Out here in the real world, it’s been nearly three years since the first season of Wednesday came out — and what a three years it has been for Jenna Ortega, formerly known to readers of my You-caps as the balcony sprite and now known to all the world as a true cinema freak, a slasher/lover of Sabrina Carpenter, and reportedly one of the key players behind the scenes of this series keeping things even remotely on the narrative rails. In Netflix time, it’s been exactly one summer. I look forward to watching the students of Nevermore age in the tradition of the Stranger Things children; the showrunners have said they want seven (!) seasons of this series. For now, Ortega is 22 to Wednesday’s 16, which is hardly the most offensive age-time warp we’ve seen on streaming. That said, on the subject of offensive timing, this episode is one hour long, so let’s get into it.
Wednesday spent her summer getting a grip on those psychic powers, which we were warned would be the death of her but have actually caused her literally zero problems so far. The most interesting possibility they offered — that we would get to watch Wednesday learn to control them — has, evidently, taken place offscreen. A choice! But after using these abilities to locate and take down the Kansas City Scalper, who is played by Haley Joel Osment and whose whole deal is very Pretty Little Liars — he keeps the girls he kidnapped in a basement surrounded by creepy dolls whose hair is made of the real hair of previous victims — she starts to cry black tears when trying to use her superpowers. She does not tell anyone about that, especially not her mom.
I am feeling vindicated on at least one front: You may recall some confusion last season about where, geographically, our series was taking place. Nevermore is in Vermont — Jericho is a real place there: Who knew?! — but I believe we can confirm that Wednesday must live in the real Addams family mansion (location: Westfield, New Jersey) because to get to Kansas City, she flies out of Newark airport, where she horrifies TSA agents with her attempt to bring an arsenal of old-timey weaponry and a 3.6-ounce bottle of sunscreen onto the plane.
After two years (of Netflix time; her labors predate the series), Wednesday has finished her novel about Viper, the teen detective. She refuses to show her draft to her mother. So relatable! I TOO have devoted years of my life to a novel. (If you’re wondering, When do we get to read it? The answer is … next year!!!!!)
It’s back-to-school time, and the Addams family is driving, presumably to avoid TSA hassles over Thing’s sunscreen. Baby brother Pugsley will be attending Nevermore, too, and he’s also been honing his abilities: He can generate electricity in his hands and zap stuff like his Uncle Fester. Fun! I don’t really get their dynamic here because last season wasn’t Wednesday Pugsley’s knight in shining pigtail braids? In fact, defending Pugsley is what got her expelled from Nancy Reagan High School when our series began! Not saying she’d want to spend all her time with him, but the idea that she wouldn’t swear some sort of oath to destroy anyone who hurt him feels extremely out of character. Wednesday has other plans for the school year: to bend Nevermore to her will. Her mother warns her that “control is often an illusion.”
Also driving up to Jericho: a “slay-at-home mom” meeting a hot date who is playing Sixpence None the Richer by a Champagne set for two and is being photographed by a man we’ll learn is Carl Bradbury, a local private investigator. A bunch of haunted crows spy on the spy and attack him to death. With his last breath, Carl assures someone, by phone, that “the evidence” is safe.
Perhaps to make the Jersey girl in me more comfortable with the fact that our show is not actually taking place in my home state, the new principal, Barry Dort, is played by Steve “How Do You Do, Fellow Kids?” Buscemi, director of one of the greatest and Jersey-est episodes of television of all time. He’s delighted to see Wednesday, savior of the school, and so are all her classmates, who treat her like a celebrity. One of her superfans is this redheaded girl who is even styling her hair just like Wednesday’s. It’s very Single White Female; I am keeping an eye on her. We get a little (intentionally?) funny meta moment when Wednesday asks, “Why does anyone still care?” about her rescuing everybody from that pilgrim-demon, just given that for everyone playing along at home, that rescue took place in 2022 for us.
Barry Dort dreams of returning Nevermore to its glory days (first Bruce reference of the episode, and not the last!), which I imagine means letting the “Outcasts” (I’m sorry but I just can’t get onboard with that being their official name? For themselves??) run wild and probably subjugate all the “Normies” (again, this is allegedly the formal nomenclature) with their loosely identified powers. First order of business is a big ol’ bonfire tomorrow night.
Wednesday reunites with Enid, who is part of the pack now that she’s fully wolfed out. The pack includes Bruno, who is smitten with Enid, despite her technically still being entangled with Ajax, the Gorgon. Enid has big joiner dreams for the year: to secure her place in the pack, to join the Nightshades (that secret society that does not seem to be even remotely secret and never does anything cool, sorry!), and to be dance captain. Meanwhile, the publisher to whom Wednesday submitted her novel had the audacity to give her notes. She refuses to change a single word. Well, there’s always self-publishing!
Ajax wants to see his girl, but Enid is avoiding him. She’s changed so much! Are they still a good match? (Loved the moment of Wednesday only touching Ajax’s fluffy pink unicorn by the very tip of its horn.) Before Enid can really get into her boy problems, Wednesday is ATTACKED by a booby-trapped bow and arrow, accompanied by a threat: Someone is “still watching” her. (Again this feels like an unintentional dig at the idea of all of us still watching this show … or am I imagining things?) Her psychic abilities won’t show her who this stalker is. But they do make those black tears stream down her face.
Pugsley’s roommate is Eugene, of beekeeping fame. Given Eugene’s precarious social status, I guess it makes sense that he doesn’t want to be dragged down by a dud. But WHY is Pugs a dud?! His sister is the most popular girl in school! He can electrocute things with his palms! He is hardly a freakier freak than the rest of the freaks in this freakfest! MAKE IT MAKE SENSE. Anyway, their RA is Ajax and their hall is called Caliban; do with that reference what you will.
We learn that Xavier has been pulled from Nevermore and will be attending school in Switzerland, for those of you wondering how the Percy Hynes White situation would be handled. The gardener’s cottage, decorated in psychotic shades of pink, is vacant now that Thornhill (Christina Ricci) is in prison. Should Morticia accept Principal Dort’s invitation to chair the Gala Fundraising Committee, she and Gomez could consider it their “home away from home.”
We get some exposition dump between Morticia and Wednesday re: Goody being gone meaning Wednesday has no spirit guide (another thing from last season that went nowhere; “Goody” was Jenna Ortega in a terrible wig and did not do much spiritual guiding!). Morticia would love to help her daughter, despite being a “dove” to Wednesday’s “raven.” Again I must say there are too many categories around here and not nearly enough basic parameters around Outcasts, what their powers even are, how they operate in the real world, etc. Here we learn that Morticia’s sister, the surely innocuously named Ophelia, was also a raven. Later we’ll see Morticia looking through a diary (?) with extremely subtle imagery (Ophelia screaming in agony, crying black tears and/or blood, I think just the word “TEARS” over and over?) regarding said aunt. Wednesday claims to need no one’s help. But isn’t that where we found her at the beginning of last season? Didn’t she learn that she does, in fact, need friends, Thing, even her family? What was the point of all of that if she wasn’t going to grow at all?
Wednesday is drawn to the site of the kamikaze-crow assassination, where she bumps into Sheriff Santiago, who knows her by name and promises to be better than the last guy. Meanwhile Galpin — Tyler’s dad, the aforementioned last guy — sprints away from the scene, but Wednesday catches him with a swift kick to the face. He explains his woes and she responds perfectly: “I play cello, not violin.” Galpin wants Wednesday’s help solving this random crime. She feigns total disinterest. Anyway, never forget the birds are always watching!! Cool!!!
Ajax tells his new charges the tale of the Skull Tree. I love the animation in this sequence! Great callback to the look of the original comic strip. The story is about a boy genius who made himself a mechanical heart, but this inhuman heart made him cold and ambitious; eventually he was killed by his own experiment. He’s buried in an unmarked grave at the foot of the Skull Tree. Brave souls can press their ear to its trunk and hear the tick, tick, tick of the clockwork heart. A beautiful parable about why AI is evil and replacing our spirits with machines will be the death of us all <3.
Back at school, Bianca the siren is summoned to the principal’s office. I remember thinking last season that the show didn’t know what to do with this character — a paint-by-numbers mean girl whose inexplicable popularity never tracked with how she engaged with the students around her, with powers that, I think, can be shut off by wearing a necklace? — but I was intrigued by the whole sirens-at-school concept! Alas we are still doing more telling than showing as Dort, who has been at school for literally one day, says Bianca “oozes charisma.” He basically threatens to kick her out via scholarship cancellation if she does not accept his offer to be the fundraising gala’s student liaison.
While Enid bonds with Thing — I love their relationship! — Galpin gets drunk to home videos, and someone cuts Wednesday’s eyes out of yet another photograph. Wednesday plays Prokofiev on the cello in a moody empty room. She is interrupted by Miss Capri (Billie Piper!) the new head of music. We are told the theme of the season yet again — Wednesday needs to “stop trying to control it” when she plays music — and we see our girl reject this counsel as she rejected her publisher’s edits and her mother’s advice.
Once more I say the rules of this universe could do with some defining because what do you mean there are a bunch of anonymous students who have telekinetic powers that we never hear about?? They are building the pyre for the night’s festivities while Wednesday gets a note from Xavier (she “lost” the phone he gave her last season) along with an extremely necessary painting (his vision is just the crow from before with the scary eyeball). Wednesday then realizes that her novel is gone; in its place is a note from her stalker who says they’ll be burning her manuscript in the pyre tonight. Okay, Amy March! (I laughed out loud at “P.S. I found a few more typos.”) Enid is rightly horrified that Wednesday only has one copy (“Copy machines aren’t even 21st-century technology!”), and Wednesday is horrified that she has no choice but to attend the Founder’s Pyre after all.
We are treated to a not especially moving rendition of the Nevermore alma mater. I just don’t think “Outcast” is hitting the way they want it to! I burst out laughing at Principal Dort pumping “Dancing in the Dark” as soon as the alma mater ended. Dort announces that he is abolishing the Nightshades and all secret societies, which again, do not seem to be even a little bit secret. “We are all Nightshades,” he says, instantly making it even lamer to be one than it was before.
The best part of this speech is when he says, “In the words of the great American Outcast, Bruce Springsteen: You can’t start a fire without a spark.” I need a moment for this: Does he mean “Outcast” in the proper-noun way? Like am I to believe that in the lore of Wednesday, Bruce Springsteen attended Nevermore Academy?! And has some vaguely defined spooky superpower? Could’ve sworn he graduated by the skin of his teeth from, like, St. Theresa’s Academy of Perpetual Guilt and Sorrow or some such Catholic thing. But yeah, sure!
Of course Wednesday gets her novel; this show will never allow Wednesday to fail at anything important. The flaming-pyre raven flies off. Sparks fly. It’s unclear what magic exactly is making any of this happen, but the kids are suitably impressed. Wednesday is introduced, against her will, as “our student of honor” as Dort reveals a horrendous portrait of the students who saved the school, in which Wednesday is depicted doing a big smile-and-cheer as she never has in her life. Wednesday gives a rousing speech that will briefly make you wonder, Did she just unironically fist-pump? Is that the power of Bruce? But nope, she immediately recants, accusing everyone of being a sucker for falling for such pablum. She torches the painting and storms off as it burns up behind her. Enid is NOT pleased. This was supposed to be the best year ever! Enid grabs Wednesday by the shoulder and Wednesday has a black-teared vision, ending in a seizure. These visions could be so much more interesting if the show is insisting on making them so central to the story. Instead we get these sort of no-duh sequences: This one features a headstone with Enid’s name on it and — just in case you’re not getting the message — the sound of Enid screaming, “I DIED BECAUSE OF YOU!!!” Twice.
Elsewhere, Pugsley goes alone to the Skull Tree, where his electric powers go berserk, accidentally reviving the clockwork boy, who looks terrific. Very gross. Pugs is thrilled. As with last season, our show appears to be biting off far more plot and mythology than it can chew in a Netflix eight-episode special, and no that is NOT me cosigning these episodes being 60 minutes long.
Wednesday claims to need no one’s help. But isn’t that where we found her at the beginning of last season?
