SPOILER ALERT: This piece contains spoilers for the first two episodes of Wednesday Season 2.
One notable absence from the sophomore season of Alfred Gough and Miles Millar’s Wednesday is that of broody artist Xavier Thorpe (Percy Hynes White), who played a significant love interest for Jenna Ortega’s titular main character in Season 1.
Ahead of Season 2’s launch, it was confirmed that Hynes White wouldn’t be returning alongside two other stars in series regular capacity — Jamie McShane, who portrays Tyler’s (Hunter Doohan) father Sheriff Donovan Galpin and Naomi J Ogawa, who played Yoko Tanaka. White posted a photo of the cast on his Instagram story two days later, wishing the cast luck and saying he had fun filming Season 1.
In the first episode of the new season, Steve Buscemi’s Principal Barry Dort asks Wednesday’s mother Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) to chair the Gala Fundraising Committee. Xavier’s father Vincent Thorpe had previously held the position for three years, but Dort reveals that Thorpe pulled his endowment and his son from Nevermore after Xavier was falsely accused of murder last season when Wednesday first thought he might be Tyler’s Hyde.
Dort then goes on to explain that Xavier has gone to Reichenbach Academy in Switzerland when Wednesday asks about Xavier’s return to Nevermore. Wednesday’s father Gomez (Luis Guzmán) proudly exclaims that he attended the same school for a semester as an exchange student during his time at the school for Outcasts..
Later on in the first episode, Enid passes on a letter from Xavier to Wednesday in their dorm. Xavier, who had given Wednesday a phone at the end of the previous semester, wrote that he had tried to text her about a vision he had involving a creepy crow with the cloudy eye surrounded by raw red skin. He left behind a painting of the bird saying he didn’t know what it meant but that he was sure it had to do with Wednesday.
In the painting, the crow sits on a gravestone cast in shadow so that the inscription is not discernible, and it holds a white flower in its beak. Viewers learn at the end of the first episode that this omen is not a good one. Wednesday has a similar vision that predicts she will be the cause of Enid’s death, in which the grim bird sits on Enid’s gravestone with the white flower, dropping it to the foot of the rock.
Showrunner and creator Gough confirmed to TVLine that viewers have indeed seen the last of Xavier.
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Last June, the actor responded to since-deleted anonymous social media posts from January 2023 that accused him of sexual assault. He denied any allegations, calling them “misinformation.”
White starred in My Old Ass (2024) as Chad alongside Maisy Stella and Aubrey Plaza. He also recently appeared alongside Wednesday costar Jenna Ortega in Spring, Winter, Summer or Fall (2024).
As for Sheriff Donovan Galpin, it had been speculated that McShane would return to wrap up the character’s arc. Galpin’s storyline does conclude in Episode 2 of Wednesday Season 2, Part 1 as the lonely man dies a gruesome death, discovered by Wednesday.
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