Jack Cellucci ‘24
It was a drizzly November weekend. I had the flu, and with nowhere else to turn but the other side of my bed, I decided to watch the Netflix original series everyone was discussing. It’s Wednesday: a Tim Burton creation, and the first Netflix English-language series to break the record for the most hours viewed in one week, even overshadowing Stranger Things, with a total of 341.2 million hours.
Netflix’s Wednesday is the newest edition to an impressive series of films and television shows that have portrayed the Addams family ever since its original inception in 1938. Lisa Loring, who played the role of Wednesday in The Addams Family ABC series from 1964 to 1966, passed away on January 28, 2023. Among the many offering their condolences is Christina Ricci, a cameo character of the current show Wednesday. She herself played the role of Wednesday in the 90s. Together, she and Jenna Ortega carry on the torch of this timelessly relatable television dynasty that has survived throughout TV history.
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.
Here’s the synopsis of the TV show Wednesday, free of spoilers. As a result of her sadistic shenanigans, Wednesday, the titular character and sleuth of the show, is expelled from her New Jersey high school. She’s subsequently enrolled mid-year to a timelessly gothic private boarding school for fabled freaks like herself, a place dubbed Nevermore Academy, set on the outskirts of a tight-knit town called Jericho.
With the eerie cello drone as a musical backdrop, the Addams hearse approaches Nevermore’s wrought iron gates, the opening episode foreshadows many mysterious plot entanglements, including a murderous rampage or two.
Morticia, Wednesday’s mother, and Gomez, her father, fell in love at Nevermore when they were teens (absolutely pun intended for those who have watched). Morticia also seems to have a bygone relationship with the posh headmistress, Principal Weems. Akin to many of our own smothering mothers at EA, Tish hopes her daughter develops that same sense of sorority (and potential romance) that Wednesday herself is so keen on evading.
My fellow classmates agree that Wednesday aptly represents the teenage introvert and portrays the feelings of a school newcomer. Lucia Forte ’26 states, “I think the way Wednesday acts is the way more introverts want to act but can’t because it is so unacceptable.”
In search of more perspectives, I looked towards the freshest EA noobs I could find; I targeted Nikolai Nawrocki ’26, Reid Lawler ’26, and Ava Schlich ’26. They all gave their opinion on the show while sipping their lattes in the Annenberg. Nawrocki posited, “I think it had a lot of parallels to Harry Potter.”
Referring to the actor who plays Wednesday, Schlich went so far as to say, “Jenna Ortega is a Gen Z icon!” After the giggles subsided, Lawler retorted, “I thought it was a little cheesy,” but to save face, he quickly compensated for it by saying, “The hand [‘Thing’] was funny though… that’s the only time I audibly laughed.” Despite his reservations about the show’s comic value, Lawler reluctantly recounts his obsession with the TikTok dance craze—kick-started by Ortega’s self-choreographed performance at the Nevermore Academy Rave’N Dance—saying, “I know the whole dance. I actually thought it was overrated, but I did memorize it by heart. It was my new personality for a week.”
Even the history department can relate to this series, especially considering the harpsichord episode transitions that evoke the Baroque, as well as an homage to Puritan society through the characters of Goody Addams and Joseph Crackstone. And just when you thought Wednesday couldn’t get any better, it has coincidently primed the stage for The Addams Family EA spring Musical! While the plot does deviate from the series (with more characters, including Grandma and the Beineke family), I know I can’t wait for rehearsal to get underway, and to witness a wonderful Domino Club Production. Esse Quam Videri et Rigor Mortis!