I was primed to hate 'Wednesday'; Jenna Ortega and friends changed my mind
Netflix's Addams Family adaptation wins through pure fun factor.
Hating popular things simply because they’re popular isn’t cool. Unfortunately, I have a stubborn streak — as soon as something reaches a particular level of media saturation, I lose all interest in ever engaging with it. It’s the same reason why I will never, ever play Fortnite, not even if you paid me, and why it took me up until six months before the final season premiered to begrudgingly buy a Game of Thrones box-set and work my way through it. Thankfully, I can truthfully say this has nothing to do with snobbery; popular things typically become popular because they’re, you know, good. But everyone reaches a certain point where, after the 50th insipid Wednesday reel set to some Lady Gaga nightcore is pressed algorithmically against your unwilling eyeballs, a switch is flipped.
I hit this ceiling with Wednesday a swift couple of days after it premiered. Why this show and its aesthetics have gone so violently viral amongst ‘normies’ in particular deserves its own investigation, considering that much of the gothic subculture being praised and emulated here has historically drawn bullying and violence from the mainstream (as a reformed emo kid, can confirm). Nonetheless, I could feel the pit of acidic distaste in my stomach growing with every time I opened YouTube, only for Shorts to immediately thrust Jenna Ortega’s sulky, fringed countenance in my face.
This TikTok-ification of the show wasn’t my only barrier to entry, though. At 22, I’ve come to realise that I have aged out of many of the high school-set narratives that 15-year-old Isobel would have eaten up and licked the spoon for good measure. Popularity drama with catty queen bees and teenage love triangles typically no longer inspires me, which I should think is normal, honestly. The last time a random teammate on Valorant told me they were 16, I gasped, “Oh, bless you!” Sorry to that boy.
Hence, I was somewhat set against Wednesday when I started it, in spite of my apprehensions, because keeping up with the latest trending television has insanely become part of my job. I even tweeted my dismay after the first episode that it didn’t seem to be working for me — and I still feel my initial complaints were valid. Without several hours to ease you into the campy world of Nevermore, boarding school for supernatural outcasts, the CGI of the season’s primary ghoul is laughable. Seriously, why are its eyes like that? Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Gomez (Luis Guzman) are thrust on and off the screen with little fanfare, and a seemingly antagonistic relationship with their daughter that doesn’t ring true for fans of the Christina Ricci films. Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) herself is honestly kind of a jerk, with lines and scenes that seem generated for virality, but which land flat thanks to a lack of investment in her or any of her peers, all of whom are introduced far too swiftly to forge any kind of emotional connection. I’m not even going to touch on the bizarre fencing battle between her and designated school rival Bianca (Joy Sunday — unbelievable name, by the way), because Jill Bearup did that for me.
All in all, Wednesday and I got off on a bad foot, though I concede that for a younger audience who will not be put off by the above issues, it’s likely an engaging opening. I considered ditching the show right there, and then reconsidered, because I’ve got nothing else on while I eat my lunch. So the next day, sandwich in hand, I watched the second one. And the next, the third. And it hooked me.
The magic of Wednesday is that it’s fun. Tim Burton’s latest pet project, for all its spooky set design and dark atmosphere, is far less concerned with being good than with having a good time. This isn’t to say that the show is bad quality. While it certainly could have benefited from an increased age rating to really get into the gore and horror that its 12 certificate can merely suggest, overall it presents a solid, if predictable mystery with an immensely likable and engaging main cast. Lead Jenna Ortega in particular is magical, and miraculously shines the most in her scenes with Thing, her disembodied hand of a constant companion, despite only having actor Victor Dorobantu’s curious fingers to play against. The trick here is that Wednesday has a preexisting affection for Thing. The emotions that Ortega silences when facing relative strangers come to the fore in a rare display of Wednesday’s full character, which similarly happens in the gemstone-bright episodes featuring Uncle Fester (Fred Armisen). As the titular character’s relationships with the other Nevermore students evolve throughout the season, so does the depth of the entire young cast’s acting, culminating in a moment in the finale between Wednesday and her rainbow-festooned roommate Enid (Emma Myers) so tender that it brought me to tears.
Sure, Wednesday isn’t perfect. I guessed the true culprits behind the spate of murders the students investigate a good three episodes early, and wholeheartedly agree with Ortega that the contrived love triangle is misplaced. The werewolf versus hyde fight from the final episode is so blatantly torn from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban that I actually pointed and laughed. But do these things really matter when, on the whole, I spent a sincerely enjoyable eight hours with the show and am honestly invested in the (fingers crossed!) second season? I’d wager not. I reckon that’s why people the world over are rightfully obsessed with it, too. Sometimes all you need is a solid show with a cool concept that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
I’ll be leaving the Goo Goo Muck dance covers to the kids, though. No one wants to see me do that.
Season one of Wednesday is now streaming on Netflix.
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