In the first full Wednesday teaser, the consequence for castration is boarding school
The new teaser for Tim Burton's Netflix series also offers a first glimpse of Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzman as Morticia and Gomez Addams
Snap your fingers, and do your oxford-clad step: an actual full trailer for Tim Burton’s new Netflix series Wednesday has arrived. Alongside plenty of new plot details to bite into, the teaser also shares glimpses of Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzman as Morticia and Gomez Addams, and Gwendolyn Christie as one of Wednesday’s boarding school professors.
At fair “Nancy Reagan High School” where we set our scene, Wednesday (Scream’s Jenna Ortega) operates in stark contrast to the rest of her neon-backpacked and jean-shorted classmates, down to her impeccable taste in leather footwear. A voiceover reveals this is far from Wednesday’s inaugural “first day of classes:” she’s gone through eight schools in five years. Soon, a presumable reason for the turnover appears, as Wednesday silently and sullenly drops in on a boy’s water polo practice full of strapping white teens who address her as a “freak” and (apparently) bully her brother.
“The only person who gets to torture my brother is me,” Wednesday deadpans to the team, before unleashing two plastic bags of piranhas into their practice pool. One of the bloodthirsty fish cleanly castrates Dalton, the same water-polo player who said “Hey, freak,” when she walked in.
Although Wednesday’s reaction to Dalton’s injury is the slyest of satisfied smiles, Nancy Reagan High School’s reaction is expulsion—couldn’t Wednesday have just said no to the whole castration thing? In the ashes of her public school education, however, Morticia (Zeta-Jones) and Gomez (Guzman) Addams see an opportunity. Wednesday will be sent to Nevermore Academy, the gothic boarding school where her parents met, a place where Morticia assures Wednesday she’ll finally be surrounded by “peers” who “understand” her. The question of whether Wednesday has any desire to be understood, by a peer or not, remains unanswered by the end of the trailer. Forgive her for pursuing her other, clearly more inspiring passions for chaos, “stabbing,” and Peter Pan collars.
Per Netflix’s description, Wednesday is “a sleuthing, supernaturally infused mystery charting Wednesday Addams’ years as a student at Nevermore Academy.” The whole piranha penis incident was evidently just the beginning of Burton’s reimagined arc for the classic character. The new tease features glimpses of a lantern-lit nighttime forest chase, a Carrie-style prom, and a very familiar severed hand. All the series needs now (in the humble opinion of this Addams Family Values super fan) is a Joan Cusack cameo.