Please To Explain: Crossword

Can someone explain to me please why there is a huge jump in difficulty between the Wednesday and Thursday crossword puzzles in The New York Times? I understand the concept that the puzzles get more difficult from Monday through Sunday. I like the idea so you can challenge yourself more and more. I'm down with all of that.

The problem is that the difference between Wednesday and Thursday is huge. I can always do Monday and Tuesday no problem. Wednesday I can do always to 90% and usually to 100%. Then on Thursday, like every Thursday, I can't even get a foothold. Usually on Thursdays I'll get 10-12 random clues that are not connected or anything. Rarely I'll get a section done and that will lead to getting more and more of it done, but finding that starting point is nearly impossible. I almost never even try it on Fridays. And the weekend is right out.

Today's theme (a Thursday) was words that were invented by Lewis Carroll in the Jabberwocky poem. They gave you his intended definitions and you had to fill in the made up words. How am I expected to be able to do that?

I get the feeling that you're really supposed to have to Google shit in order to finish the ones from later in the week. Is this not the case? Does anyone know the New York Times crossword philosophy? Am I supposed to be able to finish it on the weekend without having to look shit up? I know at the very least you have to actually put some effort into looking at the answers the next day and going over the clues again to understand how they put clues together and eventually improving at doing it on your own in order to have any hope of getting those weekend puzzles done. That's far more effort than I'm really willing to put in. But assuming I did that would I eventually be able to finish them, or am I expected to do the crossword in front of my computer?