“Monday’s child is fair of face,
Tuesday’s child is full of grace.
Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
Thursday’s child has far to go.
Friday’s child is loving and giving,
Saturday’s child works hard for a living.
And the child born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, good and gay.”
Wednesday Addams — both Charles Addams’s original character and the incarnation seen in Alfred Gough and Miles Millar’s new Netflix series Wednesday — was named after the above nursery rhyme. The word “woe” appears in every episode title of the new show, and that’s sadly appropriate for a series determined to be as cold and dour as possible. Though the cast is stellar, with star Jenna Ortega and the delightfully arch Gwendoline Christie serving as standouts, the writing falters. A convoluted mystery, generic hijinks that miss the point of the Addams Family entirely, and shockingly out-of-touch ideas about race, gender, and sexuality make Wednesday a missed opportunity to bring a new classic to the creepy and kooky family’s live-action legacy. It bears repeating that Ortega shines brightly as the titular character, because her efforts, up to and including viral dance scenes, are nearly the only things that save the series from itself.
When Wednesday gets kicked out of Nancy Reagan High for dropping bags of piranha into a swimming pool where the boys who bullied her brother Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez) are swimming, she is expelled and forced to enroll in Nevermore Academy, where her father Gomez (Luis Guzmán) and mother Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) attended school and fell in love with each other. The piranha sequence is a highlight of the series, underscoring everything that people love about the ‘90s Barry Sonnenfeld films: morbid humor, wicked sociopolitical commentary, cartoonish violence, and the Addamses getting retribution against those who harm them. Sadly, the majority of the series can’t live up to this strong opening,. Once Wednesday arrives at Nevermore, a school for “outcasts” (try to keep track of how many times the show uses the word “outcast” or “normie” — just don’t turn it into a drinking game), the show becomes a disappointing mishmash of Veronica Mars, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, and Harry Potter. Wednesday becomes embroiled in a murder mystery, which is tied up in a monster mystery, which is itself tied up in a prophecy involving Wednesday and her witch ancestor.
If any of these mysteries worked on their own, the series might stand on stronger footing, but they are simultaneously too easily solved and too convoluted. Worse still, each one is wrapped up in a shallow, blinkered exploration of colonialism and straight white privilege. Nevermore Academy is located in Jericho, Vermont (which is clearly a Romanian set tragically awash in omnipresent shades of grey and blue). Jericho is home to Pilgrim World, a celebration of all things related to religious extremism and — as Wednesday rightly points out — genocide. Fans of Addams Family Values might perk up at this point, hoping for another righteous takedown of colonialism and the lies white people tell themselves about their history in North America. Unfortunately, Wednesday’s truth-telling is just a fleeting moment. The “normies” who support Pilgrim World include its Black owner, Mayor Noble Walker (Tommie Earl Jenkins), and his son Lucas (Iman Marson). Lucas’s introduction on the series includes a bizarre moment when he threatens Wednesday with sexual violence. (Wednesday is an accomplished fighter, however, and she dispatches Lucas and his two friends, though Tim Burton’s direction muddles the fight scene to the point where you have to watch it a few times to piece together what would have otherwise been an impressive bit of stunt work.) Presenting a Black man as the owner of a theme park devoted to colonialism, and having his son be a bully who threatens small girls, is just one of the many wrong-headed decisions Wednesday makes.
In an attempt at a classic Odd Couple moment, Wednesday ends up with a roommate named Enid Sinclair (Emma Myers), a Luna Lovegood type who loves rainbows, chit-chat, and hugs…all of the things that Wednesday despises. When Enid takes Wednesday on a tour of the school, she tells her that “Nevermore was founded in 1791 to educate people like us: outcasts, freaks, monsters; fill in your favorite marginalized group here.” For a show that wants to tackle racism, religious extremism, genocide, and other forms of oppression, it’s laughably offensive to gloss over actually marginalized groups in favor of the generic “outcasts” and “freaks.” It’s in keeping with Burton’s whitewashed goth approach to film, but it has no place in an Addams Family adaptation. The Addamses are Latinx themselves, and Wednesday’s ancestor Goody Addams (also played by Ortega) — who never gets a first name — is a Mexican woman living in what would become Vermont. The script occasionally allows Wednesday to point out real injustice, but it also pulls regrettable stunts with a shoehorned-in #MeToo subplot involving Morticia. The script actually has her tell Mayor Walker — a Black man living in the United States — that since he’s a man, he’s never been in a position where people didn’t believe him about something. The Addamses may be historically kooky, but they are not oblivious to political reality, and it’s a disservice to both the character and the audience to have Morticia be so obtuse and espouse such a white feminist idea.
The students at Nevermore are divided into cliques — fangs, furs, scales, etc. — depending on what kind of “monster” they are. Enid is a werewolf (a fur, obviously), but she’s a “late bloomer” who can’t “wolf out” like the rest of her friends and family. Enid’s character is a clear stand-in for a queer allegory. She has white-blonde hair with blue and pink ends, going as far as possible to wear a trans pride flag on her head without affixing a literal piece of cloth to her body. (She also wears a sweater that could easily double as a lesbian pride flag.) Her mother tells her that they are sending her to a conversion therapy camp — yes, the character uses those exact words — to help her wolf out so she can go through the proper form of puberty and express her identity in an acceptable way. The idea of conversion therapy, a form of abuse that causes immense harm to its victims in real life, is never interrogated on the show. Later on in the season, Enid wolfs out fully when she has to protect Wednesday, and the looming threat of conversion therapy is simply abandoned. So too is Enid’s queer coding: rather than confessing her feelings for Wednesday, which had been hinted at throughout the season, she ends up romantically involved with a male classmate. Enid’s queer coding — her fondness for rainbows and trans color scheme, her infatuation with and loyalty to Wednesday, the mention of conversion therapy and all its implications — was either a bait and switch meant to satisfy queer viewers, or it was a half-baked attempt at sociopolitical commentary that didn’t have the courage or the ability to go where it needed to go.
It is this pathetic approach to social commentary that gives the show’s narrative the air of being poorly thought out. If your understanding of Wednesday Addams begins and ends with the fact that she’s a goth girl and an outsider, you end up with the underdeveloped Wednesday and its waste of a talented cast and crew. The show has “great gowns, beautiful gowns”: Colleen Atwood’s costume design is outstanding, Danny Elfman and Chris Bacon’s music is suitably macabre and witty, and Jenna Ortega cements herself as a star on the rise. Her Wednesday is deadpan but never boring; Ortega keeps her expressive eyes and mouth controlled but never lacking in personality. When Wednesday can’t suppress a grin, you can feel the emotion come from deep within her. Even when her face appears stoic, Ortega’s eyes show Wednesday’s sharp intelligence and immense depth of feeling. Wednesday Addams has never been an emotionless character. Like her mother, she feels quite keenly; she just doesn’t let anyone else in on her secret inner life. To let other people know you is to be vulnerable, and vulnerability (or weakness, as Wednesday sees it) is the enemy.
Ortega understands Wednesday intimately. She’s clearly done her research, even choreographing the outstanding routine Wednesday performs at a school dance. The viral dance is emblematic of the series itself, both in its positives and its negatives. Wednesday occasionally seems designed for virality — a montage in the pilot of Wednesday playing “Paint It Black” on her cello is a crowd-pleaser designed for social media shares, as is the now-ubiquitous “Goo Goo Muck” dance. Prioritizing social media palatability over thematic cohesion might have worked in Wednesday’s favor ratings-wise (though who can say, given how tight-lipped Netflix is about such things), but it harms the actual quality of the series. Also, while the dance itself is choreographed well (Ortega is self-deprecating about the routine, but she impresses both as a dancer and a choreographer), it is not shot well. Burton (who also directed the episode featuring the incoherent fight scene) frames Ortega poorly, chopping up the routine so that we can barely tell what her body is doing when that should be the entire focus of the scene. Ortega throws in a nod to Lisa Loring, the original Wednesday from the 1964 sitcom, that’s barely visible due to Burton’s direction. Like the series itself, the dance scene is a star turn from Ortega that the showrunners fumble at every opportunity. It is only Ortega’s talent and charisma that salvage it.
Wednesday Addams has always been a fan favorite, so it’s no surprise that she would get a modern YA treatment. That’s part of the problem, though. The show does little to distinguish itself from better and more interesting YA series, choosing instead to rest on its IP laurels while simultaneously misunderstanding the wit and charm of the Addams Family. The cast does its best, especially the tremendous Ortega, but they can’t overcome the overwrought and underbaked writing, particularly its egregious mishandling of issues pertaining to race, sexuality, and gender. Wednesday’s child is full of woe, and so is Wednesday itself.
