Wednesday Creators Break Down Shocking Villain Twist

Wednesday is the talk of the town, dominating ratings and social conversations alike. The Tim Burton-produced series introduces Jenna Ortega as the eponymous Wednesday Addams, putting the character in a Hogwarts-like school attended by the various kinds of common monsters we all know about. As with the premise itself, the series also has quite the monstrous ending, including a surprisingly big reveal to end the show’s first season. Now, series creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar are breaking down the big reveal. Full spoilers up ahead for the ending of Wednesday Season One. Proceed with caution if you’ve yet to watch!

Throughout the series, a teacher at the aforementioned Nevermore Academy became a staunch supporter of Wednesday (Ortega) and her antics at the school. That teacher is Marilyn Thornhill, played by none other than Christina Ricci, the actor behind the portrayal of Wednesday Addams in Barry Sonnefeld’s Addams Family duology. Only here, Thornhill is eventually revealed to be Laurel Gates, a descendent of the villainous Joseph Crackstone.

“Thornhill was always the big bad. She was the brains behind the whole operation. We actually thought when we cast Christina, it was going to be such a frickin’ blinking red light over her. We were concerned that, ‘Oh, my God, are people just gonna guess this,” Gough said in a recent chat with Variety. “But I think what really helped is that we had great actors and actresses, frankly, in all the big roles. You have Gwendoline [Christie] and you have Riki [Lindhome]. You’ve watched it on television: ‘I wonder who the villain is? It’s probably the biggest name on the marquee!’ In this case, I feel like they were sort of evenly dispersed.”

Gates is, in fact, the ultimate big bad for the show, orchestrating the murders around Jericho. Surprisingly enough, Ricci wasn’t originally cast in the role. At one point, Thora Birch was supposed to play a character named Tamara Novak, a similar role to that of Thornhill. Birch dropped out of the production to attend to family matters.

Is Wednesday getting renewed for a second season?

While Netflix has yet to officially reveal the status of the show, Wednesday showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar say they have multiple years sketched out should the show be renewed.

“For us, it’s always looking at the future, and when we sit down to create a show, it’s looking at multiple seasons, ideally. That’s never expected, but that’s the anticipation that hopefully the show is successful,” the duo said in a chat with Variety. “So you always lay out at least three or four seasons’ worth of potential storylines for the characters. It can evolve and change. Often, you want to see which characters or cast pop and who you like to write for. So you want to keep it open and organic enough to change it and evolve, but we certainly have a pretty clear runway of what we want to do in future seasons.”

All eight episodes of Wednesday are now streaming on Netflix.

What’d you think of the latest Addams Family reboot? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section!