Brook: Since you’re the editor, you might know — Gina Holden?? As far as I know Gina Holden was supposed to be in the show?
Alyssa Clark: Yeah let me talk about that. I think I can —
Brook: Thank you!
Alyssa: You should have asked Ian, cause Gina is a friend of Ian’s —
Natalie: This is like her, this is her Rushmore!!
Alyssa: Ok, alright. Cause Gina was in the Wendigo episode of Supernatural I was just re-watching that episode.
Natalie: Yeah, she’s been trying to figure out why she was credited and not there, if it’s this mystery!!
Brook: I feel like I’m going insane.
Alyssa: Yeah, I don’t mind telling you guys cause I think it was part of a story and it’s an interesting editing thing and I don’t think Jeff would be mad at me for telling this anyhow. In the Eichen House episode, there’s so much backstory here… But thorough a process of much discussion, it was decided that Stiles would see his mother in Eichen House.
NATWP: YES!! That’s what we thought!!
Alyssa: And it was supposed to be not something the Nogitsune was doing. It was actually supposed to be something… Like his own psyche… It wasn’t supernatural.
Natalie: Like Allison and Eaddy. (in the threading the needle scene)
Angela Harvey: Yeah. It was like him getting a grasp on himself.
Alyssa: Yeah! Giving him comfort and trying to understand what was happening to him. Because at the time he thought he was possibly still going through what his mother did. […] So she was written in and cast, and it was Ian’s (Stokes) friend, he worked with her before. And she’s really really nice, and she’s a great actress. And we have that footage. I cut her in. I edited her in and actually you guys can see her. When he walks in she is at a table and she looks up at him, she’s still in the background. It used to be a close up, and he kind of clocks it, but he doesn’t really know? And then in the therapy scene you can actually see people walk by Morrell in the background, and that was her and another person, and Stiles is supposed to clock her there. Then later, when the Nogitsune is taunting him about his mother, he flashes back and sees those two things and then actually…
Natalie: Puts it together…
Alyssa: Puts it together and then his mother comes up and gives him a kiss on the forehead.
Natalie: Was there dialogue? Were they going to say it was her or are you just sort of meant to piece it together?
Alyssa: You’re supposed to piece it together, and this is where it got confusing… Ok, so when you write stories, a lot of time… If you write a book or something, that can all be internalized and you can really explain it. Visually it’s very hard. So what we found was the Nogitsune is taunting him, his mother shows up to give him comfort, and that’s where a lot of the crying was coming in. But what it did take away was that he was also supposed to be a hero, and he’s supposed to be saving the life of this damaged girl, this girl who he felt guilty about, Malia. And it got so cloudy. I know people are like no we wanna see Stiles’ mom!! And I get it, I totally get it and maybe someday we can play with that again. But we cut it all together, and I remember Ian coming in and watching a cut and he’s like this is really confusing. And I’m like YUP! It’s super confusing. And then Jeff and I sat one night and we’re like what do we do? You know, we have to clarify this. So we took her out. And it was hard! Because of the emotional moments — And Dylan O’Brien was very upset about that. Because he had really given a lot of performance and really thought about it, and Dylan is a pro. I mean he really thinks about this stuff. And he felt like it was missing and I don’t blame him. But when you tell stories, especially in editing, in the final stages, you have to clarify your story. We call it killing your babies, you have to. In this case it’s killing your mother. We had to do it to make it clear.
