A Look at LEGO "Wednesday"

This is my other exception to my criteria, because LEGO has made another licensed dark play theme of note, based on the Netflix sensation Wednesday. Spoilers will be openly discussed.

I've laid out my thoughts on the series before when reviewing the Monster High doll of its lead character, but Season 2 has since come out and I've seen it and...well, it's still the show. I like the acting and Addamses overall. Admittedly, Pugsley was hard to watch in Season 2, though, and Catherine Zeta-Jones' unfamiliar face as a result of some cosmetic work caught me off-guard. It's a good result, but it makes Morticia look very different between seasons. Otherwise, it remains the case that nothing to do with Nevermore Academy, the unique worldbuilding to the show, nor the murder-mystery YA angle of the writing really gets me. I think the Barry Sonnenfeld films proved that the Addamses work best in comic vignettes, and that's by no means a bad thing. The most perfect scenes in Wednesday capture that tone, like the airport opening of Season 2. I wish the series, if it must be a drama, was more richly character-focused and displayed interpersonal connection more (Much as Jenna Ortega aces her role, having a pathologically stubborn unempathetic lead is a problem when she just won't change, and Wednesday and Enid don't share nearly enough screentime or vulnerable moments for their friendship arc to fully work). It's still a messy show and I don't know if it's really ever going to spread its wings. It's entertaining, and has appeal, but it's not great. Oh, well. 

Anyway, LEGO has licensed the Wednesday theme, though not through minifigure sets. We've yet to see a minifigure of an Addams despite Addams Family projects frequently entering the review stage of the LEGO Ideas program, and because the Wednesday demographic skews teen-girl, LEGO made Wednesday a minidoll theme instead. The sets seem to correspond with the show demographic and aren't really designed to appeal to younger kids, maintaining the moody colors and detail of the show and featuring models which are more sculptural and abstract than a typical LEGO all-ages playset--the only Wednesday set thus far which fits the classic, typical playset designation is the "Morticia's Cottage" set. 

LEGO Wednesday and LEGO Wicked are very much sister themes, thematically and structurally. They're one-word "W" titles, simultaneous releases for the girls' market and share a large buildable-figure format they simultaneously debuted. The name "maxidolls" has been thrown out for this style of figure, but is not LEGO's terminology.

Set 76780 "Wednesday Addams Figure."

Set 75682 "Elphaba and Glinda Figures".

Both stories are also functionally supernatural school AUs to their parent franchises and feature an odd-couple dynamic of an antisocial spooky character in black who shares a divided-aesthetic dorm room with a grating bubbly blonde who loves pink. Both works' core friendships are also very widely interpreted as sapphic despite this not being text or intended. Wednesday is basically Wicked for the Addams-verse, but with, in my mind, a less believable friendship at its heart thanks to insufficient screentime spent upon it. Wicked has received minifigure sets in addition to the primary range of mindoll models, while Wednesday hasn't yet. If we were given minifigure counterparts to the Wednesday minidolls, I'd happily swap them into the sets.

I got a copy of the set "Wednesday and Enid's Dorm Room"...primarily as a parts pack, admittedly. It features four of the new gargoyle elements, which this theme debuted, and I could use all of them for more personally important things. I already showed the sculpt in my Series 14 review, but this is where I got it. I could accept a small coffee cup filled with LEGO gargoyles; it's a fantastic and versatile piece. (Technically, the sculptures are accurately called grotesques as they do not function as water runoff conduits for the building, but "gargoyle" has become synonymous with all carved stone creatures trimming a rooftop, and is the term for monsters based on them.) The set was marked down well at this point, though the most severe markdowns I saw evidence of were in-person...on shelves that emptied before I could take advantage of the deals. Because the sets were all gone, I had to go for a lesser markdown online, though $30 taken off the $90 original price is pretty good.

The odd duo of the series live in a rooftop dorm room with a circular window in the center before a balcony section, which this model replicates. The dorm is located in Ophelia Hall, which in Season 1 was a meta-reference to Ophelia Frump, Morticia's sister in previous Addams material...but then Ophelia Frump turns out to be very much a part of the Wednesday universe in Season 2, with the finale hook of her becoming a major onscreen character in Season 3, so that reference no longer works. I kind of like this approach of a "zoomed-in" model depicting a section of a building, because it allows for a level of detail and scale that's closer to accurate than we'd get in a set depicting more of the Nevermore building. If LEGO had done a full academy set, it'd be more expensive and the dorm would probably be no more than eight studs wide within the model. 

Here's the box. It's large and wide and probably larger than it needs to be, but it conveys a sense of grandeur and price worthiness. The physical model is put into a background with suggestions of the rest of Nevermore Academy. Despite there being a deliberate stud located on the otherwise-tiled balcony railing, Thing is not placed upon it in this photo.

The stud for Thing is by Enid's arm here on our right.

The back of the box shows the reverse side of the model, which is open to the interior, and showcases some details as well as the drawers built in for discreet storage of extra elements. In the main image, Wednesday and Enid are posed in a feuding stance as they meet on the border of their halves of the room, while Thing perches on top of the investigation board Wednesday has assembled regarding the Hyde-based killings going on.

We also see Wednesday discovering Thing hanging out on Enid's side of the room, and Wednesday and Thing with the crime clue board on floor level.

The set has two sticker sheets to apply to elements. All of the graphics pertaining to Enid's side of the room are on one sheet, while graphics related to Wednesday's things and the architecture of the building are on a separate sheet. 

Wednesday herself insisted they be kept apart.

LEGO's use of stickers is a grievance for many fans, and they're especially bemoaned in more expensive sets. Some imitator brands which aren't nearly as large as LEGO use printing for everything, and it's a fair question to ask why the billion-dollar company can't do the same. The only places where printing can always be expected for graphical elements are Minifigures accessories in the vein of bricks and tiles, and, it seems, LEGO Creator sets.

The set includes basic versions of roommates Wednesday Addams and Enid Sinclair, as well as two more minidolls depicting their Rave'n costumes. Each character has had three minidoll designs total thus far, and in the same three categories--casual clothes, Nevermore uniform, and Rave'n ball attire. The uniformed and casual versions of Wednesday and Enid don't appear alongside each other in the same category, as this set has uniformed Wednesday and casual Enid, while the opposite minidolls for each appear without their roomie in different sets. It's nice to see some recognition given to Enid's Rave'n look after Wednesday's dress became the only thing people remember. Here's the basic versions first.

Wednesday has a more recent warm skintone color which works fine for Jenna Ortega and the Latina background she lends Wednesday in the show, though Ortega doesn't come across as having a significantly different skintone from Enid's actor Emma Myers. Minidolls are an acquired taste aesthetically when you're a minifigure fan and I'll definitely take a minifigure adaptation of a character every time, but these are still done well for what they are. LEGO intended for girls has never favored minifigures, with the minifig style evidently not testing well with young girls and demand for a more doll-like design being requested. I just feel like maybe minidolls could have improvements to bridge the audiences more. They do have detailed printing, though.

Wednesday is wearing her Nevermore uniform, which is greyscale to accommodate her color allergy--Season 1 allowed interpretations of this being hyperbole, but Season 2 revealed it was entirely serious. When Wednesday and Enid swap bodies after a ritual gone wrong, we not only get the acting highlight of the entire series (Ortega legitimately sounds like she's being dubbed by Myers, she's that good, and Myers gets to play the role she first auditioned for), but we see Enid suffers in Wednesday's body when she tries to indulge in her typical affinity for color, breaking out in hives that require ointment when present. Enid and the audience also learn Wednesday is on a regimen of prophylactic tablets to prevent the allergy, since she must be exposed to color whether she likes it or not. 

I wonder if it would suit the set better for Wednesday to be wearing casual dorm clothes like Enid. Wednesday has her casual minidoll in the second wave of LEGO sets, in the Season 1-based "Black Dahlia" vase/greenhouse set with Marilyn Thornhill.

This set would be a fantastic parts pack in multiples for building a larger greenhouse, what with all those window panels.

Wednesday's braided pigtails with bangs are a new hair element designed for the character. A similar element existed for the Minifigures Series 11 Pretzel Girl, but it's well out of production, featuring nowhere past its debut, and the braids angle outward on that piece rather than hanging down. The Pretzel Girl's hair was cast in rubber.

Wednesday's new hair sculpt could be used for anybody, but in terms of depicting Wednesday at large, it's likely limited to only the Netflix version of the character since she's the first and so-far-only Wednesday to wear bangs. If LEGO were to depict a generic Addams Family Wednesday or one based on her previous most famous portrayals (Lisa Loring and Christina Ricci), they'd need a different hair sculpt.

Wednesday's arms are grey with black printing for the stripes, but I think the reverse should have been true. I believe the arms are cast in the skintone color and then everything else is applied color on the surface.

Enid has casual dorm attire, wearing her stripy sweater and a white skirt with flower patterning. Enid's minidoll in Nevermore uniform included as an extra in the large-scale "Thing's Apartment" trunk set. She was responsible for tricking out the trunk for his purposes, and Thing's little house becomes a fixture near the dorm window in Season 2, unfolding open similar to this set, or being closed up like a normal trunk with a "drawbridge" flap door Thing can use in that configuration. 

While Enid doesn't present lupine at all most of the time, I'd still have appreciated some nod to her werewolf nature somewhere in the set. I liked that the Monster High Enid doll has her claws out.

Of the two faces, Wednesday's works better for me. There's something awkward about Enid's grin and I can see Jenna Ortega a little more in Wednesday than I can see Emma Myers in Enid. LEGO minifigures often have the most bizarre knack for accurately caricaturing actor likenesses even within the minimalist constraints of standardized minifigure design, while I don't feel like I've ever seen a licensed minidoll as a dead ringer for an actor they're reflecting. Maybe the minidoll style isn't as flexible. There's certainly no "uggos" allowed, unlike with minifigures...and unconventional character faces are half the fun!

This LEGO Movie 2 minidoll head, from the character Susan, works well for Enid, I think. It's a little worried and has big puppy-dog eyes, but Enid is rarely not worried around Wednesday, and she's a cutesy werewolf.

As is standard for minidoll hair, and less common for hair developed specifically for minifigures, both Wednesday and Enid's hairpieces have pinholes in the top for accessory add-ons. Enid's hair sculpt was not designed for this character and does not reflect the character's Season 1 side-parted hair shape, nor the colored blue and pink streaks dyed at the ends.

I gained appreciation for Enid upon rewatching Season 1 after Season 2. She's still more "like, totes" than I can relate to, and Emma Myers, like most of the younger cast, often gives "TV-YA actor" more often than full realism, but I respect Enid for being very intelligent and tough. She's instantly capable of sparring with Wednesday's antagonism and seeing through her BS, and she maintains a quick wit and a strong sense of self-worth, drawing healthy boundaries when Wednesday and her mother disregard her. Her friendship with Thing is very endearing, and her plight with being unable to "wolf out" and dealing with her needling mother trying to force her also hit harder the second watch, despite its unsubtle and perhaps tacky metaphor for queer kids with "loving bigot" parents. In Season 2, she keeps it up--when Wednesday limits her to respond to something in 28 words, she does so by perfect chance and remarks upon it, having counted the words as she spoke, and she does not pull punches about expressing how harmful Wednesday's behavior continues to be. I was able to see Enid more for her strengths on the second go (and Wednesday being a bit of a pill certainly helps make Enid sympathetic), and I gained some real affection for her. Maybe I'll think about her Monster High doll...and a replacement Wednesday. I do just wish Enid would talk less like a teen cliché.

Minidolls have limitations compared to minifigures. While they have gaps in their legs which a "T-panel" piece will slot into to secure them in seated positions, they otherwise have no stud connections to sit with unlike the rather versatile minifigures, and their hands do not rotate. Minidolls' height and shallow foot antistuds can make them feel less secure on a base as well, and easier to knock over off a stud connection. Minidoll sets cater a bit more to dollhouse-style play than miniature displays, but I like how the LEGO system mostly allows a display and its figures to be fixed in place in a way minidolls aren't as well-equipped for. 

Thing is a new piece, which is similar to the hand in the one-piece forearm mold developed for the "maxidoll" sets in the Wednesday and Wicked themes. I do appreciate that those upsized figures' hands and Thing are takeoffs of the classic LEGO claw hand shape.

Thing is sculpted differently from those large figure hands so he can sit upon a stud connection as if crawling on his fingers. 

I like the attempt to depict Thing in the style of a LEGO hand, and the printing is nice, but he reads large and awkwardly chunky in a minidoll set, resembling neither minidoll nor minifigure hands very well. The curve in the claw of his sculpt doesn't even clip onto LEGO bars, though it will hug a minidoll arm without forming a strong clip connection--maybe as an intended feature? 

In Season 2 of Wednesday, we learn definitively that Thing was a human hand formerly attached to a person, with no mind of his own before being severed and independently animated. This LEGO piece, being differently sized in figure-scale sets, doesn't work as well knowing that story. He's fine among the "maxidolls" because he's the same size as those hands. I don't really think this mold should have been put into a set in System scale. In LEGO's defense, Thing's actor Victor Dorobantu lends him not only wonderfully characterful and legible physicality, but also quite a large size against Jenna Ortega. It's a big hand compared to her.

Thing is cast in LEGO's Light Nougat/"typical White skintone" color, while some merchandise of Wednesday Thing, including the Monster High figure and LEGO's own large-scale model, color him a waxier dead yellowish tone to make him look creepier. I'm surprised LEGO molded Thing at figure-scale in one color and then built him at large scale in another. I'd be fine with little Thing being the same light tan as the big model in "Thing's Apartment".

Despite some conceptual quibbles, I can't say I wasn't very charmed by this little figure. Thing is probably my favorite character in Wednesday, and I had a lot of fun moving him around this model.

Intentionally or not, Thing's clutch onto a stud is slightly gentler than most bricks, making him easy to remove without getting too firmly gripped on or risking lifting off the pieces he's connected to. You put him on a 1x1 plate attached to another stud and pull, and only Thing is coming off, not the 1x1 plate under him. This is best seen on the model's balcony, where that aforementioned 1x1 plate is set for Thing to sit upon, and he never takes the plate with him when removing him from that stud.

Thing's wrist is a standard LEGO bar and it will fit into hollow studs to let Thing sit on his wrist palm-up. 

Here's the assembled model. The set depicts the dorm, roof, and balcony and nothing more, while incorporating the storage drawers for extras elegantly in the front where the Nevermore outcast symbols (vampires, sirens, werewolves, gorgons) adorn the model. These crests are not on the building in the series, and actual water gargoyles are in their place on the show building.

I think this is an artful way to do things, and the model feels complete and clean and sturdy at the base. 

Four of the new gargoyle/grotesque piece feature as accurate trim on the front and sides of the balcony, and this is so far the set with the highest total of these grotesque parts. Two spiraling columns also feature behind the balcony and in front of the roof. The model is overall pretty spot-on to the set design in the series.

The dorm set at the studio.

The top roof plates in the middle are held on with short Technic axle connections which feel too shallow and fiddly. It's annoying to get them back on if they fall off.

In the center of the structure is the circular glass window, paned like an even-patterned spiderweb. It's a detailed print on a window piece here, and it's pivotal to the look of the model. Enid moved in first because Wednesday got expelled from her normie school and transferred late while the Nevermore semester was underway. With free reign over the dorm to that point, Enid papered the panes with colored film for a vibrant faux stained-glass look. Wednesday tears down the scraps on her half of the room, creating the iconic divided look the duo keep their dorm in. In the series, there's a triangular wedge in the bottom of the window which spins on a central axis so the girls can step through onto the balcony, though other balcony access which isn't fully explained also exists, evidently through some unseen doors outside. As a LEGO piece, the dorm window is on click-hinges at the top which let the whole window swing upward slightly before the roof prevents it from opening further.

TikTok screengrab showing how the window opens in the series.

The LEGO window open.

The window in the show is flat, while the LEGO piece is a very shallow dish.

Inside, the architecture is pretty spot-on too, with the Gothic-arched beams being replicated to shape the room. The floor is half tiled in lavender and half in dark tan to highlight the split in the room more, but the visual divide is less extreme in the show, where the floor is one color. This could be a visual stylization of light passing through the colored side of the window tinting Enid's floor half purple. The murder-investigation board is placed up in the center roof there so there's something nicer to look at and the space is used. There isn't anything up there in the show.

Here's a shot of Enid's half of the room from the show. The set has captured the bright colors, posters, and hangings well, and uses some unprinted minidoll animals in bright colors to depict the plushies that abound in Enid's collection.

Still from the series.

I will admit, the series design of Enid's room is more boho and artistic than mass-produced and bubbly and plastic, so I can connect to that a little more. If Enid was very colorful and feminine and artsy without being such an online girlie, I think I'd get even more invested in her. 

The LEGO room is obviously smaller and simpler, but it's a good match. The lamp on the dresser nested in the side arches is a direct imitation, and the tone has been captured well. I think the LEGO bedding doesn't quite reflect the show, though, and the stripes make it look like it's nearly a lesbian flag! Many viewers want Enid to be sapphic, and for Wednesday, though the showrunners have directly stated they don't want to pair Wednesday and Enid together and...why not? Granted, I struggle to see Wednesday in the show being romantic with or attracted to anybody. One of the flaws of Season 1 was how completely unbelievable a love triangle plot was for her when she barely seemed to care for either boy, but the most compelling dynamic for her, were she to get a partner at all, would be a pairing with Enid. I think the series neglects to show their friendship sufficiently, let alone a romance, though, so there would have to be more work done by better writing.

Also on the table is a mount for a cat-ears headband, referring to the Black Cats rowing team Enid is on and enlists Wednesday to join in the Poe Cup field challenge. The Black Cats all wear these ears as their team costume, and Wednesday and Thing get the Black Cats to victory against queen-bee siren Bianca Barclay's team, the Gold-Bugs.

Enid also has a pair of headphones (a neck accessory sculped in "off" position which was designed for minifigures and only really works on them) which hang on a wall hook near the big window, and pink roller skates placed on the floor, which debuted for minifigures and attach to minifigure feet and then onto studs. Here she is with all of the accessories.

The skates are designed with looser clutch on the bottom. A minifigure wearing them is more likely to keep the skates on when removing the figure from a studded base, but minidoll feet aren't strong enough to hold onto the skates, so they get left on a surface when trying to pick up a minidoll and the skates from a stud connection.

Wednesday's side of the dorm room is dour and much sparer, though the compression of the LEGO model doesn't make it look less furnished than Enid's half. Wednesday's bed is tucked into a nook which isn't depicted in this model. Her bed would be behind the fourth-wall "cross-section" access we get.

Wednesday's side of the room, seen down the narrow view. The big window is offscreen to our left from this perspective. The bed nook is on the right here, and would fall past the line of the LEGO model's boundaries.

This is where Wednesday's bed would be if this interior was extended backward.

Like Enid's side, the fixtures have been captured at small scale. The crystal chandelier, desk and typewriter (upon which Wednesday writes a novel she's so unwilling to edit, her editors insist she get professional help), bookshelf, rug, armchair, phonograph, and cello stand are all there.

The typewriter keys are the only printed brick inside the set, probably because it's not an exclusive print. The other graphics, save the minidolls, dorm window, two 1x1 accessory tiles, and cello, are stickers.

Wednesday's armchair looks like it's too far from the desk, but that's because it's not the desk chair in the series, and its placement relative to the desk is accurate. The piece is on a jumper tile with one stud so it can be swiveled on its spot. The desk has no seat, but you could cram a 1x2 brick or some 1x1 plates with a tile on top in and Wednesday can sit there just fine. You just have to hook her toes in under the gap first to slide her in.

The cello stand is a simple pole with two arm pieces to hold the bow and cello while a "sign" clip piece depicts music sheets.

The cello is cast in black, and a Harry Potter wand piece is used for the bow, which has been done for string instruments before. The cello piece debuted as a minifigure double bass, and is not really well suited to either minifigures or minidolls. The piece is too tall to be held perfectly upright by even a taller minidoll, and the lack of hand rotation on minidolls hurts the display further for both cello and bow.

Neither figure type can sit with this piece as a cello, and there's not even a hope of them straddling it, but at least a minifigure can display more dynamically with the piece.

With a hair swap, the Spooky Girl plays Wednesday very well!

The spike on the cello is not the same size as a LEGO accessory pin, and I don't see why not. Sure, nobody's going to wear this on top of her head, but it could fit into a 1x1 "stamp" piece like others used in this set to display it standing without a clip if that were the case. The back of the cello/bass is hollow and its only System connection is the bar on the neck.

A phonograph is provided, mounted on a "stamp" on a jumper tile. 

The murder board stowed up top has graphics provided by a sticker. The visual similarity to the show's board is clear, if not specific (and much less gory). This plate and the print background should be black, though, not grey. Maybe the color was changed for the purpose of contrast while it's stored up here.

The drawers built for the spare accessories and minidolls are aligned with the halves of the dorm, with Wednesday's under her half and Enid's under hers. Their tidy drawer layouts are mirrored. The drawers and rails they slide into are also color-coded to the characters, though I'm surprised Enid's drawer interior didn't use the same lavender plates as her half of the room.

Drawer rails in the front--black for Wednesday, white for Enid.

Since Enid is a werewolf, I appreciate that that outcast crest ends up on her drawer. Wednesday isn't any of the four outcast types trimming the base of this model, though. In addition to whatever exactly an Addams is, she's a psychic seer. Other outcasts we see are "sparks" (electrokinetics like Fester and Pugsley Addams, formerly Gomez too), avians (bird controllers), insect controllers, "Da Vincis" (telekinetics), faceless people, pyrokinetics, shapeshifters, invisibles, three extinct outcasts types are mentioned: the Cyclops, Yeti, and Minotaur.

The drawers push in gently to meet click hinges as clips that keep the drawers in place, so levers on the side push the drawers out of the clips and release them. 

The lever for Wednesday's drawer.

The minidolls are held in the drawers with a T-shaped panel piece that slots between their feet. This is used everywhere in minidoll sets to secure seated lying or seated figures in lieu of studs, though it works for them standing too. Minifigure legs are also compatible with this piece, standing or seated or lying down.

Here are the Rave'n minidolls.

LEGO Rave'n Wednesday's hair is not a new sculpt and has been in use for Disney's Princess Anna for a healthy amount of time. It's cast in rubber, which surprised me. I'd have expected an ABS recast of this by now; there's no reason for it not to be hard plastic. The Anna hair has a pinhole on top and on the back. Enid's hair is not exclusive to her, is hard plastic, and has no pinholes for accessories. Rave'n Wednesday has darker lips and a slightly different expression, while Rave'n Enid's face has closed darker lips and very subtle sparkles matching the series makeup. I think the two heads work fine on the other versions of them. Maybe Wednesday looks too glammed up, but Enid's Rave'n expression is her better face print in my book.

The two minidolls cannot effectively swap clothing because of their different skintones, invalidating some scenes playing the body-swap narrative of Season 2, though I think LEGO definitely ought to make a set based upon that episode with Enid in Wednesday's body dressing like Enid, and Wednesday doing her best to express herself while in Enid's body.

The collar section of Rave'n Wednesday's print is not opaque, but in this case, it's not coming across as a printing issue since that section of the costume is mesh and shadows her skin slightly. If the print were perfectly matched to the rest of her skintone, it'd actually be an error.

Minidoll waists don't bend backward, but if you turn the legs backward, Wednesday can do an okay Rave'n dance. This only works because this figure has a floor-length skirt with no visible feet!

Wednesday's accessories stored in the drawer are a scrap of paper containing notes on the Hyde case, a black flower on a brown stem, and a Rave'n "yeti-tini" cocktail glass with a 1x1 translucent blue stud inside for the drink.

This is where I got that stem for the Monster Fighters Zombie Bride's dead bouquet--one was one of the extra parts in this set.

The two drawings on the tile depicting the paper are both of the Hyde, face and full-body, though I think the full-body shot could be mistaken for Enid's wolfed-out form too. I'd love if future Wednesday sets gave us a figure of the Hyde somehow. I'd love a truly monstrous figure in a minidoll theme. The maxidoll forearms or the mold for Thing could be used as its hand molds in a more brick-built figure design; that almost looks like what they illustrated. The tile is printed, not a sticker. I'm guessing this tile depicts a page from the diary Wednesday discovers which details a study of Hydes, as it doesn't match student (and failed character; absolutely not a loss from Season 2) Xavier Thorpe's artworks of the beast. 

I'm surprised this tile isn't depicting the half of the prophecy drawing she discovers, depicting herself in flames against Nevermore. That would be a more specific iconic image to cite.

Because there was a spare pair of cat ears included among the extras and a spare "stamp" piece I could mount them on, I added those two parts to Wednesday's accessory drawer, but the set doesn't tell you to do this. These are intended as spares, not "canon" elements of the set.

Here's regular Wednesday wearing the ears, begrudgingly.

I get the catgirl look is too cutesy for Wednesday, but she could have ended up on a far worse rowing team for her sensibilities. This is close enough to her vibe that she suffered little.

Enid's drawer accessories include a matching yeti-tini, a purple marker, and a tile depicting a smartphone, which is printed.

LEGO uses a standard trunk to represent Thing's personal house in their own sets, so I tried that too, adding it in basically where it sits in the show in Season 2.

This isn't the right shape for Thing's personal home, nor does it have the unfolding functionality, but that's just not possible to achieve at minidoll scale.

The set lends itself well to artful photography thanks to the window!

And here's a couple more pictures. 

Wednesday can sit in her chair and think about the mystery.

Or write her novel (I built a better seat of two plates and a tile on top).

Thing and Enid get along famously, with Thing forming a major emotional bridge between the roommates. Here's them hanging out together.

And the two on the balcony on the night of the Rave'n.

I decided I wasn't finished here. My next move was to get the "Black Dahlia Flower" set after all, too. I liked the parts and the option for a casual Wednesday figure was welcome. LEGO was running a double-VIP points period during October which I wanted to utilize, though I missed out on the Halloween gift-with-purchase event which ended bafflingly soon into the month, and the rewards points accrued by the order could not be allocated to discount the order itself. I was also thinking about the "Morticia's Cottage" set, but I honestly fell less in love with it each time I went back to think of it. The model looks pretty and a Morticia minidoll is welcome, but the specific way the house opens on hinges is a really bizarre and unattractive to me and would require a lot of modification for a model I wasn't really passionate about to start with. That set isn't getting full price from me.

Here's the dahlia flower.

The set is a sculptural desktop model incorporating a vase and an oversized human-scale flower akin to LEGO's ongoing Botanicals theme, but it's also a little playset as the vase is a very small representation of Ophelia Hall dorm mom and botany teacher Marilyn Thornhill's greenhouse classroom. The set can be displayed as a human-scale vase or the flower can be removed to open the greenhouse as a playset. In the series, Thornhill has a habit of gifting symbolic flowers to her dorm kids, and greets Wednesday with a black dahlia, which Wednesday remarks is the name of her favorite unsolved murder case. I'm grateful at least the show acknowledges it as the name of a crime and not the victim; read this past review of mine for more regarding the way Elizabeth Short's murder has been mishandled by pop culture. Wednesday seems the sort to not wrongly idolize the killer, anyway. Putting shadowy evildoers to justice is her main schtick in the show, and she literally takes out a serial killer as a summer project in the opener for Season 2.

The two minidolls are Wednesday and Marilyn Thornhill. 

Wednesday has the same head print as her dorm uniform minidoll and wears her striped shirt and casual hoodie jacket, which is patterned with  Venus flytraps in the show (and the Monster High fashion pack). That would have been nice to squeeze into the print design given the context of this set, but it still reads okay.

The costume in the series, seen here when Wednesday and Enid attend a fair.

The "Black Dahlia" minidoll next to the dorm-room uniformed minidoll.

You'll notice this Wednesday is taller--she wears minidoll-shaped shoe lifts to give her boots some stomp. 

The girl does have some stompy boots, but these make the character inappropriately taller than other minidolls, given that Jenna Ortega is not the taller person next to most of her castmates. These shoe lifts make more sense used on the Lurch minidoll. They do stick to Wednesday's feet well, though. When I lifted her off a studded base, and they stayed on her feet instead of on the base. I personally won't be using the lifts on her, though.

The hood for the jacket is printed on the back.

Wednesday also comes with a book-cover piece stickered with a charcoal drawing of a spider on it.

This comes from another character in the series--Wednesday's classmate Xavier Thorpe. His portrayal wasn't compelling and his actor was a creep, so he is not missed in Season 2. I expect him to be permanently written off the show, and to never appear in the LEGO sets. Maybe he would have and was pulled from this set during product development, but I don't know if that's the case. Anyway, Xavier's outcast ability is to animate his artwork and even pull them from the canvas or page in semi-real form. He's become obsessed with visions of the Hyde and one of his paintings of the creature claws his neck. In one of the botany-class scenes, he attempts to impress Wednesday by bringing a charcoal spider to life, but she smashes it into the dust it was made of.

Marilyn Thornhill (played by former, very influential, Wednesday Addams portrayer Christina Ricci) is not only the dorm mom and botany teacher, but turns out to be the fake identity for the first season's hidden mastermind Laurel Gates.

Thornhill presenting Wednesday with the black dahlia flower.

Laurel has been engineering and controlling the Hyde monster, itself hidden as the alter ego of someone else in the cast. She also resurrects her evil Pilgrim ancestor Joseph Crackstone to antagonize outcasts using body parts she directs the Hyde to harvest from her targets. The minidoll makes few, if any, pretenses about "Thornhill" not being the villain, giving her a wide-eyed unhinged grin that's honestly kind of a break for minidolls. It's subtly terrifying.

Her hairstyle is a bit wavier than it presents in the series, with this piece originally sculpted for child Hermione Granger, and not even being recast in a new color, remaining in Hermione's brown. I think dark orange would be more appropriate because Thornhill has visibly auburn red hair in the show. The haircut is also longer and straighter in the show, so I ordered a copy of the Spooky Girl-debuted hair mold in dark orange to try solving both problems and see if it read better. There's no ideal sculpt for Thornhill's hair right now, since her hair is wavier and shorter than the Spooky Girl's, but straighter and longer than Hermione's. The color just feels blatantly wrong, though. LEGO should have sprung for a recast.

Thornhill carries a trimmed minidoll-size black dahlia and she can hold the other plants, watering can, or shears in the set. Her outfit is the blue coveralls she wears in her conservatory/classroom, and she wears red boots, which are the smoking gun that finally cracks the mystery for Wednesday. 

The bumps on the side of the watering can let a bucket handle attach across the top.

Wednesday had pinned her suspicions on therapist Valerie Kinbott as the Hyde's master, speculating Kinbott was using psychology to unlock the monster in one her patients, but this goes out the window when her classmate Eugene wakes from a coma after witnessing the mastermind torching the Hyde's cave and is able to tell Wednesday he remembered red boots, something only Thornhill dons in the series. Thornhill extended her botany career to chemistry, and used serums, not therapy, to unlock her underling's Hyde.

The set assembled makes for an attractive vase when viewed the human way. The dahlia flower is stylized with black, dark blue, and purple blended together and the stem continues these shades rather than looking more organic and green like in the show and the minidoll flower in this set. I think it looks fine and evokes the stylized opening credits and branding of the TV series.

The dahlia flower featured in the opening credits of the series.

The vase greenhouse has a stickered tile on either side, with one featuring the Nevermore Academy name as seen on the front gate, and the other featuring a quote from Thornhill. The windows alternate in a checkerboard of clear and purple tint. The curved sides use new curved-wall window-frame bricks which accept two preexisting standard rectangular window panes each. The roof has open gaps.

The big flower stem is a long Technic axle which locks the greenhouse closed by sliding through two 2x3 plates with a rounded end and a hole. The holes stack over each other when the halves of the greenhouse are closed and the stem slides through both.

The greenhouse has two more of these plates built over each other on the exterior on one side of the hinge, providing a separate place to put the flower when you want to use the interior of the set. The bottom of the stem just barely slots into the lower hole to keep the stem sturdy.

A loose clip and click-hinge connection gently hold the greenhouse closed even after the flower is moved. It hinges open on the opposite side of the exterior flower mount.

I don't believe the Nevermore botany greenhouse is a separate structure in the series, but it works fine for the concept of this model. If LEGO did a big academy set, they'd probably revisit the greenhouse at even smaller scale and build it onto the school.

On one side is a large desk stuffed with plants between the drawers. A white flower under a dome features on the left, while a carnivorous plant sits in a vase on the right. There are clips on the walls for the various gardening accessories in the set, and two free studs. I don't understand the purpose of the tan panel piece on the left edge (is it a step?) and the tiled design on the floor with the blue triangle looks awkward and I don't remember it from the show.

The desk comes out easily to be viewed alone.

The carnivorous plant has a 1x1 clear printed tile to depict a worm snatched in its jaws. I'd prefer a molded element for this, but none sufficient exist at the moment.

The other side of the greenhouse has a flower in a wall clip (only one wall clip on this half) and a stool and shorter desk with a sink and a build resembling a pitcher plant. There are two more studs to stand on here, plus one other stud, and another panel piece, here turned the other way to form a sleeve to loosely store the charcoal drawing in.

I really like the pitcher plant, which is based around a broom head, though the sink is not fully enclosed and looks unrealistic thanks to the economy of size and parts. Raising the tap and using a minifigure food bowl piece under it would work even if it would be less school-lab in tone.

Removing the top frame of the greenhouse gives a picture of the interior when closed. Despite the cramped size, the model impressively allows both minidolls to stand inside, or to have one sitting at the desk, while the model is closed and the dahlia flower is inserted through the top. It doesn't struggle to close.

I also decided to order the Nevermore Enid minidoll and another minidoll foot bracket for the dorm room drawers, remapping the drawers so they could hold two minidolls each and the accessories. 

It made sense to have all three parallel versions of both Wednesday and Enid and to have them all be able to be contained within the dorm model.

Here's all six minidolls.

And Nevermore Enid alone.

Nevermore Enid's hair is a bespoke mold, with this one also having colored hair streaks. It is specific to her Season 2 appearance, however, having some bangs instead of a side part, so the Season 1 hair still hasn't been fully captured and this hair doesn't sub into the Season 1 minidoll perfectly. The Season 2 hair on the Season 1 minidoll doesn't fully read for me, but I think the Season 1 hair on the Season 2 minidoll does look correct. 

The casual and uniformed Enids.

The hair swapped.

Like the Rave'n Enid hair, this piece does not have a pinhole on top for accessories. I don't know why.

Nevermore Enid's head print is the same one dorm-casual Enid used. 

The indigo color of the Nevermore uniform for students who aren't Wednesday has been interpreted by LEGO with their standard purple color. Sometimes the color in the show looks blatantly royal blue, but more often, it looks purple and matches the LEGO color. Enid's uniform is well printed and I'm glad to have complete sets of both roomies. 

I finally got Thornhill the hair I wanted for her after a seller sent the wrong piece (the "Ginny Weasley" sculpt in the same color) and had to refund it. I got the hair too late for Halloween, so Wednesday fell out of the LEGO horror project, but I was this far in, so the post certainly wasn't about to be scrapped!

I think this works quite well!

Between this and the brown Hermione hair, it's definitely the better of imperfect options. LEGO licensed figure designers are often very talented, but they often drop the ball too, either because of absurd budget restrictions for what parts or prints they're able to get into a set or because they simply miss something design-wise. Poor Thornhill got the short end of the stick.

I got a few fancy photos with the Black Dahlia set, but the windows aren't actually as conducive to playing with lighting as I expected.

It could be an interesting challenge to see how much bigger the set could be expanded with two to four copies. A larger greenhouse would make a better playset, but as a side bonus to a focal model which is a human-scaled vase and flower, the playset aspect is just fine.

LEGO Wednesday is a fun theme. The show isn't perfect or necessarily even good, but it is entertaining and compelling despite its tonal and scripting weaknesses. I'd love minifigure material for Wednesday even if it must be a side venue like the minifigure Wicked sets, but the minidoll sets are okay. I probably will end up with Morticia's Cottage eventually, but it's not a priority. I hope we get more from this theme and that it pushes the spookiness further. A set with the Hyde would be great! A minidoll theme embracing a scary side is a refreshing occurrence, and regardless of the flaws in the design or the source material, that deserves to be celebrated.