I’ve been looking forward to the return of Bitten for months, but now that the time has finally arrived, in a way it feels bittersweet for me. On the one hand, I’m super-excited to have our favorite wolf pack back on the small screen every week, but at the same time, this is likely the show’s final season. So, if you’re a true fan like myself, you can’t help but be a little sad. Even so, I’m still pumped going into the new season, and after having screened the first 2 episodes, I can tell you with absolute certainty that you should be too.

I can also tell you that the cast is pretty hyped about season 3 as well. This past week I had the good fortune of participating in a press conference call with series stars Laura Vandervoort, Greyston Holt, and Greg Bryk and also Executive Producer J.B. Sugar to get all the deets on what to expect in these final episodes. Check out what they had to say.

QUESTION: So, the season 3 premiere starts off with Elena having a premonition and talking to Paige. But then we don’t really reference back to Paige in those first two episodes again. Will Paige come back into the picture throughout Season 3 or is that all we’ll see?  

Laura Vandervoort: “In the season 2 finale, Elena has a premonition, and we pick up the third season a couple of months in and she’s still dealing with that premonition, and what it means for the pack, and whether or not it will come true, and if it does, will it destroy everything that she knows. And she’s trying to get a grasp of that and understand that. Whether or not we see the witches again, I’m going to leave it to the audience to watch and find out. But we do focus on the pack much more this season and their dynamic and the relationships between them.”

J.B. Sugar: “Yes, and I’ll just add to that. It’s J.B. here, and to reiterate, yeah, more sentiment about Season 3 is much more rooted in werewolf, international politics, and internal politics within the pack as well. But we also still honor the seeds we’ve incorporated into Season 2 with the witches as you saw in the first episode and the premonition coming back. And there’s also fallout from Season 2 with Logan’s offspring and Rachel. And so that storyline stays alive throughout the season. And the implications and influence of the witch participation in our world still resonates throughout Season 3.”

QUESTION: It seems the pack dynamics are a lot different this season because Jeremy is sort of becoming almost a dictator. And now, Elena is keeping things from him. Clay’s probably going to have to choose what side he’s on. Can you kind of talk about that, and also, do you think that Elena would ever completely go against Jeremy, against his wishes?

Laura Vandervoort: “For Elena, she’s holding secret from Jeremy, who is basically her father figure. And he is Alpha and she doesn’t agree with his dictatorship at this point. And withholding a secret from him also puts Clay and Elena in an awkward position because Clay is very loyal to Jeremy. And, like in most relationships, if I have an issue with someone’s sibling, it’s going to cause tension and it definitely does and it definitely causes some friction between the two of them throughout the season. And she does have to make a choice.”

Greyston Holt: “Yes, yes, and I’ll also add to that as well.  You know, Clay’s position is definitely one of being stuck in the middle.  In any normal relationship, your loyalty lies with the one you love and that’s it.  But this is just a special situation and Jeremy is the one all of us answer to and the one who basically created Clay and turned him into the man that he is, the sort of person that can actually function in society. So, Jeremy is taking his hard line approach this season and Clay sort of comes into term with his violent past.  And now, he’s sort of forced to do some things he doesn’t want to do anymore.  And then, on the other side of that is Elena who’s trying to take the path of more tolerance, I guess, and it makes for some interesting conflict this season.  That’s for sure.”

QUESTION: All right, and then there’s a follow-up. Greg, can you kind of expand on that and talk about his motivation? And do you think he’s going too far? I mean, how far is too far, I guess? 

Greg Bryk: “You know, it’s interesting because this season, I think Jeremy confronts fear in a very meaningful way, his lost pack members and the way I ruled. The way I trusted myself to rule seems to have failed, at least to me. And it’s very interesting because we resort back to what we know as children. Basically, I’m going to eliminate any threats because I don’t trust myself to keep the pack safe from those threats. When you get afraid of threats around you, you tend to lash out and you tend to want to be aggressive and you want to wipe out that rather than trust yourself to be able to coexist with it. So it’s a crisis of faith for Jeremy this year. He betrayed everything that he worked hard to become in the process of becoming something else.”

QUESTION: In the season premiere, Elena talks about kind of wanting to go off with Clay and be separate from the pack , And I think she kind of wants that.  So my question is do you think that Clay would be willing to do that for her or do you think that he couldn’t distance himself from the pack?

Greyston Holt: “I think he definitely would be willing to do that for her. There’s been a lot that’s been resolved in Clay’s personal life, things that were maybe holding him back from letting their relationship move forward. But, that being said, there’s hurdles. I mean, like the season starts with a bang where Jeremy’s basically on a blood hunt. You join the pack or you die and Clay’s not OK with that approach even though he has to be OK with it and I think at this point, Clay would love nothing more than have a house with the woman he loves and sort of put the violence behind them both and try to live some sort of a normal life. But they live very dangerous confusing crazy world and it’s tough to get to that in the world we live in.”

Laura Vandervoort: “I just want to add that the love that Elena and Clay have is so strong and so real and that they’re able to work through everything. Whether they’re torn apart in the process, they will always come back together and I think they have that idyllic dream of the white picket fence and all of that and it is discussed this season, but whether or not they can get to that point with this premonition looming over them is a question.”

QUESTION: I’m sorry that this is the final season for you guys because I have really enjoyed the journey. Can you talk a little bit about what you want fans to know going into this season? Did you get to tell a final story or is there a possibility that we could see you all again after this season is finished?

J.B. Sugar: “Well, I’ll just take the lead and then the actors can extrapolate. Each season really does have its own theme and we worked hard to construct seasons that feel wholesome and with beginnings, middles, and ends. And Season 3 ends in a very satisfying way and in a way that I think fans would feel fine with if it is indeed the final season, but it’s also constructed in a way that leaves huge potential for more stories. And obviously, we’ve got many more books from which to mine character and narratives from. So, we’ve been focused on building and creating a great Season 3 and, you know, stranger things have happened in the world, and that’s really up to the fans. We’re just really proud of what we made and hope everybody feels as strongly about the season as they have the previous ones.”

Greg Bryk: “Yes, and I think one of the nice things we did this season too is we sort of really came back to the essence of what makes Bitten work so well and it’s the pack dynamic. It’s just the werewolf world. So we really sort of brought it back to what I think is best about our show, and I think it will be a very rewarding send off if it is that for the fans.”

Bitten  returns for season 3 this Monday at 10/9c on Syfy.