On September 3, Netflix rolled out the second part of the second season of one of its flagship series, “Wednesday”. This means that it’s time to summarize how the sequel to the acclaimed show turned out and whether it has lost its gothic charm compared to the first season. All the details, as always, are in the review.
Pluses:
an expressive, beautifully designed setting — here again, everything is top-notch, from costumes and makeup to sets and music; I would like to highlight Timberton's trademark animation, which is also present; Jenna Ortega seems to have been born for this role; all in all, a lighthearted entertainment show that will distract from a much darker reality;
Minuses:
plot-wise and character-wise, one should hardly hope for any surprises; at some point it may seem that there are too many storylines and characters; despite the bright wrapper and levity, the series has enough room for boredom;
“Wednesday”
Genre detective, gothic fantasy, horror, comedy
Directors Tim Burton, Paco Cabezas, Angela Robinson
Starring Jenna Ortega, Luis Guzman, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Emma Myers, Joy Sunday, Steve Buscemi, Thandie Newton, Billie Piper, Lady Gaga, Christina Ricci, Fred Armisen, Haley Joel Osment, Christopher Lloyd
Premiere Netflix
Year of release 2025
Website IMDb
After a summer vacation, Wednesday Addams returns to Nevermore and discovers, to her irritation, that she has become a local star: she has her own personal groupies. In the neo-Gothic academy, the sarcastic little rebel is greeted with the smile of actor Steve Buscemi by the new headmaster, Barry Dort, who has replaced his deceased predecessor, Larissa Weems.
This eccentric uncle, it turns out, has his own plans for the Addams family, but for now, Wednesday doesn’t care, as she is once again faced with a string of mysterious murders and yet another puppeteer pulling the strings. As she throws herself into a new investigation and sees the death of her friend Enid, albeit only in a vision, her socially maladjusted brother Pugsley inadvertently brings a zombie to life. This layers its effects on the already tense atmosphere in and around Nevermore.
The first season of Netflix’s Wednesday triumphantly swept through streaming with a steady march of a big hit with viewing records and a wave of TikTok shares, which is better marketing than any official promotional campaign. If you were among those non-conformists who did not watch Wednesday, you have definitely seen the main character’s bizarre viral dance or at least heard about the hype adventures of a gloomy girl with cute pigtails.
Even though this dance was extremely incendiary, it was performed on the bones of content that had completely given way to form, and on the coffin of an ephemerally murderous seriousness (at least murder is murder) that had completely lost out to adolescent frivolity.
But the thing about Wednesday is that it didn’t become a problem. Now the show’s creators are facing a powerful challenge, because it’s one thing to climb to the top, and quite another to stay there. And this, we must admit, is an extremely difficult task — just think of the flood of hate that poured into second season “The Last of Us”. Now we can say for sure that Tim Burton and company, albeit with certain reservations, have managed to keep the bar set.
In essence, the second season is the same chewing gum, but with a bright flavor, and this flavor is not lost during the chewing process. There is little (if any) benefit from such consumption, but it has its own undeniably pleasant nuances. In some places, the authors added plot branches; in others they shifted the emphasis (for example, they paid more attention to the difficult relationship between Wednesday and her mother Morticia), but in general they repeat the formula and expressive style of their famous predecessor. “You’re too much Wednesday,” Edith tells her friend in one scene, and these words perfectly characterize the sequel.
That is, it’s the same steadfast Veronica Mars in a gothic setting again. A kind of streaming harripotteriana. Investigations into perfectly matched locations/decorations/costumes and colors in the frame, supported by perfectly thought-out mise-en-scene and world-famous hits (the piano version of Zombie by The Cranberries sounds great). Plus, Jenna Ortega’s permanently pouty cheeks, as only she knows how to puff them up, are complemented by the eyes of the one who burns with her eyes. Of course, the 22-year-old starlet seemed to have been born for this role.
The good thing is that the authors gave Jenny room for a short-term change of role — you have definitely never seen such a bright Wednesday in every sense!
As for the other protagonists, they hardly go beyond the archetypal images of classic genre stories or superheroes, and that’s all that’s required here.
Even outcasts have truly superheroic abilities. For example, Pugsley, or one of the show’s best characters, Uncle Fester, can shoot electric currents, following the example of Dr. Doom. There’s an invisible girl, like Sue Storm. There is our version of the Human Torch. A little more, and the frame will gather a full-fledged The Fantastic Four.
There was also a place in the story for the real walking dead with a mechanical heart ala Hellboy-Del Toro Nazi Karl Ruprecht Kronen and for the symbolic Christopher Lloyd, who played Uncle Fester in two of Barry Sonnenfeld’s Addams Family films. Even for the origin story of the Thing — in this context, the hand has perhaps the most interesting character storyline. It hasn’t gone anywhere, and, not at Jason Statham be it said, the local beekeeper, and even Lady Gaga received his moment of glory (a completely useless cameo, but it will happen).
And, of course, there was one more dance with an eye on virality to Lady Gaga’s The Dead Dance, but let’s be honest, what Ortega did on the dance floor almost three years ago cannot be surpassed a priori.
All in all, it’s a worthy successor to the first season, offering virtually the same thing, only under the motto “faster, higher, stronger.” If your inner teenager rejoiced then, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t happen now. The third season it was announced even before the second one came out, so it’s probably no wonder Gaga sang I’m dancin’ until I’m dead.
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