Wednesday's Tyler Is A Monster Even Without The Hyde Transformation
Hunter Doohan brilliantly plays the duplicitous Weathervane barista Tyler Galpin who just happens to suffer from moon-howling tendencies in Netflix's streaming series "Wednesday." Portraying one of the main antagonists threatening Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) and Nevermore Academy was a huge stepping stone for the actor born in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
Tyler is obviously scripted as a misdirection ploy by creators Miles Millar and Alfred Gough to keep audiences hooked on a potential romance between the barista and Addams. Their complicated relationship is integral to the series' success. During the production, Doohan made fond memories working alongside Ortega and playing the he's-not-what-he-seems guy who vies for Wednesday's affections and ultimately deceives her.
"I'm like in awe of Jenna," Doohan said during an interview with Narcity. "She's so good in the show. I just felt really lucky that most of my scenes were with her. Although, I was jealous I didn't get to do a lot of the school scenes with everybody." At first, Tyler seems like the nice, quiet boy-next-door type when audiences are introduced to him in "Wednesday," but the son of Sheriff Galpin (Jamie McShane) has a deep dark secret: He's a Hyde! But Tyler is clearly a monster way before he comes clean about his even darker, hairier alter ego in "Wednesday."
Tyler is a monster hiding in plain sight
Before the shapeshifting Hyde, aka Tyler Galpin, makes his evil intentions known to Wednesday Addams, he is already a monster hiding in plain sight. The old Jekyll-Hyde defense can be immediately thrown out in this case because Dr. Jekyll was not deliberately a villain in Robert Louis Stevenson's novel the "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde."
By comparison, Tyler is a foul, duplicitous antagonist, and one of the most abhorrent characteristics belying Tyler's cleverly nice-guy persona is his art of deception. He clearly deceives not only Wednesday in order to weasel his way into her life, but he fools the entire city of Jericho. Tyler's deception is premeditated and painstakingly planned out by both the Hyde and his master, Marilyn Thornhill (Christina Ricci). And the showrunners, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, clearly concocted a character who fans would at first side with, or at least have conflicted suspicions about before they too learned the truth about him and Wednesday's almost-romance with the Hyde.
In real life, Doohan and Ortega get along famously. "Off camera, it's super easy because Jenna is so lovely," Doohan revealed in an interview with Hollywire. Doohan then elaborated on his character's motivations inciting the love connection between himself and Wednesday, so audiences would feel betrayed when the Hyde's identity was revealed. "Obviously, from Tyler's point of view, he's just trying to sell the lie," Doohan said in the same interview.