It’s a dark and stormy night, as Cory sits at his desk in the suburbs of Philadelphia. He writes with a quill pen, stolen from his mother’s feather duster, carefully documenting his transformation from teenage boy to WEREWOLF. (cue eerie music).

It all started the night before when Mr. Feeney told Cory that a wolf had escaped from the Philadelphia Zoo. Feeney warns him not to put the Matthews Family trash outside, but Corey doesn’t listen. And that’s when the wolf bites him. Only the next day, there is no bite mark. This can only mean that the bite came from a werewolf because your standard, run-of-the-mill wolf would definitely leave a mark.

The next day he’s hairier. Eric tell him that this could be the first signs of a werewolf transformation. He shows him a tabloid newspaper and Corey takes it seriously. After hearing about werewolf sitings on the radio, Cory seeks out the help of a medium. She mistakes him for Billy Joel at first, but she does confirm that Cory is well on his way to becoming a full-on wolf. She paints a picture of what’s to come:
Corey will develop an insatiable appetite. He will develop a pentagram in the palm of his hand. He will descend into madness and gruesomely kill the girl who “cares for him.” (Topanga, duh. But Cory doesn’t think she likes him, so he’s not worried.)

Meanwhile, Mr Turner is busy teaching Lord of the Flies. Cory arrives late, having spent too much time having his fortune told, and is given three days of detention. When Mr. Turner catches him writing a note to Shawn, Cory’s first instinct is to eat the paper. But he’s horrified to realize that an urge to eat paper just might be that new appetite he’s developing because of the wolf thing.

Mr. Turner asks to see Cory after class. So Cory sits down on Mr. Turner’s desk and picks up his keys. I guess he feels more familiar since Mr. Turner is basically Shawn’s dad. Mr. Turner has a pentagon key chain, which Cory apparently thinks is the same thing as a pentagram. He runs away and bumps into Topanga, who says that she can tell him if something is wrong because she cares about him. OH NO!

Desperate, Cory returns to the medium. She tells him he won’t kill Topanga until the full moon, which unfortunately happens to be that very night. Cory begs her to tell him how he can stop himself. Apparently, all he has to do is have someone he loves shoot him through the heart with a silver bullet. Woah. This just got reaaaal dark.

Things reach a fever pitch when Cory asks his dad to throw a silver picture frame at him “really, really hard.” Cory’s dad tells him that he’s not turning into a werewolf and it’s probably just the beginning of puberty. But Cory resists and tells him that he’s definitely turning into a canine. His dad says maybe it’s time to start shaving and goes upstairs to get a razor. At which point, Cory looks at himself in the mirror and sees a werewolf staring back at him.

So now here we are, where we started, with Cory writing his manifesto in ink, using a piece of a feather duster. Topanga then shows up, ready to go to the Halloween party. Cory tries to get rid of her before the full moon rises. But Topanga is confused by his freakout and tells him that he’s perfectly normal and needs to chill the eff out. (I’m paraphrasing.)

Cory’s all like, “I’m not a wolf! I’m not a wolf!” And then they share a kiss. And Topanga’s all like, “Yes, you are!” Lol, guyyyys he was never turning into a monster at all!

Very Special Halloween Lesson: Okay, this was really just about puberty. One really dramatic stress-response to hormonal changes.

Side Note: We’ve talked about Teen Witch. Do we need to Talk about Teen Wolf?