himself accordingly during his next transformation, though Clay gives him some inspiration: a voicemail from Trevor's wife, Sonja, telling him that she loves him. Clay gives Alexei the dead man's phone as something to hold on to as he holds on to his humanity.
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Back in the shipping yard conference room, Jeremy is tending to the wounded Karen, who is confused by her dream of a "contorted animal." Jeremy commences with trying to find out how much she knows and if he can indeed trust her.
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Karen admits that she hasn't been taking her retirement too seriously and took to tailing the suspicious Russians; when she saw Jeremy's vehicle outside, she became all the more concerned. Karen tells Jeremy that she has friends in the FBI to help him with whatever situation he's in, but Jeremy says that would only make matters worse. He's just a man trying to protect his family. Does she understand … and, more importantly, does she respect that? As a woman who has put her career before family until recently, she most certainly does … and assures him that she can walk away from this situation, no questions asked.
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As Jeremy helps Karen to her feet, she's suddenly struck with the memory of Alexei transforming into a wolf. Jeremy is heartbroken that she remembers, and does what he has to do … with Roman's belt buckle blade, to be exact. "I'm so sorry, Karen," Jeremy whispers as the former sheriff dies in his arms.
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Elena's just about had enough of rules like "humans who find out about werewolves must be killed," rules that seem to do more harm than good, rules that break hearts rather than keep families together. Take her father Sasha, for instance, whose injuries she's tending to at Stonehaven ...
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As was revealed in the previous episode, Sasha fell in love with Elena's mother, Natalya, who was Roman's daughter; when Roman found out that she had witnessed Sasha transforming into a wolf (how he found this out is anyone's guess), he was left with "no choice" but to kill his own child.
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Sasha went into hiding and left Elena in the care of nurse at a hospital; when he returned months later, baby Elena had been adopted by the parents she knew and loved.
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Hearing this tale, Elena is bitterly reminded of when she first met Jeremy, who was prepared to murder her because he thought she had witnessed Clay turning into a wolf. Their secret! It doesn't protect them, it kills them. And Jeremy almost killed her. Everything he does, he does to protect his precious Pack.
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Sasha begs Elena not to hate Jeremy for doing what he needs to do. Elena is, after all, the heart of the Pack. Without her, there's nothing.
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Just then, Jeremy calls Elena. He heard she had spoken with their associate Jorge, who's just landed in Syracuse upon finding a line of credit card transactions that has revealed Roman's whereabouts in Southern Ontario. Jorge will take care of disposing of Karen's body while Karl Marsten and Zachary Cain have been called in to help defend Stonehaven from any Russian retaliation.
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And Jeremy? He's off to find Roman … on his own. Elena begs him to take reinforcements, but it's something he must do himself. "It's appropriate that it was a Russian, Dostoyevsky, who said it best," says Jeremy, and quotes: "'The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive but in having something to live for.'" Jeremy thanks Elena for giving him something to fight for, above and beyond Pack rules … and Elena forgives him for the extremes to which he must sometimes go.
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Just then, Clay and Alexei return to Stonehaven, with Clay carrying an envelope he found at the front gate. Plugging the thumb drive found therein into the laptop, Clay and Elena watch a video of Karl Marsten being brutally beaten by unknown forces … though we imagine they're probably fond of vodka, comrades.
