Season 1, Episode 3: Friend of Woe
At the start of this episode Wednesday learns that secret society, The Nightshades, are really just a social club who just like hang out and have mixers which is rather anticlimax which is the joke. The comedic aspects in this show are weak on average as it’s more snark than punchlines.
The bulk of this episode is Wednesday going to Pilgrim World, as part of school thing, so she can learn more about the figures in the drawing. She learns that the girl is ancestor of her’s named Goody Addams and the guy is a religious zealot named Joseph Crackstone, a leading figure for the Pilgrims. So the episode has a lot of Pilgrim related shenanigans and for some reason fudge as a high selling point of Pilgrim world.
Then there is the name of Wednesday’s ancestor Goody Addams. Goody lived in Jericho in 1625 during the “Pilgrim days’ in Vermont and was burned along with the other “outcast” by the boogyman Joseph Crackstone. It’s unclear how Goody and the other are outcasts are indeed “outcasts” but they seem to be more supernatural types living with nature and the indigenous peoples before the Pilgrims took the land and enjoyed their highballs and hors d’oeuvres in their cardigans. Historically speaking this narrative is a fantasy, as the first permanent settlement in Vermont was in 1724 with the oldest existing town being chartered in 1735. Also neither Puritan or Pilgrims ever settled in Vermont, so Wednesday’s is going to it’s own historical direction which is annoying.
Which brings us to Goody’s name. Goody or Goodwife was a former courtesy title for married women. Basically its means Mrs. It wasn’t solely used in the American colonies as it was used in England. The usage is best know from Arthur Mills “The Crucible” and according to wiki “Goody” has modern witchy conontations which presumably why they show is using as a given name. The Addams Family have weird names like It, Lumpy, Fester & Nicknack. However the name Goody drives me crazy as it’s not a name and there is no shortage of weird Puritan girl names like “Lament” “Increased” or “Sense.”
However the issue isn’t so much that her name being “Goody” as it’s “Goody” being paired with the settling when the title was used for married women. If she had been a Addams in the 1920’s named Goody it would have hit differently. So it’s a bad name where any sense of that Addams humor is lost. Crucible Addams could have been better at least sounds like “Sybil” and is a reference is the play, if that was indeed where they got the “name.” Or had the joke been Goody Goody Addams with some sense of self-awareness much like the joke in the Simpsons when Homer learned the his middle initial “J” stands for “Jay.” But then she should have had to have been married which doesn’t suit the narrative.
Pilgrims and the setting of Vermont seems like the writers were too scared to set this in Salem Massachusetts but they really wanted that vibe, so Vermont, Massachusetts what’s really the difference? Oddly enough there are differences…. crazy right? Also Addams Family Values did the first Thanksgiving as a puerile and under-dramatized camp play so it all fits together, right??? RIGHT?
Wednesday soon learns that the Pilgrim World buildings are recreations via a book replica with a generic Etsy label, because there are product placements all over this show. She then asks one of the milquetoast boys who into her where the origianl site is located. She goes there and has one her plot exposition visions and learns about Goody and Crackstone. Crackstone and Goody do give shades a Notre Dame reference but there is no lust on Crackstone’s part so it more of coincidence.
Fun Fact there was “character” in OG Addams Sitcom named Esmeralda, she’s a hand like Thing, so the name could have been used BUT no they went with Goody. Maybe in another season there will be an Esmeralda. Also Goody and Crackstone, as well as Esmeralda and Frollo, are a bit like a story Morticia tells in the first Addams family movie from 1991 about about great aunt, Calpurnia Addams, who Wednesday did a school assignment on as person she admires. Calpurnia was burned as witch in 1706 after she’d danced naked through the streets and having “enslaved a minister.”
After that Wednesday is attacked by the Burton monster and then the OTHER milquetoast boy shows up. Now this scene apparently gives away the identity of the monster. But really only smart people on rewatch or for really smart people who watch a lot of mystery shows and are apt to the subtle clues can figure it out. The ONLY time I picked on a subtle clue was in “The Fall of the House of Usher” when by episode five I figured out who the Raven was based on an anagram and I initially felt dumb that it took me so long to figure that out. Mystery are not my thing maybe more people figure out who the Burton monster was, but Wednesday didn’t.
In the end Wednesday arranges a statue of Crackstone burnt along side a school out-reach event which is reminiscent of Wednesday and pals bunring the camp in Addam Family Values but not enough to be derivative. It’s very much a Nero fiddle moment, an event that they Addams danced the Mamushka to (first Addams Family move.)
On the whole this episode is fine, some annoying aspects with backstory and the gross-out moment but on a level for this show it’s alright. It is odd the weirdest person in the show by far is the shopkeeper and Wednesday herself has no interaction with that character.
