So you’ve watched the Teen Wolf season 6 winter finale and have found yourself wondering what’s next. Well, we have a few ideas.
Let’s revisit Teen Wolf season 6, episode 10, “Riders on the Storm,” the show’s final winter finale. The ending of the episode felt like a series finale — we found where everyone is going to school, the bat(on) was passed onto Liam and Mason, and Scott and Stiles drove off into the sunset.
But we still have 10 more episodes to go, so what could possibly happen next?
In an interview with Teen Wolf creator Jeff Davis, he tells us, “We decided to go back to Scott’s character, to really explore what it’s going to mean for Scott to be stepping out into the world as an adult now.”
Teen Wolf has always been a bit of an ensemble show, but at the end of the day, the titular teen wolf is Scott McCall. Revisiting his character, reminding us of his growth, and seeing where he goes from here will help bring the series around full circle. The show’s long-time fans will certainly find something to appreciate about that.
But we also know the overall tone of season 6B. Davis says, “We decided on a theme of being an outsider again and what happens when the supernaturals of Beacon Hills once again become pariahs, once again become feared and possibly hunted.”
This also mirrors season 1, when Scott not only had to worry about what it meant to be a werewolf, but had to avoid any detection by the werewolf hunters that lived in town. Will we be seeing another hunter family settling down in Beacon Hills alongside Chris Argent, or could a new force be causing trouble?
“It’s very much a backlash season,” Davis adds, “which is kind of the current climate of events in the world right now.”
But we knew Tyler Posey would be coming back for the final 10 episodes of the season. The real question is whether or not we’ll be seeing Dylan O’Brien’s Stiles Stilinski again. At the end of the winter final, Stiles was hitching a ride across the country with Lydia so he could attend George Washington University, where he was enrolled in a pre-FBI program.
We don’t know when season 6B will take place. The last moments of episode 10 occur on the last day of school, so Malia still needs to pass classes over the summer and they all still need to attend graduation. Will we actually see this on screen? It’s unclear.
When I asked Davis about Stiles’ future in particular, he said, “You’ll have to wait and see. I can’t officially say anything yet. It could be the end of Stiles.” In an interview with EW, Davis says O’Brien isn’t confirmed to return. This is certainly telling, as it probably means he’ll have a limited role in the final 10 episodes, if he has one at all.
The show could get away with not bringing Stiles back for the back half of the season by saying he’s already in D.C. However, it’s likely that Holland Roden’s Lydia Martin will be involved in the final 10 episodes, so they’ll need to explain why she isn’t on the East Coast, too. It could be as simple as Stiles already being in the pre-FBI program and being unable to return to Beacon Hills to help.
Is it too much to hope we can at least get a couple on-screen phone calls with him? It wouldn’t be that hard for O’Brien to record a few messages so Stiles still feels like a part of this season!
If you’re worried about the show shifting gears too much, you can rest easy. The passing of the baton to the younger members of the pack doesn’t mean the senior members will be any less involved.
“There’s definitely a balance,” Davis reassures us. “We started with Scott’s character, and we really wanted to explore, ‘Who is Scott on the cusp of adulthood and about to leave Beacon Hills? What does that mean to him and can he ever truly leave?’ So we started there.”
It turns out that, for his part, Liam will be going up against a new enemy this summer: “There is a new supernatural threat that occurs in Beacon Hills that does prey upon Liam’s greatest weakness, which is his own fear and anger.” Expect some H.P. Lovecraft influences this season.
The adults will also continue playing their parts in the final 10, as Ian Bohen is set to return as Peter. He will further explore his contentious relationship with Malia, who will also be dealing with her feelings for Stiles and the fact that he and Lydia are now together.
One of the aspects of Teen Wolf’s last season that I’m most curious about is how any potential cameos play into the overarching story. “I had a list of the people I wanted to get back, and I got several more than I thought I would,” Davis says, which is exciting, to say the least. Will the returning cast members be an integral part of defeating this summer’s Big Bad, or will it feel more like a goodbye reunion tour?
Honestly, I think I’d be okay with either one as long as I got to see Daniel Sharman’s Isaac Lahey return, scarf and all.
It’s not going to be easy to part ways with Teen Wolf, but the end is approaching whether we want it to or not. I’m mostly hoping that season 6, episode 20, the series’ 100th episode, will feel as complete and heartwarming as the winter finale.
