Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
Teen psychic Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) is back for another school term at Nevermore, the Hogwarts equivalent for magical ‘outcasts’. This time around, her younger brother Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez), who loves blowing things up, is joining too. So it’s twice the macabre mayhem at school.
Also Read: Wednesday Season 1 Review: Wickedly Good
Directed by Tim Burton, ‘Wednesday‘ Season 2 Part 1 spans just four episodes, but once again offers fans the best of both worlds: teen fantasy and gothic horror. The season opens with Wednesday spending her summer vacation digging into a cold case, tracking a serial killer, and delivering justice, her way. Back at Nevermore, she returns as the school’s celebrated savior (to her utter disgust), and attracts an unsettling new stalker. Fresh murders in town and a disturbing vision of best-friend Enid Sinclair (Emma Myers) in mortal danger pulls Wednesday straight back into sleuth mode, with Thing (Victor Dorobantu) as her assistant.
A whole bunch of new exciting characters are added to the Wednesday universe for season 2, including new Principal Barry Dort (Steve Buscemi), new music teacher Isadora Capri (Billie Piper), Dr Fairburn (Thandiwe Newton) who looks after inmates at the Willow Hill Psychiatric Hospital, and Joanna Lumley as Wednesday’s grandmama. However, the standout new cast member is teen actor Evie Templeton as Agnes Demille, a new student who leads the Wednesday fan club at school.
Luis Guzmán and Catherine Zeta-Jones reprise their roles as Gomez and Morticia Addams, with much more screen time in Season 2. Principal Barry invites Morticia to chair a charity gala for Nevermore and asks the couple to stay on campus, putting a spotlight on Wednesday’s strained relationship with her mother. The two frequently clash over how Wednesday uses her psychic abilities.
I wasn’t entirely convinced by Guzmán and Zeta-Jones as the iconic Addams couple in Season 1, this time they won me over with their wonderfully offbeat chemistry, bringing back fond memories of the animated series I loved as a kid. Fred Armisen too is fantastic as Uncle Fester, who returns to Nevermore to help out his favorite niece in her latest investigation.
While the first episode of ‘Wednesday’ Season 2 Part 1 was slightly slow, I started enjoying it so much more because Tim Burton introduces one of my favorite horror elements in the story: an unhinged zombie! The special-effects for the zombie are over the top, but it’s a nice macabre edition to the story, causing quite a few gruesome deaths in just these four episodes.
As ‘Wednesday‘, Jenna Ortega once again steals the show, her teen gothic charm as sharp as ever. She’s so convincing as the stoic, death-obsessed heroine that one of the season’s funniest moments is her breaking into a sly smile after a minor psychological triumph over her mother.
Some viewers online have been complaining that Jenna appears “too perfect” or “airbrushed” in the show, but I couldn’t care less, this is gothic horror fantasy, where realism isn’t the point. If anything, I’m impressed by how convincingly childlike she appears in certain moments, reminding us that the character is still just a teenager.
Friendship, family, and supernatural mayhem are the main themes in this season, with Wednesday’s need to protect Enid from a grisly death serving as the driving force in the tale. A lot of clues point Wednesday to the Willow Hill Psychiatric Hospital, where several dangerous ‘outcasts’ are patients.
Fans will be happy to see familiar monsters, including Hunter Doohan as Tyler Galphin, kept imprisoned in the psychiatric facility. However, there’s a new mysterious shadowy antagonist in the tale, someone whose identity is kept under wraps until an unexpected reveal in episode 4.
From lavish camping trips to grisly deaths, murderous crows, electric shock therapy, psychological duels, and sword fights, Wednesday Season 2 Part 1 dials up the gothic violence. The soundtrack soars, with a standout scene where the new music teacher delivers a haunting piano rendition of “Zombie” by The Cranberries, underscoring bloody chaos in intercut sequences.
If you loved season 1 of ‘Wednesday’ and its world-building, do not miss out on season 2.
Watch ‘Wednesday’ on Netflix.
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