Summary
The ending of Wednesday Season 2 capably ties off most of Part 2’s plot threads, but predictably leaves plenty of doors open for Season 3.
Wednesday is pretty good at endings. It’s the done thing these days to never really end a show, but this one has always been good at skirting that fine line between setting up the next chapter and leaving things unsatisfyingly open. The first season finale worked this way. In many ways, so did Season 2’s Part 1 finale, even though that was only a stopgap in the middle of the ongoing story. Part 2 climaxes in Episode 8, “This Means Woe”, by wrapping almost everything up except the key components that’ll no doubt form the basis of Season 3. That means all the payoff you’re expecting, on the level of both plot and character, with enough mystery and intrigue leftover to sustain our interest. In the grand scheme of things, I reckon that’s the right way to do it.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, though, since there’s still plenty to break down in this finale, including some major Addams family secrets, Thing’s origin story, and the outcome of Isaac’s efforts to save his sister by divorcing her from her monstrous inner nature. So, we should get on with that.
An Addams Family Secret
After Isaac snatched Pugsley at the end of the penultimate episode, Wednesday, Morticia, and Hester have no choice but to put their heads together in a little ceremony to track him down. Wednesday gets a terrifying vision as part of it, though, which reveals a dark secret that Wednesday’s parents have been keeping from her all this time.
We already knew that Gomez and Isaac were friendly. What we didn’t know is that they were so friendly that Isaac chose Gomez as the test subject for the machine he was building to strip Outcasts of their powers. However, he didn’t tell Gomez that the machine would kill him in order to save Francoise. Once Morticia realised that, she intervened, destroying the machine and killing Isaac in the resultant explosion. It was Morticia and Gomez who buried Isaac underneath the Skull Tree.
This is also how Gomez lost his powers, which is probably why everyone’s so touchy about it. It also sheds some light on what Isaac wants with Pugsley — he needs another body to use the machine, and Pugsley will do.
Thing’s Backstory Explained
Remember that little detail about Thing’s silver signet ring? Well, we finally get an answer to that here. And it’s probably not the one that anyone wanted.
Isaac uses Eugene to bait Wednesday out to a midnight meeting at the Skull Tree. She thinks she has the upper hand, leaving Thing watching over them with a crossbow, but Isaac anticipates the shot, and Tyler wrangles Thing into a glass box. And then, the big reveal. Thing is Isaac’s missing right hand. It was severed by Morticia when she intervened in his experiment, and Morticia and Gomez kept him — it? — in the aftermath.
With his hand back in place, Isaac is able to use it to bury Wednesday under the skull tree, in the very grave he himself re-emerged from. Luckily, Agnes is invisible nearby, having decided not to go home with her father after all, but she’s unable to free Wednesday by herself.
Enid’s Sacrifice (And Francoise’s, Technically)
For help, Agnes heads to the lupin cages to enlist Enid. Together, they race to the Skull Tree, but Wednesday’s heartbeat is fading, so Enid has no choice but to wolf out so they can dig her free. However, it’s a full moon. As was clarified earlier, as an Alpha, if Enid transforms on a full moon, she won’t be able to turn back.
When Wednesday is free, she immediately recognises Enid’s sacrifice. Wolf-Enid rushes off into the woods, while Wednesday and Morticia race to Iago Tower to save Pugsley. As it turns out, Francoise had made Isaac promise to divorce Tyler from his Hyde, not her, which will ultimately condemn her but allow Tyler to live a normal life.
When Wednesday and Morticia arrive, the former frees Tyler, and he immediately transforms into the Hyde and goes after his mother and uncle. Francoise turns too, and the two Hydes fight until Francoise willingly falls to her death.
Isaac’s Defeat and Other Matters
In the final confrontation, the Addams family will Thing to return to them and turn on Isaac. Given that his entire arc has been about acceptance into the family, this is enough to stir enough power in him to beat Isaac down and rip out his clockwork heart. The lab blows up, but all the members of the Addams family survive, disproving the prophecy (for now).
Now, though, it’s time to set up Season 3. Miss Capri, for instance, finds Tyler and invites him to a support system that helps Hydes like him to disappear somewhere where the world can’t find them. Even though she’s a werewolf, apparently her father was a Hyde, which means the story she told earlier was probably bogus.
Morticia also gives Wednesday Ophelia’s journal. Since these two have now repaired their bond, which was the first step in Wednesday regaining her psychic abilities, Weems is able to go on sabbatical, thanking Wednesday, in her own way, for helping to keep her spirit alive. But there’s nothing good in Ophelia’s journal. Wednesday is heading north on a road trip with Uncle Fester in pursuit of Enid, but when she reads the tome, she has a vision of Ophelia. We see that she’s being held in a cell under Hester’s manor, and that she has written on its wall a simple message: “Wednesday must die.”
See you next season.
