Wednesday TV Show Review: “Jauntily Macabre”
Whenever the opening title sequence rolls in, Netflix will subtitle the music as “🎶Jauntily Macabre🎶”, and I think that’s the perfect way to describe this series.
Wednesday is a coming-of-age story set in a spooky, Halloween-y boarding school environment. As someone who went into watching Wednesday with no knowledge about The Addams Family, I really enjoyed this show! Wednesday, as a character, really works because she is strong, independent, sassy, and really quick on her toes. She embraces the fact that she doesn’t fit in, and her confidence in being unapologetically herself naturally starts to draw others towards her. One of the big reasons this series is interesting is because Jenna Ortega is really captivating to watch as the lead, and it’s easy to want to root for Wednesday once you’re a few episodes in. Something about having an air of hating everything and assuming a gothic attitude really speaks to our human tendency to be self-loathing and judgmental. Essentially, Wednesday is a vibe.
What also makes this show intriguing is that it feels like a mystery and Wednesday is the little Nancy Drew trying to get to the bottom of the case. It never feels too bloody or gory, but there is certainly an element of violence and horror to this show. I don’t think the grand reveal at the end was particularly shocking, because Wednesday wrongly accused people so many times that there were only so many options left as to who the real killer was.
This series feels a bit like Harry Potter. Mysterious things happen all semester and lead to a final showdown. With Harry Potter, it was always clear from the beginning that there was a bigger war to be fought. With this show, I feel like they are aiming for that as well, but it’s not exactly clear who the main enemy is. I hope a fully developed story has already been written, but it’s always difficult to predict how many seasons a TV show can get since there’s always a threat of cancellation. Regardless, I think that this season left on an intriguing-enough note that mostly everyone will want to come back to watch a Wednesday season 2.