Wednesday, the spine-chilling supernatural hit returns to Netflix for season 2 part 1.
This time round, Wednesday Addams returns to Nevermore Academy with her family in tow and brother Pugsley joining as a student. But, while season 1 saw the end of old adversaries, the mystery continues with a dangerous stalker, a new era led by a new principal and Wednesday's ongoing struggle to harness her psychic abilities.
Another year at Nevermore means another year of dark and spooky chaos and the Addams Family's world gets even more creepy. With new teachers and Principal Dort, there's a lot more horror to navigate in a season of two parts. Part 2 is coming on September 3. Spoilers to follow.
Here's a recap of everything that happened in Wednesday season 2 episode 4.
The final episode of Part 1 opens on Willow Hill. A guard is taking Marilyn Thornhill to see Dr. Fairburn. Marilyn says she’s read Dr. Fairburn’s book and it helped when she groomed Tyler.
Dr. Fairburn says she thought their time apart would weaken the bond, but she wants to know what Marilyn did so that she can try and rehabilitate him. She says she’ll help if she gets transferred to Willow Hill permanently as a patient, not a prisoner. Dr. Fairburn argues that a jury will have to decide and that she’ll have to use a more invasive method on Tyler, instead. Dr. Fairburn tells the guard to transfer Marilyn back to prison and place her in solitary confinement until her trial. Marilyn folds and says she’ll help. She just wants to see Tyler once.
Dr. Fairburn takes Marilyn to see Tyler. He tries to touch her, but the chains won’t quite reach. He says he’s been dreaming of this moment and suddenly transforms into the Hyde, strangling her round the neck. They can’t use the shock collar as it will kill her. Tyler throws her against the wall and she smiles at him.
Wednesday smashes into a mausoleum to take out an urn of ashes. She’s interrupted by Grandmama who says that her granddaughter called her for dirt on a competitor, so she was basically dared to show up. She takes the urn and reads the name, Patricia Redcar. She was one of the patients of Willow Hill that Galpin had kept the obituary for. She tells Grandmama she had a vision of her friend’s death and it’s somehow all connected. She also tells her how she’s lost her psychic ability and that Morticia plans to burn Goody’s book.
As they open Patricia’s urn, Grandmama instructs Wednesday to smell the ashes like she taught her. On doing so, she realizes there’s no human scent inside, only animals. The one-eyed crow flies down and takes the obituary, her evidence, flying away with the hooded figure on a motorcycle. Grandmama wants to know what happened and Wednesday tells her it was the Avian that controls the crow.
She wants Grandmama to buy the cemetery and find out who authorized the cremations. She says she’ll do it because it’ll upset Morticia thinking that Wednesday is getting into the family business. As she returns to Nevermore, the one-eyed crow is still following her. Back at the dorm, Enid’s left a scrunchie on the door to signal "do not disturb", but Wednesday ignores it. Enid is inside with Bruno. Agnes suddenly appears and reveals she’s been there for a while. Angry, Enid leaves.
Agnes delivers a letter from Wednesday’s publisher saying she’s been dropped as a writer. Wednesday says she’s happy not to make a sacrifice and instead tells Agnes they need to get into Willow Hill to get to the bottom of her investigation. She knows who to task with getting her the answers. Wednesday goes to Iago Tower and meets with Uncle Fester. She asks Fester to go to Willow Hill for her and he says the last time he did that was because her mother asked him to see Ophelia, but she was gone by the time he got there. Fester suddenly electrocutes Agnes, revealing her from her invisible state. Wednesday says she wants Fester to find Lois.
Fester checks into the Inn at Apple Hollow. He pays for a suite in cash and the other guests are quickly disturbed by all the noises he’s making. Sheriff Santiago arrives with her team after the receptionist calls the police and when they check all the rooms, they find Bianca’s mom in room 302 when it’s supposed to be empty. They question who she is. In Fester’s room, he’s having a bath. She arrests him and asks him about his copious amounts of driving licenses and passports. They pull up his file as a wanted bank robber. He pulls a cactus off the table and bites it. Sheriff Santiago tells the other officer to call Dr. Fairburn. They’ve also brought in Bianca’s mother for questioning.
Bianca is placing gala invitations into envelopes with the help of Ajax, Eugene and Pugsley. Principal Dort and Dr. Orloff come in to enforce the detention for the trouble with Slurp at the camping ground. Bianca receives text messages from her mom saying she’s at the police station. When she tries to leave, Principal Dort won’t let her. At Rotwood Cottage, Wednesday asks Morticia why Ophelia was at Willow Hill. She tells her to ask Grandmama. But, Wednesday says she’s keeping secrets and Morticia decides to tell her.
She explains that in Ophelia’s sophomore year, she was found screaming in the quad with black tears. For this, she was sent away. Morticia tried to argue with Grandmama that her problems were psychic, not mental. To this, Grandmama enters and drops off the deed to the cemetery she just bought Wednesday. Morticia dismisses Wednesday. But, before she goes, Grandmama whispers to Wednesday that the person who signed off the cremations was called Augustus Stonehurst. Morticia wants to know what Grandmama is doing and blames her for getting involved. Grandmama says she needs to give Wednesday space and Morticia says she can’t give advice when her daughter has been missing for 20 years.
To this, Grandmama says it was a tragedy, but that she’s willing to make a donation to the fundraising gala… on one condition. She wants Wednesday to have her book back. Instead, Morticia throws the book into the fire behind her. Back at detention, Bianca tells Ajax her mom is in trouble. But, she can’t siren Dr. Orloff because his head is in a jar. Instead, Ajax pretends to trip and uses his snakes to freeze Orloff to stone. Ajax says he’ll come with her and Pugsley and Eugene try to come too. Bianca uses her siren song to make them stay and finish the invitations.
At Willow Hill, Dr. Fairburn is questioning Fester. They’ve scanned his brain and it’s filled with sharp instruments. Fairburn welcomes him and admits him for shock therapy. In an art class run by Judi, Fester tries to ask a fellow patient if they know Lois, but they have no eyes or mouth. He then thinks the lunch lady is Lois as he flirts with her. She signals him into the cupboard to meet alone and he asks if she’s Louis, but her badge is dirty and it actually reads Louise. He shrugs, turns the light off and they start kissing.
Meanwhile, Agnes tells Wednesday that Augustus Stonehurst was the Normie head doctor at Willow Hill and before that, he taught science at Nevermore. He’s now a patient in Willow Hill himself. Enid tries to invite her to lunch, but she dismisses her. Instead, Wednesday asks Thing to track down Augustus. Enid comes over and explains how she’s upset Wednesday is leaving her out, but Wednesday argues she’s with Bruno and the pack.
A murder of crows descends and she tells Enid to get inside, but she won’t. The hooded figure instructs them to attack, but they’re after Thing and the one-eyed crow grabs him and flies away. Principal Dort uses his fire ability to shoot at the crow and it drops Thing. Thing tumbles to the ground and Enid manages to catch him in her hands.
Wednesday chases the hooded figure behind a secret door in a bookcase, pursuing them down a passageway and out behind a framed picture. When she gets out, the hooded cape is discarded on the floor and the figure has disappeared. She does find someone though, Dr. Fairburn, in Miss Capri’s music room. She says she’s there because Miss Capri offered to teach music therapy at Willow Hill. Miss Capri, a little out of breath, arrives with a tray of tea. Wednesday notices the lack of breath, but she says it’s been a long day. Wednesday also notes a cage of birds as she leaves.
Sheriff Santiago is questioning Bianca’s mother. She says there’s no record of her being there and she has no ID. Bianca arrives and uses her siren song to tell them to drop the investigation, shred the paperwork and forget her mother. Meanwhile, as Dr. Fairburn leaves with Judi, Thing sneaks onto the car and hitches a ride. Morticia tells Wednesday she knows Fester is in Willow Hill. She wants to know what he’s doing and Wednesday says he’s helping her find the answers. Morticia tells her she needs to stop before it gets worse.
At Willow Hill, Thing finds Fester and signals to him to find Stonehurst and then he’ll find Lois. Fester asks the security guard who takes him out to ‘Old Gus’ in his wheelchair outside, sitting inside the aviary. The guard asks him to roll him back to room 103 when he’s done talking to him. When Fester asks Augustus, the parrot on his shoulder answers instead. When it won’t give him answers, Fester uses his electricity to get it to reveal ‘51971’ to find Lois.
Wednesday goes to see Dr. Orloff and he says he’s heard about the birds and Wednesday says an Avian is trying to kill her. She asks him about Augustus Stonehurst, since he was a science teacher there. Dr. Orloff says Gus was very popular, but Orloff never liked him because he was a Normie. She asks about Lois and Orloff says Gus’s wife died before he got to Nevermore. But, he had a little girl. He says he built her the aviary in Iago Tower.
Elsewhere, Ajax and Bianca are sneaking her mom into an old classroom to hide. But, as they’re sneaking in the tunnels they catch Principal Dort on the phone. He’s telling someone he has it under control, but Ajax’s phone goes off with a text from Eugene asking where he is. Principal Dort is suspicious and opens the secret door in his fireplace that leads to the tunnel, but they’re hiding round the corner. That night at Willow Hill, Fester catches Marilyn Thornhill's eye as they pass each other in the corridor. She recognises who he is. As Fester rolls Augustus back to his room, they pass a maintenance door and Augustus starts to say Lois’s name whilst pointing at it.
Marilyn is brought in to talk to Dr. Fairburn. Marilyn explains although Tyler was angry at her, he’d never kill her because by killing his master, he’d seal his doom. She says to get in his head, they'll need to work together. She says they can make a deal because she has information that Dr. Fairburn will want. She tells her Fester Addams is a patient there, which she didn’t know. Just as Fester is trying to use the code from the parrot on the maintenance door, Dr. Fairburn arrives with the guards and they knock him out. When he comes round, he’s in a straitjacket with Slurp as his cellmate.
Thing returns and tells Wednesday everything that’s happening at Willow Hill. She sends him back to keep an eye on Fester while she works out how to get him out. Wednesday tells Agnes they’re going to break into Willow Hill with Miss Capri while she teaches her lesson. Meanwhile, Wednesday explains that Thing has made friends with Louise, the lunch lady, who is giving him information about where Fester is being held. Wednesday wants Agnes to distract the guard when she arrives in the car, then she’ll find Fester’s contact, get Fester out and find Lois. Enid wants to know what her part in the plan is. She tells her to anonymously tip off Sheriff Santiago if she’s caught to get her to go to Willow Hill.
As Miss Capri heads out, Wednesday hides in her car boot. Agnes knocks on the guard’s door and then goes invisible, sneaking in when she checks outside. When the guard heads out to check Miss Capri’s car, Agnes sets off an explosion in the guard station. It distracts him long enough for Wednesday to sneak out of the boot and crouch alongside the car, using it as cover to go past the gate. Louise lets Wednesday in.
Miss Capri arrives at her class and plays them the piano. Meanwhile, Louise wheels along a dinner cart with Wednesday hiding inside. They approach Fester’s cell and Wednesday sneaks the ID off the guard. She uses it to break inside, walks past Slurp unbothered, and frees Fester. They leave the door open and Slurp’s chains are break free off the wall. At the same time, Marilyn is being led by the guards to get moved back to prison and Slurp jumps out and starts eating one of the guards while the other tries to stop him. Marilyn runs off and passes Wednesday and Fester in the corridor. As Miss Capri plays, the security alarm halts her music. A guard tells Dr. Fairburn that the zombie is on the loose. She says everyone needs to get outside and wheels Augustus off.
Wednesday and Fester arrive back at the maintenance door and he uses the code to open it. Inside, there’s clearly scuff marks on the floor from the bookcase moving along it. Wednesday pulls it and it unveils a secret passageway. There’s words on the wall: “Long-term Outcast Integration Study”, LOIS. They follow the staircase downstairs. There’s cells filled with the ‘dead’ patients from the obituaries. In one room, a woman is curled up in the back corner and tells them to leave her alone. The one-eyed crow arrives along with the hoodie figure. Wednesday thinks it’s Fairburn. It is in fact Dr. Fairburn’s administrator, Judi, holding a gun.
Judi reveals that Dr. Fairburn actually works for her. While Fairburn is the public face of the institution, Judi continues her father’s work. She’s Augustus Stonehurst’s daughter, which is how she knew about the secret passages at Nevermore since her father worked there and used them to visit the aviary he built her in Iago Tower. She says her father loved Outcasts so much that he wanted to be one. She says they are trying to extract their abilities to give to Normies and reveals while she was born a Normie, thanks to her father’s work, she’s an Avian. Fester thinks it’s wrong that he experimented on his own daughter, but Judi says she volunteered. She says Augustus wanted to be a DaVinci, but his body couldn’t take it. As she talks, Fester powers up his electricity to fire at her. When he lets it go, all the lights go out at Willow Hill.
The power cut releases the patients Judi has held hostage and they begin to attack her, but she manages to escape. Wednesday notices the female patient hasn’t left her cell. She goes to her and says she’s going to get her out of there. Meanwhile, all the patients are out of their cells, running around the corridors. Marilyn finds a dead guard and uses his keys to get her chains off. The guards try to shoot down Slurp, but their bullets do nothing.
Marilyn goes to Tyler and breaks him out. She tells him she promised she’d get him out of there, but he’s angry. Marilyn pleads that Wednesday is the real enemy and she’s there in Willow Hill. Tyler says he’ll deal with her after he’s dealt with Marilyn. She again pleads that she’s the only one that’s ever loved him and unlocked his true potential. He says she did, so he’ll give her a five second headstart. She runs as he lets out the Hyde. He chases her through the corridors before impaling her with his claws. He slams her against the wall, dead.
Outside, Fester and Louise kiss in the rain and he leaves. Around them, patients continue to escape. Dr. Fairburn wheels Augustus to her room and pulls a gun from her desk. She can hear someone, but not see them. The lightning reveals Slurp is there and he eats her. Then, he turns on Augustus. Before eating him too, he says: “Hello, old friend.”
Meanwhile, as Wednesday leads the patient through the corridors they come across the Hyde. Wednesday tells the woman to go, so she does. The Hyde charges at her and she stands there, before her body is thrown through the window and she falls far to the ground outside. The police arrive and they open fire on the Hyde, but he escapes. Thing pokes at a bloodied Wednesday on the floor and Wednesday muses internally, just as her mother warned her, that she’s made everything much worse.
All episodes of Wednesday are available to stream on Netflix. Part 2 arrives on September 3.
