Jeff Davis Talks Season 5, Nogitsune and Stydia at the Teen Wolf Fan Art Exhibit

Courtney Accocella ‘17/ Emertainment Monthly Assistant Web Editor

Visual designer and illustrator Carina Tous did not think much of the tweet she received confirming her as the artist of a series of Teen Wolf illustrations called Bad Blood. Little did she know that that tweet would lead to her art being exhibited at the Art Directors Club in New York City.

Tous has been creating artwork for MTV’s hit show Teen Wolf for quite a while; in fact her work was featured in the season 3 DVD amongst other fan pieces. That is why the marketing team for the show reached out to her for their newest idea, The Teen Wolf Fan Art Exhibit. Featuring 19 pieces from 9 different artists from 4 different countries, the exhibit might be one of the most unique promotional events the show has ever done. Unbeknownst to Tous, the grand opening of the event was promoted with what might be the most striking image of  her series, Bad Blood I,  featuring Scott McCall played by Tyler Posey in a somber state.

The grand opening this past week was a highly anticipated event, as fans of the show sat outside the Manhattan art gallery for hours with the line wrapping around the block. Just moments before the doors were set to open, screams echoed through the streets as Posey and executive producer Jeff Davis arrived. Fans flocked for pictures while the pair admired the remarkable art work they helped inspire.

After the crowds began to calm, and some selfies had been taken, the floor was opened for questions from the fans. Most were light hearted, like “[Tyler], do you want Scott to have a beard like you do?”, to which Davis determinably said “The answer is no,”  though Posey mouthed a happy yes. To the more somber questions like: “Does Scott love Kira as much as he loved Allison?”, Davis asked Posey not to respond (though he did say your first love is always special),  and: “What would Scott have done if Allison were alive for five more minutes?”, he suggested, “Tell her he loves her and then kiss her while she was still alive.” Posey could not thank the fans enough and Davis echoed the astonishment in the community that the show has created. While the panel ended and the lines for photos with Posey began to form, Tous was surprised yet again as the artists at the event gathered to take a photo with the star and chat about the show and the art.

While the majority of the pieces centered on the main cast there were a few standout pieces, especially those done by Jessica Short, Swann Smith, and Freda Svensson (a piece that seemed to be one of Posey’s favorites), all of which took their influences from the teasers fans have been seeing from season 5. A great deal of what their pieces reflected was the depiction of this year’s metal mask wearing villains, The Doctors.

“This is actually my own fascination with science and the supernatural,” said Davis during our interview. “This is our own mythology really. It has a lot of influences from various things in history like the whole steampunk aesthetic, which is beautiful I think. I love how people make their own masks and cosplay and all, but the idea goes back to Nazis and World War 2 and German gas masks and all the way back to the plague doctors of the Bubonic plague. I think it’s going to be interesting, it’s the first time we’ve really done our own mythology actually. But it’s still based in real life history.”

While this new mythology Davis has created is definitely exciting, he did reveal that his favorite villain of the show was a Japanese creation. “I love the Nogitsune. It surprised me because it was just supposed to be Dylan. But Aaron Hendry who plays the man in the bandages and the steel teeth was so good I kept writing lines for him. I kept writing more and more and he became the personification of the Nogitsune. I am proud of that one, I really liked it!”

Davis went on to speak about the decision to take Stiles Stilinski as a character for a complete 360 saying, “I don’t think I made that decision at all. I credit that entirely with Dylan O’Brien. When you have an actor who is so good and you discover that, I remember the first season we were on the field together in Atlanta. It was the scene where Peter had bitten Lydia. Dylan was very nervous about that scene because it was very dramatic and heartfelt. I said to him I think you know you’re funny, I don’t think you’re aware yet just how good you are in drama. You know you want to write for a good actor. You want to write to their strengths. I was amazed with him.”

Davis wrote this season with a similar intention, “In the writers room we start with what are the scenes we’d like to see. What are the things we most want to see. One of them that came up was we want to see Lydia kick ass. This is the season of Lydia kicking ass!” Fans might have already caught a glimpse of this new more action ready Lydia Martin in the first 5 minutes of episode one that MTV released, but Davis wanted fans to know, “It’s a long arc. She has got to learn. She has to go through a process. We had decided that it would probably happen this way, that she would go through a trial, of some sort, where she finally decides I need to learn how to protect myself. I need to learn how to fight. And she starts to learn. It’s a long process, but as we like to say we like to take our characters from A to Z not A to B.”

While fans are excited about the new season, you would think otherwise after seeing the war some are having on Tumblr and Twitter on whether Stiles should be with girlfriend Malia Tate or if he should be with partner in crime Lydia. Davis had this to say for the Stydia fans, “We debate this a lot in the writers room. And I always say, it goes back and forth. We don’t know how it will end yet. We don’t. We kind of leave that up to the writing Gods. I would call myself a fan of Stydia too though! And MTV did these great videos of the characters and we watched the Stiles and Lydia video. I didn’t have anything to do with those videos, but I thought they were amazing, I loved it and I love seeing those two together. But we’ll see.”

While we might not yet know the final fate of Stiles’ ever debated love life, Davis did tease a bit of the finale of season 5. “The first episode I am pretty proud of, but I have to say the one that stands out to me is the last episode because it’s quite a cliff hanger. It’s more of our empire strikes back episode. It’s not a happy ending, for anyone. It will be tough.”

Teen Wolf returns with its two day premiere this Monday at 10 pm on MTV followed by the second episode on Tuesday at 9pm. And check out the first five minutes of the episode and see Lydia begin her journey kicking ass!