It all comes to a head in Wednesday’s Season 1 finale. Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) confirms her suspicions that Tyler (Hunter Doohan) is the Hyde terrorizing Nevermore Academy. The young detective also discovers the hidden identity of Tyler’s master — and realizes she has another possible foe lurking in the wings of her spooky school. The mysteries will continue to unfold in Wednesday Season 2, with Part 1 now streaming (and Part 2 arriving on Sept. 3).
“We ended Season 1 with a stalker that was still after me. Tyler has been sent to a psych ward, and half the school is burnt down,” Ortega tells Tudum. “We start off Season 2 with Wednesday being kidnapped.”
So how did Wednesday reveal its true devils? And what do they want? Ortega and the rest of the cast, along with showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, are ready to answer all your burning questions about Season 1, as Season 2 arrives this summer.
Supposed normie Tyler is the Hyde. Tyler’s monster lineage can be traced back to his late mother, who was also a Hyde. In Episode 8, Wednesday points out that Tyler’s mother Francoise is in a Nevermore photo with her own mother, Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones).
At the time, no one knew Francoise was a Hyde — due to their unpredictable temperaments, the monsters are not allowed to enroll at Nevermore. Tyler’s mother’s true nature was revealed only after she gave birth to Tyler; as Wednesday explains, Francoise’s postpartum depression triggered her Hyde abilities. Tyler’s father, Sheriff Galpin (Jamie McShane), would go on to spend the ensuing years carefully watching his son, terrified that he might carry the genes for his mother’s monstrous condition. Spoiler alert: He does.
“I think at the beginning Tyler was terrified [of being a Hyde],” Doohan tells Tudum. But the actor — along with Gough and Millar — believes his character slowly comes to enjoy his bloodthirsty alter ego, and his ability to hoodwink someone as smart as his love interest Wednesday.
“If you’re going to have a scene where you lie, you just lie the best you can. Because that’s what you do in real life,” Doohan continues. “So I honestly approached those scenes genuinely, as if trying to win Wednesday’s affection.”
Gough and Millar believe that Wednesday is drawn to Tyler’s dark side, whether she consciously perceives it or not. “That idea that Wednesday discovers she was attracted to the serial-killing monster is very on-brand for her,” Gough says. “You look back and you think, ‘Why does she like this guy? He seems so milquetoast.’ ” Well, there’s nothing boring about a Hyde — and as Wednesday Season 2 reveals, Tyler and Wednesday still have some unfinished business.
Marilyn Thornhill loves a complicated revenge plot. Or perhaps we should call her by her real name: Laurel Gates. Laurel (Christina Ricci) is a descendant of Joseph Crackstone (William Houston), a Colonial-era pilgrim who was obsessed with eradicating all outcasts from the town of Jericho, where Nevermore is located. The Gates family continued Crackstone’s mission for generations. When Morticia and Gomez Addams (Luis Guzmán) attended Nevermore, Laurel’s older brother Garrett (Lewis Hayes) attempted to mass-poison the Rave’N dance and kill all the students; an accident killed him instead.
In a quest to avenge Garrett’s death, Laurel faked her own demise years prior to the action of Wednesday. She then entered the school under her assumed name, becoming Nevermore’s first normie teacher. “You want to make sure that if you’re going to pull off your evil plan that you’re hiding in plain sight,” Gough quips about Laurel’s “non-threatening” alter ego. Using Gates family knowledge, Laurel identified Tyler as a Hyde and unlocked his powers with a plant-based chemical, becoming his Hyde master.
“Tyler owed a debt to Laurel because she’s also the first person that tells Tyler the truth about his mom,” Doohan says. As a tape from Tyler’s therapist Dr. Kinbott (Riki Lindhome) suggests, the young Hyde suffered deep “psychological scars” from the loss of his biological mother — making him vulnerable to the manipulation of a would-be maternal figure like Laurel. “He grew up thinking his mom had died and that she had mental illness and that his dad never wants to talk about it,” Doohan continues. “Then all of a sudden he’s given the truth.”
At first, Laurel forced Tyler to turn into a Hyde and do her murderous bidding. But once she gained his full loyalty, he willingly followed her deadly plan. The Hyde murder scheme was twofold: The process eliminated some outcasts, and it allowed Laurel to gather enough body parts to resurrect Crackstone, who would help her kill all the outcasts. Wednesday was the final step in Laurel’s plan, since her ancestor Goody Addams (also played by Jenna Ortega) sealed Crackstone’s sarcophagus with a blood lock. Once Laurel has obtained the blood of Goody’s descendant Wednesday, Crackstone is freed and able to wreak havoc on outcasts everywhere.
Unfortunately for Laurel, Wednesday puts the pieces of her identity together in Episode 8. In the Season 1 finale, Eugene (Moosa Mostafa) reveals he saw a mysterious pair of red boots at the scene of one of the many crimes in the series. Laurel is the only person running around Jericho in shining red boots. Soon enough, all of Nevermore comes together to quickly defeat Laurel and Crackstone. “At this point the Crackstone story is sealed, and the end of the season is the end of that storyline,” Millar says. “This definitely feels like a one-season arc, and that there are other mysteries and misadventures that Wednesday will get into in future seasons.”
Wednesday’s upcoming exploits in Season 2 will fulfill that promise, offering a whole new series of macabre twists and turns for Nevermore’s top teen murder mystery author.
Laurel’s plan is pretty flawless — except for the surprise twist that Nevermore principal Weems (Gwendoline Christie) is a shape-shifter. Weems poses as Tyler, tricking Laurel into detailing her entire evil scheme in front of an authority figure. Laurel kills Weems in retaliation and to protect her secrets. Gwendoline Christie is still shocked by her character’s demise.
“I feel like Weems would never be defeated by something as commonplace as death,” Christie says of her formidable character. “So really what I was playing in that moment was that Weems was confounded by the situation.”
But no matter her shock, Weems is truly … dead. “Hopefully Weems’s death at the end of the season will take people by surprise and they’ll be as moved as Wednesday is by her loss,” Millar says.
Christie is also curious to see how this death will affect Wednesday, who is losing a protector (even if Wednesday didn’t always see her as such). “It was quite moving because by that stage, Jenna and I had built up such a bond, and in a way I didn’t want to leave her,” she says about filming the episode. But leave her she must, opening up an empty seat in the principal’s office.
“She was very protective of Nevermore. So can we get somebody like that again?” quips Joy Sunday, who plays Nevermore “It” girl Bianca.
Throughout Wednesday Season 1, our titular sleuth starts to explore her psychic abilities. Her spirit guide on this journey is her ancestor, Goody Addams — the same relative who sealed Crackstone in his sarcophagus. In the finale, Laurel stabs Wednesday, intending to kill her. However, Goody steps in with a plan. She tells Wednesday to use her necklace as a talisman, which will allow Goody to pass through her and heal her. Yet Wednesday will have to pay a price in order to remain alive: She’ll never see Goody again.
Wednesday agrees to the deal. Her life is saved, but she loses access to her spirit guide forever. In Season 2, the loss of Goody Addams proves to be a real thorn in Wednesday’s side — especially once her abilities start malfunctioning.
Though the Crackstone case is “gone” for now — as Millar confirms — Wednesday has more twists in store for its young amateur detective. For instance, the stalker. In the last scene of the finale, Wednesday, now armed with her very first cell phone, receives multiple texts from an unknown contact. The stalker sends a few photos of Wednesday with her love interests, a Memoji-style gif of a Wednesday avatar being stabbed in the head, and a text reading, “I’m watching you.”
Millar and Gough knew fans would be curious about the mysterious new character creeping around Nevermore. That’s why they revealed their identity in Wednesday Season 2, along with more answers to your most grave questions. Press play on all eight episodes of the horror drama’s sophomore season to find out who (else) is watching Wednesday — and click here to learn even more about the stalker.
You can (re)live all the spooks and surprises of Wednesday right now, until Season 3 comes knocking. While you wait, keep checking back with Tudum for all your Nevermore news.
