Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) is back in season two of Netflix's most-watched English-language show, and at first, it's business as usual. But then the real drive of season two comes into focus when Wednesday suddenly sees a vision of her best friend's death, and it looks like Wednesday herself is responsible (or soon will be).
Losing your best friend is never fun, not even for someone as ghoulish as Wednesday, but Enid Sinclair (Emma Myers) is more than just a friend (or roommate for that matter). Early on in Wednesday season 2, the Addams family icon declares that her favourite passions are "torment and humiliation," but as Wenclair shippers know already, both of these passions pale in comparison to Wednesday's love for Enid herself.
Even before season one arrived, Wenclair shippers immediately made themselves known online upon seeing the connection that Wednesday shared with her roomie in early trailers. The pair being opposites to each other certainly helped, because you know what they say about opposites, even if the show itself never made Wenclair canon.
That's not to say there isn't any truth to the idea that Wednesday and Enid are more than just roommates. Once the first season of Wednesday actually dropped, countless clues that hinted at something more between the pair fired up shippers to no end.
With lines like "Wednesday is literally the tunnel at the end of my light… I can’t imagine my life without her in it," love for Wenclair and what they could be quickly overshadowed the far less interesting straight love triangle that the show prioritised. The so-called romance between Wednesday, Tyler, and Xavier was more lifeless than any of Wednesday's playthings in the Addams family morgue, so it's no wonder that fans looked elsewhere for that key love component.
More than friends
On fan-fic repository AO3, Wenclair is the ship most written about, with 7700+ works currently on site, which far outnumbers any actual canon relationships in the show. Even the stars themselves are fully aware of the not-so-subtle subtext between their characters, with Ortega and Myers telling Pride, "In a perfect world, we would have been a thing."
As such, hopes were high that season two might take things up a notch and make Wenclair official. In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Wednesday creators Al Gough and Miles Millar didn't discount this idea, suggesting that they're "open to everything" in what they perceive to be "an organic journey" for the characters involved.
Yet season two is yet to take that step in the journey, and this insistence that the show is primarily driven by Wednesday's connection with Enid doesn't quite track with what we've seen so far in part one.
Yes, Enid's life hangs in the balance and that's what drives the new episodes forward, but Enid herself doesn't feature as prominently this time around. If anything, she's more of a MacGuffin now, designed to propel the narrative rather than be a key character in her own right, like she was in season one.
In fact, most of Enid's journey this time around seems to revolve around a new straight love triangle between her, Bruno (Noah B. Taylor) and Ajax (Georgie Farmer), as if the show's deliberately trying to steer us away from Wenclair. It doesn't help that she's acting out of character here by treating Ajax so horribly. Who's the real snake in that relationship?
First steps
Thankfully, there are still hints at the deeper connection between Enid and Wednesday that fans picked up on as far back as the show's very first trailer.
Remember that morbid gift that Wednesday gives Enid at the start of the school year? The doll, which she picked up from her encounter with a serial killer, comes with "real human hair," no less. Still, what's most important is that it came from the heart. Wednesday isn't exactly the warmest of people, after all, so Enid must be pretty special in her eyes to warrant a gift like this (or a gift at all, in fact).
And while Enid is preoccupied with boys for the majority of part one, that doesn't stop her from getting jealous when Agnes (Evie Templeton) arrives on the scene. The invisible girl is far more vocal about her obsession with Wednesday than Enid ever was, but the werewolf's envy certainly does suggest an element of obsession there, too.
At one point, Enid goes so far as to ask Wednesday: "Do you even want to be my friend anymore?", and while it's unfortunate that so little time is given to Wednesday's response, there's still a chance that part two will flesh out what this tension really means.
The long game
Saying that, it's unlikely that said tension will actually blossom into something more romantic at this stage. But if there really is something queer going on between the lines here, it's easy to interpret scenes like this as Enid simply not realising the full extent of her romantic feelings for Wednesday.
Many queer teens experience intense friendships of this nature, only to realise that there's something more going on with them than they realised, so it's entirely possible that Wednesday is just playing the long game where Wenclair is concerned. If not, this is a wasted opportunity to give queer fans a chance to see themselves organically represented on a huge platform where otherness is already celebrated so freely.
So if that does turn out to be the case, if the writers do continue to overlook Enid and the possibility of deepening her connection with Wednesday further, at least we can still take comfort from the sizable fandom Wenclair has drawn, not to mention the various acknowledgements of this ship from key people working on the show.
Because let's face it: those sapphic vibes are there for everyone to see, regardless of whether they're acted upon in the series, and you don't need Wednesday's extra powers of sight to recognise that.
Wednesday season 2 part 1 is on Netflix now, with part 2 releasing September 3. For more, dive into our Wednesday season 2 part 1 review, and once you've seen the latest episodes, dig into our Wednesday season 2 part 1 ending explained.
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