Wednesday episode 6 review: Now a little too long-drawn for a mystery

Wednesday premiered with eight episodes on November 23, 2022, on Netflix. The spinoff to the beloved film Addams Family follows the exploits of the young Wednesday Addams as she dives into the mystery of a monster, serial killer, or both. In the sixth episode, the show convolutes the mystery several notches up, giving off a feeling that it is not moving towards a desirable direction.

Titled Quid Pro Woe, the sixth episode had plenty of material and a special birthday surprise for Wednesday, this time from her friends. However, despite the new and enhanced subject matter, this mystery is slowly starting to overstay its welcome. This episode is also the last one before the show starts gearing up for a finale with its seventh and eighth episodes.

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Wednesday season 1, episode 6 review: Plenty to celebrate, plenty to not

There could be arguments on both sides for this episode. On one hand, this is a highly intense episode dealing with the mystery monster and its killing streak, while on the other, it almost seems too twisted by now. This episode raises the critical question of whether this series could have gone forward with fewer episodes.

This episode brings out the linearity of the show. This is not a stellar quality of a show with ample avenues to explore. Being fixated on a mystery that seems endlessly twisted may deviate the audience's attention.

This episode begins with Wednesday Addam's attempts to raise the dead Goody Addam in a bid to learn about her own psychic powers. A suspicious note to Addams interrupts her process and leads her to a birthday party that her friends set up for her. This is a rare moment for the outcast of the outcasts, but the show does not linger here for too long.

Before the scene can be absorbed completely, the show jumps into other plotlines, mainly the vandalism that Weems (Gwendoline Christie) accuses the Mayor's son of. Moreover, there seems to be a shared connection about the mystery monster on every end. This could have been treated better. There are also some predictable twists, like the Mayor's abrupt death before his supposed 'secret revelation.'

The episode's ending is a gritty take on monster films as Wednesday and her friends, Enid (Emma Myers) and Tyler (Hunter Doohan), reach the ghostly ground on the former's insistence and face the monster for the first time. There are a lot of revelations in the mansion, including the body parts of the ones the monster murdered before.

They somehow escape the mansion and are joined by Xavier (Percy Hynes White), who seems to be there just by 'coincident.' In the final sequence, Wednesday discovers that someone is stalking her. She also had a deserved fallout with Enid.

This episode had enough matter, but by now, the series may have piled up too much, in the process, losing its charm to some extent. Perhaps the last two episodes can fix this and take the show in a better direction.

Wednesday is now streaming on Netflix.