Jake Wheeler (born 2007) is a fictional character in the Child's Play franchise who was created by Don Mancini and is portrayed by Zackary Arthur.

He is the main protagonist of the Syfy and USA Network's Chucky television series, which shares continuity with the original seven Child's Play films.

[1] When developing the show, Mancini expressed a desire to "reinvent" the franchise and expand its audience and took a partially autobiographical approach when creating the character of Jake.

He explained that "taking [the franchise] into the medium of TV and having so much more storytelling space at my disposal means so much more opportunity to explore character relationships.

Mancini specifically mentioned how Jake's father not accepting his son's "burgeoning sexual and romantic identity" as a gay man related to some of his own experiences as a teenager.

[4][5] Discussing the development of Jake's relationship with Devon for the show's second season, Mancini explained "I wanted to go further with the love story.

During the development of the series, Jake's character initially had the surname "Webber" and was described as "a loner trying to find his place in the world after his mom’s death while never connecting with his dad or his peers".

Learning they are worth a lot of money, Jake takes the doll to school with him to protect it from his father, leading him to be ridiculed by his classmate Lexy.

Chucky then murders Logan and Bree's maid and reasons that he is trying to help Jake, declaring that some people deserve to die, including his bully Lexy.

[16] Giving into his dark impulses, Jake takes a knife and stalks Lexy through the woods but aborts the plan after discovering that he has mistakenly been following Junior.

That night, Jake visits his parents' graves and laments his struggles while Chucky fails to kill Lexy in a house fire.

Jake is questioned by Detective Evans, Devon's mother, over the deaths of Oliver and his father but they are interrupted when a police officer is found dead.

Attending a town hall meeting the next night, the school principal's head rolls onto the stage, revealing to the teens that Chucky is still alive.

The group set a trap for him at Junior's house, with Lexy acting as bait however, their plan is interrupted by the arrival of Detective Evans, who is killed when Chucky lunges at her and causes her to fall down the stairs.

Jake resolves to leave town but is compelled to return after seeing a delivery man with a Good Guy doll who was planning to deliver it to Charles Lee Ray's childhood home.

When they wake up, the discover that Charles' home was destroyed by a homemade bomb and a distraught Jake goes to Devon's room to grieve but is relieved to find out that he survived the explosion.

Devon reveals there is a truck of Good Guy dolls heading to the Hackensack theatre, where Chucky and Tiffany plan to give them away to the townsfolk.

Six months later, while preparing to trick or treat with Gary, Jake starts getting threatening phone calls and discovers that Chucky has returned.

Jake travels back to Hackensack and reunites with Devon and Lexy, who is suspicious of Belle, Caroline's new doll gifted to her by her therapist.

That’s largely down to Arthur, who nails both the withdrawn demeanor symptomatic of the high school outcast and the occasional giddiness that comes with a first crush.