Grim, gothic and creepy are the best ways for me to describe “Wednesday,” Tim Burton’s newest spinoff on Netflix. After being released on Nov. 23, this show has surpassed “Stranger Things” season four with over 341 million hours watched in the first week alone. When starting the show, I honestly didn’t know what to expect. Obviously I was excited hearing that Jenna Ortega would be playing Wednesday, but my favorite part of the series was finding out the OG, Christina Ricci, was playing a character too. The series starts with Wednesday headed to Nevermore Academy after being expelled from her last highschool for dropping piranhas in a swimming pool. Arriving at the school her parents, Mortica and Gomez are telling her all about how this is where they met and how much she will love this school and everyone there. Nevermore Academy isn’t just a regular high school, it’s for all of the outcasts and weirdos in the town. It’s full of sirens, vampires, werewolves and Wednesday. Like any other high school, Wednesday meets her new roommate and bestie, her new enemy and unexpectedly some love interests along the way. The Netflix show presents as a goth mystery murder series with an unknown monster killing locals in the forest. Throughout the series, Wednesday creates suspicions wondering who could be doing this and begins seeing visions. Though her visions are only so helpful, they leave a few details out in the scenes putting Wednesday into some dangerous situations. In her visions she sees that she may be connected to the murders when a blonde young girl comes up to her and tells her short clues, making Wednesday more and more obsessed with figuring out who the killer is. Although the show does show off some cliche qualities in its acting and plot, Wednesday still manages to use her spooky personality to reel us back in. Many people on Twitter and Tiktok have compared “Wednesday” to “Riverdale” because of the idea of what “Riverdale” “was supposed to be” because of the heavy feeling of teen angst with a touch of murder mystery thrown into the mix. Along with the mystery in a small town where the new girl at school suddenly becomes a main interest and finds problems with the popular kids in school. Mainly the show consists of Wednesday at Nevermore, hating every second of it but wanting to prove that she is not her mother when she attended Nevermore Academy. Later on, Wednesday hears from the local sheriff that her own father, Gomez Addams, was accused of murder while attending Nevermore. During a group therapy session with her family, Wednesday could not shake the anticipation of knowing what happened on that dark night. Though her mother ignores her over and over she later admits to what happened the night Gomez “murdered” another student. Along with Wednesday attempting to solve who the monster in town is, we get to enjoy the side stories of other characters in the Netflix original. Enid Sinclair is Wednesday’s roommate at Nevermore and is probably the complete opposite of Wednesday. She has blue and pink hair, is always wearing pink and has a kaleidoscope inspired window, which Wednesday immediately rips down, her side at least. She’s also a werewolf, at least almost; she hasn’t “wolfed out” yet, making her a late bloomer and keeps this to herself mostly. Through the series Enid sparks an interest in one of the stoners at Nevermore, Ajax, and no, it’s not what you think; he literally had snakes as hair and accidently turned himself to stone when he looked in the mirror. There have been rumors of a season two going around, but so far there is no confirmation from Netflix about renewing the series. Although many cast members have made hints that they are all in for one. Because of the season one ending, it doesn’t give much hint to season two nor confirm. We did however get left off with a slight cliffhanger with one of the characters possibly dying, who knows if they were saved or not. We’re left with an emotional ending when classes had been canceled for the rest of the semester after all of the murders. Wednesday was finishing her novel with her final page being packed in her suitcase. To me, this hinted that this may just be a single season show but could always be an innocent way of ending the season. However, while riding home, Wednesday gets a text from an unknown number with stalker like photos of her with a text saying she’s being watched along with a gif of an axe hitting her. Which leads to the question, who is her new stalker and will they be revealed in a new season?
Lauren Flynn-Miller is a second-year Interdisciplinary Studies major with minors in American Sign Language and Journalism. LF954013@wcupa.edu