10 Things You Somehow Missed In Teen Wolf

Making its debut in 2011, Teen Wolf was a ratings winner, generating record online viewership, receiving rave reviews, and winning a variety of awards. Since leaving the small screen in 2017, the series has remained in the public consciousness, with both the cast and fans showing support for a reboot.

Teen Wolf surpassed all expectations, and the MTV teen drama became a classic of genre television gaining fans of all ages. Reimagining the 1985 film of the same name, Teen Wolf distinguished itself from its contemporaries - Vampire Diaries, The Originals, and True Blood - by eschewing the standard vampire-werewolf-witch formula and introducing a variety of supernatural friends and foes based on world mythology like banshees, druids, berserkers, kitsunes, wendigos, and varieties of werecreatures. The show’s unique mythos combined with its cast of hilarious and heartfelt characters sealed Teen Wolf’s spot as one of the best fantasy series of all time.

Over the span of 100 episodes, Scott McCall’s pack faced a variety of unforgettable adversaries, forged lifelong friendships, and journeyed into adulthood. The show’s six seasons were filled hidden details for its devoted fanbase to dissect on repeat viewings - so let’s take a bite out of the buried treasures, surprising facts, and unexpected influences that shaped the series.

The Season Five episode “Maid of Gévaudan” is best known for Crystal Reed’s return to the series after the death of her character Allison Argent in Season Three. It is less well known that La Bête du Gévaudan’s reign of terror is based on the true story of a series of attacks that occurred in the province of Gévaudan, France between 1764 and 1767. Many hypotheses arose regarding the beast’s true nature, with theorists speculating that the animal may have been an armoured war dog, a striped hyena, a lion, a prehistoric predator, or even a werewolf.

The numerous injuries and deaths caused by La Bête du Gévaudan even attracted attention from King Louis XV, who sent two professional wolf-hunters to stop the attacks. However, the attacks did not end until a local hunter named Jean Chastel killed the wolf with a self-made silver bullet, adding fuel to the werewolf mythology. Jean Chastel is referenced in the episode, when Gerard Argent tells Lydia Martin that the internet was wrong about Jean Chastel being La Bête du Gévaudan’s killer.

Surprisingly, Marie-Jeanne Valet was also a real person. The historical Maid of Gévaudan was famous for being one of the only people to wound the infamous beast, striking it with a bayonet mounted on a stick. Teen Wolf’s maid used a similar fighting tactic and killed La Bête du Gévaudan with a steel-tipped pike. Today, a statute commemorating Marie-Jeanne Valet’s heroic actions stands in Auvers Village, France.