by Jake Bourgeois, Contributing Writer
Jenna Ortega has really burst onto the scene in 2022 with performances in films like Scream, The Fallout, and X, and her busy year isn’t over. She now steps in to the iconic, obviously black, shoes of one of pop culture’s most kooky characters with the debut of Netflix’s Wednesday.
The idea of a Wednesday-focused project really appealed to me. She’s my favorite part of the pair of Addams Family movies, as played by Christina Ricci (who plays a staff member at Nevermore Academy in this show), and I really enjoyed a production I saw of The Addams Family musical, which follows an older Wednesday as she brings a boy home to meet the family. Here, Ortega plays a teenage Wednesday, who after being expelled (again) from a “normal” school, is sent to the exclusive Nevermore Academy, a school for outcasts filled with vampires, gorgons, sirens, and werewolves. While there, Wednesday tries to find herself, and perhaps even make a friend or two along the way, all while solving the mystery of the monster that’s terrorizing the school and the surrounding community.
First and foremost, as a Wednesday Addams show, Ortega kills it as the title character. Given the largely deadpan nature of the character, it can be tricky to pull that off, but Ortega does perfectly. There’s a comedic aspect to the performance that largely differs from the rest of her filmography this year. It’s a performance that’s bursting with charisma, despite the understated nature of the character. I think it’s clear that she’s having a lot of fun with this performance, and that certainly translated to my viewing experience.
Though we largely know Wednesday as a largely emotionless sadist, it’s when the show explores those pesky emotions underneath that it really shines. It does so in two ways. The first is through Wednesday’s struggles with attachment, or lack thereof. In the opening scene, we get a glimpse of the fact that, deep down, Wednesday does care, when she comes to the defense of her bullied brother, but it’s something that’s really explored throughout the series. When it’s effective, it really works. Her relationship with Thing (Victor Dorobantu) is one of my favorites in the entire show, and the pairing of her with her roommate, bubbly werewolf Enid (Emma Myers), makes for a fun dichotomy. Her potential romantic interests, the son of the sheriff with a grudge (Hunter Doohan), and one of the school ringleaders (Percy Hynes White), are interesting to explore, but I found it gets a bit repetitive at times, and it’s another example of a young adult show with a love triangle. Her relationship with her parents (Catherine Zeta-Jones, Luis Guzmán) has its moments, but I wasn’t a huge fan of the couple’s dynamic together. Fred Armisen’s Uncle Fester worked a bit better for me.
The more interesting family dynamic was Wednesday struggling to get out of her parents’ shadow, despite the fact that she probably likes how dark it is in there. A frustrated Wednesday looking to forge her own path when reminders of her parents (specifically about her mother) abound was not something I expected from the show. The show’s version of Wednesday is also gifted (or cursed, depending on your point of view) with the power of visions. It’s a power she shares with her mother, who she’s loathe to take any advice about it from. It’s a supernatural wrinkle that I really liked, and I feel fit the character.
Creatively, the show is run by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (Into the Badlands, Smallville), but the eye-catching name here is Tim Burton. He’d been attached to Addams Family projects in the past, and comes on to direct half of this eight-episode run. It seems like his whole vibe would work perfectly for this show and, unsurprisingly, it does. Bringing in frequent collaborator Danny Elfman to assist with scoring the show works well for me. The whole “bad is good” vibe that the family gives off could have gotten tired over the course of the runtime, but it stays pretty fresh throughout. There’s a creepy vibe that really works for this show, though there are some visual moments that do take you out of it as a viewer.
I largely enjoyed myself throughout. There’s no moment that quite rises to the level of the Thanksgiving play in Addams Family Values, though there are some fun moments as Wednesday is forced to volunteer in the town’s Pilgrim World celebration. As the character moments start to get a bit repetitive and fall into some familiar tropes, it loses a bit of steam as we head toward the conclusion. However, that’s not to say I didn’t enjoy how the show played with tropes at times — I’m just hoping it avoids some of the tired pitfalls that eventually made me lose interest with the streamer’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina adaptation. The fact that I had the mystery largely solved early on probably didn’t help the show’s finale, as it tries to make moments out of reveals I’d been waiting on for a while; but it does an admirable job of attempting to play the misdirection game.
As a whole, though it perhaps falls into more conventions than I would like, and the mystery didn’t captivate me quite like I’d hoped it would, the unique spin of having all this take place through the lens of everyone’s favorite anti-social goth provides plenty of enjoyment. Season One is worth watching for Ortega’s performance alone, and it’s largely the reason I’d happily snap up a second season if one comes to pass.
Score: 7/10
Wednesday is currently streaming on Netflix
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