Cast: Jenna Ortega, Steve Buscemi, Billie Piper, Isaac Ordonez, Luis Guzmán, and Catherine Zeta-Jones
Director: Tim Burton
Rating: ★★★
Netflix has long tested audiences' patience by dropping the second seasons of its biggest shows two or three years after the first. It is probably a marketing strategy to hold subscribers, but one that has irked fans for years. Over time, it has also meant that many good shows hardly ever return to be that good in subsequent seasons. The passage of time sucks the momentum out of them. Wednesday bucks the trend. Season 2 of the young adult thriller released this week, almost three years after the inaugural season. Yet, it feels the show never left our screens. It picks up just a few months after where it left us and eases back into our consciousness quite beautifully. Not to say there aren't faults, but Wednesday Addams' sophomore outing is just as delightful as her freshman year.
Wednesday season 2 review: Jenna Ortega is back in this Addams Family spinoff.
What's happening on the new season?
We meet Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) as she is hunting serial killers using her psychic abilities in her free time, as any teenage girl does. During the school break, she suffered a setback. Her novel has no takers. Pugsley, her brother, has also enrolled in Nevermore, and her parents are around too, much to her chagrin. Weems' successor, Barry Dort (Steve Buscemi), is in awe of Wednesday's celeb status in the school now, but the youngster has a new tormentor/stalker, whom she must battle.
What's changed?
If season 1 oscillated between dark comedy and general darkness, season 2 dilutes the comedy a little. It is more macabre, and Jenna is visibly gloomier. Wednesday hates that she is a celebrity, having saved the school. And this goth Harry Potter version of her gets as acidic and nihilistic as one can be. Yet, it never gets repetitive. Jenna Ortega puts up another fine performance, cementing not only her place as one of the better young actors of this time but also ensuring that Wednesday does not fade to become a fluke hit.
Wednesday season 2 grows as its protagonist has. It gets more adult than young adult, but without losing its teenage flavour. The problems and issues are all very teen, but the lens with which they have been presented is a bit more mature. But all that is done without alienating the viewer base. The path to that is that the viewer spends more time with the other Addams, apart from Wednesday. The entire family is at Nevermore this year, and we get to see more of Pugsley, and very thankfully, more of the parents (Luis Guzmán and Catherine Zeta-Jones' delightful chemistry is what I live for).
The show goes more Addams Family than Wednesday this time around, as everyone gets an arc, taking some load off of Jenna Ortega's shoulders. Steve Buscemi is a pleasant addition to the cast as the new principal of Nevermore, but seems trapped in a character that truly did not need an actor of his calibre.
Where Wednesday season 2 lacks is its ability to surprise. Season 1 threw several twists and turns our way in a crisp psychic whodunnit. But season 2 is looser than that, and lets go off the reins very quickly. It does not quite derail, but threatens to take you on a bumpy ride every so often. That crispness is missing from the narrative.
Fortunately, even though the first four episodes of Wednesday, season 2, are immensely memeable, it is clear that the creators did not deliberately attempt to create any pop culture viral hits. There is no effort to recreate that viral dance from season 1 or infuse any annoying fourth-wall-breaking moments that do not seem organic. The show still gives the same visual delight that Tim Burton, the director, always has. And that elevates it beyond just above average.
Wednesday season 2 is a worthy follow-up to a fun watch. It smartly blends humour with the grotesque and the paranormal. Most importantly, it remains a rare show that understands the derision teenagers have for life, love, and everything in between.
Abhimanyu Mathur is Deputy Editor, Entertainment at Hindustan Times. With almost 15 years of experience in writing about everything from films and TV shows to cricket matches and elections, he inhales and exhales pop culture and news. Currently, he watches movies and TV shows and talks to celebrities for a living, while occasionally writing about them as well.
A journalism graduate of Delhi College of Arts and Commerce, Delhi University, Abhimanyu began his career with Hindustan Times at the age of 20, swapping classrooms for newsrooms at an early age. He began his journey in the early days of digital journalism, later switching to the madness of print journalism.
Work has led him to far off places like Japan and Jordan, as well as to the interiors of Haryana and the Indo-Pak border. He dabbled in city reporting in places like Meerut, Gurgaon, and Delhi, covered the Olympics and Cricket World Cups, before finding his calling in entertainment and lifestyle during the pandemic. A Rotten Tomatoes Certified Film Critic, he is equally at home covering stories on ground as he is interviewing celebrities and studios, and sometimes prefers to shepherd teams in delivering traffic through the day.
Even as his role has evolved from reporter to supervisor over the years, his first love remains writing (and of late, talking on camera). With a good understanding of cinema and its trends, and a keen eye for detail, he continues to spark conversations around showbiz for readers around the world.Read More
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