Wednesday Season 2 Review

The first season of Netflix’s Wednesday took the world by storm back in 2022, so in what feels like an undeniable passion to kill off any excitement for the series, here we are with a second season three years later. Going into Wednesday Season 2, it was almost impossible to predict where this story was going to go next – the first season cut-off fairly cleanly, with the only real promise in store being Wednesday’s return to Nevermore Academy. However, no teaser or cliffhanger could have prepared me for how zealous, yet unfortunately fragmented this season would turn out to be.

It’s time for our Wednesday Season 2 review, and given the fact that half of the season has been available for a few months now, I think it’s best to dive straight into spoiler territory, rather than dancing around aged revelations. With that in mind, this is your spoiler warning for our Wednesday Season 2 review – while this is far from a perfect series, I can’t think of anything worse than having its twists and turns spoiled for you in advance. Still with us? Great, let’s get into our Wednesday Season 2 review.

---

Wednesday Season 2 Review

Image by Netflix

The outstanding success of Wednesday has always felt a little unusual for me. Not only can the show be incredibly off-colour and dark at times, as is the case with any Addams Family project, but it is also outlandishly campy and over-the-top throughout. These traits are all undeniably charming to fans of horror and that classic, dark-comedy vibe, but the series’ mass appeal has always felt like a sort of unexpected cultural zeitgeist. Perhaps Wednesday has found its universal foothold thanks to the draw of Jenna Ortega, who is easily the highlight of Wednesday Season 2, just as she was in the first season. While there’s plenty of issues with how the Addams are portrayed in this show, Ortega’s performance is one of the only guaranteed strengths that the series has. Without her, I fear that Wednesday Season 2 would be a sinking ship.

These fears come as a result of the storylines presented in Wednesday Season 2, all of which feel frantic, discombobulated, and unfortunately for many of them, unsatisfying in their conclusions. The first season of Wednesday often saw the titular character embark on short side-quests, but the overall plot was always focused on the pursuit of the Hyde that was terrorising Jericho. This season, it feels impossible to say what the true goal is – we start with a stalker storyline that is quickly resolved, interwoven with a murder mystery involving crows, which is also quickly resolved. In the background, Steve Buscemi grows gradually more ominous as Nevermore’s new principal, while the entire second half of Wednesday Season 2 feels dedicated to the story of Isaac Night, which feels like it comes out of absolutely nowhere. Were Wednesday Season 2 to match the pacing of its first season, it would never have taken on this many storylines at once, and the result of this unfortunately highlights that Wednesday Season 2 has bitten off more than it can chew.

Unfortunately, the side stories of Wednesday Season 2 are also quite patchy, and don’t effectively support the hijinks going on in the main narrative. Pugsley Addams gets a much larger role this season, and in the season’s early stages, it felt like he fit quite well into the narrative. While he took some screentime away from Ortega’s Wednesday, it was charming to see Isaac Ordonez get more time to shine as her brother. However, Pugsley’s storyline amounts to very little in the end, with his only real contribution being unleashing Isaac on Jericho. Bianca Barclay is also given very little to work with this season, as the storyline involving her mother feels like little more than an excuse to mention MorningSong again, which is also an egregiously underdeveloped cult. Especially when you consider what comes of Gideon and Barry Dort by the end of Wednesday Season 2, one has to wonder why so much time was spent with the Barclays this time around.

Image by Netflix

Wednesday Season 2 also called on returning characters from its first season instead of trusting the newly introduced characters with an increasingly disinterested audience. Tyler Galpin’s return to the narrative easily felt like the most bizarre decision, especially considering how Wednesday Season 2 somewhat altered how we’re meant to view him. In this season, he’s pretty outright villainous, at least until the final episode when we’re suddenly meant to sympathise with him again. Luckily, Tyler’s underwhelming return is directly counteracted by the return of Gwendoline Christie as Principal Weems, who is given the perfect role as Wednesday’s spirit guide to allow Christie to showcase her charisma, without meddling too much in the unfolding events at Nevermore. While the ending of Wednesday Season 2 implies her exit from the series, I hope to see her return in Season 3 – her dynamic with Wednesday in the second half of Wednesday Season 2 made me miss her presence in the first season.

However, when it comes to characterisation this season, there is no crime more grievous than the butchering of Morticia Addams. While I can appreciate the passion behind many of Wednesday Season 2’s decisions, the characterisation of Morticia this season is completely unforgivable. In no world would Morticia take on this role of an overprotective, demeaning, and domineering mother, and her dynamic with both of her children is completely soured by these completely misallocated characteristics. It’s disappointing to see Catherine Zeta-Jones used in this way, as her Morticia was pretty enjoyable in the first season. This season did the impossible for me – made Morticia Addams an unlikeable character.

I do want to talk about some of the major positives of Wednesday Season 2 though, starting with its commitment to being campy and unapologetically old-school horror-focused. I love the side of Wednesday that leans into how fun horror can be, and Wednesday Season 2 really steps it up in this way. There are speaking heads in jars, werewolves, ghosts, zombies, and monsters galore – I’m surprised they didn’t save this season to release around Halloween, because the spooky vibes here are immaculate. As always, the macabre comments of the Addams Family themselves are well-placed, even if their eating habits were a little too grotesque this time around. Gomez biting directly into a rat is something I’m glad Netflix decided to cut away and spare us of.

Image by Netflix

All of this over-the-top fun allows Wednesday Season 2 to remain entertaining throughout, despite its messiness in places. Structure may not be its strong suit, but viewers will never be bored while watching this show, and when it comes to Netflix’s binge-viewing style, that’s exactly the formula they’re looking for. I do think the series needs to tread carefully, however, when it comes to its next season, as Wednesday herself is starting to feel too heroic in her actions. Wednesday Addams is no hero, nor does she desire to be, and while the first season justified her actions through her desire to uncover the mysteries of Nevermore, her quests in Wednesday Season 2 feel a little too valiant for her character. Considering the set-up with Enid next season, I think Netflix is going to cross this line – we’ll have to see how it comes across when push comes to shove, but I think that the liberties Netflix have been taking with their portrayal of the Addams Family is going to come back to bite them.

On the more technical side of things, Wednesday Season 2 does nothing to alleviate concerns about Netflix’s production quality. The VFX in this show continue to be unforgivably bad in places, particularly the Hydes, which once again look like low-resolution giant Gollum clones, their appearances often eliciting laughter as opposed to the intended terror. The scene where Wednesday journeys into Rotwood Cottage and comes face to face with Rosaline within a statue is embarrassingly badly-done, with Lady Gaga’s face sloppily green-screened over a hole in the statue’s face. This was particularly disappointing, as Gaga’s appearance in Episode 6 was otherwise quite enjoyable. It was only a cameo, but Rosaline Rotwood was a pretty compelling character for her short time on-screen.

Wednesday Season 2 also noticeably puts its cast’s acting skills to work, particularly Ortega and Emma Myers in the sixth episode, where they switch bodies in a Freaky Friday turn of events. Ortega pulls off Enid’s character excellently, but this is somewhat expected. More surprisingly, Myers does an excellent job of playing Wednesday trapped in her body. On the topic of acting, Buscemi is a very welcome addition to the cast of Wednesday Season 2 – the only downside to his appearance is how unsatisfactorily his storyline concludes, his sinister intentions coming to a head as part of the Barclays storyline, which is easily one of the weakest parts of the show.

Image by Netflix

I also didn’t love how Wednesday Season 2 essentially all came back down to the Hydes, particularly in the finale. As is evidenced by earlier episodes, there’s nothing from the horror handbook that Wednesday can’t pull from – why must we remain so focused on these horrific CGI beasts when they were the focal point of the first season? I think that this reliance on the Hydes is indicative of Netflix’s need as a company to be self-referential, which they once again prove in the seventh episode of Wednesday Season 2 which features a ballroom dance number. The scene is enjoyable, but I can’t help but think it was slotted in here as an attempt to capitalise on the success of Jenna Ortega’s dance scene in the first season. As long as Netflix continues to look backwards, it can never truly evolve, and Wednesday Season 2 is looking like the latest victim of this.

With that being said, Wednesday Season 2 sets up a very promising third season with Wednesday leaving the grounds of Nevermore and siding with Uncle Fester to find Enid, while an ominous teaser of Ophelia at the end of the episode sets up a very sinister, Addams Family plotline for the next season. The future is looking bright for Wednesday, and perhaps in the long run, Wednesday Season 2 will stand out for how well it set up things to come, but was itself ultimately a little jumbled. Moving out of the safety net of Nevermore is a bold and risky move, but I think it’s likely to pay off.

Whereas the first season of Wednesday felt like a measured, mature murder mystery, Wednesday Season 2 feels like a chaotic sprint through the hallways of a manic horror school. While the season certainly has its highs, its lows taint the trust that viewers can place in it as a series. Regardless, Wednesday remains one of Netflix’s strongest shows, and with the more eccentric additions to Netflix’s catalogue taking the spotlight over the past few years, the likes of this show and One Piece, will Netflix turn towards more outlandish programming in the future? Only time will tell, but for now, we await a third season of Wednesday that, hopefully, won’t leave us hanging for another three years. Well, that’s all for our Wednesday Season 2 review! What did you think of the season, and do you agree with our review? Let us know your own thoughts in the comments, and thanks for reading!

See also: Weapons Review

---

Where to Watch Wednesday Season 2?

Image by Netflix

You can stream all episodes of Wednesday Season 2 only on Netflix – all episodes of the first season can also be streamed on the platform. There’s no information regarding a release date for the series’ third season just yet, but we hope to see the Addams Family return to our screens sooner rather than later!

• ShareCopied to clipboard
• X
• Facebook