You cannot help falling in love with Thing in Netflix's Addams family spinoff, ... trends now

How often do you get to say an actor is the best thing on TV and mean it?

Literally.

But during the eight glorious hours of the Netflix drama Wednesday, it is Thing that steals the show.

In the latest Addams Family spin-off – currently the platform's most-watched title ever in a single week – the four fingers and thumb engage viewers with a performance that is, by turns, hilarious, endearing and, at one stage, heart-breaking.

Thing makes its first appearance when Morticia (Catherine Zeta Jones) and husband Gomez (Luis Guzmán) drop their morbidly sinister daughter Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) off at her new school, Nevermore Academy.

Needing someone to keep an eye on her, they secretly release Thing from the bottom of the car, from where it scuttles off like a frantic spider on its secret mission, only to be discovered quickly by Wednesday, denouncing her parents as 'evil puppeteers who want to pull my strings.'

In a show that is essentially a war between 'normies' – the seemingly normal people – and 'outcasts' – the entire school and pretty much everyone else, Thing is an ally not only of Wednesday but her werewolf roommate Enid (Emma Myers).

You have to hand it to Victor Dorobantu, the Romanian magician and illusionist behind the limb whose character, Thing T. Thing – but known as just Thing – was created for the first Addams Family series in 1964.

Wednesday director Tim Burton, the goth flick legend behind Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas and more, reportedly insisted that Thing be played by a real actor who had to be on set during filming – and it wasn't an easy part.

Despite some necessary special effects, it's Dorobantu's real hand that carries the action.

It runs, points, opens bags, engages in arguments, sulks, makes friends, goes on rescue missions, sets fire traps – 'My hands are clean', says Wednesday – and even becomes the victim of an assassination attempt.

The contortions require Dorobantu to manipulate himself in several ways – he finds himself upside down, sticking through cut-outs and hiding behind walls in a blue body suit that is digitally removed from the final edit.

When the action is physically impossible, there's an array of prosthetic stand-ins.

Thing is the James Bond of the metacarpus world.

But the real magic is the way Thing pulls at your heartstrings.

Thing helps Wednesday try to escape, turns her sheet music when she plays the piano, and delivers messages written on its palm. And, when Wednesday is captured by the normies, it is left to Enid to interpret Thing's messages through its every movement. Talk to the hand? She does so, brilliantly.

It's the greatest normalization of weird, and their relationship is at the heart of a show that celebrates love and friendship in utterly bizarre and often insane ways.