Wednesday Season 1 pits the titular heroine against a formidable group of adversaries, including a shape-shifting serial killer, the resurrected spirit of a genocidal pilgrim, and a seemingly benevolent teacher (played none other than former Wednesday Addams actor Christina Ricci) who turns out to be the most insidious monster of the lot. It’s safe to say the hit Netflix series delivered more than enough villains for the Addams Family’s tenacious daughter to handle, with more on the way for Season 2. They provide potent challenges for her to face, forcing her to think for herself and prevail without the support of her family.
Interestingly, none of these villains gets under Wednesday’s skin quite the way that Amanda Buckman did, the haughty blonde child of privilege who tormented her during the two live-action Addams Family movies from the early 1990s. She’s played almost entirely for laughs in contrast to Wednesday, whose narrative trends a little darker. Yet, Buckman remains no less loathsome thirty years on, thanks to an underrated performance from actor Mercedes McNab. With Wednesday’s second season on the way with a new unnamed villain waiting in the wings, the Netflix series could do very well by introducing a new version of Buckman to challenge its gloomy protagonist anew.
Who Is Amanda Buckman in The Addams Family Franchise?
Character Name
Actor
First Appearance
Last Appearance
Mercedes McNab
The Addams Family (Nov. 22, 1991)
Addams Family Values (Nov. 19, 1993)
Buckman didn’t appear in any of the original Charles Addams cartoons. She’s a creation of 1991’s The Addams Family, which bills her only as “Girl Scout.” She serves as the basis of a single joke, staring down her haughty nose at Wednesday and Pugsley as they struggle to sell lemonade in order to ease their family’s financial woes. After asking if the drink is made from “real lemons,” she condescendingly offers to purchase a glass if they buy a box of cookies in exchange. Wednesday responds by asking if they’re made from real Girl Scouts.
The gag worked so well that McNab came back for the sequel — 1993’s Addams Family Values — with a vastly expanded role. Buckman appears at Camp Chippewa, where Wednesday and Pugsley are sent for the summer. She’s the embodiment of an ideal camper, at least from the perspective of the terrifyingly chipper counselors, and quickly insinuates herself into their good graces with a combination of shameless apple polishing and superficial charm. It ends badly for her, as Wednesday and her coterie of misfits burn the camp to the ground in the midst of the play that Buckman is starring in. The film suggests that she was burned at the stake in the process, though it cuts away from the actual deed, leaving her fate uncertain.
Mercedes McNab plays a key role in Christina Ricci’s star-making turn as Wednesday by setting up numerous terrific jokes for her partner to knock down with her signature deadpan delivery. Buckman represents the establishment that Charles Addams gleefully satirized with his cartoons, shrunk down to junior high form in order to give Wednesday a foe on her own level. She’s a child of privilege, which she takes for granted from the get-go by using her understanding of social mores to ensure that the rules don’t apply to her. She evinces no quirks or oddities, and actively looks down on those who do. Her entire life centers around conformity, popularity, and the status quo, and while her rivalry with Wednesday looks like typical mean kid behavior on the surface, it represents everything that the Addamses were created to defy.
Why Amanda Buckman Is the Perfect Villain for Wednesday Season 2
Amanda Buckman worked like a charm by giving Ricci’s Wednesday a strong foil to play against and helping her become the stand-out in Addams Family Values. It’s no surprise that Wednesday went in a different direction for its rivals, who usually turn out to have softer sides that make them more sympathetic. The most prominent example is Bianca Barclay, Nevermore’s resident queen of the lunchyard who torments Wednesday relentlessly during the first few episodes of Season 1, in a manner not dissimilar to Buckman. As the series goes on, however, it reveals a more nuanced side to her personality. Her mother runs a cult and Bianca comes to Nevermore to get away from that. She envies Wednesday’s utter indifference to other people’s opinions of her, and confesses to feelings of insecurity about her social status. That changes her from foil to ally, and she aids Wednesday in the defense of Nevermore during the season finale.
Other figures such as Rowan Laslow and Tyler Galpin are more actively menacing, and yet they too are revealed to be more tragic and misunderstood than consciously evil. Both try to kill Wednesday at different points in the series, but both are also pawns of circumstances beyond their control. Even Tyler — the “Hyde” responsible for the murder spree at the center of Season 1 — is as much victim as he is monster. Buckman’s monstrosity is of a much quieter, workaday variety, but in her own way, it makes her far worse. She’s incapable of Bianca’s self-reflection, and she’s not tormented by tragedy in her past or trauma driving her to wicked deeds. She’s born into privilege thinking she earned it, and never considers anyone or anything beyond her own gratification.
That makes Buckman an ideal villain for Season 2. Wednesday faced off with plenty of adults in the first season, including Marilyn Thornhill, Larissa Weems, and Joseph Crackstone himself. An antagonist closer to her own age would present unique challenges that expand the storyline rather than just rehashing the first season. Yet, pulling a new character from Nevermore’s student body for an antagonist would either duplicate the villains from Season 1, or essentially act as Buckman by other means. The character could be suitably reimagined to better fit with Wednesday’s take on the Addams Family universe, but the foundation in McNab’s performance could form the core of exactly the kind of villain that Season 2 needs.
Amanda Buckman Would Continue to Build on Wednesday Season 1
Wednesday has already dipped its toe in her Addams Family Values appearance, at least thematically. Wednesday’s destruction of Camp Chippewa starts with a Thanksgiving play, whitewashing the oppression of Natives and starring Buckman as the leader of the mythologized pilgrims. The camp’s outcasts — who were basically anyone not white and popular — have been relegated to the role of “Indians,” including Wednesday. She breaks character to describe the truth that Natives have suffered genocide, poverty, and degredation since the arrival of Europeans. She then admonishes her “tribe” to burn the camp down.
Wednesday finds a unique riff on that Thanksgiving scene in Season 1, Episode 3 “Friend or Woe,” in which she’s forced to dress like a pilgrim and sell fudge to tourists in the nearby town of Jericho. She drops a similar truth bomb by pointing out the fudge is made from cacao beans originally procured from oppressed Natives, though she declines to set fire to anything in the process. The nod to Camp Chippewa is obvious, though subtle and clever enough to put its own stamp on the idea. It also cements Wednesday’s anti-colonialist bent as a part of her overarching iconoclasm. It also creates an ideal premise for introducing Buckman, either as a student at Nevermore or a “normie” outsider determined to cause trouble.
Buckman’s status as an establishment figure puts her right in line with villains like Joseph Crackstone, and her lighter façade from the Addams Family movies could readily be tweaked into something more in keeping with Wednesday’s darker sensibilities. Her status as Wednesday’s contemporary would represent a clean break from the largely adult villains of Season 1. She even allows for Tyler Galpin’s return by pulling his strings the way Marilyn Thornhill did and creating an elegant complement to Ricci’s Wednesday in the bargain. Though less overtly murderous than Wednesday’s contemporary foes, Buckman clearly knows how to get under her skin in ways no other villain could. Adding her to Season 2 of Wednesday would help it expand in new directions while still paying respectful homage to its franchise roots.
Season 1 of Wednesday is now streaming on Netflix.
