Drama
Testament
Angel Studios’ Testament is a, ahem, testament to the incredible acts of Jesus’ earliest followers as it follows their stories after Jesus.
They’re creepy and they’re kooky…
The Addams Family isn’t what you would call “normal.” Since the 1960s, they’ve been gracing our screens with their “mysterious and spooky” presence.
They keep scorpions for pets, participate in séances, use crystal balls instead of phones for communication and prefer to wear black—lots of black.
Unfortunately for the clairvoyant Wednesday Addams, the eldest child of the brood, her particular brand of weird has gone one stroke too far.
Wednesday Addams opens her locker one day to discover her brother Pugsley tied up and gagged inside. A vision shows her who the culprits were.
But rather than report the boys, Wednesday decides to get revenge. She releases a swarm of piranhas in the school swimming pool during the boys’ water polo practice.
“The only one who gets to torture my brother is me,” she states nonchalantly.
The incident gets Wednesday expelled. And fearing that attempted murder charges might be brought against their daughter, Morticia and Gomez Addams decide to enroll her at their alma mater: Nevermore Academy.
Nevermore is known by “normies” as a school for “outcasts.” And the locals of the town of Jericho (just a brisk 25-minute walk from Nevermore) still have their reservations about the pupils who attend.
Those reservations aren’t without their merits; After all, it’s the townsfolk who usually end up victims of the werewolves, vampires, sirens, gorgons and supernatural humans who’ve roamed the school’s halls since 1791. It’s safe to say the relationship is a strained one. Case in point, Wednesday herself nearly bit the bullet following attacks by both a homicidal monster and an outcast-slaying psychopathic pilgrim—attackers that she and her werewolf roommate and … uh … friend, Enid, worked together to take down.
Wednesday loved it so much she’s decided to return for the next school year.
And in the show’s second season, thanks to their heroism, Wednesday and Enid are common names around Nevermore, much to Wednesday’s dismay. It’s put the two on the radar for many at the school, whether out of envy or respect.
But it seems not all attention is good: Wednesday’s clairvoyance soon pictures Enid dying via an unseen attacker. It’s a death the vision opines would be ultimately Wednesday’s fault—unless she’s able to stop it.
Sure, Wednesday might act like a robot who can only speak in monotone Alice in Chains lyrics, but she’s still got a heart (much to her dismay). And that heart tells her that she needs to save her friend before it’s too late.
Wednesday is significantly darker than any of the previous iterations of The Addams Family.
For starters, Wednesday isn’t just “kooky,” she’s downright homicidal. She takes delight in causing others misery and pain. And her macabre attitude, while certainly a product of her odd upbringing, seems to be more a form of teenage rebellion.
And while that isn’t entirely off the mark for Wednesday Addams, the show’s depiction of hers and others’ lethal actions is. We see characters torn apart by a goblin-like creature, others eaten by a zombie and more with their eyes pecked out by crows. A boy attempts to murder Wednesday with his telekinetic powers. And we see a piranha-filled pool fill with blood after the carnivorous fish catch up to an unlucky swimmer (and we later hear he lost a testicle).
This TV-14 show also pushes the boundaries with language with several uses of the s-word and “g-dd–n” throughout.
Then there’s the show’s supernatural ties. Again, this is nothing new to the Addams’ legacy. They’ve participated in many a séance. And one of the main characters is a disembodied hand called Thing. However, when Wednesday receives a vision of a man’s accidental death, she does nothing to warn him. (The man had called her a rude name, but that seems a poor excuse for letting him die.)
So while the show seems to teach the message that being weird is a good thing, it’s also subliminally telling us that weird or not, do what’s best for you and yours. No matter the consequences.
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com, or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
After nearly killing several of her classmates, Wednesday is transferred to her parents’ alma mater: Nevermore Academy.
Several people are torn to bits by a goblin-like monster. A boy tries to murder a girl using supernatural powers. A girl releases several piranhas into a swimming pool. The water fills with blood as they catch up to one unlucky swimmer (and we later hear he lost a testicle). A girl is tackled out of the way of a falling gargoyle (and we learn the statue was purposely pushed). However, she is knocked out in the process. Many birds dive at a moving car and die after they hit it. A 6-year-old Wednesday is held down by two boys while their friends purposely run over her pet scorpion with their bikes. Wednesday references Ophelia from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, stating that the woman took her own life after her family drove her mad. A man dies of a broken neck in a car accident. Wednesday says Pilgrims were religious zealots who committed mass genocide.
Three boys attack Wednesday in a café, but she beats them up. Later, they chase her with baseball bats but are unable to catch her. Several students fence, and one girl is cut above her eye after fighting without protective gear. A boy is tied up, gagged with an apple and shoved into a locker. Someone says werewolves tear people’s throats out. A woman is hurt when someone sends her mouse traps in the mail. Some people threaten each other. Wednesday says she built a steam-powered guillotine because she wanted a “more efficient way” to decapitate her dolls. A guy uses a bat to attack what he thinks is a monster.
Wednesday enjoys inflicting and receiving pain. She laments that if her piranha attack goes on her permanent record, everyone would know she “failed to get the job done.” And when she learns a victim lost part of his reproductive organs, she justifies that people like him shouldn’t be allowed to procreate anyway. She also says that getting her psychic visions is “like electroshock therapy without the satisfying afterburn.” Wednesday also likes to describe macabre and sadistic things to disturb those around her.
Vampires, werewolves, sirens and gorgons all attend Nevermore. There are also some humans with supernatural abilities (such as clairvoyance and telekinesis) in attendance. We hear Morticia was president of the “Séance Society.” Thing, a disembodied hand, helps Wednesday escape Nevermore. We hear a man spent five years in a Tibetan monastery. A man is suspected of murder.
Two girls hold hands at a festival. Someone asks Wednesday if she has a boyfriend or girlfriend (she doesn’t). Morticia and Gomez make out in front of their children, grossing them out. Wednesday is mean to her brother, but it seems that’s how they show each other love. It’s noted that one clique at Nevermore likes to get “stoned.”
God’s name is abused twice, both times paired with “d–n.” We also hear several uses of the s-word and “h—.” Kids call each other cruel names and are mean to each other.
We hear Wednesday saved a boy from nearly being cremated alive with his deceased godmother. Wednesday attempts to help a boy after seeing a vision of him getting killed by a monster.
Wednesday returns to Nevermore for a new semester, and she soon finds that a stalker threatens harm to both her and her friends.
We see Wednesday tied up in a serial killer’s basement, surrounded by dolls dressed in the hair of victims he has scalped. Thing (a sentient severed hand) attacks the man, squeezing his crotch before slamming his head into the wall. Wednesday scalps the man offscreen, leaving him alive for police but still badly cut on the head.
Crows attack a man, and we later find him dead with his eyes plucked from their sockets. (He’s likewise surrounded by two dozen crows which slammed themselves into his car windshield.) Wednesday cuts her hand on razor blades. She also kicks a man in the head. Pugsley revives a half-decayed zombie. We see a car crash. Lurch survives an explosion. An animated scene depicts surgeons removing a patient’s heart. Drawings depict a woman bleeding from the eyes and screaming.
Wednesday practices using a spellbook to perfect her psychic powers. Her abilities enable her to touch an object related to someone to see when that person last interacted with it, though it also causes her to cry black tears from her eyes. A man is described as a “demon pilgrim thing.” A student uses his powers to manipulate bugs to do his bidding. Wednesday’s mother, Morticia, tells her that she may receive a new spirit guide. A writer describes him or herself as a “demon of the fire.”
Morticia wears a cleavage-revealing dress. A man and woman passionately kiss. A male and female student kiss on a bed. Gomez and Morticia ogle each other. Fan mail depicts Wednesday and Enid holding hands under a rainbow with a heart above their heads. (And though both characters are attracted to men, the picture may be a nod to a small community of the show’s fans who’ve demand that the two be together.)
We hear one use each of “h—” and “crap.” God’s name is used in vain twice. Someone uses the f-word stand-in “fudged.”
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He’s also an avid cook. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
Angel Studios’ Testament is a, ahem, testament to the incredible acts of Jesus’ earliest followers as it follows their stories after Jesus.
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