Fans of Wednesday have been waiting to see if one of the most evil characters from Season 1 would come back. And yes, she does, but not right away. Christina Ricci’s character, Mrs. Thornhill, shows up again in Season 2, but only for a short time.
We see her for the first time in episode three, where she’s now a patient at a psychiatric hospital called Willow Hill. She doesn’t do much in that episode, but in episode four, her role becomes more important. Unfortunately, that’s also when her story ends. She dies in that episode, and it’s a dramatic moment.
In Season 1, Ricci played Mrs. Marilyn Thornhill, the friendly botany teacher at Nevermore Academy. She was the only normal human, or “Normie”, working at the school for Outcasts. At first, she seemed kind and helpful, especially toward Wednesday. But it turned out she was hiding something big.
Mrs. Thornhill wasn’t really who she said she was. Her real name was Laurel Gates. She had faked her death as a child and came back years later under a new name. Her goal? To destroy Nevermore and take revenge on all Outcasts. She even used her plant knowledge to create a chemical that could awaken the monster side (called the “Hyde”) in a boy named Tyler. She tried to use him as a weapon.
At the end of Season 1, we thought she was gone. But Season 2 reveals she actually survived. She was sent to prison but also spent time at the Willow Hill hospital, where she tried to mess with Tyler’s mind again. She still had power over him emotionally, and his doctors wanted to understand why.
When chaos breaks out in the hospital, Laurel uses the chance to get to Tyler. She sets him free, hoping he’ll be loyal to her. But instead, Tyler turns into his monster form and kills her. As she’s dying, she calls herself his mother and says she loves him.
That’s how Laurel’s story ends, for now. But since this is the world of Wednesday, where strange things happen all the time, you can never be too sure she’s really gone for good.