Jenna Ortega’s characters don’t seem to have the best of luck. They’ve been hunted, haunted, and the targets of attempted murder. Like, a lot. Before we knew her as Wednesday Addams or Tara Carpenter from horror movie Scream 5, Ortega was once again rubbing shoulders with undesirables as a recurring character in Netflix series You season 2.
The younger sister of Joe’s landlord, Delilah, Ellie struck up something of a bond with Joe before Love jealously bumped off her sister. Although Ellie never found out what happened to her sister, Joe told her she was dead and encouraged her to run away and start a new life. As of You season 3, Joe still periodically sent Ellie money – but it seems unlikely he was able to keep doing this after faking his own death.
After starting work on You season 4, showrunner Sera Gamble was keen for Ortega to come back as Ellie – but revealed to Indiewire that she was otherwise engaged. “We wanted to bring Ellie back and we heard, ‘Oh, Jenna is doing some show’,” she said. “It’s been just such a pleasure to see Jenna this year. We have ideas for Ellie if her schedule allows her to visit us again.”
The ‘show’ in question was, of course, Netflix sensation Wednesday, which ended up breaking several records for the streaming service and has already been commissioned for season 2.
Although Ortega is booked and busy with Wednesday season 2, she previously told Teen Vogue that she’d be keen revisit the character one day. “It would be amazing to see Ellie come back and take control of her life,” she said.
“I just want her to be an even bigger badass. I don’t want her to come back and be extremely vulnerable and sad. We have to remember that even though people still find Joe somewhat charming, he’s evil, he does terrible things, and he gets away with them because of his gender and race and his position in society. [Ellie] has so much potential and so much talent that she shouldn’t waste because of him.”
You season 4 part 1 is now available to stream on Netflix. Meanwhile, the Scream 6 release date is March 10, just in case you wanted to see what Ortega is up to now. Our guide to the best horror series and best drama series will give more TV entertainment.