Spoiler alert: This interview contains spoilers for the season 2 finale of “Wednesday.”
Things are searching for the Adams family.
“Wednesday” Season 2 opened when the heroine (Jenna Ortega) just mastered her mental abilities before she completely lost her mental abilities. A problem she couldn’t solve by the end of part 1. When she wakes up, she has a new spirit guide – Surprising! It is Larissa Weems (Gwendor Rinklisty), the late principal of Negnamore Academy, who suspected the villain on Wednesday before he died like a martyr at the end of season one.
Nevertheless, Wednesday is not far from Weem. In particular, if you want things to return to normal, you need to remember that your relationship with your mother, Morticia (Katherine Zeta Jones) must be healed, as you need to remember that your mental abilities are linked to your ancestors. Wednesday resists her favour of pursuing her mother, seeking advice from her grandmother Hester Frump (Joanna Lumley), who prefers torment her mother by chasing her. (Another surprise! It was thought that Tyler’s whole family was dead, but Françoise was actually trapped in Willow Hill’s exile as Lois’ subject, while Isaac was a zombie who was returned to the zombie by Pugsley.)
Eventually, when Isaac realizes he has kidnapped Pugsley, the three Addams women work together to take a secret on the table. Wednesday sets out to stop Isaac from doing the same to Pugsley, but in the process, Isaac captures things (Victor Dorobantu). Agnes (Evie Templeton) sees everything happening and tells Enid (Emma Myers) so that the two can dig up her, but they aren’t fast enough on their own. Enid has to drive the wolf out under the full moon on Wednesday to save him, and he just learned that she is an Alpha Wolf, which means that she will be stuck as a wolf forever and knows that she will run away.
On Wednesday, he caught Isaac, Françoise and Tyler in the lab, where he maintains the Pugsley. She manages to save him, and in the process releases Tyler – Isaac and Francoise have lied to him by planning to remove his powers against his will in order to “save” him, as Francose’s illness had already consumed her. In his rage, Tyler does the Hyde transformation, just like Françoise. As they fight, she eventually falls into her death and dies. Isaac tries to kill Wednesday in vengeance. But what Isaac is sewn into his arm regains his autonomy and tears Isaac’s heart.
Series creators Alfred Go and Miles Miller spoke with diversity about how they tie together the overlapping family stories that make up season two of “Wednesday.”
Let’s start with Françoise. I thought it would be revealed on Wednesday that the patient on the Mysterious Hill was Ophelia! When did Tyler’s mom decide to actually be alive? How did you build the character?
Alfred Goff: When Tim Burton first read the draft, he thought it was Ophelia too. It was a good switch. We were happy when we saw people guessing it online. We always knew that Tyler’s mother was still alive and hidden from the world. That’s what we knew we would dig into in Season 2. Because she is something Heides doesn’t want (to deal with) even among the outcasts. They are banned from Nevermore. “If you’re not a master, how do you control them?” Hyde still has a lot of them. It makes them enjoyable in our world.
MILES MILLAR: When Tyler was at the facility, we loved the idea, but what does it look like? And how can you marry it with the myth of the show? We always watch the show from a family perspective. There’s the Adams Family and it’s very important about the Galpin family, which got messed up when we saw Tyler, Françoise and Isaac together this season. It is the most dysfunctional family of all time.
When Françoise meets Morticia and when she finally finds Tyler, she still doesn’t think Isaac is still alive, and she hopes they will continue the procedures they tried decades ago. So, when she praised Morticia on Wednesday and promised to take Tyler out of town, is it real at first?
Miller: She’s real. However, she clearly breaks that promise when she does not leave. She has her own agenda, but ultimately saving her son. It all comes down to the mother. Morticia makes a deal, but Francoise is an unreliable partner and decides she actually has a different prioritization.
After Isaac and Françoise meet again, Tyler has no one to talk to. His mother and uncle are on the same page about removing Françoise’s powers to save her. How does he feel about all of this? He developed a lot of self-loathing, but being Hyde is still clearly important to him.
Gough: Francoise knows the dark side (of being a Hyde). She is older. She knows it’s a death sentence. Tyler understands that, but he likes the idea of being free and feels most free when he is Hyde. So I think he is someone who completely embraced his power. And although he loves it, he gets it only for a short flash of light. The best is worth the pain for him. He certainly helped her mother try to take away her powers, if she wanted, but there’s no argument when she betrays him. She just decided what this should do. That’s when he was enough.
Why does she save Tyler on Wednesday when she has the opportunity to kill him? They had feelings for each other, but as I said after part 1, she shows she is not interested in forgiveing him for his lies and murder.
Gough: At that moment, some of it is strategic. She needs Tyler to be distracted so she can save Pugsley. And I think there are moments when she feels bad for Tyler when she is betrayed by his family. They have a strange kinship that she never admits, but he clearly raises it. But if she’s going to justify it to herself, it’s just like “I’ll let him go and he can become the distraction we need to free Pugsley.”
Do you think Tyler will receive that act of mercy with gratitude? Will there be a place in his mind on Wednesday after what she did for him, or will he return to hunt her after joining the Secret Hide Society Miss Capri, which sells him?
Miller: There’s a deep connection and appreciation that they’re going outside the line of what normal people do. There is respect there, and connections that neither of them understand yet. They are both confused and surprised at each other’s actions. They are not very sure about the dance of their relationship, and that certainly speaks to what could be in season 3.
Let’s go to Addamses. Hester Frump points out to Gomez in a nasty comment that powerless exiles should be banned from Nevermore, and Morticia fights back by saying that being kicked out is a state of mind. What do you try and say in that argument?
Gough: There is an old school philosophy, there is a new school philosophy. Hester is a very old school. It was also the question we were asking in the writer’s room: What is Gomez? He is a member of the Adams family, but he has no strength. He has never been before either. It’s not like the Charles Adams panel or anything like that. And what does that mean to be an exile? I think that’s a state of mind that is proven by the popularity of the show. Clearly, people feel like exiles, even if the world doesn’t see them that way.
Tell us more about Hester. She also has coldness and cruelty on Wednesday, but she still has the capacity to have a deep, loving relationship in her own way, but Hester is even more lonely. Does Hester actually love Morticia and Wednesday?
Gough: Again, another generation of Hester. Hester would say, “I love Morticia, but I don’t necessarily like her.” you know what i mean? She was raised in a different way, and for women of that generation, she was pioneering. But that usually means getting one or the other, and she put her family aside to promote her career. It was a choice she felt she had to make to protect them and obtain this legacy. Morticia went in the opposite direction. She married for love, and she and Gomez are in great love. She was raising her family, so it was as cold as Wednesdays, and she was still raised in a family that loved her and accepted her, so there is always more empathy. And she is younger, from another generation.
Where is your relationship with Morticia on Wednesday now? They finally get on the same page to save Pugsley, but Wednesday appears to be shaking from all the secrets hidden from her.
Miller: It’s a key relationship in the series, a mother-daughter relationship. Morticia’s Ark is one of the trust. At the beginning of the season, she is about a burning spellbook, and at the end of the season it is a diary of Ophelia, an act of trust. It speaks to the evolution of their relationship. Mothers and daughters always go through different stages and they certainly leave the season in a much better place than they started. We’ll see what happens in Season 3.
Another member of the family finally has a story of origin. How much do you know that it’s coming, and that he was originally a villain’s hand?
Gough: That was something we always wanted to do. I knew it wouldn’t be a storyline for Season 1, but I wanted to do that in Season 2. When he was stabbed in episode 7 of Season 1, people said, “Oh my God, are they going to kill things?” This unembodied hand had gained so many people’s hearts, so we really wanted to explore it. And we wanted to tie it together with the Adams family. Gomez liked the idea of losing power, but things came from that tragedy.
Move to Enid: We saw her coming out under the full moon in Season 1 as she saves her from Tyler. If she is an alpha, why could she return to being a girl at that time?
Gough: She had never wolves before. That was her first time.
Miller: Also, from a mythical perspective, it was a bloody moon. That was special. Essentially, the rule is that if you’re a slow bluemer and you drive out the wolves into the Bloody Moon, it’s a signal that you could become an alpha. Alphas can be converted whenever they want, but if they do that with the full moon, that might mean that they are werewolves forever.
When you deal with such lore, what is your philosophy as a writer? There are so many existing references to both the Addams family and the various creatures and abilities you deal with. When putting together rules on “Wednesday,” do you want to consult and combine older versions, or do you write them yourself?
Gough: You always need to create your own myths. Hyde is a creature that has never existed in any other supernatural thing before. And with werewolves – people know what werewolves are, so there are certain rules that we adhere to, and try to make them their own and make them unique to the world. Especially with established things like werewolves and vampires, you play with the rules, but you have to give them the unique twist you have. What are the unique rules you bring to your own world?
This interview was compiled and condensed.
