What is the Skull Tree mythology in ‘Wednesday’ season two?
Many things set Wednesday’s sophomore season apart from the debut. But what hit the chord instantly was the doubling down on the elements of darkness and fantasy. The first was already brimming to the brink with Easter eggs. And now that the second has followed in the footsteps, let’s take a closer look at the Skull Tree urban legend.
The Skull Tree mythology is not something entirely unheard of. The themes of unethical science, dangers of unchecked ambition, human loss and undead beings serve as hallmarks of Tim Burton’s storytelling. The myth is unsettling yet uniquely seamless. And in time, we’ll have to keep an eye out for whether the legend’s repercussions cast a shadow in Nevermore in days to come.
Wednesday, season two, introduced the Skull Tree legend to bring a fresh air of gore into the lore of the Addams family. Conceived as a campfire story that Ajax delivers on the first night of the new semester in Nevermore, this myth is also a callback to Burton’s works from years past.
The legend follows an unnamed Nevermore student, touted as a wunderkind, who was ridden to the bed due to a severe heart condition. In order to save himself and his genius, he substituted his own heart with that of a mechanical one, nursing himself back to health to an extent that allowed him to attend Nevermore as a student.
He continued with his experimentations, which grew darker by the day. But then one of his experiments ended up in an explosion, killing him, but not his story. Buried near a tree that had a face resembling a skull, this is how the Skull Tree legend came into being.
While Wednesday has very real characters portrayed by real people, Burton chose a stop-motion animation sequence for the campfire story to intensify the world of the supernatural. The character design is inspired by Frankenstein (1921), while Burton also took inspiration from Night of the Living Dead (1968). The flashback story lasts merely 90 seconds. However, it haunts throughout Nevermore, especially when Pugsley brings him back from the dead as a zombie.
It’s clear that the Skull Tree legend has a far bigger semblance than just a running urban legend. It’s very much real and easily slips into the present-day Nevermore happenings. Although the zombie was in a terrible state at first, with every brain it eats, it regenerates and evolves. Think Dr Fairburn and Stonehearst. And with part two lining up in just a few weeks, viewers must remember the genesis of this myth, since it’s no longer one.