This is a spoiler-free review of the four episodes that make up Wednesday Season 2, Part 1, which debuted August 6 on Netflix. Part 2 will debut in September.
Wednesday was reportedly one of Netflix’s most-watched series ever in its first season, and it's clear the streaming giant considers it one of their heavy hitters now, with Season 2 added to the small group of scripted series popular enough to have their seasons split up - with Netflix seemingly doing their best to get multiple viewership bumps from fans eager to find out what happens next. Unfortunately though, the three year break between seasons hasn’t led to a marked improvement in quality, with Wednesday still feeling like some great casting and fun visuals in search of a much stronger story.
While Wednesday remains the central focus, Season 2 works to incorporate the core Addams Family members into the story more, with Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez) now attending Nevermore Academy alongside his sister and a bit of plot contrivance leading to Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Gomez (Luis Guzmán) also living on campus for the time being. On one hand, it’s nice to have these characters in play more regularly, but on the other hand, the larger prominence of most of the iconic Addams characters continually serves as a reminder that this show has some huge core flaws in regards to how it misinterprets the Addams Family and what makes them appealing.
Putting the Addams at an Xavier’s/Hogwarts-type setting filled with supernaturally powerful beings continually undercuts the appeal of the family themselves. Sure, they act more macabre and dress in black more than some of the others at Nevermore, but they don’t really stand out, and the fun of The Addams Family has always been the dichotomy of seeing them interacting with bland normal folks. Worse, Season 2 leans even more into the idea of the supernatural “Outcasts” at Nevermore as a mutant-type group who are persecuted and scorned, and it continually feels like a strange diversion for what could be a fun “Wednesday Addams goes to a boarding school where weird murders are happening” story in which offbeat supernatural elements could be layered in, sure, but not so dominant and commonplace that it feels like it’s a distraction from Wednesday herself.
Season 2’s new murder mystery involves locals being killed by someone or something controlling crows and these darker elements at least continue to stand out and make for some of the more effective sequences; the visuals of how the crows take out their victims are suitably unsettling. But on the comedy side, Wednesday remains incredibly uneven. Sometimes, Wednesday will have a truly funny, biting one-liner, or Uncle Fester (Fred Armisen) will elicit a laugh by nonchalantly remarking “I’m a big fan of child labor.” Other times though, the show can come to a grinding halt, such as a sequence involving a driving instructor who acts and speaks in an incredibly cartoonish and decidedly unfunny way, as though he’s in a show aimed solely at very young kids.
When the Addams Family are used to their best ability – 1993’s Addams Family Values remains the crown jewel in this regard – it can ride the line of goofy and dark in a way that meshes perfectly. Here though, there’s a lot of tonal and quality whiplash. In the very same episode, you might get a clever and twisted visual of the disembodied hand known as Thing curiously tapping a detached eyeball and then a really unfunny and inert extended sequence where a group of “normie” human scouts competes against the Nevermore “Outcasts” for who gets to use a campground.
At the center of it all, still helping Wednesday work much better than it might otherwise is Jenna Ortega. She continues to be absolutely perfect casting for the role, and has just the right wry, intelligent, droll delivery to completely sell you on who Wednesday is, even when the show around her is all over the place. Ortega got attention – and caused a lot of debate about how much she should be publicly criticizing her show’s writing – for pushing back against elements from Season 1 like the typical teenage TV show love triangle that Wednesday was part of, but it is undoubtedly good to see at least that one notably out of place aspect of the show now discarded. (Percy Hynes White’s Xavier has been written off completely, in the wake of offscreen allegations against White, while Hunter Doohan’s Tyler is now in the Hannibal Lecter “imprisoned bad guy our hero needs to go to for advice” role; albeit amusingly constantly shirtless in his scenes) There are a couple of other improvements, including the show making better use of Armisen’s version of Fester and Guzmán’s Gomez, who are both funnier and more appealing this season.
Unfortunately, showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar seem hellbent on making sure there still is an extraneous love triangle though, so now it’s Wednesday's roommate, Enid (Emma Myers), who’s unsure of where her affections lie between her Season 1 love interest Ajax (Georgie Farmer) and her fellow werewolf, newcomer Bruno (Noah B. Taylor). This boring subplot feels like a waste of the charming and funny Myers, and it doesn’t help that the show feels incredibly hindered, budget-wise, when it comes to showing Enid as a werewolf since all we see her do over and over again is flex her nails/claws at someone to represent that side of her. Though Ordonez is unfortunately the most stilted cast member among those portraying the Nevermore students (and among those playing the Addams Family), Pugsley does have an amusing storyline involving him caring for a zombie who he treats like a family pet. The returning Bianca (Joy Sunday) meanwhile has a subplot tying her to Morticia that often feels oddly disconnected from the rest of the show.
Season 2 certainly isn’t lacking in familiar faces, with a ton of recognizable actors in new roles, starting with Steve Buscemi as Nevermore’s new principal, who has his own hidden agenda. He’s joined by the likes of Billie Piper, Thandiwe Newton, Heather Matarazzo, and Anthony Michael Hall for various guest and recurring roles, bringing a lot more likeable and talented actors into the mix, even as it remains to be seen how integral or not their roles will be in the long run. Also, after Christina Ricci was in Season 1, Christopher Lloyd becomes the second alum from the 1990s Addams Family movies to play a new role here - though the fun idea of Lloyd as a disembodied head with a mechanical body is hurt a bit by some dodgy digital FX for Lloyd’s body-less form.
With Tim Burton back as director for two of the four episodes in “Part 1” of Season 2, Wednesday continues to boast some great and creative visuals. A standout sequence is in the Burton-directed season premiere, as a story told by Ajax is shown to us in black and white animated form - looking wonderfully, classically Tim Burton in the manner of A Nightmare Before Christmas or Frankenweenie. But Smallville creators Gough and Miller continue to feel like an odd fit as showrunners, with their stories never living up to the potential of Ortega’s performance or what we’ve seen from The Addams Family in prior versions.
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