If you haven’t been able to stop thinking about Wednesday’s whirlwind finale, you’re not alone. You’ll be on an exciting roller coaster ride with Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega), who is putting together centuries of conflict to find the truth. But if you’ve also found yourself drowning in the heaps of information the show’s finale unravels, well, you’re also not alone. Without further ado, it’s time to get into the nitty-gritty world of Nevermore and the face-palm worthy clues Tim Burton gave us from the show’s pilot episode. Let’s get started.
The mystery is at hand
With Wednesday’s expulsion streak and trouble fitting in, Gomez (Luis Guzmán) and Morticia Addams (Catherine Zeta-Jones) think their daughter may finally find her footing at their own alma matter, Nevermore Academy, located on the outskirts of Jericho. The school is Hogwarts turned goth and boasts a student body that includes sirens and gorgons as well as werewolves and other kids with mind-powers. Nevermore has trouble. A mysterious monster is terrorizing the woods and hunting down its student.
The show’s progress is marked by Nevermore’s monster being a rare beast known as a Hyde (yes, it does exist). Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde). It is essentially a human that can transform into a huge, flesh-eating beast. Hydes are only activated by someone else. This can be done through a combination of chemicals, hypnosis and trauma-inducing stresses. The person will eventually become a hyde when their controlling counterpart requests it. Wednesday is at an unusual epicenter of this mystery, with the hyde’s maker and victim seemingly targeting her. Her family history is also deeply intertwined with all that is going on.
Addams Past and Present: A History
There are two major timelines casting a shadow on the mystery and Wednesday’s time at school: Jericho’s founding in the 17th century, and Morticia and Gomez’s high school years, 30 years before Wednesday itself.
As WednesdayUncovering the truth, we discover that Jericho was founded by an absolute bigot named Joseph Crackstone. A pilgrim determined to take back his homelandAnd rid it of outcasts who looked exactly like Wednesday’s fellow Nevermore peers. His biggest opponent was Wednesday’s own Mexican ancestor, Goody Addams (also played by Ortega), who managed to survive Crackstone’s attempt to burn all outcasts and executed her revenge by poisoning and killing him with nightshade. The queen Goody built Nevermore to provide a safe haven for all the outcasts. And while Jericho’s council continuously attempts to whitewash its own history and paint Crackstone as a savior, Wednesday (and other key players) know the true story of what went down.
Flash-forward hundreds of years later, and we’re at Nevermore in the ’90s watching Gomez and Morticia fall in love. But there’s trouble in paradise, thanks to Garett Gates, the son of Ansel Gates and one of Jericho’s last remaining families directly tied to Crackstone through ancestry. The Gates may have acquired wealth and respect from their legacy, but they’ve also acquired a hostility toward outcasts and are determined to destroy everything about Nevermore once and for all. Garett is madly in love with Morticia but on a mission to spike the drinks at their Rav’n prom with nightshade, a twisted take at poetic justice, to execute his family’s lifelong dream of killing all outcasts. Instead, Garett’s case of nightshade cracks while still in his pocket and poisons him instead, with Morticia and Gomez bearing the brunt of his death many years later.
We also know that the first known occurrences of hydes occurred during this time by a Nevermore student, Nathaniel Faulkner. And the mother of Wednesday’s classmate, Rowen (Calum Ross), had a vision that a young girl in identifiable braids was going to fight against a greater evil on Nevermore’s grounds. All these pieces tie together and unravel during Wednesday’s time at school, informing her struggle with a present-day duo trying to revive a history of bigotry through an outcast-killing monster.
The reveal
Christina Ricci is back in her villain era folks. By Wednesday’s finale, we learn that the duo behind the monster terrorizing Nevermore were in fact Ms. Thornhill (Ricci) and Tyler (Hunter Doohan). On one hand, we discover that Thornhill is actually Laurel Gates, aka Ansel Gates’ daughter, who was believed to have drowned many years ago but was in fact alive all along. On the other hand, we learn that Tyler’s mom was really an outcast and was the hyde that Faulkner discovered 30 years ago, with her genetics passing on to Tyler, whose hyde self was activated by Thornhill’s expansive knowledge of botany and chemicals.
The pair, like Crackstone have a deep hatred for Nevermore and are determined that it ends. But Thornhill is clever and knows she can’t do it alone, so she enlists the power of the supernatural to revive Crackstone himself to destroy Wednesday and Nevermore. We all know that their plans are foiled, but Wednesday saves the day with the help her peers, Goody Addams’ spirit, and her incredible fencing skills. But while the finale is a nonstop shock fest, keen viewers may have managed to pick apart the reveal from the show’s beginning.
Ms. Thornhill can be a master manipulator
Being part of the Gates family means that Ms. Thornhill has access to all of the town’s information, including the whereabouts and details of its outcasts, which she uses to find Tyler and bring out his hyde. Ms. Thornhill also possesses Goody’s Book of Shadows, which details the blood ritual needed to revive Crackstone. With these two instrumental elements under her belt, Thornhill begins her journey to infiltrate Nevermore as their first “normie,” aka nonmagical, teacher while acting as a mentor to Wednesday to lure her in and throw her off track. But Thornhill’s track was never polished to begin with, and her key role was largely hinted at the first time she met Wednesday.
When we first see the Addams drop off Wednesday at Nevermore in the show’s pilot, Ms. Thornhill, who’s Wednesday’s dorm mother, is curiously nowhere to be found. We also learn that the monster was hunting down a poor hitchhiker deep in the woods within the hour. These two tidbits harmoniously come together upon Ms. Thornhill’s arrival as she greets Wednesday in her dorm room wearing a pair of muddy boots — the same boots Eugene (Moosa Mostafa) uses to identify her in the show’s finale. Why would Thornhill’s boots be covered in mud if she wasn’t out in the forest? Why would a dorm mother, who’s supposed to greet every newcomer, not welcome Wednesday if she wasn’t out in the forest with the monster? That little scene of her profusely apologizing for being late and causing a muddy mess seems innocent upon a first watch, but takes on a completely different meaning by the show’s end.
The secrets of flowers
In that same welcoming scene, Ms. Thornhill gifts Wednesday a black dahlia — a flower ParticularlyNamed after a notorious unsolved murder, the black dahlia was chosen for her. The black dahlia works in two ways: It foreshadows Wednesday’s involvement with the monster mystery to come, and it recalls Morticia and Gomez’s suspected involvement in Garett Gates’ death, aka Thornhill’s own brother. Thornhill gives Wednesday a white oleander as a gift. It is one of most symbolic and deadliest flowers, but it also has the highest floral entendres. Its simultaneous invocation of death as well as fate is an excellent representation of Thornhill’s view of Wednesday and is evidently the best gift. Only through Wednesday’s death can Crackstone come back to life. Thornhill, on the other hand, sees death in white oleander. This is a preemptive fate to a greater cause.
Hyper-fixations on flora aside, the show’s timeline also hints at Thornhill and Laurel being the same person and monster maker. All throughout Wednesday, we learn that Thornhill joined Nevermore a year and a half before the show’s present, and we learn that Laurel (under a pseudonym) bought her childhood home a year before as well. Alongside the perfectly overlapping timelines, most people in the town seem to recognize Thornhill but aren’t exactly sure from where. For example, in the show’s third episode, the town’s mayor curiously looks at Thornhill and asks if he’s ever seen her before. But our perfect villain in disguise whips up a seamless alibi and manages to convince him that he’s only seen her recently, and not in her youth.
Tyler is the monster
Talk about a disastrous first kiss. The romance ended, #Wyler-shippers. Tyler is a two-faced monster with a double life that perfectly hides his hyde. He was in therapy. Better mental health? Nope. Jamie McShane, his dad, was only trying to manage and control his hyde turning susceptible emotions. Is his mom still with him? Somewhere in the wild, she was an uncontrollable hydrode. Did Percy Hynes White right in not trusting Tyler? Absolutely, Tyler was a bully through and through, with an incessant hatred toward outcasts that hadn’t changed one bit.
Our horrible hyde managed to conceal his big secret for Wednesday, but he might not have been able to communicate with audiences as well. We have the state mandatory child labor laws to be grateful for. During Nevermore’s Outreach Day, we learn that a big clue in Wednesday’s mystery, Goody’s Book of Shadows, was stolen from Crackstone’s museum display at 2 p.m. during the site’s daily witch trial performance. Not even a minute later, the scene cuts to Wednesday telling Tyler she needs help finding the book and digging into Crackstone’s past, with Tyler coincidentally being available because guess what? It’s now 2 p.m. and he finishes his shift. He’s done making his last coffee of the day, he plugs in his hours, he heads over to the nearby museum, and he flawlessly steals the Book of Shadows while everyone’s outside watching a fake witch trial that’s apparently entertaining.
Tyler knows suspiciously more than Tyler does about work hours. wayHe knows too much about everyone. He knows the exact location of Crackstone’s ruined cabin, despite it being vanished off the town’s radar and home to squatters. When he and Wednesday are trying to hide from hunting hounds in the forest, he uses coffee grounds to mask their scent — an esoteric tactic he claims to know because he goes “deer hunting” (when we coincidentally also know that the hyde loves feasting on venison).
He’s also AlwaysThey are there when the hyde goes off. No matter where Wednesday encounters the hyde, it’s a surefire fact that Tyler was with her moments before. Whether it was during their carnival date in the show’s first episode or their break-in into the Gates’ old home in episode six, Tyler was always with her and so was the hyde, but never at the same time. Perhaps that was his greatest gift.
The Mr. Hyde to Ms. Thornhill’s Dr. Jekyll, Wednesday’s plot-twisting reveal is a fun literary nod and gasp-worthy shocker with many strings left unanswered. While we can safely say that the duo have been caught, we’re still unsure of other key players that may have been helping them. Who is Wednesday’s stalker? How did Laurel Gates pretend her death? Is anyone still alive from the Gates family? And where the hell is Tyler’s mom? So many strings, so few questions. As Wednesday said it herself, “I know the suspense is killing you.”
