Alphas Only
Over lunch, creator Jeff Davis held his own panel for attendees that had purchased an Alpha pass for the convention. It started off with a great question about a rumor that had been circulating for quite a while — was Jackson’s story given to Malia since Colton Haynes left the show for Arrow?
“Not correct,” Davis replied. “I always wonder how much of the stories that we can no longer tell you guys actually want to hear because I know it’s a weird subject to broach now because Colton’s no longer on the show, and we did have a plan for that season, for 3A, but we were just never sure he wanted to come back.”
Saying that although bits and pieces of Jackson’s story for season 3 ended up going to Malia, it wasn’t entirely passed on to her. “One of the alphas in the alpha pack had murdered Jackson’s parents,” Davis explained, “and it gives him reason to side with either Derek or Scott in season 3A; to go along with Derek and say, ‘We need to kill the alphas because one of them murdered my family.'”
And speaking of Malia, she was once again a hot topic. When one fan asked where the idea for Malia came from, Davis responded, “Well, when we first came up with the idea of Malia, we knew we were going to do the kind of asylum episode that was… We wanted it to sort of be the Shining episode where it was a creepy asylum and we would have Stiles go into this terrible place and go through this sort of trial in this asylum episode, and that would be the real sort of confrontation between him and the nogitsune. And we knew we wanted to have someone there for him to bond with, and we were talking about what kind of character would he bond with and would it be interesting to bring this character back from the first two episodes of Malia, the werecoyote.”
After talking about how they come up with the idea to make Malia Peter’s daughter, Davis said, “It was a way to broaden these characters, and we really liked Shelley. It was supposed to be a guest star role, but when we started to see the footage come back of her, we were like, ‘Wow, she’s beautiful, she’s magnetic on screen, and wouldn’t it be interesting if we could build this character?’ And one of the difficulties was, we didn’t know if we were going to be able to get her back for another season. I think I said in another interview there was a certain point where I was like, ‘Guys, are we going to be able to have her? Can she at least do a few guest stars. I feel like we have a story with her and Peter. Are we going to be able to build that?’ And thankfully she signed on, so you’re going to be seeing a lot more of that. And I think she’s going to be a really fun character to play, too. We’re trying to build her some humor, as well. One of the things we’re kind of excited about this season is that we get back to a lot of humor. There’s a bit more adventure this season. It’s not quite as terrifying and dark, although we do have our scary moments.”
Davis also repeated what the writers said earlier about Malia’s new position in Scott’s pack: “It’s going to be awkward for her at first. She is still… The pack, Stiles and Scott, are trying to help integrate her back into society. She’s been living out in the wild, and she has a sort of fight or flight instinct inside her, and she’s actually the toughest one in the pack right now. She’s like kill or be killed. So it’s going to be a little dangerous for the others, and I think it’s going to be awkward at first.”
Though Davis wouldn’t say much about season 4, he did mention that we’d be learning more about Kira’s family history, that Derek’s loft might not survive the season, and Gerard’s story is definitely not over. Oh, and when he was asked about Stiles making Derek the king on the chessboard, Davis said he couldn’t talk about that.
A fan asked about Danny, wondering how long he’d known that Beacon Hills housed supernatural creatures and if that would be explored more in season 4. “I can’t tell you about season 4. No spoilers,” Davis said. “[Danny] was always that character, for me, that was in the shadows, that knew about all this stuff, and was playing the good game. I thought it makes him smart, it makes him… it actually makes him one of the smartest people in Beacon Hills. To not be involved, to stay alive.”
When asked specifically if Danny knew before Scott got bit, he said, “I think probably.”
As a fun tidbit to end the panel, when asked about spinoffs, Davis relayed a story about a spinoff they had been thinking about doing previously. “There was a plan to do a show called Beacon Hills, and it would’ve been about young Derek and the Hales,” Davis said, causing the crowd to gasp. “I thought I talked about this! And Christian Taylor, who was tasked with coming up with a lot of the ideas. And what you hear in the episode ‘Visionary’ when they talk about Beacon Hills, they describe it as a much darker place and a much more dangerous place. And we had a bunch of ideas about that, about what to do and how to broaden the world a little bit of Beacon Hills, and make it a kind of… we talked about it as kind of Gotham City before Batman came in. It was dangerous and terrible and frightening. And if you weren’t a supernatural creature, you could be picked off at any time, which is of course the Beacon Hills present day.”
Boss Lacrosse Bros
The last panel of the day was entitled Boss Lacrosse Bros. Seeing as all four members on the panel Tyler Posey, Keahu Kahuanui, Sinqua Walls, and Arden Cho are teammates or former teammates of the Beacon Hills lacrosse team.
Yes, ladies and gentleman. If you hadn’t heard before the panel reveal, you may have been scratching your head a bit as to why exactly this group was put together. But we can assure you that when the BiteCon staff were assembling their panel line ups, they were quite aware that Kira would be joining the all boys lacrosse team in season 4 of Teen Wolf. And apparently this is going to be an incredible season in general if we go off of anything Tyler Posey had to say during the event.
When the lead actor on the show was asked what he considered his best scene to shoot was, Posey responded that his favorite was one we hadn’t actually seen yet, teasing, “Yeah we’ve had some really cool stuff this season. It’s like the coolest stuff we’ve shot.” Cho chimed in to relieve a bit of our curiosity by giving us some clues as to what the favorite scenes were, so we would know when they came across our screen, “So you guys know when you see it – One, Lakehouse… And then the desert?” Double checking with her co-star that she was on the right track.
Season 4 talk wasn’t the only item up for discussion at the panel though. Plenty of reflecting on past seasons and characters was done as well. For instance, when a fan asked Walls how he would have liked Boyd’s storyline to have played out if he had stayed on show, the actor shared one of his personal desires, “I was actually just saying in the greenroom that I would have loved if we’d had a prom episode – Like an actual prom episode and after all the craziness Erica and Boyd would go to prom together.” You can imagine the heartfelt groans of sadness and longing that erupted from the audience.
Luckily though there was room for laughter and fun at the panel as well. After being asked when exactly he thought Danny had figured out what was going on in Beacon Hills, Kahuanui responded, “I think he figured it out a long, long, long time ago. And was like I’M NOT TOUCHING THAT!” Which of course Posey was quick to point out that he did indeed “touch that”. Prompting Kahuanui to revel in the lude behavior by responding “BUT I DID! More than once!”
Come back tomorrow to find out what happened on day three! If you’d like to see more pictures and hear more stories from our time on set and at BiteCon, be sure to follow the NATWP Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram accounts, as well as keep an eye on our podcast page. You can also read the day one recap here.
All photos are copyright of Tiffany Chien.
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