2022’s Wednesday is Netflix’s Addams Family spin-off headlined by Jenna Ortega as the eponymous anti-heroine of the series. She is supported by Emma Myers’ Enid Sinclair, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Luis Guzmán’s Mrs. and Mr. Addams, and the Game of Thrones alum, Gwendoline Christie’s Principal Larissa Weems among others. Weems is dead, and in her place, The Reservoir Dogs and Fargo star, Steve Buscemi, is the series’ seasoned addition. Although Buscemi’s role in the upcoming season remains under wraps, Variety reveals he is to take the reins of Nevermore Academy in the post-Weems era.

Buscemi’s addition to the cast of Wednesday Season 2 has excited the fandom. However, there remains the question of whether the Addamses’ mansion will be a, if not the main setting of the series. Wednesday Season 1 saw a bit of everything, but Nevermore Academy was where most of the action took place. As the upcoming season gains more and more traction, shouldn’t the Addamses’ life at their mansion be used to further the series’ gothic vibe?

The Importance Of The Addams Family Mansion

The absence of the Addams Family mansion from Wednesday Season 1 was disappointing, to say the least, as the house has achieved a cult status in the fandom. The visual storytelling of season 1 would have been more immersive, post the cold opening that saw the titular Addams Family daughter exacting revenge on her brother, Pugsley’s bullies, by releasing two bags of hungry piranhas in their swimming pool. Wednesday is expelled from Nancy Reagan High School and transfers to her parents’ alma mater, Nevermore Academy, located in the state of Vermont.

Unwilling to be shipped off to a place known to be a haven for outcasts, freaks, and monsters, Ortega’s Wednesday is determined to escape. She ends up staying after an ancient prophecy linking her to Nevermore’s doom comes to the fore. Wednesday‘s primary settings pre- and post-expulsion are the hallways and the pool Nancy Reagan, the Addams Family car, and the hallways and grounds of Nevermore. The Tim Burton series introduces the macabre family, including their gloomy butler, Lurch, inside a moving Addams Family car that bears “ADD4M5” on the license plate.

Here’s where the spooky Addams Family mansion would have been an interesting element to advance the Addamses’ story. The house has been a primary setting of prior live-action iterations, and its absence is explained by the conscious decision of the series co-creators to market Wednesday as an original, and not a remake or a reboot (via THR). The purists, however, opine that the family mansion should have been used to develop and improve upon the storytelling and establish the key character, Wednesday’s relationship with her parents and brother.

In that case, the Addams Family mansion would have perfectly held the storytelling, and lifted the macabre mood of the series, and props inside would have helped in laying out the residents’ details. Last but not least, the setting and architecture of the Addams Family mansion would have perfectly captured the Zeitgeist, the playfulness, and the cultural expression of the previous live-action adaptations. Safe to say, the Addams Family mansion was the missing element from Wednesday Season 1.

The Addams Family Mansion In Wednesday Season 2

With everything being said and discussed, it is pertinent to mention Burton’s Wednesday featured its iteration of the beloved family mansion in the Nero burial scene. In “Chapter I: Wednesday’s Child Is Full of Woe,” Wednesday opened up to her roommate, Enid, about how Nero’s brutal roadside murder contributed to her shutting down emotionally at the age of six:

It was snowing when I buried what was left of him. I cried my little black heart out. But tears don’t fix anything. So I vowed to never do it again.

In a flashback scene, Wednesday buried her pet scorpion in the family cemetery, and cried tears of goodbye, while the gothic Addams mansion stood in the background. Thus, as far as Burton’s Wednesday is concerned, the family mansion only served as a background prop and nothing more. This move draws a sharp contrast with the various adaptations of Charles Addams’ comic strips, in which the spooky house becomes a character. While originality and a breakaway from past iterations were major reasons at Netflix, it could also be argued that the makers had their hands tight due to budgetary constraints.

It can’t be said if the Addams mansion will appear in Wednesday Season 2, but the series’ costume designer, Colleen Atwood, did tease the place, vis-à-vis the future of Morticia’s wardrobe. In an interview with Variety, Atwood hinted at the Addams mansion, saying:

In Season 2, she’ll [Morticia] have a lot of looks, so it will be really fun to see what Morticia does when she’s out of the dress and into around-the-house looks.

Atwood’s statement signifies that Wednesday Season 2 has branched out from the main settings of Jericho, Vermont, and the hallways and grounds of Nevermore. The upcoming season promises to show more of the Addamses, as Wednesday’s family has been upped to series regulars. Netflix gave a behind-the-scenes first look at the upcoming season via a teaser, in celebration of the streaming service’s Geeked Week reveal. The cast of Wednesday, such as Guzmán, Myers, Zeta-Jones, and Joy Sunday, and director Burton are seen in this clip.

“This season is going to be bigger and more twisted than you can ever imagine,” Zeta-Jones says in the BTS clip, and Ortega, as Wednesday says, “If we showed you any more, your eyes would bleed, and I’m not that generous.”

Here’s hoping the Addams Family mansion becomes a huge focus of Wednesday Season 2, and satisfies purists and new fans alike.