Posted by Wednesday landed on Netflix in November 2022 and rapidly became one of the most popular TV series on the platform. Tim Burton’s fans loved the atmosphere, the successful cast starring Jenna Ortega as the protagonist, a fantastic soundtrack that stood out (have you recognized the song Wednesday plays on her cello in the first episode?), and an exciting ending. People wondered how the events in the plot could be explained, what was going on with the character of Tyler Galpin, and what a Hyde monster is. In this article, we will explain everything.
You can find the official trailer of Wednesday here on Youtube.
Wednesday, the ending explained: what’s going on with Tyler and Marilyn Thornhill?
The plot we saw on Wednesday was well articulated and kept its mysteries until the last episode, where we understood who the real villains of the series are: after suspecting that Xavier could be the monster and Dr. Valerie Kinbott the master who controls it, we finally discover that the Hyde monster is actually Tyler Galpin, the Sheriff’s son, whose mom was a Hyde monster who went to Nevermore years before. The master who controlled it is Marilyn Thornhill, the character interpreted by Christina Ricci (the “original” Wednesday in 1991’s movie The Addams Family). It turns out that Thornhill is actually Laurel Gates, a girl who pretended to drown years before: she was a member of the Gates family, a wealthy family that hated the outcasts living in that area, descending from Jericho’s founder Joseph Crackstone.
We discover in Wednesday‘s ending that Laurel Gates has been manipulating all events since the beginning: she used the Hyde monster inside Tyler to kill all the obstacles to her plan. She wanted to destroy Nevermore, a symbol of the outcasts who ruined her family (his brother Garrett Gates died in Nevermore while fighting against Gomez Addams) and stole Joseph Crackstone’s land. The strategy was to resuscitate Joseph Crackstone himself, and she needed Wednesday’s blood (Wednesday is a descendant of the girl who killed Crackstone years before, Goody Addams). That’s also why the Hyde monster saves Wednesday in the series’ beginning: Laurel needed Wednesday alive until the night of the full red moon.
This is, therefore, Wednesday’s ending explained: a story where Wednesday becomes the outcast who actively saves Nevermore from the evil actions of Laurel Gates, her ancestor Joseph Crackstone (resurrected to destroy the school), and the Hyde monster Tyler (who’s only a pawn in Laurel’s hands).
But why is Tyler a Hyde monster, and what is a Hyde monster anyway?
Tyler’s character explained: why is he a monster?
The secret that Sheriff Donovan Galpin hides from his son Tyler is that his mother is an outcast from Nevermore. She was a Hyde monster too, and she married who later became Jericho’s Sheriff. The Sheriff is ashamed of this secret and has always tried his best to protect his son from the consequences of this truth.
Tyler is a Hyde monster because also his mother was so. He has it in his genes. And after a while, he became aware of it, remembering what he did when he transformed into the monster. Laurel Gates discovers the true nature of Tyler and uses them to her advantage: she becomes the Hyde monster’s master, using his evil force to kill all obstacles to her plan.
What is a Hyde monster?
“Hyde” refers to Mr. Hyde, the character of one of the founding books of the gothic horror genre, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. The book was published in 1886, and it’s considered one of the first horror masterpieces of history, together with another book mentioned in the TV series Wednesday, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll is a respected and amiable doctor living in London. But he has a double personality: he hides an evil nature and creates a serum able to separate his evil spirit from the good one. When he drinks this serum, he becomes Mr. Hyde, a violent, cruel man capable of vicious acts. In the novel, Mr. Hyde becomes stronger while the plot continues, until Dr. Jekyll can no longer contain him. It’s a significant metaphor for the psychological effects of our attempts to deny and fight the dark parts of ourselves, in a novel published years before the birth of modern psychology.
Stevenson’s novel created the myth of Mr. Hyde, and from there, people commonly refer to “Jekyll and Hyde” when facing a person with a double personality, with a good character trying to hide an evil half.
Wednesday inherits this concept developing the concept of a Hyde monster: an authentic beast hidden behind a good personality, as Tyler looks. While Stevenson’s Mr. Hyde was unleashed through the serum, Tyler’s monster in Wednesday is controlled by a master, Laurel Gates, who learns how to give orders to the Hyde, triggering the transformation when needed.
Therefore, a Hyde monster is an evil beast that coexists inside an apparently positive personality. The inspiration comes from a classic horror novel from the 1800s and represents a cultured element supporting Wednesday‘s plot.
