A single desk lamp, a gray stone wall, an old typewriter, and Wednesday Addams staring straight past the page in front of her, braids in place, as if she has already decided how the chapter ends and is waiting for the rest of us to catch up. That is the whole of the new photo Netflix released on Wednesday, the only official image from the shoot since the spring, and it gives away almost nothing about the plot. It arrived, though, with the news that matters more. Production on the third season of “Wednesday” has officially wrapped, and the series, starring Jenna Ortega, is expected to return in 2027.
Netflix announced the wrap with a caption that sounded like it was written by its main character, declaring that “Season 3 production has met its grave.” Alfred Gough and Miles Millar are back as showrunners, with Tim Burton returning as executive producer and director. The season was shot in Ireland and in Paris. The cameras started rolling near Dublin in February, moved to the streets of Paris in the spring, and stopped this week, which leaves a long stretch of editing and effects work between that typewriter and anyone’s television. Warning beyond this point there are spoilers for the ending of “Wednesday” Season 2.
The cameras started rolling near Dublin in February, moved to the streets of Paris in the spring, and stopped this week, which leaves a long stretch of editing and effects work between that typewriter and anyone’s television.”
Several outlets have called the image a first look, but it is not the first official picture from the new season. In April, while the production was in France, Netflix posted a still of Wednesday in front of the Eiffel Tower. Thing was at her side, a motorcycle stood behind her, and the caption read “From Paris, with dread.” The new image is quieter and, in its way, more revealing. Ortega wears a black-and-white sweater, the room is lit only by the lamp on her desk, and her eyes are fixed somewhere off the page, in a picture Burton has been making for decades, a lone figure in a cold room with one warm light.
A typewriter in a dark room reads like a detective at work, and it fits the corner the second season backed her into. Enid Sinclair, played by Emma Myers, transformed into a full Alpha werewolf to save Wednesday after she was buried alive by the creature known as the Slurp. Then she ran, with no guarantee that she can ever turn back. The finale sent Wednesday, Uncle Fester and Thing out onto the road in a motorcycle sidecar to track her down. The last image belonged to someone else entirely, because Aunt Ophelia turned out to be alive in Grandmama Hester’s basement, scrawling “Wednesday Must Die” across the wall.
Gough and Millar have been clear that Ophelia is where the new season starts. “The Ophelia who we get a glimpse of at the end of Episode 8 will definitely play a bigger part in Season 3, and will lead us into more Addams family mysteries,” Gough said in Netflix’s press notes for the second season, as reported by What’s on Netflix. He added that the glimpse would lead into “potentially the darkest chapter of the Addams family.” Millar called the message on the basement wall “a big part of Season 3.” He framed the family’s whole dynamic in one line, saying, “The Addams family love each other, but they also love secrets and lying to each other. It’s that juxtaposition of love and lies.”
Ophelia will be played by Eva Green, the first major addition to the cast, announced in November of last year. The role makes her Morticia’s sister and Wednesday’s aunt. “I’m thrilled to join the woefully twisted world of ‘Wednesday’ as Aunt Ophelia,” Green said at the time. “This show is such a deliciously dark and witty world, I can’t wait to bring my own touch of cuckooness to the Addams family.” Green and Burton go back more than a decade, through “Dark Shadows” and “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.” What’s on Netflix reports that she suffered a leg injury on set in late June that required a trip to a hospital, though the shoot carried on.
The other headline addition is Winona Ryder, who plays a character named Tabitha in a guest role and reunites with Ortega and Burton after “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” the 2024 sequel that Gough and Millar co-wrote. Burton made no secret of how much the reunion meant to him when cameras started rolling in February. “I’m so excited to be back for Season 3, and it’s great to be reunited with all of the original cast,” he said then. “The addition of some dear friends and past collaborators of mine, Winona, Eva, Chris, Noah, makes this season extra special. I feel very lucky.” Bloody Disgusting ran that quote again with this week’s wrap news, so it is fair to read it as Burton’s standing verdict on the season.
The Chris and Noah in that sentence are Chris Sarandon, who plays Balthazar, and Noah Taylor, who plays Cyrus, and both arrive with roots in horror and fantasy that the show will likely lean on. Oscar Morgan plays Atticus and Kennedy Moyer plays Daisy. Deadline noted that in the video Netflix used to mark the start of production, all of the new characters carried a capital B on their place cards. Sarandon’s character shares a name with Cousin Balthazar from Addams family lore, at whose funeral Gomez and Morticia supposedly met. That makes the name a deliberate choice rather than a random one. In April, Netflix added Lena Headey, Andrew McCarthy and James Lance in roles that have not been described.
Almost everyone else is coming back. Catherine Zeta-Jones and Luis Guzmán return as Morticia and Gomez, Isaac Ordonez as Pugsley, Fred Armisen as Uncle Fester and Victor Dorobantu as Thing, along with Myers, Hunter Doohan, Joy Sunday, Moosa Mostafa, Georgie Farmer, Billie Piper, Luyanda Unati Lewis-Nyawo and Evie Templeton. Joanna Lumley, who plays Grandmama Hester, has been promoted to series regular, which makes sense given what was found in her basement. What’s on Netflix reports that Noah B. Taylor, who played Bruno, will not return. Millar has promised that Gwendoline Christie’s Weems is not gone for good, saying, “We definitely want to bring Gwen back.”
The showrunners’ own statements have mostly been about secrets. When production began, Gough and Millar thanked their “invincible cast and crew for their continued commitment to doom and gloom,” then warned that “this season we welcome new students, new teachers, and excavate some long-rotting Addams Family secrets. Don’t say you weren’t warned.” Gough, speaking when the renewal was announced, said the goal “is the same as it is for every season.” He wants to dig deeper into the characters and widen the world of Nevermore. Millar, according to Bloody Disgusting, added, “We will be seeing more Addams family members and learning more family secrets in Season 3!”
Where the season was made says something about how it will look. The second season moved production from Romania to Ireland, and the third stayed put, filming across Dublin and County Wicklow with much of the work at Ashford Studio, according to What’s on Netflix, before the unit traveled to central Paris in mid-April. Ortega, Armisen and Burton were spotted shooting along the Seine with Fester’s sidecar motorcycle. Myers was later seen filming with Ortega in the Tuileries Garden, which fits the road trip the finale promised. What’s on Netflix had expected filming to stretch into October, so the wrap appears to have come a few weeks early.
None of this is a gamble for Netflix in the usual sense. The first season remains the most-watched English language series in the streamer’s history, and Variety ranks it second worldwide behind the first season of “Squid Game.” The second season was released in two parts, in August and September of last year. Its first four episodes drew 50 million views in five days, matching the first season’s launch, before the season settled in as the tenth most-watched title on Netflix of all time. What’s on Netflix calculates that the second season still finished roughly 52 percent below the first in total views. The same site notes that the show did win an Emmy for production design at last month’s Creative Arts ceremony.
The bigger question hanging over the new episodes is whether they are the last. In August, Ortega told Esquire that the series was “coming to a head,” which many fans read as a quiet goodbye. Netflix said nothing about a final season in its wrap announcement. Millar has pushed the other way, telling The Hollywood Reporter, “We’ll take as many seasons as Netflix wants to give us,” and an Uncle Fester spinoff is still in development. MovieWeb points out that the second season reached screens about eight months after it wrapped, so a release in the second half of 2027 is probably the safest bet. Whether it closes the book or only a chapter, the typewriter suggests Wednesday intends to write the ending herself.
What Do You Think? Is Eva Green the right choice to play the aunt who wants Wednesday dead, and does a Winona Ryder reunion with Tim Burton and Jenna Ortega make you more excited for the new season? Should the third season be the last, or is there room at Nevermore for a fourth?
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