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When it comes to youth culture, nothing is more mainstream right now than outcasts. This is not an anecdotal observation—it’s a fact, borne out by the immense popularity of the teen-focused Addams Family spinoff Wednesday, whose first season tops Netflix’s list of its most-watched English-language shows of all time, with more than 250 million views. (The next two titles, Adolescence and Stranger Things 4, lag by over 100 million views apiece.) Melding horror and mystery with YA drama, it has made a global star of its 22-year-old lead, Jenna Ortega, whose cannily placed dance scene immediately broke TikTok. Wednesday Addams cracked the top 10 kids’ Halloween costumes the year after it debuted, second only to Barbie among name-brand female characters. All of which might suggest to adults that Wednesday is strictly for Gen Z.
Its first season certainly supported that impression. The setting—Nevermore Academy, a boarding school for paranormally gifted misfits—recalled Harry Potter’s Hogwarts. The plot put a dark but too rarely novel spin on standard coming-of-age tropes, as Ortega’s icy, psychic Wednesday navigated roommate troubles and a supernatural love triangle (see also: Buffy, Twilight, The Vampire Diaries). While those elements remain in Season 2, Wednesday, having saturated the Gen Z market, now feels like it’s working harder to entertain older viewers—particularly those of us who fondly remember ’90s pop culture. Well, it worked on this elder millennial. Parents, don’t tell your tweens, but the new episodes of Wednesday are secretly a gift to weird adults.
After a speed run through Wednesday’s summer vacation, which she naturally spent taking out a creepy serial killer played by Y2K spooky-kid icon Haley Joel Osment, Season 2 (whose first four episodes are now streaming, with the…
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