Wednesday (2022)
Tim Burton has certainly carved a very specific niche for himself. His movies guarantee a certain aesthetic, as well as a definitively dry script, which all work to create some pretty good comedy. In some cases, he was made for the Addams Family, which is why it’s no surprise that, when it was announced that he was making a Wednesday series, people were stoked.
Now that it’s out, I feel like the reception cooled a bit. While it certainly got a Season 2 renewal almost immediately, I’ve seen a surprising amount of people who I thought for sure would enjoy it that instead didn’t like it. I’m not trying to discount their experiences, but as far as I’m concerned, the series knocked it out of the park.
Wednesday follows the titular daughter of the Addams Family, who, after using some extreme measures against some bullies in her last school, is finally shipped off to Nevermore Academy, a school specifically tailored for Outcasts. That’s capitalized because it’s a proper noun here, as it encompasses all manner of spooky species, like sirens, gorgons, werewolves, and more. These folk are a known entity in this world, and they instill fear in the Normie populace, also a proper noun.
While she’s there, Wednesday stumbles upon a mystery concerning her family history, the tension between the two separate worlds, and the very founding of the school itself. All the while, she falls under the watchful gaze of the headmistress, Larissa Weams, who knew Morticia well in their time in the academy, and expect no less of that mischief in her daughter. She’ll have to evade the scrutiny of the principal, navigate the racial prejudices of the Normie populace, and solve the mystery that seems to so intimately involve her.
Jenna Ortega as Wednesday is amazing casting. Personally, my first interaction with her was Scream (2022), and she’s been a fave of mine since then. I loved her in The Babysitter: Killer Queen as well, which I’ll surely have to talk about someday, but here, she embodies the cold, disconnected sociopathy that is needed to play the most dour of the Addamses (which I doubt is correct, but I’m claiming it).
What I love about this show, though, is how it examines that attitude from a realistic standpoint, even when set against the most unrealistic of circumstances. I mean, Wednesday is on the trail of some gigantic beast that’s killing people in the night, she’s roommates with a werewolf, her love interest can make his own artwork come to life, and at every turn, they call her out for just how unbelievably toxic she can be at times.
This is where I saw a lot of complaints, with some saying that Wednesday becomes more like everyone else in a long-running franchise that’s all about being true to yourself. I counter this argument with something I’ve learned with time: not everything about your personality is a good thing, and some of it should be excised in order to grow. This is exactly how Wednesday is affected during the run of the show.
Wednesday, from beginning to end, is a dry, macabre, standoffish girl with contempt for all things bright and cheery, and she ends the series with that exact same mindset. Wednesday didn’t change the fundamental parts of herself that make her, her. In fact, the ones around her, those that try to get close to her, eventually come to understand those facets of her. Enid, her roommate, is the perfect embodiment of this. She couldn’t be anymore different from Wednesday, but, with time, she comes to terms with the parts of Wednesday that are grafted onto her personality, and embraces those things (though, very specifically, not in a literal embrace).
This dance sequence tells us all we need to know about how much of a dork Wednesday is, when you think about it.
What Wednesday does change are the things about her that hurt others, the things that alienate her from people that she wasn’t even aware that she liked having around. She is habitually a loner, and that isn’t necessarily overwritten so much as modified; she’s a loner in most circumstances, but company isn’t the worst thing sometimes. She comes out of her shell more. That’s not her compromising for the sake of others so much as it is her learning something about herself.
The biggest thing she comes to realize, however, is that other people are more than just tools. There’s numerous times throughout the series where Wednesday lies to someone, oftentimes someone who implicitly trusts her, just so that she can make progress in her “case”, the mystery that she’s tracking down. This almost always puts them in mortal danger, something that she seemingly doesn’t even bother to worry about. She always paints it as “for the case”, but what it really is is selfish manipulation of the goodwill and affection of others, simply to reach a goal.
In this way, Wednesday is no better than the masses that she so actively separates herself from. She’s not different from them at all, and her tendency to look as them as a collective of idiots means that she doesn’t always treat them like people with their own emotions, intentions, and desires. In trying to maintain an arms length from the “common” folk, she instead draws herself much closer to them. This is the part of her that she comes to realize, and the thing that most needs to be ripped from her personality.
I’m all for being different, and this show doesn’t trade that message in to tell a tale of “learning to fit in”. Instead, it tells a tale of learning to work with your surroundings, how to be a person without compromising your own values. We all have parts of ourselves that we suppress in order to mesh with those around us. None of us are 100"% ourselves all of the time. In fact, people who are kind of like that are ones that you yourself likely dislike dealing with, because they won’t compromise, even when they really should.
Society isn’t who you need to conform with. Instead, you should learn to make a fair trade between your personality and the personalities of those around you. Wednesday learns this lesson, to the betterment of not only herself, but the friends who come to love her as she is.
Wednesday is darkly funny, and the girl herself is easily the most dry part of that humor. It’s a story about being weird, and how that’s okay. You just have to accept the weird in others, too. It’s got some good mystery, a surprising amount of heartfelt character exploration, and best of all, it’s all wrapped in a dreary, fittingly Poe-like aesthetic that is always well-crafted and fun.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a nightshade to trim.
