The Second Wednesday

 

I very much enjoyed the second season of Wednesday on Netflix.

However, I had to constantly remind myself that it was Tim Burton's interpretation of the Addams Family comic strip and NOT an updated version of my beloved Addams Family television show.

This was difficult as both are inspired from the cartoons and there are a great deal of similarities along with multiple refences.

Tim Burton can't help but include inter family conflicts in his stories, which can veer the characters away from the wildly enthusiastic love and support they had for each other on the TV show.

Therefore I will restrain myself from mentioning that any further.

The overall world building continues to be excellent, with new creepy locations and different and fun types of Outcasts showing up at Nevermore. There is also more detail and background given to both the school's and the character's histories. 

It is always frustrating when they undo character development from previous installments to return to a status quo. That was easier to handle in old television shows where the status quo could never change and episodes were made to be viewed in any order. It is more problematic with story arcs. 

Returning Wednesday to being as completely stand offish as she was in season one was accomplished through her having the vague vision of Enid's death, leading Wednesday to push her away in order to protect her. Her quest to restore her ability to have visions, in order to better understand how protect Enid lead her to take desperate, apparently selfishly motivated actions.

We got more time (and glimpses at history) with the rest of the Addams family itself this season, which added to the enjoyment. Other returning characters continued their own arcs, keeping them fresh. 

New characters added to the stories and mythology. We got a lot of twists and turns that really showed the two separate season arcs were really a couple of intertwined, continuous stories. 

New additions to the cast were excellent. Billie Piper is playing an enigmatic character who will clearly feature importantly in the future. Any time Christopher Lloyd, Jennifer Saunders or Steve Buscemi are added to a mix, the good type of craziness is increased.

Characters due tend to drop like flies in this show, but due to its very nature, that doesn't necessarily lead to an ending. 

Gwendolyn Christie's character died pretty horribly last season, and continued to remain fabulous in this year's episodes.

I really liked the pacing. Normally with these streaming shows with a limited number of episodes per season, everything must be focused on the main story arc. Installments frequently feel like padding to make sure all of the climaxes and resolutions happen in the season finale. In Wednesday, the drive continues relentlessly in each part, guided along by an outstanding Danny Elfman score. However, various sub parts of the overall plot reached their conclusions in different episodes of the latter half of the season. It gave everything a more natural flow, and broke up the emotional peaks and valleys as some stories finished up while others carried on. 

It did feel like an overall ending to the main, two season tale being focused on, but there was also a heaping amount of teasers to build anticipation and expectations of at least one other full season.