Wednesday
“Wednesday’s child is full of woe…” – from the lullaby “Monday’s Child”
Although I saw that the series “Wednesday” received good ratings (both from audiences and critics), I wasn’t in any rush to watch it. And when I finally got around to watching it, I had absolutely no expectations… it turned out that the series isn’t just good, but excellent, and mostly thanks to the young lead actress. 😊
Given that my association with “The Addams Family” is mostly connected to the films from the 90s (and I also had the chance to see a few episodes of the black-and-white series… and those animated films were meh for me), somehow the trailer for the series deviated from my classic image of the Addams family and their twistedness and eccentricity (and madness). But as I mentioned, I started the series without any expectations…
“Wednesday” follows the adventures of the oldest child of Morticia and Gomez Addams, Wednesday, who has just managed to get expelled from yet another school. Saying she was expelled because of the noble intention of protecting her younger brother (Pugsley) from bullying by the water polo team would be… well… partially true? 😅 Keeping in mind how abnormal the entire Addams family is, and Wednesday herself is a psychopath and sadist, her motive for revenge against the water polo team is that only she has the right to bully Pugsley, and she took revenge on the water polo team during their training by throwing two full bags of piranhas into the pool… yep…
However, the new school Wednesday starts attending from Wednesday (hehe, get it… no? Never mind, I’ll kick myself out…) is definitely different. Located on the outskirts of the town of Jericho in Vermont, “Nevermore Academy” is a private school for those rejected by society… but mostly because the children in that school have supernatural powers and/or can transform into various (monstrous) beasts. Moreover, Wednesday’s parents also attended this school, where in their youth they were big stars of the academy. Wednesday’s initial intention to flee from this academy changes the moment she realizes that mysterious (supernatural) murders are happening in the forests that separate the school from the rest of the town, and she decides to investigate what’s happening. But she’ll soon discover that there are secrets everywhere, starting from the school principal Larissa Weems, through the existence of a secret society within the school itself (Nightshade Society), all the way to the inhabitants of the town of Jericho, complete with mayor and police sheriff (who are aware that the school is “abnormal,” but there are reasons why they tolerate it). And when a story decades old concerning a murder and her parents when they were young gets pulled into all of this, Wednesday can’t help but investigate what’s going on here.
And then when you add that Wednesday suddenly started occasionally having “episodes” that give her visions of the past or future, everything becomes even more complicated…
The central character of the series “Wednesday” is, as we mentioned earlier, Wednesday. She’s eccentric, abnormal, twisted, antisocial, doesn’t understand the concept of friendship or empathy, is quite cold in communication with people… and is proud of all these traits. She sees the people (beings?) around her as inferior and considers friendships a sign of weakness and that a person can only rely on themselves. However, she does have some positive traits (by normal people’s standards) like… uh… well… hmm… jokes aside, Wednesday is extremely intelligent, generally composed and (because she’s such an eccentric) it’s not easy to throw her off balance. And she also handles martial arts more than solidly.
What makes the series “Wednesday” particularly interesting is perhaps Wednesday’s weakest aspect… socialization and empathy (which Wednesday knows about as well as I know thrash-metal bands). Wednesday has considerable problems (or better said, absence of interest) in forming connections with people, starting from her roommate Enid, other students from class, to principal Larissa, two guys (one ordinary boy, and one outcast) who show interest in her, as well as her rivalry with her mother. Moreover, her misunderstanding of her environment and disinterest in reading “signals,” as well as obsession with solving mysterious cases, means that Wednesday has absolutely no problem using and manipulating people and putting them in danger.
Let’s touch on the acting, which is, at least for me, in the case of the series “Wednesday,” perhaps the most important factor why the series is excellent.
Wednesday is portrayed by young, charming and incredibly talented Jenna Ortega (“Fallout,” “Scream,” “X”) for whom the past year (2022) was definitely a breakthrough, and already now there are signs she can become a megastar. It’s quite obvious that Jenna “carried” the series on her shoulders (but not because the rest of the cast is bad, but simply because the series is conceived that way), which isn’t an easy task for a young actress. However, her talent stands out precisely because of the “limitations” she had due to the nature of her character. As we mentioned, Wednesday has problems understanding her environment, as well as a lack of empathy (and seemingly emotions in general) and her character is most often unchanged (and almost deathly pale), and moreover her voice (almost) always sounds monotonous, so the actress had the challenge of best depicting and making Wednesday interesting, whether through movement or subtle facial expressions or manner of expression… or dance… I think no one (except people at Netflix) could have predicted that Jenna’s twisted dance would become so popular (“Nowadays they call it ‘viral,’ bro…” – note from the subconscious)… and when someone decided to combine it with the song “Bloody Mary” (Lady Gaga)… social networks (and especially TikTok) exploded so much that a “Wednesday Addams Dance TikTok Challenge” was created. By the way, the actress invented the dance in that episode herself, combining all sorts of things and didn’t work with a choreographer on this. Simply, the actress is top-tier and will enchant you with the role and a bright future definitely awaits her.
However, it’s worth mentioning the support of other actors who gave excellent support to Jenna and nicely rounded out the series. First place goes to likable Emma Myers as goofy Enid (who is, by the way, a werewolf) and loves everything colorful and #trendy and who’s the complete opposite of Wednesday. Right behind her is statuesque Gwendoline Christie (Lucifer in “The Sandman,” Captain Phasma in the newer “Star Wars” or Brienne in “Game of Thrones”) as Larissa, always measured school principal who has “history” with Wednesday’s parents, and always an icily cold voice, and you get the impression that, despite her smile, she could bite your head off at any moment. Praise also for Wednesday’s two main love interests, Hunter Doohan as clumsy and withdrawn Tyler, the sheriff’s son who works in a local café, and Percy Hynes White as Xavier, who has the talent that his paintings “come to life.” And there’s also Christina Ricci (the original Wednesday from the “Addams Family” films) as botany professor Marilyn, the only ordinary/normal/powerless person in the school, and Jamie McShane (“Sons of Anarchy,” “Argo”) as Sheriff Donovan, who is very suspicious of the twisted school and feels they’re much more than they present themselves to be.
And who plays Wednesday’s parents? Well, I’ll leave that as a surprise for you… as well as which other members appear in the series… 😁
Visually, the series is very appealing, with emphasis on gothic style and atmosphere (it wouldn’t surprise me if this series awakens interest in the gothic subculture among newer generations), as well as macabre music and everything really fits together nicely. One of the people who worked on the series is also eccentric Tim Burton, so the series might have a familiar vibe because of that too.
Although the series could be defined as a “horror comedy/detective thriller,” it should be emphasized here that “Wednesday” is also a coming-of-age series, when teenagers start questioning themselves, conduct internal dialogues and recognize some of their fears. So through Wednesday we see what it looks like when you enter into some kind of rivalry and misunderstanding with a parent (mother-daughter), as well as Wednesday’s questioning of herself in the sense of whether she really absolutely doesn’t care about others’ opinions and friendship, or maybe she does (a little) after all. Or through her roommate Enid, who is a werewolf but still hasn’t “transformed” (a ritual symbolizing growing up and confirming she’s truly a werewolf), we see the fears of a young person who’s “behind” her generation, and the fear that because of that she’ll become an outcast and worry about whether there’s some “problem” in her (I put that in quotation marks, for the simple reason that, especially nowadays, there are no rules about when something “must” happen concerning young people… some things happen when they should, earlier for some, later for others). Or how teenagers deal with famous parents, or parents who refuse to “open up” to children or hide family secrets. How there will always be various “cliques” in classrooms (cool kids, wild ones, artists, withdrawn kids, nerds), but likewise there should also be situations when “cliques” set aside their differences and unite for something more important. Simply, this is a very important and nicely handled element in the series.
“Wednesday” came to Netflix like a three-day storm in a desert where rain hadn’t fallen for months. With over a billion hours of viewing (yes, you read that correctly), the series stood shoulder to shoulder with titles like “Stranger Things” and “Squid Game,” and gave new (financial) energy to Netflix, which had quite badly stumbled with its business moves the previous year, costing it subscribers, as well as (to audiences’ anger) canceling/putting “on ice” many quality series.
All in all, “Wednesday” turned out to be an excellent series, and with all the good ratings it received, it’s no surprise that a second season will be made.
And for the end, a few more interesting facts about the series:
- How talented and dedicated an actress Jenna Ortega is, is shown by the fact that for the series she learned to play cello, fencing, archery, to operate a canoe, German, as well as boxing
- Wednesday in the series blinks very rarely
- Gomez Addams is always presented as a handsome charmer in films and series, but the series creators now wanted to present him more in the spirit of how the original author imagined him
- Although Gwendoline Christie (principal Weems) is quite tall, people on set always position the camera to further emphasize the height difference between the principal and others
- The password for accessing the secret society is a sound taken from the original “Addams Family” theme… you know the one: “dun dun dun dun *SNAP *SNAP”
- For the series, the Addams family limousine was specially made
- Jenna Ortega announced she would play Wednesday on 05/19/2021… that day was a Wednesday
- The final episode of the first season shows symbolism because of which Christina Ricci was chosen to act in the series (I’ll leave it to you to discover it)
And you, my dear friend, how does the series seem to you? 😊
Trailer | Imdb | Rotten Tomatoes | Metacritic
Release Date: 2022 | Format: Series | Number of Seasons: 1 (8 episodes) | Average Episode Duration: 45 minutes
