Wednesday’s kidnappers quickly reveal themselves, and the truth is underwhelming to both Wednesday and me: It’s just a bunch of the other students we’ve already met, dressed up in their Nightshades gear. This is the secret society we’re supposed to get all stoked about, when all they do is throw parties with nonalcoholic beverages and occasionally skinny-dip? Extremely lame. Wednesday sizes them up and finds them wanting, even though Xavier says she ought to be able to pledge. Not thrilled with any of this is Bianca, who ideally would have preferred that Wednesday had wanted to join but been unable to, all so that Bianca could enjoy rejecting her.
I am sorry, but I just don’t buy Bianca’s character at all! If she has been relying on her siren powers to make the entire student body fall at her feet, I’d sure love to see that in action! And if that is the case, why does she have to resort to underwater violence and sabotage to win the Poe Cup? Wouldn’t it be more interesting and character-clarifying if she won through siren enchantment? (Plus, it’s not entirely clear how it would work, given that some meaningful slice of the student body is also sirens. Are they immune to one another’s charms?) Bianca has the same problem as Julien in the Gossip Girl reboot: Although the show keeps telling us she’s the queen bee, nothing about her interactions with other students would suggest this is true. She has no apparent effect on her classmates aside from pissing them off. I guess she’s in charge of the Nightshades, but the Nightshades don’t do anything. So the only popular-girl characteristic she has is that she’s just … mean? Like, are her parents richer than all the other parents or something? I assume at some point she will get an official Tragic Backstory™ to put her cruelty in context — maybe her mom is extra mean to her or otherwise MIA, thus making Wednesday learn to appreciate what she has — but so far, Bianca is the one classmate who really seems to lack an inner life or meaningful motivation.
The main mystery is moving right along: Wednesday has spotted a pilgrim in the apocalypse sketch just in time for Outreach Day, wherein the outcasts — which, sidebar, I can’t believe we’re supposed to buy that outcast is the official term for people with superpowers and such in this world — deign to volunteer in Jericho, aiding local businesses and probably causing more havoc than good. Apparently, this is a necessary cross-pollination situation because without Nevermore, Jericho has no economy to speak of. In addition to her regular assignment, Wednesday has been voluntold by Weems to perform with the Jericho marching band, which is doing a Fleetwood Mac medley at the ceremony to dedicate a memorial statue to the founder of the town, Joseph Crackstone. (Hilarious and somewhat random musical choice, but I’m not mad at it.)
Mayor Walker, who used to be the town sheriff, is all “If it’s good for business, it’s good for Jericho.†(His son, Lucas, is one of the mean normies we’ve seen tormenting Nevermore students.) In other adult news, Walker has seen Thornhill at the Weathervane each morning and possibly has a crush on her. Too soon to say, but I wouldn’t rule it out.
Wednesday is able to wring a little more information about Rowan out of Xavier. What he reports aligns with a vision she already had — that Rowan went “ballistic†on his roommate, assaulting him via telekinesis. Then she manages to swap assignments with Enid in a real win-win maneuver: Enid gets to flirt with Ajax, her Gorgon crush, at the antiques shop, and Wednesday is off to Pilgrim World, where she can investigate this Crackstone character.
Pilgrim World looks so depressing — as if Colonial Williamsburg were the saddest place on Earth. Wednesday wants to snoop around the meetinghouse where Crackstone’s old belongings are allegedly being held, but all the volunteers are tasked with handing out fudge samples. Eugene, from the Hummers, eats himself sick and projectile vomits right in the middle of being bullied, which doesn’t deter the bullies the way you’d think. Wednesday intervenes on his behalf, telling Eugene he reminds her of her brother. Aw! I support this burgeoning friendship even though Wednesday swiftly ropes Eugene into a scheme he hardly seems ready for: being the lookout while she breaks into the meetinghouse (using his retainer! Gross but brilliant).
Wednesday finds the book from her vision (creatively titled The Book of Shadows), but much to her dismay, it’s a replica that’s blank inside. Her chaperone walks in on her mid-snoop and reports that the original book was stolen last month but that’s the end of her intel because “I just moved here in April from Scottsdale,†lol.
Over at the antiques shop, Enid learns that all the roadkill is local — one taxidermied critter was killed “right here on Route 22,†which tells us that even this spinoff Addams Family probably lives in Union County! — and that when you want to go on a date, sometimes you’ve got to take matters into your own hands. After assuring Ajax that she isn’t afraid he’ll stone her (as in, turn her to stone, not “The Lotteryâ€â€“style stoning), she tells him to meet her at the campus makeout spot that night. Good for you, Enid!
Wednesday heads over to the Weathervane, where for some reason Xavier’s volunteer job is being an unpaid barista for a day. Xavier repeats that he thinks Tyler is “bad news,†and I’m sure there’s something specific and disappointing behind this ominous threat, but we are definitely at least one episode away from finding out what it is. From Tyler, Wednesday learns that the old pilgrim house is now a ruin out in the woods where sketchy and troubled people gather to do drugs and such, so she shouldn’t go alone, except of course she will. (Well, not all alone; she will bring Thing.) I was a little confused about the timeline here, but apparently Wednesday has time to ghost her volunteer assignment, have this whole elaborate misadventure in the woods, get soaked in the rain, and return, totally dry, to perform at the dedication later. Sure, why not?
She finds the house, or what’s left of it, right away, as well as this old man from the antiques shop who was taking pictures and behaving erratically and just generally seems creepy, but Thing has him covered. Wednesday doesn’t know how to bring on a vision intentionally, and she is not going to ask her mother for advice, no matter how gently Thing suggests it. Anyway, as you’d expect, she then immediately has a vision.
Dream sequences and visions can be sort of tedious on TV shows because they’re so on the nose they feel like cheating, and this is … not exactly an exception to the rule. Blonde Wednesday, as you may expect, is Wednesday’s ancestor, named Goody (presumably a reference to Goody from The Crucible, one of the first characters to be accused of witchcraft, and if you don’t remember her from the play, you may remember her from this TikTok). Joseph Crackstone says Goody is “Devil spawn†and wants to burn her, but apparently he doesn’t want to burn her badly enough to chain her to the floor like the rest of the “outcasts†of the town, including Goody’s mom. Crackstone and his fellow pilgrims set the barn of outcasts on fire, but Goody, urged by her mother to go out and “avenge†them all, escapes.
Wednesday regains consciousness in the pouring rain to report her findings to Thing, but just then, the monster shows up! Good jump scare, though tbh I scare very easily. Yet again the monster decides not to tear Wednesday to bite-size pieces. She sees his tracks in the mud and discovers his monster feet turn into human feet. Xavier appears, umbrella in hand — awfully quick if you ask me!! Hmmm — but by the time she can show him the footprints, the rain has washed them away. She can tell he’s skeptical (unlike fair Tyler, who believes everything Wednesday has ever said to him), but Xavier can tell she has psychic abilities, and he’s starting to come around to her insistence that Rowan is dead. Turns out Xavier’s dad is a famous psychic named Vincent Thorpe who, what do you know, swears that visions cannot be trusted because they (1) show you only one part of a much bigger picture and (2) are “triggered by emotions,†not logic.
But enough introspection: time for a statue dedication! Naturally, the mayor tells a story about Crackstone (open heart, amazing guy) that doesn’t align with Wednesday’s independent research (evil dirtbag, loved genocide). So at some point, in between all of her other activities, today she found time to coordinate with Thing to make the statue explode. I get why this would be a satisfying choice for her, but if she’s playing the long game and trying to solve a mystery, wouldn’t it be savvier to keep a low profile?
Although Weems can’t prove it, she knows Wednesday was behind the statue stunt. The two have a little back-and-forth about whether they should confront the real story of Jericho (Wednesday’s position) or if everyone is better off if history gets rewritten to appease the oppressors (Weems’s take). This argument — that they can move forward with no accountability — feels sort of dated to me, no? Like, presumably this show takes place in the present day, so it’s happening amid all these other big conversations about how history gets taught and whether Confederate statues should stay up and if the 1619 Project is really just cRiTiCaL rAcE tHeOrY brainwashing the youth of America, etc. Having already established that we’re in Jersey and all (see: Route 22), it’s jarring that their conversation sounds as if it’s taking place in some context-free universe. After Wednesday leaves, we see Weems tear Morticia’s page out of her old yearbook and toss it into the fire. So much for old friends!
Enid’s date goes sideways when Ajax accidentally stones himself by catching his reflection in a mirror — not to be a dick about it, but if there’s a whole dorm’s worth of Gorgons at this school, wouldn’t they have a bathroom without mirrors in it for exactly this reason? Enid’s response to feeling as if she got stood up? Clawing a school bus to shreds. And back in the woods, the creepy man gets mauled to death, but his camera lives to tell his story. By the end of the episode, the sheriff has proof that Wednesday has been telling the truth about the real culprit behind the “bear†attacks. But probably he’ll still bend over backward trying to find a way to pin it all on a Nevermore student.