Though MTV’s hit adaptation of Teen Wolf, also titled Teen Wolf, has been over for a few years now, it’s still a lot of fun to go back and watch old episodes. In fact, the more often we go back, the more we realize what we missed the first time around.
Since the show was on for six years, there’s a lot of tiny details that are really easy to miss. That being said, the hard work has been done for you in compiling ten little hidden details about Scott McCall’s hometown of Beacon Hills that you probably never noticed the first time you watched Teen Wolf.
A Familiar High School
Whenever the students that populate the plotlines of Teen Wolf are at the Beacon Hills High School, the setting might seem a little familiar to loyal viewers. The same school was used for the filming of Freaky Friday, Project X, Saved by the Bell, and Carrie, and is actually a real high school. It’s Palisades Charter High School, in Pacific Palisades, California. One thing’s for sure: the kids who go to this school do not have the easiest time in life.
Northern California
Pacific Palisades, California, is in Southern California. It’s not made explicitly clear where, exactly, Beacon Hills is, but it is stated that it’s in California, in Beacon County. Though Beacon Hills and Beacon County don’t actually exist, Malia gives us a little hint as to where they would be if they were real. She mentions that she’s flying out to Paris, departing from the San Francisco International Airport, which implies that Beacon Hill is actually somewhere in Northern California, rather than Southern California, where the real high school campus is.
Missing Bowling Alleys
Beacon Hills has a population of about 30,000 people, according to Sheriff Stilinski, which is a fairly average medium town size, most would say. As such, it’s expected that there will sometimes be locations that the audience doesn’t see often; that’s true even in real life! However, in this case, it seems strange that the teenagers in Teen Wolf don’t spend more time at the really fun-looking bowling alley that Allison, Lydia, Scott, and Jackson go to on a double-date only once. The bowling alley never reappears, leading some to wonder what happened to this mysterious venue.
MIA Video 2*C
Teen Wolf’s answer to Blockbuster or Hollywood Video is a video rental store called Video 2*C. Like Let’s Potato Chips, this silly knockoff-brand nickname for the video store is just meant to evoke the video stores of the past that the audience remembers so well. However, an alpha werewolf actually attacks the Video 2*C in the episode “The Tell,” and ends up killing the manager of the knockoff video rental store. Jackson and Lydia are customers in the store, and then… the store is never seen again. Presumably it closed down after its manager was killed by a werewolf while on shift?
The Beacon Hills Preserve
One of the biggest and most confusing locations in all of Teen Wolf is the Beacon Hills Preserve. It seems like everything that goes on outside during the events of Teen Wolf somehow takes place out on the Beacon Hills Preserve, which makes it feel absolutely massive, and sometimes unrealistically so. However, you may have missed that the Beacon Hills Preserve actually surrounds the town, making the woods much larger than originally speculated. This is where Scott and Stiles find half of Laura Hale’s body, and where Scott first gets bitten by a werewolf, so it makes sense it would be a frequently-used wilderness area for a show about werewolves.
Real Jail Cells
Thankfully, the teenagers on Teen Wolf do have a couple of adults who actually seem to be on their side, and one of them is Stiles’ dad, Sheriff Stilinski. Though he sometimes hinders more than he helps, Sheriff Stilinski loves his son and wants to help him and his friends. Because he’s such a prominent figure on the show, the Beacon Hills Sheriff’s Station gets used fairly often, but what you may not know is that the jail cells and some of the exteriors of the Sheriff’s Station in season three were actually shot on location at the Los Angeles Police Museum in Highland Park, California.
Impulse Tattoos, Anyone?
Speaking of missing buildings, Scott and Stiles (Dylan O’Brien) visit a tattoo parlor that is apparently in Beacon Hills, but is never mentioned again. You’d think a bunch of rebellious teens would be more interested in their local tattoo parlor, but, apparently not. Scott even goes so far as to get a tattoo, which he’s actually inheriting because his actor, Tyler Posey, got tattoos during the filming of the show. The showrunner, Jeff Davis, wrote in the tattoo of two black stripes wrapping around Tyler Posey’s arm into the plot surrounding Scott McCall. Jeff Davis tries to give the tattoos magic symbolism, but, honestly, they’re just cool. Go, Tyler Posey!
Jackson and Isaac are Neighbors
Jackson Whittemore and Isaac Lahey, two characters who were incredibly prominent in the early seasons of Teen Wolf and not so much later on (may they rest in peace, we miss them so), were an interesting dynamic duo. Even more interesting? They lived across the street from each other. The audience sees Jackson’s house when he tries to film himself transforming into a werewolf (only to end up transforming into a kanima instead). Across the street is where Isaac Lahey lives with his abusive father — until, of course, the kanima emerges. Later, Jackson, too, will move out, and go to London.
Beacon Hills’ Lost Bank
The Beacon Hills First National Bank is no longer an actual functioning bank because, if you’ll recall, the bank itself actually went out of business after a bunch of burglars broke into the vault and stole everything. After that, the bank was closed and abandoned, just in time for the alpha pack (remember the dead video store manager? Same people) to use the empty place to hold werewolves prisoner from the light of the moon. Boyd, Erica, and Cora are kept here, and Erica actually ends up dying here before Scott and Derek save her. What’s with this abandoned bank that teenagers can just go and die in? We thought this was a small town?
The Hale Family Vault’s Location
The Hale Family is a source of constant mystery and intrigue on the show. Teen Wolf opens, even, with Scott and Stiles finding half of Laura Hale’s body out in the Beacon Hills Preserve. Derek Hale is even more mysterious throughout the show (played expertly by Tyler Hoechlin), and his family members, whenever they appear, are also strange. Even stranger is that the Hale Family has a vault, which can only be accessed by a member of their family with their werewolf claws. Of course, this vault holds all their cursed, magical, and/or werewolf-themed personal items, and is conveniently located under the sign for Beacon Hills High School. There is, somehow, also a back entrance to the Hale Family Vault, which Scott, Kira, and Malia actually use at one point. What’s going on in this town?