Wizards Beyond Waverly Place Just Solved a Major Mystery From Its Pilot
So that’s why Justin was fired from Whiz Tech!
“Potions Eleven,” one of two new Wizards Beyond Waverly Place episodes that premiered Friday on Disney Channel, turned back the clock to reveal the “unicorn incident” that resulted in Justin losing his dream job. The pivotal event was first alluded to in the show’s October 2024 series premiere, and fans have been left to speculate ever since.
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“It was really important to us that we grab the audience in that first episode to where you’re going, ‘What happened? What unicorn incident? Justin would never!'” star and executive producer David Henrie told TVLine back in October 2024. “And all of that is great, because it plays out throughout the whole first season.”
And play out it did. As discovered by Billie and Roman during a magical trip through Justin’s memories, the “unicorn incident” was actually caused by Alistair Goodspeed, who hacked Justin’s wand and sabotaged his graduation day surprise for the students of Wiz Tech. (The unicorns weren’t supposed to stampede, much less trample the marching band.) But rather than seeking revenge against Alistair for stealing his job, Justin realized that he would never have met Giada — much less started a family — if he hadn’t been fired from Wiz Tech.
“It felt like a big responsibility,” Danielle Fishel tells TVLine of directing this pivotal episode. “It feels like a big secret that I’ve been keeping. I thought the reveal of what happened was a really good payoff.”
Billie and Roman’s journey through Justin’s memories — one of which sort of included a cameo from Lucy Hale, who briefly played Justin’s girlfriend Miranda on Wizards of Waverly Place — highlights “one of [Fishel’s] favorite things about the reboot, which is that they’ve found the perfect blend of paying homage to the original show while also respecting that this is a new show for a new generation.”
Though she began her career in Hollywood as an actor, most notably playing Topanga on ABC’s Boy Meets World (1993–2000) and Disney Channel’s Girl Meets World (2016–2017), Fishel has found a second career as a prolific TV director, helming more than 40 episodes across eight different shows. “Potions Eleven” marks the first of two Wizards episodes directed by Fishel, who relishes the unique challenges that come with directing supernatural sitcoms.
“It’s always great when you get a script and you see that there’s going to be a door that opens magically, and there are going to be wands and spells and people falling. When you read that, you think, ‘Wow, I can’t believe we get to put all of this together.’ And it is a lot of work. There are visual effects teams and special effects teams and we have separate meetings for all of those things. But I love it all.”
Then again, spending time around all this magic — especially wands — can also be a little triggering for Fishel, who says she never got around to filming a proper Disney Channel “Wand ID” during her time on Girl Meets World.
“I never got to do the wand thing!” she says with a laugh. “I feel really cheated. It’s on my bucket list.”
Your thoughts on the big “unicorn incident” reveal? Drop them in a comment below.
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