There’s no denying that Netflix's Wednesday is an incredibly fun show to watch. Teeming with monsters, villains, teen romances and charming supernatural "outcasts," the series is sufficiently entertaining from the get-go. It’s no surprise then that it has worked perfectly for Netflix, garnering an overwhelmingly positive response from audiences, with a second season on its way. In the midst of all this praise and adoration for Wednesday as a character, what the show really misses out on is exploring Wednesday Addams as a protagonist.
Set in Jericho, Vermont, Wednesday revolves around Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega), based on the beloved character from the popular The Addams Family cartoon strip. When she’s expelled from her school for a deadly prank, her parents Morticia and Gomez decide to send her to Nevermore, their alma mater. Known to be a school for "outcasts," Nevermore is home to teenage werewolves, sirens, shape-shifters and a variety of other supernatural creatures, shunned by society. Wednesday finds herself at Nevermore against her wishes and is soon entangled in solving a mystery that involves a monster at large who is killing several innocent people.
What Wednesday Lacks as a Protagonist
Wednesday is naturally identical to her comic counterpart. Dressed in all-black with two pigtails, she spends a majority of the show offering deadly stares and sarcastic remarks to pretty much everyone she has a conversation with. The entirety of the plot is devoted to unraveling the identity of the monster with Wednesday at its center, attempting to figure out the truth behind Jericho’s history and her own. The show evidently deals with themes of identity and belonging, with many of the characters coming to terms with their "outcast" selves.
However, viewers are never offered any insight into who Wednesday really is beyond a handful of traits that set her apart from everyone else. Yes, Wednesday loves the macabre, yes, she loves shutting down anyone who wants to form a relationship with her, and yes, she enjoys everything that’s evil and murderous. But then what? What do viewers really know about Wednesday and what she’s going through? Why is she the way that she is? Even though the show introduces a therapist that Wednesday is forced to visit, it misses out on using that as a device to allow audiences to form a deeper understanding of what really makes her tick.
Why Wednesday Feels Hollow as a Character
It’s almost as if the show had a set of boxes it had to check off when it came to writing her character and that’s all it does. There’s no internality that’s constructed for Wednesday and that’s one of its biggest flaws. One could argue that Wednesday Addams has always been emotionally stunted as a character and the show continues to serve that narrative by staying true to the original cartoon. However, if an entire TV series is dedicated to a single character, the least audiences can expect is for the writers to attempt at exploring her inner life and really discover her as a protagonist. What’s also unfortunate is that the genre of the show is ideal to unpack Wednesday as a protagonist.
Given that it’s a supernatural teen drama, there’s plenty of opportunity to focus on Wednesday’s conflict with who she is and who she wants to be. There are also opportunities to investigate what it really means for a teenage girl to live in a world that sees her as a "freak," but the show refuses to do any of that. Even her romantic relationships -- something that teenage shows thrive on -- seem forced and out of place. For nearly the entirety of its eight-episode run, all viewers see Wednesday do is be rude and abrasive toward Tyler and Xavier. It's the reason both boys confess their feelings for her, but it feels rather arbitrary. On what basis do viewers buy into Wednesday’s feelings for either of these boys when nothing is known about what goes on in her head?
In spite of the limited scope of her character, Jenna Ortega delivers a great performance. She hits all the right notes as the mean and inaccessible Wednesday Addams, but the distance one feels from Wednesday as a protagonist stays persistent throughout the show. Though it has a tight plot with a decent amount of interesting twists, Wednesday ultimately feels hollow because of its inability to construct a layered protagonist despite having plenty of potential to do so.