Spoilers ahead. Wednesday is all about lessons. Both the Netflix series, and the titular main character, are ripe with learnings, but because this isn’t some after-school special on PBS, the lessons are a lot more subtle — or more in-your-face, depending on how you look at them. Instead of a PSA about the dangers and harms of bullying, the first episode of the series opens with Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) unleashing two bags of piranhas in the school pool during the water polo team’s practice. It’s punishment for tormenting her brother Pugsley, something only she’s allowed to do. In lieu of a lesson on accepting others, the series — adapted from the original Addams Family comic and executive produced by Tim Burton, who also directed half of the season’s eight episodes — populates our screens with a school full of “misfits” at Nevermore Academy, spotlighting the wolves, sirens, and Gorgons as more than outsiders, and the center of the story. And to help Wednesday warm her frigid, black heart and learn the true meaning of friendship — there’s Enid Sinclair (Emma Myers).
