In an age of streaming television that’s increasingly driven by the Almighty Algorithm, Wednesday is a program that feels especially created through committee; as if Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, and Tim Burton stitched a bunch of young adult novels, focus group notes, and trending topics together, struck them with electricity, and then forced the Frankenstein’s Monster to watch Burton’s filmography from the 2000s forward. This, curiously, isn’t necessarily a bad thing and it’s almost always at the least, entertaining. It’s just not the first thing that comes to mind with a modern adaptation of The Addams Family.
This is nothing new for anyone who saw the first season of Wednesday and, if anything, it’s helped weed out the skeptical fans who weren’t on board with this tonal chimera. Wednesday is a series that works, almost in spite of itself and largely because of Jenna Ortega’s beyond-committed performance. Wednesday Season 2, Part 1 is a more confident and daring improvement from its first season that takes advantage of the leeway that it’s been granted. That being said, it’s still not able to rid itself of its clumsiest habits, like a too-tight skin that it’s unable to shed from and evolve.
Wednesday’s first season engaged in an overarching mystery, but this element really gets amplified to great effect in season two. Wednesday is essentially turned into a psychic-powered Dexter Morgan-esque torturer of serial killers. It’s a gonzo pivot that appropriately matures the tween material up a little more and situates the series for a standout second season that seems to avoid the standard sophomore slump. It attempts to trim its fat and ditch what wasn’t working in favor of hard-boiled detective theatrics over a rogue, rowdy stalker and criminals, yet it can’t fully get out of its own way. There’s a very Jigsaw quality to Wednesday’s aggressor, which is certainly entertaining, even when it doesn’t always work. It builds to some very arch set-pieces, including a heightened sequence where a ceiling of nails descends and threatens to kill and crush the cast like it’s some Indiana Jones trap.
This season also features more personal stakes as Wednesday searches for answers behind the “black tears” that have begun to plague her when she taps into her newly-awakened psychic powers. While no one expects Wednesday to perish from these ailments, it’s still an effective driving force for the storytelling that’s more practical and has greater stakes than season one’s shenanigans. This superpower Outcast angle becomes even more prominent than it was in Wednesday’s first season. It just makes this all feel a little too much like some X-Men origin story, rather than a black horror-comedy. It becomes too uncomfortably close to Burton’s Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. This also prompts a greater focus on Wednesday’s cryptic Aunt Ophelia, her powers, and how they’re connected to Wednesday and what’s currently happening to her. It’s a decent angle to create tension, especially once it involves Wednesday’s efforts to prevent a psychic prophecy that involves Enid’s death from coming to fruition.
Wednesday Season 2: Part 1 finds a fun, fresh angle as Wednesday wrestles with her newfound popularity after saving Nevermore Academy from destruction back in season one. This is a playful development for someone like Wednesday who would rather stay out of the spotlight and live in the darkness. She has zero interest in chasing clout, her social standing, and why she’s suddenly Nevermore’s most interesting student. She has much bigger fish — and people — to fry. Wednesday remains one-of-a-kind, but this season showcases many more examples where she works as a team, helps others, and makes Outcasts feel like the majority. It’s a sweet change of pace for Wednesday that never gets too saccharine. Wednesday and company are given a lot of rope across these four episodes, including Prank Day and coming trips. The camping episode, which turns into Rambo by way of Harry Potter, is an entertaining change of pace that helps Wednesday take bigger risks. There’s even an episode that lovingly homages the heist genre in a particularly creative and complex mission that becomes the climax of these four entries.
Those who were put off by the rampant young adult energy of Wednesday’s first season will still have issues with these new episodes. Wednesday still feels like a CW show, but there are many more moments that do, in fact, feel like vintage Addams Family. They actually cause wonton mayhem and get a kick out of it, just as God intended. To this point, Wednesday’s sense of humor is also much stronger this season. There are frenetic cutaways that help the character develop a more eccentric sense of humor that works for the series and makes it feel like truly anything is possible in this heightened world. There’s even the opportunity for a fun riff on Silence of the Lambs as Wednesday pays a visit to Tyler Galpin (Hunter Doohan). This gives one of the first season’s biggest storylines some appreciated closure, while it also passes the baton over to more twisted ideas in season two.
To this point, Tim Burton directs half of these episodes and feels more keyed in and rejuvenated than ever. This season truly kills it with the production design, cinematography, and performances. Burton’s efforts this season indicate that he has a lot more gas in the tank here than he did in Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. There’s a phenomenal stopmotion campfire story in the season premiere that has so much personality and energy. It conjures vintage Burton in the best way possible. It’s not unexpected for these extra-special sequences to be more prevalent in Burton’s installments, but some of this magic is better than nothing. Despite how well they work, it’s still slightly awkward for these creative flourishes to only happen intermittently and like they’re a pre-ordered item on Burton’s checklist.
On a performance level, Jenna Ortega is even more comfortable and confident in this role. She makes it her own, but in the best way possible. Every single furtive glance and scowl that she gives are magic. There may not be any moments this season that match Wednesday’s iconic dance scene from the first season, but there’s a swordfight with Morticia in the woods that gets close. Wednesday may claim that she “doesn’t evolve, but cocoons,” yet she makes some major strides across the season’s first-half, even if she doesn’t want to admit it. There’s also more of the actual Addams family this season once Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez) begins to attend Nevermore Academy. It’s such a simple, logical shift, but one that brings so much to the table and completely changes Wednesday’s dynamic in a place where she finally feels like she’s back on solid ground.
Ordonez is solid as a foil for Ortega and never develops too much of a “younger sibling syndrome,” despite being a younger sibling who Wednesday needs to perpetually babysit. Pugsley’s awkward efforts to blend in at Caliban Hall and a lot of the YA dating woes defer to Pugsley, while Wednesday tackles more mature territory. This feels like a perfect compromise that allows Wednesday to tonally have its cake and eat it too, while Enid and Pugsley still manage to pull Wednesday back to more lighthearted antics whenever it’s appropriate. Morticia and Gomez take on more parental duties that are tangentially connected to Nevermore Academy — and by proxy their children — as they become more present (but not too present) this season. Luis Guzman also does some really strong work this season and loses himself in Gomez’s slimy machismo. Season two of Wednesday also doesn’t hold back with its guest stars, the likes of which include Thandie Newton, Billie Piper, Haley Joel Osment, and Steve Buscemi as Barry Dort, Nevermore’s new principal and the season’s surprise MVP.
Wednesday Season 2: Part 1 is very much more of Wednesday, for both better and for worse. Anyone who likes Season 1 will likely be satisfied with the direction of this new story and what it puts into motion. It’s hard to judge what’s ostensibly just the first half of this storyline, but there’s a strong foundation here that does culminate to a fitting cliffhanger conclusion that will leave the audience eager for Part 2 in September. Season 2: Part 1 is an incremental improvement to the first season, albeit with a slightly harder edge. It still suffers from many of the same issues that previously plagued it, some of which are even more pronounced when it comes to the series’ hit-or-miss supporting cast. Wednesday isn’t perfect, but at the end of the day, this is still a series where Steve Buscemi, as the principal of a supernatural academy, converses with the disembodied head of Christopher Lloyd. One can’t be too upset here.
Part 1 is now streaming on Netflix, with Part 2 arriving on September 3, 2025.
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