Wednesday Addams has psychic abilities, so it’s only right that the actor who plays her is a bit of a clairvoyant as well.

There was a time when Jenna Ortega foresaw herself in the role of Wednesday. “When I was younger I used to do this show [Stuck in the Middle] where I played this kid,” she recalled at the recent Netflix ATAS Official Event for Wednesday. “There [were] seven kids and I was in the middle and I called myself Wednesday in the show. I remember telling my mom, ‘What if I played Wednesday Addams one day?’ We both just kind of brushed it off because we thought that there was never a possibility they would cast me.”

Cut to now, Season 1 of Wednesday in the books: time to look back on the series, instead of see into the future. At the panel — which was held at the very appropriate, very spooky Hollywood Forever Cemetery and sold out with over 600 attendees — Ortega was asked to name her favorite episode of the series thus far. Her answer?

 

Vlad Cioplea/Netflix

“I feel like Episode 3 is kind of underrated just because there’s that explosion with the statue and we get that awesome cello piece,” she reflected. “There’s the god-awful pilgrim costume. There’s the fight sequence. There’s a lot of Eugene [Moosa Mostafa], who’s just the funniest guy of all time, in my opinion. I think Tim [Burton] thought the whole pilgrim scene was hilarious. We also shot it midway through, so I felt like everyone kind of found their footing and was in the grip of things by the time we shot that.”

The episode Ortega is referencing is titled “Friend or Woe,” in which Wednesday — dressed in a very The Crucible pilgrim getup — explores the town of Jericho’s Puritan-era history, then saws away at “Winter,” from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, as a new statue of Jericho founder Joseph Crackstone goes up in flames. Midway through production, the cast had begun to bond — in part by filming their own horror movies on the side during their downtime. As Hunter Doohan, who plays Tyler, recalled to Tudum in 2022: “We split up into groups and made our own little short films and then had a fake Oscars night and a little film festival at the end [instead of a wrap party].”

So there you have it: Jenna Ortega, big “Friend or Woe” fan. Something to keep in mind when you revisit Wednesday Season 1 ahead of the upcoming Season 2.

Jenna Ortega Ranks Her Gloriously Gothic Wednesday OutfitsCrafted by the legendary costume designer, Colleen Atwood.