This article contains spoilers for "Wednesday" season 2.
Netflix's "Wednesday" series is easily one of the most intriguing shows on the platform. Its identity is fascinatingly hard to pin down; as a modern-day version of "The Addams Family" characters, it's a current take on the humorous, satiric, long-running series, one that's even more so now that the rest of the Addams clan have been more incorporated into the show. As a series set in an exclusive boarding school for gifted Outcasts, it's a bit
of a teen drama. As a prestige streaming series, it's a mystery show soaked in horror, with oodles of creepy creatures and shady characters vying to be the next murder suspect.
For all these reasons, "Wednesday" has a lot going on, as does the titular character played by Jenna Ortega. One of the biggest mysteries of season 2 involves Wednesday's psychic abilities, which helped her survive the events of the first season and appear to give her an advantage in the beginning of season 2, only to suddenly disappear once Wednesday begins receiving intense visions that leave her temporarily physically vulnerable as well as cause her to cry bloody black tears. This last development is especially troubling to Wednesday's mother, Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who claims that Wednesday's lost aunt, Ophelia, was suffering from the same symptoms before she was sent away to Willow Hill sanitarium and (presumably) was never seen again.
While only the first four episodes of the eight-episode season have been released, the fourth episode is a doozy, revealing that a secret experimental program has been underway in Willow Hill, a program that people were willing to kill to protect. Wednesday manages to liberate the Outcast victims of this program, patients who haven't been out of their cells for years, potentially decades. One of these patients is a woman who appears to be harmless, with no obvious mutations or abilities. Yet her cell door seems to indicate otherwise. Who this person is remains to be seen, but she may hold the key to season 2's biggest mystery.
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The Members Of The LOIS Program Are Not Just Any Outcasts
The central mystery of the first four episodes of season 2 concern a killer who is an Avian, an Outcast who can control birds. It turns out that this Avian isn't a natural Outcast at all, but someone born a Normie: Judi Stonehurst (Heather Matarazzo). Judi's father, Augustus, used to be a science teacher at Nevermore, and always admired the Outcasts. Eventually, his admiration grew into envy, and when he became the head doctor at Willow Hill sanitarium, he abused his power to put into place a secret experimental project he called LOIS: Longterm Outcast Integration Study. This project, as Wednesday derisively describes it, was a sort of "basement bargain attempt at Dr. Moreau," and it left Dr. Stonehurst a mute paraplegic when he tried to turn himself into a "DaVinci" Outcast.
Yet it worked on Judi, who successfully became an Avian, thanks to whatever data she was able to pull from her father's experiments on Outcasts he (and maybe even she) abducted and kept unwillingly incarcerated in Willow Hill. These patients had their deaths faked by the Stonehursts so that the authorities wouldn't ask questions, and clearly, Judi and Augustus were primarily interested in the most powerful types of Outcasts. As such, while Wednesday and Uncle Fester (Fred Armisen) liberating the LOIS patients sounds good on paper, it might cause some further problems to have dangerous and crazed Outcasts on the loose.
Is The Mysterious Patient Ophelia Addams?
Ironically, while most of the LOIS Outcasts appear aggressive and violent immediately, there's one who seems to be entirely docile: a mysterious unnamed woman. Adding to the irony, this woman is kept in the most high security cell, with warnings such as "Extreme Caution" and "No Unauthorized Entry" plastered on her locked door. When Wednesday and Fester first see this patient, she initially insists on being left alone if they're not there to kill her. Later, as Wednesday leads her out of her cell, the woman asks if Wednesday is some type of angel. Even as a murderous Tyler, in Hyde form, bears down on Wednesday and seemingly kills her, the woman never appears agitated or the least bit dangerous.
We've just met this character, of course, and chances are she's going to play a big part in the second half of the season. How big remains to be seen, however. Is she simply a powerful Outcast with a secret, dangerous ability, a la a werewolf or a Hyde? Or is she someone like the X-Men's Rogue, a person with a power that can hurt others inadvertently? If the latter, could this woman be Ophelia Addams? It would line up with the things we already know about Ophelia, and it's possible that Wednesday, due to Morticia not even wanting to speak about Ophelia and Grandmama (Joanna Lumley) believing the matter is closed, has never seen what she looks like. Whatever the case may be, it's certain that we'll be learning a lot more about this mysterious patient when she and "Wednesday" return in the second half of season 2.
"Wednesday" season 2 is now streaming on Netflix.
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Read the original article on SlashFilm.
