#dropped plot threads

So, a lot of amazing ideas had to be left as abandoned puzzle pieces, and us fans are left to figure out how they were supposed to fit together for ourselves. For all the fanfic writers who plan to recreate what we lost, this is for you. If I wasn’t already working on long term projects, I would try this myself too.

I have no doubt that the episodes we did get for Season 2B would have still been in the show’s lineup, but likely further down than they ended up being for most of them. Because of the anniversary for Manny’s death being a specific date, I imagine that would have stayed in the same slot for example.

Let’s start with the Bat Queen since that’s the earliest dropped plot thread I can identify. At the end of “Escape of the Palisman”, Luz promised to help the Bat Queen find out her past since she no longer remembered her original owner. As we saw in S2, she never followed up on this. As confirmed at the Gallery Nucleus panel, Bat Queen is not the palisman of the Titan, but rather a giant. So we might have gotten lore on giants in the demon realm, specifically Bat Queen’s owner and how she became who she is now.

Another dangling thread is Jean-Luc, King’s babysitter from his nest. We never see King and the gang try to reactivate him outside of the nest; he just sits in the corner of Luz’s room as a decoration for the rest of the season.

Then there’s the four head witches that didn’t get proper debuts – Hettie Cutburn, Mason, Osran, and Vitimir. We can assign at least two episodes and four at most to fleshing them out, two being if they teamed up the way Darius and Eberwolf did or four if they debut individually like Terra and Adrian.

As far as I can guess, Mason was intended to be involved in a scrapped plot line of returning to the Looking Glass Ruins along with Adrian Graye, as a mirror match to Gus and Mattholomule since they match coven tracks. With old storyboards starting the rumor Mason was Matt and Steve’s father (albeit with the name Ulrich), this could have really boosted Matt’s development of wanting power changing to multi-tracking, sticking with the theme of finding your own way instead of following in your parents’ footsteps.

Another team-up I can see is Hettie and Vitimir since their covens likely work closely in making cures and general healthcare. Hettie was said by Dana to be interesting to the crew, hinted at being creepy and having an interest in bloodwork. So perhaps the pair of them would be assigned to the Titan’s Blood case and eventually woven into King’s plot? Or the two would be split up, with Hettie being involved in King’s Titan plot and Vitimir being involved in Hunter’s grimwalker plot?

I suggested Vitimir being involved in Hunter’s grimwalker plot because the list of stuff needed to construct a grimwalker sounds like a potion ingredient list, and Vitimir is the head witch of the Potions Coven. Belos might have tasked him with gathering the necessary ingredients for a new grimwalker, suspecting Hunter is beginning to betray him like all the others as he grows independent through Darius’ influence and his adventures with the Hexsquad. Since Hunter is such a crucial piece in Belos’ plans, who better to task with the important and rare ingredients of a grimwalker than the head witch of the Potions Coven himself?

Osran is probably the biggest mystery player in how he would get involved. Since the Oracle Coven is all about foresight and contacting spirits, perhaps there’s something to be said about how nobody saw the Day of Unity’s true purpose coming. The Collector using his power to keep oracles from seeing the truth? Belos forbidding any scrying about the DOU? There’s a theory out there that he might have been intended to join the rebellion based on the burned tapestry in “Eda’s Requiem” the BATTs pass after their first raid. Maybe not being able to see the outcome of the Day of Unity gave Osran reason to change sides.

When writing the head witches, it’s best to remember each one has a sense of irony regarding the coven they are the bosses of. Raine is the head witch of the Bard Coven despite having stage fright, Darius is the head witch of the Abominations Coven but hates messes, Eberwolf is a beast tamer despite basically being feral himself, Terra is the head witch of the Plants Coven but has a toxic personality, and Adrian Graye prefers to direct others putting on illusions rather than perform himself. In that vein, Hettie is likely that creepy doctor that enjoys the pain of patients, Vitimir likely neglects lab safety despite working with potions if his toxic breath is a clue, Mason probably prefers to work solo rather than in a team like construction jobs usually require or relies on the power glyphs instead of his strength like normal coven members, and Osran likely is senile and forgetful about the present from constantly looking into the future.

There’s also the matter of Amity still having the portal key in storyboards for Clouds on the Horizon. The Roundtable covered this in their video about season 2, how Amity and Hunter’s duel was likely supposed to end differently but the accelerated plot necessitated a change at the last minute since it was part of 2A. Amity and Hunter probably came to a draw, neither having the information to leverage. This would explain why Amity isn’t upset with Hunter the next time they meet in “Labyrinth Runners”.

The thing with Raine also confuses me. At the end of “Eda’s Requiem”, we see them being restricted by their sigil then seems fine in “Follies at the Coven Day Parade” pretending to be brainwashed. I think them being captured was supposed to be a bigger part of the plot, but again the plot acceleration necessitated a change of what happened to them and the crew couldn’t change it the same way the duel at Eclipse Lake might have gotten. This by extension would have given the BATTs a bigger role too.

Development for the Blight family was also a big thing in Season 2. We properly met Odalia and Alador, Alador got a redemption arc while Odalia got worse, the origin of Amity’s family nickname was revealed, and the twins showed interest in multiple tracks. The one person in the family that really got the shaft was Emira because she didn’t have a B-plot expanding her interests like how Edric got to show his interest in beast-keeping and potions in “Reaching Out”. I have a feeling if it weren’t for the plot acceleration, we would have seen them more. Perhaps Odalia was intended to be the season’s major antagonist similar to how Lilith was in Season 1, appearing to cause conflict in more episodes than just two.

The Collector also wasn’t intended to be part of S2 according to one of the crew’s Post Hoots. Once they learned of the cut, they decided to throw him into the mix early. He’s woven so intricately into the plot now, it’s hard to imagine what the story would be like if he was delayed until later or didn’t show up at all.

That’s all I have for Season 2. I’ll talk about Season 3 in the next part, but that will have to wait until we see how the other two specials play out to see what else was either dropped or squeezed into a montage.