‘Stitchers’ Finale: What’s in Kirsten’s Past and Cameron’s Future?

Stichers
Eric McCandless/ABC Family

Spoiler alert! Do not read on if you haven’t watched the Stitchers season finale.

Talk about a heart-stopping finish! As the first season of Stitchers came to a close on Tuesday night, the ABC Family sci-fi drama offered some answers to Kirsten’s (Emma Ishta) connection with the Stitchers program and with Cameron (Kyle Harris), while also opening a whole other can of questions. Below, show creator and executive producer Jeff Schechter gives us the rundown on the finale’s big moments.

The premonition Kirsten had last episode about Cameron  dying was actually about the finale, right?
Yeah. When Cameron gets hit in the chest and staggers a bit, you get this feeling of “Oh, that’s what it was.” But then he’s okay. We kind of let people breathe a little bit and then it’s like, “Uh oh. I guess that premonition is more spot-on than we thought.”

Will there be a jump between the seasons or will we get an update on Cameron’s fate right away?
We will find out very early on in the second season’s first episode exactly what happened to Cameron. I totally anticipate some very antsy fans, but I would encourage everybody to hang in there.

With that memory at the end there, did you know all along that Cameron had met Kirsten before, or was that something you came up with later?
I had this idea in mind before I finished the pilot. In the early version of the pilot, Cameron was a classmate of [Kirsten’s] at some private school, and he saw this brilliant girl obsessively writing calculations on a blackboard and he always remembered her. But she never remembered him because of her condition at the time. It’s a very different scene now, but from early on, I knew I wanted their paths to cross in a significant place. There was something very appealing about that—that they’re fated and there’s a destiny to them.

Does Cameron remember that meeting, or is it buried too deep in his memories?
It could be one of those things that’s sitting in [his] memories… People you met when you were a kid were significant in that moment, but you were a kid, so 10 minutes later you’re onto something else so you don’t really recall it. [But] somehow it made an impact, even if you don’t remember it. Somehow that meeting affected Cameron in ways that maybe he doesn’t even recognize.

When Kirsten goes through the sequence of Cameron’s memories, it seems like he has feelings for her. Is that what that was?
I think that was the power of that little sequence. It’s like she defines his short-term memory: she’s everywhere. That’s where it becomes obvious how he feels about her and how much he cares about her.

Obviously fans are going to try and figure out who the lady on the phone is. Can you drop any hints as to her identity? Is it Kirsten’s mother? Is it Maggie?
There’s a lot of people who are convinced that it’s Kirsten’s mom, and I’ve heard other people tell me that they think it’s Maggie. But we have a very strong idea about who it is and it’s something very cool and unexpected.

Kirsten learned a lot about not just her parents, but also Cameron. How will this affect her going forward?
It’s definitely going to inform her. We’ve been fond of saying that this is a Pinocchio story. Kirsten goes from calculatedly aloof and distant to having her emotions evolve from episode to episode. Now she has to deal with these feelings that she’s never had to deal with before. The end of Season 1 was the birth of Kirsten’s emotions, which is the next logical step in her evolution from wooden puppet to real girl.

So the accident didn’t just give her Temporal Dysplasia, she also lost her ability to feel emotions?
Yeah. If you look at her when she’s in the hospital as a little girl, she’s painting her mom’s nails and giving her a teddy bear; that’s before the lab accident with her parents. She was a typical little girl, probably super bright, who went on a rescue mission to save her mom and that’s where the Temporal Dysplasia came from. Seeing that affects her in terms of [wondering] who she was and what she could have been and if she still wants that.

Is this the last we’ve seen of Ed’s clues or are there more waiting for Kirsten?
I don’t think Ed has any other clues left for Kirsten, but we’re going to learn some very interesting things about Ed as we move into Season 2. There are things about Ed that Kirsten will find out that will be very surprising. Ed was a lot smarter than people gave him credit for. He knew that there would be this domino effect of things happening, and there was information that he really wanted Kirsten to have, and if people knew that he wanted Kirsten to have that information, they would keep unraveling it. So he hid all these clues behind layers and layers of misdirection, in a way, knowing how smart Kirsten was and that eventually she would figure it all out.

Now that Cameron has picked Camille to be his protégé, how will that affect her relationship with Linus?
It will be hard for Linus. In some ways I would worry because he’s so open with his feelings. He has lame versions of subterfuge to try and cover how he feels, but he wears his heart on his sleeve. Once the shock of what’s happened in the lab wears off, and once whatever that new normal looks like in the lab sets in, he and other people are going to have to deal with these feelings of hurt and, perhaps, even betrayal at being replaced by Camille.

One of the things I really enjoyed is that it’s a “professional” instead of a love triangle.
We thought that was a nice way to go. It’s not about anything other than just smarts and ambition, and a desire to accomplish something.

STITCHERS - "Fire In The Hole" - The Stitchers team is exposed to a deadly virus in an all-new episode of "Stitchers," airing Tuesday, July 21, 2015 at 9:00PM ET/PT on ABC Family. (ABC Family/Adam Taylor) ALLISON SCAGLIOTTI, RITESH RAJAN

Allison Scagliotti (as Camille) and Ritesh Rajan (as Linus)

In the last episode we saw Linus freak out when Camille really hit it off with his parents. What do you think brought that on?
It’s one of those things where Linus had gotten to a point of acceptance that they would just be friends, even though in the previous episode they clearly cared about each other. Only now she needs to be his pretend girlfriend again, and his parents love her. In his mind he’d just accepted that they were not a couple, except now it seems like they were the perfect couple and she’s the perfect girlfriend. It’s just frustrating because he’s thinking, “What does this do to our relationship now?” But then the finale comes up and he doesn’t even get to revel in the idea that there could be something between them down the road.

It did seem like Camille may have been warming up to that when she was talking to his mom.
She’s also a little bit seduced by this beautiful family. Linus’ parents are sweet and loving and she’s thinking, “All I have to do is just get over my feeling of never wanting to depend on somebody and I could be a part of this family.” It’s tempting. That’s where the line “Never say never” comes in, which ties in with the theme of the episode: You just never know what the future holds.

There are so many pop culture references on the show. Are you a big movie buff?
Huge. It was just hysterical because Kyle, who’s burdened with having to say all these references, knows none of them. By his own admission he knows none of them. Before a take we’ll have to look up YouTube videos and play them for him so at least he knows what the references are. He’ll go “Oh, that’s Back to the Future. I think I may have heard of that movie.” [Laughs]

Stitchers has been renewed for a second season. Plus: Be on the lookout for a special Halloween episode later this year!