"Teen Wolf" Finale Brings Everything Full Circle

Seven years ago on the premiere of Teen Wolf, the search for a missing body lured Scott McCall and his best friend Stiles Stilinski to the woods of their sleepy town, Beacon Hills. It was the night before they were to start their sophomore year of high school — and one that would forever change their lives. Scott — a wide-eyed, teenager with asthma who wanted to stay home that evening to get a good night’s rest before the first lacrosse practice — gets separated from Stiles and comes across the corpse. With fear coursing through his veins, he also realizes he’s being stalked by some sort of creature. He runs as fast as he can and is eventually bitten by the werewolf, transforming him into, well, a teen wolf.

Over the seven seasons of the hit MTV series, fans watched as Scott (Tyler Posey) went from being your typical adolescent trying to simply fit in and survive class to becoming one of the most renowned supernaturals repeatedly saving his town (and the world) from apocalyptic evil. With the help of his pack — including the goofy but always-observant Stiles, his girlfriend Allison Argent who turns out to be from a long lineage of werewolf hunters, werewolf with an anger problem Liam Dunbar, the most popular girl in school turned powerful banshee Lydia Martin, and many others along the way — Scott takes down a slew of big bads including (but not limited to) a pack of murderous werewolves, a dark kitsune, a shapeshifting lizard, and bloodthirsty hunters.

Now, seven years later, the show has finally come to a close. It’s had its fair share of bumps, being critiqued for queerbaiting and repeatedly writing off its female characters. And Teen Wolf went through plenty of changes. It lost Allison near the middle of its run when a blade sliced through her body in a grim showdown, only for her to die in the arms of Scott. Dylan O’Brien, the breakout star of the show who portrayed Stiles, became busy with other career commitments and was largely absent at the end of the series, though he still made time to come back to the show that helped launch his career and will always miss. But the show never lost one of its truest values, which is that your differences are actually what can help you make a difference in the world. Scott and his friends may have been outsiders because of their status as supernatural beings, but this and the bond between them is what would always save the day. And Scott, while a hesitant leader at first, possessed the heart of a true hero.

And what started off as a series about being the adolescent misfit ended with full-on culture wars. In the final season, we watched as supernaturals across the world were being hunted by drones of hunters. And in Beacon Hills, normal people became paranoid about anything of the occult variety, joining the hunters in their prosecution of anyone who more than just human. It turns out that their fear of those different was actually amplified by a supernatural being itself, which could magnify paranoia and anger. Taking advantage of this was Gerard Argent, Allison's grandfather and a prominent hunter who was the main antagonist during the second season and returned for the final one. He and new hunter Monroe convince people to join their battle against all supernaturals. A dude manipulating people’s panic for his own gain? Yeah, that similarity to today’s current cultural landscape was intentional.

“That was a conscious decision,” showrunner Jeff Davis told Teen Vogue. “We had started breaking this story during the election, and I said to the writers [that] I had this idea to make Scott and the other supernaturals pariahs in Beacon Hills to cast them as the 'other' again, and to make the real enemy this season humanity and other people. And take an idea where Gerard comes in and takes advantage of that. So it's definitely influenced by current events.”

By doing this, it brought the show full circle. For Jeff, the show has always been about the outsider and feeling like an outsider, so the division between humans and the supernaturals allowed them to make that theme meaningful for the characters.

And so many parts about the final season nodded back to the show’s past. The terror-mongering shapeshifter had the ability to transform into people’s biggest fears. So in the momentous fight scene from the finale where Scott goes face to face with the baddie, fans were treated to a carousel of past villains, a hat tip to its past seasons. And it was also a great excuse to see Dylan reprise his role as Dark Stiles while squaring off against his best friend.

On top of antagonists of seasons past, some of the most beloved characters got a chance to make a comeback as well. Colton Haynes’s Jackson returned to Beacon Hills with a hold on his supernatural powers along with his werewolf boyfriend Ethan, much to the excitement of his old friends and ex-girlfriend Lydia. In an episode earlier in the season, we see Jackson and Ethan share a deep kiss after taking down some hunters in London.

“As a gay man myself, I want to see more representation on TV,” Jeff said. “If I had been a teenager and seen something like that on TV, it would have changed my life. … I think the fact that we can do it on TV now and very few people lift an eyebrow is great.”

The show has had a number of gay characters and same-sex relationships (never forget that steamy scene between Ethan and his ex Danny). Boyfriends Mason and Corey, both two gay characters introduced in the show’s later seasons, were pivotal to taking down the evil that reared its ugly head in Beacon Hills.

Fans were definitely treated to so many nostalgic feelings during the show’s final episodes. Derek Hale, a werewolf from the first couple of seasons that mentored Scott in innumerable ways, showed up with Stiles during the finale just in time to get the pack out of a pinch. Hunter-turned-werejaguar Kate Argent popped up, too.

An aspect that had this writer in near tears in the finale? Its incorporation of Allison. When Allison was killed off, outcry from fans was heard everywhere. Starting off as a romantic interest for Scott, Allison proved to be an essential member of the team and for the teen television drama as a heroine who was deadly with the bow and arrow. As Price Peterson wrote when she was killed off, “She was Teen Wolf’s statement about how we are all more than our romantic aspirations, how growth is an independent endeavor, and how love means much more than intermittent hookups.”

In the opening scene of the final episode, Scott and Allison’s dad (who continued as an ally even after the death of his daughter) acknowledge how much she meant to them without even saying her name while discussing all the people they have lost over the years. The fear shapeshifter even taunts Scott at a point, telling him that he failed her and all his other friends. Quickly after, the werewolf kicks its ass and ultimately defeats it with the help of right-hand man Stiles.

“It was absolutely a way to reference Allison as part of this world, and also to get into Scott's psyche because that is something that he'll always be afraid of. Has he made mistakes? Has he ruined lives by trying to save people?” Jeff said. “It's that hero's fear that by trying to do something good he'll just cause more trouble. And it was also a way to reference Crystal Reed and remind audiences how important she was to the story.”

Does Jeff have some things he would have changed about the show? Sure. But that’s, of course, with hindsight — which may be as useful as those signature werewolf eyes from the show.

“I look back at Alison's death scene and I think to myself, 'Would I have done that again?’ And I look back at other storylines and said, ‘We could have done that better,’” he said. “There are some things where you always wish you had more time, more time to shoot, more time to write, more time to come up with a better idea. But TV is a beast.”

Tying the series up at the end is the introduction of a young werewolf on the run that Scott saves. It’s an idea that Jeff had since season four, of having Scott meet this kid who represents him from all those years ago from the pilot.

“He says to him, 'You can be one of us, but you have to fight,'” Jeff said. “So he's essentially speaking to the audience, ‘If you feel like an outsider, if you feel like you're alone, there are people you can go find, you can be one of us.’ And that's essentially the message of the show, and it's nice to be able to bring it back to that.”

As the show closes, we see Scott alongside friends that have been there time after time over the years. And then the camera pans from Scott to the full moon glowing brightly in the night sky. It's a sign that Scott's journey has come full circle — and a reminder of where he began.

Related: Tyler Posey's New TV Gig Is NOTHING Like Teen Wolf

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