More cut episodes, cut scenes, and loose plot threads
This is a series where I discuss either confirmed or supposedly cut content from the show. You can read my previous posts here:
Almost a month ago I promised another one of these. Then life got in the way and I kind of lost motivation to write another one. Well, a bit late, but here it is! And I’ve decided to write a big one this time, just in case I never end up writing another one.
Without further ado, let’s get into the meat of the post. Of course, full spoilers ahead. Also, small warning: take everything with a grain of salt. Unless the source is the team directly talking about a specific scene that was cut, the rest is pure speculation and should be treated as such. I always include sources because I strive not to spread misinformation, but even if we have a source of the Titan walking, it doesn’t mean that it was ever planned to happen. Maybe they toyed with the idea and then scrapped it for good reasons. Short of Dana confirming it, we can only speculate. By the way, speaking of the Titan walking…
- THE TITAN RISING: SOURCE
An alternate take of the scene in S02 EP06 where Belos shows to the Coven heads a glimpse of the future and what’ll happen in the Day of Unity. According to the wiki: “This sequence was accidentally leaked by Brad Breeck in an upload of the episode’s soundtrack to YouTube. The video was later deleted and reuploaded with the scene removed.”
It’s unknown what exactly this scene means or why it was cut. Please note that the crew team was only made aware of the shortening of the series after episode 10, a four whopping episodes after this scene was cut, which means that the shortening was not the reason for this change. Some speculate that it was cut as to not spoil too much; others that it was cut because the Titan rising would destroy everything and kill everyone living on its body.
Theory number one suggests that the original plan was for the Titan to awake and travel to the Human realm, which would certainly give a different meaning to the “Day of Unity”. Maybe the original idea was for the two realms to physically unite, as in, the Titan and all its denizens would travel to the Human realm, and maybe wage war against the humans? S01 EP18 shows Belos is apparently attuned to the Titan’s heart, which seems to imply a far greater connection between them than it actually is. To some, the two could be related.
Theory number two suggests instead that the plan for the Day of Unity wasn’t altered, and that the Titan was never intended to travel between the realms - or maybe they played with the idea, but then realized that it would be disastrous for the beings living on the Boiling Isles.
I doubt we’ll ever know the truth, but speculating is always fun!
- BEACH EPISODE, MORE CAMILLA TIME, LILITH’S GRUDGBY TEAM: Source 1, Source 2 (3:20)
In three different occasions, the characters joke about not having time for filler episodes: these include a beach episode, a flashback episode to Lilith being captain of the grudgby team (you can see a picture of this one during the end credits! 3:28 in this video), and more screen time for Camilla confronting Belos, which never happened in the actual series.
Although none of these have actually been confirmed to be cut episodes, the jokes seem to really imply it. What do you think?
- ODALIA’S EXPANDED ROLE?: Source
Sorry for not giving a direct link to the picture. I swear I saw the original source back in the days immediately following the series finale, but unfortunately I didn’t save the link immediately and, when I tried looking for it, I wasn’t able to find it again. Reddit was very chaotic and posts and comments were piling up, and I had to eventually give up. Looking for it on the internet, I only found mention of it on TvTrope and in the Wiki, but with no link to the picture. If you find it, please tell me so that I can finally have some peace of mind and confirm that I’m not crazy!
For the moment, a description of it will suffice. It was a storyboard for the ending of the last episode, the frame where Camilla and the kids watch from the balcony as the plague that Philip brought to the islands disappears. But, in place of Camilla, was standing Odalia! We don’t know what that means; maybe the team had different plans for both Camilla and Odalia, but they eventually changed their minds for unknown reasons. If we take the previous jokes about cut episodes at face value, we can maybe infer that, when the original plans for Camilla were scrapped, they maybe replaced Odalia with her. But please, keep in mind that this is pure speculation on my part.
- DELL CLAWTHORNE CARVED OWLBERT FOR EDA: Source (32:50)
If you like TOH, you should really consider watching the Post Hoot, if you haven’t already. There’s a lot to dig up among what they said. I’ll just list the spicier tidbits, but you should consider watching the rest! At 32:50 timestamp, Dana revealed that a flashback episode was planned for Eda and her father. As Dana puts it, it was a “journey of reclaiming the image of an owl” after Eda was cursed with the Owl Beast. I really wish we could’ve seen that.
- HUNTER/VEE INTERACTIONS: Source (48:00)
More interactions among the characters in the human realm were planned, and Dana specifically mentions Hunter and Vee (which makes sense, as they have a common background).
- PALISMAN QUEEN FLASHBACK?: Source (1:02:22)
According to Dana, King’s tower was related to “a character you all know who now suffers from amnesia”. The only character fitting that description would be the Bat Queen: an unusually big palisman, maybe because she was the palisman of a titan? The world may never know.
- LUZ AND AMITY’S FIRST KISS: Source
Apparently, Luz and Amity were planned to kiss a bit earlier than anticipated: In S02 EP14 “Reaching out”. The reason for this cut is unknown, but my personal theory is that it wasn’t the right time.
- HUNTER’S AGE: Source
Speaking of Luz and Amity’s first kiss, this cut scene was meant to be played in “Clouds on the Horizon”. Hunter tries to follow Luz inside, but Gus and Willow stop him, telling him that he’ll understand the reason when he’s older. The joke being that he is, in fact, the oldest in the group. Apparently it was animated and voiced, it was simply cut for time. There’s a good fan rendition of the scene here.
- ORIGINAL PLANS: source (15:00)
During the Post Hoot, Dana talked a bit about how the cancellation altered their plans about the story. She confirms a bunch of things, including: (1) The first 10 episodes of Season 2 were written without knowing that the show would be cancelled. This is why the tone shifts so much at EP11: They had to rush things to give the series a proper ending. (2) There were, of course, ideas that had to be thrown out of the window, as there wasn’t enough time to bring them to fruition. Among them, the galdorstones, the coven heads and the Bat Queen are mentioned as plot threads that had to be dropped. (3) The ending we got is NOT the ending it had originally been envisioned. That one required too much setup and it wasn’t feasible with the short amount of time they had left. (4) Dana is quick to clarify, however, that it’s not like entire episodes were thrashed. They were “one sentence ideas that were never outlined”. Do with that information what you want.
- DARIUS BACKSTORY?: Source (Reddit comment, not confirmed)
A comment on Reddit recounts that, during a livestream, it was mentioned that “the process for getting this is not pleasant. It seems that Abomination form is not a gift move, it has a process and it requires effort for it. They left it vague but they had the idea in revealing how Darius got this but they said that it wasn’t pleasant at all.”
Unfortunately the user didn’t give a link nor did they mention which livestream it was, so this is left unconfirmed. It does track, however, with what Dana said in the Post Hoot, about them wanting “to explore the coven heads more”.
I’ll stop here, as the post has definitely got big enough already. I hope I’ll do another one, but if not, I wanted this one to contain almost everything I have gathered in the past few months. I hope you’ll have as much fun reading these as I had collecting them and writing them down. Even if you already knew them, I think that having a post pointing to specific sources can be quite handy. The internet is a chaotic place where things are said, then quoted, then misremembered and the original source is often forgotten. The main goal of this post, as well as the previous ones, was to try and bring clarity to the matter as much as it was to gather as much evidence as possible of everything that was cut.
It’s also a way to keep the discussion going about what else could’ve been cut. Does any of you remember the scrying potion they spent an entire episode finding the ingredients for, just for it to never make an appearance again? Heck, Belos sounded quite terrifying in that episode, as well. What about the Titan hunters? And the Owl Beast? If you have more links to livestreams or other places where the team discussed about any of these or other topics, I’ll be happy to watch/read them!
Add comment