Teen Wolf boss on the series finale, that Allison homage, and who almost died

Spoiler alert: This post contains plot details from the series finale of Teen Wolf.

In Teen Wolf‘s final hour (and change), Scott and his pack defeated Gerard and Monroe’s army. But even though they won the battle for Beacon Hills, the war had only just begun, which is why the series ended with Scott and company heading out to recruit more soldiers and continue on to the next battle.

EW spoke with Teen Wolf showrunner Jeff Davis about the finale, its many callbacks, and whether he ever considered killing any main characters.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What was the inspiration behind the idea to bring in a new werewolf in the finale?
JEFF DAVIS: That was an idea I had a while ago, back around the fourth season actually. I’d always thought it would be interesting to see Scott out in the world somewhere meeting this new young kid who’s frightened and alone and basically speaking the words to him that I want the show to say to every audience member, which is if you feel like an outsider, if you feel alone, you don’t have to be. You’ll find your pack and you can be one of us. So the character of Alec, he represents our audience and the message of the show.

So is Gerard dead?
You can never tell with Gerard. He always seems to pop back up, doesn’t he?

All major characters survived for the most part. Did you ever think about killing a main character?
There was a time when I was thinking: Who do we kill, how do we make this momentous? And then you have to think: Is this a show where the series finale should have half the cast die off and blow up the show at the end? I thought to myself, I don’t want to see most of these people die, I want to see them off together again on another adventure. Even watching them walk toward us at the end, there were people I missed. There were people I would’ve liked to see with them, including Allison. I don’t think it would’ve been our show if we’d killed off half the characters. There was a moment I told Cody Christian we were going to kill his character off, and by the time we got to around episode 16 or 17, I said to him, “I can’t kill you.” [Laughs] I think he was hoping for an epic death scene.

In terms of the Allison references, was that an obvious choice to make her a part of this?
Yes, it was. It was absolutely necessary because she was such a momentous character in the lives of the other characters, Lydia and Scott mostly, and Argent of course. But we want to pay homage to it and a lot of a series finale is tipping your hat and giving a nod to the previous seasons.

Which you did in a huge way in that library scene…
[Laughs] Yes, yes we did. And that was one of the ideas behind it. I think it works because it’s organic, it all comes out of this creature of fear that brings out these things in you, that gets in your head. It was a way to have Scott face all of his fears in one final moment and tell this creature: You can’t beat me; I’ve conquered all these fears.

I was so excited to see Void Stiles again!
Yes! That was really fun and Dylan O’Brien was really happy to play him. I remember being on set and saying to him, “You get to play Void Stiles again,” and he was really happy about it. It’s a way of saying goodbye to these characters.

Was it the same person playing the Nogitsune?
Yep, Aaron Hendry, who also played a character called Brunski, the one who tries to kill Lydia in Eichen House. He is a phenomenal actor. And that’s his voice, by the way. That’s all him.

The moment where Theo took Gabe’s pain. Is that a step on the path to redemption for him?
Yeah, he’s on his way to redemption. He’s got a lot to pay for, murder being one of them. But when we were talking about Mason and Theo in the tunnels I remember saying, “There’s got to be a bigger moment here for Theo.” We’ve seen him trying to be a good guy. He tries to take Mason’s pain and Mason says to him, “It doesn’t work if you don’t care, you have to care.” In that moment, he cares, even for his enemy. He sees a corrupted person just like him dying.

Was the Malia-Scott kiss a purposeful callback to Stiles and Lydia’s first kiss when she helped him focus during a panic attack?
That’s entirely on purpose, that’s why Lydia says “kiss him.” She looks at Stiles and remembers [that] this is how I got Stiles to focus. It’s no magic kiss, it’s purely getting the person to concentrate on something else. It’s those little callbacks, that and Gerard whispering “mountain ash,” that makes it fun for a series finale.

Can we assume that Stiles knew about Malia and Scott? I was waiting to see if he’d react.
I think in the world of Teen Wolf, we don’t like to do love triangles and jealousy and all that. I think he’s happy that they found each other. Stiles is with Lydia now; they’re together and if Scott and Malia are right for each other, I think Stiles would be more than happy for them.

How long have you known you wanted to bring back that season 4 line to end the series?
When we came up with that line [in season 4], I pitched the writers. I said, “The last scene of the show could be Scott finding another werewolf and saying those same words: ‘You’re not a monster. You’re a werewolf, like me.'” I love Posey’s delivery of the line. It was just perfect. That’s partially the message of the show: You’re something special. You’re not what those other people tell you you are, you’re something special and you can be with us.

This finale did feel different than most Teen Wolf finales. It was almost less conclusive…
That was very specific. We didn’t want a finale that said “the end.” We wanted it to be an “and the adventure continues…” I like imagining that they’re going off to continue the fight. I didn’t want to see an end where they all have children and they’re happy and at home. That felt anticlimactic to me.

I know you had an extended finale, but was there anything you had to cut or couldn’t work in?
There were a few things. There were a couple actors that I would’ve loved to have back, like Daniel Sharman as Isaac. I would’ve liked to have Meagan Tandy’s Braeden. I had been planning a whole plot line for Deaton, but the episode was getting too long and there was too much difficulty with his schedule, with getting him back from The Walking Dead. That’s one of my regrets. There are definitely things we couldn’t fit in. I would’ve loved to have a 90-minute finale but we got 50 minutes, which is pretty long anyway.