Warning: This story contains major spoilers for “Wednesday” Season 2.
The Addams family has returned to Netflix for “Wednesday” Season 2, bringing more even more goblins, ghouls and mystery.
The latest installment of the dark comedy series has been split into Parts 1 and 2, with first dropping Wednesday, Aug. 6, and the second arriving a month later.
Season 2 once again places Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) as an amateur detective at Nevermore Academy, attempting to uncover the person behind relentless torment.
Jenna Ortega reprises her titular role in “Wednesday” Season 2.Jonathan Hession / Netflix
But in order to understand the twists and turns of “Wednesday” Season 2, it’s helpful to take a look back at how Season 1 wrapped in 2022. Here’s a brief recap and an explanation of how Season 2, Part 1 ends.
How Does ‘Wednesday’ Season 1 End?
The first season of “Wednesday” introduces the Addams family — Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones), Gomez (Luis Guzmán), Wednesday and Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez), and follows the titular character’s journey during her first year at Nevermore.
Using her sleuthing skills and inherited psychic abilities, Wednesday devotes her days at the academy to trying to solve a murder.
In the Season 1 finale, Wednesday’s suspicions are confirmed. Her classmate and love interest, Tyler (Hunter Doohan), is really a short-tempered murderous Hyde monster, and he’s been behind a series of violent attacks.
But Tyler wasn’t acting alone. The Hyde’s master turns out to be botany teacher Marilyn Thornhill, whose real name in the show is Laurel Gates (Christina Ricci).
At the end of the season, Laurel’s longstanding revenge plot to eliminate all outcasts is unveiled. Laurel is a descendant of Joseph Crackstone, who attempted to wipe out all outcasts in Jericho, where Nevermore is located. Following her familial pursuit, Laurel used the Hyde to kill off as many outcasts as she could, while simultaneously collecting body parts to resurrect Crackstone.
Wednesday. Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams in episode 104 of Wednesday.Netflix
Because Wednesday is a descendant of Goody Addams, who played a significant role in Crackstone’s death, the final step of Laurel’s plan was to obtain Wednesday’s blood.
Once she has her blood, Laurel brings back Crackstone. Then, using their powers as outcasts, all of Nevermore backs Wednesday to ultimately defeat Laurel, Crackstone and the Hyde.
Though the Crackstone case wraps up in the finale, Wednesday’s life remains complicated. In the final scene of Season 1, Wednesday receives her first cell phone and immediately get threatening messages from an unknown contact, with a final text reading, “I’m watching you.”
Read a more thorough “Wednesday” Season 1 recap here.
What Happens in ‘Wednesday’ Season 2, Part 1?
Tyler’s father, Sheriff Donovan Galpin (Jamie McShane), dies by crow attack — and isn’t the only one.
Throughout the four episodes of Part 1, Wednesday attempts to uncover who is responsible for the killings. A hooded figure called the Avian is controlling the killer crows. Who is it?
Meanwhile as she starts Year 2 at Nevermore, Wednesday continues to be watched and threatened by her new stalker. Then Wednesday has a vision of her roommate Enid’s (Emma Myers) death. While Enid comes close to her doom in Part 1, Wednesday never tells her roommate about the vision.
Emma Myers as Enid Sinclair, Jenna Ortega as Wednesday.Jonathan Hession / Netflix
Instead, Wednesday avoids involving Enid in her murder investigation — though the werewolf is almost too occupied with a love triangle between Ajax (Georgie Farmer) and Bruno (Noah B. Taylor) to notice.
Accompanied by a new accomplice, Agnes DeMille (Evie Templeton), whom she first suspects is her stalker, Wednesday takes her investigation to Willow Hill, a psychiatric ward. That’s where Laurel is held and Tyler is being treated.
When she visits Willow Hill, she meets Dr. Rachael Fairburn (Thandiwe Newton), who has been overseeing Tyler’s care and conducting research on the Hyde, and Dr. Fairburn’s assistant, Judi (Heather Matarazzo).
Wednesday then comes face-to-face with Tyler for the first time since his demise, telling him of his father’s death. While she doesn’t get enough information to further her investigation, she makes clear to Tyler that her work isn’t done.
How Does ‘Wednesday’ Season 2, Part 1 End?
In the fourth and final episode of Part 1, Laurel makes a big return to the series, as Dr. Fairburn attempts to pick her brain on how to best tame the Hyde.
Laurel offers her knowledge in exchange for a transfer from Willow Hill’s prisoner system to being a patient. Though Dr. Fairburn declines, she grants Laurel’s wish to see Tyler in person before she’s sent back to her cell.
Steve Buscemi as Principal Barry Dort, Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia Addams, Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams, Isaac Ordonez as Pugsley Addams, Joonas Suotamo as Lurch, Luis Guzmán as Gomez Addams.Jonathan Hession / Netflix
Upon seeing Laurel, Tyler transforms into the Hyde and nearly kills his master before letting her go. Laurel later tells Dr. Fairburn that he wouldn’t have killed her because a Hyde killing a master secures its doom.
Meanwhile, Wednesday calls in her Uncle Fester (Fred Armisen) to do some digging from inside Willow Hill.
After wrecking havoc at a hotel, Fester is arrested, along with another woman squatting in his neighboring room. The woman turns out to be Bianca’s (Joy Sunday) mom, swerving law enforcement for unknown reasons.
As a patient at the psych ward, Fester is on the lookout for a person named Lois, per Wednesday’s instructions. But after Laurel spots Fester and notifies the staff of his connection to the Addams family, he’s locked up in Willow Hill’s prison.
Using the blueprints Agnes had found, Wednesday crafts a plan to break in to Willow Hill for answers. She puts Enid, who begs to be involved in the scheme, on lookout duty.
Once Wednesday breaks in, she frees Fester, and they escape his cell.
In a stairwell, they find the word LOIS painted on the wall, only to realize LOIS isn’t a name but an acronym: Longterm Outcast Integration Study. As they wander further, they find a room of prison cells each holding outcasts.
After they move through each cell, the pair is met by Wednesday’s stalker. She’s expecting the Avian to be Dr. Fairburn. But the black-cloaked villain is actually Judi — the doctor’s unassuming assistant.
Judi says
she hired Dr. Fairburn to be the face of the institute while she continued the work of her father, Augustus Stonehurst. He attempted to extract the powers of the outcasts and make them accessible to “normies,” or people without powers.
Judi is continuing his legacy, saying she was also born a normie and now has an army of crows at her beck and call. When Fester tries to electrocute her, his powers can’t reach her but they do turn off the building’s electric system and unlock all outcasts’ cells. The outcasts then attack Judi, allowing Wednesday and Fester to escape.
Amid the chaos, Wednesday guides one of the outcasts to safety while Laurel escapes her own chains and frees Tyler. But Laurel’s plan backfires and the Hyde impales her with his claws, seemingly killing her.
Attempting to bring a patient to safety in her office, Dr. Fairburn is fatally attacked by a zombie, who also kills the patient.
As Wednesday travels the dark hallways of the psych ward, the Hyde finds her. Suddenly Wednesday is thrown out of a second story window.
The final moments of Part 1 see Wednesday laying bloodied and unconscious in the rain, surrounded by police, as the Hyde escapes.
“I’ve always dreamed of looking death in the face. But in my final moments all I hear is my mother’s words ringing in my ears,” Wednesday says in a voiceover. “Maybe I have made everything worse. Much worse.”
