A window into the relationship of Wednesday Addams and Enid Sinclair

Whether you’ve been ticking off the days on your calendar in jet black ink or rainbow gel pen, one thing we can all agree on is that Wednesday Addams, Enid Sinclair, and their partnership can not come back to our screens soon enough.

Warning: Major spoilers for the first season of Netflix’s Wednesday ahead. Check out our Wednesday preview article if you have yet to watch the show.

It makes my goth heart and spooky soul so happy that Netflix’s Wednesday has proved to be such a massive success. Even without the aid of the Halloween vibes that an October release date would have provided, Wednesday broke viewing records, becoming Netflix’s most-viewed English-language show in one week, with 341.2 million hours watched. Now, over one billion hours have been watched, and with all those numbers, it has unsurprisingly been renewed for a second season. I had hoped that this latest take on The Addams Family would do well enough that Netflix would give us more seasons in which to highlight all the things that make this macabre bunch so great, but even I didn’t anticipate such a huge response. Wednesday has become the stuff of social media trends, with her now famous dance being attempted by seemingly everyone, so even people who haven’t watched the show know all about it. Now that season 2 is official, attention can turn to what comes next for Wednesday Addams, her family, and her friends at Nevermore Academy. The ending of episode 8 left several plot points unresolved and introduced several potential new ones, but it will be the relationships that bring audiences back to a second season and beyond—and one in relationship in particular has the most exciting potential.

This version of Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) is as prickly and biting as we’d expect her to be. Her one full smile of the entire season is saved for Uncle Fester (Fred Armisen), who is clearly her favorite person, and for everyone else, she projects various levels of tolerance. It’s not that Wednesday isn’t capable of warmth and love, she’s just incredibly particular about the way she chooses to show it. (She lands at Nevermore in the first place after she’s expelled from her previous school following the savage and ruthless revenge she enacts on the bullies who go after her brother, Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez).) She’s unapologetically sullen, overly logical, and revels in her preference for complete solitude, but we love her, because this family’s popularity has always been due in part to the fact that they march to the beat of their own drum. Wednesday does soften somewhat for normie cutie barista Tyler Galpin (Hunter Doohan), but that goes poorly to say the least, as he turns out to be the murderous monster that she’s been trying to hunt down all season long. (Who doesn’t have a crappy ex, right?) Thankfully, all of her relationships aren’t so disastrous. Although things between them start off a bit rocky, it’s Enid Sinclair (Emma Myers), Wednesday’s Nevermore roommate, who ultimately becomes the most important to her over the course of the episodes.

Enid is Wednesday’s polar opposite. She loves gossip, social media, the idea of love, going to dances and on dates, hearts, stuffed animals, and pretty much everything that Wednesday Addams abhors in life. I love the wonderful visual representation of their differences in their dorm room, which is split right down the middle, part rainbow explosion and part stark barrenness, including the giant round window that acts as the main focal point of the space. That window isn’t just a classic Tim Burtonesque visual—it’s a wonderful metaphor for each of these young women and how they relate to each other.

Enid is at Nevermore because she’s a werewolf, but even at such a school she’s an outcast among outcasts. The neon claws that pop out when she feels strong emotions are the only lupine feature she sports, and she has yet to fully “wolf out,” much to her dismay and her mother’s chagrin. Her biggest fear is that she’ll never do so, and then subsequently be cast out of her community and left completely alone. One of the first interactions that Enid has with Wednesday results in tears as Enid unloads all the things she’s afraid of. Her fun personality and vibrant way she expresses herself aren’t a manufactured coping mechanism, but with doubts and insecurities that profound, it’s no wonder that she wants the light that shines through her window to be manipulated into a rainbow as a source of comfort. And so, Wednesday clashes with her as much as you’d expect. She’s horror stricken (and not in the way she enjoys) by Enid’s love of color and disdainful of her school spirit, tears, squeals, and attempted affection. For much of the season, Wednesday insensitively rejects all of Enid’s thoughtful gestures or twists them for her own benefit. By her own design Wednesday Addams’ life lacks embellishment and frippery, which is why she peels away the color on her half of the dorm room window the first chance she gets. Wednesday and Enid are an odd couple if there ever was one, but the show does a wonderful job of celebrating both of them, and while theirs is a dynamic that lends itself to a lot of jokes, it also allows each of them to change and grow; basking in each other’s light, as it were.

wednesday addams and enid sinclair

Enid is never presented as ridiculous, even though Wednesday views her as such when they first meet. Enid is earnest, and she tries unapologetically. Who else would throw Wednesday a surprise party in a crypt and knit her a snood with black yarn? And in her own delightful way, she starts to adapt some of Wednesday’s harshness in areas where she needs to add some sharpness to her rounded edges. Early on in the season, Enid asks herself, “WWWD? What would Wednesday do?” and letting the answer to that question guide her actions leads to winning Nevermore’s Poe Cup, something Enid desperately craves. Being friendly is wonderful, but being consumed with other people viewing you favorably isn’t self-serving, and there’s something to be learned from Wednesday’s fuck-it-all-and-get-what-you-want philosophy towards life. Focusing so much on everyone else at Nevermore—being the gossip queen and running her blog—allows Enid to escape from what’s bothering her about her own life: She doesn’t put herself out there with her crush, Ajax (Georgie Farmer), and entirely avoids tackling her more fraught family issues. It’s not until midway through the season that Enid is finally able to stand up to her mother’s cruel pestering about her werewolf status, and it’s hard to see how she would have done so without Wednesday’s influence.

And as much as she’d be loath to admit it, Wednesday Addams in turn gains so much from her time rooming with Enid. At one point, Wednesday tells Ms. Thornhill (Christina Ricci) that she enjoys when people dislike her, and to a certain extent, that’s true. She takes on a protective role towards sweet bee enthusiast Eugene (Moosa Mostafa) but has no investment in how he feels about her in return, and cries when Thing’s (Victor Dorobantu) life is in danger despite not shedding a tear for years, while having no expectation that those feelings be reciprocated. The only time she’s truly upset in response to someone viewing her negatively and not wanting to be around her is when Enid decides to move out of their room. “Goody warned I was destined to be alone. Maybe it’s inevitable. But for the first time in my life, it doesn’t feel good.”

When Enid pulls back from her friendship with Wednesday, she calls her out about her selfishness and emotional manipulation, and rightly so. It’s something that Wednesday needs to hear, and she may have dismissed those criticisms from anyone else, but it says everything about their relationship that Wednesday is actually sad to see Enid go. She sits by the window, right in the middle of the rainbow and blank halves, and doesn’t take over Enid’s empty space or pull down the remaining rainbow stickers on the window. Wednesday might not like those things for herself, but the joyful representations of Enid have become a source of comfort even if she would never say so aloud. She might not understand why Enid expresses herself the way she does, but comes to realize that she likes Enid because she’s unafraid to be herself, which Wednesday has to respect.

Their rift doesn’t last long. Forget about the forced love triangle; the most significant relationship moment of the season is Enid and Wednesday’s hug. Wednesday had previously pulled away from Enid’s attempted hugs for the entirety of her time at Nevermore and Enid respected that, but at the end of such a traumatic climax of events, it’s exactly what they both need. The fact that Wednesday not only doesn’t push Enid away, but pulls her in for another hug, is truly beautiful, and I love that it comes so recently after Wednesday’s relationship with Tyler imploded. If anything would reinforce the idea that it’s not worth it to show emotions or become close with people, that would have been it. But by this point, the feelings Wednesday has for Enid are more powerful than the uncompromising beliefs she’s held so staunchly to all season long. Wednesday might not show her love in a way that many other people do, but she has her moments, made all the more meaningful because of their rarity.

There’s nothing wrong with either Enid or Wednesday as they are, but there’s value for each of them in forming such a close bond with someone who introduces them to new things and makes them think about the world a bit differently. It’s why theirs was my favorite relationship in Wednesday, and the one I’m most looking forward to seeing more of. No matter which direction the showrunners decide to take for Enid and Wednesday there lies the possibility for some great storytelling. I could see them becoming the kind of deep and inseparable best friendship that everyone dreams of; being the ride or die, no questions asked person in each other’s corner. But the foundation that’s been laid down for them can also easily be the first spark of a slow burn romance. Many fans ship them (how you truly know you’ve made it in fandom), and I’m all for it. Xavier Thorpe (Percy Hynes White) is clearly interested in taking Tyler’s place, and I’m sure he has his supporters, but… it’s with Enid that Wednesday has the most connection, and it’s Enid who she has the most love for at Nevermore. Whatever form their relationship takes, season 2 will hopefully be just the beginning of the next part of Enid Sinclair and Wednesday Addams’ relationship. These are the kind of characters fans are going to want to watch for many, many more seasons to come.

This article was written by Subjectify contributor Jamie Whitebread. Find her on Twitter at @jamiewhitebread.