Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for Season 1 of Wednesday.
On paper, the new Netflix seriesWednesdayappears like any other spooky high school drama and could have very well gone the route of other famous werewolf/vampire teen fare. However, this series, which follows the iconic Addams Family daughter as she attends a school for outcasts, mostly leaves out the young love subplot central toBuffy the Vampire Slayer,Twilight, orThe Vampire Diaries.
It’s nearly impossible to name another teen franchise that so unabashedly filters out the sap. Instead,Tim Burton’sWednesdayoffers a solid examination of the emotionally distant outcast as her platonic friendships become more dimensional whilst minor romantic encounters remain simply obstacles to overcome or means to solve a mystery. With such a departure from the norm, it’s worth looking at Wednesday Addams as a character and the connections she is able to develop. In a way,Wednesdaydemonstrates that there can be more to teen drama than a cliché love story.
RELATED:How ‘Wednesday’ Combines Every Different Version of Its Titular Character
Wednesday Rejects Any and All Connections Early in the Show
With brutal wit, Wednesday Addams, played byJenna Ortega, undermines everything from public education to the “soul-sucking void of meaningless affirmation” that is social media, but chief above everything else is her disdain for socializing and romance. “I’ll survive alone. I always have.”
Upon arriving at Nevermore Academy, the solemn child appears consistently off-put at the prospect of making connections. She scoffs at the school’s adolescent social cliques, the Fangs, Furs, Stoners, and Scales, and rejects an invite to the school’s secret society of students, The Nightshades. Even more devastating to her, though, is the inescapable roommate situation she is forced into withEmma Myers' Enid Sinclair. It’s no wonder that the rogue loner spends the majority of the first episode plotting her escape. This melancholic version of the characterstems fromChristina Ricci’s performances in the ’90s, which undoubtedly left such a mark on the public perception of Wednesday Addams as to influence the writing and development of this newest iteration. However, until now the character had yet to be thrust into the lead role, which does require a certain degree of transformation for there to be a satisfying arc. What follows is a subtle but effective fragmentation of her lone-wolf tendencies that only truly materializes in the season finale.
The Woeful Build-Up to Friendship
Over the course of the first few episodes, Wednesday’s situation is only exacerbated by more social encounters. A series of other characters begin inserting themselves into her emotional world from the overly-determined dorm mom Ms. Thornhill to local therapist Dr. Kinbott, played by Ricci andRiki Lindhomerespectively. Each offers a degree of interest and care in her well-being that Wednesday herself defines as a form of torture. To seemingly rub salt in her social wounds, she is never truly able to find any alone time. Whether exploring secret chambers under the school, crypts of the deceased or even sprawling forest landscapes, there is always an intruding person, monster, or disembodied hand ready to barge in on her.
By some cruel design, to uncover more about a prophecy with her at its center, she is also forced into a handful of romantic situations that come straight from the high school television playbook. From uncomfortably stiff dates to a formal dance, Wednesday must endure a series of entanglements that ultimatelylacks dimensionality. However, this ineffective love triangle might just be the intentional byproduct of the writers' devotion to Wednesday’s strong disposition. Had she fallen in love or given into mushy sentimentality of either so-called love interest, it would have compromised the inimitable complexity of her character. Instead, the series decides to center her personal growth around the other more nuanced relationships of the season.
The Who’s Who of Wednesday’s Development
By the finale, just a handful of characters serve as significant markers in the realization of Wednesday as a more well-rounded protagonist. Where the romance falls short, these characters certainly pull forward in significance.
The dynamism between siblings Wednesday and Pugsley is at the heart of every priorAddams Familycreation since the duo appeared inCharles Addams' cartoons for The New Yorker in 1938. It’s reasonable to suggest that neither character is as effective alone without the other for balance. This makesMoosa Mostafa’s character of Eugene so much more vital to the series than meets the eye. As a quirky, jovial, and willing accomplice to Wednesday, Eugene fills the role of Pugsley who is left at home when his older sister moves into the boarding school. At one point in the series, she even tells him sincerely that he reminds her of Pugsley. But, it is not until Eugene is hospitalized for his part in her plans that cracks begin to appear in Wednesday’s cool demeanor. She spends a significant amount of time visiting his hospital room and lamenting the circumstances that lead to his incapacitation. As Dr. Kinbott points out, “I doubt a cold, heartless person would be sitting by her friend’s bedside feeling guilt for his condition.”
The least obvious entry on the list of characters that bring Wednesday full circle isGwendoline Christieas Principal Weems. She consistently disapproves of Wednesday’s behavior and interferes with her efforts to uncover the truth. Furthermore, an unresolved childhood feud between Weems and Wednesday’s mother, Morticia Addams, played byCatherine Zeta-Jones, fuels the headmaster to project an undue grudge onto Wednesday that only grows throughout the season. Perhaps Wednesday actually enjoyed a degree of the foulness between them, considering she loathed the friendliness of the other adult women around her at Nevermore. Either way, Principal Weems is responsible for a marked softening of Wednesday, who by the end of the series actually has kind words to say about the head of the school after her unfortunate demise.
Wednesday’s roommate, Enid, certainly takes the place of her closest friendship and most significant social milestone by the end of the series. Enid and Wednesday’sThe Odd Couple-esque rapport feels, for the larger part of the show, to be one-sided. The truest outcasts of the season, both of them find themselves rejects in a school built for rejects. The more Enid pushes friendship onto her grim roommate, the more Wednesday pulls away. The stark differences between the two couldn’t be more obvious. However, by the end of the season, the relationship between the two evolves into something much more nuanced and shared. A genuine care for Enid develops within Wednesday who even seems to enjoy their loving embrace during the denouement of the finale. They not only have each other but also have evolved to be far from the outsiders they were at the start of the series.
Is ‘Wednesday’ Ushering in a New Age of Teen Drama?
Wednesday’s lack of compelling romance could simply be an anomaly, seeing as she so fundamentally breaks from the typical protagonist identity, but perhaps there’s more to glean from the series' aversion to teen drama tropes. With love blinders removed,Wednesdayactually transforms into something delightfully new for the genre. While at first jarring for the average viewer expecting a tangled love story with a payoff, the disruption of convention here allows for an ending more fitting of both Tim Burton and the Addams Family mythos.
Ultimately, the series proves that in a sub-genre steeped in convention a compelling lead does not need a serious love interest. Wednesday’s dimensionality deeply resonates despite, or perhaps because of, her failure to be lulled into wistful abandon. As trite flings continue to underwhelm television with both a sense of derivative storytelling and borderline sexploitation,Wednesdaymight just be the prelude to more series that explore beyond their teen protagonists' love life.
