Actor Cody Christian returns to Teen Wolf Season 6 this fall. His return is surprising because his character, Theo Raeken, was dragged to hell at the end of last season after being a total jerk to everyone and killing a bunch of people. A common thing actors will tell you is that every character, no matter how evil, is the hero of their own story so there must be some good in Theo. Right? The answer is “NO!” but, with the help of Cody Christian Superfan and creator of the Theo & Deuc cartoon, Chan Vasquez, we were able to find 5 examples when Theo Raeken wasn’t a total jerk.
We had to dig pretty deep because Theo never did anything even vaguely nice without an ulterior motive. I mean, as a child, he actually killed his younger sister so a group of ancient supernatural scientists could turn him into a werewolf/werecoyote chimera (I kid you not) and that’s not the worst thing he did. In Teen Wolf Season 5 he killed the main character, manipulated everybody, crushed his “father’s” hand with a hammer and kicked a puppy. Okay, I made up that last one, but he did double-cross a werecoyote and she was kicked pretty hard, so, again, the key word here is “total” because, in every situation, the character is being somewhat jerk-like.
5. Theo Saves Scott’s Life
Theo didn’t start his run on Teen Wolf as the bad guy. His first night in town, in the first episode, he jumped in to help a struggling Scott in his fight with a garuda-clawed giant. Theo didn’t defeat the monster, but his timely intervention did give Scott a chance to catch his breath and bring the monster down.
He only did it to gain the good graces of Scott and his pack but, he did take a couple of good punches and some claws to the abdomen so it wasn’t a total jerk move.
4. Theo Helps Malia Track Down Her Mom
In Episode 14, Theo helps Malia to track down her mom, the Desert Wolf. This consists of him drugging her, strapping her to a chair and making her wear spiky magic goggles so she can “see” where her mom is hiding. Superfan Chan Vasquez believes that Theo actually shows some humanity throughout this bit. “She trusts him when he wants to give her an injection and he seems to really care when she had to try the (painful spiky magic) goggles,” Chan says.
Throughout this exchange, Theo is actually planning to double-cross her and get her killed but Chan explains. “Sure, Theo does nothing without having some selfish plan, but his genuine affection for Malia shines through.”
3. Theo Turns on the Dread Doctors
Theo seemed to be working with the Teen Wolf Season 5 big bads, The Dread Doctors, but always had his own agenda which was to become a real alpha werewolf with his own pack. When the Dread’s plan began to interfere with that goal, Theo began to actively work against them, “He turned against them and their plans,” Chan explains. In doing so, he managed to save some characters that were marked for death and revive (see #1 below) some others the Dread Doctors killed.
Theo even went so far as to try to kill their prize creation, the Beast of Gévaudan. “He wanted to stop the beast and deceived the Dread Doctors to do it,” explains Chan. While most of his efforts to thwart them were ineffective, he gets points for trying.
2. Theo Saves Stiles’ Life Twice
In Episode 6, when electric eel-chimera Josh attacks Stiles Stilinski at the hospital, Theo jumps in and protects Stiles by killing Josh. That’s kind of a moral wash, but we like Stiles a whole lot and hardly knew Josh at the time so this makes the list. Theo’s true motivation was to undermine Stiles’ relationship with best friend Scott.
In Episode 7, when Hellhound Jordan Parrish flips Stiles’ Jeep, Theo pulls him out of the burning wreckage. “Theo saved Stiles’ life!” Chan exclaims. “Stiles would have died because of Parrish!” Of course, prior to this moment, Theo had been manipulating Stiles, loading him up with guilt, convincing him he killed someone and reminding him that Scott would never forgive him.
Later, Theo would send a Berserker chimera, to attack and nearly kill Stiles’ dad, but, here too, Chan sees another true non-jerk moment. “He shows respect to Stiles, he doesn’t really want to hurt him and he’s surprised, very concerned even, that Sheriff Stilinski is dying.”
1. Theo Revives a Bunch of Dead Characters
Theo’s ultimate non-jerk move came in the mid-season finale of Teen Wolf Season 5 when he used the bodily fluids of a Nazi Werewolf to revive four of the chimeras he’d earlier helped to kill. That last bit sounds really strange when you read it out loud, but made perfect sense at the time.
Again, Theo brought them back for selfish reasons, but the characters (and the actor’s agents) were thrilled to be back among the living. Of course, in true jerk fashion, Theo promptly killed the half of them again in order to steal their unique abilities.
Despite all this obvious selfishness, Theo fans say his motives were understandable. “Theo wasn’t evil the whole time. He just really wanted to be accepted in the hearts of Scott’s pack,” says Chan. “I think, at least, his respect for Stiles and his affection for Malia was real.”
You can get caught up on all of Theo’s jerkiest moments if you have Amazon Prime. They just added the second half of Season 5 to their lineup and the DVD version will be out in October. According to Cody Christian, Theo will return from hell a changed man when Teen Wolf Season 6 debuts November 15 on MTV.
