For over sixty years, he’s been the Addams Family’s loyal, scuttling, helping hand. But who is Thing? Where did he come from? It’s a question that has haunted Addams Family fans since the beginning, one the original comics and shows never bothered to answer. The mystery was part of his charm.
But in Wednesday Season 2, the show’s creators decided to solve it. And they didn’t just give us an answer; they delivered one of the most heartbreaking, brilliantly crafted, and emotionally resonant twists of the entire series—a revelation that doesn’t just explain a character, but redefines the very meaning of family.
What Is Thing’s Origin Story in Wednesday?
The big reveal is as shocking as it is perfect: Thing is the severed right hand of Isaac Night.
Isaac was Gomez Addams’s best friend and roommate at Nevermore Academy thirty years ago. A brilliant but dangerously obsessed inventor, Isaac devised a machine to cure his sister, Francoise Galpin, of her Hyde condition. The catch? It required Gomez’s electrokinetic powers to function, a process that would ultimately kill him.
In a flashback, we see the tragic confrontation. As Isaac prepares to sacrifice his best friend, Morticia intervenes. In the struggle to save the man she loves, she severs Isaac’s hand with a single, decisive blow. The ensuing explosion kills Isaac, but a surge of magical energy—likely from Gomez’s unleashed power coursed through the severed hand, granting it a strange, new life.
That hand, found in the rubble, was cleaned up, cared for, and welcomed into the Addams family. They named him “Thing” a clever anagram of “Night.”
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Why Did the Addams Family Keep Thing’s Origin a Secret?
This is where the story gets its emotional weight. For three decades, Gomez and Morticia carried the guilt of their friend’s death and the secret of his hand’s reanimation.
The genius of the writing is that they didn’t lie out of malice, but out of love. As Morticia explains, Thing had no memory of his past life. He awoke with a blank slate, knowing only the kindness and eccentricity of the Addams household. To tell him the truth that he was the remnant of a man they essentially killed would have been a cruel and unnecessary burden.
They chose to let him be his own person, or rather, his own hand. They gave him a new identity, one built on loyalty and affection, not on a tragic past.
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How Does Thing’s Origin Change His Character?
This revelation doesn’t diminish Thing; it elevates him. His entire journey in Season 2 is about seeking an identity. He attends a support group for severed parts, feeling an existential emptiness. He wonders where he came from, believing the answer will make him whole.
The beautiful irony is that he was already whole. When he is finally forcibly reattached to Isaac’s reanimated body, he doesn’t find fulfillment he finds a monster. Isaac is a vengeful, bitter shell of a man, and Thing wants no part of him.
In the climactic moment, Thing makes a conscious choice. He fights Isaac’s control, rips out the zombie’s mechanical heart, and tears himself free. In his final act of defiance, he throws away the ring that connected him to his past.
Thing isn’t defined by the body he came from; he’s defined by the family he chose. He is the literal embodiment of the “good” that was in Isaac, and he chose the Addamses.
| Character | Portrayed By | Relation to Thing’s Origin |
|---|---|---|
| Thing | Victor Dorobantu | The reanimated hand of Isaac Night, given a new life and family. |
| Isaac Night | Owen Painter | Gomez’s betrayed best friend; Thing’s original body. |
| Gomez Addams | Luis Guzmán | Isaac’s best friend, who was almost sacrificed for his machine. |
| Morticia Addams | Catherine Zeta-Jones | Severed Isaac’s hand to save Gomez, later cared for and raised Thing. |
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This origin story is a risk that pays off spectacularly. It takes a joke a disembodied hand—and gives it profound emotional depth without sacrificing an ounce of the character’s charm.
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