A Murder of Yawns

I want to start this review by stating that I originally had no intention of reviewing the second season of Wednesday. It’s been three years (give or take) since the first season came out and while the buzz for the show hasn’t really died down, with people still talking online about how much they loved the first season (not me, as I hated it, but still… people), that’s also a long gap between seasons that feels absolutely unnecessary. Call it a problem with the NetflixOriginally started as a disc-by-mail service, Netflix has grown to be one of the largest media companies in the world (and one of the most valued internet companies as well). With a constant slate of new internet streaming-based programming that updates all the time, Netflix has redefined what it means to watch TV and films (as well as how to do it). streaming model where flashy, expensive seasons are released years apart so the company behind them can recoup costs first… except Netflix now has ads as well to help it recoup costs, so this just feels like a flaw baked into the system… and I’ve gotten off track.

I wasn’t going to review the second season of Wednesday because, as I stated in my review of the first season, I didn’t like the show. I have high praise for Jenna Ortega, who does a phenomenal job as the show’s titular main character, but the fact is that this is a poor Addams Family series as well as a pretty boring teen fantasy drama. I really didn’t expect my opinion on the matter to change, and three years was more than enough time to wander away and assume everything that needed to be said had been said.

Except, now reviewers are coming out saying the second season is bad and, well, I just had to know. I’m not much for hate watching something everyone else loves, but when I can turn up for a cinematic train wreck, I absolutely want to be there (and I do have my eyes on that 2025 War of the Worlds, so we’ll see). I had to know if this first half of the second season (because Netflix loves to do these weird partial drops of episodes) was as bad as everyone said, and with it being only four episodes, I knew I could bang that out relatively painlessly. So I did, folding laundry while I let this show play and… yeah, it’s not very good. It’s not as bad as everyone said, it’s just that the second season is as disappointingly bland and uncreative as the first.

The series sees Wednesday Addams (Ortega) heading back to school for her second year at Nevermore Academy, a school for “outcasts” – those in human society who have special powers, magical abilities, or are preternatural creatures. Wednesday, like most of the people in her family, is a good fit for the school since she’s psychic, as well as more than a little psychotic, and she found some level of comfort at the school the previous year. She isn’t exactly looking forward to going back to school, as she rarely looks forward to anything, but she at least knew what to expect there.

Except things are strange this time around (stranger than last time). After helping to solve the preternatural murders the previous year, Wednesday and her friends – werewolf Enid Sinclair (Emma Myers) and insect speaker Eugene Ottinger (Moosa Mostafa) – are hailed as heroes of the school, popular among one and all. Wednesday doesn’t want to be popular, she just wants to be left alone, and she starts to act out to get people to go away (a plan which doesn’t work). Meanwhile her mother, Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones), has been brought to the school to act as its fundraising director, which also means her father, Gomez (Luis Guzmán), is lurking around as well. Plus, Wednesday’s brother, Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez), is now enrolled in the school and Wednesday has to watch out for him as well. All of this while ravens start appearing around the campus, killing people while they stalk Wednesday. It’s all too much for a second year, but just another busy time for Wednesday Addams.

So that we’re clear, this first half of this second season is an absolute mess. One would think that with one season already under its belt the show could settle in and focus on the stories that need telling. Specifically fans of the show likely expected that Wednesday and Enid would go out and fight crime, like a dour (Wednesday) yet perky (Enid) version of the Mystery Machine team, while some Dean of Students or another looked down on them and wished that Wednesday got her shit together. But no, this show can’t just do that. It has to do everything.

In a span of four episodes we have Wednesday stalk a serial killer, lose control of her psychic powers, get stalked by an invisible creature, also get stalked by someone with control of birds, deal with the new principal for the school, Barry Dort (Steve Buscemi), dealing with her mother who also has to work with the dean, all while every other side character also gets their own plotlines, complications, and misfortunes. That would be a lot for any season of television, but for some reason Wednesday decides to cram all that into four hours while not really resolving any of it.

Well, okay, we do resolve one of the storylines which, weirdly, is also the primary storyline of the season: who is the person stalking Wednesday with birds. Except this plotline is also terrible. The person controlling the birds (I think they call them an Avian but I can’t find it online) is killing people that get too close to the case, but then they decide to stalk Wednesday, luring her into the matter. Regardless of who turns out to be the bad guy, this is already a really stupid plan since Wednesday wouldn’t bother getting involved if her life wasn’t in danger. She has people she cares about (in her own way) but the first two people killed were generally outside her frame of caring so she’d eventually shrug it off and move on, more than likely.

But the series doesn’t let her do that. It keeps the villain coming after her so that Wednesday has to get invested because, it’s pretty clear, Wednesday would be perfectly happy to ignore everyone and work on her novel if the world would just leave her alone. I understand and respect that philosophy, but it doesn’t make for a very compelling main character. Ortega is great in the role, and she makes Wednesday very watchable, but it’s clear that the character doesn’t want to do any of the crap she’s doing and she’s only there because the story demands it.

This doesn’t even get into the fact that the reason for the villain existing in the series is tenuous at best, and (without spoiling anything major) you’ll likely go, “who?” when the villain is finally revealed anyway. That’s just more fodder for this crap series, really.

I think that’s why so many other characters and plotlines are introduced this season. Do we really have to care if Morticia is able to make peace with her mother and get a big donation for the school? Not really. How the school finances itself isn’t really of consequence to Wednesday or the viewers as it doesn’t really affect our understanding of the main story or the characters at the center of it all. Similarly Pugsley accidentally reanimates a zombie and befriends it, which has little bearing on the series because there’s just no story there. It doesn’t affect the main plot, and it barely does anything to inform us about Pugsley’s character, other than that he’s a weird little dude (which we already knew). It’s all just filler to waste time during an otherwise threadbare plot that can barely stretch itself to four episodes.

And this doesn’t even get into the fact that the show is soddily made from start to finish. It lacks the cinematic filming of the first season, substitutes obvious pop culture needle drops for real score, and wastes the time of so many talented actors who are clearly there just to get a paycheck. All to tell a half-baked murder mystery against the backdrop of a third-rate wannabe Hogwarts. Nothing in this show, across the four episodes we have so far, feels fresh or interesting… but then it is Wednesday, and the first season was already awful, so none of this should be a surprise.

The whole reason I could get through these four episodes is because Jenna Ortega is amazing in the lead role. That clearly isn’t going to change, and I honestly have to admit I’d show up for her performance in further episodes if I really have to (which, likely, I will since this show doesn’t seem to be going anywhere). The fact is, though, that Ortega is squandered in this series just like everyone else. I can only imagine how good she’d be in a film at the level of the 1990s Addams Family movies. Those were great. Wednesday is not. Ortega, Zeta-Jones, and everyone else on this show deserves so much better.