When Tim Burton’s Wednesday launched near the end of 2022, it quickly became a hit among audiences. Now fans of the show are beginning to wonder about the origins of the sassy, loyal and mysterious hand who serves the Addams Family, Thing. A new Wednesday fan theory suggests Thing is actually the missing hand of Evil Dead‘s Ash William.
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History of Thing
Thing has featured in every iteration of the Addams family, from the original comic strips to his latest appearance in Wednesday, and has served them by performing numerous tasks, including holding Morticia wool while she knits, lighting Gomez’s cigars and, according to Wednesday, failing to help Fester rob a bank.
Despite his constant presence, none of these iterations has explained where Thing comes from and instead chose to leave the particulars of his existence unexplained. An episode of The Addams Family briefly hinted that he’d been around since Gomez was a child, and other hinted at the existence of other dismembered hands, but otherwise, we don’t know much.
Fans, however, believe that there is more to Thing.
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Once Possessed, Now Reformed
In Evil Dead Ash William’s hand becomes possessed, and he cuts it off to ensure his survival. He replaces it with a chainsaw, and viewers later see the hand stab someone, though we never actually see it die on screen. Fans began to wonder: where on earth did the snarky scared hand go?
The Reddit user u/king_rootin_tootin recently took to social media to give their thoughts on the matter and discuss what they thought were the true origins of Things based on some hints they’ve discovered.
One of the first hints, they explained, was that MGM Television owns the Evil Dead franchise and The Addams Family franchise, so while a bit improbable, the two films could very likely exist in the same universe.
They believed the second hint was Wednesday’s lack of knowledge of Thing’s origin. “The events of Evil Dead Two happened in 1986, before she was born. It may as well be ancient history to her.”
When thinking back on Thing and Fester’s history, which the films and TV series have hinted at, the Reddit user suggested that it is very likely that the hand of Ash Williams could have ended up in Fester’s possession. Meeting a possessed hand is not something Fester would have been shocked by, and the two probably became fast friends who got into all sorts of nonsense.
“It would be cool as hell if the hand has reformed and ends up leading Wednesday to Ash, and they team up. I could not imagine how she’d tolerate him or all the things Ash would say about her.”
Many fans agreed with this assessment of Thing, and some even spoke about wanting a spin-off between The Addams Family and Evil Dead, u/magicalmysteryharold commenting, “I hope it’s just 90 minutes if Luis Guzman and Bruce Campbell absolutely mashing through pancake and gossiping”.
While it is doubtful to happen, a cross-over between the Evil Dead characters and the Addams Family would be incredibly entertaining.
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