Following many years of comic strips, movies, and TV shows, The Addams Family has found its way to the world of prestige television with Wednesday, which earned four Emmy Awards and an additional eight nominations for its first season back in November 2022. Nearly three years later, the show returns for the first half of its second season, offering just a tease of the macabre mysteries that are set to continue in early September and then again for a recently-announced third season. Creative forces Alfred Gough and Miles Millar do tinker with character dynamics, storylines, and plot directions, but they’re well aware that the formula for season one worked enormously well and should be repeated again for future successes.
Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) is making the most of her psychic abilities, trying to figure out what it is that she’s seeing but disturbed that many of her visions end in the death of her well-meaning roommate Enid (Emma Myers). Returning to Nevermore, she learns she has a stalker and that someone with nefarious intentions has the ability to control birds, prompting her to continue to go around the official rules at every turn while navigating a rocky relationship with her mother Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who takes on a new role related to the school.
The events of the first season mean that many characters won’t be back, but there’s no shortage of new faces who help to populate this dark, twisted world, adding a little bit of color to arcs that aren’t necessarily front-and-center. They include new Nevermore faculty members Principal Dort (Steve Buscemi), Professor Orloff (Christopher Lloyd), and Isadora Capri (Billie Piper), as well as Dr. Rachel Fairburn (Thandiwe Newton), who works as chief psychiatrist at Willow Hill, where Wednesday’s old flame Tyler is currently imprisoned. There are additional familiar and new faces who, under much makeup, will delight audiences with their appearances, however minor and brief some may be.
Wednesday remains the same antisocial, diabolical creature she’s always been, telling Principal Dort that she doesn’t have FOMO but FOBI (fear of being included) when he checks in on her after she doesn’t seem eager to participate in a schoolwide activity. She cares for Enid but finds her deeply irritating as she explores new relationships in their shared dorm room. She does enjoy a warmer connection with her grandmother Hester Frump (Joanna Lumley) and enlists her help in her latest investigation when her mother refuses to help in the way she wants. It’s nice to see an expanded role for Zeta-Jones, and, to a lesser extent, Luis Guzmán as her husband Gomez, since the two of them are superbly-cast but, as the show’s title suggests, relegated to supporting status in the story of their onscreen daughter.
The lighting and visual effects on this show continue to deliver spectacularly, meaning that its aesthetic presentation is just as worthwhile and impressive as its plot. The many abilities of the Nevermore students, especially as manifested in a “Prank Day” which Wednesday apparently missed when she arrived at school in season one, are a wonder to behold, and they’re used frequently enough that they simply feel like a natural part of the storyline. Discovering that there are limitations to some students’ powers and few bounds to others is also a treat that’s rewarding on both a visual and story level.
Releasing anything other than an entire season at once is quite unusual for Netflix, but in this case, it’s a strong choice since it means that audiences can more fully appreciate the first four episodes of season two before returning just under a month later to experience the rest. Each hour is brimming with sardonic wit from Wednesday, impeccably portrayed by a fiercely committed Ortega, and a range of tones spanning from humorous to pitch-black, well worth watching one at a time rather than rushing through to more quickly reach the end. In this magical world, it’s hard to know who’s truly dead and possibly still alive, but as long as Wednesday is around, this show should remain essential viewing for anyone with even a passing interest in its delightfully twisted and morose premise.
Season Rating: 8/10
