Teen Wolf’s 2017 Finale: Jeff Davis on the Pack’s Last Stand

A werewolf can survive a silver bullet in one story and lose everything by losing its pack in another. For Teen Wolf, the approaching end made the second danger especially interesting.

In Andy Swift’s September 21, 2017 interview for TVLine, creator Jeff Davis described the farewell he wanted for MTV’s six-season series. Scott McCall would remain at its center, while returning characters and reunited friends would receive moments of their own. Davis resisted an ending built around killing off much of the cast.

The challenge was practical as well as emotional. Actor availability meant the finale had been shot before the two preceding episodes were written. Davis recalled rewriting across all three as the production worked toward its conclusion. A story about a pack coming together had required its makers to assemble the ending out of order.

What the pack carries

The interview puts relationships at the heart of the farewell: Scott and Derek meeting again, old friendships resurfacing, the uneasy chemistry of people who have survived too much together. Davis wanted a climax that still belonged to Scott without reducing everyone around him to witnesses.

That is a useful tension in a modern werewolf story. The bite promises a private transformation; a long-running series has to decide what that transformation does to a whole circle of people. Strength, secrecy and danger become things a group must negotiate.

For the final Sunday episode, Davis’s stated ambition was to give those relationships their due. The threat could bring everyone back into the same room. The farewell would depend on what remained between them once they arrived.

Source

• Andy Swift, TVLine, September 21, 2017: interview with creator Jeff Davis ahead of the series finale.