An expanded cast just leads to disconnected characters and plots

Netflix’s series Wednesday, a YA spin on the characters from Charles Addams’ Addams Family cartoons, was a smash hit when it debuted in 2022. After a week on the streaming service, the show had broken Stranger Things’ record as the platform’s most-watched English-language TV show. That success led to a much bigger second season, with the show becoming the largest production to ever film in Ireland. But the increased spectacle and expanded cast just leave the characters and plots feeling thin and disconnected in season 2’s first half, which dropped on Netflix a month ahead of the second half.

When misanthropic teenage psychic Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) returns to Nevermore Academy in the season 2 premiere, she’s horrified to learn that she’s become the most popular kid in school after saving Nevermore from destruction in season 1. While her friends, perky werewolf Enid Sinclair (Emma Myers) and nerdy bug controller Eugene Ottinger (Moosa Mostafa) are happy to bask in the attention they earned for their heroics, Wednesday does her best to persuade everyone they shouldn’t admire her. She’s laser-focused on solving season 2’s occult mystery: A murder of crows is committing murder, and Wednesday has a vision showing Enid will be their next victim.

That conflict could have provided an opportunity for character growth, but instead, everyone is siloed into their own plots. Eugene gets the worst deal, doing Wednesday a favor by becoming roommates with her younger brother Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez), and getting dragged into Pugsley’s awful scheme to keep a zombie (Owen Painter) as a pet. This plot is meant to reinforce the macabre nature of the Addams family, with Pugsley responding with dopey glee as the walking corpse he dubs Slurp projectile vomits on him and tries to eat Eugene’s brains. But it’s mostly just predictable, especially when the creature escapes twice in exactly the same way. Unfortunately, this storyline is also poised to be more significant in the back half of the season.

Photo: Jonathan Hession/Netflix

Wednesday was in a love triangle in season 1, but it’s Enid’s turn for romance in season 2. She returns to school more confident and carefree than ever, and decides she wants to ditch sweet-but-dim gorgon Ajax Petropolus (Georgie Farmer) in favor of fellow werewolf Bruno (Noah B. Taylor.) But while Enid is done with Ajax – who represents the old, awkward her – she still considers Wednesday her best friend. Wednesday clearly does care for Enid, making the classic mistake of trying to protect her by keeping her in the dark about the threat to her life. But now that Enid has a pack of friends of her own, it feels sad to watch her plead to be included in Wednesday’s mystery-solving.

Wednesday’s parents Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Gomez (Luis Guzmán) have a significantly expanded role this season, as they move into a house on the Nevermore campus to help with a big fundraiser at the behest of the school’s new principal, Barry Dort (Steve Buscemi.) Zeta-Jones particularly shines, whether she’s enjoying being showered with affection by one of the greatest wife guys in pop culture, or showing her exasperation as Wednesday attempts to shut her mom out of her life. A fencing duel between Wednesday and Morticia, featuring witty banter and slick choreography (and drawing on fencing scenes from the 1964 The Addams Family) is the visual and emotional highlight of season 2 part 1.

Buscemi skillfully plays the polar opposite of the aloof confidence Gwendoline Christie brought to the show as his Nevermore predecessor in season 1 — there’s a sweaty fervor to the way he tries to instill pride in his students. The Boardwalk Empire star is also great at transitioning from charm to menace as he threatens the siren Bianca Barclay (Joy Sunday) into using her powers to help him achieve his goals.

Photo: Helen Sloan/Netflix

Bianca’s attempts to school Wednesday in the nature of popularity offer some potential for a fresh dynamic between the two characters in season 2, but that plot is quickly cut short as Bianca tries to juggle pleasing Dort with protecting her mom, who’s been similarly manipulated by a cult leader. The latter plot is so disconnected from everything else happening this season, it just feels like Wednesday showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar threw it in as another example of the complicated relationship between mothers and daughters. That theme is also reflected in the strained relationship between Morticia and her own mother, the wealthy mortuary operator Hester Frump (Joanna Lumley), in a plot that feels equally underbaked.

There are even more new characters who add to the feeling of the show being stretched far too thin and the cast being padded with big names to provide plenty of suspects for Wednesday’s investigation into who’s controlling the birds. Christopher Lloyd is a distracting head in a jar. Westworld star Thandiwe Newton is a psychiatrist trying to rehabilitate Wednesday’s monstrous ex-boyfriend Tyler Galpin (Hunter Doohan.) Doctor Who’s Billie Piper makes a dramatic entrance, critiquing Wednesday’s cello-playing as new music teacher Isadora Capri, but then doesn’t do anything for the rest of the first half of the season except encourage Wednesday to join a band and play The Cranberries’ “Zombie” during a zombie attack.

The new addition that fits the best is Agnes DeMille (Evie Templeton), a Nevermore student who goes to outlandish lengths to join Wednesday’s inner circle. Sporting pigtails that match Wednesday’s and a sweetly manic off-putting disposition that contrasts nicely with Ortega’s deadpan, Agnes is hilariously smug as she declares her intention to take on Wednesday’s low-priority tasks, like keeping Pugsley alive. Agnes makes a strong rival for Enid, but I would have liked to see the werewolf push back more against the fact that Wednesday seems to be just as happy to accept help from a sycophant as her best friend.

Photo: Helen Sloan/Netflix

Season 2’s production values are impressive, but the spectacle tends to get in the way of character development. A school camping trip provides a few moments for some of these conflicts to come to a head, but it’s dominated by a clash with a scouting group that’s one big summer-camp-movie cliché. Nevermore grew a whole new group of students called Da Vincis — telekineticists seemingly capable of building anything on the fly — but the biggest thing they put together is a flying burning bird that basically replicates a scene from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

There are some visuals that add to the kooky and spooky atmosphere, like the ludicrous glamping tent the Addams Family brings to chaperone the class outing, and a two-minute animated visualization of a ghost story Ajax tells on the first night of school that’s directed by Tim Burton. But there’s nothing in this half of season 2 to capture the quirky fun of Wednesday’s season 1 dance scene. Ortega, who choreographed that scene, became a producer for season 2, but her expanded role doesn’t seem to have really improved the writing she complained about, changed, and was pilloried over. Maybe things will improve in the back half of the season, or the already announced season 3. But for now, Wednesday the character and Wednesday the show both seem to be struggling with the weight of their popularity.

Episodes 1-4 of Wednesday season 2 are available to stream on Netflix. The second half of the season will be released on Sept. 3