Teen Wolf: Crystal Reed talks her return and a potential spin-off

WARNING: This article contains spoilers from “The Maid of Gévaudan,” Monday’s episode of Teen Wolf.

Not only did “The Maid of Gévaudan” feature the return of Teen Wolf favorite Crystal Reed, but it also introduced fans to the very first Argent hunter: Marie-Jeanne Valet. And it was that character that pulled Reed back into the Teen Wolf world after two years away following the death of Allison Argent.

“[Showrunner] Jeff [Davis] initially brought the idea to me without a script,” Reed says. “He just brought me a legend, basically. He said, ‘We want to make a show around this and it’s going to tie into the modern-day Teen Wolf world.’ At the end, he said, ‘And she’s going to be the first Argent.’ Then it made complete sense to me why I should do it and what he’s trying to do and how beautiful it was that he intertwined everything together.”

Inhabiting a new character, Reed immediately felt a sense of connection to Allison, the character she’d left behind in season 3. “It was always about [Marie-Jeanne’s] journey from being a skeptic into a believer and then also what it feels like to have a member of your family completely betray you, which I think is parallel to Allison’s story,” Reed says. “She had to go from a skeptic to a believer and then also so many people in her family betrayed her, from her mother to her aunt to her grandfather.”

Then, of course, there’s the obvious familial connection between the two characters, which Reed also used to help inform her performance as Marie-Jeanne. “I wanted to make sure that I brought the same sort of strength that Allison had, that innate strength that she doesn’t even know where she gets it from,” she says. “I wanted to make sure that was part of her character because that’s something that I think the fans really relate to and I think it’s a really great trait for young women.”

Also great for young women? The fact that it’s Marie-Jeanne who eventually takes down The Beast in a fight scene that Reed admits was a little odd to film at times. “It was actually quite difficult running in those clothes because the corset was tied really, really tight. It’s funny, I always do this: I ask for it to be much like it would’ve been in the period and then I regret it mid-way through the shoot,” she says with a laugh. “I wanted to be able to walk how they walked, therefore it has to be really tight, but yeah, it wasn’t the most fun running through the woods with it.”

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And when it came time for her literal showdown with The Beast, Reed says, “The scene with the sword where I pierce him was really difficult because there was nobody there, so I’m just basically screaming at nothing,” she says, laughing.

But in the end, Marie-Jeanne came out victorious. And yet, her presence wasn’t the only Allison mention in the episode. When Lydia realizes that Argent and Gerard are looking to her to defeat The Beast in present-day, she screams, “I am not Allison,” a line that caught fans — and Reed — a little off-guard. “I read it and got a little shock to my heart,” Reed says. “I remember thinking if I was her, I would be like, ‘How am I going to say this?’ Because you know it’s either going to make people cry or make someone upset, [and] there’s going to be instant tweets,” she explains, adding, “Holland [Roden] is such a great actor and I think she did it so perfectly.”

With Lydia now facing what Marie-Jeanne once faced, Reed’s advice is simply for Lydia to accept help from her friends. “There are people who can help you and in fact, it’d be better if you had that support,” she says.

As to whether Reed would be interested in continuing to explore Marie-Jeanne — potential spin-off, anyone? — Reed says, “We weren’t even finished filming and there was sort of that chat around set. When you are doing something that you know is going to be great, there’s this kind of magical energy on set. I think that I would definitely be open to something like this. It looks great; it has a great message; and it would be a challenge for me, so yeah, I would never say never and it would be something that if done the right way, with the right people, could be really exciting.”

Teen Wolf airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET on MTV.