Now on Netflix: Gwendoline Christie Returns as Principal Weems in Wednesday Season 2 — And She’s Not the Same

She’s back at Nevermore Academy, but this is no ordinary homecoming. With secrets in her shadow and a transformation that has fans buzzing, Principal Weems is about to change Wednesday’s world forever.

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Prinicpal Larissa Weems returns to Nevermore Academy as we’ve never seen her before.

A beloved character is coming back from the dead in the second part of Wednesday Season 2 — and no, not as a zombie.

The last time we saw former Nevermore Academy Principal Larissa Weems (Gwendoline Christie), she was foaming at the mouth, dying a painful death after being poisoned by Marilyn Thornhill (Christina Ricci). The trailer for the second half of Wednesday Season 2 reveals that Weems will be returning in all her resplendent, impeccably dressed glory — in the form of Wednesday’s new spirit guide. “Surprise!” Weems purrs in the trailer. Consider us gagged.

“I was so thrilled to come back and work again with this wonderful cast and the magnificent Jenna Ortega and the rest of our brilliant cast,” Christie tells Tudum. “I felt like I was returning to a group of friends who are all at the top of their game. It is such a pleasure for me to be a part of this emotional world, this imaginative world, and play the character of Larissa Weems, who I truly adore and really thought a lot about bringing into being.”

Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams in Wednesday Season 2, Part 2.

PHOTO BY BERNARD WALSH

Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) hasn’t had a spirit guide since she lost access to her former spectral adviser Goody Addams (also played by Ortega) at the end of Season 1. Our prickly protagonist isn’t the type of admit she needs help, but clearly, after the events of the Season 2, Part 1 finale, which left her in a coma, she can use all the counsel she can get. As you can see in the trailer, Wednesday will have to face down the beastly Tyler Galpin (Hunter Doohan), figure out why her powers are suddenly glitching, and continue to deal with the presence of her mother, Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) on the Nevermore campus. So it’s a welcome sight — for the audience, at least — to see Weems’s glowing face the moment Wednesday opens her eyes.

“When we got into the writers room, we were determined to bring Gwen back,” says co-creator and showrunner Miles Millar. “The audience has fallen in love with the Wednesday–Weems relationship … so we’re bringing her back in the second half of the season in a very special way that is as confrontational as it is delicious.” Co-creator and showrunner Alfred Gough adds, “Nobody in our world is truly dead dead.” So does that mean Weems is alive?

Not exactly. As Christie explains it, “A spirit guide is someone who provides spiritual guidance, and Weems has been pulled — from whatever dimension her soul has been floating in — back into being as Wednesday’s spirit guide.” In the trailer, Enid (Emma Myers) can’t even see Weems, who reveals herself only to Wednesday.

Gwendoline Christie as Larissa Weems and Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams in Wednesday Season 1.

PHOTO BY VLAD CIOPLEA

The theme of the in-between state of death and rebirth informed every part of Christie’s performance, down to her wardrobe, created by co-costume designer Colleen Atwood. “I’ve always said that Weems is my perception of a Hitchcock woman, which is something I’ve been obsessed with my entire life,” Christie says. “Whereas we were largely inspired by Hitchcock’s The Birds in Season 1, Season 2 is more in a place of Vertigo. A quote from the film is, ‘Do you believe that someone out of the past — someone dead — can enter and take possession of a living being?’ ” Christie was hoping for a suit reminiscent of the one Kim Novak’s character wears in Vertigo, and sure enough, the Oscar-, Emmy-, and BAFTA-winning Atwood, who Christie calls a “genius,” was on the same page. “Of course, Colleen had subliminally created this extraordinary suit I’m wearing this season, but it’s in much more of a beige-gold tone. So we see something ethereal, otherworldly, maybe heavenly. Weems’s red lipstick is gone because perhaps she’s more vulnerable now, and her hair is less va-va-voom and hardcore glamorous. Instead, it’s a little bit more refined and pulled back because there’s a lot of sorrow involved in being dead, as thrilling as it is to be given this breath of second life.”

You can breathe in Weems’s spirit when Wednesday Season 2, Part 2 haunts Netflix on Sept. 3. Part 1 is streaming now.

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