Netflix's Wednesday Seasons 1 and 2 follow Wednesday Addams as she attends the supernatural-focused boarding school Nevermore Academy. The show is set primarily at Nevermore and in the surrounding area, including the town of Jericho. The location provides a wonderfully spooky atmosphere and almost becomes its own character.
Given its popularity, it's not surprising that Netflix has renewed Wednesday for a third season. However, Season 3 is making major changes, temporarily taking the titular character out of Nevermore for a trip to Paris, France. Although Paris is known for its Gothic architecture, it could be a risky move, or, perhaps, just what the show needs after two seasons.
In its first seasons, Wednesday kept its narrative scope confined to Nevermore Academy and the nearby town of Jericho. This is a move that comes with a number of benefits, as it lets the show keep its narrative tight and focused on this one location, giving the characters room to breathe in an environment that they're used to. Most of the cast is made up of Nevermore students, so it makes sense to focus on events that occur while they're at the academy and in the nearby town.
Going into Season 3, Wednesday is going from Vermont to Paris, which is a massive shift in location. While it's far from the first time that a show has made a move like this, it's unclear if the premise will effectively support the shift. While there will undoubtedly be an event that happens during the season that makes this move to Paris make sense, it takes away from the dark fantasy school style mixed with coming-of-age elements that define the series.
Part of the draw of Wednesday is the unusual academy that houses magical students, which has been beloved in other series, like Harry Potter, The Magicians, and The Order. It blends the normalcy of being a student with the fantasy of being different in an impossible way. However, the risk of changing the atmosphere of the show with the location shift isn't the biggest challenge that Season 3 will need to handle.
When a show like Wednesday shifts from a contained setting to a global one, the narrative's scope widens. For some displays, this is a natural progression that makes sense. For the Netflix fantasy show, there's no need for the scope to widen that much, and the tight narrative that lets characters develop and drive the plot starts to break apart as the focus often shifts to the events that led to the visit to a new location.
It's too early to say how risky the shift to Paris will be, and how well it will be executed, as the most recent information aside from that location update has been about the new cast members and that the third season is in production. The real question will be whether Wednesday will be focusing on other locations as well, or if she will head back to Nevermore Academy to return the show to its roots.