AtanariaAfter a hiatus so long one might have presumed the cast were laid in state, Wednesday has crept back onto Netflix with the first half of its second season. Four episodes are all we are permitted to consume before the coffin lid slams shut until September 3, when the remaining four will be exhumed for our viewing pleasure. It is a tease worthy of Miss Addams herself.
A Summer of Psychic Arts and Serial Hunting
When last we left her, Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega, clearly embalmed for this role) had vanquished a Hyde, unmasked a treacherous teacher, and received a stalker’s text message—an overture that, to her, must have felt like a bouquet of roses. Season 2 opens with a flashback to her summer holiday, in which she honed her psychic gifts and pursued serial killers for sport. A cameo from Haley Joel Osment adorns this opener like a bat on a belfry—unexpected, amusing, and perfectly macabre.
Yet once she returns to Nevermore Academy, the tempo slows to something between a dirge and a shuffle. Her unwanted hero status attracts sycophants, rivals, and new familial intrusions—Morticia, Gomez, Pugsley, and the ever-glorious Uncle Fester, whose antics are vastly improved this season thanks to Fred Armisen’s twitchy, wide-eyed menace.
New Faces, Old Shadows
A fresh crop of eccentrics haunts the halls: Steve Buscemi’s eerie headmaster Barry Dort, Evie Templeton’s unsettling Agnes DeMille (perhaps Wednesday’s spiritual twin), Christopher Lloyd as a preserved head in a jar, and Joanna Lumley as Granny Hester Frump, one of the few beings Wednesday greets with something dangerously akin to joy.
And lest we forget, the lurking mystery: Wednesday has foreseen her dear Enid’s grisly demise, yet lost her psychic powers immediately thereafter. She must now rely on mortal sleuthing to avert her friend’s fate—though this budding sentiment is a shade she would never willingly admit to wearing.
A Mystery that Forgets It’s a Mystery
The season attempts to drape itself in Holmesian intrigue, yet often snatches away the veil before we have time to peer through it. Clues are too readily offered, suspects too swiftly confirmed or dismissed. The result is less a labyrinthine puzzle than a brisk walk through a haunted garden with clearly labelled tombstones.
This narrative haste is compounded by the split-season curse. With only four episodes, the series crams in enough subplots to fill a family crypt: stalkers, zombies, family feuds, new romances, and the eternal struggle between “outcasts” and “normies.” Each is intriguing, yet few are granted the oxygen to thrive before the mid-season cliffhanger—one that lands with a muffled thump rather than a bone-rattling crash.
Still a Dark Delight
For all its pacing woes, Wednesday remains an exquisitely adorned mausoleum of mordant humour, sly performances, and gothic atmosphere. Ortega continues to inhabit her role with the precision of a finely tuned guillotine. Buscemi, Lumley, and Armisen steal their respective scenes, and the production drips with shadowed beauty.
Season 2, Part 1 may be but half a feast, but it leaves us sated enough to endure the interlude—while craving the second course. Come September, we shall see whether Wednesday’s coffin opens to reveal a true resurrection… or simply more delicious decay.
