Teen Wolf played up the mystery of the Desert Wolf for a while, so who exactly is she? The 1957 monster movie I Was a Teenage Werewolf was the first film to feature a teenage character as a monster, and it was later reimagined as a comedy for 1985's Teen Wolf. This starred Michael J. Fox as a teenager with werewolf heritage, which is useful when it comes to playing basketball at school. The movie was a surprise hit, but Fox opted out of a sequel since he didn't want to suffer through the makeup process again.
Instead, Jason Bateman was drafted for 1987's Teen Wolf Too, where Fox's cousin inherits the title role. Unfortunately for Bateman's budding film career at the time, this sequel was a critical and commercial bomb, and a planned third film starring Alyssa Milano was dropped; a short-lived Teen Wolf cartoon also arrived in 1987. The franchise got the reboot treatment by MTV in 2011, which proved a darker, more horror-focused take on the material. It worked surprisingly well and attracted a devoted following.
The Teen Wolf reboot series came to an end in 2017 after six seasons. The character of Malia Tate (Shelley Hennig, Ouija) arrived on the show during season 3, having spent eight years as a Werecoyote. It's also discovered she was the daughter of series villain Peter Hale. In season 4, Malia started a search for her birth mother, who is a notorious assassin known by the code name "Desert Wolf."
Teen Wolf season 5 revealed Peter had an affair with the Desert Wolf, whose first name is Corinne. She was a full-powered Werecoyote, but after she became pregnant with Malia, she lost most of her powers. Peter's sister Talia later took the baby away from Corinne as she feared she would kill Malia to regain her powers, and put her up for adoption; she also blanked Peter's memory of both the affair and Malia. Corinne later showed up when Malia was eight and shot at the car being driven by her adoptive mother, attempting to get her powers back. This caused the young Malia to transform into a Werecoyote, a form she stayed in for years after killing members of his adoptive family.
Teen Wolf season 5 finds the Desert Wolf - played by 24's Marisol Nichols - coming back to finish the job. After trying and failing to kill Malia to regain her power, a final showdown between mother and daughter ends with Malia stabbing Corinne with Belasko's Talons to steal what's left of her mother's powers. While the Desert Wolf survived this, she didn't reappear on Teen Wolf after the season 5 finale.