Summary
Wednesday Season 2 does a reasonable job with Netflix’s asinine distribution strategy, and the midpoint ending contains several key revelations — as well as building to an almighty cliffhanger.
As much as I despise Netflix’s new approach of releasing new seasons of key IP in several parts, Wednesday Season 2 is a good example of how to do a halfway decent job of it. Episode 4, which marks the ending of Part 1 if not the season overall, contains several huge reveals that will keep viewers pondering until the second half of the story rolls around. It’s a big “finale” full of important revelations that builds to a juicy cliffhanger, even though nobody in their right mind thinks that Wednesday is anywhere near as dead as she seems at the end of the episode.
Allow me to go over the crucial developments so that everyone is on the same page for Part 2. As expected, Willow Hill is central to the entire affair, with the episode’s climax being set there, and purely by chance, Wednesday’s investigation into the crow killer overlaps with the ongoing story of Tyler and Marilyn. Let’s break it all down.
Calling In Some Favors
Still sans powers, Wednesday turns to her few allies for help. First, she calls her Grandmama and shows her the cemetery full of fake cremations for all of the former Willow Hill patients whose obituaries Wednesday found in Galpin’s cabin. Wednesday knows she’s on the right track since the one-eyed crow flutters down to steal all of her evidence, so she asks Hester to purchase the graveyard for her to dig up more information, which she does quite happily, no doubt with the intention of getting one over on Morticia.
Wednesday also asks her Uncle Fester to get himself committed to Willow Hill and figure out who the mysterious Lois is. He mentions that he hasn’t been there since Ophelia was apparently sent, but he nonetheless relishes the opportunity to act like a maniac and get himself sectioned.
To do this, Fester causes carnage in the hotel, which also, inadvertently, leads the sheriffs to discover Bianca’s mother, who has been hidden by Bianca’s siren song after escaping from a dangerous cult. She’s taken into custody along with Fester, who convinces the authorities that a full psychological evaluation is necessary by eating a cactus. Given the state of his brain, it’s not an evaluation that Fester is likely to pass, which is, admittedly, the point.
What’s In A Name?
The key breakthrough occurs when Hester arrives to hand Wednesday the deeds to the cemetery and tells her that a man named Augustus Stonehurst signed off on all the fake cremations. Again, this is likely something that Hester is doing to annoy Morticia more than anything else, but it gives Wednesday what she needs. After Nevermore is attacked by crows and Wednesday unsuccessfully chases the killer, she runs right into Dr. Fairburn and an out-of-breath Miss Capri and immediately suspects them both. She sends Thing to Willow Hill, clinging to Fairburn’s car, to tell Fester to look for Stonehurst as a way of locating Lois.
Stonehurst was the former director of the asylum who ended up as one of its patients. Fester finds him and is shown where to look for Lois by electrocuting the chatty birds he talks through. Unfortunately, he happens to walk past Marilyn while he’s investigating, and she tips Dr. Fairburn off about who he is. Fairburn has Fester locked up with Slurp, but Thing escapes. Realizing what has happened, Wednesday sends Thing back inside to help coordinate a rescue mission that also involves Agnes and Enid.
Through Orloff, Wednesday also learns that Stonehurst had a daughter and built her an aviary in Iago Tower. This only seems to strengthen Wednesday’s theory that either Dr. Fairburn or Miss Capri is the Avian killer.
Fred Armisen as Uncle Fester in Wednesday. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025
Escape From Willow Hill
Wednesday enacts her grand plot to break Fester out of Willow Hill and figure out who Lois is, using Miss Capri’s musical therapy session as a means of getting inside. Once there, she’s able to free Fester. Since he’s left unattended, though, Slurp is able to get loose and runs into Marilyn’s guards, which allows her to free herself.
Through a hidden door in the maintenance room, Wednesday and Fester find Lois, or perhaps more accurately, LOIS — Long-Term Outcast Integration Study. LOIS isn’t a person, but a project, which turns out to be faking patients’ deaths and using them as lab rats. All of the prisoners whose obituaries Wednesday found in Galpin’s cabinare down there in increasingly alarming states of transformation.
The killer finally presents themselves to Wednesday, and it turns out to be Judi, Dr. Fairburn’s right-hand woman. She’s the daughter of Stonehurst, who experimented on her — at her request — to turn her from a Normie into an Avian. Judi is repaying the favour by experimenting on all the captives in LOIS, including one who doesn’t seem as physically far-gone as the others. When Fester releases a big electrical jolt, all of the experiments are freed and chase Judi away. Wednesday remains behind to escort the final remaining woman, who is almost certainly her Aunt Ophelia, to safety.
Body Count
The ending of Wednesday Season 2, Part 1 claims a lot of lives. Now free, Marilyn goes to liberate Tyler, but he’s still adamant about killing her. He gives her a five-second head start so that he can transform and give chase. He still manages to catch and kill her fairly easily.
Surprisingly, Dr. Fairburn and Stonehurst are also killed by an escaped Slurp. The zombie even recognises Stonehurst, presumably from his time at Nevermore.
The key question coming out of this midpoint finale is whether Wednesday is alive. She happens to run into fully roided-out Hyde Tyler, and he throws her out of an upstairs window. The final shot of Wednesday Part 1 finds her unconscious on the grounds of Willow Hill, badly hurt from the fall. Again, it’s highly unlikely that Netflix would deign to kill off the protagonist with half of the season still to go, but stranger things have happened.
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