The series “Wednesday”, the Netflix hit, made a small mistake in episode 5. We explain everything to you.
With over 1.2 billion hours watched – in the first 28 days since its launch – Wednesday has become Netflix’s second most popular English-language series.
And even if it is one of the most accomplished series, with Tim Burton directing the first four episodes, it is not without flaws. Indeed, its creators Miles Millar and Alfred Gough have missed a false connection that will probably have escaped you if you have not paid attention to it.
The error is in episode 5 and therefore went unnoticed despite a long validation chain. This false connection may not be obvious to you during normal viewing. But if you hit pause at two very specific times, he can’t get away from you anymore.
A moving corpse
The fifth episode of Wednesday takes a little more interest in the past of the heroine’s parents, namely Gomez (Luis Guzmán) and Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) who attended Nevermore Academy.
Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) comes across an old police file in which she discovers that her father was accused of murdering Garrett Gates (Lewis Hayes) who had become so infatuated with Morticia that he became obsessed with her.
Twice during the episode, Garrett is seen falling from the roof of the Academy after being pierced by a sword.
At 32 minutes and 53 seconds, this is what the scene looks like:
Netflix screenshot The body is lying on the ground, the head turned to the right
But just after, at 33 minutes and 13 seconds, we see a change:
Netflix screenshot
The body is lying on the ground, the head turned to the left
We realize that Garrett’s body is not in the same position. As both scenes show Garrett immediately after his fall, it is impossible to imagine that he crawled to change position, especially considering the height of the building. The shock was too brutal and the death, inevitably immediate.
We can try to find an explanation for this false connection. The two scenes in question are flashbacks. The first time, the scene is filmed from Morticia’s point of view and the second, from Gomez’s point of view.
We could thus see a Rashōmon effect, in reference to Kurosawa’s masterpiece. This is the concept designating an event interpreted in a contradictory way by the individuals involved.
This body which, in the foreground, has its head turned to the right and in the second to the left, would ultimately not have moved on its own. If we give the benefit of the doubt to Gandja Monteiro, director of this fifth episode, this amusing detail would therefore only be the expression of subjectivity…
And if you haven’t already, you can listen to our podcast dedicated to the series: