Netflix’s ‘Wednesday’ follows the titular family member of the Addams family as she tries to solve a series of murders embroiled with her life in a new school of outcasts.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
Following a diabolical revenge she exacts on a bully, Wednesday Addams is expelled from school, and her family takes her to a new one — the Nevermore Academy.
Where once both her parents were students (and fell in love too), Nevermore Academy is a school for all the outcasts — the weirdos and freaks and Wednesday, like her family, fits right in.
However, she doesn’t seem to think so and wants to run off from the academy the first chance she gets. Her first few days already unravel a series of extremely perilous events that also threaten her life, twice.
She also witnesses the student that revealed to her a prophecy made decades ago, dying at the hands of a monster who spares her for an inexplicable reason.
When she wakes up, her account of what transpired doesn’t add up for others and the student she witnessed getting mauled to death turns up, alive and healthy.
This is enough morbidity, life-threatening encounters, and inexplicable shockers for Wednesday to change her mind on the whole fleeing-out-the-school plans.
Snapping back with her dry and piercing out-witting one-liners and killing most with her glaring eyes, Wednesday is hard at work cracking the mystery behind the grim outset of Nevermore Academy.
Meanwhile, she helps Enid — her cheerful and bubbly roommate with diametrically opposite personality and aesthetics — win the Poe Cup. Elsewhere, the sheriff of Jericho town questions Wednesday about the recent events.
Later, Wednesday discovers a secret society of students in her school. Meanwhile, Outreach Day arrives and the outcasts go out to socialize with the normies.
But Wednesday, who has been having visions, learns of the horrible truth about Jericho’s founder who everyone celebrates, knowing nothing of his hideous history.
While she keeps creating a ruckus and difficult situations for Principal Weems, the extremely edgy goth newcomer has managed to attract quite a number of boys vying for her love.
The night of the Rave’N dance arrives and the boys entangled in the love triangle with the anti-social goth protagonist both get a hint of jealousy and then a dash of heartbreak.
The transpires a tasteless prank that distracts Wednesday from saving Eugene — a beekeeper Hummer friend who reminds her of her brother — from getting seriously injured.
Amid all the new incidents, Parents Weekend arrives and the Addams family comes to check up on their beloved girl. The family’s past is revealed following Gomez Addams’ wrongful arrest.
While the investigations are ongoing, the friends want to do some friendly activities, like celebrating birthdays and going on dates, but Wednesday dreads it all more than anything.
Uncle Fester arrives and aids her in her investigations and later patches up Thing when he gets stabbed as well. The investigations commence and fingers of suspicions all point to Xavier, who Addams gets arrested for being the Hyde monster and killing all those victims
Meanwhile, Addams’ warmer side surfaces and despite her cold appearance and fervour, she finds herself beings a bit swayed by the romance Tyler impresses upon her. However, new visions bring a shocking revelation to light and a bit of twist to boot.
The final confrontation occurs and secrets are exposed, followed by Principal Weems’ tragic murder, while Addams gets on working and defeating the resurrected pilgrim who threatened to wipe out her ancestors in the 17th century.
Enemies are defeated and some broken relationships are mended, followed by the school taking a break and Addams departing for home. However, the story’s not quite over yet and there remain loose threads that need untangling.
Wednesday ending explained in detail:
Who is the Hyde monster?
Wednesday suspects Xavier to be the Hyde monster all throughout the story until the very end when the truth knocks her out with a shocking twist.
At the end of the series, it’s revealed that Tyler is Hyde and has been killing all the people left and right as the monster.
He’s never really on Wednesday’s radar as he’s always the first to lend her a helping hand, the kind of gesture she hates most, but eventually comes to have an affinity for him gradually.
This eventually ends up in the first kiss that she shares with him in the diner, only to get struck by another series of visions that show her it was Tyler who killed Dr Kinbott.
She tries to get a confession out of him later on, deciding to torture him in order to bring the truth out. However, her friends disagree and call the Sheriff who comes running to save his son and take her into custody.
At the station, though, Tyler goes full mask-off in front of Wednesday, revealing to her the atrocities that he’s going to help wreak on all others. The series ends with the protagonist as well as Enid defeating Tyler, while also destroying his master’s mission.
Did Wednesday’s father kill Garret Gates?
When Gomez and Morticia were in Nevermore together, they were intensely in love with each other. However, there was one more lad who fell in love with the latter.
It was Garret Gates, son of the wealthy and powerful Ansel Gates — a man who vehemently hated the outcasts and wanted to wipe them all out. Garret mistook Morticia’s kindness for romantic interest and his unrequited affinity turned into infatuation.
Eventually, he went mad in his infatuation and attacked Gomez for being with Morticia. He fought with him and in his unrelenting and insane rage, came very close to killing him.
However, Morticia stabbed him with a sword to save her love, who in turn, grabbed the sword from her to appear as the killer and take the blame upon himself.
It’s Wednesday who finds out who actually killed Garret Gates decades later when her father is wrongfully convicted of his murder yet again.
It was neither Gomez nor Morticia who killed Garret. The one responsible for his death was his own father Ansel Gates. The finger that the Addams family’s mother-daughter duo procure after digging Garret’s grave gives the daughter a vision.
This vision was from the past wherein Ansel ordered his son to poison every outcast at Nevermore by spiking the punch bowl.
However, when Garret engaged in a scuffle with Gomez and Morticia, the vial of the Nightshades poison broke and the liquid got absorbed by his body, eventually taking effect as he starts to foam during the fight.
Garret was already dying when Morticia plunged the sword into him in defence.
Who is Laurel Gates?
Laurel Gates is the daughter of the Gates family, the one family member who was reported to be the last one to die following the tragedy of their son Garret dying.
According to the reports, she had drowned overseas but it’s later revealed that the reports were inconclusive and insufficient, leading the protagonists to infer that Laurel actually lived and later returned to Jericho to exact her revenge.
The person who turns out to be Laurel Gates is none other than Ms Marilyn Thornbill, the shrubbery and chemical expert who heads the conservatory at Nevermore. She’s the daughter of the Outcast-hating bigot Ansel Gates.
In episode 8, ‘A Murder of Woes’, Wednesday connects all the dots and with the help of Eugene, finds out that Dr Kinbott wasn’t Laurel Gates but Ms Thornbill is.
Thornbill came to Nevermore a year and a half ago, securing the job after years of having faked her death. It was all done in her quest to exact revenge on the outcasts for what happened to her family.
However, above all, she did it to resurrect Joseph Crackstone who had been buried and sealed shut inside his crypt by Goody Addams — the ancestor of Wednesday Addams.
And as it turns out, Laurel Gates is the descendant of Joseph Crackstone, and her family has been trying to resurrect him for centuries.
Finally, Laurel aka Thornbill succeeds in resurrecting the pilgrim out of his crypt but the villain is ultimately defeated, along with his descendant Laurel Gates.
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