From our reporting at the time -
The Huge Continuity Error that Wasn’t Really
In six seasons of covering the show, Teen Wolf Wikia has documented dozens of continuity errors. Most involve props that we simply ignore when it comes to canon.
Some fans believe Blitzkrieg gave us the mother of all continuity errors with the retelling of the events surrounding Claudia Stilinski’s death. This is NOT the case as a careful examination of the dialog shows.
In the Season 3 episode Alpha Pact, Sheriff Stilinski, Mellissa McCall, and Chris Argent are trapped under the Nemeton. The Sheriff tells the story of the night his wife died. He explains he was not there because he opted instead to stay at an accident scene with a car crash victim.
“There was a night eight years ago, the night my wife died. I was at the end of a shift, and a call came in. There had been a pile-up and a young woman; she was a teenager actually. She was trapped under an overturned car. We had to wait for the paramedics. We were never getting her out. But I was able to hold her hand. She knew she was gonna die. But I just kept telling her, ‘No, no, listen. The paramedics are on their way.’ And then I remember, her hand suddenly gripped mine so tightly that I literally thought she was gonna break the bones. And she looked me in the eye, and she said, ‘If you wanna be with her, go now.’ And I knew she was talking about my wife. But then that other part of my brain, the part that looks for clues, for fingerprints, for logical connections, that part told me that there is no way that this girl could possibly know about Claudia, and so I stayed. I stayed until the paramedics pulled her out, until her heart stopped beating, and they declared her dead. When I finally got to the hospital, I saw Stiles sitting in the waiting room with his head in his hands. He was with Claudia when she died, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t with her because I didn’t believe. I just did not believe.”
In this week’s episode Blitzkrieg, Sheriff Stilinski relates to Claudia the story of her “last good day.”
“I took this picture on your last good day. You were yourself all day. Stiles had his mom back, and I had my wife back. Stiles refused to leave your side. Stiles couldn’t stop talking, about school and all the trouble he got into. He tried so hard to stay awake. And when he finally fell asleep, it was in your arms. We just sat together and watched each other. We didn’t need to talk. But when you finally closed your eyes, I knew you were gone.”
Some fans took “you were gone” to mean she died. She did not. He’s relating the story of the last day she was fully cognitive of her surroundings before the dementia fully took hold. She lived for a while after this as we witnessed during the hospital flashback in Required Reading. All that to say, there’s nothing to see here. Move along."