Jenna Ortega and the writers are here to answer your burning questions.
By Ariana RomeroNov 25, 2022
🤐 SPOILER ALERT 🤐
It all kicks off in Wednesday’s Season 1 finale. Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) confirms her suspicions that Tyler (Hunter Doohan) is the Hyde terrorizing Nevermore Academy — and not Xavier (Percy Hynes White), who was first arrested for the monster’s crimes. She also discovers the hidden identity of Tyler’s master — and all the while, one brutal death looms in the future.
As all the secrets of Wednesday are revealed, star Gwendoline Christie, who portrays Nevermore Academy principal Larissa Weems, is reminded of a line about her other Netflix fantasy series, The Sandman. “The devil does not arrive protesting and with placards, the devil arrives in a limousine. And I think that often it is the people that present themselves most normally or harmlessly or in a very generalized or nebulous fashion that often have the most sinister of intentions,” she tells Tudum.
So, who are the true devils of Wednesday? And what do they want? Christie, Ortega and the rest of the cast, along with showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, are ready to explain.
Who is the Hyde?
Supposed normie Tyler is the Hyde. Apologies to Xavier, who is arrested for the monster’s murder spree in Episode 7 after Wednesday zeroes in on him as the culprit. Even genius girl detectives can be wrong sometimes (especially when a mastermind is pulling the strings from the shadows — we’ll get to that). Tyler’s monster lineage can be traced back to his late mother, who was also a Hyde and therefore would be barred from the halls of Nevermore. Hydes are not allowed to enroll at the spooky academy due to their unpredictable nature.
“I think at the beginning Tyler was terrified [of being a Hyde],” Doohan tells Tudum. But the actor — along with Gough and Millar — believes Tyler 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 the final shot of Episode 8 reveals, Tyler isn’t done exploring his monstrous side.
Explaining Laurel Gates’ master plan
Marilyn Thornhill loves a complicated scheme. Or perhaps we should call her by her real name: Laurel Gates. Laurel is a descendant of Joseph Crackstone, a Colonial-era pilgrim who was obsessed with eradicating all outcasts from the town of Jericho. The Gates family continued Crackstone’s mission for generations. When Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Gomez Addams (Luis Guzmán) attended Nevermore, Laurel’s older brother Garrett 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. “He grew up thinking his mom had died and that she had mental illness and that his dad never wants to talk about it. 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, all of Nevermore comes together to quickly defeat Crackstone. “At this point the Crackstone story is sealed, and the end of the season is the end of that storyline,” writer 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, should there be more seasons.”
Is Weems really dead?
Laurel’s plan is pretty flawless — except for the surprise twist that Nevermore principal Weems is a shapeshifter. 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’ 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 explains. 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.
Who is the Stalker?
Though the Crackstone case is “gone” for now — as writer 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.”
Vlad Cioplea/Netflix
“I think Tyler’s secret is out. It’s got to be one of you guys,” Doohan tells co-stars Sunday, Hynes White and Emma Myers, who plays Wednesday’s roommate Enid, during their joint interview.
Already, certain cast members playfully are lining up to take the villainous mantle. “It’s Enid. She’s just very jealous,” jokes Myers. Meanwhile Naomi J. Ogawa, who plays cool girl Yoko Tanaka, gamely responded at the Wednesday premiere red carpet, “Who knows? I could possibly be.”
Showrunners Gough and Millar say they were hoping for exactly this kind of theorizing. “The Stalker [mystery] is just the idea that the threats remain out there. There are certainly other possible threats out there to both Wednesday and the school,” Millar says.
“Not all the loose ends have been tied up as neatly as Wednesday thinks they have. And she loves the idea of a new mystery.”
