Wednesday season two lands with a thudding disappointment

Wednesday is a victim of its own success.

The Addams Family show was an absolute phenomenon when it was released in November 2022. There was something about its macabre playfulness that really caught on, propelling it to become Netflix’s most watched English-language original series, a record it still holds.

There was that viral dance clip, which really was witchy and fantastic, and the overall look of its production design, while generically Halloweeny, was still exuberant in a way that hit with a one-year post-pandemic audience who wanted over-the-top experiences.

It had all been kind of done before, but it had been a while, and younger generations unfamiliar with Tim Burton’s previous work (he directed the first four episodes of season one), thought it was novel and fresh.

To be completely fair, Jenna Ortega was a revelation in that role. Wednesday Addams is the “straight man” in a family of kooks and her deadpan vibe usually only works in contrast to everyone else’s hijinks.

So, as the lead, it’s a really difficult thing to sustain when it’s reversed and you’re not the supporting counter to balance out the high spirits. That Ortega did, and excelled, in making dynamic that character, and giving her layers of vulnerability beneath the assuredness, was remarkable.

It was literally remarked on, as the first thing about why Wednesday became such a big deal.

But the show was merely kind of good, not amazing – and because you binge it over a couple of days, it bludgeons you into submission and you don’t have time to stop to realise that the plotting was naff, most of the characters forgettable (quick, name a non-Addams that wasn’t Enid), many of the performances ordinary and the whole enterprise pretty mid, if not for Ortega.

Which would’ve all been fine if it hadn’t lit up the culture and triggered outsized fandom, endless merchandise, live experiences, copycat costumes, TikTok videos and the memes. Oh, all those memes!

Now Wednesday has this aura of success, and with that, expectations. For most people who likely hasn’t rewatched the series in the past almost-three years, all that remained was this general feeling of “oh, that was such a huge thing, it was pretty good, right?”.

Season two, the first four episodes of which debut tonight with the rest to follow on September 3, lands with a thudding disappointment.

Without the brain-fog of fan fever, season two is revealed as mediocre and silly – and not silly in a fun, goofy way. Silly in an are-we-still-doing-this way. What seemed like a novelty now seems tired as the show fails to evolve, serving up more of the same.

It’s as if the filmmakers drank their own Kool-Aid, and didn’t want to alienate fans by trying something different. At one point, a character even says the actual words, “Wednesday-core” in reference to Wednesday’s popularity in-universe after saving her school Nevermore. It was so cringe.

The story picks up after the summer break for a new term at the gothic academy. Wednesday is the centre of attention, her least favourite place, and is even more perturbed with the near-constant presence of her family.

Pugsly (Isaac Ordonez) is now a student, while other plot contrivances put Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Gomez (Luis Guzman) nearby, and we also get to meet Wednesday’s grandmother (a brilliant Joanna Lumley).

Newcomers also include Steve Buscemi as the conniving Principal Dort, Billie Piper as the music director, and Christopher Lloyd (who played Uncle Fester in the 1990s Barry Sonnenfeld movies) as a teacher.

There’s a new mystery to be unravelled when two townsfolk are murdered in gruesome ways, which connects to the nearby asylum, run by administrator Judi (Heather Matarazzo) and Dr Fairburn (Thandiwe Newton).

Look, when it comes to casting, Wednesday is hefty, drawing in big names you’re excited to see, but if only they had been given more interesting notes to play.

It also brought back Hunter Doohan’s Tyler/Hyde, who is now locked up at Willow Hill, and it is a tedious plot point and character to revisit. The series would’ve been far more interesting if it wasn’t so married to the season one story and allowed Wednesday to pursue a new completely new case.

Wednesday is a collection of things chosen to appeal to audiences – an on the nose orchestral cover of The Cranberries’ Zombie (in a show with a zombie, whodathunkit), deadpan quips, monster morphs – but it doesn’t add up to enough.

Ortega is still wonderful, but now that we’ve seen it before, it’s less of a wow factor, unless the second half of the season gives her somewhere new to go.

Wednesday has little depth, either visually or thematically, and even less soul.

Wednesday is streaming on Netflix